Frostgrave Cultist and Barbarian Sprues

Just a quick shout out to these fine plastic kits being put out by North Star Military Figures for Ospreys games , Frostgrave.  I know I have previously mentioned my dislike for plastic kits, as I like to say I have gotten too old to be fiddling  around with putting hordes of plastic models together. However I am very impressed by all these kits.  For me they fit a variety of roles not just Frostgrave.

At 20 Figures a box, Hard plastic Renedra sprues (aka. High Quality), coming out to about $1.50ish a figure . I have 3 of the 4 kits they make with today purchases.  (the Gnolls outstanding) looking forward to putting these to good use.

I had a tough time finding proper up close photos of these sprues, perhaps my google fu is weak but anyway for my own reference here they are.

I"m really like these Barbarians, The can easily be Viking Raiders with some bit swapping to some more historical shields. With large army games on the serious decline and skirmish games becoming the main stay, I expect these kits will stay in  demand for some time.

                                          again, good close ups of the sprues, front and back.

Next up....Blackbarrow Castle...its almost finished.

Adepticon 2017 -Drive by

Well we made the annual trip to Adepticon today, about a 90 minute drive from the new digs. I had not planned on going this year, and I was not a badge holder simply a spectator. My kids convinced me to go at the last minute so we made the trip for about 3 hours on-site some shopping, the kids with the take and paint and some catching up with some old friends, then we headed out for some Chicago Pizza before the trip home.

After last year, where I managed to irritate all sorts of people I like very much with my negative criticisms about the event and tournament I played in. I told myself I was taking a year off, after all I had been going to this since 2007, and in the end,  I was glad I decided to make it -even in todays limited capacity so I could keep the streak alive at 11 years running.

I had three 10 year old girls with me, and after after a half hour of wandering around looking at stuff decided to hit Reaper Miniatures, Take and Paint. My older daughter whose painting with me semi regularly now impressed me with blending her own paint with white and doing some one layer highlighting all on her own, with no direction from me (as I off talking to people) while my youngest and their friend did great jobs for minimal experience the had. After painting they all picked up a handful of Bones figures from the shop.

Future Crystal Brush painters at work.

Vendor Hall was pretty great but with the limited time we had I didnt get to do much but it was a great vendor list and I was keeping the budget tight this year. I did pick up a couple boxes at the Osprey Booth ( more on that later) but had bite my lip and walk away from Trenchworx WW2 Vehicles (mainly their 251 half tracks because I wasnt sure how they scaled with my Warlord ones and they looked small. Anyone?) Super impressed by their vehicles thou, great to see them close up.

I was also very impressed with the Firelock Games booth , if you dont know they put out a pretty impressive Pirate Game with Figures , Ships and all last year with a successful Kickstarter.
everything looked great, AND they had box of miscast resin hulls from there ships they were selling off at around half price of the full kit  I was extremely tempted here, as I didnt see anything I couldnt easily fix..but were still just expensive enough that I balked , a little cheaper I probably would bought one, if not two....who knows why as I havent played any Pirates in years...but I still all my Pirates and Terrain and these could be very nice ships, miscast or not.

Blood and Plunder in action.

The Osprey Booth was another stop off for me, considering Both Frostgrave and Rogue Stars are only two games I have played in the last year. I did pick up both the plastic Cultists and Barbarians
these 20 man plastic kits have all kind of uses for me, not just Frostgrave bands but generic troops for any fantasy gaming, plus I really like these kits and they nail the scale where these work with alot of other manufactures I collect. I'm going to do a follow up post on both boxes, as I'd been hesitant to buy these before due to lack of decent pics of the sprues, once I eyeballed them personally I was sold.
Oprey had some nice freebies for customers too, a class act all the way...so I expect to play a Frostgrave game or two coming up.

The Frostgrave table for tonights 10 man game, this I would have liked to play in!

I did catch up with some old friends and Adepticon regulars, but since I was only in the Exhibitor Hall and onsite for about 3 hours. I missed of ton of people I would have like to see.   I was super happy to see Warlord Games and Adepticon corrected about every grievance I had with the Bolt Action Nationals tournament last year, from 8 foot tables, to the excellent lighting in the hall, to I was told all Red vs Blue match ups.  I still have NOT gotten a game of Bolt Action 2nd Ed in yet...I hope to soon,  Overall its Adepticon is big business in the Chicago area, In fact one friend commented to me today, That it is now a totally adequate alternative to Gen Con, I'd add mandatory if you are a miniatures centric hobbyist. I havent even scratched the surface on all the board gaming I saw going on this year  Next year, I am sure I'll be back and playing something, what will have to remain to be seen.

Rogue Stars Official Miniatures. Scale Comps and Review

North Star Rogue Stars Official Figures

Osprey's Rogue Stars has been out since December and following its fan Facebook page and thread over at the Lead Adventure Forum (LAF) the seems to generate a decent initial interest and modest following. Nothing like Frostgrave, but if I remember correctly it took Frostgrave close to the year to build up its momentum.  I'm liking Rogue Stars, the game myself quite a bit and at this point, now that the official errata , quick reference sheets and rosters are all released, its good time to give it try if you have the interest and have not yet.

L-R  North Star, Reaper, North Star, Reaper, North Star, Mantic

I wasn't going to pick up any of official miniatures produced by North Star ( and I believe all sculpted by Mark Copplestone) mainly because the initial reports on the figures people had in hand were not good, even thou painted production figures looked great, pics of miscast figs with tons of bubbles and flash is not somewhere you want to put your time into with metal figures.

Of course there was also the fact the I am swimming in miniatures..while Sci Fi is probably my least crowded genre I've still got lot I wont be using and alot of that has to do with Scale. which prompted the Scale pics.  Reports of bad casts, no scale pics to be found  with other miniatures I use, and that I am have too many miniatures I wasnt going to use already. Didn't exactly bode well for me buying any.

Above line up with  Reaper's popular Nova Corp, 2nd from Left.

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After playing the game for a few weeks in my free time, The pics from the rule book started growing on me, and since I basically run a store on ebay selling in its majority all the miniatures I never got around to using or from games I was no longer interested in, my 2017 Miniatures "IN" was only at "2" and my "OUT"  through ebay sales is at around 70 . I figure it was OK to pick up some models.
And I am glad I did!.


Crisp casts, some flash (mainly pour spurs,) no massive mold lines , bubbles of mis shapen or deformed casts, The only downsides for me are cast bases which I hate..(and which as you can see I always cutway) and scale isnt perfect for my uses but damn close.

L-R, North Star, Reaper, North Star, Mantic, North Star, Mantic

Admittedly  I am pretty militant about scale , I  use Reaper's chronoscope line and Mantic's Deadzone figures for my Sci Fi projects as I like what they do, all they all tend to run in the over-sized 28mm category. when you are dealing with Aliens you get a lot more wiggle room with scale variations and while Humans are of course every shape and size imaginable when I put a put a bunch of Hasslefree or Hersey figures up against my Reaper stuff , they dont look to me like cool "Tom Cruise" sized humans they just look weird..

So despite my box of Hasslefree, Hersey and AE bounty Sci Fi figs in the eBay shop pile, I am happy to say North Star's Rogue Stars figures wont be joining them anytime soon. as you can see they fit right in with the figures I use, I dont think some of the bigger aliens could be a bit bigger, but of the 8 figures I bought ,I like them all enough to paint them.

Big Guys, L-R   Mantic's Teraton Shock Trooper, North Star's Turtle Alien, which I wish was bigger, North Star's Lion man Alien , again wish it was a little bigger, but not as big as Super Sized Teraton in Power Armor by Mantic

The figures recently went through a repackaging at North Star. there are selling them in pairs as opposed to single figs , probably to move some of the figs that werent selling, but if what I read is correct they'll all be back for sale tomorrow. In conclusion, I didnt have any problem with these miniatures as far as poor quality and the scale works for me, it was also a quick ship from the UK here to Michigan (about  10 days)  So I have to give them a big thumbs up and call them a great addition to any sci fi collection, especially mine. I am sure I'll pick up a few more  once I make the room.

L-R  Mantic Plague Zombie, North Star,  MPZ, North Star, MPZ

                                 L-R  Mantic's KS super enforcer, North Star, Heresy, North Star, North Star, Hasslefree.                                                              The Hasslefree , and Heresy Figures shown here are much larger compared to most of their own lines. 

All North Star Official Rogue Stars Figures