Review: Heresy Miniatures

 

It's been a long time coming. Here's my review of some figures by Heresy Miniatures.

Introduction 

If you've been around miniature wargaming you most likely have heard of Heresy Miniatures. The company has been around since 2001 and ever since then has been run (in a tremendous effort) by Mr. Andy Foster.

He does the sculpting (apart from select ranges sculpted by other greats such as Paul Muller), casting, website, marketing, and all of the rest. Wildly impressive work given the range(s) Heresy offers, including several remarkable ranges and modern classics, such as the Greatcoats gang...

... a gruesome Ghouls range by Paul Muller, the Eolith/Spyglass range by Steve Buddle (more on some of these later), and of course the Heresy Miniatures mascot Boris the Barbarian.

Then there's such things as that great range of demons, Bloodbowl-suited, The Dragon, and so much more. 

So anyway, on to the review. As usual, I didn't get these figures for free, I bought them.

What I Got

I got the Monstrous Spider (resin and metal version)for GBP 9.60...

... and the Adventurer Party Deal, which is a pretty neat deal in which you can choose figures for each role in your typical adventuring party (Fighter, Firepower, Faith, Magic, Tank) for GBP 16.00, so GBP 3.20 for each character. Which is very sensible.

The Figures & Assembly

The parcel arrived swiftly, and after handing the postman a huge amount of money for customs charged I took a look at what I got.

The figures arrive in small baggies. They come with bases, the style of which you can choose from in the online store (25mm square/round/hexagonal or 30mm lipped). The spider didn't come with a base.

The casting is crisp and very clean. Mold lines are to be removed (as always). On the heroes especially I noticed a fair amount of thin casting channel residue (what ever you call it. The tiny, thin sticks where the metal is injected and/or air flows out), reminiscent of how later GW metal models were cast.

After some consideration I put it on an oval Renedra base (115x88mm). This also should give you a general idea of the size of this monster.

In the back you can see the heroes (on 25mm round bases). Human-sized figures come with tabs underneath their feet, so you get the tall, GW-style slotta bases. For the Fighter I chose the Dwarf Miner with Pickaxe and Pipe. This one's a multi-part kit with two head options. You can also get variants with handguns and so on. For the Firepower I chose Shae, the elven ranger from the Eolith/Spygrass range. To me this one's a modern classic and a figure I've had my eyes on for a long time. In the Magic role I got Wood Elf Sorceress Autumn. Both sensibly-clad female adventurers, which is always a good addition to your fantasy collection. For the Tank I got The Valkyrie, because it's a cool, classic look for a paladin or fighter, and The Faith is represented by the similarly classic looking Brother Lucius with a steel warhammer.

I'm sure that  the most questions which arise now concern the assembly of the spider.

When I posted about having gotten this spider for the broodmother model of my giant spider swarm I got reports from people who called this one their "arch enemy model" due to the fiddly assembly.

The figure comes with a resin body and head (all in one), eight pretty spindly legs and two mandibles. Pretty standard spider stuff, one would say. The thing is that the joints aren't huge. You can pin them, but I didn't to be honest. All I did was add a tiny bit of green stuff to help keep the leg in place until the glue dried. This solution may not be the wisest choice, but so far (after about two months) the figure still hasn't collapsed.

I considered installing a pin between the base and the abdomen of the spider for added structural strength, but in the end opted go gamble and just stuck the figure to the base as is.

Painting

Painting the figures was good fun, as was to be expected. From my Giant Spiders review you already know my colour scheme for those. Since this one was t

o be the broodmother it's going to have the same colour scheme. My philosophy on giant spider painting is pretty simple: These things work based on that they're instantly recognizable as spiders, and the look of spiders evokes a reaction in any human's brain already, so there's no real necessity to get clever with a colour scheme. At least that's what I think. What I did though was paint the eyes in a lovely turquoise, other than on the other giant spiders.

Here's a size comparison shot of a giant spider by Wargames Atlantic versus the Giant Spider by Heresy:

You can see how the figure works proper well for a broodmother. Overall it's a bit thinner, but comes with horn/tooth like protrusions on the legs and abdomen. Overall I painted it darker than the smaller spiders. Since the plastic spiders' legs are all not very spread out (probably to navigate the uneven ground) I kept the legs on the broodmother similar. Nothing stops you from bending them a bit to give the spider even more "wingspan" though.

The two front legs I glued on raised, so it looks even more menacing.

Here we see the heroes a bit better. From left to right: Brother Lucius, Dwarven Miner (a lovely figure), Shae (really cool to finally have her in my collection), Autumn (although I painted her in way chillier colours. I really like the combination of the icy light blue and the darker blue with some tan) and The Valkyrie, whom I painted in a quite 'standard' fashion, because it just works for me.

The bases are done in a very generic fashion, as on most of my fantasy figures. The spider's base got a fair amount of spiderwebs on it, along with the odd skull, rocks and some flowers.

Thoughts On the Product

I've had my eyes on some of these figures for a while, others were new to me. Either way, the sculpts are lovely, the casting quality is really good on the metal and flawless on the resin spider body.

Prices are perfectly reasonable, depending on what you're used to. At the time of writing a human-sized figure will go for between GBP 4.00 and GBP 8.00 (the latter applies to figures with head or weapon options). There are frequent sales, various limited editions and resin variants of sculpts as well as specials such as the 3-Up master castings of skeletons.

Why OF COURSE I painted a skull on the spider's butt!

To me Heresy is one of the go-to places for fantasy characters, classic monsters (especially demons, undead and so on) and other special treats for your collection. It's just fun to browse the store and look for figures you could use. Many will also work as inspiration for special scenarios or characters for your fantasy skirmish games.

Well, I hope that you enjoyed this review and found it interesting! Stay tuned for further reviews and other good stuff!

I hope that you enjoyed the review and found it useful or even entertaining. If you have any questions, maybe review requests, suggestions or ideas feel free to use the comments section below or just contact me via e-mail or Battle Brush Studios' Facebook page. The same goes of course for commission requests. See you soon! :-)