Where to look for good minis

[Kamenya]

Hey everyone!

After quite a bit of lurking here whilst down in Africa I am now back in the civilized world and will be starting a quest project after being inspired by some of the amazing work I've seen here.

While I used to play warhammer ages ago I've basically been away from the hobby for ten years and after doing some check-up on the GW sit I've realised there are a lot of the new models that I don't like. Because of this I will be trying to find good models from other places as well.

So if anyone here has got any suggestions as to where I might look for models I'd very much appreciate it. At the moment I'm trying to find some good looking minotaurs, a wizard and a barbarian but down the line I will be needing a lot of other heroes and monsters as well.

[Shas'El Tael]

Hi Kamenya,

Good to hear! More WQst goodness to come. There are a lot of options out there for new models. I'll have to hit up my bookmarks when I get home tonight and post them up. Wanted to say hi and if it takes me some time, at least you know some info is on it's way

In the meantime check out :

Hasslefree Miniatures
Reaper Miniatures
RBG Games (Red Box Games)
Scibor Miniatures (nice minotaurs and other things..)

..thats off the top of my head. More soon.

- Seb.

[Necanthrope]

For Warriors, i don;t think you can beat Avatars of war. They have quite a wide range now, and the quality is excellent. They are also not too expensive.

Mantic games are good for an inexpensive source of orcs, chaos dwarves, and undead amongst other things. There style is good, but some do not like it.

GW of course are still the best, and if you go to eBay you can get some nice bargains on old style miniatures that are more to your liking (and mine ) than the modern remakes.

[Kamenya]

I'm looking through the reaper catalogue, holy crap there are a lot of good hero minis here! It's going to be very hard to choose.

My main problem with the heroes is whether to go with static poses or something that makes them look more like they're in motion. I intend to have male and female versions of all heroes (so if anyone has tips for a female trollslayer that would be welcome) and I want them to have a more or less uniform "feel", although I may have to give that up and simply get the coolest models regardless of how they pose.....

[S_A_T_S]

For female trollslayer, just get a regular trollslayer and maybe sculpt slightly larger chest. As we all know from Tolkien, it's very hard to tell the difference between male and female dwarves due to the large, luscious beards.

[Eboli]

I have found Reaper Minis to be good. If you do order minis through their website make sure you check out the total prices in the various country currencies as I have found you will see differences in savings as well as possible shipping costs (sometimes free shipping).

I live in Australia and paid and ordered minis using Euros as Aust, GBP, and US$ prices via their website were more expensive - plus I got free shipping.

Cheers!
Eboli

[Shas'El Tael]

Oooh nice tip Eboli, I'm in Oz also.. might just put in that order

As for a Female Trollslayer, check out Hasslefree Miniatures; they just posted a recent release. In a more GW vein there is.. 4A Miniatures "Falkaya Blood sworn" slayer. Bold and heroically proportioned.. you can see a photo on their website online shop : http://www.fouraminiatures.com/

S_A_T_S might be interested in their female brewmaiden

[S_A_T_S]

Both brewmaiden and female trollslayer are interesting, but neither have beards. They just look like angry norscans who have been stepped on by giant. Sorry, but it's not a proper dwarf if it hasn't got a beard, regardless of gender.

[Daemonslave]

As well as those mentioned, the places where I go for minis are;

Heresy
Otherworld
Enigma
Dragonrune
Dragonsword
Gamezone
Rackham (if you can get them on ebay - they have some awesome Minotaurs)
Foundry Miniatures

plus Troll Forged do some nice beasties too.

Although not a huge fan of Mantic, their zombies and ghouls are pretty good.

[Shas'El Tael]

Mmm second Otherworld, completely forgot to list them. Great beasties.

[Purplebeard]

For dragons and big monsters, Reaper, Mirliton, and Scotia Grendel are great. For general henchmen, old Warhammer/Heroquest figures are perfect. I just tend to buy junk lots on eBay. You can work wonders on even the really badly painted ones with just a bit of patience.

[Shas'El Tael]

buy junk lots on eBay. You can work wonders on even the really badly painted ones with just a bit of patience.

Ain't that the truth. Patience is a diminishing skill only hobbyists seem to have an over-abundance of.

[Shas'El Tael]

Guys..guys..(runs into the forum.. hands waving..).. one sec.. (pant pant.. wheezee....)

Reaper Miniatures just launched Bones - their new resin casting material : read all about it and watch it here : http://www.frothersunite.co.uk/phpBB...24f9a4e4b390ce

This - is brilliant. Creating hordes of bad guys just became incredibly feasible.

[Purplebeard]

Oh, and collecting by 'theme' (e.g. faction) might be easier - so, say, collecting a load of Undead all at once, then a load of Skaven, and so on.

[Kamenya]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I have put in an order with reaper and scibor for male and female versions of the main heroes and I'm currently looking at monsters, now I just need to get an apartment of my own so that I have somewhere to sit and paint.

...Oh on that subject; I haven't been painting minis for about 10 years, does anyone know any good online tutorials?

[Shas'El Tael]

They tend to be 40k heavy, but http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/ has a collection of straight forward no nonsense painting tips.

I also scored a download of a long lost Eavy' Metal PDF article. I'm going to rehost it tomorrow night on my site and put up a link here for folks. Superb tips in that.

- Seb