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Alternative High Elf miniatures - a near and dear subject

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 1:07 am
by grantmepower
I think this is about as complete as I have time for, but I may come back and add more if anything particularly catches my eye.

So, after years in the hobby I find myself with hundreds of bookmarks on my computer, at a conservative estimate, of alternative miniatures and the companies that produce them. At this point it may be considered something of an obsession. Now if only I had the thousands of dollars I'd need to buy even half on them! Alas, college isn't cheap and doesn't leave me with quite the budget I'd wish. I figure it's about time I put together something that encompasses a general outline to what is out there for alternative high elves and hopefully you all can kick in and point me toward manufactures and minis that I haven't managed to stumble upon yet.

First off,
Monsters
Eagles
Gamezone Great Eagle I
Gamezone Great Eagle II
Gamezone Great Eagle III
Reaper Great Eagle
GW LotR range Great Eagle

Ridden Eagles
Gamezone Sylvan Elf Wind Rider, oddly enough I can't find it on the main site, but maelstrom stocks it.
CMON Elf Sorceress on Giant Owl, only 1 left so get it while it's hot.
CMON Elf Hero on Great Eagle, out of stock now, but they pop up on ebay (there's 2 there now).
Dark Sword War Eagle with Female Elven Rider

Eagle alternatives (aka, small dragons)
Reaper Young Fire Dragon
Reaper Pathfinder Red Dragon
Reaper Young Ice Dragon
Reaper Halfling on Dragon, which is rather small (2 inches tall), but I like the sculpt.
Reaper Young Swamp Dragon
Reaper Guardian Beast, actually an armoured, winged lion, but pretty unique and awesome. Maybe somebody with a Chrace army will indulge me and paint one up.
Reaper Silver Dragon, a bit large for an eagle, a bit small for a star dragon.
Gamezone Pegasus
Viking Forge Wyvern, looks average but has the advantage of being really cheap ($6.95). The problem is that ordering from Viking Forge is a pain and involves mailing them a check...
Mithril Scatha the Worm, I really like this one.
Mithril Cold Drake of the Withered Heath
Dark Sword Black Dragon, which is at that awkward size between eagle and star dragon, but it's a good sculpt.
GW Dragonmaster Dragon (it's a little bit larger than a great eagle link for size comparison). I can't link the store for some reason, but you should be able to find it on the GW site.
GW Drakes, if you must stay with GW only models for their stores or some such. However, the drakes are smaller than the eagles, more on the size of the old warhawks.

Griffons
Gamezone Veteran Griffon
Cavalcade/Dragonblood Griffon
CMON Griffon Commander, the largest and most awesome griffon ever made. If you want a centerpiece griffon for you army, this is it.
Titan Forge Griffon Lady


Dragons, full-sized to downright huge!
Reaper Kyra & Lavarath
Reaper Gauth, 12" tall and and a 16" wingspan
Valiant Greater Dragon: totally huge, like 2' tall
Valiant Razorwing
Forge World Carmine Dragon, I have one and it's awesome. I'll post up some pictures and size comparisons once I have it all put together and painted up. It's about the same size as the high elf dragon.
Forge World Fire Dragon
Mithril The Vengeance of Smaug
Iron Wind/Ral Partha, T char: Dragon of Flame and Fury. It's a terrible picture, but it's a nice dragon. Painted
Mantic Elf Lord on Battle Dragon
Confrontation Titan Dragon, very large.
Dark Sword Red Dragon
Dark Sword Elmore Dragon 1, Mountain Conflict
Dark Sword Elmore Dragon 3, Golden Dragon of Chaos
Dark Sword Elmore Dragon 4, Strange Companions
Dark Sword Elmore Dragon 5,, my favorite of the Elmore set.
Dark Sword Red Dragon 2, this one is quite large.
Ultraforge Dragon
Heresy Dragon, which is huge and wonderful, but has a waiting list something like a year long...
CMON Cang the Implacable, this one deserves a picture:
Image

Iron Wind is re-releasing a good chunk of the old Ral Partha dragons here. They're pretty cheap, though I don't like too many of them. If you want to see some decent photos of painted versions go to this guy's site and navigate to the dragon gallery.
McFarlane toys are always worth mentioning when talking about dragons. You can find some here. They are out of production, but still pretty cheap and easy to find.


I will continue to add as things occur to me. Hope all that junk helps someone find a model they're looking for!
~Grant

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 1:09 am
by grantmepower
Full Miniature Lines
Gamezone has a full range of high elves that you can use to replace any single unit that you find particularly gross. A pure gamezone army would be very expensive though.
Mantic also has an equivalent for the majority of our units, but I don't really like how spindly their elves are. They're affordable and made of plastic though.

Heroes
Heresy Miniatures. I'm very fond of some of their elf sorceresses (they in fact don't look like men, unlike the GW ones). The models tend to be a bit smaller than GW, but should fit fine, especially if they're female.
Avatars of War has 3 that are to a high standard and on the exact same scale as GW.
Reaper. You could drown in all the selection they have. Some is total crap, but others are very good. I've also never had a miscast or breaking problem from them. The scale differs a bit across the range, with older minis being closer to 25mm than 28mm heroic, and newer ones fitting right up there with the largest-scale GW elves (the swordmasters from Island of Blood). Generally though, they look fine in a unit of GW minis.
Juza Miniatures has one (worth a mention because it's nice and the sculptor sometimes posts on these forums)
Maelstrom has put out a particularly nice BSB through their BaneLegions line.
Privateer Press (Warmachine and Hordes) can be worth a look through.
Cool Mini or Not has some selection if you're willing to wade through lots of junk. What they do have is usually high quality.
Studio McVey has a few in their limited edition resin section (so what they have is always rotating). Very high quality, but if you miss buying one when available, it's gone. Good luck even finding it on ebay. I've just had a couple arrive in the mail actually and they seem more true-scale than heroic (they're a bit more petite), but the ones I picked up are female and look fine as heroes next to GW elves.
Dark Sword is one of my new favorites that I found recently. They make everything from the Robin Hood animals, to Game of Thrones, to fantasy elves.
Fenryll, a French company, produces miniatures more in the old D&D style. Some of their minis are downright awesome such as these (I plan on using the one on the far right as a prince, the one in the middle as a champion, and the one on the far left will get put on a shelf to just look neat), and others offer a unique style such as these ones (the one in the middle with a greatsword would also make a nice hero and I like the female mage because it is a female model that actually looks like it would stay in its top)
Freebooter Miniatures is worth a mention, but for a high elf army isn't very useful. It does however have a few selections that would work well for wood elves or for an Averlorn themed army such as this or this.
Assassin Miniatures is worth a quick look through if you want a female mage (I like their Fire Magician).
Ral Partha is a legacy company still making miniatures from the days of first edition D&D, so if you're going for something old-style they probably have it. They also offer creative alternatives for whole units rather than just heroes (ie, if you don't like our archers then by you could put together a good unit between this and this.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 1:09 am
by grantmepower
Reserved

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 9:36 pm
by Natwest
Where do you find the price for a Dark Sword Elmore Dragon 5???

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Mon May 14, 2012 10:03 pm
by grantmepower
Natwest wrote:Where do you find the price for a Dark Sword Elmore Dragon 5???
It is about a third of the way down this page under the name "Bronze Dragon". $99.99, but it is made of two solid pounds of pewter!

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 12:21 am
by Jimmy
Awesome listings, can you please let me know when it's complete and I'll add the info to this:

http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic. ... 93#p737293

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 4:38 am
by Bob of Beleriand
The Avatars of War link was broken for me - http://www.avatars-of-war.com/eng/web/i ... Itemid=116 is this what you were pointing at?

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 5:01 am
by grantmepower
Bob of Beleriand wrote:The Avatars of War link was broken for me - http://www.avatars-of-war.com/eng/web/i ... Itemid=116 is this what you were pointing at?
You're right. Thanks, I'll change it.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:53 am
by Swordmaster of Hoeth
Just wanted to tell you I am very grateful for these links. You did a titanic job collecting them all together but it seems there is very little appreciation. I do hope mods will stick that topic as it certainly deserves so.

Thanks a lot! Hopefully we will be able to expand the range of alternative miniatures also because there are new models. Models, not toys :)

Cheers!

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:57 pm
by nick larking
Dat dragon =P~ be costing 300$ :cry:

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 11:12 pm
by Swordmaster of Hoeth
Big thank you to the mods!

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:26 pm
by grantmepower
Dang, now I have to go back and fix the broken links! :D

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 11:33 pm
by Greenkrieg
Has anyone found good alternative models for the phoenixes? I think the gw ones are way too big not to mention expensive.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 8:48 pm
by grantmepower
Reaper makes one: http://www.reapermini.com/OnlineStore/p ... test/03001
I don't really like it though. I'd be tempted to just use small dragons. Call them drakes.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 6:12 pm
by prelude_to_war
Great resource grantmepower.

Anyone have any sources for alternative nobles/princes on steeds?

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:47 pm
by John Rainbow
Have you thought about updating this to include bits suppliers too? As a start I've used both Hoard of Bits and Bits World and have been very happy with both.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 5:33 pm
by grantmepower
prelude_to_war wrote:Great resource grantmepower.

Anyone have any sources for alternative nobles/princes on steeds?
http://gamezoneminiatures.de/elfen/kava ... lerie.html

All I have for now. Digging through CMON might be worth a shot though.

As far as bits go, it's not a bad idea, but I don't have experience with many suppliers, so I think I'll leave it to somebody else.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2013 7:18 pm
by Browncastle
That Phoenix from reaper, would fit nicely as a reborn marker::P

Some great miniatures in this list:P Ib

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:36 pm
by Tzineris
And an another great eagle model!The more the merrier! :mrgreen:

http://www.shieldwolfminiatures.com/ind ... duct_id=20

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 5:32 pm
by PeNo
Hey, I got a nice tips for a Dragon model that i got last week. It was of really good quality, detail and the parts fit together very good.. The company is called Mierce Miniatures and they got alot of very good models there. They've got monsters, monstrous infantry and a BSB model for each faction. I had to wait about four weeks for my delivery.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 7:39 pm
by grantmepower
PeNo wrote:Hey, I got a nice tips for a Dragon model that i got last week. It was of really good quality, detail and the parts fit together very good.. The company is called Mierce Miniatures and they got alot of very good models there. They've got monsters, monstrous infantry and a BSB model for each faction.
There's a good reason that Mierce hasn't made the list. They used to be part of a company called Maelstrom as the Banebeasts line of miniatures. Maelstrom went bankrupt while having a "sale" where they took in thousands of orders they knew they could never fulfill. Then they "sold" their miniature lines to Mierce for a paltry fee, and let their customers and creditors suck it. Of course, Mierce is owned by the same people and went on it's merry way.
They're not a company you want to support.
~Grant

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014 11:42 pm
by PeNo
grantmepower wrote:There's a good reason that Mierce hasn't made the list. They used to be part of a company called Maelstrom as the Banebeasts line of miniatures. Maelstrom went bankrupt while having a "sale" where they took in thousands of orders they knew they could never fulfill. Then they "sold" their miniature lines to Mierce for a paltry fee, and let their customers and creditors suck it. Of course, Mierce is owned by the same people and went on it's merry way.
They're not a company you want to support.
~Grant
Oh so that's why, thought it was a bit odd that they didn't show up among your links. Well thanks for the information, I for one wont be conducting any more business with that kind of company, regardless of miniature quality.

Cheers

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:52 am
by Wilda Greenbough
The Mantic Elves interest me because they are so lithe and slender which is how I think Elves should be. The other thing about then is that they are affordable! Even if I buy them from the UK and with the cost of postage to New Zealand added in they are still significantly cheaper than buying GW's plastic regiment boxes.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Sat May 24, 2014 10:17 am
by Rake
Check out this company people

http://www.creaturecaster.com

Loads of big monsters coming are way, dragons for us and loads of other inc stunning tree woman and some real nice daemons

Anyways thought I would post link as I know people are always interested in alt models, and these are by far best I have seen

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Sun May 25, 2014 10:30 pm
by Asurion Whitestar
Rake wrote:Check out this company people

http://www.creaturecaster.com

Loads of big monsters coming are way, dragons for us and loads of other inc stunning tree woman and some real nice daemons

Anyways thought I would post link as I know people are always interested in alt models, and these are by far best I have seen
Those monsters look incredible, especially the Treewalker.
I can't wait to actually see them completed and cast.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some images)

Posted: Mon May 26, 2014 2:27 am
by Malossar
I pledged for an Emperor Dragon! I think it's something like 10.5" tall!

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some imag

Posted: Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:47 am
by Mentheus of Chrace
This is from a toyline called "Safari".

Image

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some imag

Posted: Thu Oct 15, 2015 12:27 pm
by StefanoXVII
I hope this is the right place to put this...Here is the kickstarter for an interesting alternative dragon (with rider):

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/du ... s-a-dragon

A preview of the dragon (without rider):
Image

PS My first post here! Hi everyone!

PPS As I side note, since it is my first post, I want to point out that I am in no way related to the author(s) of this miniature, I just wanted to spread their work since I find it amazing ;)

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some imag

Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2015 3:36 am
by grantmepower
I really like that dragon! Their price is reasonable, if a bit high. Similar to what I've spent on a forgeworld dragon.
If I didn't already have half a dozen unpainted dragons I'd consider it. I also wish it was from a company I'd purchased from before, but what are you going to do? At least Kickstarter is a relatively reliable platform.

Re: Alternative minitures-a near and dear subject (some imag

Posted: Fri Jan 15, 2016 12:38 pm
by Doctor
Someone, somewhere (possibly on this forum, I don't remember) pointed out Animal Planet Bald Eagle toy figure as an replacement for the great eagles. I think where I live they're at least three times cheaper than GW's eagles. I'll probably be using Reavers much more often, so it would make sense to buy a cheap replacement, if it looks good enough. Has anyone used them, or seen them up close?