It’s time for a new month, so let’s take a look at what I’m backing on Patreon. We actually have some movement on the list, adding some new friends and new models to what I’m able to take a look at. The funding I get over on Patreon for me helps me to afford to follow along with these guys and keep the 3d printer spinning, as well as provide new ideas and inspiration for blog posts and articles!
Enough of the pitch, let’s get on with the update.
Spectre’s Patreon in October was… fine? Maybe? I mean we got figures at least, with new sets (a medic and some specialists) to add to the Local Forces release. The more useful part of this month’s releases however is a set of packs (which were supposed to have been released last month) that can be printed off and added to models, much as I have already with the Insurgents I’m still painting. But a promised technical with BTR82a turret missed the deadline of the month (not helped by illness among the Spectre staff).
Look enough trying to dance around the topic – I’m growing increasingly unhappy with how Spectre is going. It definitely feels that the Patreon is at the bottom of the very long list of priorities and is functioning mostly as a way of guaranteeing an income when they can’t release physical models. I understand they are a small company (and that this is no longer the day job in the same way it was pre-pandemic) but people are paying £10-£15 a month and releases are barely coming in before month end. The monthly update posts all start with apologies for missed targets and comments and questions keep being ignored and left unanswered. As you can see below, running a Patreon that provides miniatures is a solved problem – a little bit of market research would show best practices and methods to use as a guideline. I think there is a greater discussion to be had about Spectre’s business but this post isn’t the place for it (and it could be said I have no business talking about it!).
In better news, we also got the Local Forces physical releases at the start of the month. Heavily inspired by a nation currently engaged in a defensive war in Eastern Europe, these two packs are the sort of thing we like to see from Spectre. They were also dispatched pretty quickly and after taking a look at them, the casting is improved greatly over the Insurgents, with far less cleanup needed or full-on errors spotted.
Combat Octopus on the other hand kicks ass this month. Over the next few months until the end of the year, CO has taken the voting offline to do some projects he’s wanted to do for a while. First up, with have the second-place entry from last month, the Combat Octopods. These guys are a PMC that CO has come up with, a chance to do some really modern guys with the latest gen of Russian gear (such as AK12s and PPK-20s). For the Kitbashing lunatic in me, the figures in this kit are ideal for combining with the KSK to make up some well-armed, highly trained non-military figures. Even the heads by themselves are a gift, great for adding to other figures for the operator look when you don’t want to go full FAST helmet.
For me personally, this release is exactly the sort of thing I come to Combat Octopus for – modular parts with plenty of uses, an interesting mix of poses and a lovely level of detail on the weapons. I’m less sold on what has been announced for what’s coming over the next two months (it’s been announced as Japanese High Schoolers in the Zombie Apocalypse perhaps inspired by a certain anime) but he has confirmed that there will be some potential for realistic civilians among the parts – another bonus of modular releases!
This month is going to be a big one for Black Powder Red Earth as it sees the release of their new big box expansion – Phase Line, coming out on November 21st (although the rulebook is available now through Amazon). I’m going to be covering it more this month (and next month by the time my box makes its way through customs) but I am very excited for its arrival. The new box has 24 new models in it along with new building templates, cards and even resin doors and corner pieces to help hold up the multi-level buildings. Yes, I did say multi-level buildings, they are in the new rules alongside grenade launchers, MMGs and cool CQB guns such as the Raider carbine. The Patreon currently has the PDF for the rulebook as well, so you can get a quick glimpse of it (although I aim to cover it this month as a sneak preview).
We actually have a new entry for the Ultramodern Wargamer this month – Enemy Spotted Studios, fresh off releasing their INX Kickstarter. This is something else on my list to take a look at (although I’m still waiting for the rules) as it seems to fill their niche for a larger than section vs section game. However, they have also started a Tribe over on MyMiniFactory to sell off their figures. What I really like is the fact every three months you end up with effectively a full force for the game. They have started off with doing a set of insurgents, slightly better equipped than most other sellers (and similar in some ways to the Aayari in BPRE). The welcome pack also includes the Ground Branch team, a set of operators rocking the tac gear over t-shirts.
One point I do have to make though is that these figures look pretty awful when you first put them in 3D Builder – this seems to be down to some super rough topology on the models, so if you’re coming from Spectre or Combat Octopus. However, by the time you’ve sliced them and run them through the printer, they turn out just fine, with some great attention to the little details.
BUT WAIT, there’s more. Turnbase Miniatures is a patreon I backed for a long time but fell off as a lot of the releases started veering into SSDD, with some very obvious signs of corner-cutting. I haven’t re-upped but I did notice that this month’s releases are Australian SF and I’m actually very tempted to pick up. They seem much improved over the last set I received from them, and the gear and weapon combinations would work out very nicely for a fictional PMC. Maybe I’m just a sucker for masked faces and comtacs!
Okay, Ultramoderns covered, lets’s look at the fantasy and sci-fi stuff.
Last Sword’s releases continue to be pretty damn sweet. This month is High Elves, a faction I’m only so-so about they continue to make some fantastic figures. There is just something about the posing that even on the fully ranked units, you can easily pull out some heroes among them. I also like how they have included a “wild” phoenix alongside the ones being ridden – this is something they have done in the past few months with similar beasts, and is great for someone like mean who always can do with more monsters for their soldiers to hunt.
However, we do need to talk about next month when they are doing Imperial Militia and they are already looking pretty fantastic. The mix of body types reminds me really heavily of Battle Brothers, where you end up hiring people from different backgrounds and professions, often getting them to fight in their starting gear before you can afford to give them armour. And then there are the halflings – I can appreciate a group whose melee weapons are oversized cooking implements. I think you’ll be seeing plenty of these printed.
Highland Miniatures are also about to see plenty of their stuff printed – just as I’m giving the Dastardly Regular Opponent some Dwarves for his birthday, of course Highland would pop up and show off some new releases. This next pack is adding the gunpowder siege weapons to the range as well as heavily armoured huscarls and this Viking-inspired Dwarf Lord. As I said last month, I’m really on board with the style of these figures, especially after having spent some time cleaning up the ones I’ve already printed.
Vae Victis this month is serving up part 3 of their guard releases, giving us a set in full armour to go with the male and female guards in leather armour. Thanks to the modular nature of this set, parts interchanging means you can assemble a huge variety of guards, ideal for any kind of fantasy D&D game.
As for characters, there is a fun tiefling witch made in collaboration with a D&D content creator, an old Knight Captain to lead your heavily armoured troops and a trio of staff ideal for your fantasy hotel. I will admit, I just want to print the maid because she looks cool as hell. Bases and some scatter roads round out a set that I think is pretty awesome for anyone with an interest in gaming the genre.
Finally, yep what you’ve all been waiting for since I mentioned it at the top. Star Wars.
Look, I’m not going to lie. Star Wars for me is incredibly hit or miss – I love it when it leans hard into the western/ww2 adventure stories and immediately switch off my brain when the Jedi are treated as anything more than an “oh shit, that’s a wizard”. Rogue One is the platonic ideal of what Star Wars is – a story about a small group of plucky rebels taking on the Empire with force users only appearing in limited numbers and for maximum effect. Mandolorian comes a close second (up until the final episode of season 2 that had me shouting at the screen in annoyance in the final moments when a certain Deus Ex Machina appeared).
So of course, the series Andor is 100% my jam. Corporate guards, spies and assassins, secret missions and the secret police hot on your trail? I love it. The problem, of course, is that I watch it and then my brain starts going “what if this was a skirmish game”, “Skirmish Scarif is a good name” and “Man, Book of Boba Fett should have used Daiymo Boba like a Keyser Soze style character rather than trying to make it action-y”.
Luckily, Skull Forge Studios saw me coming a mile away and can solve two of those ideas. They have been making an incredible set of STLs for printing and I’ve picked up a few over time via their gumroad store (their first version of the Mandolorian was incidentally the first model I printed). However, with the ongoing series, and with a whole pack dedicated to the show, I jumped in and signed up. As well as the figures seen here, Skull Forge likes to add a few bonuses as well – for example, we also received in October a figure for a certain spymaster, some commandos in scuba gear and even some proper Imperial security guards to go with the Corporate ones.
November’s figures are all about the rebels and give you a pretty healthy selection. You have rogue space wizard, grizzled clone trooper, a whole host of weird and wonderful RPG style characters (including a gecko with a minigun probably annoyed that some little green git keeps eating his spawn) and a squad of well-equipped commandos based on designs from a mobile game. Oh AND a set of riders on Orobirds that were in Star Wars Galaxies. Between these two months, I’m swimming in possible figures for a small-scale game, all I need to do is add some greeblies to my adobe compounds and I’d be all setup.
But. I am interested to see what’s being done next. One of the ideas that has been floated on the Patreon is a set of Imperial infiltrators, spies and Imperial Security officers. As someone who has particularly liked how they have shown off the ISB in the series, maybe I’ll stick around to see what figures they make of it.
That’s the Patreon update for November 2022! I’ll be back next month with more