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Maledrakh does the entire Mantic Crazy Bobby’s Craaazzy Bonanza Box of Craziness!!!! Complete!

Maledrakh does the entire Mantic Crazy Bobby’s Craaazzy Bonanza Box of Craziness!!!! Complete!

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Project Blog by maledrakh

Recommendations: 104

About the Project

It is Black Friday 2017. Maledrakh (miniatures addict) orders "Crazy Bobby’s Craaazzy Bonanza Box of Craziness!!!!" (official name of item in webstore and on invoice) on a whim. His wallet cries out in pain. The Mountains of Minis prepare to yet again increase in girth and weight, threatening a repeat of the Great Miniatures Avalanche of 2015. As self-inflicted punishment for this thoughtless indiscretion, Maledrakh takes a solemn oath to paint every single one of the miniatures in the Bobbybox, no matter if they are copies of already owned miniatures or maybe even those terrible atrocities known as Plastic Basilean Men At Arms. This is the long drawn out tale* of this self-flaggelation. *most of this is simply copied over from the old BoW forum. This is done because the bobbybox miniatures were not entirely finished when BoW upgraded the site. This way it all gets collected in a neat project.

This Project is Completed

Bobbybox part 11: The Deadzone Marauders

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Skill 3
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Powering on with the Bobbybox, we come to the DeadZone Marauders. I got 5 Orx Commandos and 2 Goblin snipers.

In the Warpath universe shared by the DeadZone game, the Marauders are green-skinned, brutish-looking aliens that are highly disciplined militaristic mercenaries that function both as shock troops for corporations and also follow their own agenda.  A rather different take on Space Orcs and Space Goblins than the rust-bucket Space Orks of Warhammer 40k.

So, disciplined military in thought, and in a half-baked bid to move the Marauders away from the Waargh! Orks, I did a scheme inspired by the British colonial army of the late 1800s Zulu wars, with white leather straps, gold piping and all.

Took ages to paint. Gah! But it does give them an interesting look as a group.

…and the camera would not cooperate fully,  leaving these the only pictures even close to viewable. This time my photography let me down.

 

 

Not very sharp pictures at all, I am afraid. Sorry about that.

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 86  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 40 left to do!

Bobbybox part 12: Warpath Orx and KoW Goblins Spitters

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Skill 4
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Originally posted April 2, 2018

The time has come for the Warpath Orx Marauder Command figures, and the Kings of War Goblin Spitters.

There were two sprues of the old Marauder Orx Command, each with parts to make two miniatures plus extras for the bits box.

When Mantic first was set up, they had a clear made-for-Warhammer-but-much-cheaper-to-buy profile. The Mantic minis being closer to so-called “true scale” with much more realistic proportions than the comic-charicature “heroic proportions” of Warhammer minis. I would speculate that the reason Mantic chose this style for their minis might have been fuelled by a desire to not be litigated into bankruptcy by making minis that were both stylistically and proportionately not to be confused with GW miniatures. (This was before the infamous Chapterhouse court case that effectively opened up the third party market for all comers as long as they did not use GW’s trademarked names or just carbon copied/recasts of actual minis)

This meant they made Orx (with-an-X-not-a-K) that are a far cry from the Space Orks of 40k:

   

However the scale, the Orx were still brutes that seemingly were equipped from the scrap-heap, just like Space Orks. They were also sci-fi versions of their fantasy Orx and made in hard plastic by Renedra, as most of the other early (pre-kickstarter) Mantic minis were. And as such they are actually really nice minis with good details. The bases are 25mm.

 

In recent years, Mantic has been edging more towards the heroic propotions, especially with the Orx.

This is pretty obvious when compared to the more recent DeadZone commandos. These are supposed to be from the same army…the commandos seem to have developed pandemic hydrocephalism together with much longer arms. And incindentially, look much more like Space Orks than the older Orx do.

 

 

And speaking of hard plastic minis we come to the Goblin Spitters:

 

20mm bases.

These are some of the infamous Kings of War hard plastic goblins made in China after the first Kings of War Kickstarter. Presumably, Mantic turned to an unproven Chinese factory for manufacture instead of the proven UK-based Renedra both to save a significant amount on the tooling and manufacture costs, but rumor also has it that Renedra might not actually have had any open slots to make anything for Mantic at that time anyway.

Together with the even more infamous Basilean Men at Arms, the hard plastic goblins were apparently a product of bad communication, misunderstandings and lack of quality control before signing off on production. The hearsay goes that the Chinese manufacturer was not able to use the 3D-files correctly, and traced them into their systems manually or similar. This causing a significant worsening of details and all that. Insistent rumors also tell that the manufacturer had said things like that they had extensive knowledge and experience with making such miniatures, without that being true. They seem to have botched the job because they did not have the necessary skills. At any rate, Mantic must have signed off on production without looking too hard at the results (probably a mix of naivete and time pressure to deliver the KS), and I can just imagine the expressions on the faces of Mantic when they got the shipment with the sprues in. That is a sunk cost, if I ever saw one. They would not have been able to afford not to release neither the Basileans nor the Goblins, even thought they must have known the flak they would get for them.

In truth they are simply horrible miniatures. Soft details, badly fitting parts, mould lines like you wouldn’t believe. It’s like they were parts for some cheapo boardgame in the 80s. Yes, that bad. And the Goblins were better than the Basileans, I can tell you that.

I am very glad that there were no more of these Goblins or even any Basileans in the Bobbybox.

Also, it seems that Mantic have learned their lesson with all the newer hard plastics being significantly better in every way. A hard learning curve, that Flying Frog of Shadows of Brimstone fame also have had to climb.

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 95  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 31 left to do!

Bobbybox part 13: The Vehicles (and another one)

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Skill 6
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Originally posted Apr 8, 2018

 

Not too much time dedicated to painting anything this week, but I did manage to get the vehicles from the Bobbybox done. These were all from Warpath, and included an old school Orx Raptor trike and three new-school (is that even an expression?) Veermyn Tunnel Runner monowheel-things.

While I was at it, I decided to include another Raptor that I had lying about and paint that up as well.

The Orx Raptor is one of the earliest, if not the earliest restic vehicle kit Mantic made. Stylistically it is obviously made as a substitute Space Orks buggy, and as such is actually a quite nice representation of a crude, ramshackle speedy light vehicle weapons platform.

 

Like all Space Ork vehicles, reality gets left at the door. I mean, putting the radiator and air intake for the engine directly behind the front wheel of the trike, without any mudguard, would probably lead to the engine failing catastrophically due to clogged intakes in short order. The little front windscreen the driver is supposed to see out of, is completely blocked by the massive engine. Probably why it is called an engine block. The gunner has no seat, handholds, rails, straps, or anything to hold on to apart from the rocket launcher itself, so that makes it really easy to aim when bumping around in a speedy buggy…speaking of the rocket launcher, it points by default directly into the front wheel by way of the engine…but this kind of élan is what makes an ork vehicle orky, isn’t it?

 

 

Anyway, the kit itself is rather crude, with large parts that did not fit together at all. Every major restic part was warped to some degree. Getting the parts to fit needed a bit of boiling water to soften the restic and some bending into shape before dunking in ice cold water to set the new shape. I recommend to do parts that need to fit together at the same time, and hold them together in the correct position when dunking in the cold water to set them.

 

In the end, the kit cleaned up well.

 

The Veermyn Tunnel Runners are rather newer kits, from the recent (well, it might be as much as two or even three years since) Warpath kickstarter.

 

The space skaven equivalent of bikes. They are made in a newer pvc plastic and not restic as such. Still, two of the three I got needed to be put in hot water to straighen out warpage and make the parts fit. When immerded in hot water, they warped back into their correct shape by themselves.

The kit itself is very intuitive and easy to put together, the main body of the thing being a one piece casting, with only smaller parts like the arms, head, guns and outside blades needing to be glued on. Very nice details, much sharper than on the Raptor.

 

I would wager a pretty penny that the Raptors were originally designed the old fashioned way by the designer making a physical model that was used to make moulds from, while the tunnel runners are obvious digital designs.

I painted them by undercoating black, and drybrushing a series of different metallics before dotting in details. The Raptors also got coloured ink washes to add some colour to their main bodies. This is a very quick way to do such vehicles and I did not want to spend too much time on these so I kept the weathering to a simple drybrush with earth brown. Which is more effective than it sounds, really.

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 99  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 27 left to do! (plus some small bits like casualties and the half skeleton . I think I might have counted those wrong, as I seem to have 4 of those left, not three)

Bobbybox pt 14: The Skeletons of the Lost Crusade

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Skill 4
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Picking up work on the rest of the bobbybox minatures, untouched since before Easter(!), here are the contents of the Skeleton Troop Sprue:

 

 

10 skeleton infantry, a skeletal dog (or is it a rat), and the top of a skeleton dragging itself up from the grave

I already have (the start of ) an Undead Army for Kings of War called the The Lost Crusade themed slightly along the lines of Templar Knights with white robes and shields featuring red crosses.

So here is another unit or an extension to an existing one.

I based them with my bespoke 3D printed 20mm round lipped bases for older mantic miniatures that both make them round based for skirmish combat and keeps the 20mm footprint for Kings of War or Warhammer Fantasy Battles ranking up. Also, they are easier to rank up since the round bases let me adjust the positions.

Miniatures in HIPS polystyrene plastic.

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 110  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 16 left to do! (plus two modern soldier casualties and the mars attacks pilot without a vehicle)

Orctober! The Dungeon Saga Orcs & Goblins

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Skill 2
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It’s Orctober! Cue token painting of some  random orc minis…luckily the next in line from the Bobbybox are the rest of the Dungeon Saga Orcs and Goblins.

 

The orclings and the mawbeast were done earlier. Here is the rest of the set.

 

 

The Armoured Troll

 

The three orcs

and the three goblins.

Did them in gworc green and did not bother with colour variations here, as I have three more sets of these still unpainted from the original Dungeon Saga Kickstarter, and I will do each set in a different scheme.

This wraps up the Dungeon Saga minis from the Bobbybox, leaving some Kings of War Dwarves and some Mars Attacks! specialty minis left to do before the journey towards the dark side Bobbybox will be complete!

 

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 117  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 9 left to do! (plus two modern soldier casualties and the mars attacks pilot without a vehicle)

Bobbybox pt 16: The Dwarf Ironclads

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Skill 4
Idea 2
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Continuing on with the Bobbybox, we come to the Dwarves.  Or “Dwarfs” as Mantic call them.

 

 

I went with a dark blue and a dark purplish red colour scheme for simplicity’s sake. Could just not be bothered to do any more detailing. A bit tired of Mantic minis right now…

Again, my own bespoke 25mm lipped 3D printed bases.

 

Closing in on the last few minis in the bobbybox!

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 122  / 126   (+10 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 4 left to do! (plus two modern soldier casualties and the mars attacks pilot without a vehicle)

The bobbybox pt 17: The Mars Attacks! remainders

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Skill 3
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Woot! The rest of the minis are all done!

All of them from Mars Attacks!

Blaine, Ron Manning and Judge Dreck-ack-ack!

Blaine being the mysterious persona that gets a KS excusive figure in almost every KS Mantic has done, and the Mars Attacks /  Judge Dredd crossover mini! (yes, it is a thing!) The helmet is a bit too large, and needs to be trimmed slightly to fit before I glue it down.

…and all the back pictures were too fuzzy to use. Oh well.

 

    

The Flaming Cattle token. Such a bizarre and excellent miniature. And, Yes, this is also a thing. Those Martians are cruel!

Another one of my bespoke 3D printed bases used here, resized to 60x35mm.

 

And for last, the two human soldier casualties and the mechanic as pilot. The part fits in the Martian Saucer and also the Big Stompy Robot. Just need to get round to painting those up…

All of the above are made in PVC / Board game plastic.

 

and that is the end of the Bobbybox! Took me almost a year to finish, albeit with pauses of many weeks.

 

It might be a while until I do any more Mantic miniatures!

 

The Tally so far:

Finished from the Bobby Box: 126  / 126   (+13 / 13 casualties, small animals etc)

Just 0 left to do! FINISHED AT LAST!

Completed!

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aaaaand they’re done!

It is the end of the line. No more! No more I say ! Phew. Free at last!

The Bobbybox: 126 random older dead stock Mantic minis plus 13 casualties, small animals and such.

I must admit, getting these done was a bit of a slog in places, and I really needed the longish break painting the LAF contest entries over the summer.

Some of these minis will be added to existing armies, some might very well form the start of new armies. I suspect most will end up gathering dust upon the shelves of oblivion and get thrown in the bin as soon as I am gone…a fate I fear they will share with most of my painted miniatures. What am I doing with my time and money? The horror of it all! Better to crawl back into my little fantasyland where little plastic armymen have some value. They do! They dooooo!

Oh well.

Next up in the painting agenda: ANYTHING NOT BY MANTIC!

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