funded Reaper Bones 5: Enthusiasm and Commentary thread

[Skallabjorn]

18 minutes ago, haldir said:

I will be perusing the familiar & crazy cat lady metal bins for a replacement at RCon. Sadly, even thou they are metal, Crazy cat lady's cats are bit eh as well. Thou she has one that might make for a direct replacement. I'll be allot better then "Blob cat"

 

If you are just going to replace it, one of the war pugs or rats from the Bones range might work, too.

[Cranky Dog]

Save for the pirate ship, I've completed my inventory.

• Add-ons: Dragonslayers, missing female warrior. Just totally absent from the baggie where the other characters and dragon are.
• Add-ons: Dragonfolk, wizard is missing his left arm.
• Greek expansion: Centaur missing right arm.
• Missing Sophie's dice (expected)

Like others, my ogre porter's kitty is soft and rounded, but still cat like. After reading some of the comments, I did notice that Arakoth's legs are (barely) identified on the sprues. For the rest, most are straightforward assembly, but some cleanup, the occasional hot water bath, and plenty of glue will be required.

 

Overall, I am pleased (as usual). I appreciated those that came in resealable baggies. You can easily feel the differences in the Bones and Bones Black material in many pieces (particularly some of the bases). The war mammoth is very hefty. I didn't realize the mephits would be in clear. I quickly abandoned the idea of dry-fitting Yog-Sothoth, but it seemed complete. And the ballista's assembly is also not straightforward.

 

Also, because of mould release or other factory residue, my hands felt grimy after handling them. They'll need a good scrub before attempting any serious work.

[Ratmaster2000]

3 hours ago, haldir said:

I will be perusing the familiar & crazy cat lady metal bins for a replacement at RCon. Sadly, even thou they are metal, Crazy cat lady's cats are bit eh as well. Thou she has one that might make for a direct replacement. I'll be allot better then "Blob cat"

Couldn't you just find an acceptable 3D replacement?

[ShaneB]

Done with inventory, initial assembly and dry fitting.  Took a bunch of pictures.  Here's a few below, if anyone wants to see more tell me and I'll make a separate thread somewhere.

 

Only three errors: missing the Eldest Billy Goat Gruff from the troll bridge, the six-armed wraith from Daimyo is missing his lower left arm, and one of the Gatormen had the wrong body piece in the bag.  All in all, not too bad.  I can also report that my kittycat is also sadly poorly detailed.  Quite odd, since the details on most of the rest of the models are superb.  It truly is impressive to compare to some of the early Bones models and see how far they've come.

 

Reaper seems to me to be pushing the envelope with a lot of pieces in this collection.  It seemed to me like there were vastly more multi-part models than before, although that could be just because of less factory-assembly, which is good.  The fitment is all quite good, but they're pushing the envelope there too.  Lots of very very tiny pegs to fit in.  They mostly fit quite well, although the skeletons from Gallowgard I will call out for being just absurdly tiny joints.  I think they were testing to see what the smallest joint they could make was.  It mostly worked, but I did have to pin one joint.  I wouldn't recommend those skellies for inexperienced modelers.

 

I'm a little disappointed with the fur on some of the furry models, like the yetis.  There's just not much texture to it.  There were a few models like that in Bones 4 as well, if I recall correctly.  It may be just a stylistic choice that isn't to my taste.

 

I'm very happy with the Brinewind Extras, and glad I got two of them.  Lots of scatter terrain there that will be useful for many scenarios, not just pirates.  Dark Depths is once again a ridiculous value next to the other expansions.  Makes me wonder if they figured underwater models wouldn't be as popular, so they had to pack in more of them?  Anyway, not complaining.

 

Some favorite models:  the Overgourd and Three-headed Troll from Core. Lots of character in those.  Yog-Sothoth is even better than the renders made him look; he reminds me of old 80s creature effects, like in John Carpenter's The Thing.  Also very pleased with the Mammotaur and Demonic Lasher from the Fan Favorites.  Favorite dragon previously was Shavynra, but now that I see them all together I may have to give it to Aganzarax.  Also, all the dragons have excellently textured and positioned wings.  Once again, we've come a long was from the flat wings in the early Bones models.

 

All in all, I'm very pleased and looking forward to doing some painting!  Hopefully.  Maybe. 😛

[Cyradis]

If Bones 6 is Bones USA stuff, they need to do some major quality control on that too. My Krampus figure was a hot mess. Detail was great. But he was so brittle at the legs that the legs snapped while in a perfectly unblemished blister pack, and his horns were so gummy that they peeled/ripped at a super sharp Xacto blade trying to get a small mold line.

 

Tbh I think the ogre porter with the cart needs to be scrapped - there are some things that boiling/quenching can fix, but the cat was the least of the problems on mine. No way should that have been designed with the parts split it ended up with. More fixing and green stuffing than it is worth. I don't know why it ended up like that when Reaper has other good cart designs that are functional they could have used as starting points, then separate pieces for crates and critters to add.

 

Some figures in Bones V exceeded my expectations, notably, the hydra, merfolk, most dragons, and the medusa - those were friggin fabulous. Some were below expectations, like the ogre porter and the cerberus and the eye tyrant, which don't seem worth the effort to deal with. It does not seem correlated to the sculptor either; some of my favorite pieces were done by sculptors whose other sculpts were on the miss-list. Guessing that the sculptor didn't always have control over how the pieces were split up. The average quality of the humanoid size figures did seem improved, however. The ghoul queen's pit had pretty darn bland ghouls, but aside from that, the humanoid figures have been a bit more crisp than previous iterations, and less mushy sword problems.

[Sirithiliel]

So far of the things I've really looked over, my opinion is:

 

Good:

-The 'red' dragon

-Brinewind extras 

-Mermaids

- war mammoth

- pegasus

- axolotl figures

- dragon folk

- chicken swarm 

 

Less good:

-Arakoth giant spider (sculpt is good, but had issues with the legs)

- cyclops (huge gaps to fill)

- 'black' dragon (lots of ill fitting pieces, many gaps to fill )

 

Bottom of the list:

- ogre Carter (splitting the cart in half has left huuuuge gaps to fill )

- basilisk from core set (his feet cannot even fit on his base and he is missing a toe off each foot other than the front two ), but the sculpt itself is good )

 

I haven't looked over the rest of my big minis from Greek / dark depths, so no real opinion on those yet 

[Skallabjorn]

Here is something funny. With the number of individual minis I ordered (including a ship) divided into the cost of the order (including shipping) my average cost per mini came to $1.60 US.

 

$1.60 for this?

 

A little pricey, but I have done worse (looking at YOU, Greedy Wankers).

 

$1.60 for this?

 

SOLD!!!!!

 

Thought that might give a chuckle or two.

 

If I remove the pirate ship from the equation, the price per mini drops to 1.34 per mini.

 

WOW. Love those KS prices, but delivery time is worse than Ukraine to US, FL. Two months transit for a 64 inch chest padded gambeson, and I can only wear it MAYBE 3-4 weeks out of the year down here. But it is a good one; 1/2 inch of padding, wrist and knee length, with multiple attachment points for heavy armor. I have to admit, after wearing armor to fight in, I got a MUCH better sense for how armor should look on a mini.

 

It can be weird how hobbies cross-pollinate sometimes. Like someone with a hobby in zoology or entomology devising paint schemes for various creatures or aberrations. Speaking of which, if you are ever stuck for paint schemes for stuff, one source I LOVE is my CD archive of National Geographic. Just about EVERYTHING turns up there at some point.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Skallabjorn
Clarity, and (of course) spelling.

[haldir]

10 hours ago, Skallabjorn said:

 

If you are just going to replace it, one of the war pugs or rats from the Bones range might work, too.

 

I want it to look like it was intending to be, so cat will what I use. Besides, I've gotten just the cats before as I needed swarm minis, so I picked up a bunch to fill up a medium size base. (how I know some are ehhh & one or two will work for my replacement purposes.

 

7 hours ago, Ratmaster2000 said:

Couldn't you just find an acceptable 3D replacement?

 

I could but I have the trade weight. Heck, this year I'll be bring down more & adding to my existing weight total (well over 10 lbs) vs taking home so why not use it.

 

Heck, I'm having trouble getting a metal list together this year. Since there haven't been allot of new releases & really I'm kinda drawing blanks to what I really want, other then I do know I want common humanoids & such for future D&D encounters. Most likely I think I'll try & fill out Ghosts of Saltmarsh, as that is what I'm running at my FLGS on Weds now. My home game is week to week.

[DragonWyrm]

8 hours ago, ShaneB said:

I'm a little disappointed with the fur on some of the furry models, l

Are these the ones which were digitally sculpted? Because I am always disappointed in digitally sculpted hair and fur, thought it does end up painting up nicely.

 

12 hours ago, Pezler the Polychromatic said:

, I'm considering it to be a real fail in quality (as well as the shrine to Maersuluth)

What is the problem with Maersuluth shrine? Is it the one with a broken arm?

[Chris Palmer]

1 hour ago, DragonWyrm said:

14 hours ago, Pezler the Polychromatic said:

, I'm considering it to be a real fail in quality (as well as the shrine to Maersuluth)

What is the problem with Maersuluth shrine? Is it the one with a broken arm?

 

The one with the intentionally broken arm is Meriwyn.  

 

As as far as I can tell my Maersuluth was fine. 

 

 

[speakfriend]

13 hours ago, Cranky Dog said:

Save for the pirate ship, I've completed my inventory.

• Add-ons: Dragonslayers, missing female warrior. Just totally absent from the baggie where the other characters and dragon are.
• Add-ons: Dragonfolk, wizard is missing his left arm.
• Greek expansion: Centaur missing right arm.
• Missing Sophie's dice (expected)

Like others, my ogre porter's kitty is soft and rounded, but still cat like. After reading some of the comments, I did notice that Arakoth's legs are (barely) identified on the sprues. For the rest, most are straightforward assembly, but some cleanup, the occasional hot water bath, and plenty of glue will be required.

 

Overall, I am pleased (as usual). I appreciated those that came in resealable baggies. You can easily feel the differences in the Bones and Bones Black material in many pieces (particularly some of the bases). The war mammoth is very hefty. I didn't realize the mephits would be in clear. I quickly abandoned the idea of dry-fitting Yog-Sothoth, but it seemed complete. And the ballista's assembly is also not straightforward.

 

Also, because of mould release or other factory residue, my hands felt grimy after handling them. They'll need a good scrub before attempting any serious work.

For a noob, I made a huge order and got my rewards only about 9 days ago.  I have been assembling but don't know what to do when taking my inventory and I discover a part missing.  Anecdotally, I'm told they will fix anything wrong, even if i don't discover it for a year or two, but i have no way to be sure that they will even have in stock what is missing.  Especially since per Kickstarter backer agreement, they really don't have to provide anything (but to keep reputation where it is).  

 

I found one dreadmere villain that was missing a torso and one arm, and maybe more.  I had a huge order and it will take a while.  Is it is better to wait until done with entire inventory to report missing pieces to Reaper?

 

Also  - I know about mould release and washing, but it that a factor when assembling with CA glue?  I've not been washing before assembly, but plan to do so before painting. Nor do I feel grimy.  If my bonds break later, maybe that will tell me I should have washed them.

[Cyradis]

1 hour ago, DragonWyrm said:

Are these the ones which were digitally sculpted? Because I am always disappointed in digitally sculpted hair and fur, thought it does end up painting up nicely.

 

 

 

The hair, fur, and scales, seems more like a feature of the sculptor than the medium right now. The sculptors who are more comfortable with digital I think are getting more detail into the fur and scales, and are more consistent. Digital sculpting doesn't prevent some really amazing detail on those necessarily.

1 minute ago, speakfriend said:

For a noob, I made a huge order and got my rewards only about 9 days ago.  I have been assembling but don't know what to do when taking my inventory and I discover a part missing.  Anecdotally, I'm told they will fix anything wrong, even if i don't discover it for a year or two, but i have no way to be sure that they will even have in stock what is missing.  Especially since per Kickstarter backer agreement, they really don't have to provide anything (but to keep reputation where it is).  

 

I found one dreadmere villain that was missing a torso and one arm, and maybe more.  I had a huge order and it will take a while.  Is it is better to wait until done with entire inventory to report missing pieces to Reaper?

 

Also  - I know about mould release and washing, but it that a factor when assembling with CA glue?  I've not been washing before assembly, but plan to do so before painting. Nor do I feel grimy.  If my bonds break later, maybe that will tell me I should have washed them.

 

I would wait until you've done a thorough inventory to email them about missing pieces. But yes, Reaper is pretty great for customer service regarding missing items. They'll fix you up as soon as you can.

 

The mould release agent can mess up CA glue, although I found that *old* CA glue also can. My gem dragon would barely stay together with my old tubes and I ended up with a lot of gunk in the joints - even after washing it. To wash I get a bucket of soapy water and fling a pile of minis in to wash, then swirl it around, let it sit a bit, then rinse.

[Cintra]

2 hours ago, speakfriend said:

For a noob, I made a huge order and got my rewards only about 9 days ago.  I have been assembling but don't know what to do when taking my inventory and I discover a part missing.  Anecdotally, I'm told they will fix anything wrong, even if i don't discover it for a year or two, but i have no way to be sure that they will even have in stock what is missing.  Especially since per Kickstarter backer agreement, they really don't have to provide anything (but to keep reputation where it is).  

 

I found one dreadmere villain that was missing a torso and one arm, and maybe more.  I had a huge order and it will take a while.  Is it is better to wait until done with entire inventory to report missing pieces to Reaper?

 

Also  - I know about mould release and washing, but it that a factor when assembling with CA glue?  I've not been washing before assembly, but plan to do so before painting. Nor do I feel grimy.  If my bonds break later, maybe that will tell me I should have washed them.

I agree with Cyradis - wait until you've done the entire inventory before contacting [email protected] with the info on what's missing. They'll take care of you. (I'd try and get that inventory done in the next two or three months, personally, because that way if they do have any supply limits, they can order more when they place the Bones 5.5 orders.)

 

If you want advice on how to do the inventory, I suggest that you go through each set (Core Set, expansion etc) and compare the minis to the Kickstarter on-screen images. Sometimes I use a sharpie to label each bag with the number of the mini; more often I list the numbers from the Kickstarter images in an Excel workbook and then check them off - or you can hunt for one of the Excel workbooks with the complete figure list for Bones V that some people put together and share.

 

When looking at "needs assembly" items, look to make sure each sprue has something attached at each "end point" (or else that the empty end point matches a piece loose within that bag) and that what you've found makes sense - for example, "I see the figure's torso has both legs but no head or arms; the sprue has a head, it has two arms, this must be complete." I dry-fit a lot of the larger minis as I inventory because otherwise it's hard for me to tell what everything is; for example, if the dragon's lower jaw is there or not. Be careful to examine carefully before throwing away a sprue - one of the dragons has a tongue as its own separate piece that might not look important at first glance. If a single mini has multiple sprues, the plastic shapes of the sprues themselves (the parts you'll be throwing away) are usually different, so that can help you spot if you ended up with a duplicate sprue instead of the other one for a multi-sprue figure.

 

And yeah, in the past I've been pretty lazy about washing before either gluing or painting, and I've had pretty good luck; but it seems like the translucent pieces are especially prone to requiring washing or else the glue gets really tacky and the pieces come apart. For Bones V, I'm trying to do better about staging a "quick wash" setup when I organize a set to glue them. My cats are NOT cooperating with all this.

[Cranky Dog]

50 minutes ago, Cintra said:

If you want advice on how to do the inventory, I suggest that you go through each set (Core Set, expansion etc) and compare the minis to the Kickstarter on-screen images. Sometimes I use a sharpie to label each bag with the number of the mini; more often I list the numbers from the Kickstarter images in an Excel workbook and then check them off - or you can hunt for one of the Excel workbooks with the complete figure list for Bones V that some people put together and share.

For the inventory, my habit is to find a pre-existing list (a few are available and linked in this thread) or make my own. Then I make sure I have a reference picture of the set (generally from KS's website) that I download and keep. I have a folder filled with the KS pictures.

 

From there, I use the list with a column specifying how many pieces I'm supposed to receive, how many I actually received, and a final column with notes/comments (details of missing piece/part). For some models, I even went as far as identifying how many subcomponents there are (base, body, head, 2 rear legs, arm sword, etc.) for the larger ones requiring assembly.

 

Depending on the model(s), I'd open the baggie, separate the individuals or dry fit the parts, or at the very least make sure all the parts were there. Then reseal the baggies (either ziplock type, or good old tape).

 

It'll take a while, but it gives you a good impression of everything you got. I don't think I've had a single miscast (save for ogre cart cat) that won't be fixed by boiling water.

[Sirithiliel]

when i inventory, i go to the kickstarter and scroll down its page comparing my minis to it

 

so for example, brinewind. I'd scroll to brinewind #1, and then pick out the minis in taht section, lining them up like they are in the image. Then #2 section, then #3. I do that for all the expansions i got, any multi-piece add ons like brinewind extras