Monthly Archives: February 2019

Pimp My Kickstarter: Shieldwolf Forest Goblins

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Today is basically a PSA-type post about Shieldwolf’s latest KS project – which is for Forest Goblins. Sure, there are potential stretch goals down the line for Sci-fi Goblins/Grotz and “regular” goblins, but the meat and potatoes of this campaign should be viewed as plastic forest gobboes.

It’s worth pointing out that – yes, I am generally on friendly terms with Shieldwolf, they haven’t asked me to post this – and certainly haven’t paid me in money or product. I’m blogging about it here because to me, it’s a rather worthwhile project that I’ll be backing, but as a smaller company they can benefit from that little bit of extra attention that my blog posts can bring. As opposed, to, say, Mantic or CMON. Criticism of these renders over on Dakke have been that the spear and sword blades look a bit too big – and although I can see that, I don’t think they’re excessively out of line. SW’s fluff reason for this is because they’re mostly looted weapons, from the other races in their bespoke fantasy setting.

After checking, I can confirm that the four torsos shown above with heads attached do have them permanently attached, and the join for the forth body appears to be flat rather than a ball joint. Both a bit unfortunate – and I admit, I can’t understand why they would have made either of those decisions. Well, maybe the heads are attached because of sprue space? The stuff I tend to see from Renedra (who usually do SW’s plastics) isn’t nearly as efficient with sprue space as GW has become, so maybe it’s a limitation there?

Not dealbreakers, but definitely a shame in my opinion.

The prices aren’t overwhelmingly amazing – it’s not a Mantic/CMON campaign. In fact for me, getting my GW stuff direct from the UK – these models come to a price after shipping that’s pretty much on parity with GW’s current Night Goblins – or a little more, if I’m to be honest. (Because fuck GWAU’s local pricing!) So, with no real price break aside from the resin heroes or later stretch goals being effectively freebies – as with some similar campaigns, I’m backing based on some questions to ask myself:

Do I really want these? Would I buy them if they were at retail? Am I willing to pay a year in advance to help them get made? And how much am I willing to pay for them?

The short answer – for me at this stage, is 2 boxes for US$50+shipping. If the Not-Gretchin unlock, I’ll revisit it then. But 50 Night Goblins for what’s going to end up being AU$100 or so is plenty for me right now.

So there we are. If you’re interested in this, go check it out. If not, then simply go on with your browsing and await the next post in a day or two. 🙂

January 2019 – Terrain & Centrepiece Model Challenge: Personal Round-Up

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At the end of the month, I ended up with 45 pieces completed in January. While my personal focus was on scenery, the second challenge was for “centrepiece” models – of which I have a good five that I had hoped to get stuck into and hopefully to complete at least a couple of them. In the centrepiece aspect then, my own effort was a resounding fail. (Plague Toads are cool and all, but they’re not centrepiece models!) Still, on the Scenery front, I did manage to finish 42 pieces, and while – again – I didn’t finish all I’d hoped to, it’s still a reasonable outcome.

I was especially happy to finally paint the Ruined Watchtower, and to finally complete the Battlescape and the Imperial Turrets. The Ork debris piles started off as a lot of fun, but eventually became a slog. Ah well. More terrain to come for February. I’ll get the Community Round-Up done ASAP – though it’s usually a few solid hours worth of work to compile, so it might not be until the weekend, so there may be a February model or two posted up first…

I also forgot to take some extra photos as I often do when the round-ups take up more space, as they do here – so in lieu of that, here’s Leonard instead!