Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Giant Weasel Miniatures Roundup

You can see which weasels I went with, those by Splintered Light, sculpted by Bob Olley, but I thought I may as well round up what options you have in case you're in the market and want to consider your options. Essentially, Otherworld and Reaper make some, and there's one for the D&D Minis game in the Aberrations set.

giant weasels

The Otherworld ones are great but initially I thought they were way too big for a 3HD monster in 25mm (the pic above make them look bigger than a tiger, for example). Having seen pics of them painted up on other sites I think they may not be quite as big as this pic makes them out to to look (there is shrinkage between the sculpt and the casting to consider). But size aside, there is the price, which is 390% more than the Splintered Light ones. However, now that I think about it, what about a new breed of greater giant weasels, or should that be titan weasels.... ? (to give you a frightening, only slightly exaggerated demonstration of how my mind rationalizes new purchases even of things I've already checked off the wishlist)

Dire WeaselThe prepaint figure is wrapped around a stalagmite and therefore a group of them would look like crap. And then there's that unfortunately decision Wizards made back in 3ed to give dire creatures a more evil back story and have spikes and crap sticking out of the skin of all the dire creatures. So the weird spikes would need to be shaved off and smoothed over.

Reaper WeaselReaper FerretReaper makes both a "weasel" and a "ferret" and they sell them in variety packs of familiars. Thankfully, if you want a group of just the weasel or ferret you can get them from Hoard O Bits, who hopefully won't mind me nicking their pics in exchange for links back to the shop. These figures are much larger than a 25mm "normal" ferret or weasel would be, but are not quite big enough to warrant the "giant" appellation in 25mm.

The Splintered Light ones, meanwhile, have all the right attributes:

  • Good sculpting
  • More than one pose, and poses that look good in a group
  • Won't break the bank
  • Perfect size for 25mm or 28mm (despite being sold as 15/18mm)

Splintered Light Giant Weasels

I also hugely appreciate that either Splintered Light or Bob Olley had the foresight to a) makes the bases of these large enough that I don't have to base them but no so large as I have to have cut them off and b) add a little texture detail to the base. That's so much time saved.

7 comments:

  1. I am a big fan of the Otherworld weasels.
    I painted one, you can see it here next to some other minis to get a sense of scale. comes out at about average 'man size'.
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5gzPi013aIo/TxkmweDrhTI/AAAAAAAAA30/xZDya3x2T6o/s1600/Narnia+Pact+BB+026.JPG

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    1. He and the rest of the warband look fantastic! And yeah, the Otherworld weasels are quite nice. I wouldn't say they are man-size though, even in 28mm and especially not in 25mm. I would say they are more on par with a tiger, though perhaps a lean one. http://img.pederick.id.au/gallery/d/249-1/IMG_2121.JPG. A 25mm base is 5 feet across, and these figs totally spill over the base. That's a big beast. :) Cheers!

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  2. Seconded, those dudes look great, LF.
    As for the weasels, the problem I have with the Splintered Light ones is that they look a bit like dachshunds instead of the bounding, bouncy gait they are known for. Heck, even bears run like that. Neither set has the characteristic long necks either.
    I know what you are going to tell me Spooktalker: "Well, why don't you sculpt some yourself then?"
    Well, maybe I will...

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    1. Haha, you have a point, they do look kind of weinery. Well, once yours come out I'll grab 'em up and use these as the dreaded Daschweasel instead. Colloquially known as the weiner-weasel. Almost as feared as the owlbear, and just as angry. Their angry yap chills the marrow of even a hardened band of adventurers and they're bread for small-tunnel fighting.

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  3. Hey I know this post is a few years old but I was wondering, does this take up two squares on a Pathfinder battle map? It said it's large enough for a 25/28 mm game but you don't really show how well it fits into that game.

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    1. For the Splintered Light figure I mean.

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    2. Hi, Pathfinder squares are 1" and these figures are longer than 1" but less than 2." I don't have the figures beside me but I think the bases are a little less than 1.5" long.

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