Lucky Toys - Vlad Tzepes

 (Para a versão em Português, clique aqui)

This box art goes hard!

Recently I've acquired this nice kit from the Italian manufacturer Lucky Toys, one of their last releases so far (from 2009!)

This one gives us a small Walachian army, consisting of a few bowmen, halberdiers, some light infantry, light cavalry and a few horse archers. 

the axemen in this set are very versatile: they work well either as Wallachians, generic European peasants or Vikings

There are also a few casualty miniatures, which are always some nice miniatures to have, and two very cool-looking standard-bearers, which kind of look like hooded executioners.

These standard-bearers are too bad-ass looking and they fit very well both in "real-life" or "fantasy" armies (specially in evil fantasy armies, due to their scary style)

The highlights of this kit are the miniatures:

1) ...of Vlad Tepes, a.k.a Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a Vlad Dracul, the Wallachian hero who inspired the legend of Dracula, which inspired Bram Stoker's most famous book (which is, of course, one of the most influential books in modern literature). This is a miniature of him wearing his "nobleman garments" (the same he is wearing on his most famous portrait), obviously not what he would wear in a battlefield (as the guys from Plastic Soldier Review wrotte back in the day when this set was new). Nevertheless, this is a very cool and unique miniature, proper to be used in the command group of a Wallachian Army, specially in a siege scenario (i.e. Vlad Tepes is wearing his courtly clothes because he was  hosting a banquet in his castle when, suddenly, a Turkish war band surrounded it in a siege);  

and...

Vlad Tepes Draculea in 1/72 scale (and the most badass-looking bannerman miniature in the background) - his sword is "bendy" and not meant to look like a scimitar!

2) ...of Count Dracula, the most famous vampire character in the world, wearing the typical vampire attire (XIX Century style fancy, nobleman clothes and a long cloak). This is a nice miniature to use with the Chainmail fantasy rules as an individual monster in the battlefield or also as a commander of an evil fantasy army. This miniature could represent Dracula, of course, but also any other vampire (e.g. Strahd von Zarovich, the most famous vampire from Dungeons & Dragons - the main villain from the Ravenloft campaign scenario).

These miniatures have some other uses outside of making a Walachian army. They can represent:

- Medieval or Renaissance Russians, Ukranians, Serbians, Albanians or any other "Eastern European looking" army;

- Barovians (a fantasy realm - a domain from Ravenloft, whose dark lord is the vampire Strahd von Zarovich, mentioned above);

- Generic "men from a village being raided by Vikings" (a village in a cold mountainous place)

- I guess these figures might also work as mercenary Cossacks or as Stradioti, due to their heavy clothes, cloaks, boots,  fur-trimmed caps (kaftans), etc. 

The bad side of this set:

- There are 4 of each horse pose, which means there are 4 horses in that "epic pose" standing on the two hindlegs, which is not very cool - perhaps there could be 1 horse like this and the other seven in more "normal" poses.

- There are 2 causalty poses (good) and 4 "almost casualty poses" (not so good) - as shown in the picture bellow. The "almost casualty" could have been just 1 soldier, and the other 3 could've been an extra fighting pose. 

- The box art implies that there would be a figure representing Vlad Tepes wearing his battle armor and riding a war horse, but there is not such figure. A pity. I'll probably use one from the Dark Dream Studio "16th century Medieval  Knights" set, because of their awesome armours (although they are not Eastern-European looking at all, but I'm not a historical purist, I just want my sets and battles to be and look cool)

In the scene above: the hero, armed only with an axe, prepares to face the skeleton brought back to life by the terrible vampire necromancer!

Eventually I'll paint these beautiful miniatures and post the pictures here!

See you next time!

Mustering 15mm Fantasy armies - Dwarves (and a Dragon)

(Para a versão em Português, clique aqui)

Greetings, everyone!

It's been a long time since my last post!

Well, I am just upholding yet another wargaming blog tradition: the hiatus.

In this time I've been busy with "real life" things, but every now and then I've found a bit of time to paint (and purchase) some miniatures.

In this post I'll show you some pictures of the dwarven army that I've been mustering:

A part of my army, above: a dwarven pike block protected by a heavy infantry (on the right) and a arquebusier unity (on the left side). In the background, a group of archers, dwarves riding large boars, and the commander with the standard-bearer further back. My army is facing a dragon.

Most of the dwarves in the picture above) are from Mirliton 15mm fantasy range (labeled as "Chaos Dwarfs", which implies that they are somewhat bad guys - or antiheroes at best). I also have some from Alternative Armies, Splintered Light Miniatures and, of course, Essex. The dragon is from Lance&Laser Miniatures, from their Battle Dragons range and is actually a 28mm miniature, and labeled as a "Basilisk".

Two painted miniatures from the Heavy Infantry unit. These are from Mirliton Miniatures (they are labeled as "short weapons chaos dwarfs" - I simply call them Heavy Infantry).

A Arquebusier Dwarf  on the march. This one is from Alternative Armies.

The same Marching Arquebusier, side view.

Figure size comparison. The dragon, a Mirliton Dwarven Lancer (which I will use as a pikeman), an Alternative Armies dwarf arquebusier resting, 4 Mirliton dwarven arquebusiers, the marching arquebusier from Alternative Armies and a Mirliton heavy infantry dwarf.

A close from two of the Mirliton Arquebusiers. This pack only comes with 2 variant poses (shown in the picture)

I have many more dwarves, all from the manufacturers aforementioned, and all of them are high quality. A quick comparison:

Essex - good overall quality, it is only a shame that each miniture does not stand by itself due to their narrow bases. These dwarves from Essex have a more "Eastern European" look due to their long cloaks and fur capes (Some look almost Russian to me!). They are a tad shorter than Mirliton's dwarves. They come in packs of 8 units each, with some variant positions distributed randomly (so far the "worst cases" I got were a pack with 4 equal identical miniatures plus 2 pairs (4+2+2) and another one with 4+3+1 - but as far as my experience colecting Essex miniatures goes, the packs will mostly come with 3+3+2).

Mirliton - I only bought the ones from the "Chaos Dwarves" range. They are very well made, each miniature has a small base that is wide enough for the miniature to stand by itself. These Chaos Dwarfs have a Viking-esque look, with horned helmets and scale mail armor. They come in packs of 8 miniatures each, with variants, but not so random as the ones from Essex:  I got one with 2+2+2+2, which means 4 variant poses among 8 miniatures, and another wih 4+4. They are a bit larger than the ones from Essex.

Splintered Light Miniatures - these are also great. Depending on the set, they come with great variety (I acquired a Treasure Hunter pack, to have some "dwarven civilians", and a "Battalion pack" which comes with some 20 different foot warriors. The dwarven bowmen pack (named "Dwarven Rangers") comes with 3 different poses distributed among 12 miniatures). These have a more "fantasy-esque" look, even "cartoonish", I'd say, with more rounded heads. They are roughly the same size as the ones from Essex, if not a tad smaller.

Alternative Armies - the best thing about these is that they come in packs of 16 instead of the usual 8 that seems to be the market standard (or so I think). The bad thing is that they are visibly taller than the dwarves from other manufacturers, which kind of stands out when one looks closer, but is not such a matter when one looks from a distance. Another bad thing is that a few of these miniatures come with some ammount of "flash" (what is the "scientific denomination" of excess lead?). Their pose variation is somewhat mixed, but still good: some packs come with 16 identical minis, and some have 4 different poses, evenly distributed (4-4-4-4), and some come with nearly identical poses, but with minor differences (open or closed helms, chain mail armor or plate mail, etc.). 

Figure comparison. Left: Alternative Armies; Right: Mirliton. Notice the (albeit small) difference in size. The Alternative Armies sculptor made thinner dwarves with longer legs, while the guys from Mirliton made them sturdier and "chunkier", with shorter legs.

Figure comparison. From left to right: Alternative Armies, Essex and Splintered Light. All 3 are dwarven crossbowmen miniatures.

Figure size comparison. From left to right: Alternative Armies, Mirliton, Essex and Splintered Light Miniatures. Notice again how Alternative Armies has made thinner/"slimmer" dwarves than the other manufacturers!

The dwarven treasure hunters pack makes for a nice set of dwarven civilians, either to populate a dwarven city diorama or to use as peasants / town levy in a battle!

The dragon (actually a "Basilisk") - this one is from a 28mm range, but 28mm monster miniatures also work great with the 15mm and 1/72 scales, as I've written before!

In future posts I will share more pictures of (hopefuly) painted dwarven warriors, among other miniatures.

Untill next time!

Godspeed!

Mustering fantasy armies

(For the Portuguese version, click here)

While collecting 1/72 medieval miniatures, I am also colecting fantasy minis of the same scale. 

Too bad that there are not many available, at least not very much that I know of. Apart from the Alliance sets (which are probably made by the same company that owns Redbox and Orion) and a few Caesar sets I know of no other company producing such minis in 1/72. 

All these sets are really good, specially the Alliance ones (Light and Dark Alliance), but their fantasy range is far from complete (if such thing even exists). 

I started collecting medieval miniatures by purchasing some metal RPG minis (28mm) from a local retailer. Even though these are made of metal (tin), they are far cheaper than official WotC D&D plastic miniatures!

In parallel to my real world medieval armies, I'm also mustering fantasy armies. In this post I will share a few pictures of the minis from my "evil army" / "darkness army" (which will mainly be used as the Mordor or Morgoth's army)

In the picture above: a pack of wolves with their alpha leading, and among them an Uruk-hai "pikeman" (pikeorc?) from the Alliance set, for size comparison. 

These 28mm wolves work really well as wargs when among 1/72 minis. The alpha wolf is even bigger and could be used to represent Fenrir in a norse mythology game.

Above, another size comparison of the Uruk-hai pikeorc, the normal wolf and the alpha wolf.

I intend to use these wolves as part of Mordor's cavalry (I did not like very much the idea of orcs riding wargs, so mine will be "riderless", and I think that the Alliance Warg sets are too high fantasy for my taste - but of course I might purchase one of such sets someday anyway!)

Above, there is a hobgoblin wielding a huge morningstar, which I intend to use as an ogre or as a semi-troll (since he is noticeably smaller than the Alliance Trolls). He might even be the captain of a uruk-hai company.

Above is a "Basilisk" (or at least a D&D style basilisk) which I intend to use as a wingless dragon (like Glaurung, the father of dragons from Tolkien's universe - this one could represent an early dragon from the First Age of Middle Earth to play wargame battles such as the siege of Gondolin) 

The one above towering over three Uruk-Hai pikeorcs is a demon, probably based on Doom's Cyber Demon (that good and old DOS game made by idSoftware in the 90's) I'll probably use it as a wingless Balrog (and I even think that it is not clear in the LotR books whether Balrogs necessarily have wings or not!)

This one facing the uruk-hai was marketed as a cockatrice by the seller, but I'll recruit it as a wyvern for the Mordor army or to use as a neutral party on the battlefield.

 

Too bad its wings came as separate pieces and are really hard to glue. I'll try to solder them later.

 

And here you can see a uruk-hai platoon facing not one, but two dragons. Well, they are marketed as "dragon whelps" by the retailer, but at this scale they pass at least as "teenager dragons" or, let's say, "lesser adult dragons" (I wouldn't use any of these as, let's say, Smaug or Ancalagon). However, one of these dragons might become a Nâzgul fell beast!

I don't know if I'll try to paint them all and I'm not sure if the acrilic paint that I use for the plastic miniatures will work on these metal ones. 

There's only one way to know! I hope it will work. Perhaps I'll keep the silver collor of at least one of the dragons. Let's see...