by Mathieu Thérézien

Otherworld Miniatures describe themselves as a “small, independent miniatures company dedicated to producing fine quality 28mm fantasy gaming miniatures for ‘old school’ roleplayers, wargamers and collectors”. They carry a relatively small range of miniatures that are not designed with any particular game in mind, but rather to appeal to gamers or enthusiasts who have fond memories of the early artwork from roleplaying and miniature games. The miniatures in the range are made of lead-free pewter and/or resin depending on the size and complexity of the models.

The miniatures reviewed here are Pig-faced Orcs, Pig-faced Orc command pack, and Pig-faced Orc archers from the Pig-faced Orcs series (blisters of 3 sculpted by Kev Adams, released in July 2007, September 2007, and January 2008, and retailing for £9, £12.50 and £9, respectively), the troll from the ‘Dungeon Monsters’ series (sculpted by Paul Muller, released in February 2008, and retailing for £7.50), and the Fire Giant from the ‘Giants’ series (sculpted by Paul Muller, released in June 2007, and retailing for £16).

Miniature packaging
The models come in blisters of three (Pig-faced Orcs) or in individual blisters (Giant and Troll). Each blister contains two thick pieces of foam that provide efficient protection against transport roughness by preventing the pieces from moving inside the box. In particular, I was rather impressed that the Fire Giant’s imposing sword (the blade is 56 mm long, 4 mm wide, and less than 1 mm thick) was intact after its transatlantic trip. Having two foam pieces might be superfluous for the rest of the models, but the extra protection certainly doesn’t hurt.

Pig-faced Orcs
Every pig-faced Orc model comes with a 25 mm round slotted base. The archers are the simplest of the three blisters as they come in one piece each. The three models are also very similar, the bodies from the feet up to the chest are identical, and the miniatures only differ by their heads and position of their arms. These archers were actually created by making relatively small modifications of a same base model (as can be seen in the greens), which leads to rather little variety in these single-piece models miniatures.

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The warrior models have more varied outfits and poses. The sword wielding Orc comes in one piece, the one with a halberd has an optional shield, and the spear throwing Orc comes in two pieces (body and weapon) plus an optional shield.

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Finally, the command pack is composed of a single piece shaman, a two-piece chieftain (main body + right hand wielding a spiked mace), and a three-piece champion (main body + right hand wielding an axe + left hand either holding a human head or bearing a resin-cast standard). The three models are slightly larger than the warriors and archers, and much more finely sculpted with the champion and chieftain wearing fine chainmail armors for example, or with the accessories being more detailed (buckles on the champion pouch, many ornamental skulls on the shaman, or the pretty nice resin standard).

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The quality of the casting is similar for these nine models. Every model has one mould line running around it, roughly in the same plane as the casting bar at its feet. The mould line is rather discreet but clearly visible on all models, which makes it easy to spot and to clean. Except for that, the metal is smooth and does not require any heavy filing before priming and painting.

Thanks to their simplicity, the assembly is extremely straightforward on the pig-faced Orcs (the ones that do require assembly). The ball and socket joints fit perfectly and allow for those models to be positioned in a variety of poses. On most joints (spear of the spearman, shields of the warriors, mace of the chieftain, axe and severed head of the champion) pinning is not really necessary as the ball and socket joint offers a larger surface area than a plane joint, and the pieces to glue onto the main body are not bearing any loads. Besides, pinning would be difficult as the joints are all located at the models’ wrists, which doesn’t allow much room to drill deeply towards the hands.

The standard is the only tricky piece to assemble solidly as it significantly sticks out and could be easy to knock. However, since it touches the ground at the model’s feet, it is very easy to pin it directly to the base, and then to glue it at the champion’s wrist. In addition, and if you want an extra strong bond, the standard pole gives an extra millimeter to drill through so it is fairly easy to drill up to three or four millimeters deep in the resin and pin the hand to the model’s wrist.

The models definitely have that ‘old school’ look that Otherworld miniatures advertises. The good thing about it is that collectors or people with nostalgia of that era will probably enjoy them a lot. On the flip side, gamers who grew up with more recent companies’ models could find the choice of older design and sculpting style less appealing. I fall right in that category, and I wish they had kept the old-fashioned design while trying to add more attention to fine details on the sculpts, especially for the archers and warriors.

As an example, most models look like they have the same expression, and it seems to me that more finely detailed heads would have allowed to make each Orc more unique, to give the impression that each one of them is a distinct individual. Given that relative simplicity (especially the Pig-faced Archers and Warriors) and the size of the models, I felt that their price tags were a little bit on the heavy side. However the weak dollar doesn’t help here, and UK customers would certainly feel that £3 per model is quite a reasonable price.

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Pro:

• Clean casting, the mould lines are easy to get rid of
• Models are extremely straightforward to assemble
• Old-school design

Con:

• Old-school sculpt as well, which might very well be a bonus for a lot of people
• Archers are very similar models
• Prices may appear heavy outside the UK

Dungeon Monster Troll
The Dungeon Monster Troll model comes in four pieces (main body, right arm, left arm, and head) plus an alternative head and a 40 mm round plastic base. The casting quality is similar to the Pig-faced Orcs, there are mould lines on every single piece, but they all are easy to remove, and the metal is also smooth.

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The various pieces are precisely cut and fit with no gap. The arms fit in one position only (no ball-and-socket joints here, but they wouldn’t have blended in nicely on this naked troll), and the contact areas are large enough that I didn’t feel the need to pin them (although the position and size of the arms would make it an easy task). Both heads are connected to the neck with a ball-and-socket join, which gives a lot of variety in their positioning. I’ve actually dry fitted the model with its head in several different positions, and they all give the troll very different attitudes.

This troll is a distorted, hunched back, bone-skinny monster, with deformities all over its body. At least that’s what immediately came to my mind when I saw this model, and I think the sculptor did an impressive job to achieve that effect. You can even see expressions of pain or anger on the faces depending on how you look at them. The model has that same ‘old school’ flavor as the Pig-face Orcs, but it seems to me that it has benefited from a better attention to details: the sculpt is more complex, as one can expect from a multipart model, and the details and textures are finer (the heads are particularly nicely done).

Pro:

• Clean casting, the mould lines are easy to get rid of
• Nicely detailed and expressive sculpt, a nice new touch on an old-school concept
• Dynamic pose and alternative head

Con:

• Price may appear heavy outside the UK

Fire Giant
The Fire Giant is part of Otherworld’s Giant Series and the model comes in three pieces: the body, the head, and the arms wielding a gigantic sword. Apparently it is supposed to come with a 50 mm square plastic base which was missing from this review model. The casting is very close to flawless, there are almost no mould lines on this approximately 65 mm tall model, and the very few casting bubbles (a problem specific to resin casts) were easy to spot and to rectify.

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As with the Troll, the model’s parts are very well cut, and they can be assembled in only one position. The two arms holding the sword are in one piece that goes under both shoulders on the body, and despite the potential trickiness of such a cut, the fit is perfectly flush and does not require any gap filling. Pining can be easily done in such a material, but the parts are so light and the contact surfaces between them so large that it should be unnecessary.

The Fire Giant is a very nicely sculpted model, with an impressive attention to small details (facial hair, detailed open mouth, tiny chains and skulls at the belt…) without making them overwhelming. The large ‘empty’ surfaces seem to have benefited from the same care, and the armor pieces, pieces of cloth and skin parts all have their own particular textures. In addition, the long sword (the blade alone is 56 mm long, making the sword itself longer than the Giant) really makes the model stand out. While it doesn’t make the model inadequate for miniature games, the quality of it makes me think that it was more designed as a showcase model for artist painters. The long and slender sword could also be a sign of a model more intended for painters: while definitely impressive, it also feels very vulnerable to transport.

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The model stands at 65 mm tall to the top of its head, and reaches an impressive 95 mm to the tip of its sword. It is almost twice as tall and bulky as human-sized 32mm fantasy models, slightly larger than a Confrontation Wolfen, and about the size of a Warmachine heavy Warjack or Hordes Warbeast. For a monster, too large is less of a problem than too small in my opinion, so I think that this Fire Giant fits just right in 28-32mm games. In addition, the price tag (£16 or about US $32) is definitely in the expected range for models of that size, even for US-based customers despite the currency weakness. In comparison, Privateer Press’s regular Heavies retail from US $25 to close to US $40 now, and a Games-Workshop Daemon Prince is US $35.

Pro:

• Impressive piece, in terms of cleanliness of the casting, attention to details, and sheer size
• Appropriately large to be a convincing monster in any approximately 30mm Fantasy game out there

Con:

• The long sword looks like it would easily snap, and makes transport tricky