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2014/08/06 18:27:19
Subject: Re:Shieldwolf Miniatures - Official news and rumors thread
@BobtheInquisitor -Fair enough, no more "pm'ed" then on our thread. :-)
-August vacation in Greece is not something nice to miss out on. ;-)
-Goblins will have a very small touch of goofiness but I think the words that best describe them would be "sinister/malicious". You will see and judge for yourselves.
-The body selected is the one on the top right, the head type selected is similar to the far right but with longer nose.
-Monsters? Hehehe... wait till January ;-)
-I guessed it was a joke but since written speach is different than oral we could've been misinterpreted.
@Sirio Human problems for their regiment dual kit have been solved for both neck and arm junctions. We are waiting to see a few things before deciding on the material, since we are looking into going plastic full range and crunching numbers. Financially that is hard but not impossible, surely not with the same frequency (note that in our first year alone we released 4 regiments, 3 resin and 1 plastic. To our knowledge noone else matches our achievement). In that case we'll need to resculpt that for plastic tooling of course.
We will say/show nothing more on the goblins till Laarson's KickStarter is over.
Valley Orcs have been and are being sculpted. This 2nd faction will also need a variety of "goodies", the Mountain Orc Chariots got a nice welcome to what Orc Chariots should really look like (to our knowledge no other 28mm scaled orc chariot has so much detail and modularity) so you should be expecting something equally complicated for them also ;-)
So, today we will be (as promised also in our FB page) releasing a rather pic-heavy report to update our cutomer base and Community on our future releases and at what stage multiple projects are lying at. We know that some people are very anxious to see what else is coming, but our intention/Policy is whatever we produce has to be better than what came before it!
So, let's not waste any time and get started! :-)
Undead: We are sculpting a couple of heroes to enrich their ranks since these guys don't have any (yet), if the final results should turn up as we like, these should hit our store before X-mas 2014.
Kingdom of Talliareum (Humans): We are preparing something really nasty, once it hits you can tell us yourselves whether you like it or not. In the meanwhile all pieces for their dual regiment are finished and tested, but -as you may already know- Shieldwolf has decided to try launching full sprue plastic for all our future regiments, so they are on hold for now. Either way these come with twenty 20mm square bases and full command, along with a variety of goodies/bitz we'll be adding.
(We apologise for the quality of the pic, they all came out a bit blurry :-( )
Kingdom of Hell: We finished working on their first regiment (Infernal Assaulters Infantry) and have designed the concept artwork for 2 more heroes, one on a 25mm base and one on a 50mm base. As with all regiments this too may be destined for plastic sprue tooling (should our plans work out), so is on hold. If it does go for plastic production, it will need some re-sculpting as pieces are not eligible for the tooling process it needs. Final miniatures will stay very close to what we are revealing today however.
If our plan for going full plastic sprues fail us, these twisted guys will be massed produced in our -notorious by now- orange utility boxes and can easily hit our store in less than 1 month time! They come with 25 mm square bases and (as all our regiments) come with huge choice of convertibility and in packs of 20 with full command options.
Northern Alliance: We've been messaged before from people wanting to field an entire barbarian army at this scale (and us being the only ones producing one), so we are currently working on releasing even more stuff to enrich their ranks. As always innovation is something we are constantly working on, imagining these miniatures and bringing them to life! This is the Grand Yeti one of the "Greater Monsters" categories we have, should be carrying 4 light barbarian infantry atop once completed.
Dracantropii Kingdoms: Our Dragon Race! After our Arabic and Barbarians, seems we are the first (to our knowledge at least) to have sculpted a regiment for a Dragon race at 28mm "heroic"/bulky scale! (if we are wrong please let us know however, lol) :-)
We have already made new bases available. Their Light Dracantropii Infantry regiment is practically ready -but same goes here as for the Infernal Assaulters regiment, we have frozen this in order to favor full plastic sprue tooling via Renedra (our UK manufacturer for our plastics)-. If things do not work out and we put these in production, these guys will be packaged in our orange plastic boxes once cast in resin (for those who are not familiar we at Shieldwolf refuse to work with metal since we consider it a worse and outdated material to work with, penalising the details of a sculpt -among other defects). The Light Dracantropii Infantry regiment can be ready and in stock via our website in about 1 month time should we decide to go via resin production. They come with 25 mm square bases and (as all our regiments) in packs of 20 with full command options and tons of convertibility.
Orcs: The Orcs have been planned and divided in 4 different factions. Although a young company we are very happy to be producing what are maybe the most detailed Orc army miniatures worldwide and for the response they are receiving, we have completed our releases for now for our 1st faction (the Mountain Orcs) which became so welcome in the Community and are currently working on the 2nd, the Valley Orcs. Sculpts -and hopefully painted versions- should show up rather soon :-)
Araves: We have already showed some sculpts ready for regiment tooling, should we decide to abbandon plastic sprue-tooling (which is not our intention at the moment, quite the opposite) we have 3 regiments and a couple of Characters ready for immediate production. Two of our regiments come supplied with 20mm square bases and one regiment comes in 25x50mm bases. In the meanwhile we are preparing something else too for the Lords of the Sand Lands.
Other future factions and races. (Please note some are main races -meaning one of the 12 planned- and some that are supplementary. We are only mentioning 6 out of 13 currently planned).
Dwarfs: We can't immagine our fantasy world without these interesting fellas, but there are simply too many manufacturers producing dwarfs atm. Although we have some artwork, Shieldwolf has no plans for the bearded race for the next 2 years.
Elves: We have them long now in the pipeline, we have amazing fluff/backround for the Elves, plenty of astonishing artwork and 3D sculpts but nothing to be produced in the very near future. 2015 is more probable/doable. This is a sample of what our first regiment will look like, the Elven Oak Order. Some characteristics will be slightly altered in order to fit our 28mm "bulky" scale but that's relatively easy since the sculpts are in 3D. Also, we noticed that there are extremely few products available that have their heads being bare (i.e. without hoods/helmets), and we find this a shame for the "pointy ears" of our World. We love those ears! Our team will try (and it shows from our initial efforts at least) to leave the most basic characteristic of this race more... evident.
Tragomaxoi: A race of goat warriors, some lovely artwork prepared and a beautiful finished sculpt for now, we didn't have any time to work on their fluff during July/August, hopefully Angelos will draw more inspiration during Autumn. They are on hold.
Goblins: (we promised no further comments other than what we have already said at this point, so bear with us)
The Rebels (Human faction): We have commissioned artwork and currently working on it but no sculpts have been created yet. We also worked a bit more on their book, there is going to be a huge alteration in all our books however (for those who have not been following our brand we've been working on fluff and rules from 2012)!
So, hope you enjoy as much as we do and bear with us till the completion of our plan, next months will be a deciding factor with our upcoming releases :-)
I really like the looks of the Dracontropii and the Arabes.
No need to spill your secrets Shieldwolf, buy my guess is that the next plastic kit we see from you will be Goblins followed by Arabes or Talliareum humans. Likely I'm just wish listing, but I can't wait to see what comes our way next in plastic.
I am also excited for resins!
2014/09/07 19:42:43
Subject: Re:Shieldwolf Miniatures - Official news and rumors thread (Heavy-pic update page #2)
All this look great and promising!! I am a huge fan of your work and mainly of your enthusiasm and dedication to quality!! I am really excited with all your plans and what you present! I wish you to do great! You have my support
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/09/07 19:43:00
2014/09/08 18:00:43
Subject: Re:Shieldwolf Miniatures - Official news and rumors thread (Heavy-pic update page #2)
We appreciate the support, I can't reveal much at the moment as gallahad correctly perceived, since these previews are all about sculpted regiments of "frozen" projects that we intended to produce in resin. We have proved to have the knowledge and facilities for mass production and currenlty have the capacity to start releasing (+ have ready in stock obviously) 5 to 6 new regiments/year! But... ->>>we are currently focused in plastic sprue-tooling production -since that's what people have asked us for-. We listen to what you tell us and believe in this since day "one" (even if this means less regiments per year). There is only one other company worldwide (to our knowledge) that keeps on producing all their fantasy range plastic products on sprues. And they will continue to do so I think, we comprehend that, because it's simply the best material currently available to produce units/regiments.
Should we for some reason need to abbandon Renedra (which we hope with your support we will avoid doing), we will probably put all this (and much more) in the resin production line, it's the only way to complete the army game we are working on. We will need core troops. To answer a question we received in our FB page, we will not go into any other plastic production method if this doesn't work. Moulds would cost around 6 times less (we know because we had contacted Chinese factories before going to the UK), but it's too low quality material for Shieldwolf. You get what you pay for, that's no secret. In our opinion resin still remains much superior quality than any other type of plastic would/could ever offer (commonly known as PVC/restic). We really don't mind resculpting if HIPS is the way to go, regardless of it (sprue-tooling) being very costly to do. In the very next months we'll see if what we have prepared will give a definitive asnwer to that.
:-)
Anyway, if you liked what you saw today, what you're going to see next will truly capture you. And that's a promise ;-)
Thank you.
Angelos.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/09/10 17:41:50
I look forward to your goblin previews. Hopefully they'll be similar in aesthetics to GW Gobbos. I've got both GW and Mantic gobbos and I much prefer the look of the GW ones, just the price of the mantic ones are obscenely cheap.
Hopefully you can creek in to the middle ground with great looking and very affordable minis.
We cannot proceed in disclosing any further pictures (as promised in favor of a possible future colleague of ours) till a certain Kickstarter is over. Our Policy is to make our miniatures better regardless of what else is out there. After all, there is space for everyone :-)
Our goblins will look exactly as the one on the picture we released some weeks ago, we are pretty certain our Goblin range will be well received. Bear a bit more with us, you will be seeing them soon enough ;-)
The only thing I really take issue with is the slagging off of metal as a material. I like all of the models I've gotten from SW to date, but there's nothing in the resins that could not be reproduced just as well in metal.
Azazelx wrote: The only thing I really take issue with is the slagging off of metal as a material. I like all of the models I've gotten from SW to date, but there's nothing in the resins that could not be reproduced just as well in metal.
yeah, but would that be practical? I don't even want to think about having to assemble a 100+ component regiment in metal rather than in resin, tbh...
2014/09/12 01:51:13
Subject: Re:Shieldwolf Miniatures - Official news and rumors thread (Heavy-pic update page #2)
Azazelx wrote: The only thing I really take issue with is the slagging off of metal as a material. I like all of the models I've gotten from SW to date, but there's nothing in the resins that could not be reproduced just as well in metal.
yeah, but would that be practical? I don't even want to think about having to assemble a 100+ component regiment in metal rather than in resin, tbh...
Oh, I prefer multipart kits in plastic etc as well, but for hero models, individuals or single-piece castings, metal is quality.
@highlord tamburlaine Yes, there will be "Heavy" Dracantropii Infantry, just like there will be "Heavy" Barbarian Infantry. Our game gives them advantages and disadvantages (e.g. currently the "heavy" armor troops have stronger attacks and better armor saves, but are disadvantaged in movement and according to the landscape drawn to fight in, let's say the Dracantropii Jungles or Northern Alliance Snowy Mountains), all will be worked out and playtested till nausea strikes us hard, we already have a team of 6 volunteers from the Greek wargaming Clubs of "Meraklis", "Bearded Hammerers" and "Lion's Den" to playtest our Beta-One (B.1) version which Angelos should have completed by next mid-year. We hope Spring of 2015 but make no promises.
@Azazelx I'm glad you bring this up, it's a chance for us to explain our choice of material. It is true that metal is cheaper than most types of resin (and the mixture of our resin is even more expensive than any other type of resin currently available), plus the fact one can use metal again if the cast doesn't come out well (simply melt it down again) which allows limited losses. Using metal would allow larger profit margins for our Company and justify as heartserenade points out larger P&P expenses, but whilst that is true, no matter which metal type one uses it remains always much grainier/denser than the properties of resin. The only "advantage" metal miniatures may have is the "feeling" given to them when you lift a miniature because of their additional weight but even that is a non-objective advantage since some people find that a minus.
Everything else in our opinion makes it a far worse material for the client. Each manufacturer uses what he thinks best (we respect that) and decided that we will work with resin.
I'm extremely tempted to post a link of a youtube video that came to our attention of an Orc Shaman review, which clearly shows that the quality of our miniatures is as best as it gets, but I'm afraid this would be misinterpreted as showing off the faults of a colleague whose metal mini was compared to ours. So best we leave it at that, we are confident time (and clients) will tell whether our material choice was correct or not.
You're welcome to produce in any material that you choose. That's not my issue. It's with the choice of words:
(for those who are not familiar we at Shieldwolf refuse to work with metal since we consider it a worse and outdated material to work with, penalising the details of a sculpt -among other defects).
With all due respect to you, SW as a whole and your models - which you know that I like, have purchased and am a fan of, there are a great number of models in metal that simply blow away anything that SW (or most companies) have produced to date in terms of detail.
Then there are the more contemporary figures from Red Box Games, which again manage to capture the incredible amount of detail found in Tre's sculpts in metal. Reaper are also often a good choice for metal models with lovely fine details. Corvus Belli and their Infinity range?
HIPs and even resin are generally better for multipart models than metal, since pinning is painful. But the tiny amount of detail that is potentially lost between metal and resin would not be an issue for SW's sculpts at their present level. As I said, if you choose not to cast in metal as a personal preference or business decision, that's 100% fine with me. To criticise the material as "not good enough" is just silly.
@Azazelx OK, reading it again now I'd have to say it does sound too categorical, you're right on the choice of words. Poor choice of words, apologies.
I'm not saying that using metal is something bad, I also wote this above -and repeat- that we respect each manufacturers decisions (including Tre's whose models I really like, I've also posted a comment on his thread :-) because good work should be praised by all) but we have decided on our manufacturing methods and will insist in using resin. That's what I should've written instead of the quoted text above.
I hope this straightens the issue, we find every other manufacturer is a colleague who has something to offer to the Community and again, apologies if anyone got offended or anything similar. *offers hand*
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Uh... I didn't realize those movies ever survived past the age of video. I was younger then, and naive...
@ BobtheInquisitor I'll make it more interesting then, after all, why not have some more fun with it? The first person here at Dakka that guesses correctly any of the upcoming November releases, will get one mailed for free. P&P included.
How's that? :-)
*Note that you have to be specific, meaning if someone says "terrain" or "hero model", that will NOT count. ;-)
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Uh... I didn't realize those movies ever survived past the age of video. I was younger then, and naive...
@ BobtheInquisitor I'll make it more interesting then, after all, why not have some more fun with it? The first person here at Dakka that guesses correctly any of the upcoming November releases, will get one mailed for free. P&P included.
How's that? :-)
*Note that you have to be specific, meaning if someone says "terrain" or "hero model", that will NOT count. ;-)
Well considering that in the past few months, the only things that have been shown are the Dracantropii, demons/infernals, elves, and Araves , and the elves were only in 3d model stage, It's going to be one of the other 3.
The Dracantropii and Demon are the 2 releases I predict to be coming in November. Each of them have apparently been getting multi-piece wip's recently and would be further along than the Araves .
2014/10/14 18:55:56
Subject: Shieldwolf Miniatures - Official news and rumors thread (Heavy-pic update page #2)
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Uh... I didn't realize those movies ever survived past the age of video. I was younger then, and naive...
@ BobtheInquisitor I'll make it more interesting then, after all, why not have some more fun with it? The first person here at Dakka that guesses correctly any of the upcoming November releases, will get one mailed for free. P&P included.
How's that? :-)
*Note that you have to be specific, meaning if someone says "terrain" or "hero model", that will NOT count. ;-)
Well considering that in the past few months, the only things that have been shown are the Dracantropii, demons/infernals, elves, and Araves , and the elves were only in 3d model stage, It's going to be one of the other 3.
The Dracantropii and Demon are the 2 releases I predict to be coming in November. Each of them have apparently been getting multi-piece wip's recently and would be further along than the Araves .
Dracantropii + Daemons. *writes down name*
Any other guesses? :-)
Hmmm....
I am going to guess a set of terrain statues similar to the one you have on your webstore for monuments of glory, and an arave release for the pillars of destiny.
2014/10/15 00:07:21
Subject: Shieldwolf Miniatures - Official news and rumors thread (Heavy-pic update page #2)
Gallahad wrote: Hmmm....
I am going to guess a set of terrain statues similar to the one you have on your webstore for monuments of glory, and an arave release for the pillars of destiny.
Terrain statues *writes down name*
The competition is for the November releases only (Some people have already been informed on the Pillars of Destiny project, so that would be unfair) :-)
Shieldwolf Miniatures wrote: The first person here at Dakka that guesses correctly any of the upcoming November releases, will get one mailed for free. P&P included.
How's that? :-)
*Note that you have to be specific, meaning if someone says "terrain" or "hero model", that will NOT count. ;-)
carlos13th wrote: I will guess Arabe and Elves. Thats just wishfull thinking on my part.
Monuments of Glory release... I guess that it will be a kit for Arave statues/arches that can also be used for defense.
The Pillars of Destiny project sounds like a Kickstarter for a game starter. I would guess that one of the armies is the Araves, and the other is either going to be the dracontropii or the orcs. If I had to guess, it would be orcs because you have more kits and sales data on them. If I had to hope, it would be the Dracontropii.
