Tuesday 31 December 2019

Top Ten Miniatures Of 2019 - An "Undercoat" Personal Choice

Well 2019 has come and gone and there were lots of highlights to remember. We had the end of the Star Wars trilogy trilogies, Avengers Endgame saw the stunning sacrifices of Black Widow, Iron Man and Cap and I think there was an election! In terms of the miniature painting hobby some highlights included the Clone Wars coming to "Star Wars Legion", the superb "Warcry" from "Games Workshop" and the great new "Marvel Crisis Protocol" game from "Atomic Mass Games".

It also means I get the chance to review the miniatures painted on the "Fantorical" blog for the year. And what a year it was too, with a huge output making my choices very hard indeed. My choices are a personal opinion based on a variety of factors, such as the painting, the imagination used and of course the rule of cool! So, without further ado onto the list, in reverse order of course!

These Borg are part of a much larger force painted over the course of the year and these ones just stood out to me. I think the paint scheme has done a great job of capturing the menace of these iconic "Star Trek" villains and the collective as a whole has been a great project for the year.

This miniature is from a "Kickstarter" project and uses several superhero/super villain tropes to come up with a great looking figure that has been painted very well in my opinion. I like the paint scheme of this one enormously making it an easy choice for the Top Ten.

These stunning miniatures are from the original "Star Wars trilogy" and are the personal bodyguards of the Emperor himself. I chose these because, a) they are from Star Wars! And b) they are a great exercise in painting red. I find red quite a tricky colour at times and these miniatures are an example of how to paint the colour effectively!

These miniatures are great sculpts and I just adore the painting. The colours used are very natural (if we can say natural for a species that is extinct and we don’t know what the colour of their skin was!!). I just think these look really great overall and would look awesome on any dinosaur themed game!

The whole "Toon Realms" range has featured quite heavily on this blog but I just adored the skeletons. A simple enough colour scheme but done so well they just stand out as the pick of the bunch for me. The bone colour has been painted superbly in my opinion and looks fantastic. Just a cracking group to look at!

Another "Star Trek" entry in my Top Ten. I just like everything about these: the sculpts look great, the paint scheme really captures the look of these enigmatic villains and overall they look great! The skin and faces have been painted really well on these miniatures and the colour scheme really reflects how they look in the television series.

I just really like this miniature. It is from the "Doctor Who" television show and has a look about it that I just adore. The paint scheme looks deceptively simple but the metallics have been painted superbly in my opinion and make the whole thing so memorable. I think Simon has really mastered painting metallic and I am jealous of the way he paints them as they look so realistic. A great looking mini!!

The whole "Warcry" series of miniatures has really caught my imagination this year as they are well sculpted and really capture the different facets of chaos in the Warhammer universe. There are eight Iron Golems in the warband who are heavily armoured in a really distinctive style and this duardin (dwarf in old money!) is my pick of the bunch. The metallics and the red armour are just great on this mini. I know that the painting process on these particular miniatures has been a bit of a trial but in the end they have turned out great.

Another "Star Wars" entry in the Top Ten. The wookies are one of my favourite alien races in George Lucas' universe and these miniatures look awesome and capture the “walking carpets” brilliantly. The paint job on these minis is really good. The fur has been painted brilliantly and the accessories and weapons have been picked out so they don’t get lost in the vast amount of hair!! Great looking unit.

These models are from "Age of Sigmar" and are prayers summoned onto the battlefield by the followers of the Blood God, Khorne. They look awesome in my opinion. All of the elements have been painted brilliantly: the bone looks tremendous, I really like the shading and the way it gives the appearance of aged bone, the blood flowing from them looks really effective and overall they look stunning. They are a real centre piece model that will be a stand out in this army. A great bit of painting that has resulted in a fantastic model that has stuck in my memory since I first saw it.

Well that concludes my Top Ten and the reasons behind them. Happy New Year to all the readers of “Fantorical”.

18 comments:

  1. A huge thanks to Undercoat for trudging through my considerable 2019 output, and taking the time to narrow his choices down to a manageable ten miniatures. It’s clear that science fiction has been an immensely popular genre over the past twelve months, with “Star Trek”, “Star Wars” and “Doctor Who” all featuring prominently within his choices. I’m not quite sure I can believe though that for the first time ever since I’ve done these Top Tens, that there are no “Heroclix” figures to be seen. Still, at least the inclusion of Punchline by “Kitbash Games” means the list isn’t completely devoid of super-powered characters…

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love number 3 as well, not only is it a great figure, but for me, a Chaos Dwarf player, that is like the first GW sculpt for them to appear in about a decade...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love the Iron Golem Armator too, Tomsche69. Its a shame GW don't expand upon the idea. However, have you seen the upcoming releases from "Mantic Games" for their abyssal dwarfs?

      Delete
  3. Fabulous choices all, dinosaurs always get my vote though. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm clearly getting more mellow in my old age, Michael, as this particular Top Ten is probably the first one over the many years I've done this, which I predominantly agree with myself. LOL :-)

      Delete
  4. Seems odd to comment on this post, but I'm going to!! It was fun to go through all the minis from last year and quite hard to pick 10. They changed quite a bit and in the end just went with my gut! I also had the pleasure of seeing a lot of these minis in the flesh and I can say the photos don't always do them justice! Happy New Year to everyone and productive hobbying!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Great selection Undercoat, can't say all the choices would have made my top 10, but then that's what makes this hobby great, we all have different tastes

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We do indeed, Dave, as I'd certainly have had one or maybe even two "Heroclix" in the selection ;-)

      Delete
  6. what.... not a dalek in sight!

    no8 my personal favourite

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Shocking I know, Dave, and I even did a partially-destroyed Dalek conversion this year too!! Spookily the Imperial Royal Guards from "Star Wars" were one of the few choices I disagreed with, so its nice to see them getting some love :-)

      Delete
  7. Great choices, though it surprised me to see so few Toon Realms in your list.
    Nevertheless, they all look ace and you can never do anything wrong with Star Trek and dinosaurs in my opinion 😁.
    Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Happy New Year, Wouter. I was a bit surprised to see the dinosaurs in the list and no "Heroclix" tbh, but that's the fun of having someone else pick their Top Ten rather than me :-)

      Delete
  8. Sad not to see a B&B sculpt in there, but o well, we all have different tastes. :)

    Regardless, a fine choice of minis and Simon paints them all very nicely and in a good time frame too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers Dai, much appreciated :-) If by "B&B" though you mean Burrows & Badgers, then the only mini I painted from that range in 2019 was the Mouse-oleum.

      Delete
    2. Really? Was that all 2018? Man, I've been following this blog for far too long. LOL

      Delete
    3. 'Fraid so, buddy! LOL!! There should be some more "B&B" in 2020 though, as I have a few more additions to paint :-)

      Delete
  9. Seeing the Borg first I thought ther would be no other choice, but hten the Toon skelly arrived - aargh...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is one of my fave lists, Joe, as it contains many of my faves too. I'm not sure there's be quite so much "Star Trek" in 2020, but definitely plenty of "Toon Realms" :-)

      Delete