odays blog post will be about 28mm Alternate Miniature Companies. So to make it clear I won't be going into some of the many Fundraiser campaigns going on, that all look very promising though.
My blog has mainly been about Citadel miniatures so I'll asume the reader is a citadel collector looking for alternate options outside of the obvious second hand Oldhammer choices. There are a ton of 28mm miniature manufactors out there, so I will only select a handfull I find worth an extra look. It will be purely from the perspective of a miniature collector looking for Warhammer - mainly Oldhammer, Mordheim, Cthulhu/Strange Aeons Horror miniatures at fair prices. I will asume the reader knows all about Forgeworld and cower in fear about their prices ;)
1. Foundry
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/main.asp
Historical miniatures plus a good selection of ex-citadel miniatures, Oldhammer all over.
Oriental, Bretonnia, Empire, Dogs of War, Norse, Albion, Kislev, Villagers. Also a good selection of Perry miniatures, and finally a load of nice Pirates and Swashbucklers.
I use these miniatures in my Empire Army, and I am seriously considering them for Dogs of War, so I can only recommend them. The Foundry miniatures I have in my collection are rather newly acquired so still not painted up. But the miniatures themselves will fit right into the existing Citadel miniatures, exactly the same look, but the Foundry range itself is so much larger than the Citadel Empire range was, so there are some nice Champion alternatives to choose from.
Foundry also used to have a Fantasy selection, which didn't sell so well and have been moved to the Casting Room Miniatures section, however it should still be possible to ask for stock of these items. Their beastmen however are not of the Oldhammer types, but the typical Goatmen variants.
Like Perry miniatures things are sold in larger blisters of about 8 standard troops for £12, with a little less in the actual ex-citadel blisters. But all in all a very fair price.
2. Black Tree Design
http://eoeorbisuk.com/
Historical and Fantasy 28mm miniatures on slotta bases. I have no first hand experience with these, but a look at the web shop tells me there are Norse, Albian, Feudal Knight (Bretonnia), Dogs of War alternatives. Also of note are some really nice looking Araby alternatives that I like the look of. Other than that there's a large selection of scenery / decoration items.
Human miniatures are more in the Feudal range so more for the Bretonnia player / Dogs of War than the Empire Player here.
Nice Fantasy selection. A quick skim through the selection will make it obvious these where made for Warhammer substitutes. I mean.. Need an alternative Gyrocopter? it's there... Villagers, Skeletons, Vampires, Orcs and Goblins of the clearly citadel inspired versions (even with savage and night variants), High / Wood / Dark Elves, their own Skaven rip off ;) (Clearly prefer classic Citadels here), Halflings, Dwarfs (some nice ones in the range there and Citadel and Marauder actually did some really good ones for Comparison), and Quiet a monster selection.
Completely outside the scope of this Blog post, there's Doctor Who miniatures :D
Prices are in the fair range at £5.72 for 4 man sized historical miniatures.
3. Black Cat Bases
http://blackcatbases.com/
Black Cat Bases are mainly about Gothic Horror, but at present time have a nice big selection of miniatures. Miniatures are in Lead material, I have around 20 of their miniatures and all are without cast errors apart from the usual mold lines that needs to be cut. Beautiful details also. Basically they have a nice selection of Cthulhu miniatures both in horros and investigators. Some awesome pirates and Undead pirates if you fancy a Mordheim warband in this style :) or what about some Pygmies for Oldhammer Lustria.
Nice prices with sales prices around £1.5 per miniature, normal price £2, and package sollution for several of the miniatures.
4. Perry Miniatures
https://www.perry-miniatures.com
You will probably recoignize some miniatures in here. A lot of the Perry Twin's work is among the Citadel Oldhammer miniatures.
Basically Perry Miniatures is a haven for Bretonnia, Empire, and Tilean Dogs of War alternatives, and you can expect the same quality and look you remembered from the Oldhammer Citadel line.
Miniatures are Lead and is cast without a slotta base, but the size is the same, and you should be able to fit them easily on a base.
Everything is sold in box sets, so 6 soldiers will cost £7, which isn't pricey at all.
Apart from this I'd prefer looking at Foundry, larger selection, also including a lot of the Perry work.
5. Ral Partha
Ral Partha is most likely well known to all of you. Before the rise of Citadel miniatures, Ral Partha was the main source of my RPG miniatures, and what I started with. In the start Citadel produced miniatures for Ral Partha. What I wasn't aware of before recently is that some of these are still available from Ral Partha, among these the Jabberwock model.
You will also find the Heartbreaker Miniatures here, with sculpts from among others Kev Adams and Tim Prow. While I'm not myself a fan of Tim Prow's Ratmen, there's no doubt about his talent, as would be clear from the
Die Hard Miniatures kickstarter.
Of special note would be Ral Partha's Chaos Knights with an excellent Realm of Chaos Feel.
6. Reaper Miniatures
http://www.reapermini.com/
Reaper Miniatures are probably best known for their cheap alternative Bones miniatures. A good selection of their normal miniatures are available in Bones equelevant versions. Bones is a material used by Reaper that is kind of a very soft and bendy rubber-plastic material, sort of like what you find among miniatures in some boardgames. The whole Bones vs Lead is a major debate on the internet. Me personally, I have both Bones and Lead Reaper miniatures, and I really think there's a difference in details, I really prefer their Lead models. I haven't had actual quality problems with Bones, but a friend of mine had and isn't satisfied with the Bones quality control. This is ofcourse not really that much of a problem if you can inspect the blister in a local store before hand.
Anyway you can try these two links for Bones vs Metal comparision, they probably make my opinion seem like nitpicking ;)
http://thecolorblindmodelpainter.blogspot.dk/2013/10/reaper-minis-metal-versus-bones.html
http://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/47477-bathalian-bones-vs-metal-challenge/
I would say Reaper is the obvious choice for AD&D miniatures and the Fantasy RPG miniature useage, very good selection here. They do also have official Pathfinder miniature ranges, and have a good fantasy range for their own Warlord battle game.
For Warhammer alternatives there may not be so much, but for Mordheim alternate warband miniatures it might be worth a look.
Reaper miniatures isn't slotta, and comes molded on a little base.
I have a few of Reapers miniatures, and I love their monsters. Very detailed, very active and nice poses. They do a Jabberwocky worth a look that is on my wish list.
As prices go, a Bones human sized miniature is average £1.84, where the metal sized are about £3.95. So if you are not going for Bones this is not the cheapest miniature shop in this blog, but also not the most expensive.
7. Heresy Miniatures
http://www.heresyminiatures.com/shop/
Makers of Deathball, a Blood Bowl clone, so obvious Blood Bowl alternatives here. Some very nice undead alternatives. Zombies at bulk sale of £1 a piece, that's a nice price. Single Character miniatures at about £4. I also have to mention ... The Witch Hunter Halfling.
Other than that I have no first hand experience with their miniatures, so this is simply my impression looking through their online shop.
8. C-P Models
http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/
Slotta based miniatures from a company well known to dabble in Cthulhu mythos miniatures. This company does 15mm 20mm and 28mm ranges. 28mm selection when it comes to fantasy is small. They have recently done 3 mutated Chaos Dwarfs in the Realm of Chaos style, and at £5.5 for all 3 it's a bargain. In the historical section there's option for Norse miniatures, whereas the Cthulhu selection is purely monsters, but a nice one though. It is worth noting that hiding in the Cthulhu section is a Malal Hook Horror Daemon.
9. Hasslefree Miniatures
Mainly adventure type miniatures, nude females and very strong sexual themes!!! However they do have a Malal homeage female champion in various settings (Kalee, female Kaleb), and some Bloodbowl alternatives, so listing it anyway. For some strange reason their Resin miniatures are rather pricey, where as the metal miniatures are not. The Artemis blacks series has some character choices though.
When it comes to pricing a metal human character is around £3.34. I find this a nice price for some rather unique sculpts.
10. Scibor
http://www.sciborminiatures.com/
I love their mutants, which is the only ones that peaked my interest and that I actually own from these. Price range is higher than the other alternative miniatures but still not at Games Workshop pricing. Still very nice sculpts with super details and custom bases supplied for their models, which is a nice touch but we are in a price range where you probably rather hunt for OOP miniatures. Their models are nicely done but really have their own feel, which in some situations would be a plus, however this blog post is in the spirit of Alternate Warhammer / Mordheim miniatures, and for this I feel they are too different in style.
Price for a human character is around £5.5.
Mantic Games
http://www.manticgames.com/
Mantic isn't on my list, but I've included a little section for them anyway. As this is some alternate miniatures I often come across being used, and I have tried buying some of them.
Mantic produces miniatures for their own Fantasy wargame. Their Kings of War range are often being mentioned as alternatives for Warhammer players. I have tried with their Zombies, Skeletons and Ghouls, so my experience is only with their plastic undead miniatures and a few dwarfs. They do not do the trick for me. They are an improvement over current produced Games Workshop Zombies and Ghouls - although Games Workshop in his case would receive a thumbs up for the assembly possibilities, plus I do think GWs newest edition of Skeletons are looking really good. But none of these could ever come close to the look of Oldhammer sculpts.
40 Zombies comes at £24.99 so obviously a good price and a lot cheaper than Games Workshop, I just feel there are better alternatives out there.
The exceptions
I will mention a few exceptions. These are alternate miniature companies worth noting now we are talking about alternate miniatures, but they do fall out of the goal of this blog post, and so aren't rated.
Avatars of War
http://www.avatars-of-war.com/
Although I'm sure this is a main source for Alternate Warhammer miniatures, I'm taking this outside the scope for the reason that these are more current Warhammer than Oldhammer. With that stated, AoW are stunning miniatures from the hands of previous Games Workshop sculpter Felix Paniagua. There's no doubt these are alternate Warhammer miniatures, although made for their own public available gaming system Warthrone... Which ironically has rules for your Warhammer army ready for download.
So if it exist in Warhammer, you will find it here, it just have a different name. I have some of the Chaos models, they are highly detailed, great sculpts, in metal and with Slotta base. Now prices. If you are one of many that thinks Games Workshop prices are a little pricey.. It's just the same with AoW. This is models you buy for unique looks that fits into current edition Games Workshop miniatures. For Oldhammer they will be way too oversized and bulky.
Mierce
http://www.mierce-miniatures.com/
Mierce is all about high quality resin miniatures, so more of a Forgeworld alternative. Prices are up in the Forgeworld range *Oooph*, but they do have some stunning looking miniatures. Personally I've only ever looked over the monsters. Worth noting is a 3-headed Brood Horror alternative, although priced the same as Forgewrold - but the most stunning is their Chimaera, the price tag will stun you as well...
Ultraforge
http://www.ultraforgeminiatures.com/
Ultraforge is also about high quality resin miniatures. There isn't much of a selection, but prices are a bit below what you would expect from Forgeworld. Only model I really noticed to be populair here among players, is the Giant. When we talk Giant miniatures, the big question is always size size size... When it comes to Giants, gamers can't have them big enough. I've found a little comparision photo with the much loved Marauder Giant. The Ultraforge giant is towering it, but is still way smaller than the Forgeworld Giant.
Marauder Giant (left), Ultraforge Giant (Middle)
..And here several giants including Marauder giant with the Forgeworld Giant at top middle.
he Sisters of Serene crowdfunder by Warband Miniatures has ended, and I've received my two miniatures. I must admit I already have a Sisters of Sigmar Warband, so this was really for the heck of it, and maybe later do some conversion stuff to get some variation in my warband.
