If you’ve clicked on this and have no idea what Arcworlde is or who Warp Miniatures are then go and have a look at my review here. In short it’s a wonderfully whimsical skirmish game made by Alex and his family who clearly pour a lot of passion into their craft. 

Before going any further, I’d like to thank Alex and Warp Miniatures at large for sending us an advanced set of these miniatures and rules for review purposes. At time of publish these miniatures are available to pre-order via Kickstarter.

Gremlin Miniatures

You can get these in resin or metal but I was sent the resin miniatures, which are cast in-house. Across all of my Arcworlde collection I’ve had both metal and resin and both are excellently made, that will really just come down to personal preference. These arrived in a small box, wrapped carefully, and I was very impressed (but not surprised, these aren’t my first Warp Minis models) by the quality of sculpt and cast.

There was next to zero cleanup required on these models and are all single piece miniatures meaning I just took them out of their packaging and glued directly to the bases, which are supplied as normal. I didn’t even bother washing them with warm water and soap as they seemed to come pre-cleaned of any release agent; the resin was extremely matte in look and felt great to the touch. I’ll add a disclaimer saying that I also never wash resin or metal models anyways and sometimes simply deal with the consequences though have rarely ever had any issues but never any issues with Warp Minis models.

Across the “full” set of Gremlins you get a whole warband of little guys.

The Great Gremlin who is stepping on an underling and holding a stone club and leg of…something, assumedly cooked. It brings to mind one of my old friends I used to go to  Renaissance Fairs with before moving to the UK, though he would double fist turkey legs, not hold a stone club. I also love that his mask is made up of a tortoise shell with tied-on sticks to make an angry face, just a wonderful detail.

One Spitlizard which is just a fantastic name for a poisonous reptile who is sculpted doing exactly what the name implies.

One Trophy Hunter holding a bag full of goodies

Then six Scamps with a mix of weapons: two ranged weapons, two spears, one with a dagger/sword, and one just popping their head out of the ground.

Let’s have a look at the front and back of each mode:

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Painting Gremlins

My approach to painting miniatures is typically on the side of “get them done to play with” so keeps it very simple. When it comes to a whole army or warband that’s only nine models it’s a lot easier to spend just a bit more time on each while keeping them simple. These sculpts are incredibly rewarding to paint with wonderful, deep, detail on each one making the wood grain nice and easy on all weapons and face masks and the skin very easy to throw a shade and simple highlight on to look great.

I used:

• Colourforge Hyrax Brown Primer – on all models
• Pro Acryl Green – skin
• Pro Acryl Bone – Trophy Hunter and Great Gremlin face masks
• Pro Acryl Drab Brown – all the wood
• Pro Acryl Warm Grey – stone
• Pro Acryl Dark Orange Brown – loincloths
• Pro Acryl Royal Purple – hair
• Pro Acryl Faded Plum – hair highlights
• Pro Acryl Golden Yellow – eyes
• Pro Acryl Ultramarine – Spitlizard drybrush
• Pro Acryl Faded Ultramarine – Spitlizard highlights
• Pro Acryl Orange – Great Gremlin face tortoise shell
• Pro Acryl Bold Pyrrole Red – face mask paint
• Citadel Targor Rageshade – all-over shade on all models
• Citadel Corax White – base for Spitlizard before the contrast
• Citadel Celestium Blue – contrast blue base for Spitlizard
• Citadel Tesseract Glow – Spitlizard’s spit

Starting with a brown basecoat gave these guys a nice earthy brown undertone to everything that would follow making a natural shade to some of the more recessed areas. I wanted to do something a little different with the colours and went for purple hair since purple looks excellent next to green and wanted to keep the green skin rich and vibrant.

An all-over shade of Targor Rageshade is slightly brown and purple which works great for the skin while giving definition to the wood detailing. After the shade was applied I went back over the skin with a layer of Green on the raised areas, using Drab Brown again on the wood but painting in straight brush strokes along the wood grain detailing as a highlight. The only model that needed a bit of a different approach was the Spitlizard that got a heavy drybrush of Corax White to give the contrast Celestium Blue a light colour to go over followed up by Ultramarine and Faded Ultramarine drybrush and highlights respectively before a light, targeted, recess shade of Targor Rageshade.

Nice and simple from start to finish!

How They Play

Along with the models Warp Minis sent across an Alpha Version of their rules; so these may change a bit over the coming weeks/months/whenever. These rules cover all of the models in the Kickstarter as well as rules for nearly all of the Arcworlde Classics minis except for the Chief riding some sort of bird thing. The most fun option available though is probably Ptera, just a set of ramshackle wings that lets one of your little guys fly. Silly, absurd, in the best way. They get to ally across with Beastfolk and Ourks, so I’m really looking forward to using a few alongside my Ourk warband.

They play just about how you’d expect a warband of little, sneaky, annoying guys to play! Each one has the Burrow Dweller rule which lets them slip down into Burrows that you place mid-game around the table top pop up in the next turn from any other Burrow; they can’t do that while carrying objective things though which seems fair, it would be very frustrating if they could! Nearly all have the Born Slippery skills letting them escape combat much easier for when you want to just get away…if they survive being attacked.

I love that the Great Gremlin needs to continue to prove his ability to lead, which he does by gaining Clout points which can go into the negatives and stop him from being capable of leading and even losing one of his action points until he can regain some Clout. He gets Clout by achieving difficult feats, causing 6+ damage in a single swing, succeeding Bravery tests, and using Arcanite. The easy way to start with a bit of clout then is to buy him an Arcanite token and just using very early in the game to give other Gremlins more re-rolls! However he’ll lose Clout by failing difficult feats, causing no damage on an attack, failing Bravery Tests, and by falling prone meaning you’ll have to be very cautious trying to spring across the table.

Scamps are cheap little things like you’d expect but you’re also going to be buying at least a couple of them a set of burrowing tools which doubles their cost but lets you create Burrows on the table with a Medium Feat just about anywhere on the table. In combat, Scamps can punch above their weight with a little bit of luck since each Crit lets you add another D6 to the attack which can continue to chain and give you more and more attacks if you keep rolling Crits! They won’t last long, though, with just 5HP so placement and movement will be key.

Trophy Hunters are a bit darker than I’d expected originally…they get an extra action point during the game for each enemy character that they take out of action. To me, this makes it a little questionable just exactly what kind of trophies they’re taking from those they knock out and his mask makes him  look so happy while doing it. The Spitlizard is a nice little addition as well with a ranged attack that ignores all armour and slows down characters hit by it but with only 4HP a stiff breeze will knock them out of action.

Just a Bunch of Little Guys

These are just great models, that should be clear by now. The people over at Warp Miniatures make great stuff and you should go and check out their whole catalogue. I love that they’re continuing to make new things as well and can’t wait to see what might come next from them.

Gremlins are a fun faction of just a bunch of little guys with optional Jungle Trolls to add something big to the mix if you want. The rules feel very fitting for what they are as a set of glass cannons able to punch up but will very easily be removed forcing you to be very careful moving them around the board. Allying in some of the bigger Beastfolk or Ourks is an easy temptation to add some larger distractions to the board alongside a potential troll (or two, or three?) to help keep your little guys scampering around.

Definitely excited to get these on the table to play some games, and likely “need” to pick up a Ptera and Shaman…

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