the Shire Defense Force mobilises!

Today, my first package of the Westfalia Miniatures Halfmen Kickstarter arrived, and they are glorious:

Tomorrow a second package should follow, containing the last few miniatures, and then I should have everything in my hands.
I had a quick look at them, and once again Westfalia Miniatures really impresses. (They already went well above and beyond coordinating with me to make sure my miniatures wouldn't arrive when I was away from home.)

Their choice in resin is excellent, it's light and takes detail very well, transferring every detail of the absolutely marvellous sculpts, while being ever so slightly flexible, which is great boon to actual wargaming use for this miniatures.
The casting is virtually flawless, with barely any mouldlines and little excess resin to deal with. (The only flaw I could find after checking every single miniature, was a slight misalignment of the mould on the visor of one my Goat Knights. Nothing a stroke with a file and maybe a dot of putty won't fix. Which for working with resin, and the sheer amount of miniatures I got, is so minor an issue it doesn't even properly count.) There are the usual slight bent spears and such that are part and parcel of resin minis, but even those are few and far between. And knowing Westfalia, all their shipments are to this standard of quality. They're just gobsmackingly amazingly good and very, very dedicated.

The sculpting is just exquisite and very, very clean. These will be an absolute joy to paint up.
I'd better start clearing my hobby table... :)

Hopefully they'll make their way to the Westfalia Miniatures online store, as I can certainly see myself expanding the collection.

So, what are my plans for these? Well, they'll get fed into the greater Dungeoneering/Chivalry/Fantasy monster project. I think they'll get divvied up into groups of a single Knight and his/her retinue, similarly to what I did with my Bretonnians. And mayble I'll cherrypick a few of them to accompany a Halfling Wizard to raid the kitchens and pantries of Frostgrave for frozen treats...

See you next time!

Edit: I feel these might come in handy at the painting stage... ;)
Food in Heraldry
The Wiki on food in heraldry

Shire Defense Force

I've known this Kickstarter was coming for a while now, and was really looking forward to it, and now it is finally here!
The Westfalia Miniatures Halfmen Army Kickstarter

 It's a project to fund and start a range of Halflings in a more professional military vein, rather than the quite pastoral and merry style usually seen.
Their armour and equipment of the pint-sized belligerents is styled after late 14th/early 15th century gear, which I really like the look of and coincides perfectly with the era I'm most interested in. It's the era which my setting/headcanon for the fantasy games I play is derived from. So you can see how I could not resist pledging! My collection of heroes and "good guy" warbands has been rather humanocentric so far (with the odd elf and dwarf thrown in), this Kickstarter will go a long way towards correcting that!
The sculpts are very good, nice and clean and the test sculpts sent out to some select wargamers for review have gotten very positive feedback concerning the resin chosen and casting quality.

 So, if you like Halflings and/or fantasy with a strong medieval flavour, go and have a look!
They're already well past funded and burning through stretch goals rapidly.