Reaper Resin vs Reaper Bones

I love Reaper Miniatures. Great miniatures, great company, great customer service, and an outstanding community. For player characters, there is something for everyone. Our last party was all Reaper, and our new party is once again all Reaper. And the selection of creatures covers pretty much everything in the Monster Manual and then some, so the question is usually how much should I spend?

Some folks don't like to mix scales, but that's not a problem for me. True, some of my venerable 25mm Ral Partha orcs look downright tiny compared to a Reaper DHL 28mm adventurer, and many of the old Heritage and Grenadier sculpts lack the same level of detail as contemporary minis, but I don't look at my collection like that. I buy what I need and I buy what I like, scale and sculpting differences be damned.

To date, I have resisted the siren call of Reaper Bones. I didn't participate in any of the Bones Kickstarters, and did not consider buying any individual Bones minis. While I am a huge fan of how incredibly affordable Bones are, I still prefer the feel and heft of a solid chunk of metal. Another plus for Bones is the light weight. I'm sure I could haul around a lot more Bones than metal minis and still have to carry less overall weight. Finally, Bones get high marks for potential durability. How many weapons and limbs have snapped off a metal mini due to an unfortunate fall off the table or from the ham-fisted handling of my fellow gamers? A lot.

Which brings me to the other day. I was looking for new giants, and I saw the Bones Frost Giant King. That pretty much melted my resolve (no Will save allowed) so I went ahead and bought him. And while I was at it, why not buy another frost giant? Ned (my DM) knows my philosophy is "you can never have too many giants" so I also picked up Boerogg Blackrime in all his resin glory. While both the eBay listing and the Reaper website state Boerogg is resin with metal accessories, my NIB copy is resin with resin accessories. Just an observation, not a criticism.

He followed me home, honest!

Standard Reaper packaging vs Bones

I have been reading up on Bones over the years, mostly on the Reaper forums, but also on various blogs. The first-hand accounts of my fellow painters have been very enlightening with regards to Bones, from priming (to prime or not to prime? That is the question), hardening (some substances can cause Bones minis to stiffen up to varying degrees), and converting (easy, given the soft nature of the plastic). The reason I looked at ways to harden Bones is because I'm NOT a fan of how soft and bendy the king's sword is. If I cannot get it to retain a nice straight form, then I'll have to consider lopping it off and replacing it with a resin or metal blade.

The various bits, side-by-side.

Boerogg Blackrime

Frost Giant King

You can see how much bigger the King is.

So I have removed the giants from their packaging, cleaned them with dish soap, a toothbrush, and cold water, and let them dry. Next step will be to assemble them, clean up any imperfections, and get busy painting! I will leave that for next time, one article for the Bones giant and one for the resin giant. If any of you folks have advice you'd like to share, your input is much appreciated. Thanks!