Review - Black Pyramid Games Beorn Kin (28mm)

Today's review is of the Black Pyramid Games 'beorn kin' figures. Although they have been out for a few years,  they aren't terribly well known. Currently the range has 3 packs - warriors, a chieftain and a chieftain mounted on a bear. There are more in the pipeline,  including cavalry,  a command pack and a witch. The review will cover the warrior and chieftain packs.

The figures are inspired by the Wendol cannibal cavemen from the film 13th Warrior, and are pretty good matches - down to the bear claw studded clubs and the chief having the horns of power. 

Each pack contained the bits shown, and the correct number of scenic resin bases. The chieftains arms are repeats of those from the warriors pack, but give pretty good verasatility.

The sculpting on the figures is good - not stupendous, but definitely more than adequate for the job and probably comparable to the likes of warlord.

(Speaking of which, the figures in the scale comparisons above are a Warlord standard bearer and a musketeer miniatures spearman. The figures beorn kin warriors are a little larger than the others, with the chieftain larger still.)  

The castings were also pretty good - a few mould lines, but they were all easily removable.  The fit of the seperate arms seems good,  and all seem compatible with all the bodies. 

Time for a few more comparison pictures...

From the left: Eureka, bk, Musketeer, bk, Artizan.

From the left: Artizan, bk, Warlord, bk and Gripping Beast. 

Overall I'm very pleased with the figures, and the 4 warriors for £6 is a good enough price.  The chieftain for £4 is a little steep, but as a one off isn't out the way. I'll definitely be getting some more warriors, and probably the other bits when they come out.  These guys would make for a great,  unique, Saga army!

WiP update - various projects

It's been a while since I last posted, so I thought I better put something up before I fell out of the habit again.  :-)

Progress has mainly been focused on 40mm stuff, but the last week or so has seen me dabbling in all sorts of projects.  Between going to a reenactment (as a punter for once) getting me fired up for a dark age stuff, and restarting Sleeping Dogs getting me fired up for afokf I have been hopping between things like crazy.  I am still having issues doing text captions for pictures, so apologies in advance for the block of unlabelled pictures.  I was about to call them figures, which shows I have thesis writing firmly lodged at the back of my mind! 

There is a 40mm Shirvan government soldier who has been converted to hold a TAG RPG-7, some Shirvan army special forces (originally early 90s green berets, updated with snazzy m4 carbines to show the governments western leaning), a couple of mercenaries (originally British royal marine Arctic warfare chaps, with TAG weapons), 28mm Malayan emergency CTs converted from Foundry ww2 Japanese (which will round out my CT platoon), assorted 15mm types (mick yarrow stone age and bronze age warriors, a few stray zulus) to act as 'hidden folk' for my dark ages games (definitely channeling the Brownies from Willow - I see these folks as pretty wild, with bronze and stone weapons and lots of rabbit and squirrel furs. The owl on the shaman's base, the severed head and the fallen tribesman are all an attempt to make them feel like they belong in a 28mm world, whilst  keeping the savage look), a couple of slightly converted early saxons, 3 Latino gangers which will end up joining my afokf triad and an overview of my painting desk (lots of romano British levy, a few saxons, the 40mm vdv from last time and various militia men in mixed camo schemes...)

Painting update - 40mm moderns

Just thought I'd share my painting progress on the 40mm stuff. The only things which aren't my work are the green chaps posed with the Ural truck.  They came painted off eBay, and have been rebased after I decided not to repaint them...

Amera ruined buildings

I recently got lucky on eBay, and managed to pick up a lot of second hand amera buildings, some of which had been a bit beaten about in their past life.  I've got 3 assembled so far, and thought I'd share them before they got bogged down in the paint que. (Along with one which I did the other year, but I don't think I posted up here). The figures are a mix of 40mm and 28mm (Artizan, Dixons Yakuza and an Offensive rioter), all based on penny washers. It is probably worth saying that the interior floors can be lifted by a few mm depending on whether one glues them to the top of the floor below's window surround (as I did) or at the bottom of that floors window surround. Anyway.  On with the pictures!

1/43rd Diecast BTR 40 size comparison

Another 'diecast and 40mm' update - this time with a Russian model of a BTR 40 apc. Although the magazine the model comes with is a Deagostini publication, it only appears to have been published in the former USSR. (I think it is called something along the lines of Classic Vehicles of the USSR). In this case the model was shipped from Latvia,  and cost about £15 including postage. It's quite good that the top cover comes off,  but the seats are a little delicate (they will survive fitting a driver and crew but still fragile) as are the wing mirrors. The hole for securing the roof cover would also be a good mounting point for a machine gun...

Dark clouds over Urdovnya photo report

I have been meaning to finish off my ACQ game from the other week (I stopped when my phone ran out of batteries,  as otherwise I wouldn't be able to get any pictures) but that is looking increasingly unlikely as time goes by,  so I thought I would post up what I did play, if only for the pretty pictures. 

Things didn't start well for the Spetsnatz,  as negotiations finished at the end of the second or third turn (a random dice roll- the bandits agreed an alliance with the police and the police chief was allowed to leave),  so they had to rush to try and get to their targets in time.  Luckily for them,  the bandit guards at the back of the bungalow must have been pretty much blind as they didn't spot the approaching figures until they opened fire. The RPO flame launcher missed the building entirely (isn't there a saying about not hitting barn doors? ) but did make a mess of one of the parked cars and alert everyone that things were not going to plan.  In the following turns the police reaction unit and patrolling bandits both rush back and start engaging the Spetsnatz.  The Spetsnatz got lucky and put a grenade through the back window of the bungalow,  although another missed the patrolling milita to blow a hole in the roof of the goat hut. After a turn of frantic rifle fire, one of the Spetsnatz went down,  along with a handful of bandits. All the time the police chief had been making a cautious exit, and just reached the car as my batteries died... At this point, things weren't looking too good for the Spetsnatz - a string of poor dice rolls meant that they had been unlucky with shooting,  whilst the bandits had passed a couple of morale tests.  They would not have been able to 'win' through killing the police chief (unless he had a very bad bout of Hollywood 'ohgawdthecarthathasbeenworkingperfectlyuptonowsuddenlywon'tstart') and even then,  it is unlikely.  A couple more turns would probably have killed another handful of bandits which should have got atleast one squad (band? Gang?) to run, but the Spetsnatz were likely to take more casualties through sheer wait of fire...