The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I was preparing a Viking-like fantasy campaign for my gaming group, and realized that I had a dearth of Viking miniatures. Since we are using D&D 3e, miniatures are a great help. Furthermore, over the last year or so I have grown to really enjoy using miniatures and terrain for games across the board.

I ordered a few Viking miniatures from historically oriented lines and found they were good but not spectacular, and ran about $1.75 to $2.00 per figure. I found that Games Workshop miniatures were overpriced and not in line with my aesthetic sensibilities (i.e., they seemed "freaky"). The figures sold for D&D and Chainmail were appallingly overpriced and there were not too many that fit my Viking needs.

Then I came across the Ghost miniatures line from Old Glory games, and was both surpirsed and well pleased. These are metal miniatures that come in a pack of 6 figures for only $6. That's a dollar a figure, a price that rivals resin models. The other amazing thing, is that when you buy 6 figures for 6 bucks, you get 6 DIFFERENT figures, this isn't a pack of 6 copies of the same figure.

What's more, they are actually cool. Especially after they were painted I was very pleased at the overall appearance of these miniatures. They don't have a "chunky" look to them and although the barbarian line is more fantasy than historically oriented (i.e., there are horned helmets and lots of berserkers in wolf and bear skins), they are still reasonably "realistic". I got so excited at how they looked that I went back and re-painted scads of my old miniatures from 20 years ago. I found that It wasn't just improved painting skill that made these new ones so good, it was indeed the quality of the miniatures.

I bought the following packs:

Command Group: a good group if you want just a few for barbarian player characters, it has a neat-looking wizard with a skull-topped staff, a horn-blower, standard bearer and some sword and axemen to round it out.

Berserkers in Wolf Skins: a mixture of sword and axe armed burly guys in skins

Berserkers in Bear Skins: another set of berserkers, with axes and swords.

Axe-armed Warriors: less fur, more mail

Warriors with Swords: this is mislabeled for some reason, the warriors actually all have spears, still they all look good.

So for $30 bucks I got a nice sack full of Vikings, just what I needed for the campaign.

There are additional packs in the line, which I may get later (archers and horsemen), and several related lines: Valkeries, Knights, Dwarves, Dwarf Samurai and Wizards which I may also look into.

In sum, Old Glory really delivers bag for the buck. It makes me rather angry at WOTC and GW for charging what they do, when Old Glory can do it at this level of quality for this low price.

Barbarians
Barbarians Capsule Review by David L. Nelson on 30/07/02 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!) First rate line of miniatures at a reasonable price Product: Barbarians Author: various Category: Miniature Company/Publisher: Old Glory Line: Ghost Miniatures Cost: $6 per pack Page count: n/a Year published: ISBN: SKU: Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by David L. Nelson on 30/07/02 Genre tags: Fantasy	I was preparing a Viking-like fantasy campaign for my gaming group, and realized that I had a dearth of Viking miniatures. Since we are using D&D 3e, miniatures are a great help. Furthermore, over the last year or so I have grown to really enjoy using miniatures and terrain for games across the board. I ordered a few Viking miniatures from historically oriented lines and found they were good but not spectacular, and ran about $1.75 to $2.00 per figure. I found that Games Workshop miniatures were overpriced and not in line with my aesthetic sensibilities (i.e., they seemed "freaky"). The figures sold for D&D and Chainmail were appallingly overpriced and there were not too many that fit my Viking needs. Then I came across the Ghost miniatures line from Old Glory games, and was both surpirsed and well pleased. These are metal miniatures that come in a pack of 6 figures for only $6. That's a dollar a figure, a price that rivals resin models. The other amazing thing, is that when you buy 6 figures for 6 bucks, you get 6 DIFFERENT figures, this isn't a pack of 6 copies of the same figure. What's more, they are actually cool. Especially after they were painted I was very pleased at the overall appearance of these miniatures. They don't have a "chunky" look to them and although the barbarian line is more fantasy than historically oriented (i.e., there are horned helmets and lots of berserkers in wolf and bear skins), they are still reasonably "realistic". I got so excited at how they looked that I went back and re-painted scads of my old miniatures from 20 years ago. I found that It wasn't just improved painting skill that made these new ones so good, it was indeed the quality of the miniatures. I bought the following packs: Command Group: a good group if you want just a few for barbarian player characters, it has a neat-looking wizard with a skull-topped staff, a horn-blower, standard bearer and some sword and axemen to round it out. Berserkers in Wolf Skins: a mixture of sword and axe armed burly guys in skins Berserkers in Bear Skins: another set of berserkers, with axes and swords. Axe-armed Warriors: less fur, more mail Warriors with Swords: this is mislabeled for some reason, the warriors actually all have spears, still they all look good. So for $30 bucks I got a nice sack full of Vikings, just what I needed for the campaign. There are additional packs in the line, which I may get later (archers and horsemen), and several related lines: Valkeries, Knights, Dwarves, Dwarf Samurai and Wizards which I may also look into. In sum, Old Glory really delivers bag for the buck. It makes me rather angry at WOTC and GW for charging what they do, when Old Glory can do it at this level of quality for this low price.

Barbarians