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Currently, Zeratul is available as a promo mini until the end of Spiel Essen (both in person and on the Archon webstore).
Sadly he's a bit pricy at $35, but identical fully opaque and transparent versions are included so you can build two of him or mix the parts together (to make a partial cloaked version)
Spoiler:
There are also some new photos from Spiel Essen
Terran Glamour Shots
Spoiler:
Zerg Glamour Shots
Spoiler:
There's a Wargamer.com interview with Archon Studios that also dropped today where they said the likely date for the Starter Box and Wave 1 will be around Jan/Feb They've already announced the starter will be Terran vs Zerg and based on playtest photos they posted from their Blizzard Office visit it seems likely to be:
The 3d sculpting on these let it down, no charm, bad fat proportions, no sharp edges, lack of interesting detail minis with no soul (start craft has SO MUCH of it).... I could go on and on. Its a new product but looks like something done decades ago... a Pass
Looking at those miniatures, especially the Terran, something about them just seems cheap. Static poses, strange proportions, lack of detail. Part of it might be how they're painted but they just have that feel of being cheap toys.
At risk of being accused of white knighting, I'm not really sure what you guys were expecting These are mass produced plastics not boutique hand-sculpted resins, and these are pretty faithful for the artstyle of Starcraft 2 which they are based on.
Spoiler:
Now, I wish they would have done the Brood War designs instead (Archon said in their initial QA livestream that they are considering them for a future wave), but I can live with the SC2 designs if it's that or nothing
Also hilarious to see people go from complaining 40k is to dynamic to now whining that these are too static...
Yeah, I'm eagerly awaiting the Zerg minis. Basically, I've been waiting for them for 20 years And while I admit they're a bit on the large side for my taste, especially the Hydralisks, I can live with that. I would've preferred smaller zerglings to actually see, say, 100 of them on the board, but the game seems to be aimed at a smaller army size for now. I'll still get them as support for my OPR Alien hives army.
Looking at those miniatures, especially the Terran, something about them just seems cheap. Static poses, strange proportions, lack of detail. Part of it might be how they're painted but they just have that feel of being cheap toys.
Yeah, something definitely seems off about them.
This seems like one of those thing where I'd buy a model just to put on my shelf if I wanted a big Zerg or siege tank or whatever. But the posing on the basic marines is what I expect from the late 90s/early 2000s '40k-killer' games that tried to usurp GW's position in the market.
Honestly this is the hit in the nostalgia I want and need. I'm happy with those sculpts and im not sure what more they could have done really to be accurate to the in-game models.
I've only not windmill slammed the purchase on zertaul because the postage is £10 which seems a bit mental.
IMHO they chose a totally wrong scale for this game. Miniatures are just too big and model count just too low for the battles of the SC universe.
But they had to stick to the GW trend of bigger bigger and bigger minis. And Archon stated they want to compete against WH40k. So sad. It could had been amazing.
I fancy some Hidralisks. Maybe they are bad compared to 40K nids, but they are SC bad
M.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/10/24 08:28:10
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In a comment to a YT video by a former GW games designer, Sam Pearson (A main designer on Warcry) discussing the merits of various turn activation systems seemingly one of the game designers for the game chimed in.
Great video! For the StarCraft tabletop miniatures game we're working on, we've decided to go with a system that we believe offers the best of both worlds. It's somewhat similar to the Lord of the Rings system: you have phases (movement, assault, close combat), but the game uses alternating activations. The first player to finish their activations in a phase becomes the first to start the next phase. Players can also choose to pass their activation at any point during a phase if they feel they need the initiative in the shooting or close combat phase. It helps balance the game nicely, and most importantly, this helps with learning or teaching the game through a simple 'I do, you repeat' approach
Dudeface wrote:Honestly this is the hit in the nostalgia I want and need. I'm happy with those sculpts and im not sure what more they could have done really to be accurate to the in-game models.
I've only not windmill slammed the purchase on zertaul because the postage is £10 which seems a bit mental.
Yeah, that's the biggest complaint I (and most people actually interested in the game) seem to have. Shipping to both the US and Japan is calculated at $30, and people in the Facebook are saying that even within the EU it's showing €13...
I've never ordered direct from Archon before (only participated in their US MoTU Kickstarter), so I have no idea if these shipping costs are normal for them.
SU-152 wrote:IMHO they chose a totally wrong scale for this game. Miniatures are just too big and model count just too low for the battles of the SC universe.
But they had to stick to the GW trend of bigger bigger and bigger minis. And Archon stated they want to compete against WH40k. So sad. It could had been amazing.
You're the second person I've seen say that, but I haven't talked to any Starcraft fans who want that. SC is already a mass battle PCRTS, so if you want that scale you can just open the game and launch a match.
The appeal of having 32mm miniatures that that finally I can customize and display my own little collection of Terrans/Zerg/Protoss and use them to play narrative games with my friends, which I've dreamt of since playing SC1 on a CRT monitor in elementary school.
Sure these could have been closer to 28mm, but most modern sci-fi games have slowly crept up to 32mm because of GW.
Plus having these in the same scale as 40k means we can settle this old score :
Spoiler:
Miguelsan wrote: I fancy some Hidralisks. Maybe they are bad compared to 40K nids, but they are SC bad
I like the vibe of the minis, they have a simplicity that I think 40K minis should have. If the price is considerably lower than GW they could do well. If...
But clear plastic bits on an otherwise painted mini?? GW have been trying that nonsense intermittently since the 90s and it always looks pants.
Edit: I've just seen the price of that promo model and the 32mm scale. Ah well.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/10/24 10:02:39
I think the reason the Zerglings and some of the bigger Terran units look so bad because they are sticking to the Starcraft 2 game models much too strictly rather than inspiration from the cinematics (Particularly the ironically lower poly but implicitly more roughly detailed SC1 ones) and art and larger 3d models in the between mission segments. It reminds me of how almost all the Armorcast (The Gargant looks good actually) look much too low detailed and weirdly proportioned and shaped because they took the designs straight from the Epic miniatures without adding appropriate detail.
It reminds me of how GW these days takes the now more proportional models as too much of the basis for cinematics now. The cinematic for 9th in particular was bad with the Necrons looking like goofy Warcraft designs or the Cryx from Warmachine (Whose aesthetic was also heavily cribbed from the 3d Warcraft and Starcraft games) with the giant teeth (Exaggerated in size on the models due to a combination of limitations of detail size and readability of the detail) taken from the 28mm models rather than the art.
Thinking on it, perhaps the use of the RTS engine and assets from Warcraft 3 in WoW caused what we see as the weird cartoony aesthetic of Blizzard games since including that time they tried to introduce some of it into Diablo 3 after the main Blizzard studio took over development.
Some of the model crits might well also just be the painting style and different styles will change impressions.
There's also a bit of "make them work as game models". One thing people say about GW models today is there's a lot of super fine, super thin details and they cast well in plastic but by heck do you have to be careful at times. They look awesome but are also way more fragile than models from 20 years ago.
As for scale - eh its a big eye grabbing scale so it will 100% work for shipping models. The problem with going for smaller and smaller models is yes you can have MUCH bigger battles and very epic situations; but the smaller you go the more niche the market becomes. Even GW has never managed to break that pattern. About the only market which has is historicals.
But who knows if this game does phenomenally well and (biggest if) Blizzard decide to keep the contract going - who knows perhaps mass-battle smaller models could be in the future.
Right now I'm trying to decide if I can justify £10 shipping for the limited edition model. It's a cool model but it takes the whole cost up to £35
Yeah, one of the problems I had with 2 is that aesthetically it was much more cartoony and toy like compared to the first game, which had a much grittier look overall.
Zerglings in SC2 look fat. In SC1 they were a lot leaner and more dangerous looking.
They were terrifying in the Brood War opening.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2025/10/24 11:36:49
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A longbeard when it comes to Necrons and WHFB. Grumble Grumble
Personally I found the style of story writing more jarring than the animation style. But yes a good few things did shift around from the original which was a touch darker and felt a bit more "grounded".
But lets not forget its not just Warcraft 4; its decades of world of warcraft too. Which you can also feel in how they approached some aspects of campaign design as well.
Battlecruisers and Carriers were always bonkers wonky scale wise in Starcraft. I can't see them appearing.
Even a Wraith or siege tank would be a pretty huge model at this scale.
Who knows if it does well enough perhaps they'll do a space-game with carriers, battlecruisers, a bunch of uniquely designed things and a platformbulider
Overread wrote: Battlecruisers and Carriers were always bonkers wonky scale wise in Starcraft. I can't see them appearing.
Even a Wraith or siege tank would be a pretty huge model at this scale.
Who knows if it does well enough perhaps they'll do a space-game with carriers, battlecruisers, a bunch of uniquely designed things and a platformbulider
I always liked the look of the Wraiths.
My first thought on reading this thread was “I wonder if the Siege Tanks transform?” Or alt-build.
NightReconnaissance wrote: I think the reason the Zerglings and some of the bigger Terran units look so bad because they are sticking to the Starcraft 2 game models much too strictly rather than inspiration from the cinematics (Particularly the ironically lower poly but implicitly more roughly detailed SC1 ones) and art and larger 3d models in the between mission segments. It reminds me of how almost all the Armorcast (The Gargant looks good actually) look much too low detailed and weirdly proportioned and shaped because they took the designs straight from the Epic miniatures without adding appropriate detail.
Canonically the Marine armor in SC1 and SC2 are different though. The SC1's armor was the pattern issued by the Confederate, while SC2's was a redesigned version issued after the Dominion replaced them. There are similar lore explanations about the Zerg having undergone evolution between the two games and the Protoss re-evaluating their military post-Fall of Aiur.
I mainly point that out because Archon were asked about the old designs in their announcement livestream and they said they have full access to anything designed by Blizzard for the StarCraft IP, so it's entirely possible for them to release Brood War Era Marines or even vehicles from the cancelled SC:Ghost game, but it likely won't happen until the SC2 units are finished first.
NightReconnaissance wrote: It reminds me of how GW these days takes the now more proportional models as too much of the basis for cinematics now. The cinematic for 9th in particular was bad with the Necrons looking like goofy Warcraft designs or the Cryx from Warmachine (Whose aesthetic was also heavily cribbed from the 3d Warcraft and Starcraft games) with the giant teeth (Exaggerated in size on the models due to a combination of limitations of detail size and readability of the detail) taken from the 28mm models rather than the art.
Thinking on it, perhaps the use of the RTS engine and assets from Warcraft 3 in WoW caused what we see as the weird cartoony aesthetic of Blizzard games since including that time they tried to introduce some of it into Diablo 3 after the main Blizzard studio took over development.
I do think you're completely correct about this. The Marauder for example, was clearly made larger than a Marine so that you could tell the two apart at a glance in game. Rather than making it an abstraction for gameplay they instead made the size canon in the Starcraft Field Manual, which is also why the Marauder models are so massive.
Overread wrote: Battlecruisers and Carriers were always bonkers wonky scale wise in Starcraft. I can't see them appearing.
Even a Wraith or siege tank would be a pretty huge model at this scale.
Who knows if it does well enough perhaps they'll do a space-game with carriers, battlecruisers, a bunch of uniquely designed things and a platformbulider
Archon said in their announcement livestream that they plan to make everything up to an Ultralisk in "near-truescale", which is why they've done other large kits in the past like the Balor as practice. For reference, this is a relatively accurate canonical size chart for almost all of the ground units:
Spoiler:
Personally, I really want to see them do an Aeronautica/X-wing scale game using the fighter and frigate class air units from the game and I'm going to poke Archon about it every chance I get
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/10/24 12:17:57
I haven't played Starcraft in a quarter of a century, which also means I'm not familiar with Starcraft 2. So a lot of the designs look a bit unfamiliar to me.
I could be convinced to grab some Marines just to paint. I liked the look of the siege tank back then, too. No idea if it's realistic to expect a model of it, but that would be of interest to me as well.
I can't say I get the scale controversy. 32mm is hardly huge by modern standards and only has any impact on base sizes compared to 28mm models if the manufacturer consciously blows up base size for commercial reasons (say hi, GW). There's no real reason why it would limit game size.
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Why is the rum always gone?
It's the 32mm that puts me off most. I just have way too many 28mm models, and I really Iike mixing franchises up on the tabletop. As an old Protoss player, I'm most disappointed that Zealots will be way too large to pit against all my other forces. That said, the nonhuman Zerg won't look jarring next to 28mm humans, and Terran vehicles like Goliaths could fit in well with 28mm humans too. I'm also very interested in the kitbashing potential of these units; it'll be fun to see all the inevitable Zerg / Tyranid hybrids that people come up with. Of the three factions, I'd guess that Archon will end up selling more Zerg than anything else.
I dunno, maybe Archon should consider doing their Starcraft boardgame miniatures in 28mm?
As far as detail quality goes, I can't really tell if its particularly good or bad yet, especially with the expert paintjobs. Hydralisks look bizarrely huge compared to how I imagined them. The Terran poses look a little samey to me so far, with less variety than I'd expect, but it's not easy to tell from the photos so I'll suspend judgment until we see all the sprue pics.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2025/10/24 13:35:32
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/10/24 14:07:41
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Talking Banana wrote: It's the 32mm that puts me off most. I just have way too many 28mm models, and I really Iike mixing franchises up on the tabletop. As an old Protoss player, I'm most disappointed that Zealots will be way too large to pit against all my other forces. That said, the nonhuman Zerg won't look jarring next to 28mm humans, and Terran vehicles like Goliaths could fit in well with 28mm humans too. I'm also very interested in the kitbashing potential of these units; it'll be fun to see all the inevitable Zerg / Tyranid hybrids that people come up with. Of the three factions, I'd guess that Archon will end up selling more Zerg than anything else.
I dunno, maybe Archon should consider doing their Starcraft boardgame miniatures in 28mm?
As far as detail quality goes, I can't really tell if its particularly good or bad yet, especially with the expert paintjobs. Hydralisks look bizarrely huge compared to how I imagined them. The Terran poses look a little samey to me so far, with less variety than I'd expect, but it's not easy to tell from the photos so I'll suspend judgment until we see all the sprue pics.
Honestly the scale shouldn't be a problem to anyone. They're not making their game to fit in with 28mm games. They're making their game to stand alone.
I can understand that people maybe wanted 15mm or something to give thar isometric RTS feel of a 200 cap force or whatever, but I also aren't going to cry at a game that plays at a smaller headcount than 40k etc. Which I feel has vastly outgrown the scale of what it tries to represent.
Eh, I’m in the crowd that wishes, that it was a smaller scale, so that siege tanks, mutalisks and dragoons were a thing, and would stand out in comparison to regular troops.
Ideally for me, it should have tried to capture the brood war aesthetic and scale. And make character models in 2 scales- as a collectible and as a game piece.
Their chose approach makes me not really interested in the game in it of itself.
Goliath looks promising though! And that’s my favourite unit. Hydras are not bad as well. The rest.. meh
I need some side-by-sides with other minis, hopefully they're close enough to add to my scifi menagerie, hard to tell size from these pics and they look larger than 32mm, but that could just be the basing. No intention of playing the game, but I'll pick up a starter to have a squad of Marines and some zerglings for various mini agnostic
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4k 
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11527pts Total (7400pts painted)
4980pts Total (4980pts painted)
3730 Total (210pts painted)