Black Tree Design

For a long time now I've been a fan of Black Tree Design's fantasy miniatures. On my army journal on the Roundtable of Bretonnia forum I had quite a few posts comparing Black Tree minis against my GW ones and talking about their merits and faults.

With the demise of the Roundtable all of those posts have been lost. So after a few posts on various facebook pages asking about BTD I thought I'd put together a post which looks at some of the minis, compares them to GW figures and I'll talk a bit about BTD as a company.

So to begin with most of my initial purchases were from the Men of Averaign range and the hundred Years war range aimed at expanding my Bretonnian Army.

So here we have a group covering BTD peasants on the far left is a GW 5th Ed Bretonnian M@A champion. Next to him is a BTD Men of Averaign Yeoman spears champion. Next is  a BTD hundred years war (HYW) peasant (with some GW bits added) then a GW 6th Ed M@A yeoman warden. Next to him is a BTD HYW spearman and finally on the extreme right is a BTD men of Averaign yeoman spears musician. Scale wise they all work pretty well. The Yeoman spears models are a bit chunkier than the HYW minis or the GW ones but not ridiculously so in my opinion.

As can be seen from the close up comparison shots the scales work pretty well and the detail on the minis is pretty good. I feel the Men of Averaign range really works well with the GW Bretonnian ranges.

here you can see the HYW spearman, I had to cut away the cast based before adding them to the standard 20mm bases which was a bit of an annoyance. At time of writing these HYW figures are £5.99 for a pack of 4.

Here we have Lord Joseph of Averaign one of the mounted heroes produced by BTD. He's very similar in style to the GW 5th Ed knights and scales well with them although his helmet Crest is a little on the small side.

A BTD men of Averaign horse next to a GW 5th Ed horse.

This is a HYW light Cavalry horse and I'm going to use them as Mounted Squires/Mounted Yeomen in my Bretonnian Army. They're skinnier than the GW plastic horses but they've got a good sense of movement to them.

These are the BTD mounted squires from their Men of Averaign Range. They fit in well with the GW metal mounted squires from 5th ED

This is the HYM Medium Cavalry Spearman that goes with the horse above. Stylistically they don't match the Men of Averaign or the GW mounted Squires but in a unit by themselves they look pretty good.

Here we have a 6th Ed GW Archer flanked by two BTD Men of Averaign Archers. Again these scale well together and the BTD minis are really nicely detailed.

Two 6th Ed Archers and two BTD archers

BTD yeoman Halberdiers.

5th Ed GW Bretonnian hero on a BTD Men of Averaign Mount.

BTD Men of Averaign knight Esquire on a BTD horse but with a GW sword arm. I'm not a big fan of the massive pauldron's that appear on all the BTD Men of Averaign Knights. Other than that their armour is ok.

BTD knight Esquire mounted on a GW 5th Ed horse and equipped with a GW 6th Ed Lance as I felt the BTD Lances were too chunky.

BTD HYM foot knights with 2 handed weapons. I cut these in half and attached them to 6th Ed GW Bretonnian legs to make questing knights.

BTD wolf riders command and a single wolf rider. Now I don't have any GW wolf riders to compare to these but they're nice sculpts with plenty of character and they had very little flash on them.

here they are in their unit alongside my Battlemasters wolf riders. The goblins are pretty similar in size but the battlemasters wolves are massive!

BTD  goblin command alongside the GW 4th Ed plastic goblin spears. These scale really well and they fit in aesthetically too. Again as with all my BTD minis there was very little in the way of flash or mould lines.

BTD nightling command and a netter. These are a bit smaller than the GW night goblins I've got.

Here you can see a BTD Nightling netter in a unit of GW 4th Ed Plastic Night goblin Archers. As you can see he's a bit smaller than the 4th Ed Gobbos and the 7th Ed Musician.

BTD Nightling champion

GW 7th ed plastic Night Goblin shaman and a BTD nightling command figure that I've used as a Shaman. this is a great miniature with loads of little details.

BTD Nightling champion. These nightling character models are quite a bit bigger than the standard nightlings and fit in much better with the GW figures. They also have loads of character and lots of little details

BTD Nightling beserkers. I use these instead of GW Fanatics as I don't like the newer plastics and the older metal ones can be really expensive. These are 'cute' little loonies and I think they're well worth the £4.49 for three that they currently cost (although I got mine in a big sale and so paid a lot less than that.)

Here we've got some BTD Vermen Ver'bombers that I use as poison wind globadiers.

Here we've got BTD'd Vermen Nest Guard which I use as Storm Vermin

Here are the Ver'bombers and the Nest Guard with an Advanced Heroquest Skaven. Although they look skinny compared to the Heroquest model they scale really well against the 8th Ed Plastic Skaven from the GW Island of Blood Boxed set. 

a BTD Ver'burner team which I use as a warpfire thrower. these are great inis with lots of little details.

BTD Giant rats and handler, you get 4 rats and 1 handler in a pack.

BTD Vermen Sewer runners

BTD Ver'Monks

Ver'Priests I use these as plague censor bearers

This mini is currently unavailable but he was a Vermen Warlord figure. He scales well as he's a bit taller and broader than the standard Vermen and scales well against the Skaven Warlord from the Island of Blood boxed set.

Ver'lock Wizard and Plague Priest. the Plague priest model is no longer available. again both are decent models. I'm not a massive fan of the hood on the Ver'lock Wizard but it makes him stand out a bit. At £1.88 I think they're pretty cheap for decent character models.

Vermen Rat Ogres these scale well with the later GW Plastic Rat Ogres and have a more old school look to them without lots of silly steampunk guff all over them. They're a little pricey at £5.99 each (in the current sale) but they're not extortionate.

BTD don't have much in the way of Chaos miniatures. Their range was the Drakul which included various evil types but all that's currently available is the Drakul sorcerer. infact even he's disappeared from the webstore now! here he is next to the Heroquest sorcerer and a hero quest Chaos Warrior.

This BTD Sorcerer comes with a sacrificial altar with a femal sacrifical victim and is in their Dungeon accessories range. I'll probably use him as a necromancer as he has that kind of look about him.

Here we have some BTD Barbarians. At the time of writing this entire range has disappeared from the store but as I understand it it's so the moulds can be remade so there's a good chance these will be getting released via kickstarter some time in the future. These are all decent characterful sculpts and I think they scale pretty well but it's obvious that they've come from more than one range in the past as they differ stylistically and in size.

So here the Barbarian in the middle is taller and bulkier than the two either side how both scale together well.

Again the Barbarian in the middle is taller and bulkier than the other two.

This guy is massive!

Now I don't mind this difference in scale in my Barbarians as they'll be used as Chaos Marauders and I'll just put it down to the effects of living so close to the chaos wastes.

BTD Beastmen are from two quite distinct ranges. here you can see the two very different styles and scales. the goat headed ones are much taller and bulkier than the bovine headed ones. Again this isn't too much of a problem for me as I'll use the bigger ones as Bestigor and the bovine ones as Gor. I do think the Bovine ones are the better minis although the goat headed ones do have lots of texture and extra details on them.

BTD dark orcs which I'll be using as back orcs. great models with lots of character but they're noticeably smaller that the later GW plastic Orcs. This isn't a problem for me as pretty much all of my Orcs are from BTD so I don't need to worry. but if you put them with the 6th Ed plastic orcs from the starter set you will notice a difference in size and scale.

Here you can see they scale really well with the old Heroquest Orc but they're noticeably smaller than the GW plastic one. tbh I much prefer the BTD orcs to the GW plastic ones.

BTD Vermen Ver'lord. This is probably the weakest of the BTD Vermen range and not a patch on the old GW metal Vermin Lord figure. this guys pose is a bit naff he's got a pot belly and his weapon looks daft. But it's a decent mould with very little flash or mould lines. At present he costs £11.24 (normally £14.99) which I think is a bit steep I'd wait until there's a good sale and try to get him at 35% off.

He's not much bigger than the Rat Ogres which is why I think he's a bit over priced.

Here we have Lord Joseph of Averaign along With the GW 5th Ed Bretonnian Hero. as you can see they scale pretty well but Lord Josephs crest is a bit on the small side.

My last BTD miniature in this post is their wizard grey mantle who used to be in their Helsinians range although that's another range that's no longer available and is awaiting a kickstarter in the future to remake the moulds. I'll be suing him as a grey wizard for my empire army.

I've already talked about the BTD High Elves in this post here, my giant here and my Savage/Barbarian Orcs here. I don't have any of their Halflings, Shadow Elves or Undead and so can't really comment on them. I have just received some of their dwarfs and I'm really happy with them as they've got a nice old school feel to them and as the moulds are pretty much brand new they're as crisp as anything. I'll try and do a post about them soon.

As I understand it BTD have plans to re-release a lot of their missing fantasy ranges via kickstarter or indigog over the next few months/years. I know they're definitely working on bringing back their Lizardmen and the Helsinians and I would expect others to come out as well. They were also working on new models and have released a halfling riding an Emu which is a cool mini for Halfling cavalry although a few more sculpts would be needed.

If you google BTD or eoeorbis you'll probably find a lot of negative comments about them on the internet. unfortunately they do seem to have managed to get themselves a bad reputation for not delivering within their stated time frame and they can be really hard to get hold of via any form of communication.

I've been buying from them for over 10 years and like I said I'm a big fan of their stuff, the vast majority of my orders have arrived safe and sound, if a bit slowly, and if there has been a problem it's been sorted quickly and without argument. My latest order has been the only one with a big problem. I ordered back in January 2020 when they had a really good sale on and I didn't receive any of my order until 21 may 2020 after quite a few pestering emails. Now obviously Covid-19 happened around Easter time which I know had impacts all over the world but I must admit to being a bit disappointed at how difficult it was to get a response from the company. When I did get a reply they quickly got the order sorted and despatched although as I write this in late July I'm still awaiting 5 packs of miniatures from the order.

In short I would still recommend BTD for miniatures especially if you're looking for something that fits in well with the 'Herohammer' era. Yes they can be really slow to ship so don't order if you need stuff quickly or to meet a tight deadline. Yes they can be a nightmare to get in touch with but they will eventually respond and they will sort out any issues. The minis are for the most part really good they're well produced, they scale well with a lot of other manufacturers and they're quite often the cheapest way to get minis thanks to their numerous sales.