Avatars of War Dwarf Rune Master

Since I hit 4000 points limit recently, Projekt Core is on hold now. Today's mini is Avatars of War's Dwarf Rune Master miniature. It is a funny thing that all of my last four updates have been about different manufacturers' products. I think when you are playing a long time forsaken army such as chaos dwarfs, it is a must to browse through the catalogs of all companies and get what you can from them. This Rune Master figure in particular, has an awesome pose and I've seen many people using this one as sorcerer-prophets or daemonsmiths in their armies.

Avatars of War is a Spanish company which is known for its awesome hero models. Recently, they announced a new product line, called Warthrone, and started producing regimental boxes. The first regiment of this line was Dwarf Berserkers and thanks to their recent, successful kickstarter, more will follow soon. Although their kickstarter did not enjoy as much success as Mantic's (which was phenomenal), it was still enough to get them going with their new projects.

Let me talk about the miniature a little now. The mini comes in a large blister pack with a stock photo on it. No biggie; but many products I've bought recently didn't have one, so I had to say it. The model is made of white metal, as AoW's all other hero models. It came in 4 pieces: Body, cloak, staff and fancy part of the beard. The mini is highly detailed with almost no flash, and the pieces fit without much effort; but I strongly suggest pinning nevertheless. You can't simply not pin a metal part (damn you 9gag). Before moving on to painting, I have to say that, I think providing a scenic base would be a nice touch here, especially when you think of the price tag of the miniature.

When painting, I took a different route. Instead of silver undercoat, I used a new spray I found in my local store: Brilliant Copper. I was very hopeful when using it. I thought using this one will help me have my bronze with but one wash; but of course it was not meant to be. Actually I had to do more to make it look like the rest of the army, so I think I will go back using the silver spray. My favorite part on this mini was the green gems. I think the green colored gems suited the model best and I'm glad that I didn't paint them to a classic yellow-orange or blue pattern.

Enjoy...

Kickstarters from Mantic Games and Avatars of War

Kickstarter?

It's time to spread the world a little. Mantic Games and Avatars of War both have started kickstarter campaigns to fund their upcoming product lines. In geek community, this method is generally used by sculpters to fund for their initial costs or by some idealist who is trying to return something back to life which is OOP.

When they announced the kickstarters, the community responded with a mixture of ideas. The attitude is generally supportive until now; but there are some ideas that those companies are already well established (especially Mantic), hence they should be funding for their own products.

Mantic's kickstarter worked wonders for them. They were asking for only $5,000 where they had that amount in just 4 hours. That was quite unbelievable. They went on to introduce some more stretch goals afterwards and they were smashed in no time one after another. By the time I am writing this, they were at $46,113 from 290 backers. The only stretched goal remaining is the $50k mark unless they define new ones. There are 25 more days until this kickstarter ends; so it's just a matter of time that stretched goal is achieved. UN-FRIGGING-BELIEVABLE...

On the other hand however, there is Avatars of War's kickstarter, which is not doing that good. Their pledge amount is $20,000 and by the time this lines were written, they were at $3,480 from 31 funders. To be honest, they are doing alright too, by collecting that much of a money within 2 days. I think the success story of Mantic's overshadowed theirs. AoW also promise some cool stuff to be put in production if this pledge is achieved, including an army of undead werewolves! My English fails me there to define such a coolness... :)

So, that's pretty much it. See the kickstarter pages to see what they promise to do if they achieved their pedge and what is in it for you. Go on, support them and be a part of this. AoW guys need it more currently; but why not support both, right? Back to you Robin...