Anvil Industry: Exo Lords Black Ops Fireteam and Recon Snipers

Welcome to another review!  This time around  I will be taking a look at some of the resin miniatures produced by Anvil Industry.

Based in London, they produce resin miniatures, components and accessories for the avid collector. They also have their own skirmish game called Afterlife and produce a whole slew of miniatures for it. The rules can be downloaded as a free PDF from the website, which is found at the end of this article.

I hope to cover more of Afterlife in the future, but for now here is the first section of this two part piece, we will start with the Exo Lords Black Ops Fireteam.

These are 30mm heroic scale miniatures which can be used in any science fiction wargame. In the blister you get 10 highly detailed resin one piece casts of the legs and body, while the weapons are separate along with the power packs. There are around 40 extra components, such as ammo pouches, equipment belts, combat knives, pistols, Fusion Gun and stacked mag holders, allowing you to really customise your squad.

The helmets feature different versions of night vision goggles, with some sculpted directly onto the helmets, whilst others have separate attachments that you can apply yourself. The pack also includes some bare heads with re-breathers which I made the most of.

How you paint these guys is entirely up to you, but these will lend themselves really well to a black or deep blue colour scheme, or could even be painted in camouflage colours. These however will feature in my Death Guard army, fitting in nicely with the rest of the force. I went for mostly bare heads with the remainder wearing the singular night vision lens, perfect for my army. 

Sniper Recon:

The sniper blister pack features two resin one piece casts and one with a optional head. No bases are supplied with any of these packs, leaving it up to you how you want to base these impressive minis. Only one of the snipers weapons needed to be bent back into shape but this is normal for resins. I will be using these as part of my Heresy era army as well, making excellent alternatives for my Recon Squad as I prefer the look of these to the Forge World versions.

The scale is a perfect match for the Space Marine kits, as I have also used Anvil's Medieval legs for some spare torsos that I had from the Calth set. They stock plenty of great little conversion packs to really customise your collection, as well as stocking full kits like those above. They also do human factions , more of which will feature in the next article.

You can find all you need to know about Anvil and their ranges here:

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/index.php?route=common/home

Icarus Miniatures: Feral Nexus

This time around I take a look at something new for me, as I check out some of the latest releases from Icarus Miniatures. Based in North Wales UK,  they produce fine quality 32mm miniatures for the collector and wargamer. I take a look at the Feral Nexus, from the Icarus Project.

The Icarus Project is a science fiction skirmish game set 800 hundred years into the future, where humanity has expanded into the galaxy, but not without conflict. The powerful Nexus are a race to be feared and the Feral’s are even more brutal and bloodthirsty than the rest of their kind!

The miniatures are made from high quality resin, and feature some of the clearest detailing I’ve seen! The quality of the miniatures is amazing. The battle scars and ridges on the miniatures are crisp and clear, and once given a lick of paint really do stand out. 

The miniatures don't take much cleaning up, other than the normal flash you would expect to see on a resin miniature. Assembly takes no time at all, with each arm slotting into position with ease. The lower arms can be positioned how you like on the charging Nexus, whilst on the other miniature the lower and upper arms are connected. These are compatible with the other miniatures in the Nexus range and would make for some nice little conversions.

Each miniature is armed with twin bone knives and have a pistol attached at the waist. They have shackles attached to their arms and legs, giving the impression that these are kept under lock and key when not in battle! These simple little details tell a story and its details like that that really sell a miniature for me.

 The tribal necklaces with teeth adorning these miniatures ads to the feral look, as well as the tattered clothing. The fact that they are charging in with hardly any armour on shows just how tough (or crazy) they are!

Each was given a black spray primer, then the base colours of Knarloc Green, Rakarth Flesh, Calthan Brown and Bleached Bone were added before a generous wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. The skin was then dry brushed with Gretchin Green, whilst the straps and part of the necklace was painted Leather Brown.

The armour was painted in Army Painter Gun Metal with a Black Ink wash highlighted with Chainmail. The bone coloured areas were drybrushed with Bleached Bone again.  A few simple highlights and touch ups later gives a quick and effective looking paint scheme for these miniatures. The eyes were one of the last thing I painted, taking great care I used Sunburst Yellow, with Bleached Bone being used to paint on the tribal markings and highlight the ridges on the face and arms.

Also contained in each pack you get a stat card, detailing all you need to field these warriors in your games. I’ve yet to play the game , but after building and painting these miniatures it has inspired me to start collecting. I am eager to see what other miniatures Icarus come up with in the future, and I highly recommend grabbing yourself some these stunning minis!

You can find out more about Icarus Miniatures here:

http://icarusminiatures.com/