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 Wargames Atlantic wrote:
The clue is in our company name "Wargames" - i.e. armies - not conversion bits for diorama pieces although folks are very welcome to do that too!

Yeah, don't knock us kitbashers. If your kits were only good for building massive armies of similar-looking guys, I wouldn't have bought so many of them. When I get my Damned KS boxes, it's going to be Chaos kitbashapalooza.

I would have been OK with the original design - I'm one of the 30 - but since I'd prefer a walker, I voted for that.

Glad I did, too, because it's leading power armor, the only option I don't like at all.

I think WGA needs to stop faffing around and just go ahead and publish their first vehicle. It was their idea to do it in the first place.

The Roman civilians aren't what I think of when I think of civilians. They're more of a rabble / peasants-with-pitchforks style mob.

Since they're practically non-existent, I guess the consensus is that plastic unarmed civilians wouldn't sell, and perhaps that's true - I have no business sense about these things. I can find some metal unarmed sci-fi civilians who are basically strolling about conducting their business. It still strikes me as a bit odd that unarmed civvies panicking and running in terror seem not to exist at all.

Is that because they would come too close to showing the real horrors and costs of war? I'm just talking about functionaries running away with terrified expressions, not families being blown apart.

Speaking of which, I used to use this heroclix mini (minus the #15 post) in Mars Attacks games whenever a soldier got blasted by a Martian ray gun, substituting it for the slain soldier figure for about a turn before removing it:



It added a thematically apt cinematic flair to the game. It's also about as far as I'd want to take a literal depiction of violence on the tabletop, but in the tongue-in-cheek context of Mars Attacks, where Martian laser weapons instantly and bloodlessly reduce people to cartoony skeletons, it was fun.

(The actual figure is supposed to depict the moment Dr. Manhattan got atomized in an experiment, after which he reassembled his atoms and gained godlike powers. It's a pretty unusual subject for a heroclix figure, but I guess it was included in their Watchmen releases because it's an iconic moment in the original comics.)

 Dawnbringer wrote:
. I'm pretty sure there just isn't much of a market, they don't really have much place in a war game, unless it'ssome sort of theme scenarioinvolving a seige or something. So you are looking at diorama makers and rpg players, who would need a box at most. That said, Archon have a city folk pack with a bunch of medieval style civvies, and reaper has some in Bones as well. The Perrys (amongst others) also do civilians. But all of the above are more stolling about, not running in panic.

I primarily collect sci-fi miniatures, Dawnbringer, so I wasn't aware of these civilian options for fantasy. It's still interesting to me that fleeing civilians seem not to be a thing, regardless of genre. It's not hard to imagine scenarios where protecting them / guiding them to safety could be primary or secondary mission objectives, or where their presence as an unpredictable A.I. faction could complicate things. There are plenty of minor civilian characters who desperately navigate battlefields in 40K fiction, after all.

I'm not arguing that terrified civvies should be present in every battle, or even in most battles. But they're not even present as an occasional element.

Mostly they appeal to me as dioramic hints at a larger, more complex universe than the immediate Us / Them conflict of the battlefield.

It's WG's loss. Vote-schmote, the mutation sprue (better yet, two or more completely different ones) would sell. Fan votes are just polls, often not very accurate ones. They can still do a mutation sprue anytime they please. And with both human damned and beastman troops coming out, there would be plenty of immediate use for them, not to mention kitbashing with other companies' stuff.

Are these the hard plastic Sci-fi civilians that were never supposed to get made by anyone ever so ha ha?

I have no interest in The Expanse, but consider my interest . . . and my nose . . . piqued.

I wonder how large or small they'll be. Will they be teeny vampires that only a Frostgrave adventurer could fear?

And if they're truly Nosferatu-esque, what would be their ideal scale anyway? Do people generally prefer their Nosferatus tall and gaunt, or short and hunched?

Inquiring minds want to know!

The most useful bits in this kit will be the weaponless arms. Kit-bash those onto Stargrave Crew and you've got sci-fi civilians.

Yet another reference to the center not holding. This is truly the year for quoting apocalyptic metaphors.

Anyhow, good read. I like that the owner lays out the situation plainly. And I'm very, very glad I pledged for The Damned when I did!

These three caught my eye

DEATH FIELDS ARENA TERRAIN SET
SHADOKESH FERALS/WARRIORS
DEATH FIELDS N'GLONHGK

Terrain could either be very useful or unimaginative and repetitive. I've had my eye on the Shadokesh for a long time but had basically given up on them ever getting made. Finally, I have no idea what N'Glonhgk are, but they sound non-human, possibly Lovecraftian by way of Ramsey Campbell (is it a take on Y'Golonyac?,) so I'm interested to find out.

 legionaires wrote:
I'm still hoping after they all hit general release that they make the mutations. I really want new Chaos Spawn but don't want GW Spawn prices

Seconded! If it's worthwhile for them to release a hard plastic animal bones bits sprue, surely it's worth their time to do a mutations sprue.

Many people have raised the idea of a mutations sprue, and it was an option that WGA put to a vote during the Damned campaign, but of course it lost to Heavy Infantry. (Not what I'd call a fair competition, putting a kitbashing mod kit up against an essential core unit.) They should have made both.

Here's the WIP of the mutation sprue that WGA showed at the time (as applied to standard male Damned troopers):



I'd like a lot more variety than this WIP shows, but I'd certainly buy the complete version, and I still think a mutation sprue like this is a great idea. Note that they made the mutations so they'd fit in with fantasy as well as they do with sci-fi.

One objection the last time I brought it up was that mutations can look silly or cartoonish (I don't remember the exact turn of phrase,) but I don't really think that's an issue. GW's chaos mutants have always been partly absurd, since their mutations are based on sin and dark magic rather than genetics. That said, 'proper' sci-fi mutants frequently look a bit silly as well - The Thing (not technically a mutant, but it was essentially always mutating) grew a mouth in its stomach, which was horrific and one of Carpenter's most famous gruesome moments, but it (not to mention the equally memorable walking spider head) was also a bit ridiculous, even wryly humorous. And how many variations on tentacled humans have you seen over the course of your sci-fi geekhood? Why are tentacles (rather than, say, beaks) considered the most probable mutations by so many sci-fi properties? Basically because they look cool. Miniature mutants have always been a bit silly, and gamers nevertheless love them, warts and all.

I'm basically of the opinion that you can never have too many options for mutations, so a mutation sprue would be an easy sell to me. I'd happily buy 20 completely different mutation sprues.

And yes, you can 3-D print mutation options, but that's not really saying anything. You can 3-D print your entire miniature collection these days, but enough people still prefer polystyrene's ease of use, higher durability, and lesser toxicity that traditional miniature manufacturers are still in business.

As long as the quality and variety of a hard plastic mutation sprue were done well, I think it would sell. In WGA's case, the existence of the Damned line of products even gives it an immediate context. I bet there'd be plenty of Damned buyers (not to mention kitbashers of other lines) who'd like to add variety to their troopers and beastmen with some choice mutations.

These photos are making me even more eager for my Damned shipment.
The beastmen look like a hell of a lot of fun to kitbash. It'll be digitigrade legs for me all the way, though.

I have a quick kitbashing question: I'm thinking of picking up WGA werewolves to kitbash with the new Damned beastmen, and would like to know if the werewolf arms and heads scale well with Damned beastmen bodies. If anyone has both kits, I'd appreciate a tip or a photo.