Deformed miniatures

[Refragmental 1]

Hello everyone,

 

A few days ago I received my copy of Descent 2nd Edition.

Very excited of course and man does this game provide a lot of content!

 

One thing though, 3 of my miniatures seem to have deformations straight out of the box.

Nothing serious, just looks a bit silly.

 

My tan Dragon has a rather deformed base, so does my tan Merriod.

 

And both my tan and red Merriods seem to have their tentacles/arms in a very silly position.

 

pictures: http://imgur.com/a/i6nbs

 

I read a few times that the miniatures required assembly, however, mine all were pre-assembled. Is this normal? Some of the plastic baggies came with a blue sticker.

 

My main question is, how can I fix these deformations? I'm afraid to heat the miniatures as I am unsure if this will make the base pliable or if it will just ruin it. Also not sure if I can simply bend the Merriod tentacles, I don't know if they can handle that amount of bending.

[BentoSan 86]

Sorry to hear about your deformations ! I would get in contact with FFG and send them some pics.

 

An often used trick is to heat the plastic figures up with hot water, hold the position of the plastic(in this case tentacles) into the position you want them, then dunk them in ice cold water to help them set.

 

As for fixing the bases, sorry but i do not have any experience with that personally.

[Ringskipper 90]

The hot water method is certainly the best. It will also help get the base a little straighter (I haven't had to do this for any of my Descent minis yet, but I had a D&D Marilith which had such a warped base... putting it in boiling water, then flattening it and putting it in ice water did manage to work for the most part).

[Refragmental 1]

Is hot water sufficient or does it have to be boiling water?

 

As for contacting FFG, it's not really that big of a problem, only the dragons base makes that mini a bit wobbly, all the other deformations are mostly cosmetic. Perhaps I could try contacting them if the hot water trick doesn't work.

 

But is it normal for the miniatures to be pre-assembled?

Watching a few unboxing videos they indeed seem to be, so that's a relief.

However I notice that with those unboxing videos that they seem to have 0 deformations. Which worries me as I have quite a lot of slight deformations, mostly warped bases :-/

[Refragmental 1]

Oh wow!

That trick with the boiling water really worked like a charm.

The base of the tan Dragon is completely straightened out now.

 

Pictures:

http://imgur.com/5Mmw0M4.jpg

http://imgur.com/mBOemQO.jpg

 

Sorry for the bad quality, but you can easily see how the base is now completely flat.

 

I'm not doing this for the Merriod tentacles just yet, as I have to transport my game this evening.

But I'm pretty sure this trick will work with that as well. Although I will not use boiling water that time.

The boiling water made the base rather soft real fast. I had a small layer of just-boiled water in a pot and a pot with cold water.

I dunked the tan dragons base in the boiling water, pressed the base down with wooden spoons (to prevent damage) and once it was flat I dunked it in the pot with cold water. Repeated that twice and it was all fixed, no sign that the base is springing back to its old position.

 

I did the same for the bases of all the larger miniatures as they all had a slight warped base.

 

For the Merriods I guess I will use just hot water and take my time to slowly bring the tentacles into the position that I want them in. This way I'm sure I won't accidentally damage any other parts.

 

Thanks for this golden trick!

[Steve-O 472]

The merriod tentacles being deformed in some way seems to be par for the course.  Because of the soft plastic FFG uses and the thin appendages, it's more or less impossible to keep them as the mould intended.  I'm not sure how well the hot water/cold water trick will work on those (again because of the thin appendages), but give it a shot if you want to.

 

As for miniatures requiring assembly; are you sure those people weren't talking about first edition?  The crypt dragons and demon lords had detached wings in D1E that needed to be attached to the main figure.  As far as I know, none of the D2E minis require assembly.  I still don't own Labyrinth of Ruin, so I'm not sure about the monsters in that one.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Steve-O

[Robin13 107]

The merriod tentacles being deformed in some way seems to be par for the course.  Because of the soft plastic FFG uses and the thin appendages, it's more or less impossible to keep them as the mould intended.  I'm not sure how well the hot water/cold water trick will work on those (again because of the thin appendages), but give it a shot if you want to.

 

Yep. I noticed that the Merriods' tentacles tend to take their previous shape, even after having been corrected by the hot/ice water system.

[rfisha 47]

^{A couple of mine had issues, one zombie was missing a head which FFG replaced and I noticed only a while ago that a goblin archer was missing his quiver.  Hopefully FFG will come to the party on that too since I have purchased everything available for Descent to date!}

[Refragmental 1]

You know, i wouldn't mind spending a few extra bucks on very high quality metal miniatures.

With 3D printers becoming more and more widespread i expect that soon enough it'll be possible to just purchase a 3d model file and print the models yourself in the quality and material that you'd like, perhaps even different stances/positions for each model.

 

Even better yet, with the advancements in carbon nanotubes and other lightweight superstong materials and what not, we could expect to see very very detailed nearly undestructable miniatures. Makes storing them a lot easier, just throw them in a bunch together.

 

I'd definately put a big fat wad of cash on the table for that

 

But this was rather offtopic, i actually wanted to say that the fix worked really well and that the bases havent sprung back in their original warped shape.

[BentoSan 86]

Thats great the hear that the water trick worked for your minis Hope you have as much fun playing the game as the rest of us here have !

[hrhead 0]

Worked for me too. I did have one Ettin with an arm broken off but I glued that back on. I used the boiling water to fix the merriod and the spikes on the dragons.

Metal is nice, but has gotten very expensive over the last few years. If you paint them, which I intend to do, they'll look just as nice.

[Robin13 107]

But be careful : don't try the process with deformed human beings...

[Light Bright 26]

My ettin is deformed too! My red one doesn't have a head. Luckily I have a blood angels space marine head laying around now his all better.