First catch of the year - Black Scorpion Miniatures Review

Nine days into the new year the mailman delivered my first catch of the year; a box of goodies from Black Scorpion Miniatures.

Ooooh, pressies! Well, I did pay for them but I can hardly remember that so it's almost like a present!

Black Scorpion make quality resin miniatures in the popular "Heroic 30mm" scale, which means they are around 32-33 millimeters in height as are most other manufacturers' figures nowadays. Their ranges include pirates, fantasy pirates, fantasy football amongst others. They also have a bunch of special figures included Winston Churchill and a duck with a Machine gun...

 I ordered a bunch of packs from their Tombstone range, which features Wild West style figures. There's no "fantasy" element in this range, but the subjects can be a bit tropey. (I'm no expert on the period though.)


I'm going to use these figures mainly as extra character figures for Shadows of Brimstone, although I have bought enough figures to form one or two gangs for Dead Man's Hand that Jocke is toting. It's a fun game I and figured that while I'm painting buying wild west figures I might as well go all in.

Bubba Fat Mexican and the Mexicans 1 and Mexicans 2 pack. And they ain't got no stinkin' badges!

I'm a bit unsure of exactly how many figures you need for Dead Man's Hand, but Jocke said that about ten figures would be sufficient. I got one Bandido in the Brimstone games, with further two figures (a female Bandida and an alternative Bandido pose) unlocked as stretch goals. However, all the stretch goals will be delivered in about a year so I ordered two packs of mexican bandits and a special character. Yeah, it's a bit of an overkill, but it was that or lacking one or two figures.

In case you didn't get the badges joke: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

I also wanted to get some more characters for Shadows of Brimstone. There are four different characters included in each game (so I have eight), but each character have three variants. For example, the Bandido figure included has a fist full of dynamite, but another variant can use two handguns without penalty. So I looked around for figures that looked useful. The Tombstone 7 pack looked good as it included a hillbilly and a guy with a banjo, which I think will do nicely as a Rancher and Piano player (musician as musician, right).

Cowgirls 1 and the Tombstone 7 pack

I also wanted to buy a couple of female models that could pass as gender-swapped variants. There are alternate gender versions coming with the stretch goals too, but I don't want to wait. I had more problems this time since a lot of the Black Scorpion females look like they are wearing sexy halloween cowgirl costumes rather than real clothes. Not that I do not enjoy looking at the female form (wether in real life or in miniature) but for me these do not look very wild west-y at all. So much bare shoulders and bare mid-riffs that they could belong in an 80's Madonna video. Still, they are not completely unredeemable and I plan to cover all those belly buttons up with Milliput.

The Tombstone 4 pack and Pat Garret the famous lawman.

Pat Garret is available as a single figure and he makes a fitting alternate lawman. A no brainer really, good pose with his pistol up in the air and a cigar in the other hand. Last I had to order the Tombstone 4 pack as it contained a priest with a cross and a shotgun. The Preacher in Shadows of Brimstone doesn't have a weapon, using sermons as some kind of spells instead. However, one of the variants swaps the bible and sermons for a shotgun so this figure is an instant match.

James Coburn in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

It would be kind of costly to buy a full pack for only one of the figures, but I will use some of the others for Brimstone as well. Especially as I got rules and cards for the kickstarter exclusive Outlaw character, but his figure will be delivered with the rest of the stretch goals... in about a year, yes. So one of these will get a Milliput bandanna hiding his face, as will one of the girls.

To summarize the Black Scorpion figures are well sculpted and cast in a light grey resin (although one of the mexicans was noticably darker) which is a little bit flexible. It's not brittle and is easy to cut or sand. The figures have good and crisp details and very little flash. A few figures had visible mold lines but most didn't. Only one figure came in two parts and had to be assembled. The only downside I see is the "fantasy" outfits for the female figures, and some of the weapons lacked a little bit of details. The revolvers are all fine but some of the rifles and shotguns are quite featureless; the only way to tell them apart is by counting the number of barrels.

Price-wise they cost £8 for a four-figure pack or £10 for a five-figure pack, while the single figures cost £3.50. The single figures cost more but have more details and more distinct poses (the cheaper figures have similar poses it seems) so warrants the cost. With 35 different products in the Tombstone range it's really useful if Wild West gaming is your cup of tea.

In summary I give Black Scorpion Miniatures 4 out of 5 stars.