[Review] Wargames Atlantic's Giant Spiders

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Heyhey, happy Sunday. Here's my review of Wargames Atlantic's plastic giant spiders set!


https://www.battlebrushstudios.com/2021/07/review-wargames-atlantic-giant-spiders.html




Hope you like the article.

[Codsticker]

Nice review Sigur. I always enjoy reading one of your reviews even if it is of something I wouldn't buy.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Nice review Sigur. I always enjoy reading one of your reviews even if it is of something I wouldn't buy.

Thanks very much, Sir! Always appreciated. I wasn't sure about getting this one either, but couriousity got the better of me..

[Chief Lackey Rich]

I went with a fairly naturalistic shades-of-brown scheme on mine, but that purple's got me rethinking my decision.  Outlandish and striking is better than boringly normal any day of the week.  Web effects look great too, I didn't really do anything fancy with the ones I did (and traded off a bunch of victims).

The box design (by Henry Hyde) does it all right...

I'm going to disagree on that.  If you're selling a box that's chock full of figs, taking a painted product photo of less than half the box contents is a definite fail.  Yeah, it does say there are 24 minis in the text, but it's only showing 6 and 6 of the big and small spiders, not 12 and 12 and not the 12 "bagged lunch" minis (which don't even get a mention, much less an photo image) and only one shot of a "starship trooper" spider, so you're not even seeing that there are two different gun arms.  I've sold several boxes of these things for the local FLGS just by pointing out that there's twice as many spiders as you see at first glance - people just do not register on the text when browsing the shelves, it's all about the photos.

...one arm holding a gun (clever design. May work as a bio-weapon or as a tech-y one with one fleshy bit on top). You'll also get a pair of bionic or mechanically enhanced spider legs. So you'll be able to turn both big spiders on each sprue into a sci-fi spider, but only one will carry a gun.

There are two different gun arms, one left-handed (clawed?) and one right.  In the first frame shot you can see them in the extreme upper left and the "cell" near the lower left with the human victim fig in it.  You can arm every spider with one gun, or you can do half of them dual-wielding like bosses. 

Probably also worth mentioning that you get a lot of spare legs no matter how you build your poses, which is handy for the bits box and the odd freakshow conversion.



Hmm, I guess I did do some of them purple after all. 

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Huh, you're absolutely right about the number of guns there! No idea how I missed that. Shows how interested I was in the pewpewguns. I'll fix that in the text.

I absolutely agree with your ideas on freaky conversions. This kit works really well for that.

[Grumpy Gnome]

I agree with Rich about the box and I have my own issues with the sci-fi arms but otherwise I agree with your review. You paint scheme is cool and the web effect brilliant. Thanks for sharing how you did it.

This kit is one those “every fantasy gamer needs at least one” kid of kits. Giant Spiders Are such a staple of the genre and you can use them for more than just 28mm. They can be a bit fiddly to assemble but worth it in the end.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

My thoughts exactly, and I think this is what plastics really work well for. I never really thought I'd need giant spiders, but being a Fantasy gamer it was inevitable that I need them at some point. 

Thanks for the compliments on the paint scheme. As I said in the article - the main thing was making a decision, because I knew that pretty much any option would be valid.

The web stuff is a very simple and surprisingly robust effect. I've seen it used tons of times before, but never tried it myself (mostly because I rarely painted giant spiders (apart from some boardgame ones and the goblin spider riders from the Battle for Skull Pass warhammer box), so I rarely needed it. Also, I'm not wildly in love with basing and effect gimmicks which may overshadow the painting. But here it fits the theme so well that I thought it was a nice addition.

The assembly isn't easy (and that assembly instructions article by WSS is a godsent.), but it's worth it, because it gets you really good looking giant spiders, not to mention a ton of conversion options for all sorts of ghastly things.

But thanks for the feedback and your opinions on the kit and review. I never really thought that the picture showing fewer than the full contents being an issue, but I see your point.

[Abbner Home]

The cultist - spider hybrids are wonderful - thanks for sharing.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

The cultist - spider hybrids are wonderful - thanks for sharing.

Thanks, although I didn't intend to hijack the thread.  They were originally up on the Frostgrave child board here:

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=131798.msg1676301#msg1676301

Also, I'm not wildly in love with basing and effect gimmicks which may overshadow the painting. But here it fits the theme so well that I thought it was a nice addition.

Agreed, I hate it when the base overshadows the figure sitting on it.  I tend to go with very neutral (or bland, if you prefer) basing partly because of that - and partly because I sell a lot of my stuff sooner or later and figure the end user will wind up redoing things to fit their own basing style, so why make things harder on them?

The webbing really looks nice on those victims, though.  Have to try experimenting with some of that myself.

[BZ]

Great review! I love those spiders too! The assembly is a bit fiddly, but in exchange You get great poseability. And yes, everybody needs giant spiders, and this set fills a huge gap on the market (Im a fan of Wargames Atlantic for that).

[Grumpy Gnome]

Someone could do with making more plastic sprue multi-genre vermin. Sort of an updated version of the one GW used to do. Perhaps a sprue with a wolf, rat, bat, beetle, snake, lizard etc.

[Sunjester]

A great review, thanks.
I wasn't going to bother picking up a box because I'd recent bought a bunch of mixed size 3d print jobs (but not as nice figures as these) and some expensive victims from a Russian seller (expensive because of the shipping cost!).
Now I'm having second thoughts.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Folks considering spider-related projects might also take a look at Mortal Arrow Miniatures (aka the Tikki Troll and Fungus guys) for add-ons to this set.  They do a neat little bag of small-to-tiny spiders (great for sticking to a WA spider as hatchlings riding Momma) as well as a bunch of more oddball arachnids and insects.  Probably the only company making figs of the obscure bugs that show up in that old Queen of the Demonweb Pits D&D module. 

They're kind of expensive (very much a boutique minis shop) but hey, you saved all that money on the bargain Wargames Atlantic figs, right? 









https://www.mortalarrow.com/bazaar/mortal-arrow-miniatures/

[Battle Brush Sigur]

@BZ: Thanks very much! Yeah, I agree about the trade-off of ease of assembly vs. posability (and conversion options!) is very well struck here. Some people I talked to would prefer easier assembly, but in my mind it's just right.

@Grumpy Gnome: Indeed, that would be a great way to make use of plastics. I love me some Generic Fantasy Stuff, and I mean that in the best possible way.

@Sunjester: Cheers! I'm sure that your option will do as well. The good thing is that you can combine giant spiders from all sorts of sources and it'll look alright (or NOT alright rather, because spiders of course trigger various degrees of unsettling feelings to the human onlooker ). It's a good set though, especially with the addition of the smaller giant spiders.

Heyhey, here's a little aftermath thing that happened after I was done with the spiders:





I went to Heresy's website, bought a bighuge broodmother spider. Then I got scared and bought a crack team of spider-hunting heroes as well. Now I finally got a proper boss spider (mounted on one of the oval Renedra bases, just so you get an idea of the size of this thing), and having more Fantasy heroes at my disposal surely isn't a bad thing. Also, I finally got Shae, the elf ranger! She's a bit of a legend, isn't she.

Hope you like them! I'll write more about them on the blog some time in the future, and hopefully will adorn my words with nicer photos too.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Looks nice.  Wouldn't care to bet on the heroes in that fight though.  They seem fated to be desiccated corpses despite the lovely paint jobs.

Sculpting style on broodmom reminds me a bit of Reaper's demonic spider, which is even bigger (120mm base in the image, and I had to reposition the legs a ton to fit even at that).  Mine was white Bones, but I think they still make a metal version as well - the comparative prices are one of the better arguments for Bones existing IMO.



Frostgrave-y stats here if anyone wants them:

https://brokenstarsburningships.blogspot.com/2019/05/emperor-spider-custom-monster-for.html