Fantastic Horizons

A New Feature
By Eli

Hello all,

Today we are happy to announce our plans to add a new semi-regular (as news comes up) feature to this blog - Fantastic Horizon. 

While Dropship Horizon has run as a nearly exclusive 15mm science fiction site for the entirety of its life, it has occasionally touched on other genres as they related to the theme of 15mm science fiction. What's more, we felt that there was a growing movement in 15mm fantasy miniatures that could use some extra face time, the same way that Dropship Horizon did for the growing 15mm science fiction miniatures market. 

We considered creating a new blog for it, but felt that adding it as a feature would better cater to players and collectors who are often multi-genre fans. It also keeps from adding another blog to the rest of the blogosphere that requires checking separately.

We hope to begin posting news items, hobby stories, and sharing blog posts from others who are exciting about this cousin genre to our beloved 15mm science fiction.

To start with, I would like to look at three of the bigger sources of new fantasy miniatures in 15mm scale. Mind you, this is not to say these are the only ones coming out with new stuff in fantasy or the only ones doing good fantasy miniatures out there, but they do represent a big push in 15mm fantasy. I speak of Splintered Light Miniatures, Copplestone Castings and Khurasan miniatures.

Splintered Light Miniatures
SLM has released an absolute avalanche of miniatures for fantasy gaming in 15mm. It is safe to say that they are on the forefront of new creations for the genre. With 17 (not including their fantasy dungeon crawl range) ranges covering everything from ratmen, to elves, orcs, fantasy Egyptians and a ton of others, it would be hard not to find what you are looking for in their extensive catalog.

While there is a lot of the familiar in SLM's products, they also have some nice unique takes on some of the usual subjects as well as offering some things not usually covered such as an army of hyena or lion men and the aforementioned fantasy Egyptians.

Wood Elf Medium Cavalry on Elk

Hill Giants

The Adventurers

Dark Elves

Khurasan Miniatures

A relatively new contributor to the fantasy genre, KM has struck out with some very strong offerings. Specialising in products that are central to the genre, they manage to bring a nice take on the subjects they cover. Most notable in their fantasy ranges is their Great Enemy range of Tolkien-esque orcs and supporting models such as trolls, wraiths and other foes from popular literature. dd to this a healthy range of lizardmen and several smaller ranges and one-offs and you get a good cross section of the familiar and the new.

Orc Melee Troops

Armored Trolls

Lizardmen

It should be noted that KM is poised to make a healthy new push into the 15mm fantasy market with several upcoming new ranges based on popular old school RPG monsters (pictured below).

Upcoming Old School RPG Style Lizardmen

Upcoming Hobgoblins

Copplestone Castings

Copplestone has quite the pedigree in fantasy having done a ton of it back in the day, but his 15mm offerings are much more recent and stunning. Focusing on a world of barbarians and dark age warriors, Mark Copplestone is creating a range that draws from the likes of Frazetta, Howard and other Sword and Sorcery styling. Muscular barbarians, stout dwarves and some monsters are just the beginning of a world that he promises will incorporate empires and tribes of all sorts.