Showing posts with label RPG minis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RPG minis. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Review: Privateer Press Mini Crates

Privateer Press' Mini-Crates have been on my radar for a few years now, but I've only recently taken the plunge into subscription-based minis. There are three flavors of mini-crate right now: Warmachine & Hordes, Savage (Essentially like Conan the Barbarian), and Legend of the Five Rings. Yorrik & I enjoy L5R, so those have been of particular to us. With Covid keeping us home, we decided to split a subscription.

If you aren't familiar, the idea is basically a Mini-of-the-Month club. You can either buy them one at a time, or pay to receive 6 minis over the course of 6 months (and a 7th if you pay for all 6 months at once). These are new, limited edition minis. They only make as many minis as they have orders for, so if you don't order the mini by the deadline, you'll either be out of luck, or have to pay out the nose on eBay. I did manage to find a Doji Ren mini that wasn't marked up, so that was my first introduction to painting these.

I'm not too keen on the business model, since I'm not big on using artificial scarcity, or F.O.M.O. to sell things, but I understand the thinking behind it. 

The initial price tag is a bit steep at $17 per mini, plus tax (price includes S/H), or $99 for the "VIP" (6 month package). If you subtract a bit for shipping & handling that means you're paying about $13 per mini individually, or $11 per mini for the VIP. It's kind of a niche product, so it makes sense though.

I'm here for minis though, so I'm just gonna stick to my wheelhouse.

I've gotten two shipments so far. They come in these neat boxes.

On the inside there's a small clamshell with your mini, or minis, if you get the bonus VIP mini.

In addition to the mini, you receive a character card. It's not fancy, but it's kinda handy to help you define the different parts of the mini.

I wanted to start by painting the bonus mini, the Shika Speardancer. These sculpts are all based directly on art in the Fantasy Flight LCG, or TTRPG books. For instance, here's the speardancer's book art, and the mini promo art side-by-side.

The minis I've seen have had pretty fine mold lines. The spear was kinda bendy & delicate, so it was a little challenging to clean up some of the fiddly bits. They also take a little work to balance nicely on their bases. I like to make it look like minis are standing on top of the basing material, so it takes a little work to get the tabs to glue just right in the bases.

The mini itself was easy to paint. The lines are nice & clean, the details sharp, so it wasn't hard to pick out specific points, like her ankle wrappings. I painted it over the course of my Monday, so it was decently quick. I tried to replicate the original art, although I decided to skip making it look like she's in moonlight.
I feel pretty good about this one. I even got the little beauty mark under her eye.

The minis I've seen & painted have been high quality. I like the representations of the characters, and variety of clans, roles, & poses. They need more Crab Clan characters, but I'm kinda biased in that regard. Years ago I started out painting the old Clan War minis, and these remind me a bit of those, albeit a bit slimmer & taller (I'll make a post comparing the products in a few months). If you like L5R, and miss the old Clan War minis, these will fit the bill nicely. Give them a go.

~Muninn


Friday, August 28, 2020

Legend of the Five Rings minis

In 2018 Privateer Press announced it was teaming up with Fantasy Flight to create a line of miniatures for the property reboot. These minis would be released as series of limited edition subscriptions, or MiniCrates. Kind of like a Mini-of-the-Month club.

Because they are monthly subscriptions, and changing all the time, it can be hard to scrounge up the mini art, so I'm posting them here to make them easier to find. Each "Season" consisted of 6 minis, and a bonus mini for "VIP" subscribers who purchase the entire season.
 
L5R MiniCrate Season 1 (November 2018 - April 2019):
Togashi Yokuni

Matsu Tsuko
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Hida Tomonatsu

Daidoji Uji

Bayushi Shoju

Kaito Kosori

Bonus Mini- Naga Hunter

Season 2 (May 2019 - October 2019):
Moto Chagatai

Togashi Kazue

Hida Kisada

Doji Hotaru

Isawa Tadaka

Akodo Toturi

Bonus Mini- Shosuro Sadako

Season 3 (November 2019 - April 2020):
Mirumoto Prodigy

Shinjo Altansarnai

Doji Ren
(I did manage to get my hands on this mini, here's my take on him)

Bayushi Kyo

Shiba Tsukune. You can compare this mini to her earlier Clan War mini HERE

Miya Satoshi (I find the choice of lighting direction to be interesting. Definitely seems to portray him as villainous.)

Bonus Mini- Tengu Sensei

Season 4 (May 2020 - October 2020):
Ikoma Tsanuri

Shinjo Takuya

Yoritomo (I recently painted the old Clan War mini. Once I get this one in the mail I'll do a side-by-side comparison. They're drastically different.)

Isawa Aki

Bayushi Yojiro

Bonus Mini- Shika Speardancer

Yorrik & I weent halvsies on the Season 4 minis, so we'll be painting those up once we get them in the mail & decide who gets what. I'll do a review of how they paint up in the future.

~Muninn

UPDATE:
Season 5 (November 2020 - January 2021): 
Hida Yakamo

Skeletal Bushi

Bayushi Kachiko

This was the final season, and ended rather unexpectedly. That should mean every MiniCrate L5R minis is listed on this page.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Meet the PC: Broecksiog, Gnomish Druid

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Our final hero from the King for a Day is Broecksiog (pronounced Brock-Shogue), our Gnome druid. In this setting gnomes are more like forces of nature who take physical form. So one day a a gnome might pop out of a grove of trees, mountainside, or waterfall and feel like learning what it's like to be a squishy humanoid for a while. Broc popped out of nature with a green bread & a pair of stag horns. He joined our party, mostly because he wanted to see what kings were like, and decided to go along for the adventure

The mini comes from the Stonehaven Miniatures' gnome range. I even got the mini for free. I contacted Stonehaven about a miscast I received from the Elven Adventurers kickstarter, and asked if I could purchase the gnome and consolidate shipping. They said they'd simply send me both for free. Great customer service. Unfortunately Broecksiog wields a staff rather than a halberd, so I trimmed & reshaped the blade a bit.


Here are a few shots from before I clipped off the glaive portion.




















Keeping with the seasonal theme, and the fact he had a green beard, I wanted our druid to wear natural Spring colors. I wasn't sure what color to make the surcoat, but I wanted something light, so I eventually landed on light blue. Lavender might've been a better choice, but oh well. I'm fairly satisfied.

With that, I've completed the whole party. Here's our motley band of misfits:
This is one of the first times I actually completed an entire group of PCs before the end of the campaign (the other that I can remember was a D&D Castlevania game a few years back). As a whole group I think they stand together fairly well, while being individually pleasing minis. I'd say that Bran, the cleric stands out as being the most different compared to the other minis, just because he's taller, & doesn't share many colors with the rest of the party.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Meet the PC: Nightbreeze, Elven ranger

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

I think this makes my fourth or fifth elven ranger character (1, 2, 3, 4th hasn't been photographed yet)

Again from "King for a Day," Nightbreeze is our deadly, stealthy, two-weapon-wielding, ranger. In the campaign world there are a handful of godlike dragons that rule over the mortal, fey, and shadow realms with an iron claw, and Nightbreeze left her home to find out how to kill the dragon that rules over her elven nation. She first went to the dying king (since he once led a party to slay one of the dragons) but became wrapped up in the party's quest to find his successor.

I thought the best mini to represent her was Reaper's Deladrin.  I knew I'd need a weapon swap, so I chose to use the Bones version. I needed two identical elven-looking blades on the cheap, so I found some loose Lord of the Rings minis at my FLGS and stole their swords. I paid a bit more than I wanted, but it works well.

I wanted to strike a balance between summery and stealthy, so I went for citrussy olive green armor, a dark blue undersuit, and deep green cloak. I had been planning on painting to scarf a light grey, but Yorrik reminded me that we'd just come across a yellow magic scarf that was perfect for a two-weapon fighter like Nightbreeze.

More later,

~Muninn

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Meet the PC: Myev, Kobold Warlock

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Myev is one of the weirder members of our King for a Day band. She (or He maybe? You can never tell with reptiles) is an emissary from a nation of swamp kobolds attempting to open up trade deals with a neighboring kingdom. Unfortunately, the king was on his deathbed & his successor is missing, so She/He joined the hunt for him, & continues to try to negotiate along the way. At one point she tried to offer military support, cuz who doesn't want an army of kobolds? Myev follows a Cthulu-like entity, although we haven't really gotten into that facet of the character.

There weren't a lot of options for Kobold magic users, so I decided to go the easy route & use the Kobold Sorcerer. Yorrik had it already, so all the better. Yes it has sunglasses, a fact I didn't realize until I started painting. It's like a little lizard Morpheus.



 I wasn't sure about how to paint this mini. I'd blocked out seasonal-themed colors for the other PCs, but Myev here was the fifth character. I knew the player wanted Myev to have grey-green skin, so I started there. I then added some maroon to complement, & decided to make everything else dark & swampy. It makes the green pop fairly well, so I think it plays nicely.

~Muninn

Friday, September 4, 2015

Meet the PC: Tarn Hillhaven, Human Bard

One of my favorite parts about tabletop roleplaying is finding, modeling, and painting the perfect miniatures for our party PCs. I've been doing this for years now, and thought I'd share some of these characters with you.

Continuing the minis from Yorrik's "King for a Day" campaign, today's PC is Tarn Hillhaven, a Skald attempting to find his missing lord. It just so happens the old king was on his death bed & declared the missing noble his successor, so now the PCs are trying to find him before the whole kingdom erupts into civil war (it might have already, but we're in the mountains at the moment). He's more of a long-range character, shooting his bow, casting spells, & buffing the team from a distance.

When I was deciding on color schemes I'd originally wanted to do a seasonal theme, where the cleric, Bran represented Winter, our druid in Spring colors, the ranger in Summer, and Tarn here in Autumn colors (I'd forgotten we had a fifth PC, a warlock). I figure bards should be more vibrant, so I liked orange & a reddish purple for him.


This is actually the first mini I've painted up from my Bones II kickstarter. It's the Pathfinder Eando Kline mini. I mentioned in my last Meet the PC how hard it was to find a good human minis wielding a bow, so I decided to look for something I could do a weapon-swap with. Fortunately Eando here has two empty hands.

One of the good things about Bones minis is that they're really easy to carve, so it was really easy to cut a gap in the back of his hand, fit the whole bow into the gap then refill the back of the hand with greenstuff.