New person coming into miniature gaming. Which core box is easy to assemble and paint?

[sumodummy500]

Hi, new person with no experience here. I wanted to try out this hobby since I have some spare time in the middle of a pandemic.

I personally don't plan on playing with the miniatures; just assembling and painting them. 

 

Are any of the following core boxes easy to assemble/paint? 

Masters that I find cool:

C. Hoffman (robots are cool)

Wong (harry potter meets insane gremlins)

Brewmaster (drunk gremlin ninjas)

Lucius (Jhin is my main in league of legends)

Anya (Tomahawk wielding badass)

 

Also, any other core box recommendations would be appreciated.

[Morgan Vening]

Depends on your level of skill already.

If you're a novice to painting, I'd recommend Hoffman, as robots are a lot more forgiving as they don't have a lot of accouterments that need to be differentiated. If you paint a base color over some cable or rivets, that isn't an issue as the Malifauxnian who painted it could have made that mistake. Whereas painting over a belt or talisman on another model might look weird.

If you've got some experience, Anya and Brewmaster seem to be pretty easy as they've got fairly simple and standard clothing, and you can shade or pick out details, but a good job shouldn't be that hard.

Wong and Lucius, you're gonna have a lot of exposed skin, and/or tiny things that need attention (like buckles and buttons and stuff).

I can't attest to build difficulty, as I get someone else to do that (and paint them too, I'm completely useless with a brush).

[muraki]

Build difficulty on all of those should be about the same.  Robots sometimes have small leg connection pts but in general they should all be about the same as most of those boxes are 'human-ish' so it's a lot of arms/legs attached to torsos.  Each will have a bit of difficulty (like the surveyors chains, the mech attendant, gremlins notorious separate feet, etc) but I wouldn't consider any of those to be on the top 10 hardest to assemble.

As for painting. M3e boxes tend to have a lot more details than their m2e counterparts. Which is good / bad.  Lucius is real cool but there's a lot of medals/belts/bangles/fringes to paint so it can get a bit busy.  Anya could have a similar issue.  That said that's mostly masters / henchmen, minions tend to be a bit less ostentatious.

[sumodummy500]

Thanks for the advice muraki and morgan.

I will try C. Hoffman. 

[Adran]

I'm afraid I can't tell you which of those boxes is easy to assemble, as I haven't assembled the newest boxes. (Although I think the brewmaster box is the same sculpts as the M2e box, in which case it is not a complex box but there are some small fiddly parts, like Ankle joints.) On the whole Wyrd is harder to assemble than a lot of other companies because it has more dynamic and/or detailed sculpts. But do it slowly, carefully and try and have things like a tray to catch small parts, or use bluetack in your tweezers to keep a grip on the little parts while you place them, and you probably should be fine. (If you don't have pudding fingers you might not need tweezers and can place things with your bare hands, but there are bits that can get fiddly. Where possible try and fit things before you add glue so you know how it works before you add glue. Inevitably when I don't I find I actually needed to put somethign else in first and then have to either fudge it, or unattach the part to fit in the bit I missed. 

What you find easiest to paint will probably vary by what you like. Robots are often relatively easy as they "ought" to be blocks of the same colour without feeling you need to shade/hightlight/blend across the surface. I like painting Fire effects, so enjoy fire gamin etc, and don't really like painting complex clothing, so don't like painting Colette and her performers. Wyrd has quite a wide range of styles, so when you know what you enjoy painting, there is probably several boxes that fit. 

Good luck

 

[muraki]

7 hours ago, sumodummy500 said:

Thanks for the advice muraki and morgan.

I will try C. Hoffman. 

Should be a lot of fun, those robots look pretty good once you get some paint on them.

That said, I may be an edge case, but I really wouldn't worry about how difficult malifaux models are to assemble + paint.  I came in with some work on super dungeon explore models as my only experience with assembling / painting things and wasn't that bad off (and I started with some of the harder boxes like Zipp).  Just take it easy and follow the instructions on the wyrd site and you should be good.  So guess I'm saying 'don't feel like you have to paint robots if you want to paint weird rock guys or evil lawyers.

Since you're new... I don't know if you have any game shops in your area, but if you do, talk to them to see if they have hobby nights.  My shop has a dedicated area for crafting, and the folks there / store employees are always ready to help out with new crafters, so there may be something similar in your area.

The only other advice I'd give for assembly (since Adran hit the big points) is that Wyrd models can be assembled with plastic glue, it forms a way stronger bond than superglue (tho it takes longer to cure).  If I tried to assemble wyrd models with superglue I'd still be working on my first box. haha.  I've had luck with various brands of plastic glue, tho some people have their favorites.  I also wash + dry my models before assembly to get off any release agents / dust / etc as part of the manufacture process.