Hero Miniatures Set 1, GI Joe, miniatures
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Hero Miniature Set number 1 for the GI Joe Roleplaying game

The Hero Miniatures Set 1 is a product by Renegade Game Studios for their GI Joe line of Roleplaying game. At 28mm, they are at the “appropriate scale” for many wargames out there, from Bolt-Action to Warhammer 40k. They also fit fairly well with most miniatures you can get from Bones and WizKids, which can be pretty good complement to your GI Joe adventures, especially the SciFi, modern and post-apocalyptic lines.

GI Joe Hero Miniatures

So what is in the box? You get 12 unpainted plastic miniatures made from soft-plastic, not the same stuff as Bones, but not quite the high-quality cast plastic you would get from places like Games-Workshop. One of the barrel was bent when I opened the box, but it fixed itself with minor pressure. Lady Jaye’s javelin will always be terrible, maybe I should replace it with a needle with a new head instead. My friend Max did that for a Harley Quinn mini for Batman minis, I think this will be needed here.

You get the following characters in the box:

You can see it is a pretty good selection, and one that I already stated / talked about in the GI Joe X Battletech Super Crossover. There are 3 female characters, which might sound like an overrepresentation, but in the end, you have to realize that if you want to have SOME estrogen in your GI Joe game, your selection of characters is not going to be huge. I am confused that Roadblock is on the box cover, but not part of the box, or maybe that’s Stalker?

The sculpts themselves are pretty good, not the best I have ever seen, but far from the worse. I would have liked the “miniatures” to be a tiny bit bigger, but that might be me being spoiled on Warhammer and Battletech miniatures in the long run. UPDATE: I would have liked the box to include the character record sheet for the different characters, mind you.

I will get flak for this…

Below is the reaction people will have to my next opinion:

Those minis should come prepainted. I know people hate on prepainted minis all the time, but honestly, there isn’t 600 variation, camo patterns and such you will be doing on your GI Joes. They have distinctive colors from the comic and cartoon, even with some of the alt patterns avaiable (like Tiger Force). At the price point we pay for miniatures nowadays, I don’t think it would be too much to ask for THESE PARTICULAR minis to be pre-painted. The hobbyist in me will like painting those, but just being able to plop them down on a table, ready to play, would have been pretty sweet. For someone with TERRIBLE painting skills like me, I will likely give a few to my very good at painting buddy of mine to make sure they don’t come out awful.

STL? STL?

Yeah, honestly, companies should start moving their production from doing their own miniatures to selling people the STLs for the things they want. This is no different. Draw and Talk (originally from Chad Townsend) and friends have been talking how the “New spinner rack is the phone and tablet” for comics, and for miniatures and miniature games, the 3D Printer is the new overpriced plastic box in a store. Sell the STL to the stores, worse case, and have them print on site. Would be a lot easier for me to walk in, say which GI Joe characters I am interested in, they tell me a price and a timeframe and I get them, rather than investing in a molds, boxes, shipping, storage space…

Just my opinion, you are free and ENCOURAGED to disagree!