Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Cheap fantasy minis!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="1Mac" data-source="post: 6093415" data-attributes="member: 48998"><p>Busy couple of weeks means less painting. I'm just resuming work on those centaurs I've talked about. Here are some work-in-progress pics I took a few days ago.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56595[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH]56596[/ATTACH]</p><p>These guys are more Arcane Legions figures. Most were were wearing crested Greek-style helmets (like <a href="http://www.trollandtoad.com/p286475.html" target="_blank">this</a>), so I swapped heads with some Italeri barbarians and added hair made from Milliput, for a wilder look. The results are a little more, erm, fabulous than I'd like, but I think they'll work once painted, despite their glorious Fabio hair. If you want to use these figures and don't like the Greek look, but don't want to go through the trouble of head swaps, you could probably just cut the crests off the helmets and get something more generically useable.</p><p></p><p>I might talk about how to do head swaps in a later post, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk a little more about Arcane Legions miniatures, and how great they are for cheap 1/72 scale gaming. Arcane Legions was the flagship miniatures game of Wells Expeditions, a company founded by a couple of designers from WizKids (makers of MageKnight, Heroclix, and similar games). Most minis games these days are in "heroic" 28mm scale, and Arcane Legions stood out by using a smaller "true 25mm" (i.e. 1/72) scale. Unfortunately for Wells Expeditions, the game eventually folded. Fortunately for fans of cheap minis, it means that a lot of great minis suitable for fantasy gaming can be had for a bargain. The core game, with 120+ minis, can be found for less than $20, while a booster brick, with all 60-70 prepainted booster figures for one of the game's three factions, can be found for around $25 each.</p><p></p><p>The game is somewhat less useful for generic fantasy gamers than it might be, since it pits magic-historical forces of Roman, Egyptian, and Chinese armies. So unless you want a lot of quasi-Bronze-Age or East Asian soldiers, the core game may not be useful to your game (the Egyptian core army has some great mummy sculpts, though). The boosters many more useful miniatures for any type of fantasy game. I feature some of my favorites below. These are all prepaints, not my own painting. Sven the viking is on hand for comparison: the height chart is a little off because I use the pegboard-style figure bases to support the Arcane Legions minis.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56584[/ATTACH]</p><p>East Asian fantasy figures, with Sven the viking on the right for comparison.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56585[/ATTACH]</p><p>Some beasties. The quality of the prepainting in Arcane Legions is mixed (why did they try to paint eyespots!), but some critters, like the Foo Lion, look pretty good as is.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56591[/ATTACH]</p><p>A couple of ogres.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56586[/ATTACH]</p><p>Some more big guys: A large undead, a cyclops, and a couple minotaurs. I love the guy dressed like a Greek aristocrat.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56587[/ATTACH]</p><p>Some constructs and ghosts. The ghosts, including the woman in blue, are molded in clear plastic, so I'm wondering if I can strip the paint off of these for a more spectral effect.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56588[/ATTACH]</p><p>Egyptian heroes. The guy on the left is an Age of Mythology pharoah, on hand for comparison. The Arcane Legions pharoah to his right is painted to look undead, but I might repaint him with a more vital, human complexion.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56589[/ATTACH]</p><p>Egyptian monsters. The unpainted guys are more Age of Mythology figures, on hand for comparison. I don't know what I think of the giant Anubis figure, though it certainly looks good.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH]56590[/ATTACH]</p><p>Nuwa and a couple of "jorogumo" figures, with an Age of Mythology medusa archer and a cheap Halloween toy spider for comparison. The jorogumo will make great conversions for driders. The toy spider looks bigger in this shot, but that's just because its legs are spread out. It's actually about the same size as the jorogumo.</p><p></p><p>Finally, some comparisons between original and repainted Arcane Legions figures, to show what a good paintjob can do for these miniatures.</p><p>[ATTACH]56592[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH]56593[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>And one last group shot, showing all the Arcane Legions painting I've done so far.</p><p>[ATTACH]56594[/ATTACH]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="1Mac, post: 6093415, member: 48998"] Busy couple of weeks means less painting. I'm just resuming work on those centaurs I've talked about. Here are some work-in-progress pics I took a few days ago. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56595._xfImport[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]56596._xfImport[/ATTACH] These guys are more Arcane Legions figures. Most were were wearing crested Greek-style helmets (like [URL="http://www.trollandtoad.com/p286475.html"]this[/URL]), so I swapped heads with some Italeri barbarians and added hair made from Milliput, for a wilder look. The results are a little more, erm, fabulous than I'd like, but I think they'll work once painted, despite their glorious Fabio hair. If you want to use these figures and don't like the Greek look, but don't want to go through the trouble of head swaps, you could probably just cut the crests off the helmets and get something more generically useable. I might talk about how to do head swaps in a later post, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to talk a little more about Arcane Legions miniatures, and how great they are for cheap 1/72 scale gaming. Arcane Legions was the flagship miniatures game of Wells Expeditions, a company founded by a couple of designers from WizKids (makers of MageKnight, Heroclix, and similar games). Most minis games these days are in "heroic" 28mm scale, and Arcane Legions stood out by using a smaller "true 25mm" (i.e. 1/72) scale. Unfortunately for Wells Expeditions, the game eventually folded. Fortunately for fans of cheap minis, it means that a lot of great minis suitable for fantasy gaming can be had for a bargain. The core game, with 120+ minis, can be found for less than $20, while a booster brick, with all 60-70 prepainted booster figures for one of the game's three factions, can be found for around $25 each. The game is somewhat less useful for generic fantasy gamers than it might be, since it pits magic-historical forces of Roman, Egyptian, and Chinese armies. So unless you want a lot of quasi-Bronze-Age or East Asian soldiers, the core game may not be useful to your game (the Egyptian core army has some great mummy sculpts, though). The boosters many more useful miniatures for any type of fantasy game. I feature some of my favorites below. These are all prepaints, not my own painting. Sven the viking is on hand for comparison: the height chart is a little off because I use the pegboard-style figure bases to support the Arcane Legions minis. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56584._xfImport[/ATTACH] East Asian fantasy figures, with Sven the viking on the right for comparison. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56585._xfImport[/ATTACH] Some beasties. The quality of the prepainting in Arcane Legions is mixed (why did they try to paint eyespots!), but some critters, like the Foo Lion, look pretty good as is. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56591._xfImport[/ATTACH] A couple of ogres. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56586._xfImport[/ATTACH] Some more big guys: A large undead, a cyclops, and a couple minotaurs. I love the guy dressed like a Greek aristocrat. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56587._xfImport[/ATTACH] Some constructs and ghosts. The ghosts, including the woman in blue, are molded in clear plastic, so I'm wondering if I can strip the paint off of these for a more spectral effect. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56588._xfImport[/ATTACH] Egyptian heroes. The guy on the left is an Age of Mythology pharoah, on hand for comparison. The Arcane Legions pharoah to his right is painted to look undead, but I might repaint him with a more vital, human complexion. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56589._xfImport[/ATTACH] Egyptian monsters. The unpainted guys are more Age of Mythology figures, on hand for comparison. I don't know what I think of the giant Anubis figure, though it certainly looks good. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56590._xfImport[/ATTACH] Nuwa and a couple of "jorogumo" figures, with an Age of Mythology medusa archer and a cheap Halloween toy spider for comparison. The jorogumo will make great conversions for driders. The toy spider looks bigger in this shot, but that's just because its legs are spread out. It's actually about the same size as the jorogumo. Finally, some comparisons between original and repainted Arcane Legions figures, to show what a good paintjob can do for these miniatures. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56592._xfImport[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]56593._xfImport[/ATTACH] And one last group shot, showing all the Arcane Legions painting I've done so far. [ATTACH=CONFIG]56594._xfImport[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Cheap fantasy minis!
Top