All Faun and games

I've talked about RGDGaming's 28mm Hard Plastic Faun Kickstarter before (here and here).  Well it finally arrived!

The final box design is a bit different from the idea the originally had, but is nice and elegant.  Being a kickstarter, I did NOT get a commercial box for the centaurs, so I can't show that to you.

The male faun sprue has not changed.  The box contains 4 male sprues and 4 female sprues.

About half the sprue is the same as the male one.  Of course the bodies are female (i.e. have breasts), and apparently female fauns all have a wrap over one hip.  All of the heads are different, as are the shields.  the bow arm is also different (and you have an arm that in the position of having released the arrow, instead of holding it (like on the male sprue).  There is also a warhammer instead of a handaxe for one of the weapons.  It also looks like all of the arms are slightly thinner than the male counterparts.  Personally I'm already mixing these up, so some of my male fauns need to hit the gym, and some of the females will look like Rhonda Rousey.  (Really, did they need to make the arms different between them.  Is ANYONE going to be able to notice them?)

This is also interesting, because the centaur sprue (reviewed previously) had both male and female, but the arms were (as far as I can tell) interchangeable.  (Also interesting that the centaur sprue has a nude female body, while the female sprue does not (I remember some discussion about whether female centaurs would cover their 'human' breasts or not on the kickstarter, and I believe this is the compromise, but it just seems odd to be on the centaur sprue rather than the female faun sprue.))

One very minor technical point that I like is the sprues all have corner sockets, allowing them to easily stack up to save space.  It also creates a cool view when you look through a large stack of sprues.

In addition to the plastic sprues, there were some additional metal models and bits included in the kickstarter.  None of these are currently available on their website, I hope they add them soon (the metal fauns used to be but I can't find them now).

First off are minotaurs.  The army-in-a-box pledge came with three (and of course you could always add them on).  This is a set.

Not all the pieces, especially for the weapons, were obvious.  There are only two weapon handles (not three), the one under the spear shaft is actually the MIDDLE of a two handed weapon (which could be any of the three, I chose the big axe).  Unfortunately this does mean that one of the 'longer' weapons ends in the minotaur's fist.

Eventually there is one with a two-handed weapon, one with two hand weapons, and one with a hand weapon and shield.  So a nice variety, and even looks good in a unit.

Not all the arms fit well - it seemed that the two end models fit very decently, but then the middle one left some gaps.

I took a quick shot to compare the size of the minotaur to a faun and a centaur.

Every pledge also got a minotaur brute - I haven't put him together yet.  He comes with three sets of arms - but they all seem nearly identical (and I wasn't able to tell any difference in the weapon) - making me wonder why they did 3?

Every pledge also included some extra metal shields.  You could specify what kind you wanted, so I got 20 of the each of the two designs on the female sprue, which should give me close to an equal amount of each of the three designs.

The army-in-a-box pledge also came with the original metal male and female fauns RGDGaming did.

For my 1000 pt Kings of War Herd demo army, I have one shaman, which I bought a mount for.  However I'm modelling this as a centaur.  So I used the male metal bits on the plastic centaur body - except for the left arm - I didn't want him holding a drum - so I used one of the empty arms from the plastic sprue.

Speaking of centaurs, I updated my list idea a bit to make sure I had guardian brutes (have to use those minotaurs!), and now I have a troop of Centaur Bray Hunters and a troop of Centaur Bray Striders.  I decided to go with all females for the hunters with bots, and all males since the striders are stronger, Because it is all faun and games and gave them shoulder pads.

 

Finally, the army-in-a-box came with 6 satyrs (I added 9 more).  These are bigger, so I figured I'd use them as Tribal Longhorns

There was a slight mis-pack with all of these - each set of three only had one shield and two tails (but RGDGaming already knows about this and is on it for everyone). 

I have to say these were some of the most difficult assembly models I've worked with in a long time - I spent all afternoon drilling into their butts and tails to pin them on because they did not hold at all otherwise.  The metal for these seems to be a bit 'denser' than other metal models I've often worked with - it seemed to dull my bit to useless after only about three holes.  (I was never more thankful for my Tamiya battery powered drill (I would have never gotten through these if I had to do them all with a standard pit vise).

I have started assembling the fauns - I plan to have a regiment of Tribal Spears, a regiment of Spirit Walkers and a regiment of Tribal Trappers (plus a troop of Longhorns, troop of Striders & Scouts, a regiment of Guardian Brutes and the shaman).  I will be going full model count for all of these - because I have the models, and since these are a little smaller than other manufacturers models, they definitely will need all the models to fill the base (well, we'll see on the satyrs).

Of course this also means it is time for another order of magnetic bases and movement trays from Shogun Miniatures because it seems I am completely out of all my troop bases (except for the Large Infantry regiment) and even regiment trays.  No matter how much I attempt to stock up, I never have enough!

Overall I'm very happy with the new hard plastic fauns and centaurs.  I expect we will see a lot of new herd armies popping up on-line soon!

Because it is all faun and games . . .