1. Forum
  2. Our Ranges
  3. Classic Fantasy
  4. Kobolds

Kobolds

  • EH

    Somone really needs to make a fat sack of 100 Kobolds (Yes I would literally buy them in a plastic sack like those old school plastic army men). I don't even care if they are monopose, all I care about with kobolds is volume. They are tinyer than a goblin and if 50 of them were armed with just short spears or clubs I wouldn't complain. There are so many legacy campaigns like Dragon Mountain that sause on the Kobolds even at higher levels and there has never really been the kind of volume in the minature lines to fill their main role of en masse attack. Additionally they are often one of the very first things players fight and I'm not sure I have ever seen more than 12 different sculpts of the dragon wannabes. I'm not married to either the lizard-faces or pug-faces but it would be nice to see some light trap making and mining equipment incorperated into the sculpts. 

    This has been one of the biggest holes I can think of in the fantasy minature community. Kobolds are almost exclusivly a D&D thing so thats why they are marginalized compared to goblins, even though they fill an important sub-role and make even better evil minions due to their mining & trap making skills. Lets not forget they are Lawful Evil so they will follow an evil plan. One of the best "My First Minions" helping to do tunnel expanshion and trap security in the lair of any sorcerer, black knight, or evil priest.

  • William Redford

    @Eric Howanietz Its not the same... and I can totally see wanting a proper multi-plastic set. But in teh meantime, Reaper has a couple sets of 6 for $7. I will admit, I am not really a kobold fan though. And I have maybe a 100 of these from last kickstarter or the one before. Or the one before that. (dont remember if it was 3, 4 or 5... 

    REAPER KOBOLD SEARCH

  • EH

    They are so small I feel like you could get double or triple for the same price as your average box set.

    Maybe I'm just one of those DMs who doesn't change monsters, I just throw more of them at the players as they venture out into the sandbox. If you look at the organizational structure for these monsters, they really do have capacity for hordes of 100 or more. If the players are fighting 10-15 at first level that is probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to kobold tribes.

    And everybody loves that first 5th level fireball the mage throws at a hoard. You know, when the magic really starts to happen. 

    I think an opportunity to buy 100 Kobold miniatures would dramatically change the tabletop dynamics in fantasy role playing games. It would go a long way toward making the geography of any sandbox gaming map much more organic.

  • William Redford

    @Eric Howanietz there is already a therad here: Kobolds

    I would be happy for people to get some WA kobolds. 

  • BVD

    @Eric Howanietz Umm, no kobolds are not just a D&D thing, but they are mostly a TTRPG thing for the most part as I am pretty sure they show up in Hackmaster, Pathfinder, GURPS, etc. They are one of the more common dungeon crawl monsters.

    That said there are a ton of fantasy war games where you can field them as a force (Dragons Rampent, Frostgrave,etc.) and I think there is a "fantasy street gang" skirmisher by Osprey that could use kobolds.

    To be honest, if they are done at reaper height in monoposes, I could see a box of a 100, boxes of 60 easy. if they are WA Halfling size and multipart (the likely outcome) and don't do long pikes, they would probably be 40 figure boxes. 

    @William Redford Yeah there is sorta of but it was kind of focused on the price tag. 

  • EH

    @Brian Van De Walker Ya I think the volume of models is really what would get people motivated with Kobolds box set. A couple of campaign settings have even used swarm rules for them

  • EH

    @William Redford it would be a nice compliment to the halflings box set.

  • Red Bee

    Looks like the madlads did it! Kobolds are listed in the Atlantic Digital this month (although they aren't up yet). How better to undercut Wiz Kids than make the Kobolds infinitely reproducible. 

  • JTam

    @Red Bee 

    I doubt this will impact Wiz Kids very much.  There were already plenty of kobold files floating about.  

  • Red Bee

    Eh, it's still nice to see in comparison.

    Also as an old school roleplayer, seeing some proper cynocephalic kobolds makes me very happy. 

  • JTam

    @Red Bee 

    How can you tell?  Did you find a higher res picture?

    EDIT:

    Found em.

    https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-kobolds-257196

    Looks like you can do dog or dragon heads.  

     

     

  • Caratacus

    Interesting that the Dragon heads they chose for these were more like those of Oriental dragons rather than classic western dragons, along with the dog-like heads from older editions of D&D - that leaves room for a potential kit of much larger Dragonborn with heads more like those of western dragons, which could be allies for these guys in WA's Classic Fantasy setting.

    Also I'll be interested to see how tall these are - from the current mini shots they don't look to be particularly small, at the very least Halfling size if not bigger.

  • CT

    @JTam Oh, somebody already made a post about them. To be honest with you guys, I don't like them. They're too buff, the dog heads do not match the bodies at all, the only thing I really like are the weapons. But the arms are just as buff as the bodies.

  • CT

    Also, those dragon heads........ they just don't scream Kobold to me they scream DnD Dragonborn but uglier.

  • Caratacus

    @Charles Tottington I thought D&D Dragonborn were based on Western dragons, rather than the Eastern ones whose heads can be seen on the Kobold models?

  • CT

    @Caratacus Yeah, but for "Eastern Dragon" heads they're very much miss instead of hit.

  • JTam

    Don't be hating because these Kobolds have been putting in the time and making MASSIVE GAINS at the gym!!!!

    These minis are jacked.  Aren't Kobolds supposed to be weedy?  Full disclosure: I personally zero care about Kobolds.  But all the best to those who do.  

  • Caratacus

    @JTam I've started to notice that a lot regarding some of WA's box sets - the shots of the New Kingdom Egyptians we've seen and some of the Dark Ages Irish also look unnaturally ripped, especially when you consider that the vast majority of humans in those periods of history were peasants scratching a living through growing crops, making bread and eating vegetables and the odd rabbit. The menfolk would never have been able to eat enough meat (let alone train in a high-intensity workout like there is available today, and all without any of the vitamin supplements and steroids you can get now) to put on that sort of physique. The only ones with even remote chances of achieving a muscular body would have been those born naturally brawny and those with the greatest access to meat and other good food, who would all have been recruited into the bodyguards of the local or national power figure.

    To be fair, I look at my Warlord Celts and cringe a little at the six-packs some of them have for the same reason, but that's balanced out by them having average, dare I say normal-looking, arm musculature and the occasional lad with a paunch under his tunic.

  • GM

    @JTam I really would have liked them to be dog like, slimmer and inverted legs. Why is every thing "Human" on steroids all of a sudden? . Can`t we get away from the human stature, and body struture, to give us more diversity in models, then they could mix for Si/Fi as well.

  • BVD

    @Caratacus I am actually okay with the " Ripped Hollywood Stuntman" look for history and fantasy as long as it  isn't going to the absurd "2000 A.D./TMNT comicbook" look like the SciFi heroic scale minis.

    @JTam Depends, there isn't an exact formula for Kobolds, though they are generally as short or shorter than goblins (mostly shorter like gnome sized), lately the fashion has been to make them short flightless dragonmen.

    I think the dog heads could easly be fixed to mix in with the rest of the body simply by giving it scales, maybe a horn or two.   

     

  • JTam

    @Caratacus 

    Reference bulky and or "ripped" minis.

    I think there is a happy middle ground.  Just as female models should be recognizable female from tabletop distance, the males should look male from tabletop distance.  Some exaggeration may be necessary.

    Moreover I think six packs, etc. are entirely justified.  Have you seen pre-industrial agriculture equipment?  No one had to do CrossFit back then to get a whole body workout.  Back breaking manual labor from sun up to sun down with low calorie intake is pretty good way to get "ripped."

    As for bulk we know the ancient Greeks pushed weights and ate extra meat to train.

    The Boeotians were particularly famed for spending time in the gymnasia to get their swole on.

    And here's some Romans weight training (possibly an ancient Shake weight):

  • MD

    It's easy to get a six pack by casting it in bronze. Middle aged Roman generals knew that trick too 😉

    Back breaking labour aside, the average farmer doesn't map to warrior class. Almost always, our minis are of well fed, well trained soldiers of the wealthier classes. 

    I would say, however, that the modern swole bodybuilder look is unlikely. A more general physique trained for fighting is what you'd expect. Boxer instead of weightlifter.  

    And a bit of a gut does not get in the way of weapon fighting. Although your average premodern soldier on campaign was burning off the fat from walking everywhere with kit, so I'd not have thought there were too many that stayed fatties.

  • JTam

    Out for the fighting season.  In for the harvest.  Wasn't that the cycle for a good long bit of human history?

  • MD

    @JTam in many times and places. But most typically in premodern times it was supervising slaves, serfs and proles during the harvest rather than doing the actual plowing. That is NOT to say they weren't working, but it was manegerial rather than labourial. And the yeomanry fall somewhere in the middle; part of the fighting population but also running small farms. Rome and Japan have direct equivalents, likely other cultures did as well, but rural Ji-Zamuari and Roman patriarchs tending their personal olive groves sprang to mind first.

Please login to reply this topic!

Search

Forum statistics

Page views (24h):
1,312
Page views (30d):
29,940
Topics:
773
Posts:
13,775
Members:
1,295

Newest members

© 2023, Wargames Atlantic | Powered by Xenforum