Op-Ed: Games Workshop’s Most Impressive Miniatures
In the last few years GW has been really pushing the bounds of plastic miniatures. These have really blown me away.
With all the recent releases of GW minis across all their systems I wanted to take a step back and just savor the quality of products we all have been enjoying. I’ve gone back only about 3 years to see just how far GW has been pushing the technology and design possibilities of the medium.
I’ve tried to select a set of miniatures from a variety of games and scales and explain why each is an exemplar to me. Note that this has zero to do with the rules these models possess, only the miniatures themselves. Let us begin.
The Best of the Best
Chaos Rampager Knight (2019)
I can’t believe it’s been 7 years since the original Imperial Knight shook Warhammer 40,000 like no other miniature in the decade. GW reached way, way back into EPIC from the 1990s, and overnight fundamentally changed what 40K was about. The Chaos Rampager shows what they learned with 6 years more experience. While keeping within the design and aesthetic of the Imperial Knight range, the Rampager is its own beast, with a cruel ferocity, and dynamic elements like the tabard, exposed hot-rod piping, and chains aplenty (there must be a Dark Mechanicus Forgeworld that just makes spikes and chains). It’s a mean fighting machine, a big chunky model, and loaded with character. I love it, and can’t wait to see the Chaos Knight range expand in the future.
Liekoron the Executioner (2018)
The range that redefined undead and ghosts forever. GW threw out the book and embraced negative space on this range and the Executioner is my favorite. We had seen some floaty and stretchy ectoplasm type of undead designs towards the tail end of Warhammer Fantasy but nothing close to this. These ghosts are so different from any other army, literally floating atop their bases by the thinnest scraps of cloaks. The veiled faces would carry on through many of the Night Haunts minis, and the thematic bases both held up the models and aesthetically tied together the army. A worthy successors to the spirits of lost Sylvania.
Alarith Stonemage (2020)
My oh my what a technical feat. Pushing what you can do with the plastic medium, the Stonemage has a gravity defying other-worldly feel. Impossibly high off it’s base, with with a posing implying incredible potential energy at peace. The model is a very non typical GW design. It feels like it flew right out of The Last Airbender or a Miyazaki movie onto our tabletops. Little details like the blowing tassels and blowing grass are just exquisite. I consider this to be the next generation of the concept first embodied by the original Lizardmen Slaan High Priest model.
Warbringer Titan (2020)
This one could really go to either the Warlord or Reaver, but the ornery, antiquated character of the Warbringer brought it home. This model also stands in for the entire ranges from both Adeptus Titanicus and Aeronautica which I consider distinct from all of GW’s 28mm offerings. If you have never built any of these kits, you are missing out. These kits are really descendants not or GW’s 30 years of miniatures, but instead the world of scale military models. The kit is incredibly detailed with many, many tiny parts that require a degree of concentration and commitment that are well rewarded once you complete the kit. These are kits with lots of extra part for build options and plenty of tiny details that could have been easily omitted, but were included nonetheless. If you remember your days of building model battleships and propeller planes – try out of one of these kits. You will not be disappointed.
Eltharion (2020)
Yup – it’s hollow. Eltharion takes the negative space design trick used in the Night Haunts range and tightens it up for a new purpose. This one is much more subtle, and its’ easy to miss the hollow sections, and all the little tricks of tying various parts of the model into the base to pull it off. It’s the kind of model that many will pass over as you glance at the mini from 3 feet away, but when you get close and study it… WOW! Someone put a lot of love into this design and it paid off in spades!
Mortarion (2017)
The Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard kicked off early 8th Edition with a fetid bang. His model is large, imposing, and brings some of that Age of Sigmar “pizaaz” to the Grimdark. Technically the model is far superior to the previous paimarch – Magnus’ model, an is loaded with detail, built options, ambitious “floating” posing, and that modern GW “fits together like black magic” assembly. It’s a model that you can show off to newcomers and get that jaw on the floor reaction every time. I would assume that many of the lessons learned on Mortarion were used in later “floaty” miniatures including several on this list.
~ Which of these do you think is most worthy, or did we miss one of your favorites?
