Mississinewa Miniatures is a little-known miniatures company from Indiana. Specializing in Zombie-themed figures, they have an impressive selection, if not a broad range – yet. Mississinewa sent Flames Rising a generous selection of figures to review. Sadly, I can’t do justice to them all so I’m going to concentrate on what they do best: Zombies!

The zombie line is reasonably well- fleshed out; 18 different models shamble their way to your gaming table, and while the variety isn’t truly spectacular, it’s solid. The first six are all naked zombies. Before you get too excited, let me first point out that there are no naughty bits in evidence; they’re more like zombie mannequins than anything else.

Empty Room Studios produces full-color tiles for use with miniatures in an adventure-game setting. The sets I’ve looked at most closely are the Blasted Canyon and the Caverns Tiles Base Set 1.

The Blasted Canyon set provides a wide variety of terrain features that can be printed and cut out to produce more than four square feet of unique terrain. Box canyons, cul-de-sacs, a large temple, a marketplace, transition pieces, dungeon entrances, and an oasis are all included, each with either a desert background or with canyon walls added around the edges. This is a handsome set, and much thought clearly went into its design.

Review by Bill Bodden

After a long hiatus, Little Nightmares is back. This month, I’ll be covering somewhat related products from two different companies; full-color stand-up cardboard figures from Precis Intermedia, and ready-made maps from Empty Room Studios.

Precis Intermedia produces stand-up cardboard figures, called Disposable Heroes, in a variety of themes. Since this is Flames Rising, they sent us a pack of monsters to look over: Disposable Heroes: Horror Statix 1. The figures themselves are available in two different formats within each set: two-sided and three-sided. The two-sided figures may require some kind of plastic stand to assist them, as the fold is at the top like a sandwich board sign. Printing the figures on lightweight cardstock before cutting them apart will probably remove the need for bases – at least until the figure has a few miles on it and the crease begins to wear. The front of the figure is a full color image and the back is a black silhouette of the same image for ease in determining rear/surprise attacks.

Greetings! In the coming months I’ll be giving Flames Rising readers a look at some of the miniatures out there for horror-conscious consumers. For now I’ll be covering one company at a time, giving an overview of what they have to offer that falls within the category.

Our first contestant, by virtue of being the quickest to respond, is Reaper Miniatures. Reaper has been a mainstay in the gaming community since the early 1990s, really taking off with the closing of Ral Partha Miniatures only a few years later.

The miniatures we’ll be looking at come from several different product lines: Warlord, which supports Reaper’s fantasy miniatures rules; Chronoscope, giving Reaper greater license to explore historical and alternate historical periods; Reaper’s newest experiment – pre-painted plastic miniatures, and the Dark Heaven line, representing the jewel in Reaper’s crown.