Wildspire Miniatures

 

A few years ago, I backed a couple of Gamefound campaigns by a company called "Blacklist Games". I backed for three sets of miniatures - a horror set, and two sets of fantasy miniatures. Unfortunately, a series of delays occurred, costs increased over the pandemic, and Blacklist ended up out of money and unable to fulfil a large number of crowdfunding projects they'd organised. 

I was relatively sanguine about the incident - crowd-funding is always a risk, and many people are too used to treating it as a pre-order instead. Blacklist had cut their margins to the bone to produce huge numbers of cheap, board game quality miniatures for role-players, and when things changed, they weren't able to continue. A number of other backers definitely feel that Blacklist crossed the line from poor judgement to being mis-leading. I would not back another Blacklist project, and leave it at that.

However, in some good news, a US company called Wildspire Miniatures purchased the rights to the miniatures, and offered original backers an opportunity to buy the miniatures at cost. And so, several years later, I now have two of the three sets of minis I originally ordered (the horror set has been left to a later fulfilment).

This is what I got - for how much is kind of difficult to say. Do I count the money lost to Blacklist? The money I paid Wildspire? In any event, it's more miniatures than I needed. There are a mix of "hero" characters and monsters, with the smaller monsters having duplicates, usually four of each. I really don't like monopose models in RPGs where I can avoid it, so there were plenty to clear out.

So, I separated out three sets of "useful monster minis" and found an assortment of friends who wanted a set. This still leaves me with plenty of useful figures to paint for RPGs, but now my friends also have a slightly more achievable volume of cheap miniatures.

I also chose to get rid of some of the monsters. Some went to my friends, others got lumped into an eBay sale a while back. I got rid of Cthulu because there's rarely a need for him in a campaign, and he's too established in the pop culture to be of any use in horror games. I didn't love the poses on the troll, ogre or dire bear, so off they went.

The demon lord also went, as did the acid elemental. The female giant was actually a difficult call - in some ways, I do quite like the sculpt, but her being on a "huge" base rather than a "large" base really reduced her utility as the bigger giants in Pathfinder don't share her general vibe, and come it at much later levels meaning I'd use her less often. There were also a few little details that I just didn't love about the sculpt, so when looking at a whole table of minis, she ended up in the "sell" pile.

So, everything remaining is now put away in boxes for later. The time taken to sort these all out is why I am avoiding big "bargain" purchases now. I have stuff on my "to do" list right away that I want to be getting on with, and these have literally gotten in the way of that getting finished. That said, if I haven't started these by the end of the year, I may seriously consider passing the rest on as well. If I am interested in running in person RPGs in the future, I need to commit my time to actually painting some of models I plan on using in them. If I'm just sitting on things, dreaming of the future and not doing anything, I can keep dreaming about it without a pile of boxes in my house.

Christmas and New Year Hobby

I have been pottering on with assembling the Halfling Blood Bowl team. I'd hoped to be a little further along than this, but an assortment of non hobby activities took up a bunch of time. Still, excellent human interaction and resting occurred. 

 

Games Workshop sent me their annual £10 voucher, and I used it towards buying some online only Halfling Star Players. I've also put some money from my eBay sales into picking up the new rulebook and a couple of Treemen (alongside a mat for Infinity), which should show up next month.

The space between Christmas and the New Year also had a meeting of what is intended to be a new gaming club: The War Dollies Collective. The hope is that this will turn into regular club nights, but at the moment these aren't finalised.

There were a wide range of activities on offer. There was a large kit-bashing area for folks to build whatever they fancied. There were also participation games - both some kind of car combat game and a small scale Napoleonic historical game.

I took advantage of the day to arrange a game of Infinity with one of the people I gave a demo to at Dice Cup earlier this year. We had an excellent 300 point game, with me taking White Company and my opponent Next Wave, playing a Direct Action mission.

The arrival of over 300 miniatures from Wildspire Miniatures has also taken up a chunk of time. These models were originally designed by Blacklist Miniatures, who then ended up being incapable of delivering. Wildspire purchased the moulds and produced these models, offering original backers a significant discount to acquire the miniatures. There's still a Horror set that Blacklist failed to deliver that Wildspire has purchased and not produced yet.

So, it has still been a very busy couple of weeks from a hobby perspective. The coming month has some LARP, some card games and some work travel which won't produce interesting things for the blog. Still, I have a few stories to tell about my Infinity game and the Wildspire minis that I'll tell in a short while.

Hobby Review of 2025

 

As we reach the end of 2025, I'm taking stock of what I got up to hobby wise this year. Much of the year has been taken up with a house move, but I did get a bunch of painting done before we moved. I haven't started painting in the new place just yet, but we should get onto that some time soon.

I started the year finishing up a Battletech Lyran lance. The idea here was to get to the point where if an opportunity for a starter game comes up, I'm ready to go with a painted lance. An opportunity hasn't come up yet, but it's a good thing to have ready to go.

HATE then ran a slow grow "introduction to N5" Infinity league, so I decided to get some miniatures painted up. I started with Oktavia Grimsdottir, and I think this was my favourite paint job this year. I'm incredibly pleased with how she came out and I'm hoping to get some more paint jobs to this standard this year.

I also got an elf rogue from Strata Miniatures Dungeons and Diversity line painted up. I'd had her part painted for a while, and was keen to get her done before I moved. Having a good range of potential adventurer miniatures is something I'm keen to build up.

Similarly, this Wizkids Frameworks Tiefling Warlock was a model I'd picked up alongside some models I needed for a D&D game. He got a nice simple tabletop quality paint job. I'm keen to plug through a few more useful fantasy models for future RPGs in the coming year.

I also got Agent Dukash painted up for my Shasvastii. He's no longer available in vanilla Combined Army since the most recent update. At least I got to run him at a tournament in vanilla before the rules changed!

These Hedge Witches from Conquest are good for Frostgrave and RPGs. In RPGs they might end up as PCs or NPCs, depending. Flexible miniatures like this are really great picks for RPGs.

And finally, I got these goblins painted up. I had these Aenor Miniatures on my paint table for months, if not years, before I finally got them done. It was great to get them finished before I packed up to move house.

So, a relatively quiet year from a painting point of view. The goal for the coming year . . . can wait, for now. I have thoughts, but for now, I can sit back and be proud of a good range of figures I got painted this year.

Work in Progress Wednesday - Terrain Connectors?

 

I finally got to the point of having some hobby tools out, and decided to start with the Dungeons and Lasers Caves Kickstarter. This is very fancy pre-painted RPG terrain produced by Archon Studios. I backed the Kickstarter and thought it would be good to get it all off sprue, and into some much better storage boxes.

My logic was to start with the simplest job - clipping out the terrain connectors. Doing a third of the add-ons connectors took up all the time I had that hobby evening. Whoops! Still, it was good to get something done, and its always best to start with eating your vegetables...

Aenor Goblins Finished

 

I finally finished the goblins by Aenor Miniatures that have been stuck on my desk forever. I'm pretty pleased with how they came out, and a bit annoyed that the passage of time has meant I forgot a few bits of how I did them, which meant when bits needed fixing due to overpaint, I struggled to get the right colour match.

This does remind me that I really need to work on getting half done bits and pieces finished before I move house. Not just because half finished projects are harder to move and you're more likely to miss things, but the delightful feeling of Just Finishing Things is probably going to be needed for morale purposes in the run up to the move.

I still need to finish up the new Conquest Druids, but the new item for the paint table is this Dwarf from Otherworld Miniatures. She's going to serve duty as a Templar in my Frostgrave warband, so I need to get her painted up before my next game.

Hedge Witches, Goblins, and a Plinth

 

This week, I finished up the Hedge Witches from Conquest Games. They were a good couple of miniatures to get my vibe back for painting. They're good options for Frostgrave, too.

I've also been plugging on with the Aenor Miniatures goblins. I got started on them ages ago with a sepia wash over off white, and they've been sitting for absolutely ages. I was very pleased with how a little drybrush really brought out the details on the cloak.

Three of the five are now finished and waiting for photography. I'm going to finish the last two before I count them all as "done". I'm also pondering the Steel Legion Drab base rim - maybe I should change it to black?

My big purchase that arrived this week was this 5" x 5" plinth from Fenris Games. I've picked it up for miniature photography so I've got an alternative way of raising miniatures up to the hills I'm currently using. It'll need washing and cleaning up before I get started on painting it, but I'm going to finish a few bits and pieces first.

End of month check in, and Marching forward

 

February has been really busy. I went to Tinbot III in Norwich, I've been busy having a clear out on eBay, I played a bunch of games at the club again, and my work was really rather busy as well. That did mean I didn't get quite as much painted as I'd have liked, but it was still a good month for hobby all told.

I got Dukash painted early in the month for the tournament, and he did well in one of the games I played him in..

The Tiefling Warlock also let me experiment with a possible Morat red skintone, but while I liked this one for the Tiefling it's not what I'm looking for for my Morats, so I'll try something else on another model until I work out what I'm looking for.

I had a bit of a painting stall for a couple of weeks after that. A mix of being exhausted after work, spending more time playing games, and prioritising getting stuff listed on eBay to sell over painting meant I didn't get anything else finished. This is fine. It's about priorities, and things being out of the flat before we move is more important than a few extra miniatures getting painted.

That said, the goal for March is to finish my half finished jobs - both these part painted models, but also finishing those half assembled Exrah that I abandoned out of frustration a while back. Which I definitely need to space out given . . . you know, that giving up in frustration issue I mentioned.

I also got in my first ever game of Frostgrave, which I'll write up on the blog later. It's a fun, swingy game that I really enjoyed. I think it's too random to try and make it competitive, which helps keep the pressure off.

I also picked up the John Blanche paint sets from Army Painter at the end of the month which I'm planning on using in some projects in the future. I'm pondering doing my Imperial Agents in a limited palette scheme using these paints but I'll need to do some test models to decide if that's the right call or not.

Overcoming brain weasels and finding joy

It has been a bit of a rotten week, and I'd stalled out a bit on painting. I've been working on my plans for 10th edition Astra Militarum, plus considering paint schemes for my Nomads and Bretonnians. I'm also really keen to get the Aenor Goblins that have been my Cursed Side Project for too long now.

I was getting to feel like I had a lot of painting I should be doing, and that was making it feel like a chore. So, one evening I grabbed some miniatures I wasn't at all invested in and just threw some contrast on them.

This Conquest Games Hedge Witch ended up being the one I got the furthest into. If you look closely there's a few spots I've missed on the base coats, but it's not far off getting finished up. It'll probably be one short paint session to finish her up.

I got in my Infinity campaign game for this round, playing a 250 point custom mission with my Shasvastii, and trying out some profiles for the new edition. More on that later.

I've also had a couple of arrivals in the post, too. First up are these miniatures from Black Magic Craft. They're produced in short runs, so when I saw a post mentioning they were available, I couldn't resist.

I also had this Bad Squiddo Pulp Heroines Kickstarter arrive. It's a nice, small set of six figures. I was thinking I didn't have much to use them for, but Annie has done a partnership with Forbidden Psalm to have free rules to use them in Last War or Endless Horrors from Between the Stars. That suddenly makes them a nice quick project with a purpose, which is quite exciting. I'm sort of day dreaming about how to base them, which is probably a good sign.

Tiefling Warlock and Combined Army Agent Dukash

 

In last week's update I mentioned I'd finished a couple of figures but hadn't had time to take fancy photos. Well, here's the fancy photos! I feel like I'm definitely getting the hang of this photography business.

First up is Agent Dukash, another Shasvastii for Infinity. In N5 he's now a Parachutist (Deployment Zone), and is pretty fighty. He's a hefty chunk of points, though, so he's not going to taken all that often. He's been very hit and miss for me so far, though I'm not sure if that's because he's very hit and miss, or just that it's a skill issue on my part.

Meanwhile, I also painted a Tiefling Warlock. This is a Frameworks miniature, and it's painted up really well. When I first got these models, I thought the details were a little soft, but I've been pleasantly surprised how it painted up. There's still a few areas of meh detail, but they aren't in areas you'll focus on.

To get this miniature done quickly, I painted it with contrast to start with, then gave it an Agrax Earthshade wash. Once this was dry, I drybrushed it with Karak Stone before picking up a few details, mostly with the skin. If I was doing this again, I might pick a couple of block colours to drybrush a more specific colour on, and other areas where I don't drybrush at all and use manual brush highlights.

I'm not sure if that's going to add a lot of time onto painting a model like this but I suspect it won't add much time on but will look much better. I'll give it a go in a future model and report back.

The end of eternal January

 

Well, I'm done with January. And also January is over. I had a pretty productive hobby month, finishing up a few models that have been on my paint table for a good while. This Lyran lance means I've definitely got enough models to try Battletech when I'm inspired to.

I am a little behind on "buy less than I paint" right now, down to a Made to Order box of Blood Bowl Halflings and Blue Giant Studios ending a few product lines. But six painted, twelve bought isn't too catastrophic, and is easily recoverable. If I can finish Agent Dukash and the goblins I've had on and off my desk for a whole age, I'll be back to neutral.

Getting back into painting Infinity was pretty darned great. Getting Oktavia painted and playing a game with her was a really positive vibe. There's a small amount of stress to be painting miniatures that I'm likely to use soon, which I'm not liking and will likely avoid in future. I've got an Infinity tournament next weekend that I'm currently planning on playing Combined Army at. I'm starting to consider shifting to playing one of my mercenary factions for a while until I've got the core of Combined Army painted up to take the pressure off.

I also managed in the last week to get another quick pass of undercoating done. The Anathematic, Rindak and Dartok are now ready for painting. I'm not sure what I'm going to pick up and paint next - I'm thinking I want to get a bit of volume painted, so I really need to go with what's enthusing me in the moment.

I also got back to HATE at its new venue, which I really like. It's a little harder for me to get to and needs a little more planning to reach. But I've had a couple of games there now, and I'm looking forward to more. I've also missed being able to get food at the venue, and have appreciated being able to get dinner there.

The Old World campaign day was also a great success. It confirmed to me that I like the Old World game, and that the effort to put my miniatures together and paint them won't be a waste. I'm not going to be doing quite as many events this year, but this and the upcoming Infinity tournament in February is a nice start to the year while I have the time.

A pilot, a rogue, some unexpected weather and behind the scenes footage

 

I managed to get Oktavia Grimsdottir finished up for my first game at the club slow grow. She's a human pilot who works for Aida Swanson the Shasvastii smuggler. It was a little bit of a challenge to come up with colours that fitted my Shasvastii scheme, but by painting her jacket the colour I use for their tech, and her hair the colour I use for their guns, there's enough visual clues to tie her in.

I also finished the elf rogue by Strata Miniatures. This is from their "Dungeons and Diversity" range of a bunch of traditional fantasy heroes in wheelchairs. If you want to run a character in a wheelchair, there's homebrew rules available for a combat wheelchair for D&D, while Pathfinder 2e remastered has equipment rules for wheelchairs in the Player Core book.

I will need to get a bit of a shuffle on with painting. Blue Giant Studios was ending a few lines of minis and having a sale, which meant a few bits and pieces of those turned up. I also ordered the Blood Bowl "Made to Order" Halflings, which turned up within a week rather than 180 days later, which is inconvenient for getting ahead of my painting numbers. With the "Made to Order" for the Empire Wagon just announced, I'm looking a little nervously at the paint desk.

While Storm Eowyn meant I was mostly expecting the weather to be absolutely awful, I woke up Sunday to calm, sunny skies, and rushed to find everything I've been putting off undercoating over the winter. This was definitely the right move as it turned absolutely miserable on the Sunday, and I'd have got nothing done.

Two Daturazi Witch Soldiers and Bit and Kiss now have their zenithal finished and are ready to paint. These are pretty staple picks for Vanilla Combined Army, especially the Daturazi. They're not going straight onto the paint table just yet, as I've got a tournament in early February. I use contrast a lot in my Combined scheme, and I worry about it rubbing off if I take a half finished model that hasn't been varnished to a game...

Meanwhile, I've also finished fishing out an assortment of minis I've painted over the past few years to use for Frostgrave, written a list and picked my wizards spells. That will be a future blog post, and while I was taking photos of this week's completed miniatures, I took a few glamour shots of them too. I still want to play with my lighting set up a little more - I'm not 100% happy with it - but I do feel that my miniature photography has been improving of late.