Demons & Devils

As the CSM Demons & Devils Kickstarter winds down (just over two days left!), I wanted to trot out some of the various underworld denizens from my own cases and shelves. March seems so far away right now, but I'm really looking forward to doing a follow-up to this post when I can show all the shiny new CSM minis with the ones I'm showing today.

The pic above shows a trio of vintage minis from Superior Models Inc. They are (from left to right): WL-113 Large Devil/Pit Fiend; WL-071 Surtur The Fire Giant; and WL-098 Baalzebul Arch Devil. Surtur looks a LOT like a balrog to me and unlike any fire giant I've ever seen. If it walks like a cloven-hooved duck and carries a nasty-looking sword and whip, that makes it a balrog to me! I love the old Superior stuff, even if a lot of it tends to be on the smallish side of the scale.

Next up we have some offerings from Ral Partha. The balrog is 01-003v3 - upon closer inspection, you will notice that he has been "fixed" in dog-speak. When I was much younger, I was somewhat disturbed by his realistic anatomy, so I took my Xacto knife to him and did a little nip tuck. Ah, the folly of youth. On the far right is another common RP demon: 02-954 Demon Lord from All Things Dark & Dangerous. He's got that classic demon look but isn't terribly imposing size-wise. Flanking the Pit Fiend in the middle are my AD&D Ice Devils (11-640 Greater Gelugon). They each sport one green horn because they came to me damaged, so I repaired them with wire and Greenstuff. You can read the older posts here and here that go into detail about those fixes. I really like the Ice Devils for the most part, I just wish their necks were shorter, though. The Pit Fiend in the middle (11-648) is a nasty-looking critter, no mistake about it. The bloated body, ghoulish grin, and wicked club just really can't be beat. I also like that I only paid whatever the retail price was back in the day instead of the massively inflated prices he commands these days.

And here are some current offerings from Reaper, who boasts an excellent assortment of demons and devils, many that look like they walked off the pages of a certain manual that has monsters in it. From left to right we're looking at 2672 Clawed Devil; 2656 Demon Marbrezuk; 2895 Agramon Pit Fiend; 2654 Narglauth Fire Demon; and 2633 Vandorenda Demon. What I like about this bunch is that they are all very close representations of various AD&D demons and devils, but they are much closer in size and scale than their older counterparts.

This group shot of balrogs and pit fiends gives you a great idea how they all compare scale-wise.

Here are just the balrogs.

Followed by just the pit fiends.

I know I missed a few (11-654 Barbazu) and the old balrogs from Grenadier and Heritage (the Heritage LoTR balrog is tiny - man-sized at best). I'll have to round those up for my demons & devils follow-up this spring. Give now and give often to the CSM Demons & Devils Kickstarter! And if underworld fiends aren't your cup of tea, how about the massive King of Evil Dragons for only $75? You know you want to!