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Mod Edit: Monsters of Underdeep 2 is live!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1629942774/minion-miniatures-the-monsters-of-underdeep-2


For those of you who have not heard of us before, Minion Miniatures is a new company looking to produce a range of multi part plastic miniatures with others made of high quality resin and white metal.
Our initial offering with this Kickstarter are the Goblin and Zombie Gravewalker multi part plastic miniature sprues.
Please visit our Kickstarter page for more details.





The Zombie Abomination faction has the use of some amazingly horrific creatures. This is the sculpt for the Flesh Golem, an unstoppable behemoth on the battlefield!!! This miniature will be available in high quality resin and will stand 55mm to eye level!

Minion Miniatures is a new Fantasy Miniature manufacturer with plans to release a whole range of plastic, metal and resin miniatures support our new fantasy skirmish game called Underdeep.


A close up of the "green" sculpted by the amazing Robby Crawforth. Whats amazing is the level of detail captured by Robby in a mini that measures 22mm to eye level!!

Underdeep takes place underneath the world of Morn, crushed by decades of war. Now it is the time of the creatures of the Underdeep to have their time… The game focuses on the battles and machinations of the pivotal races of the Underdeep including Goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, Drow, Undead and many more besides. The difference in this world is that the Sunsiders are generally only minor players in this vast world, a world where evil battles evil on an almost contestant basis.



Bugbear Ironshield and Hobgoblin Legionary (in deathmask). The hobgoblins will be resin or white metal models with a choice of bare heads or deathmasked heads. Both of these models will be available as stretchgoals (the hobgoblins will be part of a 5 model boxed set). The Bugbear Ironshield will be high quality resin and stand approximately 70mm tall.


Goblin Headcleaver and Goblin Archer. The headcleaver is part of the supporting range and will be available in white metal as a stretchgoal. The Goblin archer will be a multipart plastic piece available in the plastic goblin boxed set.

A close up of a Zombie Gravewalker showing facial detail. This model will be part of the multipart plastic Zombie Gravewalker sprue. The photo shows the fantastic level of details captured by our sculptor Victor.

The basic Kickstarter will allow us to release the plastic sprues for both the Zombie Abominations and Goblinkind with our basic rules being free and downloadable when the KS launches. We want the community to help us develop the rules throughout the KS and beyond to make them as exciting and entertaining as possible.

The game, Underdeep, is a skirmish based game with armies typically ranging from 20 to 70 models but in some cases much larger forces can be used. We also plan to release a mass combat game at a later date.

We are very open about the use of our miniatures and understand that many people would like to use our miniatures for other game systems and roleplaying games. We have therefore broken our pledge levels down to allow pledgers to form huge armies or just to buy a few of our miniatures. A pledge of £1 opens our addon store to you with lots of goodies and more being added as stretchgoals are hit.

Our plan is to run a Kickstarter campaign in September of this year to release the initial starter set and plastic miniatures with our stretch goals providing supporting metal and resin figures like Bugbears, Flesh Golems, Zombie Hulks and many more besides.

Please visit our Facebook page for a more in depth look at the art and information on our Kickstarter. We would also appreciate it if you would LIKE our page.

https://www.facebook.com/minionminiatures

The plastic miniatures are being manufactured by Renedra, the worlds very best plastic miniature manufacturer. This means the miniatures will be of the absolute highest quality available and good value too.



Plastic Zombie Gravewalker - Please note this is not a final pose but for illustrative purposes.


The Zombie Hulk will be a huge and imposing model standing at nearly 80mm in height. This model will form part of the supporting model range, will be made of plastic and will be available as an early stretch goal.



Necromancer and Liche Priest - Both models will be stretchgoals and be available in resin/whitemetal.

If the Kickstarter is very successful another boxed set, in plastic will be available… the Lizardkin. The Lizardkin dwell in the distant swamps and mires of Morn and many make their homes in extensive, damp underground caverns. The picture below depicts a Lizardkin Brave but the faction can also call upon Kobolds (diminutive and plentiful lizard like humanoids), Deathscales (enormous primitive lizardkin) and Troglodytes (stupid, slow but hugely strong). Some tribes even tame huge Dire Monitors to use as mounts and beasts of war!



We will begin posting regular updates on here and other forums, as well as our FB page. We would be delighted to hear any questions you may have and to hear your views.

Sounds cool. Any concept art or sculpts? Why the mix of models in the goblin box set?

Would love to see humans in bone armor... This kickstarter screams bone armor to me.

example found here: https://www.google.com/search?q=darkfall+bone+armor&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=XXtZU-moMMStyATGrIAI&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1440&bih=799#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=GneYwk4sZX6o5M%253A%3BZ52F1RXmi7x9EM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gamebynight.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2010%252F07%252FBone-Armor.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.gamebynight.com%252F%253Fp%253D1963%3B253%3B562

All the concept art is on the Facebook page at the moment. I would love to post it on here but I am doing this independently of my marketing chap and I have the computing skills of the average slug! Please have a look at the Facebook page as we have all the Goblin concept art there at the moment.

In answer to the other question we wanted to theme each boxed sets with several types of each creature and to also allow players of the Skirmish rule set to get a small, playable force in one boxed set. We also wanted to make the models accessible to role-players too who could buy a box or two and have range of models to use.

There will be a whole range of metal figures available in support as well as small plastic blister packs for characters.

Looks promising, Do you have a website or is all concept art just gonna go up on facebook?

Website is in development. Facebook is just for starters and we wanted to get some idea of the interest levels which so far has been amazing! We have some models being sculpted at the moment but work on the three ups will not be started until after the Kickstarter. The Kickstarter exclusive limited edition model is being scultped firsst and some concept art will be available on the Facebook page very soon. The website will be up and running by the end of May.

Like the sound of this, but will need to see some sculpts first.

Please keep checking back on the Facebook page as some sculpts will be available soon. I'm sure you will like them! The first model is the Kickstarter exclusive miniature, the Goblin Skulk.

Great looking concepts so far Kaine, I especially appreciate the fact that you clearly have your own vision and style rather than being another not-warhammer range, always refreshing to see.

My only advice is just make sure you supply plenty of concepts, WiP and if possible some sculpts and test resins to show people what they're gonna be backing for later in the year, and most importantly if
you are going to get involved in the community for feedback, ideas and such, make sure you keep it up. There was a KS recently called the The Kingdom that was also aiming to create full hard plastic armies,
great concepts, fantastic execution, but they were marred by the fact that they basically appeared out of nowhere asking for a lot of money without any sort of established fan-base, so it failed as you expect and
we haven't heard much from them since. Now look towards someone like Mark from Dreamforge games a guy who hasn't stopped showing people stuff, getting involved on forums and otherwise building
people's trust in his vision and you'll see a very successful product range in which every KS will only get bigger, when they happen.... I need you shadowkesh.

Not trying to chew you out or anything, just friendly advice.

Also do you want someone to thrown some of your pic's up on here, will take about 5mins to do for ya.

Thanks Rolt. I am new to Kickstarters and we do need a LOT of money to do what we need to do. The Kickstarter will not be for a while but we have a lot coming and an excellent artist who is giving us exactly what we want! As soon as the website is up and running and the sculpts begin to show themselves I am sure we will be seeing more and more concept art and photos etc. We will also have a downloadable version of our Underdark themed skirmish game too which has been thoroughly play tested.

Any advice is more than welcome as this is a learning curve for me and my team! But we are determined to succeed and deliver the best plastic miniatures available!

Thanks again!!

Also you guys planning on doing any ratmen or other types of beast races? Because I'd be pretty down for that, even if their a few years off.

I'll be a great idea to get some images in the first post, it'll attract peoples attention better than text alone, so just for future reference Kaine, in order to host images from Facebook to Dakka, simply do the following:

On Facebook click on to your image to make it full scale, then right click onto the image and press "copy image location", than within your post right click "paste", then highlight the entirety of the pasted address by left clicking
and dragging the blue bar over it, then click on the "Image" tag on the Dakka posting system (located at the top of the text bar) and you should see something like this: [image]mywaifuimagestuff[/image]

If it all works:

Hope that helps.

Thanks Rolt


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Images now added.

Some interesting looking designs.

Will check facebook out when I get home, and will keep an eye on things here.

One question I must ask, which I ask of every company that posts on Dakka- will there be lizards?

Oh yes!!! There should be one of the Lizardkin concepts on the first post. We have a Lizardkin boxed set planned with a load of other miniatures themed around them!

The art's looking good, even if goblins aren't my thing. Could you tell us what other races you have in mind?

The initial boxed set will be the goblin-kind boxed set with 12 28mm multipart plastic goblins, 6 hobgoblins and two enormous bugbears (see the pic above). The bugbears will be about 50mm tall. The second boxed set will be either Zombie Abominations with Zombie Gravewalkers, Flesh Golems and Zombie hulks (again enormous!) or it will be Lizardkin. The Lizardkin boxed set will be kobolds, lizardkin and Deathscales (again big lizardman brutes). We also have plenty of other ideas floating around with the following high on the list:

Orcs
Gnolls
Undead
Minotaurs/Ogres/Cyclops (possibly one boxed set with loads of options but we have not decided yet)
Dwarven Treasure Hunters
Drow
Sunsiders (basically adventuring groups)
Trolls

We plan on developing the world to make a mass combat system as well after the skirmish game. When we do that we will do more development of the overland races as well.

The idea of the skirmish game is based around groups of raiders or small battlegroups that are fighting either in the Underdeep or raiding the surface world. Each player will have from 10-40 figures and fight using a variety of interesting scenarios.

Sounds awesome, I would especially be in for the Lizardkin, Gnoll, and Drow factions, although from a KS funding perspective your better off making the Zombie Abominations the second set. Zombie related games and projects
are always insanely popular on KS (for what ever reason), it could help you pull in some much needed traction during the early funding periods and more importantly build up a critical mass of backers, both for current and future,
just make you have the concepts up for them from the start.

I'd have to see the composition first, but if it doesn't have too much dead weight a multipart plastic Drow box would be nice.

these are very inspired looking miniatures, can't wait to see what the kick starter has to offer?

One thing with the three types of model on a sprue thing...

Have you considered that you might, instead of making a reasonably-good goblin/hobgoblin/bugbear monster sprue...

... instead make the best damned goblin sprue on the face of the earth, sell hundreds to warhammer/kow players and leave hobgoblins and bugbears for metal?

It's clear which one out of the three will be the seriously big seller if done right, and you can utilise people buying your plastics for Warhammer/ KoW to launch other things, whereas your typical mass-battle fantasy player is not likely to be interested in the mixed sprue as they end up buying stuff they don't need (hobgoblins and bugbears), which increases the cost for them.

The second you put all three unit types on the same sprue you're saying "only buy these minis if you're playing our game", and killing off a huge source of potential income.

Don't fall foul of "Jack of all trades, master of none", even Ronnie Renton said the one thing he'd do if starting over with Mantic would be putting stuff like war machines and elites into resin plastic and focusing on making a much higher quality set of basic infantry in hard plastic. As the last company that tried (and failed) to make a profitable fantasy line at Renedra tooling prices it might be worth having a look at their history and what went right (their undead) and what went wrong (almost everything else, the elves never paid back their mould cost).

Anyway, all the best of luck. It's certainly a bold move to be going with hard plastic and targeting a very over-saturated market (skirmish games) at the same time as a company with no established brand recognition.. kingdom-death levels of quality in the sculpts and some rather nice KS deals might just be able to swing it. I can tell you straight-up that your plan of no 3-up sculpts before the KS is over is not going to work, it's just not the way that Kickstarter rolls these days, you can use it to pay for tooling but only after you've knuckled down and sculpted some of the stuff.

Rolt is bang on the money with zombies, I do also think goblins are a good #1 pick... GW ones are overpriced/ cartoony, Mantic ones are excellent sculpts with terrible tooling quality. You can come in and blow both of those away if you do it right and I just don't see where bugbear monsters on the goblin sprue helps you with doing that.

How about 2 sprues? One with goblins, the other with bugbear/ hobgoblins?

This way you could still have the minis you want for your skirmish game while avoiding the inflexibility of "must buy bugbear monster for every X goblins" that will put off a lot of wargamer buyers.

I like Squig's ideas.

Now I can see your lizards. Look good. I guess I can live with another line of naked savages if they look like that. I will cross my fingers for a more armored one!

The goblins are pretty unique. I'm curious to see what they'll look like all tooled up.

My curiosity shall definitely be piqued.

Interesting designs. I will say I'm a bit disappointed that they're the savage style lizards as well. Nobody ever seems to want to make technologically advanced lizardmen.

Now, are you planning on anything to appeal to the non-fantasy gamer? I'm cool with the occasional fantasy kit, but my heart lies with the sci-fi genre. What are you going to do to bring in my money?

Scarletsquig, you make some excellent points. I would have to say that it is our aim to appeal to as many people as possible with our plastic sets. We Will have our own rule book and game but our emphasis has always been diversity. We wanted to tap into one of he other huge markets as well, the roleplayers, whose only real plastic offering at the moment is Reaper miniatures Bones range. I must admit that the thought of having an inexpensive monstrous creature on a sprue would have appeal and that buying a couple of boxed sets and having some GW troll substitutes could be a selling point but I do see your point in regard to the hobgoblins and that it would put off a goblin player. It is certainly something we need to consider.

 Barzam wrote:
Interesting designs. I will say I'm a bit disappointed that they're the savage style lizards as well. Nobody ever seems to want to make technologically advanced lizardmen.

Now, are you planning on anything to appeal to the non-fantasy gamer? I'm cool with the occasional fantasy kit, but my heart lies with the sci-fi genre. What are you going to do to bring in my money?

Dude. Let them get one plastic range out there first, already. This one project is ambitious enough

An Underdark-themed skirmish/wargame is growing on me, how far have you come with the rule-set and what are the guiding design principles?

I like the look of those designs, the goblins are looking much more like LOTR/Elder Scrolls/classic look, which I prefer to the GW 'Big-nose' style.

I like the idea, especially for a Skirmish game, of having multiple unit types boxed together, even if on different sprues, as I assume the aim is to get you a playable Skirmish force from just one box, which is a great selling point and something that I think a lot of people would be inclined to go for.

I agree about keeping the sprues separate, and maybe offering specific race sprues as add-ons for those wanting to build an army, but certainly a box with multiple unit types in would be a great starting point.

For the Drow, how about something that can be assembled either as a Giant Spider or as a Drider? The Drider option would give you something uniquely Drow, while the Giant Spider option means it has a good generic use as well.

Give us sprues for female Drow (Clerics/Nobles, Fighters/Rogues), male Drow (Wizards, Fighters/Rogues) and Driders/Giant Spiders, and you'd cover the major bases - more variety can always be added with various slaves.

I LOVE the concept art! I will be watching this with interest as the goblins look cool and Gnolls in the future.... There has to be a book with the concept art as your artist is awesome!

Those Hobgoblins give off a bit of a Samurai Kingdom Death vibe to me.

I can get behind that.

Have we seen any of the Bugbears yet?

I second SSquigs advice, and will add (to correct another Mantic mistake) - make sure to include proper plastic command bits (with a real sculpted banner) and a few extra heads for variety (if only one sprue - enough bits to make 2 different command groups would be ideal).

Would also be smart to have a few weapon options if you're only making the one basic kit. What I used to want Mantic to do was:

Sprue 1 - 10 soldier bodies, 10 heads, weapon arms for 2-3 different weapons.
Sprue 2 - "variety/command sprue" - half-dozen extra heads, champ weapons, instruments, banners, "fun" bits.