Who does Plastic Xenos?

[Ultravanillasmurf]

My search-fu is weak, I have not been able to find any lists of hard plastic Xenos suitable for Bug Hunt in the Five Parsecs From Home Compendium.

Now you might say "what about the Wargames Atlantic Harvesters?".

Well there are a lot of issues with them.

First they are very large.

I think that is a 50mm base.
They are (in my opinion) badly designed, they probably should have six limbs to be scary and the models should have proper ball and socket joints.

How many have you seen assembled and painted here?

The Mantic Reapers/Tormentors are a possibility, however the set is sculpted for a multi-figure base 100x40mm, so many of them will just fit on 25x50 base.
I have ten from the Ambush set to assemble.

I am hoping the teased Mazon Labs expansion will have a more suitable set of sculpts

After that, it is down to Tyranids(tm) and Disney Aliens.
I have various generations of Termagant and their cousins but they are too 40K.

Disney Aliens are just a bit too recognisable (I have a set somewhere).

Suggestions gratefully received.

[Hobgoblin]

Do they have to be plastic?

You can get "scorpion bugs" from Irregular Miniatures at £1.76 a pop: they're great generic bugs:



These ones are on 25mm Frostgrave bases, I think. Obviously, you could go to town with fancy carapace schemes; I painted these ones in about an hour flat to use as Hluss in a Tekumel game.

[voltan]

Hard plastic is always going to make it difficult to find something, but a quick search on Nick's found these https://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=17722, no idea if they'd be suitable for you though.

[Hobgoblin]

Also, while they're doubtless in the dreaded "restic" and perhaps a little goofy, this Mantic Dreadball team would give you a batch of bugs at quite a reasonable price and a 25mm footprint:

[Hobgoblin]

And with the same caveats, there are these fellows too:

[zemjw]

I built 4 of the WA ones, and it was unpleasant, to say the least. I ended up buying 3mm acrylic rod and making flying stands for them. I haven’t painted them yet, but they are in the queue. The small single piece bugs in the box are even worse, as only 3 of the legs touch the ground, and the balance is dreadful. Huge missed opportunity on WA's part

On actual xenos, some of the zombicide invader ones could work. The best ones are probably in the KS exclusives, but maybe ebay.

Reaper chronoscope is worth a check, as there are some aliens in there.

The mantic KOW Nightstalker range is worth a glance, as there are some creepy figues in it, eg https://www.manticgames.com/kings-of-war/nightstalkers/reaper-regiment/

[Hobgoblin]

Again, the material's not hard plastic, but there are some interesting 3D-printed options on Etsy. I found these with a search for 'bug aliens'. The plus side of 3D-printed stuff is that there tends to be very little clean-up compared even with hard plastic:

[hubbabubba]

While admittedly, the large base size is a problem, especially if you want to use them in dungeon crawls, the Wargames Atlantic Bugs aren't so bad, especially in terms of bang for your buck.

Persist with them, drilling the bases and sinking the point of the talens into the holes goes a long way to improving their stability and making them easier to assemble.

[mcfonz]

You can get these frim other places so just a link to them but gale force 9 sell their alien minis in packs separate from the boardgame.

https://www.bgextras.co.uk/aliens-board-game/aliens-game/aliens-alien-warriors-miniatures

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Hard plastic is always going to make it difficult to find something, but a quick search on Nick's found these https://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=17722, no idea if they'd be suitable for you though.

Thanks, I have one of the Aliens boxes (plus Heroes and the load lifter) from Wayland's Forge a while back.

Maybe I should dig them out.

While admittedly, the large base size is a problem, especially if you want to use them in dungeon crawls, the Wargames Atlantic Bugs aren't so bad, especially in terms of bang for your buck.

Persist with them, drilling the bases and sinking the point of the talens into the holes goes a long way to improving their stability and making them easier to assemble.

Nice work on them.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

I built 4 of the WA ones, and it was unpleasant, to say the least.

I am glad it is not just me.

The mantic KOW Nightstalker range is worth a glance, as there are some creepy figues in it, eg https://www.manticgames.com/kings-of-war/nightstalkers/reaper-regiment/

They are very creepy, they are unfortunately designed for a 40mm deep base. The three I have assembled are long.
I will see if I can get a photograph together.

[Hobgoblin]

It's yet another "not quite right" suggestion, but have you seen the cheap, board-game-style miniatures from Blacklist Games? They come with integral round 25mm bases, and you can often get them on eBay for £1.50 or £2 each.

There are a few that might work - giant beetles, scorpions and spiders; worm-type things; and the troglodytes, which, while bipedal reptiles, are sufficiently weird-looking that they might work as 'bugs'. I picked up some a couple of years back to use as generic dangerous predators in sci-fi games.

[Hobgoblin]

These are the Blacklist fire beetles (quite alien-looking!), from RPGGeek:

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Nightstalker Reapers
Not fully assembled,  but you can see the size issue.

[Will Bailie]

Getting back to WGA, instead of the Harvesters you could look at the giant spiders set.  You can leave off the abdomen and still have a freaky looking beastie, and it's up to you how many limbs you attach.  They are still pretty finicky to assemble, though, and are also fairly large.