Industry Talk: Rob Lane Mierce Miniatures

   
    

Well a few months back now I interviewed Rob Lane, then of BaneLegions, about their miniature line and tried teasing a few tidbits of information out of him. It was a fairly long interview, but people seemed to enjoy it and it certainly got a fair few hits. So when I heard that things were all change at BaneLegions, Templars Forge and Maelstrom Games I decided to ask him a few more questions, to see if I could clear up what is going on for you all.

FrontLine Gamer: So then, the times they are a changing at Templars Forge, Maelstrom Games and BaneLegions, or according to your press release they are! There are a number of new names to get used to, most notably Mierce Miniatures. Can you talk us through the logic of starting up Mierce Miniatures as a separate entity from Maelstrom Games?

Rob Lane: Mierce Miniatures the company is the end result of thoughts we had when Maelstrom Games first started to produce miniatures, but it has really been kick-started by the available space - there isn't enough, we're growing so fast - and the environmental conditions we've had to work in, which have been awful, frankly. Producing polyurethane resin miniatures has to be done in a well-ventilated space with an even temperature, and only by moving somewhere suitable could that happen, and we felt that having another property in the possession of Maelstrom Games simply wasn't the best way to go.

Additionally, having Mierce Miniatures separate from Maelstrom Games makes things a lot neater for myself as Managing Director of both companies and enables us to pursue funding for Mierce Miniatures as a creative new manufacturer, rather than part of an older retail company.

BaneLegions Price rises.

   
    

Well it's not all good news today I'm afraid to report. You see the first he giveth then he taketh away. It seems that unfortunately BaneLegions are unable to maintain the current prices in their miniatures range due to the increasing costs apparently of making polyurethane resin miniatures has gone up in price. So that means they're going to be passing the cost onto us the consumer, which you know sucks a bit, but hey we're all used to price rises right? Luckily though they've given us fair warning as the prices are going up on Friday 6th July. So what are those price increases?

So who finally won the Blood Maw Vore...

        
    

I just want a hug!!!

... obviously this is the slightly delayed prize draw for BaneLegions excellent Blood Maw Vore, so I'm not going to dick abot and delay telling you who won it any longer:

700 followers, time for the Blood Maw Vore...

  
   

Right, I've been able to get things back to something resembling a kind of normality on this Blog after the last few prize giveaways ave been completed.I mean they all very rapidly merged into one megaprize giveaway!!! and keeping track of it all was far too much like multitasking for my poor in effective make brain. So with the last couple of days only having the Sedition Wars: Battle for Alabaster giveaway to run I've been able to get on top of some articles and hobby stuff I've been wanting to finish... but more on those over the coming weeks. Firstly I'd like to congratulate Elbrun on winning the signed Freebooter's Fate rulebook, sounds like the poor blighter is having a rough time of it, what with this screwed up economy. So I'm glad the fates have smiled on him a little.

Review: Vore BaneLegions (world exclusive)

OK so writing this Blog has given me some quite privileged access to not only industry types but also some damn fine early swag! How else would I be able to get a review of a product up on my Blog on the day it's revealed, and not even released yet? I'd like to thank Rob Lane for sending me this nightmare inducing beastie! The concept sketch for the Vore was first revealed actually on this Blog, in the interview I did with Rob Lane. Luckily for those of you who read my Blog this also means you get the full lowdown on it as a product before it's released. So is it worth spending your hobby budget on?

Product description

Right, I got mine in a pre-production box, without a nice cover art laden card sleeve, that most big BaneLegions monsters come in.It was wrapped in a lot of protective bubble wrap, it's not getting damaged in transit, that's for sure! Right before I go on any further I have to work out whether the Vore is a he or a she, and like all good vets I've checked between the legs... and I can report it's a baby boy! So he is a he. With that out of the way, what is he comprised of?

The Blood Maw Vore (to give him his full name) is made up mostly of a huge chunky piece of resin, comprising the main body, sans limbs. His right arm comes with claws pre-attached while his left arm has three separate claws that require attaching to his hand... or whatever you call it. There are two stumpy little legs that are cut just below the knee, handily there's one left one and one right one. Each foot require the attaching of three large claw like toe nails, he so needs to see a chiropodist! Then is his... erm... I was going to call it his face, but that's not quite right, nope I think I'll have to call it his mouth! Inside this mouth goes a lot of fang like teeth, 28 in total. That brings the number of total components, including a large square resin base (not pictured) to 44. But seriously, there is not too much to do in terms of assembly, and it's mostly those teeth and claws that bump the component score up.

So who has won Krull, Servile Lord of Dis...

I WILL STOMP YOUR HEAD IN! TWICE!!! MWAHAHAHAAAA.

24 hours left to enter the Krull giveaway!!!

   
   

Soon he shall find a new home!!!

Yep this is the last time I'm going to pimp out the Krull giveaway contest, so if you don't take the opportunity to enter now then I guess you just don't want that badass demon beast thingy at the top of the page... and if that is the case you seriously need your sanity checking. No honestly, you might actually be mad. As always the rules are simple. Just be a public follower of this Blog. No need to comment or re-post this on your Blog, or any other crap I might want to make you do. Just follow this site publicly. Surely that's not too hard is it? If it is you can find out how to follow this Blog here. You can also check out the original interview with Rob Lane here, where he kindly agreed to donate Krull as a prize, terribly nice chap! Any way I'll be drawing someones name randomly out of the hat tomorrow (12:00 GMT 13/4/2012) and I'll post the results up shortly afterwards, so you have until then to get your name in the prize draw. I will then give the winner 1 whole week to contact me to make the necessary arrangements to get Krull to wherever he needs to go... because if you don't claim him he'll fly off somewhere else. Nobody stands Krull up on a date. Peace out!

Just a gentle reminder (FREE STUFF!!!)

See I told you he was bloody big!!!

Hello my friends. This is just another gentle reminder for you all, that if you are yet to do so, you still have 7 whole days to follow this site before I make my Krull, Servile Lord of Dis prize draw. Now I've had a number of emails asking me just how magnificently massive he is as a miniature... well look at the picture above. Standing next to him, on his base is a slightly taller than Games Workshop Knight from the BaneLords range. Said knight is the 36mm high Guillaume Le Pèlerin, Vagrant Knight. Yes... that's right... let it all sink in... just... a... bit... longer... and we're done! Seriously this miniature is utterly beastly in size, poor old Guillaume is standing to his full height, on top of some rocks on top of Krulls base and his head just about comes up to Krull's knee! Holy crap! If I was you Guillaume I'd stick to taking on dragons, you'll probably have a better chanece! Now I hope you can all fully appreciate the glorious majesty of  Krull, (who ate all the pies) Servile Lord of Dis. All hail Krull! And now I want a pie!!!

How to enter prize giveaways on this Blog

    

Come on... tell me that's not worth winning!!!

Right, I've had an awful lot of concerned folks emailing me desperately asking how they can 'follow' my Blog so they can be in with a chance of winning the sexy Krull miniature. Firstly don't panic there's plenty of time to go yet before I make the prize draw. Well, rather than respond to anymore emails individually I've decided to produce a handy little guide. Just so people are aware here's rundown of how you follow a Blog:

Now that's what I call timing!

  
 

Hey look at that! I go and do an interview with Rob Lane with regards to his fabulous BaneLegions range and get a lot of American's excited... AND... then Cool Mini or Not announce they'll be stocking the BaneLegions range. Coincidence? Well actually yes it it is I had absolutely no idea this announcement was forthcoming I promise you. However, for those of you across the pond who contacted me to ask if there was a retailer in the US... well here you go! Cool Mini or Not will be stocking the entire range for your purchasing pleasure. Enjoy. Peace out!

Interview with Rob Lane of BaneLegions

   

I thought I'd start with this impressive beast! Krull, Servile Lord of Dis.

Right well a few weeks back now I did an introduction article for the BaneLegions range, I don't mind admitting it was slightly out of of date, as it had some how got lost in my Blogger draft edits pile. Thankfully though Rob Lane of BaneLegions offered to bring me up to speed on what exactly is going on, and where the product range is heading. What follows is a *ahem* not so *ahem* brief discussion I had with him about a few things. Don't worry I've cut out all the chat about man flu, getting old and what brand of thermal socks are best (it has to be Thinsulate, right?). I've even managed to wrangle a bit of information out of him with regards time scales he's been so reluctant to be pinned down to and three sexy concept sketches I'll be showing you. So read on, there might even be a prize in it for you at the end, but I couldn't say for sure...

Frontline Gamer: Firstly thanks for agreeing to let me badger you with my questions! Before we start on the ‘real’ questions can you tell us all a bit about yourself, your staff and your company, and how you got yourselves into the industry? And why?
 
Rob Lane: Well, both Tim and I have been playing wargames for over twenty years, and it was a natural progression that – after having numerous “normal” jobs – we would decide to pursue something to do with wargaming. I began Maelstrom Games back in 2001, after becoming very tired of commuting to an IT job, and I recruited Tim (who I had known for years as part of my local wargaming club, the Dragon Slayers) to be my studio director in 2008, a job he fulfils today - which includes looking after sculptors as well as making moulds and casting the miniatures - after having to make the tea for two years. As well as Tim there's our photographer Stuart White, ex-Games Workshop; and Jamie Wright and Niall McWalter, who cast our miniatures along with Tim. Lastly, but certainly not leastly, there's Dan Melia, who cleans up and packs the miniatures into their boxes, amongst other jobs I give him.

Frontline Painter: Maagaan Warlock of Baalor WIP 2 (Flesh and inner cloak)

   
   

He looks alright so far... but getting to this point? Phew!

So my first WIP on this miniature was a bit of a beast. For that I apologise, but I really do believe that the first thing to painting a good miniature is good prep work. So sure maybe I went over the top a bit, but if you think that was bad you should wait and see what I do with the the painting guide!!! Firstly before you start painting you need to get yourself a pot of 'dirty' water to clean your brushes and a pot of 'clean' water to thin your paints down.Plus what ever mixing palette you use, be that a tile, a mixing palette or even a wet palette.

Frontline Painter: Maagaan Warlock of Baalor WIP 1 (prep work)

  

Maagaan Warlock of Baalor and bane of green stuff!!!

So this is my first painting guide type article since I hurriedly painted my Sorylian Cruiser for the House of Paincakes HoP Idol contest. That guide was actually pretty well received, which surprised me. What people liked about it apparently was how detailed it was. So again with this guide I'm going to put a lot of detail into the guide, and if at points I'm teaching grandma how to suck eggs I apologise. But I guess I personally feel it's more important to be precise about these things rather than skip over details and leave some poor sod clueless and scratching their head.

Picking a Project

Yeah as I may have intimated to you on Thursday this is the 'one-off' project I wanted to attempt to try and kick start my desire to paint again. If the hints weren't strong enough SinSynn made me blow the big surprise by doing comparison shots for him! Why did I choose this particular miniature? Well it's pretty simple really. Although I own a lot of lovely resin sculpts from a number of high quality producers, like Studio McVey, Kingdom Death and of course Banelegions, only a few stood out for various reasons. I also knew that painting anything from the massive backlog of miniatures for the various games I currently play would be a bit of a mental barrier, as it would simply feel like I was starting to paint a faction again. Something of a psychological block that for me at the minute. So I needed a one off display project really, something to get me thinking about painting again. I wanted to do something with a bit of non-metallic-metal, or NMM from here on out, because I want all my Infinity miniatures to use this technique and quite frankly I'm a little bit rusty with it, so I wanted the practice. I was never great at it in the first place either. I also wanted a miniature I could use my Secret Weapon crushed glass snow on, because I've had it for a while now and I really want to use it so I can do a review of the stuff.

So I set about looking for a fully armoured miniature that looked a bit Nordic or at the very least like it was dressed for colder climates. Digging through my boxes (yes I said boxes) of unpainted miniatures I finally came to rest on a few choices actually. There was the Kings Men, Buthcher, Forge Priest and Survivor Male all from Kingdom Death. Meanwhile from Studio McVey I was tempted to start Vitharr Bearclaw, Isabella or The Raven Priest. I quickly ruled out Isabella and The Raven Priest from Studio McVey because of the lack of metal on both miniatures. After looking at the Forge Priest from Kingdom Death I decided he looked more like he belonged in a dusty wasteland, as does the Male Survivor. I also felt the Kings Man looked like he belonged on some pristine marble courtyard somewhere. So this left me deciding between the Buthcher, Vitharr Bearclaw and Maagaan. I started to see Vitharr Bearclaw in some meadow somewhere during spring and I really didn't feel up to painting the Butcher from Kingdom Death, as I felt I wanted to pick my skills up a little bit again before attempting him because he's limited edition. So this left me with Maagaan who I really wasn't too fussed about ruining with my piss poor paint job if I'm honest about it! I mean I can always just buy another one.

Review: Banelegions Maagaan Warlok of Baalor

  

Maagaan encased in a cunning spell of binding... ahem... it's a blister pack.

So after yesterday's exceedingly late article on Banelegion's, I'm guessing some of you are wanting me to review some of the miniatures I own, right? Well oh go on then, you've twisted my arm! So where to start? Well I've decided to start with Maagaan Warlock of Baalor. Why you ask? Well if you've been reading my Blog of late you'll know that the painting side of my hobby has taken a bit of a kicking over the last few years. So I've been looking for something to help rekindle my love of painting... seriously, if that isn't a big enough hint then I don't know what the hell is!Lets just say I had an incentive to review this miniature first.

Product Description

Maagaan, who is not to be confused with a Renault Mégane, is a Warlock of Baalor apparently. I'm sure it's a fascinating job I really am and I guess he must be a terribly important sort. Any way, what he is in reality is a very fine sculpt from the very talented hands of Jacques-Alexander Gillois. It's also cast in resin and is a very fine quality reproduction of the original I'm sure. The miniature itself is cast into five individual parts, and has your standard square slotta base to sit in. The largest part of the miniature is undoubtedly the main body. The two arms are the next two most substantial pieces, one his sword arm and the other his magical wand arm. Although I'm sure Maagaan by the look of him is too manly to call it a wand himself, he probably refers to it as a 'rod of power' or some such name... but we all know it's a wand really. Next up is the fur cloak insert, a fiddly piece of resin to attach to be sure, and one I could happily have lived without if truth be told. But that fur cloak wasn't as fiddly as the sword scabbard, man that contact point is positively titchy. Still the fur cloak was the most awkward of pieces to get sitting right. I'll briefly mention the very large resin vent's on this miniature here, simply because they're quite evident in the picture, all I'll say is that they're a bit 'unwelcome' but if you take your time and are careful they won't pose any major issues.

Banelegions, beasties and unpronoucable names!!!

 
    

I originally drafted this article out at the end of summer last year (2011), but for some reason I never got round to finishing it off. It was around the time I did my articles on Studio McVey and Kingdom Death, it was meant to be 'third' in a series, so I guess you could say this article is actually really, really late! When I actually started writing it though I was fairly skint. In fact I probably made Greece and Iceland look positively flush with cash, and sadly this state of affairs is still the case, in fact I might be worse off! I hadn't at the time been able to look at picking any of these up, and so for this article I asked the the lovely chaps at the Maelstrom if they'd allow me to take shots of some of their Banelegion stuff, and have a general ferret around in their boxes (it's not as dirty or illicit as it sounds), so I'd be able to do some reviews maybe... this turned out to be a cunning sales ploy. Because I ended up getting the Terror of Fortriu and Guillaume le Perlerin as they're both lovely figures. Hell I've also picked up a few more since and will be reviewing them all separately over the next few months. This article is just a brief overview though of the range of models and a bit about the Banelegions range in general.

Photography courtesy of Mrs Frontline Gamer, aka Dr Brainiac.

The first thing to point out about the Banelegions range is that it is split currently into two categories, Banelords being your heroic miniatures and Banebeasts being the gribbly monsters. The second thing I have to say about the product line known as 'Banelegions' is that without a shadow of a doubt it contains some of the most incomprehensible and tongue twisting names in the entire hobby. That's saying something, because we love our weird sounding names us nerds. We all know that fantasy and sci-fi universes tend to suffer from what I like to call 'random name generation syndrome', a process whereby letters of the alphabet are picked at random to create names that not even a cunning linguist can pronounce. But, Banelegions takes the gold medal, and by a big margin! Names like N'nhaak'chshir and Oacyning make the likes of Euryalia, Magagg and Guillaume le Perlerin seem positively bland by comparison... however, I'm reliably informed by Rob Lane that the names are all indeed ye olde English, and not just a random conflation of letters drawn haphazardly from a hat. I have no reason to doubt him, but, I still have my suspicions! All I can say is thank the lord that we still don't speak ye olde English like Geoffrey Chaucer, it's hard enough being dyslexic with modern English.