Monthly Archives: May 2013

MaxMini Jump Packs – Polish Resin #7

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In what’s getting close to my final MaxMini review post for awhile, I’m sharing their various Jump Packs today. I picked up set of 5 of their Iron Pattern Jump Packs shortly after they were released, though due to the joy of moving twice in a relatively short period, they got put in a box and not used (story of my figures’ bloody life!) Recently, I decided to start to resurrect some of my armies, so I’ve been buying cool resin bits, which at the moment mostly sit around until I can work out some army lists and then motivate myself to get them started/finished.

I originally got these to use either with my Iron Warriors or possibly my old-school-style Crimson Fists. So anyway, with 5 of these suckers already in hand, I needed to get another 5 to finish a squad. So I did. I may need a second 10 of them so I can kit out both armies with them. I’ve tried to give my Iron Warriors more of a Renegade Marine vibe than a gribbly chaos marine one. As cool as the new DV figures are, and as much as they harken back to the old Slaves to Darkness style, I actually want to go with the “loyalists with spikes” look for the dour, mechanically-oriented Iron Warriors – more likely to amputate a tentacle and replace it with a bionic arm than to accept it as a gift of chaos, so studded mechanics work from my perspective.

Size Shot – Maxmini Iron Pattern Jump Pack.

Here’s the pack being modelled by a marine I’ve been working on for a mate. He won’t have a jump pack in his final form, but since his wasn’t glued on, I thought he’d work fine as a Jump Pack model. As you can see, this Jump Pack is a pretty big piece of work.

Maxmini Silver WIng Jump Packs

While I was at it, I decided to pick up a set of 10 of their other two new styles. The Silver Wing Pattern Jump Packs will go perfectly with either Blood or Dark Angels, and as I have a small DA force and an unbuilt BA force, there’s potential to once again buy a second set of them so both forces can use them. The DA already have a mostly-built Assault Squad though, so maybe I’ll just grab another 5 for some Character models.

Size Shot – Maxmini Silver Wing Jump Pack.

As you can see in the photos, the Silver Wing packs are just as big as the Iron Pattern, though I was surprised as the details are almost entirely different, aside from the turbines and the part that plugs into the back of the model they’re being mounted on. The detail is really quite nice, with lots of exposed wires, pipes and tubes again giving it an old-school look, though perhaps not all that OH&S-friendly.

Maxmini Bronze Pattern Jump Packs

Finally, I grabbed a set of 10 of the Bronze Pattern Jump Packs. These don’t fit the old-school vibe in the exact same way as either of other the turbine-topped styles, but I thought the huge vented intakes looked pretty cool, so I again got a set of 10 to kit out a squad (of something TBD).

Size Shot – Maxmini Bronze Pattern Jump Pack.

Now if you thought the other two were big, these will really impress. These ones are edging towards being ludicrously big, but despite this, I really like them. The sculpting and design on them are really well done and a bit different. They still look a little Horus-Heresy-retro, but perhaps like something that was newer then. They look like something that would fit in with the era of this classic Paul Bonner Dark Angels painting (used as a WD cover back in the day). Not-quite Rogue Trader, Not quite modern era. Around the days of Adeptus Titanicus and Space Marine. Note the marine firing! If you look carefully, you can see how he’d probably like you to say hello to his little friend..

Paul Bonner’s seminal Dark Angels-Scarface artwork.

MaxMini Head sizes – Polish Resin Extra!

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After some requests for size comparisons on the MaxMini from Dakka and in the comments, I’ve taken some quick photos to help people judge which heads are right and wrong for their own purposes. I’ve also got an older review – of the Steam Knight helmets. Though I only used Marine bodies on that one, as you can see in that post, they’re on the smaller side, and so I think they’d work on smaller like the below Mantic/McVey models as well.

MaxMini heads and various figures.

From left-right, we have a Sedition Wars female, a “marine” made of a Maxmini head, GW torso and Anvil Industries legs.  A sci-fi Bombshell Babe. She’s about the height of a marine, but less bulky – A good representative for many of Reaper’s sci-fi figures. Next is A Mantic Enforcer, Mantic Corporation with actual head, Sedition Wars male, and another Mantic Corporation fig with Maxmini “Biohazard” diving bell. Last up, we have a completed GW Space Marine.

MaxMini heads.

So. Opinion time. The gladiator helmets are a little small for marines, but workable. They’re also suitable for the McVay and Mantic figures, as actual gladiator helmets are pretty damned big.

The Black Lotus helmets are perfect for marines, but a bit big for the truescale figures – unless you want big ancients helmets for them.

The “Immortals” Egyptian helmets would work on the McVey/Mantic bodies. They might seem a touch big, but then there’s a lot of bling on them, so if you disregard all of the spikes and so forth which make them look bigger, they work. Similarly, they work on marines, but may look a touch smallish.

MaxMini heads.

The Mecha-Egyptian helmets (V.1) look perfect for marines, but a bit big to go with the truescale figures. Similarly, the Biohazard heads are perfect for marines but too big for the truescales. A possible exception for the “diving bell” helmet, since diving bells IRL are huge, so with a trim to the neck they could work with truescale figure – depending on what you’re trying to do.

The Hybrid heads are a good fit for truescale figures – bear in mind that they are deliberately bulbous, though. They seem a little small for marines.

Once again, I hope this is helpful. I realise it might be a touch mroe useful if I clipped off a bunch of the heads and blu-tacked them to a Mantic and GW torso, but I don’t want to cut up the sprues at this stage, since it makes the heads easier to lose. (yeah, after moving house, I need to find those Steam Knight helmets I linked earlier..!)