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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkmaenad/dark-maenad-fire-and-steel/description

A kickstarter for basically 2 warbands with access to the minis from their first kickstarter as well.


Interesting part is they are available in 3 formats.

.STL files, Metal and injection plastic using something called SiOCast. The physical minis are being produced for them by Effincool Miniatures. And the desert girls will be featured in a miniature game produced by some other company.

The 2 warbands look cool. The black powder girls... look very Empire/landsknechty... and the Cold Steel girls, look very Araby...

All of the new minis are safe for work, but some of the addons from their last campaign (which i did not include pictures of) have some female frontal nudity.

I am interested in the SiOCast minis... I saw a review of some 15mm in that material. I only backed a $1... right now. But I like both new warbands and the original one they did...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The Creator advised that Effin Cool is still waiting to get their new SiOCast machine, but he will post examples of other company's SiOCast minis in their next update.



Doing some searching on Google, it looks like its a way to use plastic (actual plastic not resin) with metal molds. The review i saw of the 15mm minis said that they are crisp and good, with some slight flexibility. But also said that mold lines are a bit difficult to remove. So it kind of sounded like something similar to BONES Black material.

Does anyone here have any experience with it? It looks like it has been around for at least a year, but I will admit that I never heard of it.

Do you have any pics of unpainted SioCast plastics, or more info? I read the KS page but didn’t see much.

There are a lot of great miniatures, but I’d likely only buy a handful due to the prices, especially if the plastic is more expensive than the listed STL prices.

Also, can we talk about that desert musician? That’s...that’s not how you blow a horn, right?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Do you have any pics of unpainted SioCast plastics, or more info? I read the KS page but didn’t see much.

There are a lot of great miniatures, but I’d likely only buy a handful due to the prices, especially if the plastic is more expensive than the listed STL prices.

Also, can we talk about that desert musician? That’s...that’s not how you blow a horn, right?

They could be taking a big drink from the horn though .

I’ve typed and then had to delete three different responses to that.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Do you have any pics of unpainted SioCast plastics, or more info? I read the KS page but didn’t see much.

There are a lot of great miniatures, but I’d likely only buy a handful due to the prices, especially if the plastic is more expensive than the listed STL prices.

Also, can we talk about that desert musician? That’s...that’s not how you blow a horn, right?

I havent found much on SioCast, but i made a post on the Reaperf forum and this was a response.

"I don't have first-hand experience but a couple of weeks back I chanced across a review of Warlord Games 28mm SiOCast Hussars on Brückenkopf. Mentions they feel weird, have all the excess flash of resin and are about as fun to clean as Bones I plastic (okay, they don't actually mention Bones I, I'm just paraphrasing in Reaper terms here :poke, look rather mediocre and, well, their conclusion is unflattering, to say the least, roughly translating to:

https://www.brueckenkopf-online.com/2021/review-warlord-games-prussian-hussars/

Quote
You need miniatures made of a material that feels like rubber, sometimes fails to capture detail properly, and makes you want to constantly swear during cleaning? Do you furthermore want top pay a fair chunk of money, relative to the quality you're getting? Then these minis are just right for you.

The comments section is savage, too. Several people mentioning the material is absolutely horrible to do conversions on, comparisons to 1980s bargain bin 1/72 toy soldiers and if memory serves correctly, one person actually said they'd rather overpay for stuff out of Nottingham that buy this.

Considering I've been quite pleased with Effincool's metal casts, there's no way I'll risk the SiOCast on these. "

Im still considiring the SiOCast though as I much prefer plastic...

Sounds like the Landsknecht Ogress is a safe bet in the material. The part that scared me was the comparison to old 1/72 plastics—I hate working with those.

Hi I'm the owner of Dark Maenad and I thought I would weigh in. I've been playing with and collecting toy soldiers since I was five (early 1970's) I've owned a lot of 1:72 scale figures
including the horrible ones from the backs of comic books and siocast is not any of that. It's really its own thing. It probably feels closest to Bones Black though I think the detail is much better
on the Siocast. I know Reaper has a new line that is supposed to even better than the BB and while I haven't seen this line yet my understanding is that the process is very similar to Siocast.

My first experience with Siocast was Lost Sword miniatures from Spain. I didn't even know what the material was, just that it was different than anything I had encountered before though
I was quite pleased with it. I have since received a few samples from Siocast and the detail is amazing. Add to that the fact that John Popson at Effincool is the finest caster I have ever
encountered and I am excited to see what his finished product looks like. It is not rigid like the GW plastics, in that you can't break or bend delicate parts out of true the way you can with
the GW stuff but at the same time the swords and other weapons don't appear to come out all warped and wonky like they do with Bones or Resin. As for converting the figures I have heard the opposite,
that they are quite easy to slice and dice. Please remember that Siocast is machine and the composition of the material, the quality of the cast, of the mold, and of the sculpt are all independent variables. I would put
the quality of Effincools products and of Dark Maenad's up against any miniature in the world. Furthermore I'm not going to sell crap, if the miniatures don't meet my standards I would rather issue refunds than
send out junk with my company logo on it and I know John at Effincool feels the same.

The Effincool machine is supposed to arrive in the States on May 12 and John is going to start working with it immediately. As soon as he has cast he is pleased with I will be posting those on the Kickstarter.

As for the Horn Blower, I am not a musician so I can't attest to the proper mouth position when one blows a three foot elephant tusk horn but I suspect that it will look just fine at 32mm. The pose
was based on a guy in a wolf costume blowing some really long curved alpine horn because strangely enough I couldn't find a single picture of anyone blowing a massive elephant tusk horn.

So you will be using the same material as Last Sword? I have some of their minis, and I would buy more like them.

Having been to the KS page and having scrolled down, I assumed the horn blower was deliberately sculpted to be suggestive, so I was having fun with that.

I would assume that it will be the same material. They use a Siocast machine, Siocast supplies the plastic and we will be using their plastic so it should be the same.

Got you, I am not above being suggestive but that wasn't the intent here, there just don't seem to be a lot of options on stance in this situation.

 The Red Graf wrote:

Furthermore I'm not going to sell crap…

I’m sure you won’t. It’s just this is a “new” process and there is not a lot of info out. With new things there is always a learning curve. The sample you showed is very nice. Some would point out though that bones black is nice, but it took a while to get from regular bones to bones black. I don’t have any experience with last sword but heard it was good. The bit I quoted above was posted by someone on another forum… but it could be more of how that company handled it, and not the material itself.

I am willing to give it a try… and $45 isnt bank breaking anyway.

Last Sword’s minis feel a lot like the material that Alkemy and DUST Tactics used for their plastics back in the day. It’s almost as flexible and easily cut as Finecast, but holds details almost as well as resin. In terms of non-plastic materials, I’d rate it way above restic, FW resin or Bones classic, but below premium resin.

I’ve had this Last Sword miniature standing on one leg for months, with many 90+ degree days, and he hasn’t become droopy. Sturdier stuff than Bones or Prodos resin, this is.

The $10,000 stretch goal is unlocked, it’s a war elephant… but the update will be tomorrow.

 The Red Graf wrote:

Got you, I am not above being suggestive but that wasn't the intent here, there just don't seem to be a lot of options on stance in this situation.

The stance is fine - it's the fact that the horn appears to be going into his mouth that is more of an issue... But as you say, at actual size it should look fine.

Interesting. I'd seen SIOcast pop up in reference to Yedharo/GT Studio stuff, and had been thinking it was the same material as Last Sword.

It does have a lot of flex, but I think as people get more experience casting with it the detail should come through more.

I've always been fairly pleased with Last Sword's stuff, and if it's more along those lines that is a bit more reassuring.

Those Warlord Hussars look pretty sloppy though.

Are the prices underneath the images the prices for the SioCast versions, or the STLs? Is The Champion in SioCast $10?

And what is shipping like?

The price underneath the figure is the price for either metal or siocast. We were really flying blind on the price point for siocast as the machine hasn't even arrived yet. So we low balled the metal and put the siocast in at the same price point. You will not have to state your preference until the pledge manager. That way you should have time to see some actual castings before you choose.

There is only one STL price, that's $50 for everything on offer which is currently 32 figures. If anymore stuff gets unlocked it will up the total.

As someone who will not accept metal, any money I put down now will be for SioCast figures. Since you will not be showing casts for a while, I’ll be conservative now.

Will we be able to add more SioCast minis at these campaign prices to the PM after we see the test casts?

Yes you will be able to add them in the pledge manager. I anticipate having something to show before the end of the campaign. The machine is due to arrive in the states on the 12th and John is so enthusiastic I expect he will be firing it up as soon as he can reach a plug in.

We have unlocked the War Elephant for $20 in plastic.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkmaenad/dark-maenad-fire-and-steel?ref=9axy2c

A WIP shot.

Here are the final renders for the War Elephant.

Please note the KICKSTARTER ENDS AT 2PM US Central time Wednesday. A little more than 24 hours to go, don't miss out.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkmaenad/dark-maenad-fire-and-steel?ref=92ryqc

This kickstarter delivered. The Siocast stuff is really nice. I got the cold steel girls, the elephant, the Queen and the knight commander. Though having them in hand, I wish I had gotten more.

They are having another KS in September

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkmaenad/dark-maenad-fire-and-steel/posts/3504410?ref=activity

This was the last update of their first kickstarter. They announced a new one coming in September. Their minis are available in 3 formats. Metal, Siocast plastic and STL. The minis were available individually or in Mordheim like warbands.



Anyway, the next kickstarter is supposed to have Tribal girls, Steppe Girls, additional gunpowder girls to go with their first kickstarter, Desert archers, Hoplite girls and Amazonian royal guard.

That's a sweet olifant

Mine showed up today as well, they do look pretty nice. Pledged Mercenaries but didn't receive the two extra bodies =/

Dark Maenad will be having another kickstarter starting March 7th. If you want to be notified on launch, please follow this link. (I'm not affiliated, just copying the link from the last update for Fire and Steel.

The new project is called Empires of the Old World. They have shown an African Tribal warband, a Greek hoplite warband, a new armored elephant and most recently an empire greatsword warband (pics below).

The models last time were offered in Siocast, metal and STL.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkmaenad/dark-maenad-empires-of-the-old-world

I was very happy with the detail on the siocast models I received from the last kickstarter. Casting was done by Effincool miniatures.

I was happy with the SioCast minis I received from the previous campaign. However, one should note the scale was closer to historical
Minis than heroic GW minis.