Converted Salarians and Asari

A few days ago I reviewed a selection of critical mass miniatures suitable for the ME universe with just a little conversion work[link]. So here they are. As you can see, I'm hardly the greatest sculptor in the world when it comes to the old milli-put, but I don't think they look too bad at all. In fact, if I'd just left the two "horns" on the Salarians un-split they'd have made good Battarians as well.

You may remember that I actually bought two packs of both these blisters. The five of each I've painted so far will serve as an Asari Commando team and a Salarian Special Tasks Group squad respectively. I intend to paint the other two packs as player characters, with one or two miniatures sneaking their way into mixed race merc squads.

By the way, about the paint-job: the highlighting was much better before I put the matt varnish on. I don't normally use varnish when painting 28mm, but on 15mm it seemed pretty much essential. What I hadn't realized was that it might have been smarter to put the matt coat on before highlighting. Ah well. Live and learn.

Mass Effect Proxies: CMG Update and Khurasan Miniatures

The four packs of proxy Salarians and Asari I ordered from Craig over at Critical Mass Games arrived the very next day. The conversions were even easier than I thought, despite the fact I'm hardly a master sculptor (if I were I'd be making my own figures after all, not buying someone else's) and I now have ten Salarians and five Asari based and ready for painting on my desk. The other five "Asari" are sitting in their little plastic bag, waiting for the arrival of some appropriate bare-headed females so I can performs some head swaps. I'll get most of them painted over the next few days and put the images up on the blog.

Craig was also good enough to send me a sneak pic of some other Geth-suitable miniatures he's working on at present. I can't say much more until he's ready to announce them, but suffice to say they look like they'll be great Geth-proxies as well as fantastic miniatures in their own right.

Meanwhile, continuing with our review of miniatures suitable for conversion into Mass Effect races, we now take a look at Khurasan Miniatures. Or, more specifically, the miniature ranges that have featured on the Khurasan Miniatures Blog. The company produces many more fine miniatures that the Mass Effect gamer should take an interest in but, due to the Khurasan web-page and production line being temporarily shut down [link] I'm unable to review them at this time.

A hiatus like this isn't uncommon for 15mm manufacturers, which tend to be one or two-men bands at best, so there's no reason for panic. Hopefully the company will be up and running again soon.

Due to my being unable to contact Khurasan miniatures at this time, the following images taken from the company's blog are used without permission.

 To the left we have the Garn flesh-eaters. Though modelled on the concept of "shark-men" the high, hunched backs, large mouths, huge teeth and stub-nosed snouts of the figures in this range just scream Kurgan. A relatively simple conversion in the form of a small lump of milli-put to form the distinctive Kurgan head-plate is all that would be required.

Likewise, here we have the Orca shock-trooper range, again humanoids aliens based on a large-headed, large-toothed sea-creature with a hunched posture. Again, the simple addition of some milli-put to form bony-plates and we have some excellent heavily-armed Krogan mercenaries.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to do a full review of the entire range available for these troops due to the aforementioned web-site issues. I'm not even entirely sure how many sculpts there are available in each range. I'll keep my eye on the progress with Khurasan however, and let you know more when I can.

Mass Effect Proxies: Critical Mass Games

British company, Critical Mass Games, produces a number of miniatures easily converted for use in Mass Effect wargaming. Here, we'll take a look at the companies Mercenary range, where you can find a good number of sculpts that, with a little work, will be more than adequate to represent the various races and factions of the Mass Effect universe on the tabletop.

I've ordered a small selection of these miniatures from mail order, and will post up the completed, painted conversions as soon as I'm able.

All the images in this article are copyright Critical Mass Games and are used with permission.

 First up is pack Merc-5, Vadorian assassins. As you can see, the five sculpts represent an all female group in tight-skin suits and closed visors, making them excellent proxies for an Asari commando unit on the Mass Effect battlefield. With their nice, simple rounded heads, it should be easy enough to mould on a conical representation of the Asari "head-tentacles'. In fact, it wouldn't even be necessary to sculpt every single tentacle since they would all be covered by the skin-suit in any case.

For a slightly more difficult modelling challenge, a quick head swap with any available female human figure (relatively easy thanks to the way these miniatures are posed) and a little more detailed sculpting with the old milli-put should produce some fine-looking bareheaded Asari as well.

 Next up we have Merc Packs 6 and 7, the Blockhead Battlesuit sets. It seems to me that the Geth in Mass Effect have two outstanding defining physical features: their single eye and their stylish, curved lines. Well, stylish curved lines are something these figures are certainly lacking, but a little filing at strategic points could go a long way in this regard.

However, the do come with that all important cyclops effect already sculpted on a little bit of mili-put to make the two, vertically stacked lenses into a single, larger lens and the result should hopefully be a very reasonable looking selection of Geth troopers.

 The very bulky weapons on the sculpt are likely to be something of a problem for purists, but a little judicious use of clippers to take off the extended barrels should so the trick well enough to satisfy most people. Including me.

 Set number nine on the range have nicely shaped heads with minimal noses. Although the armour is a little bulky, especially on the leader figure, with a little milli-put to sculpt two horn shaped protuberances onto the figures heads, these figures make for an excellent Salarian Special Tasks Group squad.

Finally, we come to set 12. Critical Mass produce a whole range of Protolene figures, which we'll examine in more detail in a later post, but these are the only ones present in the mercenary range.
This particular race has a great deal of Mass Effect potential. File away the hair and you have yourself some Vorcha. Clip the ears as well and your Protalene should make for very respectable looking Turians.

If these figures have one common limitation (other than the fact they all need a little work to optimise their appearance Mass Effects games) it lies in the limited number of sculpts available for each set. Fortunately, the Salurian STG and Asari Commando's work in small groups, so this shouldn't be an issue for most games. The Protolene figures, on the other hand, have a whole nother range available, making it relatively easy to use some of the sculpts for Turians and some for Vorcha without ever having to mix the two, even without conversions. However,the Blockhead Battlesuits are more of a problem. They are slightly larger sculpts (in retrospect, probably better suited to represent Geth destroyers rather than ordinary troopers) with just three versions in each set. Given how many such miniatures would be needed to represent atypical Geth force, this will leave the Geth player with very little variety in his forces. Not a problem for some gamers, but a real-stumbling block for others.