Awesome Chimera Miniature Release

This the second set of brilliant new fantasy models I have stumbled across in the past couple of days which are coming out in 2011 (Chaos Dwarf War Machines on the Battle Reporter blog). This Fantasy Chimera (or Chimaera) is from the Bane Beasts range - sculpted by D.Cockersell and painted by B.Komets.

Maelstrom Games are selling the miniature from the 8th Jan 2011.

Get a load of this... it's 15.3cm long and 13.4cm high ! It looks like the designers wanted something to take on Foregeworld's giant !

The model is actually named "The Terror of Fortriu, Chimaera" and you can find it on the Maelstrom Games website. Check out the close ups below (click to greatly enlarge the pictures) because the detail on the heads looks very intricate. I was about to say the lion's head in particular but the dragon and goat's head all look pretty cool too although I'm not sure the goat is going to do as much damage in battle as the other two !

I recognize the Bane Beasts Giant Cyclops and the 3-faced verminous horror but the Chimera and Ratman are both new to me, as is the Ox-Gore of the Darkwald which, I think, might pass for a Beastman Ghorgon. Actually, come to think of it the Cyclops would pass as a Cygor aswell.

I'm not sure what I'd use the Ratman for, I'm not a fan of the scurrying, flee bitten critters, so maybe just as shark bait for my Nautican Army :)

It looks like Bane Beasts are worth a look if you're after a large specific monster. They don't have a huge range and I cannot find a specific website for them but Maelstrom sell the models which is good enough for me (they're very reliable). The models might actually be produced by Maelstrom themselves.

Click images for a great zoom in. I particularly like the way the miniature's dimensions are shown in the bottom left box-out, lots of sellers don't bother and it's frustrating when you have no measurements and nothing to compare them with in size terms. Great miniatures, enough said !

All images are © Maelstrom Games. All rights reserved. Used without permission.

Original fantasy miniatures EXTREME

If you can find more original and unique miniatures than those on offer by Eureka miniatures then please let me know.

I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled across the Eureka miniatures website and I had a good old chuckle to myself while browsing some of their more unusual models.

I'd like to point out that I'm in no way connected to Eurekha. I'm just sharing this site with you because it's got so many crazy miniatures and I'm spreading the war gaming, mini collecting love :)


Before we proceed I should probably also tell you that this site is about more than weird and wonderful miniatures. They also sell hard core war gaming miniatures such as Napoleonic, Ancients, Medieval, World Wars I & II and many other genres.  Well worth checking out :-

It is the Frog Warriors that really "tickled my fancy", check these out:-

Starting with the, errr... Frog Cannon ?! Ribbit.

The Turtle Tank !

(honestly, these sculptors must have had such a good laugh putting this army together - this is what fantasy gaming should be all about ! I love it.)

Frog Mallet Warriors - hehehe - fantastic :)

Terrapin Rifile Unit (lol) - I have to tell you I'm really enjoying posting this. If these miniatures have a Game System connected to them then I'm checking it out.  I don't know if I can resist buying some of these critters !

This has to be my favourite, a frog king palanquin (or Frog Litter as it's officially named). Check out the standard bearer, the almost happy looking froggy smiles and their frog march postures - awesome.

There's so much attention to detail in the design that make these warrior fellas really, really froggy and, ironically, quite innocent (or bemused) looking. Warrior frogs without attitude ! See the pikes below for an  example of the love that's gone into these minis. It would have been so easy to give them the standard type of pike but these guys went the whole 9 lily pads and gave them bamboo poles.

If you're interested in collecting a few of these fellas or even a whole army you can find...

... all the Frogmen here.

Before I leave you...  some of the other wacky models they sell:- Gorillas with Guns and Teddy Bear Pirates !

Imagine taking out a Chaos Blood Thirster with the guys below !

Images are © Eureka Miniatures and have been used with permission. All rights reserved by Eureka.

Weird and Wonderful Fantasy Miniatures

The Wereshark is just one example of an amazing fantasy miniature from Reapermini.com

I have been stumbling across quite a few alternative fantasy miniatures recently so I've been saving the links and thought I'd start to share them with you.

This post is actually about quite an old miniature which will be very familiar to anyone who's been following my other blog - The Nautican Army Project (an unofficial Warhammer Army) (Special Unit)

I'm posting this miniature to kick off my new "Weird & Wonderful Fantasy Miniatures" series because I promised my Hammering friend Pascal (Battle Reporter forum member: Dims), who painted the model, that I'd post it in this blog - where it will be in very good company indeed :)

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The Wereshark is in my top 5 of all time favourite miniatures (amongst the others are a couple of Jes Goodwin's old Ogres, a 1980's human Berserker staring upwards in a very manic way and Archaon, The Everchosen - who doesn't love him ?!)

Anyway, the Wereshark is the only miniature that qualifies in the Weird and Wonderful category so maybe I'll discuss the others above in a future post.

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I have 4 Weresharks now, they really are awesome miniatures;

The sculpting is good and the model is very well formed (with the modeler  and painter in mind). There are deep "sockets" in the torso and a large "head" in the connecting arm and tail so they fit very snugly together in the default position like lock and key and there's no need for pinning.

The model comes in 3 parts, the torso (which includes the head and right arm), 1 left arm and a large tail. It is a cinch to fit together which is nice because there's nothing more irritating than models that you can't glue ! (I actually consider it a design fault and it's put me off buying some metal miniatures when I can use a plastic substitute - which is a shame really).

For all the dimensions and more details :- Nautican Army Design Notes (Wereshark)

The thing which really sets this miniature apart is it's pose - imposing, aggressive and ready for action (he also looks like he's been in a few scraps before !) If you look closely you'll see a small Octopus in the Wereshark's right hand; to me the pose suggests that the Wereshark was just about to munch on his snack when someone (probably a pesky Dark Elf Corsair with a handbow) caught his attention with a foolishly aimed bolt.

It's nice that there is enough "give" in the arm socket to allow for some arm variation both vertically and to the sides. This allowed me to model the Weresharks with slightly different postures. Check the unit photo (click for a big close-up) and you'll see that one of them even has his hand raised as if gesturing to his own unit, those behind or indeed the enemy.

Not only does the miniature have stacks of character it also paints up very well (as you can see in the slideshow below) and is nice and heavy which gives it a rock solid feel when you use it in battle (which suits their rock solid performance in Nautican play testing !)

The model below was painted by Dims (pascalrooze@hotmail.com) who's available for commission work for anyone interested. Check out the bucket and spade - I love it ! :)





BTW, I almost forgot to say... thanks very much to Pascal for painting this miniature for me to help out with my Nautican army project. He's truly done a top quality job and I'm very thankful. Cheers Pascal.