Miniatures review: 6d6 Fireball's Quorakons

Recently I painted up three Quorakons kindly provided to me by Chris over at 6d6 Fireball, a publisher of old-school-themed miniatures and adventures. Quorakons are a race of four-armed simians that use primitive weapons and enjoy a tribal lifestyle. Adrian Wood (also part of the 6d6 Fireball team) actually put together a free 10-page PDF detailing their entire culture, including its social composition and battle capabilities. The stat block is a bit dense for me, but it's easy to jettison the extra baggage to get down to the old-school essence of these humanoids.. It's definitely worth checking out if these miniatures pique your interest.

The PDF is packed with story ideas, some of which occurred to me while I was assembling and painting these figures. The Quorakons use stone weapons, right? So how would they react if the PCs arrive and are willing to trade their steel and iron hardware for access to the Quorakons' tribal mystics?

The figures themselves were a ton of fun to assemble. They arrived with empty hands and two extra sprues full of primitive weapons (clubs, spears, javelins and stone axes). I started putting weapons in hands, and before I knew it, each of these Quorakons were holding three weapons. Overkill, you say? Well, if you've got four arms, why not use 'em?

The one on the far right in the photo above is also holding a dead rabbit—a little treasure I had kicking around in my bits box, waiting for the right miniature to pin it on.

Anyway. As far as the paint job, I wasn't all that pleased with how the fur turned out. I got impatient while painting them and rushed through my typical fur painting process (slowly building up lighter and lighter colors). So that's why the fur might look a little garish.

The best part about these miniatures are the simian faces. Designer Rob Grimly did a superb job capturing the ape-like characteristics of these fellows.

As far as criticisms, the chieftain arrived with a small chunk of metal missing from his ornate feather headdress. Chalk it up to casting issues, I guess. You can see it missing in the second photo. He also had a rather odd hole or gap in his chest, where all four arms would sort of come together in his torso, which I can also only assume is the result of some casting problems.

Really, though, these guys were a lot of fun to paint up. The PDF is icing on the cake, as it really makes the Quorakon culture come alive. Even if you don't use 75% of the stuff that's included in the free supplement, there's still enough added value from 6d6 Fireball to make these guys several steps up from your average Monster Manual denizen.