This is the last bit I’m going to be doing about UniCast for now. If you’ve been reading my other articles on the topic then you’ll know the drill by now. If not, then why go and have a quick read? I’ll wait.
This particular example is interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s a test piece for Mantic. If they’re happy then they may do more. I’m sure everyone that hates their restic family of materials will be happy about that.
In case you were wondering, this is a limited edition model for the German Dungeon Saga release. I think. Something like that.
The second intriguing thing is the reason I think this is the least technically impressive of all the UniCast models I’ve seen: this model was originally intended to be cast in metal. It shows. You can see this most obviously from the infills under the loincloth and sleeve which would be necessary to remove it from the mould in a single piece if it was cast in pewter. A testament to how much more flexible UniCast is. How the undercuts on the other side (under his beard) would work in metal, I don’t know. Perhaps he was going to be a 2 piece model in metal. He’s one piece in UniCast.
This is also interesting because it’s the first UniCast model I’ve seen with a bent bit. I assumed it happened, so this is just confirmation that it’s behaving as expected. I’ve not tried bending it back yet and I’d guess that the old hot water/hairdryer tricks would work.
Anyway, on to the photos 🙂
General front and back views.
Bent sword.
Backfills behind the loincloth and under the arm. Entirely normal for metal models, and presumably a thing of the past if you sculpt specifically for UniCast.
Fills behind the straps too. Again, with a sculpt that was designed for UniCast from the outset this could presumably be avoided. Odd that the model’s right side seems to show gaps and undercuts around pouches, beard and other bits which wouldn’t cast easily in metal.
Yes, I like UniCast. It seems able to create models that you simply can’t do in anything else (in a single piece), and I’m impressed. Yes, I also know that Prodos has some issues as a company, and that’s important too. I just hope that their obvious technical cleverness can help them out of those issues, because it would be a crying shame to lose this baby with that bath water.
Quirkworthy 
Looks cool. Do you know if Mantic is going to make it available to buy from there web store? I REALLY HATE when companies to area limited releases.
You know as much as I do Jeff. I can ask though.
Uni-cast is okay I guess. To me it makes things %2000000 harder to mod or even repossession. I like having variety, even to my named characters, so I can really make it mine in both pose and paint.
I appreciate your desire to personalise your figures, and am with you entirely.
I’ve not tried chopping any UniCast models about yet. Not sure why you think it’s that much harder though. Pewter (incredibly hard) and trad resin (brittle and toxic) can be very difficult to work with, and this looks to be much softer and more workable. HIPS is the easiest, but even that can have issues.
So is that an alternative Human Barbarian or something else. The design is in the AC on the human race template. Speaking of Dungeon Saga, FAQ and a question I was pondering:
Why does the Druid Suck?
He has the same stat line as the wizard, without Crystallize, worse initial spell access, pretty limited spell selection in general, and worse access to spellcasting improvements. Seems to me like he is missing something. Originally the druid was sold as a shapechanger but in a mini game if he is a shape changer you need models for those shapes so that seemed to vanish.
Not sure what this model is supposed to be. An alt barb seems like a reasonable guess though.
Druids? Good question. Don’t know. I’ll have a look into it.
You can add this to the document I sent you ^^
I vote for weekly Dungeon Saga discussions. Just pick an AC chapter and we can work it through all week long.
That’s certainly an intriguing option. I was thinking of a quicker resolution being better, though that would necessarily involve rather less discussion and rather more dictat.
Let me muse a little. Perhaps we could have a regular day a week to kick off the week’s FAQ discussion.
Hmmm.
We are honestly well past where quick is the object of the exercise. Getting it as close to right should be. The core game is solid with some issues that need to be discussed but most of those also show up in the AC since it is 1/3rd core rules. Trying to just remember all the issues or go through the whole book to generate questions in a short time period is going to lead to questions getting missed. It also helps break up what is a big job that can seem overwhelming into straight forward to accomplish steps.
We can crowdsource the answers. You put the stamp of official approval, Pikagraph collates the results since he is very good at that, sends it back to you and you update the Living FAQ. Sure it might take about 2 months if we keep at it but, we are already eight months out from the release.
Pika – do you have any thoughts?
I think we can make propositions to solve all these questions with answers we have and you validate them or change them if we are wrong. We need official approval to have it work properly.
And that would be great you keep 1 day in the week to answer FAQ questions.
In my file you have the flaws mbss and I found. There certainly have other things to fix I didn’t remember.
Most of the questions have been asked, discussed, and answered unofficially across variaty of places but they get re asked since they are not full collected in an official source. Some people only accept official answers though.
All your Line of Sight stuff just reproduced with slightly different wording, the same results including figures already posted online months before.
There are still some questions and issues that are not really resolved. The most important issue (not really a question) is at least quasi balancing uncharted dungeons. All the character generation and advancement stuff in the AC has now had the issues at least partially covered but this just leaves people will characters all dressed up with no wear to go so to speak.
Dungeon Saga Rules Friday’s. You can start it off and we can work on the questions and answers over the weekend then you can come back the next week with your comments.
That Unicast looks excellent. Could see it working well for smaller scales like 15mm, too. I actually contacted Prodos to get some more info, but no reply yet. Do you know if they only work with the big guys or also private miniature enthusiasts?
I think they work with anyone that wants to hire them 🙂
Lovely looking model! The detail on the belt and hat are fantastic. As someone who carries around a lot of miniatures and is constantly worrying what state they’ll be in when I open my case, I’ve been following PVC and Unicast developments closely.
I’m not an AvP backer, so I know I wont have the same feeling as those who did, but from what I’ve read I don’t think Prodos are a bad company (i think there are very few bad companies in the industry). They maybe just took up a slightly too ambitious project. But things are coming out, and that’s a good sign. I too hope Unicast and future projects help show them in a better light.
Good to see Dungeon Saga doing well too. As someone who runs a gaming club, it’s great to see a product that can unity the board gamers, war gamers and roleplayers (rather than have them argue over who gets the limited table space 😛 )
Thanks Westward.
Just to keep you all up to date.
I’ve asked about, and apparently there’s one distributor selling German language versions of DS, so wherever you get one it’ll be from them. This figure is all really their promo, so we’re not 100% sure what they’re doing with it. The best guess is that it’s being given away free with the German edition of the game.
However, I can tell you that it’s a model from the Varangur faction in KoW (which are basically Vikings).
I might know more next week and I’ll let you know if I do.
Quick question. Were you able to find out more about this mini? Mantic haven’t mentioned it on their social media yet. I’m wondering if it comes with anything or if it’s just a model, and also if it’s going to be available outside of Germany?
I asked, and the last I heard was that they were trying to work out where they stood. Currently, as far as anyone knows, it comes free with the Germans version of DS.
I’ll give them another prod.
Cheers Jake. Thanks for the reply.
This is the first time I’ve stumbled across any mention of Mantic testing out something called ‘unicast’, and this bit…
“A testament to how much more flexible UniCast is.”
… just makes me think ‘PVC’. And then ‘no thanks’. Westward’s comment backs those reactions up. I’ve already been long turned off Reaper’s Bones and aaaall those 1/72 plastics because of it.
Reading further down the blog, it seems I was wrong. I’d still like to know what’s going on with the ‘flexibility’ and ‘bending’, though.
On their original article about it, Prodos describe UniCast in opposition to PVC, suggesting that it’s something different (http://prodosgames.com/blog/prodos-unicast-is-here).
Certainly, from handling it, UniCast is a very different beast from the vile stuff they use for Bones, and the old fashioned Airfix et al 1/72 soft plastics. I’ve not chopped any UniCast about yet though, and will post up some comments when I’ve tried.