Imagine that you just started collecting miniatures 7-8 months ago after not buying any since the Golden Age of your D&D-playing youth in the \'80s. At first you buy only from one company that has a wide selection of D&Desque figures to use in the first D&D campaign that you\'ve run in over a decade. You spend a few hundred dollars on them, start painting them and find that you like the figures--and especially the painting of them--in and of themselves, aside from their utility in gaming. So you start looking around for other figures and soon come to another company that you like much more...but this company, you find, is no longer producing metals and much of their selection is difficult to come by and sometimes rather expensive (And, worse still, you realize that you are a couple months late for all the clearance sales). You spend more hundreds of dollars and continue to spend, but you realize that the end--whether in a month or six months--is inevitable: eventually you will run out of figures to buy. You have bought a couple figures from the most popular miniature company, but find their somewhat cartoonish style to not fit your aesthetic. You browse through dozens of other miniature companies and find some stuff that you like, but nothing that compares to the above mentioned company.
If it isn\'t obvious, the three companies mentioned are Reaper, Rackham, and Warhammer. I love Rackham, like Reaper, and am mixed on Warhammer. Currently I own a few dozen of both Reaper and Rackham figures and plan on gradually working my way through the Reaper first before tackling the Rackham figures, which I like so much that I don\'t want to paint until I get to a higher level of skill (at least to the 7+ range according to CMON\'s scale).
As for other companies, I own one Avatars of War figure and like it, but don\'t love it and have a hard time justifying the cost; I also own one Dark Sword figure and like it, but find the rest of the line to be equivalent to Reaper: good not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as Rackham. I have been tempted by--but do not own any of--various companies, including Enigma, Andrea, Ultraforge, Dark Ages, Crocodile, Freebooter, etc. I came across one company that I really liked, but found that they have been long out of production and extremely expensive when they show up on Ebay (Ilyad).
What do you recommend? What of the many companies out there do you think I would like, considering my fetish for Rackham? I will probably continue buying Reaper, but only occasionally and mainly for tabletop usage. I would like to pick up at least one Andrea and Enigma, to at least see how they look \"in the metal.\" At some point I\'ll probably shell out the $80 for that lovely-terrible War Demon from Ultraforge. And of course there are still many dozens of Rackham figures that I want, but not only is my list going down in terms of what I especially want--I have gone as far as typing up a spreadsheet of every Confrontation figure and rating them by degree of desirability, from 1-5; I have most of my 4s and 5s, and a few of the 3s--but eventually available figures will dwindle away.
So my question: What next after Rackham supplies dwindle from Ebay and other online stores? Do you have specific recommendations, given the above (ad nauseam) description? And, perhaps most importantly, is there any company that could be deemed the \"next Rackham\"? I am not looking for someone to simulate Rackham\'s style, but what I am looking for is that unique combination of artistic sensibility and production quantity.
Is there life after Confrontation? (insert annoying emoticon).
If it isn\'t obvious, the three companies mentioned are Reaper, Rackham, and Warhammer. I love Rackham, like Reaper, and am mixed on Warhammer. Currently I own a few dozen of both Reaper and Rackham figures and plan on gradually working my way through the Reaper first before tackling the Rackham figures, which I like so much that I don\'t want to paint until I get to a higher level of skill (at least to the 7+ range according to CMON\'s scale).
As for other companies, I own one Avatars of War figure and like it, but don\'t love it and have a hard time justifying the cost; I also own one Dark Sword figure and like it, but find the rest of the line to be equivalent to Reaper: good not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as Rackham. I have been tempted by--but do not own any of--various companies, including Enigma, Andrea, Ultraforge, Dark Ages, Crocodile, Freebooter, etc. I came across one company that I really liked, but found that they have been long out of production and extremely expensive when they show up on Ebay (Ilyad).
What do you recommend? What of the many companies out there do you think I would like, considering my fetish for Rackham? I will probably continue buying Reaper, but only occasionally and mainly for tabletop usage. I would like to pick up at least one Andrea and Enigma, to at least see how they look \"in the metal.\" At some point I\'ll probably shell out the $80 for that lovely-terrible War Demon from Ultraforge. And of course there are still many dozens of Rackham figures that I want, but not only is my list going down in terms of what I especially want--I have gone as far as typing up a spreadsheet of every Confrontation figure and rating them by degree of desirability, from 1-5; I have most of my 4s and 5s, and a few of the 3s--but eventually available figures will dwindle away.
So my question: What next after Rackham supplies dwindle from Ebay and other online stores? Do you have specific recommendations, given the above (ad nauseam) description? And, perhaps most importantly, is there any company that could be deemed the \"next Rackham\"? I am not looking for someone to simulate Rackham\'s style, but what I am looking for is that unique combination of artistic sensibility and production quantity.
Is there life after Confrontation? (insert annoying emoticon).
