Relics: The Return!

 Hi!

A quick interlude from my Leviathan stuff as today saw the announcement of the return of Relics the wargame!

As per usual my obsession with out of production games that virtually nobody plays has struck. Back in 2010, a small miniatures company called Tor Gaming released some super quirky figures that they classed as Stitchpunk and over the next few years the range expanded into a unique setting that featured voodoo doll soldiers, creepy fae and some really gnarly looking Dwarves.

At this point, I was pootling around with miniatures and was pretty much entirely focused on Leviathan so the game passed me by and by 2017 Tor announced it was closing up shop and the game and miniatures were sold on to TTCombat, who at the time were pretty much an online seller if memory serves right with no real gaming experience.

Since then the game has sat fallow as TTCombat focused on other games, namely Dropzone, Dropfleet and Carnivale and the Relics community on Facebook began to dry up and it appeared that the game was well and truly dead as while the 2nd edition of the rules were available as a pdf, the miniatures themselves, so unique a selling point of the game were unavailable.

Now we find ourselves in 2024 and TTCombat has announced that they are re-releasing the game with newly mastered models and the original range will be available once again.

Now I'm not sure if I'm going to be tempted to pick up the actual rules to try out but I do think I'm going to get some of the miniatures as they're really characterful and its not often that dead games make a comeback so I for one would love to see it reappear and continue to get support.

The first two factions to be re-released will be Orcnar and Britanan which should be happening in February with the rest following not long after.

If you're interested, its worth nipping over the TTCOMBAT page to see whats available and the 2nd edition rules can be found for free download HERE.

We shall see how things go but its well worth a peek for folks looking for a really quirky and characterful range of miniatures, and hopefully an expanding one to boot!

In the meantime, All the best!

Lockdown Day 23: Interlude of Ponderment

Hi!

After I posted my last update, I spent the evening and this morning having a bit of a ponder on what exactly it is that I have found so enjoyable about painting all these older figures and why I get put off 28mm so easily.

I think I may have stumbled over the answer as I sat painting a Void 1.1 Assault Androsynth. It's a considerably more modern figure than the stuff I've been painting and enjoying and it's technically very well sculpted. The proportions are better than Flintloque miniatures, the sculpting is smooth and detailed but I have had absolutely no pleasure in working on it whatsoever.

Last attempt at painting Syntha

I will finish it but why have I had such a negative response to painting this one 28mm sci-fi chappy? I suspect that it is precisely because it is a technically good, mordernish sculpt. There's just no character or charm to it. It's bland and uninspiring and I just don't have the jolly response to it that I did with the old plastic GW Ork boyz or my Flintloque project. Similarly, I could paint something similar in 15mm and actually enjoy the end result. Maybe it's because at the smaller scale a not quite perfect paint job is more forgiving or the techniques for getting the results I want are different.

In 28mm I love the charm and quirkiness of Flintloque with it's chunky, slightly cartoony proportions and the older miniatures are very forgiving to paint but this new figure I have sat down to paint has had me pick it up and put it down repeatedly and just been a bit of an uninspiring lump of lead.

During the Lockdown of doom, my enjoyment of painting has really helped keep me sane whilst being stuck in the house for 23 hours of the day and having found myself frustrated with this one figure has irked me and I wondered what I could do about it.

The Boar Company

My first response would be to sculpt all my own stuff as over the years, I have put together quite a few different projects that I have sculpted, be it Rusty Robots, Somewhere on the Border, Battletech SD or even tiny Orks, each chunky and hopefully characterful but there have been none that I have balked at painting as I created them myself and therefore didn't find myself stuck with what to do with them.

Rusty Robots

As I mentioned in my last post, I have actually pulled out the sculpting tools and am nearing finishing a group of Rusty Robots which I hope to get painted up this week and I have got enough of my Somewhere on the Border stuff to play all sorts of small skirmishes but I keep seeing interesting ranges that fire my imagination and get distracted!

 SD Battletech

I think that one remedy to the situation will be to spend a couple of days a week sculpting during the lockdown to see what I can put together and the rest of the time choosing only the miniatures I enjoy painting to work on. I think that I need to go for my book approach, in that if a book doesn't catch me within 50-100 pages, I discard it for another with the discard going to charity, in this case, miniatures which don't catch me being sent to ebay for recycling into the hobby fund!

Boodaxe Boyz

The other thing I am keen to do is explore some of the new and for the most part still readily available ranges that I find quirky, characterful and charming with the following three being high on the list:

Relics is a fascinating range of stitchpunk figures with bundles of character and very unusual forces to choose from. The downside is that the range got sold and seems to have pretty much vanished into the Aether which is a real shame.

War of Ashes, be it Shieldbash or Shieldwall are both in production and the miniatures are available, even if it is from the USA so shipping and import duties become a bit of an issue. The only niggle is that Zombiesmith is currently reworking the sculpts into a slightly larger scale which puts me off picking up any more for the time being.

The final option for the time being is the World of Twilight which I briefly mentioned in my last post. I've heard so many good things about the game and miniatures and it certainly ticks many boxes for me. The figures are certainly interesting and I may have to dip my toe in the water so to speak and pick up a few to see how I get on!

I also plan on keeping on with the Flintloque/Deadloque stuff as I have really had so much fun painting them that it seems a shame to stop when there are so many other great figures to paint.

As for the rulesets that have interesting factions, forces and races, I think I will translate them to 15mm as I did with the Syntha chaps which will allow me to keep the inspiration but make it more usable in smaller scale. I've done this for Warhammer to a certain extent with my 6mm Goblins who will eventually be a decent sized horde but using 3rd/4th edition Fantasy Battle as inspiration.

We shall see how things go in the next few weeks but I also have my 2mm stuff bubbling away too which reminds me that I have a bunch of Land Ironclads to work on...

Needless to say I'll probably get distracted by something during this time but hopefully I'll be able to keep my hobby mojo going and refreshed by my new approach so watch this space. 

In the meantime, All the best!

Properly Original Stuff!

Hi!

I've posted some bits and bobs over the last few weeks of some of the games I have found inspiring over the years but here's a few really original miniatures ranges that I am sorely tempted to explore:

Relics as a game has been around for a few years now but it was only recently that I happened across some of their range on Facebook and I must say they look amazing!

Taking a quick peek at the current factions, there's some fantastic looking stuff available, with several more factions being developed:

First up there's the Nuem, which look like bionic Dwarves or Gnomes and have a selection of cracking looking sculpts ranging from near naked fanatics with missing limbs to ball like automatons and big, chunky fellows like this chap:

Nuem

Next, there's the Orcnir, a savage cross between Orcs and Trolls with odd, rocklike protuberances and a really savage looking range of miniatures to match!

 Orcnir Warband

The Vaettir are creepy looking faerie like race that look more Grimms Fairy Tales than the Disney sort and also have access to elemental beings of all sorts.

Lastly, there's the Britanan Empire, a patchwork bunch of voodoo like dolls which combine creepy and cute with a rather pleasingly period British army vibe:

That's not all though!

War of Ashes and Shieldbash are a really lovely range of miniatures available from Zombiesmith (producers of the well known Quar range) 

Its another range of figures I have found over the course of the last couple of months and I must admit I do like what I see:

Jaari 

 The Jaari look like the beasties from the movie Critters but crossed with an Imperial Roman legion.

The True Antronians

How about the True Antronians, a cross between muppet and Amazon!

 Evlodrix

The Elvodrix look like a super cute combination of Chewbacca, Cousin It and a viking!

Vidaar

How about some Muppets with maces?

Kuld

How about an anthropomorphic tortoise without a shell? 

I don't know what it is about the range but I do love the sheer quirkiness of the lot of them, there's so much charm to the range that it is really difficult to resist!

But there's more!

The World of Twilight is another rather well established range of miniatures with its own set of rules that has been around for a while but seems to have avoided my notice till recently!

Just look at the character that the miniatures have! Theres a bit of a Dark Crystal sort of vibe to the range that I really love! I am not sure to the background but looking at the figures, I am interested in finding out more!

Each of the ranges I have highlighted have their own rules but I don't know which, if any, I would go for as all three ranges are just too interesting to ignore!

Maybe it's time I explored some of them and picked up one or two interesting bits and bobs from each and gave them a shot at painting as well as writing a bit of a review on what I find. 

I can imagine combining all three ranges and creating some unusual scenery to create a really original world! 

I shall have to see what I can come up with but this post has really whetted my appetite for some non human or traditional fantasy fare! Are there any other ranges out there thats a bit unusual that folks have found? If so give me a shout as I'd love to see some other interesting bits and bobs!

All the best!