SR-Miniatures Options

[Machiavelli]

I would really like to have some good miniatures preferably at a quality McFarlane produces his statues etc (or the new MOTU-series) but (sorry for that) the "official" SR-Miniatures don´t meet this requirement. I don´t want to have a miniature of "neil the ork-barbarian" or some other freak, i want rather neutral characters so that I stay more variable. I did a quite intense research and stumbled over some fantasy-miniatures-sites, but they are a) too much fantasy looking for SR, and b) most of the time ways too big. Maybe you can help me with this. Does anybody know someone that offers such figures?

[paws2sky]

In general, Near Future genre minis are kind of hard to come by, especially at anything resembling a reasonable price. And they're ever rarer if you want something that looks decent. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Still, there are a few options...

Check out Reaper's "Chronoscope" line. Lots of good stuff there; Corp Security Guards, a couple Cybered Goons, some western heroes (a la Firefly), as well as some takes on classic action heroes like Mad Max.

If you can get your hands on some old HeroCLix minis, they're pretty easy to convert and repaint. Not a tremendous amount of detail though. See also, Mage Knight for good selection of Spirits, canines, etc.

I have the link to a good tutorial on making paper minis (folded stand-ups). Much cheaper and far more portable than buying metals or plastics. I just need to find the link... This might be it.

-paws

[Machiavelli]

Aaaah...thank you. I will have a quick look at your links. Maybe i can fnd something there.

[Warlordtheft]

I have a collection of ral partha and a few grenedier line models. Those are the only ones I know of-barring the supersized action figures that wizkids put out. I would hope catalyst would consider a minitures line like D&D in that same scale. It would be perfect for when players do something silly and get involved in a firefight. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lick.gif)

PS: OT-what happened to the SR liscense anyway?

[Wesley Street]

Like Paws2Sky said, finding near-future (or even modern setting) 25mm scale minis is tough. I'll second Chronoscope. Here are some others I would recommend.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - They're technically '60s spy minis but with the right paint job they'd look futuristic. Except for the guy with the wide lapels. There's no saving him. Anyway, I bought a bunch of these for my Spycraft 2.0 game.
Future Wars
Road Kill

The nice thing about 25mm scale is that you can use Matchbox cars for generic vehicles.

[Bull]

PS: OT-what happened to the SR liscense anyway?

What do you mean?

[wylie]

try Horrorclixs

best place is on ebay, as right now the game line is in limbo

most of the minis won't work , other then as bad guys, but there are a few good ones. there is actually one called Street Samurai
another one called valorie Elle is woman on a motorcycle firing a gun

hope that helps

[Critias]

Spinespur has some that fit into Shadowrun pretty well, including some pretty customizable generic ganger/thug types.

Online store, here.

[Warlordtheft]

What do you mean?

Last I heard (late 08, early 09) Topps owns the Intelectual property rights to SR, catalyst is renting those rights (oversimplification, I know). Topps decided (before the economy crashed) to put the IP rights up for sale. However by the time they got the bids in and so forth, topps was not interested at that price (and other offers). So I was wondering if Topps was still negotiating with catalyst.

To tie back to the topic, I know that setting up a production line for minis (plastic or metal) is expensive. If catalyst doesn't own the the IP rights, it might be an unacceptable business risk to start one and then have Topps revoke or not renew their agreements with catalyst.

[Bull]

Took me a while to remember the name of the game.

Rezolution

I remember a couple of the FanPro folks picking up minis for this a few years ago at the cons. Some very Shadowrunny mini's, though metahumans are in short supply.

RAFM's Modern Day heroes line

Again, light on meta types. Though it does have zombies, and what looks like it could be a good drone or two.

Reaper's Chronoscope was already mentioned.

[Snow_Fox]

Ral Partha had the best minatures. one of our group use to paint them. the problem was when they had to stop using Lead.

NY state barred them as 'toys' with lead. The federal government granted an exemption because they were collectables, New york didn't care. without lead the quality went out the window

[paws2sky]

I have the link to a good tutorial on making paper minis (folded stand-ups). Much cheaper and far more portable than buying metals or plastics. I just need to find the link... This might be it.

That was not what I was looking for. This is what I was looking for: Gaming Aid: Creating Cardboard Stand-up Figures

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - They're technically '60s spy minis but with the right paint job they'd look futuristic. Except for the guy with the wide lapels. There's no saving him. Anyway, I bought a bunch of these for my Spycraft 2.0 game.

Holy crap! Those are freakin' awesome! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

Rezolution

Oh yeah... I think they have some of those down at my FLGS. Hmm.

-paws

[Wesley Street]

NY state barred them as 'toys' with lead. The federal government granted an exemption because they were collectables, New york didn't care. without lead the quality went out the window

Huh, I hadn't heard that. I could understand the rationale if they were being sold in Toys R Us but from a hobby and gaming store? Ridiculous.

According to Wikipedia Ral Partha's troubles came when WotC yanked their licenses and FASA quit producing games with their minis. WizKids still has the rights BattleTech and Shadowrun lines, as far as I know.

To be perfectly honest I've seen the Ral Partha SR minis and I didn't care that much for them. According to a friend who is a pro-mini sculptor, the Ral Partha guys weren't getting much in the way of art direction from FASA during the 1st ed. days so they were having to make up a lot of stuff as they went. The finished product wasn't what fans were wanting and they didn't sell well.

[MJBurrage]

Wow, not just the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang figures, but almost everything in the 28mm Modern at FRP Games is great.

For Lone Star NPC's I use cops from Heroclix (usually cheap on eBay since their common), and for corp security, I have a VanSaar gang from Necromunda painted up in urban camo.

[Mongoose]

EM4 has a lot of nice stuff, including the whole future wars line. Some even come pre-ptainted!
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Copy_of_SCI_FI.html
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Science_Fiction.html
http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Future_Skirmish.html

Foundry also has some very cool stuff.
http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/SV/index.asp

[Daddy's Litt...]

Huh, I hadn't heard that. I could understand the rationale if they were being sold in Toys R Us but from a hobby and gaming store? Ridiculous.

According to Wikipedia Ral Partha's troubles came when WotC yanked their licenses and FASA quit producing games with their minis. WizKids still has the rights BattleTech and Shadowrun lines, as far as I know.

To be perfectly honest I've seen the Ral Partha SR minis and I didn't care that much for them. According to a friend who is a pro-mini sculptor, the Ral Partha guys weren't getting much in the way of art direction from FASA during the 1st ed. days so they were having to make up a lot of stuff as they went. The finished product wasn't what fans were wanting and they didn't sell well.

My husband is the player she is talking about. In our basement we have some of his leads. The lead ones are beautiful for their detail. (and he had the sort of attention to detail that he would paint the eyes to the point it looked like they had make up on.) I have seen the pieces that have 'palladium' I think it is called, the lead free material and it is no where near as good. He said he had a regular 'habbit' when they were lead but after a few tries did not bother with the new things. Apparently New york was a large enough market that Ral Partha had to change its entire line to keep from losing the NY market.

[Stahlseele]

Some of the Warhammer/Warhammer 40k stuff might work as Minis too i guess.

[DWC]

Some of the Warhammer/Warhammer 40k stuff might work as Minis too i guess.

The rank and file Imperial guard stuff works quite well. I've got scads of them, and they've always come in quite handy.

[Critias]

Games Workshop's Necromunda line has some good stuff in it for Shadowrun, too. And as an added bonus once you get ahold of some of the miniatures, the rules are available straight from GW, on-line as a free PDF.

[Stahlseele]

Critters, Orks, people in Security Armor, Punks and People with Cyber-Ware.
All kinds of crazy ass weapons and vehicles. Yeah, i guess pretty much SR ^^

i am still saying WH40K is the in between of shadowrun and Battletech.

[Method]

As stated above Foundry makes some cool shit, especially the Street Violence line.

I will second (or third?) GW's WH40K stuff- with some of the modern sprue-based plastic kits you can convert all kinds of cool SR style minis.

You might spend some time lurking at CoolMiniOrNot.com - there's lots of GW stuff there, but also a lot of other lines and you can see what they look like with a good paint job (usually) [Tip: just keep hitting the red ">" button]

Also you should check out Colonel Marbles Miniatures Review on Youtube. Its a great source for up and coming new miniature companies of all flavors.

[lordnth]

My husband is the player she is talking about. In our basement we have some of his leads. The lead ones are beautiful for their detail. (and he had the sort of attention to detail that he would paint the eyes to the point it looked like they had make up on.) I have seen the pieces that have 'palladium' I think it is called, the lead free material and it is no where near as good. He said he had a regular 'habbit' when they were lead but after a few tries did not bother with the new things. Apparently New york was a large enough market that Ral Partha had to change its entire line to keep from losing the NY market.

Tin based alloy I believe. Palladium is a RPG publisher. Raldallium I think is what Ral Partha called thier tin alloy mix.
The fear was once NY state changed the rest of the country would follow. And since it was impossible to start up a seprate run for just one state (would have to be differant molds, alloys, packing, make sure distributors only sent the right stuff to MY, etc), it was easier to just change the whole thing. Some figures really needed new molds (or just cleaned maybe) other were resculpted. Some looked OK most weren't as good as originals.

While RP figures may not have looked the best, they were better than the Grenadier SR line. IMO.

[Psikerlord]

hey thanks all, I have been looking for some SRish mini's too, these are great leads. Don't forget you can also use counters either from products like fiery dragon (modern) or (given SR uses orks, trolls, etc) just make them yourself - cut and paste your favourite cool artwork, whack it into word or another program, convert to a 1 inch counter, print out in colour, stick it onto some cardboard, and voila: very cool little PC/NPC counter/token. Cheap and easy.

[Ed_209a]

One site I found (but haven't shopped at yet) is ClassicToySoldiers.com. These will not be truly PC-quality minis, but you can get 25mm mooks in bulk.

[Snow_Fox]

Things like orcs and dwarves with axes and smg's were/are common place. the neat ones i liked were the ones who looked like normal people in jeans and jackets.