Why
I have enjoyed the setting of Void miniatures tabletop game for a long time. I have read the wargame rules, the forcebooks and other related materials, but I did not managed to get miniatures, nor play any game. The 28mm miniatures were great, but I really wanted to see them in 6mm or something close, so I could buy, store and collect them more easily. Well, this day has come and it is the merit of Scotia Grendel for bringing the game and the whole 6mm range of miniatures to life (more about this, later in the review section). It is a pleasure for me to present this gallery of images and review, as it was a lot of work
to collect, prepare, paint and also to pack everything along with expressing, hopefully, some
interesting facts in this review.
How
The miniatures come unpainted and require some preparation (removing
little flesh, washing) and assemble (easy with superglue and if
something does not stick fast or well, use first a little green stuff to
make the ”cunning” pieces hold like wished). Black primer
from Vallejo was not applied, because I did not considered necessary on these mostly resin made miniatures (some are white lead metal, or a mix) and some coats of paints followed. For Junkers: Cavalry Brown 982, Scarlet 817, Copper 999, Deep Green 970, Black 950, Natural Steel 864. For Syntha: Buff 976, Sand Yellow 916, Scarlet 817, Flat Red 957, Violet Red 812, Lime Green 827, Andrea Blue 841. For VASA I have used Luftwafe Uniform WWII 816, White 951, Black 950, Natural Steel 864, Andrea Blue 841. For Viridians Lime Green 827, Retractive Green 890, Deep Green 970, Andrea Blue 841, Natural Steel 864 (all paints are from Vallejo, hope I did not forgot some of the paints, and of course a lot of mixed paints were used). I have applied Wash 73201 and sometimes Game Ink 72094 (I like more the Ink).
I have tried to assemble some painting schemes, camo and other effects, inspired by my knowledge of the Void universe, but also of my interpretation of the factions. Few words about the latter aspect: for Junkers I have used mostly red and close to reddish brown, that should hide well in an environment like the presumably red desert planet Mars and the like. Then, for the Syntha I have used, as a main color, Sand Yellow without applying ink so that it keeps the artificial look that this AI faction (SPOOM, Biomech, cybernetically engineered, robots) I think it should have. I have used a similar way to represent Aleph faction from Infinty wargame. For VASA faction I have employed Luftwafe Uniform WWII in a camo with darker and ligher shades like for a colder planet, or however, on a planet, asteroid which seldoms sees the light, but also to show that the faction uses sneaking tactics, while for Viridians I made a camo to represent the native jungle worlds in which they reside. I am happy with the results, I think Viridians painting scheme without ink looks maybe a little better than with ink, but alea iacta est, for now. The glass of the miniatures was not painted with Gunmetal Grey 863 or Natural Steel 864 as I usually like to do, but with Andrea Blue 841, because in this case that is how I thought will work well.
Results
A gallery of images of painted miniatures from the range Age of Tyrants was assembled here. Under each photo, that can be enlarged so you can observe the details
more easily, there is the name of the painted
miniature and a
link that leads you to further images if you are more interested in a
respective miniatures. For each miniature I have taken
photos from different angles to discover them in their beauty (Scotia Grendel has only one photo, not always relevant, and sometimes it does not have a photo and all of them are not of painted miniatures). You can
you use the search function to
find out more easily something in particular. I have prepared four sections, one for each of the four factions of the game: Junkers, Syntha, VASA and Viridians. In each section you will find out the miniatures and their photos. The job paint I did is improved, but there is more to work in the future.
Review
As previously mentioned, we need to present the context in which these miniatures and game had developed up until now. Because it is a long history to present and I do not know all the details, I only briefly note some of the most important moments.
First, Void, a 25/28 mm miniatures tabletop wargame was released in 2000 by i-Kore (they also produced games like Celtos
and Xyston) and in 2004 the game was bought by another company from
Scotland, Urban Mammoth, who also developed other games based on the
same universe, Urban War and Metropolis: Battle-Force Conflicts, both
more on the skirmish to medium battle scale (i.e. Warhammer 40K: Kill
Team) than on mass battle scale (i.e. Warhammer 40K: Apocalypse). New factions were
added (Gladiators, Triads) to the other existent factions (Viridian, Junkers, Syntha, VASA, Koralon, Militia). Neo-Iskandrians and Militia were other side factions present, and then Urban War 2nd Edition (Urban War: Strike-Team Actions) was released. Soon, the game and miniatures were bought by Scotia Grendel. Then, John Robertson and his team at Myriad Miniatures developed Age of Tyrants: Massive Scale Wargaming, a range of 6mm miniatures and rules through a successful Kickstarter (in the beginning of 2016). It was a difficult and long process to produce the game,
and when the problems were too overhelming to deal with them, Scotia
Grendel offered to help once more and bought the whole range, with
Robertson still in the team that develops the game, but working for the new owner. Meanwhile, Void 1.1 changed hands, now being owned by Seb Games (2020), another Scottish company. We will see how Age of Tyrants (rules and other materials are free on Scotia's website!) develops in the future, because it has a fantastic potential. Until then, let us find out how the range of 6mm miniatures presents itself now.
With over 80 miniatures across four factions Age of Tyrants becomes an important competitor on the 6mm miniatures market. The miniatures designed represent very good each faction, giving them personality and a good feel. There are all kinds of miniatures: infantry, mounted infantry, support infantry weapons, command infantry, commanders/heroes, tank crews, casualties miniatures, robots (CLAU - Capital Light Armoured Unit), (tri)bikes, jet bikes, drones, helicopters (VTOL), aircraft (fighter, transport, bomber), tanks, armoured personnel carrier, self-propelled guns, mortar and missile carriers. So, there are plenty of options. Each miniatures has with one or more parts in metal or resin or with parts from both materials (for example Mustang Fighter, with a propeller from resin and the rest from metal), and with a plastic square matte or transparent base to be employed in the wargame. I do not base my miniatures on them, for now, because I will use them in another project that I have. I have based the infantry miniatures on a round little base bought from other source. The same for robots. I did not based the vehicles. The resin vehicles come with some flesh, mostly easily to remove. But you need to be cautious when cleaning them, because sometimes the resin is very fragile. We want miniatures full of details and with modern sci-fi designs, Age of Tyrants brings to us all of these, but for some of their miniatures, as I have said, you need to be careful when removing flesh (Syntha, especially).
Some of the resin miniatures have missing parts (holes), due to some poor resin casting (?) or at least this is how I received them (some of the miniatures were received in metal, maybe because resin was not doing a good job, in the first place). Green stuff will repair this problems, as it did for me and I cannot say I invest to much time in fixing them. You can look here at some of these problems and how I resolved them. Really, the whole thing is not much of a problem, but it needs to be mentioned and addressed with new casts. Sometimes there were a lot of parts to be assembled (VASA, especially; look for BMD 11 Eagle for a detailed example, but again, you can also follow the other link for more examples), but mostly is very, very easy to assemble the miniatures (like most of the Viridian vehicles - turret and rest of the vehicle). Resin vehicles have a resin cast part that should be removed. I thought this is hard to do it (the resin part is at the bottom of the vehicle) and I did not want to risk destroying the miniatures (not all of the vehicles have it, maybe I will try to remove it, but for now I am ok with it, and it with me...). An example for this problem on the page for Octoris Falx.
You can customize the vehicles by equipping the vehicles with tank crews, and for VASA you can use also tank dessant (some of the miniatures in the gallery of images have this customization, some not). Another important plus for the range, besides the variety of miniatures, is the wow factor that some of the miniatures have and also the fact that they are true to the universe of Void, so from a fan perspective it is a superb touch (thumbs up Robertson, thumbs up Scotia Grendel - for examples, look at Saurian Riders and Sandrunners, two of the most iconic minis of the Void). So for the wow factor I mention just five example (do not get me started, or this review will turn into a short novel!): Major McCann, Drone Carrier, Kallista, Maw Bomber, Red Hammer, Triglav, Liberator Transport (whaaat? is it seven already?, well, told you!). Is there a faction that I like most? Hard to choose one, or to make a top of them. To this it also contributes the paint schemes that I have used, pardon me for being to proud of it, but sometimes you need to be satisfied, otherwise the whole thing will start not to be that fun, and to look like a job. Preparing this whole review and gallery was a demanding, but fun process, and this is guaranteed.
The details on the miniatures are quite many and of good quality and so are the general designs of the miniatures. They are modern sci-fi (as opposed as how older ranges of sci-fi miniatures look, say the ones from 80s or 90s, imagining the future/sci-fi), and look no further than Syntha or VASA, but really also the other two factions, too. Being able to add casualties in infantry combat or for objectives in a game is another very nice thing (for example Viridian Casualties).
Another problem currently of the range is that some parts of the miniatures seem to miss or this is how I got them. On the website some of the miniatures have, for example, antennas - Nemesis, but not my Nemesis, the same situation for Dire Wolf [1] and [2], but also look at Broadsword and Blade miniatures and Executioner CLAU had a missing sword (mistakes may happen). Maybe new customization bits and pieces will be produced to place on the vehicles, because some clearly have spaces designed for this (like for Coyote, granted is a missile carrier so I do not think that a gun turret could be placed without looking too crowded, but an antenna or a machine gun would suit well). This whole thing is again not a big problem, I admit.
The infantry miniatures can be prepared well (not too much flesh to remove) and painted well (not something surprisingly, but they are good, the same for robots, and for them, customization would help). In terms of assembling not too many puzzles, like mentioned, maybe for some of the VASA miniatures like Eagle or Bear. As for painting, there are many details of the miniatures that a more able painter than me could well bring into light. A note here on the resin miniatures: do not forget to wash them good, so that the paint will stick (you may try a primer for the paints to stick well, but I have found that even primer sometimes does not stick, maybe for some of the miniatures I did just a bungle wash). Be careful with resin miniatures, if they fall, they can easily have problems, like my miniatures for Onager, which now has a part of the turret missing, due to a fall of under 50 cm. I still like resin, because is lighter than metal even for big and large miniatures, so you can store easily more miniatures. This is a big plus for resin miniatures. For a minus, read patiently forward.
Now another two highly subjective aspects are: being true to 6mm measure or 1:285/1:300 scale and prices per miniature/pack of miniatures. The vehicles seem to be out of 6mm scale (Junkers and VASA vehicles), while some seem to be little (Jaguar Strike Craft) compared to other from the same faction (Viridian land vehicles, like Blade vs. Direwolf, maybe it is a setting reason that it escapes my knowledge, but I do not know, for me this is how it seems, and I do understand why commander/hero Major McCann vehicle is bigger and comparable to Blade). Like I usually write in my review, in sci-fi not to be true to the scale is not a big problem in certain contexts, but sometimes it looks not nice scale creep - and some of the minis are at this limit. On the subject of prices, resin miniatures cost, usually, more than metal miniatures. Today, the technology is sufficiently advanced in order to produce resin miniatures with good fine details even higher than for metal, but it still cost more. This is the case for Age of Tyrants: 3 pounds for a pack of infantry/mounted infantry/accompanying infantry for robots miniatures (6, 8 or 12) seems good (infantry and robots are produced in metal), but resin vehicles are 6 pound each, quite much, but they are big, with many details, and have in mind the already detailed resin vs metal aspect. It is a lot to pay (especially for a miniature like Jaguar Strike Craft comparable to other vehicle miniatures from the range), but prices are in a way comparable to miniatures from other companies (with metal and resin miniatures).
As conclusion remarks, maybe you can anticipate by now that I like very much this range of miniatures. I have mentioned some of the problems of the range, but also some of the big pluses of Age of Tyrants and many aspects related to my experience on assembling, preparing and painting this range of miniatures. Scotia Grendel is one of the big companies in the miniature hobby, and one of the most important for the 6mm hobbyists. I know that they have other miniatures in development for Age of Tyrants,
but I can assure any reader that what is released by now, stands very well
on its own. It was really fun and a delight to discover and paint the miniatures of Age of Tyrants!
Feedback
Hope you like it, hope you share it with many friends and leave a comment or two on your personal experience with Age of Tyrants!
Click
on the links to access the four sections with miniatures,
totalling 80+ miniatures and hundreds of corresponding images.
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Junkers
Syntha
VASA
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