On the Shoulders of Monsters

I am here inbetween waiting for renders to render and files to file to bring you the latest from Mierce Towers, which includes news of Kickstarter projects, Ysian filth, printer gods and Yule logs, among other things. Enjoy another feast of nonsensical verbiage from your lowly scribe, Miercenaries!

Darklands: Monster Mounts

As I mentioned in the last blog, this month we return to Kickstarter with a wonderful little project, Darklands: Monster Mounts, which does exactly what it says on the tin; it will be full of new and old monstrous mounts - with riders both new and old, too!

Everything will be Available in December/January

As you can see, everything is sculpted (or in the process of being sculpted) so by the time the project ends in early December we will be producing these guys already! It's entirely possible we'll be able to send out some of them in December, in time for Christmas; fingers crossed. Certainly, the digital files will be ready almost as soon as you pay, at least for the early monster mounts.

You'll be able to grab them physically as well as digitally, of course, and the project should be ready to launch this Friday, so watch out for an announcement. In the meantime, here's a few sneak peeks!

The early star of the show will be the new Teyrn of Powys, Manwgan ap Eiludd, and his amazing wocor monster, Cwmroch ap Roch, adapted from his brother Twroch of course. This fantastic mounted monster is the epitome of Darklands in our eyes - humans and monsters brought together in anger and strife!

Also available at the start will be the tekhnosiderás - the lord-level smith-priest - Khalkon on his bronze bull, Aithon, a mighty beast that can also breathe fire! Available helmed and unhelmed, this guy is the perfect centrepiece for your Atalantes host of kolossi.

An early stretch goal - our funding goal is £2,500! - will be a new Brynhild Gunnblindi for the Norse with ravenstaff and raven mount, Svanhildr. She'll have ravenhelm and bare head options, too!

Following on from that, the all-new Wælmund - a hrægār champion for the Cant realm of the Jutes - comes buzzing into battle upon Mathæn, the crag beetle bro of Scethæn. The hrægār or ‘harrowed’ are the freshly dead warriors reverently rejuvenated by the Jutes - so zombies, effectively! Wælmund himself has a few open wounds and so forth, but still retains his soul and much of his memory and intelligence. There's life in the old dog yet!

We will have all our old favourite monster mounts on there too, such as Garth on Mantichora above (beautifully painted by George ‘The Bockster’ Bocking) which you'll be able to purchase as add-ons or individually, if you've missed them. Everything has a hefty discount on the project - 50% off or more - so you'll be assured of a cracking deal, too!

Needless to say, there's plenty in store for the project and it can go on as much as you guys can force it to. I've got Rafael Callegari, Ivan Flaman and Kaik Pereira working on more monster mounts as I write, which means that you'll be assured of some amazing monster mounts!

In no particular order, here's some new things you might well see on this project...

• Bromogg on Aurogg (yes, that's going to be huge)
• Djiuzu the camel on an incredible all-new camelopard!!
• Damgron on Tarus (erm. overkill!)
• Boaab on srónocx
• Grey-Fur on a big rat
• Qilqaaq on feleox
• Nuala on stump beast
• Tetwic on a nihtbat

...and anything else I can think of, and will fit into the project, basically!

Watch out for more news on this as and when. I expect all hands on deck for this one, Miercenaries!

Warning: Depravity Ahead

In a change to my previous musings about December's battle host and monster, I'm going Ysians instead of Fomoraic: mainly because of Rafael's workload. I already have the Brute-Beasts you see, and so Rafael only has to do the following to complement them:

• Gondard of Karaez resculpt
• Zethag resculpt (plus suitably horrifying pin up)
  
• Brute Corruptor unit resculpt
• Mule-Brute unit (brute-centaurs, people) - great club and two club
• Brute-Beasts unit - great club and two club

Needless to say, December is going to be full of filth, not least because the monster will be Sana the filth-hulk. Remember her?

As always, I make no apologies for the utter filth and depravity of the Ysians.

Moar Fantasy Brands

Now that I've embarked upon this story's main quest called Going to More Shows, I'm looking at what else I can bring along as well as Darklands and Avatars of War miniatures. I've always loved Txarli Factory's output - if only because their mammoths for the Northern Ogres are - well, Maatmäg-adjacent - and while lately they haven't produced much in the way of miniatures, they are giving everybody some amazing scenery that would work well in Darklands battles. Not the least of which are these nice-looking viking halls:

There's also a ton more scenery pieces that would work for fantasy, as well as a bigger ton of scenic basery, and there's even some sci-fi. I like it, so I think I'll take the plunge with these guys.

If anybody has any other suggestions for more fantasy brands for us to make, go right ahead and comment...!

Offending the Printer Gods

Sod 'em. I've put the two Mega 8K Ses on eBay. Take that, printer gods! I wasn't using them for a number of reasons: mainly because of the files, though. I have thousands of files, and changing things around on Lychee to fit those printers (they have a huge print bed) was taking up way too much of my ever-so-precious time. They're good. Just not time-efficient for me. Head over to eBay if you fancy them: https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/mierceminiatures

More brands does mean more printing, as if I haven't got enough to do already, but I have room for more printers now - so I'm going to grab some more. There is a point where I need more humans to look after the washing, cleaning and sorting, but I'm not there yet. Plus, I'm upgrading the ones I have - mighty 8ks - to mighty 12ks, which are faster, and better.

Even before I put two on eBay, lately I seem to have offended the printer gods somehow, so it's a bit three steps forward, four back; I'm down three of them thanks to various happenings, mostly to do with My Ham Fist. I've broken two ribbon cables from the mainboard to the LCD screen of two of them, and it will take two or three weeks to get more from Phrozen. Because of course they're not available as parts like the screens or vats. Bah!

I've bought a second hand printer to cover at least one of them in the meantime, and a new upgrade kit plus LCD screen and cable for the other, so I'm only down one. But it's a bit of a hiccup in production, so apologies if the lískar arrive a little late.

Yule Backlog

On that note, regarding the backlog anyway, Carawn is on his way to you all (finally) and the corpse-dragon is leaving our workshop like he means it. We're about half-way through production of those, maybe, and the backwhale is almost done, so they will all be sent off before Christmas. Watch out for some mighty packages coming your way!

Ilkulkaag is next to be moulded up after Asterómma, who will be on his way to you all at some point next week; but I reckon the big paracarraarararerox will also be done before Christmas. We do always get there in the end. But after these ones - and Iskarnos - we will have sorted the monster backlog out, at least, and then it's the last stragglers from previous Kickstarters.

Tunnels, lights, end of.

That's all for now, ladeez and gennelmen - I'm off to do a printer dance. Which is a bit like a raindance, but without the headgear.