Monday 15 July 2013

New Hobbit stuff


Yesterday I picked up some new Hobbit stuff at GW store. Grim Hammers look great - just like heavily armored dwarf warriors should (only with the right proportions, not like dwarves in WFB with their exaggerated features). The Great Eagles are cast in a few seperate pieces that should be easy to assemble. What I liked in particular is that the transparent stems which hold them up come in two different heights. That would make it possible to add varying heights and make them look more dynamic when placed next to each other. Their bases are also transparent and unlike any other sizes of bases from the range so it's not possible to place them on a cavalry movement tray.
Putting together Radagast on sleigh will probably drive me nuts as there are so many pieces that putting the whole thing together will be tricky. It may even be worse if the elements don't fit together well and need some more bending into shape. I haven't checked which case it is yet. I'll worry about it when I start working on the model.

Overall, I'm really happy with the minis. GW is constantly improving the quality of their sculpts, both the plastic ones and finecast in particular. Those are a HUGE improvement compared to the first miniatures cast in this material.
However, there are no roses without thorns and here are a few examples.


Thror's sword was wrapped around his wrist, I needed to put it in hot water and bend back it to its proper shape. It's still not perfect and needs more work. It's time consuming as the sword is very thin and fragile so it would be easy to break it, especially if you plan to use the miniature for gaming.
Other than that the sculpt is fantastic. The armor is very well detailed and the emblem on the shield - that's just amazing. In general the details look really sharp and it really looks like finecast might be beginning to live up to the initial expectations.


 When I first looked at this sprue I was angry. If you look closely you'll notice that mounted Azog's prosthetic arm doesn't end in a hook. Like it or hate it, it was one of his most characteristic features in the movie and resculpting the ending would be very challenging. Fortunately, the hook is cast in the Warg's mane.
Azog's a big one. He's much taller than an average orc and the base of mounted version is also bigger than a regular cavalry one (but still smaller than that of a Mordor troll).

Grim Hammer's captain is another example of how much finecast minis have improved in quality. The facial features are very well defined and his armor looks fantastic too. The only problem is that the handle of his axe is very uneven and bending it back to proper shape will take some extra time. What's more, thin and protruding elements like that are bound to snap sooner or later and that might be very frustrating if you're a gamer and transport your minis to tournaments regularly.

4 comments:

  1. I'd certainly love to collect these minis - I am just not convinced by the quality of the finecast material, and GWs pricing is still frankly ridiculous... however, I look forward to seeing how you paint these guys up...

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  2. GW's pricing policy is sick. What I dislike in particular is the fact that now you have to pay the same amount of money for a box with 12 minis that would get you a box of 24 in the past...

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  3. Where did you get the hobbit finecast figures? They seem pretty rare now, I'm looking for Thrain

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