Ready for a brief but disorienting trip? Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.

“Kryozonelords?” What on earth are you talking about, Bryan?

It’s a silly combination of three things: Kryomek, Shatterzone, and Battle Lords of the 23rd Century. What ties these all together, you ask? Three things: Bob Olley (you knew this was coming), Simtac, and MSD Games (we’ll get to that).

KRYOMEK.

Kryomek was published in 1991 by Fantasy Forge and is very obviously influenced by James Cameron’s Aliens. It’s a science-fiction future skirmish game with “marines,” bidpedal stompy robots, some vehicles both ordinary and bizarre, cute little buildings, and “Kryomek” (the “aliens” of the setting). All three pictures below have been obtained from the Lost Minis Wiki. The building definitely looks to be sandcast (if you haven’t tried sandcasting yet you absolutely should – leave a comment below or just ask your favorite conglomerate search engine if you need to know more). The Nexus Marine on the far right was sculpted by Bob Olley, and I was almost certain that the Kryomek were as well, but I’m second-guessing that now. If anyone knows feel free to drop a comment below. Olley was not the exclusive sculptor for the range but he did a handful of things for Kryomek.

Kryomek was initially produced by Fantasy Forge in the UK; Simtac, based in Connecticut, had the USA rights. A bit of an aside: a fun fact I learned this week is that Fantasy Forge was started in the late 1980s by John Robertson, who, among numerous other notable things, sculpted the Warzone Dark Legion Bio-Giant, set up Grendel Productions in the early 90s, and has continued working in the miniatures industry up to the present! If you’ve seen the radical and ornately-detailed miniatures sculpted in the likenesses of Ian Miller’s incredible dark fantasy artwork, then you’re already familiar with John’s sculpting. His current company is Myriad Miniatures and he’ll be launching another Kickstarter soon called “The Hounds of Hell.”

SHATTERZONE.

I have yet to met anyone who has ever heard of Shatterzone, which was a science-fiction “space opera” roleplaying game published by West End Games in 1993 (I guess it was picked up by Precis Intermedia in 2011). The game and setting spawned a series of novels, many supplements, and an absolutely wonderful range of miniatures sculpted entirely by Bob Olley. It’s not a large range but I like all of the figures. They were produced by Simtac in Connecticut, USA. Unfortunately not many good images exist on the web. I have a handful of the figures rattling around in my hobby closet – remind me to pull them out and update the Lost Minis Wiki one of these days (although looking at the page, I seem to have already done so for a few sculpts, ha!).

The image above is a converted Shatterzone mini. It was sculpted with hair and a headband, but I wanted to use it as a “peanut-headed” psyker character in games of Rogue Trader, so off it all went. I had sculpt the ears, and I enlarged the head. But you get the idea. Here’s a crummy photo of two of the “Shatrats,” as they are called (three sculpts exist).

All of the Shatterzone figures are a bit on the big side when compared to 1980s Citadel miniatures, but not so much that I wouldn’t use them in classic games. If we go by Games Workshop timeline these were released when the second edition of Warhammer 40,000 was current – I’d certainly use them in that game. Not all of the figures are humanoids! There are some absolutely stellar extraterrestrials, a couple of BMUGs (big, mean, ugly guys – basically ogres), and some rad armored soldier types. Which brings me to this:

TIKO MARINES.

Tiko Marines! These are indeed part of the Shatterzone range. I have no idea what “Tiko” means or perhaps stands for in the Shatterzone lore, but these Olley minis are just too fun. My new friend Tory painted these figures and the moment I saw them I knew I wanted to share them with a wider audience. I love the variety of skin tones he’s used and the punchy contrast that the focused highlights provide. Here are some closer photos, too! Thanks for letting me share these, Troy!

BATTLELORDS OF THE 23RD CENTURY.

This post is getting a bit long so I’ll try to keep this brief. I don’t know too much about the game anyhow. Battlelords of the 23rd Century was yet another sci-fi roleplaying game. It was written by Lawrence R. Sims and published by Optimus Design Systems in 1990. It uses a D100 system (which I personally very much enjoy).

Here, I’ll just copy/paste from Wikipedia:

Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century is set in the year 2279. The territory of the Galactic Alliance, spanning several galaxies, is the primary setting for the game. The Galactic Alliance is made up of twelve races (including Humans), and is run behind the scenes by huge mega-corporations seeking to exploit the farthest reaches of space.

Player characters usually assume the role of Battlelords, mercenaries employed by the corporations to further their business by any means, legal or otherwise. They face various challenges, including rival mercenaries, Rebels, hostile alien lifeforms on unexplored worlds, and the alien race known as the Arachnids.

Guess who did all the minis? No surprise, it was Bob Olley. Guess who manufactured them? You got it – Simtac. Unfortunately what all of these ranges have in common is pretty poor documentation on the Lost Minis Wiki, but nonetheless here’s the page for B23C. All the images below except the blister pack of the golem-looking Gemini (thanks, Dellon!) are from LMW.

Now why is the Gemini in a Kryomek blister? Okay, it’s finally time.

MSD GAMES.

Simtac closed sometime around 2003. President Martin Fenelon then started MSD Games. If you saw any miniatures in this post that you really liked and now covet, I have great news for you: most of them can still be purchased, for very reasonable prices, from MSD Games. Good luck finding them. Why do I say that? All of the ranges have been rolled into one and grouped under the “Kryomek” category. I can only speculate as to why this decision was made. But since all of them share the common threads of “sci-fi,” “Bob Olley,” and “a scale somewhere between 25mm and heroic 28mm,” I suppose I understand. And now you know the arguably-trivial information that the miniatures currently advertised as “Kryomek” did not, in fact, all originate from that one game.

MAGIC.

A bit of a departure here, but my painting time has been limited so I’ve been finding other ways to continue to engage in creative practice. I have can probably count on my hands the number of times I’ve actually played games of Magic: The Gathering, but that hasn’t stopped me from being interested in making proxies for the game. I’m lucky to have a pretty fat stack of classic Dragon/Dungeon Magazines from the 1980s, as well as ratty-condition RPG books (White Wolf, FASA, some 40K, etc.) and a smattering of other nerdy tomes, all of which have become sources of collage material.

So here are a handful of proxies I’ve made lately for a game I may never play; nonetheless I’ve enjoyed making these and I hope you enjoy seeing them. I’ve just picked a few favorites. If you particularly like seeing these let me know, I can always make a post about more.

That’s it for today (and it was quite a lot, so if you’ve gotten this far, wow and cheers to you, let’s hang out sometime). Hope you found something you liked and that you feel inspired or uplifted in some way. Stay cool out there and be kind to each other.

-Bryan