Haekel & Jaeckel has a great article comparing the recently released (and now sold out) box set of Cadwallon militia from Legacy Miniatures.
The article is in French, but a little wizardry from Google Translate produces sufficient results for non-Francophones.
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Posted in 28-32mm fantasy, Legacy Miniatures, Rackham (old)
Tagged Cadwallon, Legacy Miniatures, Rackham Inc, Rackham Miniatures
JoeK Minis has just announced a major overhaul to their website and the acquisition of Steve Buddle’s zO range of miniatures. From their announcement:
Hopefully, some of you will have seen the small upgrades to the website, and seen the picture below showing a few new figures! Well, I’m going to elaborate a little bit for you. The six figures you saw on the site (and down below) form the ‘zO’ range of figures originally sculpted a while back by Steve Buddle (of Eolith/Spyglass fame, and now a full time sculptor for GW). When Steve closed down Eolith he started selling off the rights to his ranges, and the zO range was one which I really wanted. I absolutely adore the figures, and think they’re some of the best things Steve has done.
I own a few JoeK Minis. They offer a very unique range of characters, and the quality of their resin and casts is superb. JoeK has also been fortunate with the sculptors they’ve been able to commission for their own models, including some of the big names in the industry. I can’t wait to see what else they have planned for the coming year.
Be sure to visit the JoeK Minis website to see their complete range of available models, and sign up for their newsletter to stay informed on releases while you’re there.
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Posted in 28-32mm fantasy
Tagged JoeK Minis
The WAMP forum‘s latest issue of Portal is now available for download from their website In this issue:
Cyanide Studio is currently developing a video game version of the Cadwallon: City of Thieves board game for iPad. From their website:
Cadwallon: City of Thieves is a faithful adaptation for iPad of the board game of the same name.
Recapture the sensations of the original board game in glorious 3D and take the game with you wherever you go!
Place the four members of your gang of thieves within the dangerous city of Cadwallon and get rich or die trying. Outpace your rivals to open the treasure chests or simply defeat an opponent to steal what he is carrying. Each character has 3 abilities and one unique skill, so you will have to adopt the right strategy and trust the luck of the dice, if you are to bring as much treasure as possible back to the thieves’ den.
In the City of Thieves, dirty tricks are the order of the day!
Be careful though, as two militiamen have been assigned to maintain law and order and they move about the board, interfering with your Machiavellian plans… Woe betide any thief caught inside the militia’s cordon at the end of the game. This iPad version takes you on a 3D adventure deep inside Cadwallon; an adventure you can take with you wherever you go, to play against friends or fellow travellers. The intuitive gameplay of a City of Thieves allows beginners to quickly understand the rules.
Posted in board games, Cadwallon: City of Thieves, computer games
Tagged Cadwallon, Cyanide Studio
Cyanide Studio has just release a sneak preview of the website dedicated to their forthcoming release of the Confrontation video game. Visit their website or Facebook page for more information.
Taban Miniatures has just announced the imminent release of the first limited edition resin model for a new range under their distribution, Masters Miniatures. The Orc Ballista on War Beast was sculpted by Benoît Cosse, and is currently available for preorder exclusively from the the Taban Miniatures website. Orders are scheduled to ship on 15 January 2012.
The Orc Ballista retails for €150,00 (currently about $191.00 USD), which includes worldwide tracked shipping.
The ballista model is comprised of 14 parts, measures 140mm x 95mm, and comes with a certificate of authenticity. (Click here for a size comparison of the model care of atacam of the dragonpainting.net forum)
The model featured in these photos was painted by Mohamed “Mohand” ait mehdi.
No doubt some readers recognize this sculpt. Indeed, many of you have probably coveted this model for years, without any hope of ever being presented with the opportunity to actually own one.
Benoît Cosse sculpted the orc ballista while still a member of the Rackham studio (but this was, according to Taban, more of a personal project than a studio production). If I recall correctly, the model was supposed to include both Bran-Ô-Kor and Behemoth riders. It was first previewed at the British Open in April 2006.
The model was originally called the Ulunkor Ballista (Baliste ulunkor), and was based on concept art by Edouard Guiton.
The Confrontation forum was abuzz for a long time about when this model would finally see the light of day. I asked Jean Bey about it, and he told me personally that it was too complicated of a model and cost ineffective to produce. “More than the Tarascus,” I asked (that model retailed for $259.00 USD). “Way more,” he replied.
I don’t put much stock in Jean’s assessment, however (even though he is in a much better position of knowing Rackham’s operational and production costs than me). Taban, at least, has proven it’s possible to make this model available for much less (although it’s still an expensive model).
I’m on the fence about whether I’ll get one for myself, but am definitely leaning more in one direction than another.
*Images and some information on the original sculpt are from Haekel & Jaeckel.
UPDATE: I found some more images of the original sculpt on my hard drive + a sneak preview of the model from the Rackham Entertainment forum just before they shut down.
I noticed immediately that the driver is missing his whip, and someone on the DP forum pointed out that the ballista is missing the support frame that secures it to the saddle; the operator is using the ballista like a regular crossbow.
UPDATE 2: After a simple Google search, I was able to track down some more information. Rackham assigned an SKU to the ballista, and even published its release in at least two official announcements. I’ve combined the information here (although one announcement had a release date of October):
Ulunkor Ballista (Baliste ulunkor)
ORTI01
1 titan
4 crew, including Bran-Ô-Kor and Behemoth orcs
(Orques du Bran-Ô-Kor et de Béhémoth)
November 2006 France, January 2007 rest of the world
That’s right about the time when Rackham fell apart. It also explains why this qualifies as a “personal” project for Benoît; he likely never finished the sculpt and never got paid. But again, I’m not really in a position to know all the details, so please treat everything here as mere speculation.
UPDATE 3: Confirmed by our friends on the WAMP forum:
The Masters Miniatures team got the full production rights for this model.
(Taban is just distributing this rangeThe original sculpt had never been bought by Rackam to the sculptor who is a friend of some of the MM people
I think that legacy tried to buy-back the model from MM that declined the offerI called MM to pass your question and they comfirmed that there will only be 300 units ever
Posted in 28-32mm fantasy, Rackham (old)
The New Year is starting off right with a superb release from Red Box Games. These were originally previewed a few weeks ago as part of a preorder campaign, but are now available and ready to ship. Included in this release are:
Llewelyn SoftStrider, woodsman, warrior, brigand, man hunter. Llewelyn is known far and wide as a man not to be crossed or a man to be sought by. An excellent Human ranger character to compliment any dungeoneerign party or adventuring band and a certain addition for any warband.
Robert of Carlisle Wall, son of a Hillander noble and would be Husband to the late Aenglish Lady Evelyn of Carlisle. A-Grieved for the untimely death of his Lady Love he seeks out danger where-so ever it is to be had, thus did he earn the distinction of the his title at the great battle of Carlisle Wall.
The Journeyman Gerard. A foreigner of distinctive skill Gerard is a thief, a fighter, an adventurer and explorer. If there is adventure to be had, or a challenge to be met it is he who will be the first to answer the call. An excellent figure for that hard to define Fighter / Thief the Journeyman Gerard is a certian recruit for any adventuring band of treasure hunters or skulking thieves or even special agents of high powers.
Watch Captian Whistlocke, Stern, serious, accomplished and courageous The Watch Captain Whistlocke is the master of the reknowned Whistlocke’s Watch of Shield’sPort wharf district. It is there, in the oldest section of that sprawling city, that the worst of the worst go about their business and there also where the name of Whistlocke bears as much fear and respect as would that of the highest Masters of the Shadow guilds.
Young Rupert of Chalton, a youthful wide adventurer out to prove his mettle in the dark bedeviled channels of ruins and goblin burrows. Fitted in the trappigns of the early fighter Rupert is perfect to represent that 1st level fighter destined to rise to great heights or fall from them in the dark holes of forlorn places.
The shamblign undead booster…….because you can never have enough of them really.
The Lady Nyvenne, As Evil as she is beautiful the Gray Lady commands the infernal powers of the forgotten ones with a finesse and mastery rivaled only by the Keeper Himself. If you are looking for a creature of beauty to drive your armies of death then look ye no further!
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Posted in 28-32mm fantasy, Red Box Games
Tagged Red Box Games, Tre MANOR
Mannikin Studios is having a special on shipping rates through the end of 2011. From their website:
In the spirit of the holiday season, Mannikin Studios is offering free worldwide shipping to anyone who places an order from their website any time between now and the end of 2011. There are no minimum requirements to take advantage of this offer.
This is a great opportunity to pick up one of the finest interpretations of Father Christmas in miniature, among other wonderful characters based on the artwork of Arthur Rackham. Once our current supply is gone, they will likely never be available again in this medium.
Visit the Mannikin Studios website for more information and to view our complete catalog.
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Posted in 28-32mm fantasy, Mannikin Studios
Tagged Arthur Rackham, Mannikin Studios
This blog started initially as a way for me to track and share a 10mm Middle-earth project I began a few years ago, but has since developed into something completely different. That being said, with a new film on the horizon, my interest in Middle-earth will likely return; and you can expect to see more on that theme here in the coming year or two.
Enjoy the trailer!
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Posted in film, Middle-earth
Cyanide Studio has just released a video premier of their forthcoming video game based on the Aarklash universe. (Please note that the website is in French, but the video is in English.) Based on what I can see in the video, it looks like Cyanide did a great job translating the look and feel of Aarklash to the video game format.
To view more screenshots of the Confrontation video game, visit the Cyanide page here and their official site for the game here. And don’t forget to drop by their forum while you’re there.
Guild of Harmony has just released a new model for their range of steampunk characters, Tinker Belle (view larger product images and angles here). According to their website, Tinker Belle (sculpted by Sebastian Archer ) is a 32mm figure strictly limited to 350 casts in resin. Each model comes with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity. Tinker Belle retails for $19.95 AUD and ships worldwide for just $3.50 AUD (assuming your order is under $50.00 AUD total).
I think Sebastian has really outdone himself with this sculpt. The last model in the series, Steampunk Dorthy, was a stunning piece of work that many sculptors would have been challenged to match, but Sebastian’s done just that with Tinker Belle. All of which has me wondering what he’ll amaze us with next.
Nagrot Crook-Eye (goblin boss)
If you’ve been meaning to get something from GoH, this is a great opportunity to pick up a stunning limited model and more fantastic pieces from their impressive catalog. Along with Tinker Belle, I just ordered two characters that have been on my shopping list for too long: Nagrot Crook-Eye (goblin boss) and Jian Nai (Fisherman) ($9.95 and $11.95 respectively). Watch for a review of the models here on Under the Mountain sometime later this month.
Jian Nai (Fisherman)
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Posted in 28mm steampunk
Tagged Guild of Harmony, Sebastian Archer, steampunk
A week ago a representative from Legacy Miniatures posted a comment to a news item on Tabletop Gaming News about their latest batch of releases. Posts on TGN get buried pretty quickly, as news is uploaded to the site at a steady pace throughout any given day; and since Legacy’s response didn’t appear until the post was already five days old, it’s very possible many people are still in the dark about what’s in store for the range in the near future. The response is therefore quoted here in full:
Legacy Miniatures wrote:
November 7, 2011 at 3:55 amHi,
I take the opportunity to explain and answers to some of the complains I read in these last months.
First of all thanks for posting them, we were expecting them and it is important for us to read and react.
As David from CMON said things are not always black and white.
I will explain where we come from and why we acted in a certain way and not in another:CMON has no responsibilities on the pricing, we sell them the waves at a certain price and of course they charge their profit margin. So no need to attack them, they are just doing their job.
We are located in China, finding a trustworthy resin caster is very difficult and we found a solution that is still too expensive. For you and for us. We are now in the process to reconsider the whole process.
We wanted to provide an impeccable product in term of quality; this is the reason why a resin mould is used only for few casts (5 to 8 depending on the piece) and why we inserted a plastic tray. We understood now that these solutions are too expensive so from future waves we will change this approach. We also work the miniatures with a system of integrated plugs and this is also an additional cost.
We collected all the resins masters left by Rackham and we found them in a very chaotic status. Some pieces are missing; some others incomplete and we have to archive and catalogue in a proper manner. This is time consuming and we are not that many at Legacy Miniatures.
After wave 2 and wave 3 we understood there is no reason to re-release existing products. We will limit the release to new pieces or to limited edition ones.
When we will have finally sorted out the catalogue, we will sit down with our distribution partner CMON and we will decide what is the best way to relaunch the game. Again it is not an easy call because it is a huge investment and we have to do in the right way.
These pieces now on sale will never be recasted in this manner and quality, hence customers who bought them could be sure of the uniqueness of their acquisition.
The Cynwall Dragon will be sold at what we consider the right market price after we looked into similar pieces. No doubt, it will be expensive, but again we don’t think we will be able to produce many of them.Thanks to all of you for your patience, critics and we hope that we will be able in the future months to fulfil your expectations.
Again if you have to blame someone it is us.Regards
Legacy Miniatures
I have my own opinion about the Legacy project, and will save sharing my thoughts on the range for a later date. In the meantime, I want to address the “revelation” that Legacy resin models are made in China, and the surprise many customers expressed upon learning this.
Legacy Miniatures is owned and operated by Dust Game Ltd, the makers of Dust Tactics. I’m not sure how the corporate structuring works, but Dust Game Ltd is directly tied to an older company, Dust Models, which makes a variety of products based on the Dust universe, including comics books, scale models, modeling guides, etc. Both Dust Models and Dust Game are the brainchild of none other than Paolo Parente, who, as director, oversees Dust Studio, the creative team that brings the Dust world to life. Paolo, and much of his team, were central players at Rackham, so it’s no surprise that they were able to secure licensing agreements with Cyanide Studios (owners of the Rackham IP) and CoolMiniOrNot (distributors) to bring the Legacy Miniatures project to fruition.
Legacy Miniatures manufactures their resin models in China (Hong Kong), because Dust Studio has been based there for years. From what I recall, Paolo started Dust as a side project in the early 2000s, but had been kicking around ideas about the universe long before that. With a foothold already established in China to make plastic model kits for Dust Models, Paolo had the right connections to help his employer (Rackham) make their transition to prepainted plastic: all of the Age of Rag’narok plastic models were made in China, specifically by Cathay Plastic Factory Ltd.
A little known fact–even though it’s written on box!–is that the Rackham Legends models were made in China, too. If you own any of these models, you know they are of very high quality with little or no flash from the molding process. My hunch is that for these first releases of Legacy models, Dust Game repeated the manufacturing process used for the Legend models, and may even have commissioned the same manufacturer.
Given the location of their operations, established business connections, targeted production levels, quality concerns, and associated costs (packaging, for example), it was a logical choice for Dust Game to produce their models in China. Mind you, I’m not here to defend or criticize their decision to operate out of China; I just wanted to provide an explanation as to why.
Posted in 28-32mm fantasy, Legacy Miniatures
Tagged Dust Games, Dust Models, Dust Studio, Legacy Miniatures, Rackham Miniatures
The latest issue of Portal is now available for download. This issue features:
This is the second of a two-part review of the 28mm predator models currently available from Predastore.
Predastore has been fortunate with the talent they’ve been able to recruit to sculpt models for their catalog. Sculpted by industry veteran Allan Carrasco, the Bone-Hunter predator is no exception. (If you’re not familiar with Allan’s work already, be sure to check out his website; doubtless there’s something there you’ll recognize).
Unlike the Spear Hunter predator featured in my last review, the Bone-Hunter was cast in a cream resin. Resin recipes can vary widely, and many contain additional ingredients like ceramic base materials (the item description for Hasslefree’s Artemis provides some information on this). In the case of the Predastore models in my possession, I can’t detect any significant difference between the two resins used to cast the Bone-Hunter and Spear Hunter models. The quality of both is excellent. There are no air bubbles or gross miscasts; and any flash is so papery thin, that mold lines are minimal if not present at all.
Originally I wasn’t convinced by the compatibility of the “bone-hunter” theme with a race of aliens as technologically savvy as the predators, even knowing that this character was probably meant as a representative of their species in “prehistoric” days. I’m over that, however. I think the theme for this model synthesizes perfectly with the modus operandi of the race as whole: the devotion to challenging hunts in which predator and prey are *almost* equally matched, especially when that involves reducing technological advantages of any kind to a minimum in order to maximize the primal elements of the hunt.
The most impressive element on this model, however, is the face. It’s absolutely perfect. The amount of detail Allan was able to achieve in such a small area is remarkable. On one level, that might make this model more of a challenge to paint; but it won’t be impossible by any means, and the reward will be worth it.
I have just one critique about this model. As with the Spear Hunter predator, I think the locks are too much like hair. In this sculpt, they’re “pulled back,” suggesting, together with the pose, a sudden and very rapid move forward. The locks of the aliens in the films, however, were far too fleshy and weighty to be affected by such movement. That being said, this is a very minor detail, and one that wouldn’t dissuade me from purchasing one.
As with all Predastore 28mm offerings, the Bone-Hunter is a limited edition model and is available from their website for about $21.00 USD (price includes worldwide shipping).
Mannikin Studios has just release Grimm’s Owl for their range of models titled Arthur Rackham’s World. From their website:
Grimm’s Owl is based on artwork from Arthur Rackham’s illustrated edition of The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and is the second of twelve models planned for our series of fae trees. The model is comprised of four parts (main tree and three branches), measures 55mm to the top of the tree, and comes with one round 30mm base.
Grimm’s Owl was sculpted by Jody SIEGEL of Imbrian Arts, and cast in resin of the highest quality. The model is comprised of small, delicate parts, and as such is intended for advanced modelers.
Grimm’s Owl is just $12.50 USD + $4.95 shipping worldwide.
There is a limited number of casts currently available for this release, but we may produce more based on demand.
In the coming weeks we’ll be featuring this model against our ruled background, so you can see the model in the raw (what it looks like straight out of the box) and get a much better understanding of its dimensions.
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Posted in 28-32mm fantasy, Mannikin Studios
Tagged Arthur Rackham, Mannikin Studios
