Hellric’s 2006 « Nightmare miniatures » highlights !

2006 was a great year for Cthulhu fans, with the release of SOTA’s Nightmares of Lovecraft & the awesome Horrorclix Great Cthulhu from Wizkids. SOTA’s were slightly less beautiful than the prototypes but they are for sure  a must for all Cthulhu collectors, especially Cthulhu is well done for me. Dagon is very cool but not a big Deep One as described in the books… but finally it’s better like this :)

Horrorclix Cthulhu is also a must, despite its price (ridiculously high on ebay, I had real big luck on this one). Its size, details and painting make it a must too, and his classical design compared to SOTA’s make it a great complement, interesting to see various artist’s views of a same theme.

I had also done my own Great Cthulhu with Spawn action figure, so it completes my Cthulesque trilogy, plus a Cthulhu-like tyranid warrior, that could be viewed as a star spawn (with Forgeworld wings) and a Hive Queen also inspired by the Great Old One. Great Cthulhu really did rise in 2006 !

Regarding the miniatures, it wasn’t such a great year, I’ll remind the Malanthrope from Forge World, Sanguinius from Top Miniatures, Starhip Troopers’s Overseer Bug, the Netherlord II from Heresy, and from Games Workshop, the new chaos lord, the Nurgle Daemon Prince, Tau Commander Shadowsun, and 2 autarchs… Crappy things of the years are the few D&D prepainted miniatures I bought, really badly painted, definitely too expensive for their quality.

Concerning the japanese anime action figures, my best buys this year were Garo Berserk (Equip & Prop vol. 5 from Bandai), incredibly huge action figure, with near perfect finition, the Limited edition Sirbine Aura Battler from Dunbine by Megahouse, the Neo ZX Tole from Guyver by Max Factory, the Bahamut Sin from Final Fantasy Advent Children movie, by Kotobukiya. My first garage kit ever was done, it was Zwauth Aura Battler from Dunbine OVA, excellent sculpt and good quality castings, from Hobbyfan.

2006 was also my first year of collecting super robots & Chogokins, I was very glad to put my hands on CMS Genesic Gaogaigar, CMS Gaofighgar, Bandai Aquarion and Aoshima Mazinkaizer. CMS’ Great Baan Gaan action figure was also a really nice pick.