On Tuesday, steampunk fantasy wargame Warmachine revealed an absolute unit of a unit. ‘Dozer and Smigg, Siege Breakers’, are a little and large pair consisting of a huge troll so heavily armored he’s practically a walking castle, and a Pygmy troll brave enough to ride on his back and operate a double-barrelled siege cannon. It’s a miniature that’s as silly as a cartoon and as cool as a cucumber, and a great reminder that models don’t have to be grimdark to look awesome.
Dozer and Smigg are actually returning characters, who had a pretty big miniatures in the previous edition of Warmachine, but their new version fits onto a hefty 80mm base. Publisher Steamforged Games has revealed some of their rules; they’re a mobile artillery unit for the Southern Kriels Kithguard, who support their ambushing allies by firing on nearby enemy troops whenever another troll unit emerges from a tunnel.
They’re big and uncomplicated and I love them. They’re also the furthest thing from my usual tastes in miniature wargames – grimdark and gothic minis, particularly Warhammer 40k and Trench Crusade – you can get. They’re just not that serious. And that got me thinking about how fantasy wargame aesthetics have evolved during my lifetime, because “serious” miniatures are relatively recent.
The famous ‘heroic’ miniature style that Citadel Miniatures pioneered in the 80s and 90s – with big hands and heads – evolved in response to constraints, the limits of what it was possible to sculpt by hand, and what you could feasibly cast in metal in a two-part rubber mold. It was exaggerated, and therefore kind of cartoony.
Those limits don’t apply any more. Games Workshop uses 3D design to make extremely detailed kits that break big 3D shapes into pieces that fit together perfectly, and it takes advantage of lightweight plastic to create top-heavy models, often with large empty volumes. It hasn’t become realistic, but it has become less cartoony, and – outside the Orks – a lot more sober.
The Warmachine line was designed around the limitations of metal model production in the early 2000s – in fact it revelled in those constraints, celebrating the fact that every Warjack model was a half pound of solid white metal. The world that they existed in was big and heroic and just a little bit cartoony, with plenty of comedy characters (from Gobbers to Gremlins) alongside the more serious warriors and Warcasters, and plotlines that were as much comic book heroism as they were fantasy epic.
Today the model range is almost entirely 3D printed with a tiny number of plastic kits, but instead of adapting the design style in response to the old constraints being lifted, its taken that classic style beyond what was actually possible in metal (or economical in cold-cast resin). Dozer and Smigg are a perfect example of this – traditionally casting them would be feasible, but it would also be miserable – yet they’re a definite continuation of that classic style.
A more direct comparison would be the updated Menoth range. The religious fundamentalists of Menoth haven’t evolved technologically in years, and the new model kits represent very similar machines to those they fielded in the previous edition of the game. They’re extremely close to the older designs, but with the material costs and physical weight of the minis lower, they’re bigger and bolder than before – a realization of a full metal fantasy with non-metal materials.
All of this to say, I like these minis. With the near unlimited freedom of 3D sculpting and 3D printing, it’s great to see design traditions that have their roots in older production methods explored well beyond what was once conceivable.
What do you think? What’s your favorite miniature sculpting style, and why? Let me know in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
