The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I have this weird feeling that, at some point, I'm going to look back over at my desk, and then I'll wake up and it'll all be some wonderful dream that just flew out the window. In the case that it's not, I felt obliged to write this review.

Games Workshop has finally done something right. They've released boxed sets, containing five to ten miniatures each, which cost anywhere between eight to ten dollars. That's a buck per miniature, give or take some for tax. It also means that certain armies, like the Tyranids, just got remarkably cheaper. And if you're playing any fantasy game, then you've just been handed a perfect starter set for either painting miniatures or starting to use them within your role-playing games. If you're playing Heroquest, then you've got a cheap way to introduce new monsters ot the game. (Oh, and Mordheim players will find endless value here.)

Why am I so skeptical? Primarily because "good pricing" and "Games Workshop" are terms that you almost never see in the same sentence. While Games Workshop makes excellent miniatures, they also mark up the prices by a nearly criminal margin; as a matter of fact, GW recently decreed that stores couldn't drop prices on Games Workshop more than 20% or GW would stop sending them miniatures at all. Hardly news to GW fans, I'm sure, but it struck me as what basically amounts to racketeering. These new packages seem like a reversal of this trend. Which either means that I'm having a very good day, or am about to have a very bad one when I wake up.

Anyhow: The miniatures themselves are plastic, and cover the range of Games Workshop's fantasy line. I'm very inclined to think that these miniatures are either from Heroquest, or are molds from old boxed sets whose time has passed. WHF fans will recognize a witch elf and a dwarven Trollslayer among the ranks of the heroes, as well as a barbarian from the original Heroquest game.

The barbarian will fit the bill nicely for any fighter who doesn't like armor a lot - he's largely naked, with only a cloak and a loincloth to protect him. I'd imagine that he wears runes on his skin to protect him from harm, but given the tradition that most barbarians aren't fond of magic, I'd wager that he'd just soak it up with some Howardesque cliches about iron thews and such. The bear cloak on his back has a nice hair pattern, and will probably accept a drybrush very, very easily. One arm is stretched off into what I assume is a fending-off-a-monster pose, but he could just as easily be grabbing a goblin by the throat; I'm not exactly sure. There's a pair of braids dangling down the barbarian's front and back that could be accented by an enterpising. One of the major problems with the miniature is the sides of the miniature - the cloak becomes blank and angular, which will require some fancy painting to make it look good.

The next miniature is what I imagine to be a Dwarven lord of some kind. Even for a dwarf, he's remarkably squat - the head of his axe is about as large as he is, and has a nice "rune" effect engraved into the surface. As a matter of fact, the dwarf in question is almost hidden underneath his accessories, including an waist-length beard and a winged helmet. Most of the minature's surface is cloth, metal, or part of an accesory; the only flesh visible is his face, whcih is, of course, buried behind his beard. There's a lot of good texture here, including the pitted chainmail and the waving lines of the dwarf's beard. I'd have a hard time using one of these miniatures as "my" dwarf, but then again, I don't often play dwarves.

The Dwarven Trollslayer, however, has the usual mall hair / punk riot hair endemic to the early range of Citadel miniatures - his mohawk is half as tall as he is, and his beard covers his entire face. There's a lot of flesh on this miniature, but there's also enough natural dips and "crannies" to accentuate the dwarf's muscle tone. The pattern texture on the mohawk is flat, and will need work to properly accentuate, but since the beard's texture is easy enough to wash, I can't see that being too much of a problem. It'll be a quick miniature to paint, although it'd also be worth your time to bring out the fierce, I'll-die-here! look on the slayer's face.

The Witch Elf figurine is one of the funniest - at least to me - because it's clear the the Dark Elves will be raiding the Old World for hair care products and Motley Crue albums as much for slaves and gold. If you haven't seen Dark Elves before, you'll recognize their women immediately by the enormous shock of mall hair that billows out behind them. Meanwhile, the main body is covered by a pair of long leggings, a bra and a loincloth/G-string. I imagine that if somebody comes at them with a sword, they'll just block it with their hair. To be fair, it makes perfect sense when you're playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle - the Witch Elves drive themselves into blood furies, then charge into their foes. As an issue of White Dwarf put it, they've got the damage-resisting power of a china teacup. This miniature would make a great evil priestess or assassin, but I can't imagine a gamer using this to represent a female character if there was something better available. However, the texture on the hair is good, the facial detail is fine, and there's even little details - like the banner of Khorne/Khaine on the torc on her forehead - that you can bring out with careful painting.

The thief figurine is one of my favorites. He's wearing a lot of flowing clothing, including a cloak that's draped over the right side of his body; the left arm is over his head, preparing to bring a dagger down into his opponent. Almost comically recessed into the hood is the figure's face, which is snarling in the heat of battle at an unseen foe. The legs of this miniature are splayed out broadly, which gives the miniature a broader base than most - it'll still fit on a slottabase, but diagonally. It's a nice, simple miniature - and if you're looking for some great practice to bring out the shadows in cloth, this is the place to start.

It's nice to find a miniature that doesn't immediately remind you of a particular race within the Warhammer universe, and the elf is one of them. Although it's obviously a wood elf once you look closely - the heart-shaped gems are the giveaway - the miniature reminded me of a monk who's left the monastery, like in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose. To be sure, most monks don't tote around a sword and a bow, but the figure's hairstyle reminded me of a monk's, as well as the substantial amount of clothing that the figure is wearing. There's lots of cloth on this miniature - a tunic, leggings, a cloak and hood, and gloves. The only flesh exposed is on the face. One hand's carrying a sword, raised upwards, and the other has a bow to one side, as if ready to drop the sword and snap off a shot. He doesn't have an arrow-carrying thingamie on him, though, which I imagine would make firing arrows difficult. The cloak's detail is nice, but there seems to be a little bit too much flat space here. It's not my favorite miniature, but it'll do.

The wizard hits just about every cliche involving wizards you could imagine, except for the sword he's toting around in his right hand. He's got scrolls sticking out of a pocket, a staff, a big beard, a hat - complete with feather - robes, and a tabard with a flame design on the bottom half. The staff itself has enough whizbangs on it to make for some nice detailing, but the detail on the feather in his hat is simply too shallow to do anything but be filled in by paint - unless you water it down by a thousand percent, which I wouldn't advise doing. There's a lot of good detail here, especially in the beard and in the back of the tunic. The tunic has enough wrinkles in it to make shading look natural. True AD&D purists will be able to clip the sword off with a nail clipper and file away the remnants, which will make the figure look like it's casting a fairly major spell. Not bad at all.

The halfling. Well. The halfing is the shortest miniature in the bunch, carrying a short sword and wearing a relatively sedate set of clothing - including a shirt which doesn't completely cover the halfing's bulging belly, complete with navel. Meanwhile, the look on the halfling's face makes him look as if he's on his eighth drink of the evening and looking forward to brawling for drink number nine - you have to see it to believe it, but it does look awfully goofy. Or maybe he's just really happy, but I somehow doubt it. There's even a little clay pot strapped to his belt, which is a nice GWish touch. There's even hair on the tops of his bare feet, which'll make purists happy. I don't know if halfling players will be really happy about it, but it'll serve nicely as a comic relief figure.

In short, it's $10 of some good miniatures. They're hardly perfect, and they're not necessarily the kind that you'd use if you're not into Games Workshop's games, but if you're looking for some cheap player miniatures, this is a great, great buy.

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Games Workshop: Adventurers
Author: None Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Games Workshop Line: Warhammer Fantasy Cost: $10.00 Page count: NA ISBN: NA SKU: FT06 Capsule Review by Darren on 06/28/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical Gothic	I have this weird feeling that, at some point, I'm going to look back over at my desk, and then I'll wake up and it'll all be some wonderful dream that just flew out the window. In the case that it's not, I felt obliged to write this review. Games Workshop has finally done something right. They've released boxed sets, containing five to ten miniatures each, which cost anywhere between eight to ten dollars. That's a buck per miniature, give or take some for tax. It also means that certain armies, like the Tyranids, just got remarkably cheaper. And if you're playing any fantasy game, then you've just been handed a perfect starter set for either painting miniatures or starting to use them within your role-playing games. If you're playing Heroquest, then you've got a cheap way to introduce new monsters ot the game. (Oh, and Mordheim players will find endless value here.) Why am I so skeptical? Primarily because "good pricing" and "Games Workshop" are terms that you almost never see in the same sentence. While Games Workshop makes excellent miniatures, they also mark up the prices by a nearly criminal margin; as a matter of fact, GW recently decreed that stores couldn't drop prices on Games Workshop more than 20% or GW would stop sending them miniatures at all. Hardly news to GW fans, I'm sure, but it struck me as what basically amounts to racketeering. These new packages seem like a reversal of this trend. Which either means that I'm having a very good day, or am about to have a very bad one when I wake up. Anyhow: The miniatures themselves are plastic, and cover the range of Games Workshop's fantasy line. I'm very inclined to think that these miniatures are either from Heroquest, or are molds from old boxed sets whose time has passed. WHF fans will recognize a witch elf and a dwarven Trollslayer among the ranks of the heroes, as well as a barbarian from the original Heroquest game. The barbarian will fit the bill nicely for any fighter who doesn't like armor a lot - he's largely naked, with only a cloak and a loincloth to protect him. I'd imagine that he wears runes on his skin to protect him from harm, but given the tradition that most barbarians aren't fond of magic, I'd wager that he'd just soak it up with some Howardesque cliches about iron thews and such. The bear cloak on his back has a nice hair pattern, and will probably accept a drybrush very, very easily. One arm is stretched off into what I assume is a fending-off-a-monster pose, but he could just as easily be grabbing a goblin by the throat; I'm not exactly sure. There's a pair of braids dangling down the barbarian's front and back that could be accented by an enterpising. One of the major problems with the miniature is the sides of the miniature - the cloak becomes blank and angular, which will require some fancy painting to make it look good. The next miniature is what I imagine to be a Dwarven lord of some kind. Even for a dwarf, he's remarkably squat - the head of his axe is about as large as he is, and has a nice "rune" effect engraved into the surface. As a matter of fact, the dwarf in question is almost hidden underneath his accessories, including an waist-length beard and a winged helmet. Most of the minature's surface is cloth, metal, or part of an accesory; the only flesh visible is his face, whcih is, of course, buried behind his beard. There's a lot of good texture here, including the pitted chainmail and the waving lines of the dwarf's beard. I'd have a hard time using one of these miniatures as "my" dwarf, but then again, I don't often play dwarves. The Dwarven Trollslayer, however, has the usual mall hair / punk riot hair endemic to the early range of Citadel miniatures - his mohawk is half as tall as he is, and his beard covers his entire face. There's a lot of flesh on this miniature, but there's also enough natural dips and "crannies" to accentuate the dwarf's muscle tone. The pattern texture on the mohawk is flat, and will need work to properly accentuate, but since the beard's texture is easy enough to wash, I can't see that being too much of a problem. It'll be a quick miniature to paint, although it'd also be worth your time to bring out the fierce, I'll-die-here! look on the slayer's face. The Witch Elf figurine is one of the funniest - at least to me - because it's clear the the Dark Elves will be raiding the Old World for hair care products and Motley Crue albums as much for slaves and gold. If you haven't seen Dark Elves before, you'll recognize their women immediately by the enormous shock of mall hair that billows out behind them. Meanwhile, the main body is covered by a pair of long leggings, a bra and a loincloth/G-string. I imagine that if somebody comes at them with a sword, they'll just block it with their hair. To be fair, it makes perfect sense when you're playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle - the Witch Elves drive themselves into blood furies, then charge into their foes. As an issue of White Dwarf put it, they've got the damage-resisting power of a china teacup. This miniature would make a great evil priestess or assassin, but I can't imagine a gamer using this to represent a female character if there was something better available. However, the texture on the hair is good, the facial detail is fine, and there's even little details - like the banner of Khorne/Khaine on the torc on her forehead - that you can bring out with careful painting. The thief figurine is one of my favorites. He's wearing a lot of flowing clothing, including a cloak that's draped over the right side of his body; the left arm is over his head, preparing to bring a dagger down into his opponent. Almost comically recessed into the hood is the figure's face, which is snarling in the heat of battle at an unseen foe. The legs of this miniature are splayed out broadly, which gives the miniature a broader base than most - it'll still fit on a slottabase, but diagonally. It's a nice, simple miniature - and if you're looking for some great practice to bring out the shadows in cloth, this is the place to start. It's nice to find a miniature that doesn't immediately remind you of a particular race within the Warhammer universe, and the elf is one of them. Although it's obviously a wood elf once you look closely - the heart-shaped gems are the giveaway - the miniature reminded me of a monk who's left the monastery, like in Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose. To be sure, most monks don't tote around a sword and a bow, but the figure's hairstyle reminded me of a monk's, as well as the substantial amount of clothing that the figure is wearing. There's lots of cloth on this miniature - a tunic, leggings, a cloak and hood, and gloves. The only flesh exposed is on the face. One hand's carrying a sword, raised upwards, and the other has a bow to one side, as if ready to drop the sword and snap off a shot. He doesn't have an arrow-carrying thingamie on him, though, which I imagine would make firing arrows difficult. The cloak's detail is nice, but there seems to be a little bit too much flat space here. It's not my favorite miniature, but it'll do. The wizard hits just about every cliche involving wizards you could imagine, except for the sword he's toting around in his right hand. He's got scrolls sticking out of a pocket, a staff, a big beard, a hat - complete with feather - robes, and a tabard with a flame design on the bottom half. The staff itself has enough whizbangs on it to make for some nice detailing, but the detail on the feather in his hat is simply too shallow to do anything but be filled in by paint - unless you water it down by a thousand percent, which I wouldn't advise doing. There's a lot of good detail here, especially in the beard and in the back of the tunic. The tunic has enough wrinkles in it to make shading look natural. True AD&D purists will be able to clip the sword off with a nail clipper and file away the remnants, which will make the figure look like it's casting a fairly major spell. Not bad at all. The halfling. Well. The halfing is the shortest miniature in the bunch, carrying a short sword and wearing a relatively sedate set of clothing - including a shirt which doesn't completely cover the halfing's bulging belly, complete with navel. Meanwhile, the look on the halfling's face makes him look as if he's on his eighth drink of the evening and looking forward to brawling for drink number nine - you have to see it to believe it, but it does look awfully goofy. Or maybe he's just really happy, but I somehow doubt it. There's even a little clay pot strapped to his belt, which is a nice GWish touch. There's even hair on the tops of his bare feet, which'll make purists happy. I don't know if halfling players will be really happy about it, but it'll serve nicely as a comic relief figure. In short, it's $10 of some good miniatures. They're hardly perfect, and they're not necessarily the kind that you'd use if you're not into Games Workshop's games, but if you're looking for some cheap player miniatures, this is a great, great buy. -Darren MacLennan Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Games Workshop: Adventurers