Miniatures, for those of us who don?t want to ?collect? miniatures, due to limited space, cash, or desire, are a necessary evil due to the many games detailed tactical combat systems. This puts us in a bind; miniatures make handling combat much easier, but how to use them without having to handle a ton of minis. Paper Minis provide a nice alternative to traditional minis, in that they are inexpensive and disposable. When they are packaged as a PDF, you are provided with a reusable available source of minis for your games. Print those that you need, when they get to be a pain to have lying around, you can throw them away, with PDF tucked away for when you need to print some more. They are also handy for ?collectors? of traditional minis to provide additional figures, or non-precious stand-ins if you don?t want to worry about your minis being damaged or lost at an unfamiliar gaming table.
The figures in Arion Games? miniatures sets come in 3 styles, ?A-frame?, ?Flat?, and ?Triagonal?. The ?A-frame?, and ?Flat? figures can be constructed from the same sheets, depending on how they are cut-out. The ?Triagonal? minis are constructed from a separate sheet. These construction choices provide additional options in preparing your minis for use in the game, major characters or monsters can be constructed as the ?Triagonal? versions to provide a more visual flair, and to emphasize their importance. Other figures can be done as ?A-Frame? or flat versions to make them easier to handle or distinguish them from each other, thus providing a functional use beyond their graphical characteristics.
The instructions are easy to follow and assembling the minis is quick and painless, just requiring a bit of work with scissors and some glue. There are also instructions provided on how to prepare a custom sheet of figures to meet your specific needs. The minis look good, even when printed on plain paper. Each figure is drawn from a 3D rendering (done in Poser using figures provided by DAZED, according to the credits), providing sharp detail and life-like shading, even when printed.
This 3 page PDF (4 with cover) provides a set of 19 paper miniatures featuring some humanoid robots and several non-humanoid robots, some of which are ?vehicle? sized. The set includes one CIPP-Biohazard Robot figure, one CIPP-Medic Robot figure, and one CIPP-Law Enforcement Robot figure. These figures are humanoid shaped with an obviously artificial look, and no facial features, similar to those in the movie ?I, Robot?. Also included are two Cyborg figures, these are similar humanoid-shaped, but artificial looking, though they do have facial features. Also included are several ?animal shaped? robots, a Cyborg Dog figure with an obviously artificial look (Muffit!), a shiny chromed Robocat figure (Looking something like Sony?s toy dog), also included are a very mechanical looking Robospider, Robowasp and a Snake Robot, figure (No green robotic mosquitoes however, Suck it Down Romero!)
There are two traditional wheeled type Repair Robots figures, two flying orb type Scout Drone figures, and a semi-humanoid flying Sentinel Robot figure. In addition to these there are 4 ?vehicle? sized robots. There is a thin, droidish looking Mining Behemoth, a walker-type SWM Patrol Robot figure, and two Warbots figures featuring a torso on a weapon mounting tank-like base.
Overall, this is a solid product, providing an interesting selection of more artificial looking style robots, with some more traditional vehicle type designs. Adding in the fact that you can print as many as you need, and prepare your own figure sheets, this is excellent value as well. I recommend it to anyone looking for some ?artificial looking? bot figures for an SF or cyberpunk campaign. The figures could also work in a super setting as well.
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<b>LIKED</b>: Good looking textures, mechanical details on robots.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: No homage to Lost in Space Robot, but at least there is a Muffit stand-in. Would have liked a few more spindly droid looking types. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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