SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

◗ darkheartwood.co.uk ◗ £15 - £65

A new company called Dark Heartwood Miniatures has sent me a very nicely presented box (how shallow am I!) of their first releases all of which seem to centre – for the present – around pumpkins (so: not just for Halloween...). I suspect that oneman-band Tom Rush who’s running DHM will certainly hope that’s the case!

Very neatly sculpted and cast in quality grey resin, all of the models show some real, mould-splitting detail and yet all were flawless. Let’s start off with some scenics: you can buy a set of Pumpkin Tendrils for £16 (four different ones poking out of the ground and some as tall as 65mm); or you could upgrade that to a Charnel Pool. £35 buys those tendrils plus a huge open mawed pumpkin which sits 100mm tall.

There’s a Gravestones set for £15 with 30 assorted, really imaginatively sculpted markers stones. The set contains 20 unique gravestones (designed for use with ‘heroic scale’ minis) and with an additional 10 from the set printed at a smaller size (for the unheroic also-rans...)

Two other released I’ll mention are the Pumpkin Fiends (£20) with five different miniatures, each with a 30mm, laser cut, dark stained plywood base, which gives a nice touch. The miniatures themselves range from 25 to 35mm in height. And the Rekindled Husk (£25) is a superb pumpkin come skeleton animation 80mm tall. And lastly, I can’t go without mentioning The Glorious Pumpkin King. Sure he’s £65 and – though I don’t have one in front of me – the illustrations of the hideous, 140mm high, pumpkin scepter wielding maniac is very inspiring! Recommended for something wacky for the tabletop: check out Tom’s excellent website.