Fantasy Flight Games Miniatures Games Roundup

Fantasy Flight Games has recently released several new lines of pre-painted and unpainted miniatures.

Of interest, specifically for roleplayers in more contemporary settings, or super hero settings, or the like, are the Arkham Horror Investigators line, which has quite a few models that would be suitable as civilians, detectives, even pcs, heroes and villains, for the Arkham Horror game and the Mansions of Madness board game.

Arkham Horror Investigators pre-painted miniatures, complete set.

The whole set is available with a single purchase, 48 prepainted miniatures for $191.52 US, and is something I'm considering for myself, if only because they would make decent NPCs for various games.

Apparently, the game itself is quite enjoyable too, as it is a gothic Lovecraftian horror type board game in the vein of C'thuluesque creepy. And the new expansions also have miniatures. Just dig around FFG website for more.

Next in the FFG stable of Pre-Painted miniatures are the City of Thieves pre-painted miniatures collections.

City of Thieve pre-painted miniatures sets

These miniatures are more in the vein of Victorian Fantasy-Steam Punk, and if they are roughly 28-30mm scale, would probably suit many Steam Punk themed RPGs or table top battle games, and make decent substitutes for miniatures in games like Malifaux, perhaps. There are several sets, and they are all collected, so NO RANDOMS, which for me is a huge draw! I like to get exactly what I want instead of having to waste time and money buying random packs of minis I hate or will never use more than one of anyway.

For the anime lovers in you, and those who like alternate science fiction with a Japanese pseudo fuedal flair, there are the miniatures (and complete rules) for Anima Tactics. There are some lovely miniatures here, though they appear to be a slightly larger scale, possibly in the 32mm to 38mm range. Though very specifically tailored to the Anima Tactics background, which is heavily character dominant, there is enough variety in these miniatures that they could easily be suitable for RPG or other games.

Anima Tactics Complete Rules Book Cover

With such stunning miniatures, like The Colonel, shown below, how can  you not want to own some of these and lavish a trophy worthy paint job on them?

Anima Tactics: The Colonel

See all of the available models at the links below:

Light Faction Miniatures Line

Dark Faction Miniatures Line

Neutral Faction Miniatures Line


Unfortunately, not all of the miniatures are pictured, though the source art is in most cases. So you may be surprised with what you actually get here. Overall, they have some nice themes and some nice fluid poses in the miniatures, with large surfaces that will lend well to painting free hand detail.

For the WWI Aeronautical junky, there is the Wings of War range.

This range of models is pre-painted, and designed for immediate play using the Wings of War rule set. However, I'm sure with some slight modification, they may be usable with other air superiority miniature battle games in the WWI era, or perhaps be suitable for use in games like Crimson Skies, if you keep your scale consistent. Again, scale on these is difficult to see, so compatibilities may arise, but definitely worth investigating. Especially as there is a model for the "Red Baron" and Billy Bishop, to name a few WWI Aviation pilots who have gone into the annals of infamy.

Fokker DR I - Manfred von Richthofen

FFG has also bought AT-43 and Confrontation from the failed Rakham, and is now selling those products on their website. At this time it is unclear if they will be continuing production of those lines, or are just clearing out the existing inventory.

However what FFG has done is port the AT-43 rules set to an alternate WWII setting (*admittedly this is speculation on my part based on what I've seen of the game so far). The game is called Dust Tactics, a tactical miniatures board game for 2-4 players, featuring pre-painted miniatures, and Mech Tanks, etc.

Dust Tactics Starter Set

Dust Tactics Contents

As you can see, the basic models appear to be unpainted, and moulded in colour. This is fine for some pick up gaming with the basic starter set. But there are "Premium" Expansion Packs available, which appear to be pre-painted.

"Premium" expansion pack - "The Gunners"

This is currently also available as a $300 collector edition, Dust Tactics Deluxe Edition, presumeably because the quality of the "professionally" pre-painted starter set is so high from the photos I've seen. Your opinion on the value of this may vary, though, especially if you are handy with a paint brush yourself. But if you want a nice starter set that also displays nicely, it might be worth investigating.

As I've mentioned earlier, there may be scale issues if you are planning to use some of these miniatures as alternative miniatures in your table top miniatures or role playing games, but since the photos available are not taken in relative context to familiar items, you'll be taking your chances. Having said that, I would love to see some better pictures of all of the FFG line of pre-painted miniatures, not only to show the detail, but perhaps in comparison to a standard 28mm miniature to see how well they scale. So if you know of any pictures online, or have some yourself, which show these miniatures in scale with the 28mm standard, please post in the comments below!

That wraps up today's roundup! It is by no means a complete representation of the FFG selection of miniatures and games with miniatures, but meant to be a primer for you to go and explore their website to see what they offer. There are plenty of nicely sculpted miniatures in their lines, ranging from soft plastic to metal, both painted and unpainted.

*Disclaimer*
All images in this article are the property of Fantasy Flight Games and are used without permission for the purposes of reviewing and educating the hobbyist. No challenges or claims are intended. Please click through and visit Fantasy Flight Games and explore all they have to offer.

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September = Fast Attack

So, since I had previously been working on Necron warriors, I kept all the scarabs handy for this month.

These are among the most basic plastic models GW has, being exactly 1 body piece, and 1 stand piece. You can combine several on a base to make a swarm. Most people do 3 per base, as that's standard wound allocation, but I prefer 4 or 5 to a base as it makes them look more beefy.

Here is a shot of the bases during construction:

Unfortunately, I forgot to get photos after I finished basing and priming, and remembered while halfway through painting the metal portions.

And the finished models.

Another month down!

Again, these are painted to a very basic standard with the intention of going back and adding further detail, colours, etc. But my main goal right now is to get this army done to a consistent and playable standard at the very least...then come back later and touch them up, and add some special detail here and there.

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The subject for August was elite, so I painted a small unit of Necron Flayed Ones. I would have painted more, but I didn't realise I only had four models, and my budget demanded I not purchase any more for the time being. Fortunately, the minimum unit size for Necron Flayed Ones is only four models. Naturally I will be expanding on this unit, as I rather like how Flayed Ones perform, especially as a roving unit with Necron Immortals or Warriors putting down fire support for them.

I really like them though, because they play on the imagery of zombies, but are a bit more horrific, as they use that primordial fear as a weapon...even though it seems the Necrontyr Psyche in these creatures is damaged, longing for life, and wearing flesh in a grim mockery of life.

I started with a white base coat. Usually for metals, I go with a black base coat, as it makes it much easier to create shadows. However with the abundance of flesh, I felt white would be better. It certainly sped up the paint time as I didn't have to do multiple coats of flesh paint on top of black to give it a smooth surface.

 I then gave the models a wash of Asurmen Blue, over the entire model. The reason was threefold. 

1. It helps to pick out details on a white primed model more easily if you give it a thin wash before painting. This made it much easier to determine where the skin was and where the metal was.
2. I am painting my Necrons to have a bluish chrome type of finish. Starting with blue in the shadows helps to further that tone.
3. Dead flesh has blue undertones, so this then becomes a starter base of a blotchy blue on the decayed flesh.

After the wash, I then painted Boltgun Metal on all of the metal bits, careful not to get too much on the flesh. I wasn't worried if I did, but it pays to be tidy as it means less touchup painting later, especially if you are going to use washes as a majority part of your method.

Next, I broke out the Ogryn Flesh wash, and went over all of the fleshy bits. I kept it undiluted, and painted it on into all the tears and rents, and in all the folds of skin. This gives the skin a blue and ruddy blotchy fleshy appearance right off the bat. You can continue this process with other colour washes to reflect decaying skin, or build on it with rotting flesh, or even pink flesh to represent different tones of flesh and different points of decay, from just flensed, to old and moribund.

I chose to leave it as it as this point, but plan to come back and add more detail to the flesh. Besides, with the touch of blue, they also appear to be perhaps from some Tau volunteers.

The base is first painted with a 50/50 mix of Chaos Black and Brown Ink, thinned so it just absorbs into the sand. I then lightly overbrushed codex grey over the still wet base. This actually has the effect of a touch of blending on the edges, as the dark paint bleeds through. I then hit it with a final highlight of codex grey when it was dry, and tidied it up by painting the ring of the base in two coats of thinned Chaos Black.

Again, I'm keeping thins simple right now. Note that there is less shading on the metal of these models. This will be done later one as I add more models to the unit, and I will use some washes and inks to give more depth and help tint the metal bodies. But these are now ready for the table top, so Job done! 

For now...

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Time for a bit of blog catching up. While my blog has been a bit dormant, that is not an indicator of my hobby progress.


In July I started seriously focussing on finishing all the Necrons I have. You may wonder why, as the net wisdom is that Necrons are not that competitive (though I disagree heartily), but the simple reason is that I'm a sucker for Terminator like Death Robots. So I broke out one of my old school necron models for kicks and will endeavour to update the look and translate it to the more modern plastic Necrons. I aim to finish the year off by focussing on and completing whatever Necrons I have kicking around. And perhaps if there is anything left, pick up one of the new Forgeworld Necron Tomb Stalkers.

Here are some basic build pics. I've got the old school Necron there for comparative purposes, and to get an idea of scale and style. There are a lot of design cues still present, but it's interesting to see how they have been redesigned. I also tossed the scarab in there for nostalgia. I do plan on using that original paint scheme (or a version of it) on the new Necrons.

Notice I built these Necrons to be standing more upright than Necrons are typically depicted. I don't like the hunched over look as they remind me too much of Igor hunchbacks and don't seem menacing and looming enough. I wanted them to be more reminscint of CSM-101 Terminators than undead ghouls. However, to do this, I had to modify the necks so the heads would sit properly without looking up as if they are distracted by something in the sky. A couple snips with a clipper on the control rods and the heads could be pivoted and positioned much more convincingly.

Finally, I have done a bit of a test to see what I can do with tinting the green rod. Below I have used some Asurmen Blue and washed it onto the green rod sprue. You can see it actually dries fairly evenly, despite being a very smooth surface. I like this because the tube does retain some of the green tone, but looks more 3 dimensional, like there is a substance floating inside the tube.

I also did an experiment to see if I could get the tubes to look not so shiny and toy like. Some would suggest using a matt seal, and that will probably work. But I have figured out an alternate method which involves lightly coating the tube with liquid plastic cement - sorry, no picture. I think that it looks rather nice in person, but am unsure if I will pursue that, as I rather like the colour tint. I will decide later on in the project, and will probably just assemble the green tubes stock for now to save on some time.


And here are the Necrons I finished painting in July, though I actually built 20 more Necron Warriors.

Of note, these are strictly painted to a simple standard to get them table ready. I did not colour tint the rod, as I was testing, because I still want to experiment with that. And I have not yet added the extra should scarab shell detail, as I want to do that detail on the army as a whole.  So to give them a finished look, I played off the green rod, adding some green glowing elements to the gun, as well as the eyes (hidden in shadow) and gave them a bit of a green wash to represent poison on the bayonet blade.

On the Map!

Hello everybody!

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted. Not because I've been inactive in the hobby, no, as I've had a lot of things going on and will try to update more soon. I've just been very busy with real life activities and so have had to put off updating the blog for a while. But, as I've said before, my updates may be sporadic, depending on the whim's of fate.

Today I would like to present my new Warhammer/40K Campaign board.

This weekend, the local Games Workshop store was celebrating it's 14th birthday. On a whim, after a hard day at work, I walked in and discovered they had some very special items up for auction. One being a painted Space Hulk demo set (though it was missing 3 of the coolest Terminators....suspicious? Nooooo!) and one of the rare and limited Walls of Minas Tirith, which I bought.

To celebrate their birthday they were also having a prize draw. Among the prizes was a Warhammer Battalion box, and a very cool Mighty Empires/ Planet Strike Campaign Map, created and painted by one of the staff, whom I've been friends with since he first entered the hobby when I was a staffer there 14 years ago. When he called me to tell me I won the map, I was surprised and quite happy, and promised him I would keep the paint job the way it is.

Here is why:

This thing is amazing. There are some excellent details, like a ring of mage stones, a magnificently huge mountain range, a giant pyramid, and a giant Elven Tree, just to name a few cool features.

I will definitely be using this for some time to come, but have plans to use both sides of the tiles as there are plenty of ways to set up this map...

I have some excellent campaign ideas for this map as well...

The gears they are turning....

Cheers, until next time!