While certainly not as indispensable as dice, grid paper, or imagination, gaming miniatures are an easy way to add more life to your tabletop roleplaying sessions. The problem—as always—is finding appropriate minis, those that fit your characters and their setting.
There are scores of options, from mass-produced products to custom-made miniatures to 3d-printable patterns, but if you’re in the market for something unique, affordable, and eye-catching, I’d kindly call you attention to krakenships Miniatures.
Helmed by Caleb, an Army vet, IT professional, and longtime homebrew D&D DM, krakenships endeavors to bring harder-to-find races and archetypes to the mini marketplace—with hopes of launching a new line of 12 miniatures via Kickstarter.
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While crowd-funding campaigns are always a bit of a crapshoot, krakenships does have a history in the industry, with four 28mm figures already available for purchase through the company’s website. I was sent all four forest guardian “Phoradin” figs to scrutinize before the launch of today’s campaign, and I was very pleased with the craftsmanship.
Each came modestly packaged in a single blister with some nice info, like character height, included on the cardboard backing. And while the krakenships site specifies that “[t]hough they are often mistaken for small giants or over-sized elves, these phoradin are not giant-kin,” they would make a solid stand-in for your taller human barbarians, half-orcs, and the like.
The miniatures themselves are solid with some nice weight to them, but also manage to include some finer details like fur/hair and leaf textures, belt buckles and satchel binding, and even some delicate “horns” on the female druid.
Like the existing Phoradin, the three new sets of minis available (each with four different figures representing various occupations) from the Kickstarter are also variations on existing fantasy races. The Chellon are a solid Tortle analog and the Grimalkin set adds some nice variety for Tabaxi-type characters. Lastly, there’s an additional set of four more Phoradin, and the mock-ups look just as good as the original figures I currently have in-hand.
The pledge structure itself seems more than fair. You can cop any single set of four minis (Phoradin, Chellon, or Grimalkin) for $16—a 20% discount over the $20 MSRP. Two sets will set you back $30 (25% off list price), you can score all three sets for $42 (a 30% savings), and $52 nets you all the Kickstarter sets plus the original Phoradin offering.
I love miniatures and I love fantasy tabletop gaming, and I definitely love my test products from krakenships. There’s an obvious passion and skill that goes into their work that I think will resonate with the RPG community.
If I had to pick a favorite from the current Kickstarter lineup, I’d have to say the Chellon Cleric, Monk, Wizard, and Warrior set really piques my interest, but definitely take a look for yourself to see if these fantastical creatures have a place on your own tabletop.
