Category Archives: Fantasy Gaming

Red Box Games – Size Comparisons with GW Lord of the Rings figures.

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Yesterday I eagerly received my order of minis from Tre’ Manor aka Red Box Games. He’s done a lot of work for Reaper Miniatures in the past. Some of my GW links may be mangled or die soon as GW is in the process of changing their metal stuff to Finecast with many items seemingly discontinued.

Red Box Games Halfling Ollander, Citadel Lord of the Rings Hobbit Frodo

Ollander and Frodo

Ollander Elsewhetherornot of Mootshire from RBG with Frodo Baggins from GW. Ollander is noticably shorter than Mr Frodo, but still fits in well as a Hobbit, especially when you take into account that not all humans are the same height in real life.

Red Box Games Dwarf Brynjar Gunnar, Citadel Lord of the Rings Khazad Guard

Brynjar Gunnar and a Khazad Guard

Brynjar Gunnar from RBG and a Khazad Guard from GW. As can be seen, the sizes are 100% compatible. Oddly this Khazad Guard doesn’t seem to be available from GW at the moment…

Red Box Games Dwarves Hostrum Hammersmite, Gunnar, Citadel Lord of the Rings Khazad Guard

Hostrum Hammersmite, Gunnar and Khazad Guard

Another shot showing Dwarf with Dvergr. Hostrum Hammersmite is added here, who I’ll use as a Dwarf King or General type figure. I’d have compared with one of my GW Dwarf Kings as well, but they’re packed away in a box. Somewhere. Very happy with the RBG Dvergr/Dwarfs – I picked up almost a dozen of the various figures to mix in with my GW ones and add some nice personality to the force.

Red Box Games Norse Fearless Hvitarnor, Citadel Lord of the Rings Boromir

Fearless Hvitarnor and Boromir

Fearless Hvitarnor from RBG and Boromir from GW. I picked up a couple of the Norse-themed Njorn range, somewhat to use as Dunlendings. Again, my Dunlendings are …somewhere, so Boromir gets size comparison duty. I purchased Hvitarnor because he reminded me of Conan, right down to the pose, facial expression and helmet.

Red Box Games Astrid, Yrsa, Citadel Lord of the Rings Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan

Astrid, Eowyn and Yrsa

I decided to use a female figure from GW’s LotR range to compare with the RBG ones. Here’s Eowyn in the middle, with RBG’s Astrid of the Stones on our left and Yrsa the Accursed from the HelsVakt range on the right. I bought these two mostly because they’re good looking figures, though perhaps they could both be used in friendly games using the rules and stats from one of the Stormcaller or Shaman characters.

Red Box Games Elf Christia the Chaste, Citadel Lord of the Rings Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan

Christia the Chaste and Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan

Christia the Chaste from RBG’s Aelfar (Elves) range along Eowyn again. I really liked the Aelfar figures, so just as I bought a big bunch of the Dvergr, I did the same with the Aelfar.

Red Box Games Yvander, Edele, Citadel Lord of the Rings Legolas

Yvander, Legolas and Edele

A few more Aelfar. Yvander Halfblood from RBG, Legolas from GW (seems this one is discontinued) and Edele of Aelheim from RBG. No prizes for guessing where these guys would be used.

Red Box Games Halfblood Sverreulf the Red-Handed, Citadel Lord of the Rings Uruk Captain, Gothmog

Uruk Captain, Sverreulf the Red-Handed and Gothmog

Uruk-Hai Captain from GW,  Sverreulf the Red-Handed from RBG and Gothmog from GW. RBG’s Halfblood range is interesting. When browsing it, this guy stood out to me as a figure that would make an effective Orc Captain, especially amongst the non-uniform plastic orcs. Again this Gothmog figure appears to be discontinued, though since it’s the same figure as was widely available with the Battle for Middle Earth magazines, I don’t see a shortage of this figure happening anytime soon.

That’s it for tonight. I picked up a bunch of other RBG figures at the same time as these, but these pics should give anyone interested in using these figures alongside the GW LotR ones for any kind of Middle-Earth miniatures of Role-Playing games (MERP!) a good idea of what would work.

LotR Spiders – test model – Pre-Dip

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So for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game, we have a vague plan to have a small force of almost every army. Not of the sizes you’d play a 1000-point battle or what have you, but enough for a variety of small games and also enough to play through many/most/all of the various scenarios found in the sourcebooks.

With that in mind, we’re also hoping to mostly use models that aren’t crap. Unfortunately, the GW LOTR spiders are indeed crap. Overpriced as well, but really the issue is that they’re awful models.

Luckily, the GW Goblin Spider Riders aren’t crap. Overpriced, yes, but I was lucky enough to get a set of 10 off a nice bloke selling off chunks of his O&G army, and also have another 10 on the way from an eBay parts seller. All I needed to do was toss the riders in a parts box and scrounge up a bunch of round 40mm bases.

Oh yeah, and come up with a colour scheme. Since my wife hates spiders, and I’m not exactly their biggest fan when I see one inside the house, I wanted to go for a scheme that was somewhat realistic, a bit revolting, visually striking at a distance, and also not likely to be mistaken for a real spider in the house. (I had to get rid of a great big Huntsman Spider in the lounge room the other day – not fun!)

I decided on going for a yellow, exotic, almost tropical spider look. I also thought dipping would work well as an effect to give it that glossy, slimy, “ewww” factor, as well as expediting their painting. I’m also not a huge fan of the “skull” onthe back of many of the goblins’ spiders, but since there are things in nature such as the Death’s Head Moths (right, Clarice?) and knowledge that any dip would just bring up the skull details anyway, I decided to incorporate the skull into an overall stippled pattern on the model.

I couldn’t decide between red eyes (the typical, standard “evil monster” look) or green, for a more natural or vaguely realistic look – I knew I wanted to avoid blue. When I saw my metallic green paint, I decided I found the colour to try out.

So after all that, here’s my concept model, before dipping:

I’ve been reading a bit about Army Painter brand dips recently, but will be giving this guy a dunk using an old can of Wattyl stain as that’s what I have in the shed (if I can find it). If the experiment works out okay, I’ll buy an actual can of the AP dip. Probably their “light” tone.

I know there’s some visible mould lines left on the figure. It wasn’t that easy at times to work out which lines were part of the GW angular “exoskeleton/carapace”-style sculpt and which just need to be trimmed. Since this is a colour concept figure I’ll get the others done more carefully. Now I’m off to go get wood stain on my hands!