Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Topic started by: Macunaima on July 03, 2020, 03:38:19 AM
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Steve Salotti of Microworld Games has very kindly sent me sample Orc and Elf armies from his new 3mm line. These are beautiful castings: normal alloy (unlike O8’s tougher, more brittle metal) that are very much in the style of old school Warhamster.
I’m having a blast painting these lovely figs and will be using this thread to document my progress. Here’s the main Elf army to date:
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Just for context, the army is on a six inch by six inch square.
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Good looking army.
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Very tempted by 3mm and in fantasy you could really have massive Orc hordes!! :) Nice work, they look great. :)
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They look really good, much more detail and definition than I would have expected, they definately have the Warmaster vibe to them
Just for context, the army is on a six inch by six inch square.
That’s is quite astonishing- I don’t think I would ever have guessed they are on such a small area.
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They look excellent.
How easy is it to clip off individual figures? They look more attached together compared to O8s ancients but some of your sword armed ones seem shorter than the typical eight figures.
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The one main complaint I have, Samsonov, is that they are cast in mutually supporting strips. This is so that they could be cast in a regular miniatures alloy instead of the whatever-it-is O8 uses.
The ally and casting are great, but the problem is that it is hard to cut strips apart without damaging figures. The Elven swordsmen are no problem: you can ship them apart quite nicely with a bit of care.
The spearmen can be easily cut at at least two points on the strip.
The archers, however... them and the Orc mobs are very har to cut apart without losing a figure or two.
However, because the alloy is soft, it is very easily cut. I reckon that the loss of figure mangled as you attempt to cut apart Orc mobs would be right about the same number as the loss of figures due to clipping O8 strips and accidentally breaking some individuals off.
At 3mm you can go two ways: individual figures and hard but brittle allows; strips of mutually supporting figures and softer, more flexible alloys.
I am advising Microworld to release some packs of regular, individual footsoldiers for those of us who want a more irregular look to our mobs.
Still, the orc masses look irregular enough, even if they are in impeccable lines, if you squish them together in a mass. Given that there are two different orc strips, this is easy to do.
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The detail on these is ridiculous, Fred. I was lamenting this yesterday whilst painting some elven light cavalry. Each strip needed 14 different paint applications. With O8, I can generally get away with 9 or 10.
Of course, given that Microworld gifted me with these figs, I am trying to paint them as detailed as possible. One could do a much simpler and yet perfectly adequate job.
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More photos of the army, with a clearer view of the mages (aka The White Council).
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3mm! Those are incredible in both sculpting and painting.
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Nicely done. I am tempted, but already have a large investment in 6mm armies and 28mm fantasy figures.
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I am invested in 15mm fantasy, William. That will all be rebased for skirmish or small mass combat gaming now.
What people need to ponder is the fact that 3mm is something of a “freebie” scale: for the price of a (small) 28mm unit, you can buy a big 3mm Army. And 3mm allows you to do two things:
1) Small, great looking portable games;
2) Ginormous big epic games.
In the first case, I am building a “DBA in a lunch box” kit to carry with me to the local game pub.
In the second case, my 120cm x 100cm living room table becomes the equivalent of a ten foot by eight foot table for 28mm-centric systems like Hail Ceasar.
What you are seeing in these pictures is rougly 12-14 dollars of troops, max. That’s — what? — half the price of one Games Workshop figure? :D
Plus, they paint up dead quick to a tabletop standard.
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Looking forward to seeing those orcs.
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Thanks for the detailed information on cutting the strips. I do not mind loosing some figures (I seem to loose about 10% of the O8s cavalry despite the indents!), but my bigger concern is that splitting a figure leaves the adjacent figure deformed. Hopefully the small scale, plus a bit of green stuff, would conceal this.
You see, I have this crazy plan. I love large bases but I also love to see casualty reduction. So I was thinking I could base these on 6cm by 3cm bases, then when they take a hit replace the base with a 6cm by 2cm base and a third hit replaces the base with a 4cm by 2cm base. The reduction in number of figures and size of base would convey casualties, but ideally single figures would be used to convey disruption to the formation as casualties are taken. Creating all these extra bases would add considerably to the time and cost, but doing fantasy properly is something I have wanted to do for something like 25 years...
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I love this - keep eyeing O8 and MM 3mm celts and germans for a sort of 'barbarian' 3mm fantasy. Really nice.
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Thanks for the detailed information on cutting the strips. I do not mind loosing some figures (I seem to loose about 10% of the O8s cavalry despite the indents!), but my bigger concern is that splitting a figure leaves the adjacent figure deformed. Hopefully the small scale, plus a bit of green stuff, would conceal this.
You see, I have this crazy plan. I love large bases but I also love to see casualty reduction. So I was thinking I could base these on 6cm by 3cm bases, then when they take a hit replace the base with a 6cm by 2cm base and a third hit replaces the base with a 4cm by 2cm base. The reduction in number of figures and size of base would convey casualties, but ideally single figures would be used to convey disruption to the formation as casualties are taken. Creating all these extra bases would add considerably to the time and cost, but doing fantasy properly is something I have wanted to do for something like 25 years...
As long as you do it in 2cm increments, you won’t have to do any cutting at all, Samsonov. In fact, you could just make each unit three 2x4cm stands and remove one per hit, a la Warmaster.
As for cutting, with care and a sharp exacto knife you can cut between orc figures and only significantly deform ONE of them. Or you can deform both a bit. Another option, if you go the second route, is to put a single figure from the command pack up against the deformed side.
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I love this - keep eyeing O8 and MM 3mm celts and germans for a sort of 'barbarian' 3mm fantasy. Really nice.
I have pretty much finished my fantasy barbarian army now, Jag. I will get some piccies up when it’s entirely completed.
To give it a fantasy feel, I made a mage stand and bought some 6mm troll hurlers from Microworld, who I turned into hill giants with a bit of green stuff.
I also made some Celtic “spirit warriors” by simply paining masses of them white and washing with that GW blue-green oxide paint.
I now have complete historic German, Gaulish, and British armies, plus a massive fantasy barbarian horde!
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Individual regiments.
The sword units are based as wedges to more easily distinguish them from spear units at arm’s length.
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The wedge-block "visual cheat" is a great idea. I do that on my 6mm blocks myself.
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It’s even more necessary at 3mm, Warren, as you probably can imagine.
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Artillery battery. One of the few things I don’t like about this release are the elf ammo dumps, so I just used some extra command groupings and swordsmen to give the big bolt shooters an escort and a backdrop.
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The White Council. This is based so that is can be treated as a combat element, a small unit (for HC) or a commander/ hero type.
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Very nice indeed. 8)
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Birch treekin. The photo really doesn’t do these justice.
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Here’s the second group of elven mages: the Blue Councli.
The tree in the back is, obviously, a nod to Game of Thrones and it even has a tiny face carved into (unfortunately not visible here).
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Steve Salior of Microworld Games is experimenting with making 3mm undead skeletons which, as you can imagine, is quite challenging. I asked him why he didn’t do the undead in a more ethereal, ghostly style. But then it struck me: at 3mm, you can probably do this with pretty much ANY figures.
I had some British and German barbarians left over from O8. I painted them light blue, drybrushed light blue grey, and washed with the copper patina oxide stuff GW does. I then painted weapons and metal work white and went over them with a neon green. I finally drybrushed the tops of the castings with the same neon green.
I did two cavalry and four infantry stands in this manner. Then I took a Microworld elven sorceress and some German command figures from O8 (one of which was already conveniently holding a severed head), along with a broken Naked Fanatic figure (also O8), which I beheaded and placed on a durepoxy altar.
The megalithic portal is made of of cat litter, cut to appropriate shapes.
As a final touch, I glued wisps of cotton around the bases of the ghostly figures. I am still undecided about whether or not this technique works in 3mm. Please tell me what you think.
I will try to get better pictures with a better camera tomorrow.
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Very inventive
It could be the camera but at this scale they resemble bushes more than ghostly spirits to my eye. Perhaps a much lighter colour green or a blue would work better?
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I think it is the camera, but maybe I should do a mix of white and neon green and do one final drybrush...?
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Good idea.
I've done something similar but simpler in 10mm, base coats figures white, and then apply a blue or green wash. Seems to work fairly well. I think yours might just have a bit too much strength of colour to them - a more ghostly white with a hint of green might work better.
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I intentionally try to make colors stronger when painting 3mm as you need a more intense color to convey the same amount of pop in such a small space.
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Slightly better photos of the Celtic ghost warriors, with the green dimmed down a tad.
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I like those. I think that shade works better, looks more ghostly than shrubbery
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The Green Council, the White Council and the Blue Council, along with the Elf general and army standard and two subgenerals/heroes.
All figures from Microworld’s fantasy line or O8’s Gallic line.
The Green Council’s trees are made from loofa sponge fibers while the Blue Council has a tree made with a wire armature covered in glue and durapox. Rocks are either kitty litter or durepox.
For the Army standard, I cannibalized an artillery ammo dump and attached the flag to a unicorn-mounted sorceress. Again, these figures are standing on a 15cm x 15cm tile.
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I have to admit that, at first, I wasn’t too enthused with these chariots, particularly with the “caisson” arrangement of the teams. However, they paint up a treat! Not only that, they are big and the chariots themselves have enough space for two or three other figures.
On the flagged chariot, I have added two swordsmen and I think they really improve the look! The other chariots will be getting figures as I paint them.
Because Microworld uses a softer, more traditional, alloy than O8’s hyper hard, but brittle material, it’s quick and easy to take the bases off of individual figures with an exacto knife and a needle file.
I really like these, now! I see them as mobile archery platforms AND battle taxis that can also shock-charge shaken infantry.
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Here are some initial shots of the almost completed army. There are still some heroes, warmachines, and a couple archer regiments to paint, plus a lot of basing to do, but it is 90% on the table and more than 50% finished!
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WOW now that looks an army....not just coloured blobs...got me thinking now...wonderful job...love them
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Looking proper hoard like now!
Is that an 18” frontage for the whole army, deployed in depth?
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I keep telling myself I don't need another scale to work in, but 3mm moderns look so dinky for Kaiju games, and then you and others are making those microworld 3mm's look so good...
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:o :o :o Amazing stuff! Never really gave 3mm much thought but this is making me take a second look.
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Looking proper hoard like now!
Is that an 18” frontage for the whole army, deployed in depth?
Less, actually. Closer to 15”.
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I keep telling myself I don't need another scale to work in, but 3mm moderns look so dinky for Kaiju games, and then you and others are making those microworld 3mm's look so good...
Again, it is a freebie scale. That whole elven army cost around 50 USD, including postage and if I were to paint it to a tabletop standard, I would finish it in a weekend. And it can be stored in a cigar box.
So why don’t you need another scale again? It certainly can’t be time, money, or storage issues.
Think of 3mm as a scale where you get to experiment with armies and periods you would normally not do, or rules which you don’t want to rebase armies for, or simply for HUGE battles or ultraportable ones. I can stick a DBA setup, with everything, in a lunchbox.
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You overestimate the speed at which I paint armies, even to a tabletop standard :D Mostly its scenery though, however I've been talking with a friend about the options of doing a fantasy version of the perry brothers travel battles using these figures already so I'm sure I'll budge to temptation soon enough.
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I did a 7YW Travel Battle in 3mm.
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I made some 1 1/8th x 7/8th inch metal sabots to take two of my unit stands for game systems like Mayhem.
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These are fantastic, they look great painted up en masse.
I'd love to have a go with 3mm fantasy, but between being too heavily into 6mm already and microworld being difficult to obtain easily (at least not being hit with obscene import tax) I don't think I'll ever pick these up. Shame, as I'd love to see what could be done at this scale.
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Guarding the watch tower.
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The army works well with the scenery. Gives a good sense of scale.
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Thanks! Building the perfect 3mm board is an obsession of mine. I am not there yet, but I am getting closer!
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Here’s the first mob of orcs!
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Amazing brush control there. I'm a fair hand with the giant 6mm figures, and can barely manage it at that scale. Not sure how you pick out so much in 3-mil, but I like it!
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The figures are really well sculpted and made, so you can let contrast paints do most of the detailing work for you.