The Hunger Games (And Why I'm Hungry For These Minis)

Okay, just to start off, I know nothing about the Hunger Games, other than what I have picked up from overhearing others.  I have not read the books, I did not watch the film, I have no interest in following the stories.

So I am not going to recommend either the books or film(s), nor do I want to enter into any kind of discussion about the merits/flaws ideas in them.  I am a guy who works with little plastic guys for use in games.

And that brings me to the reason I am bringing up the Hunger Games at all; NECA, the company that now owns Heroclix, produced a line of collectible figurines based off the movie.  They do not have dials, or are part of any game at all, they are just 27 figures in 28mm scale standing on cool looking little bases.


And they are awesome!

The bases have the district number on them.  I don't know what I am going to eventually use them for, but it should be awesome.

They come 1 to a box, and are about a buck fifty, although they may soon start showing up on clearance shelves, so who knows.  Here's the thing though, if you play modern or post-apocalyptic games, then there are NO useless figs.

When you buy blind boxes of superhero minis, you may get some bizarre figure you may never need (oh look, I got Rocket Raccoon from the Galactic Guardians, he'll fit in great with my ultra realistic gritty urban warfare campaign...)  Because nearly all the minis (with a few exceptions noted below,) are the same thing; a male or female figure with empty hands, wearing fatigue pants and a hoodie.

Some of them are holding weapons (usually hard to identify lumps of silver, but a few have swords or machetes, while others have a staff, a (bardiche-style) axe, or a bow.  If you want bystanders, grab the empty-handed ones and repaint.  But if you want gang members or even PC's, you can use the armed variety and rearm them with a weapon swap.

They are made of the same kind of plastic as their Heroclix cousins, and can be (relatively) easily cut or modified.  The first thing you would have to do is cut them off their decorative bases.  You could slice them off at the soles of their feet (veeeeeeery carefully so as not to mangle their feet,) and then mount them on the base of your choosing, or you could even slice the round, black base off of the grey decorative base below it (veeeeeery carefully so as to avoid mangling your thumb,) and use the black circle as its on base if you wanted.  They won't be the same size and height as other bases, but that could work if you were going for bystanders.

Some of them are quite small, and could work for children or teenagers, while others are very tall (the character named 'Marvel' from District 1 is like a head taller than any of the others)  This means you can use them for a wide variety of individuals.

As I mentioned, there are 27 figures in the line.  In the story, there are 12 districts, each of whom sends a boy and a girl to the competition.  This accounts for 24 of the figures, the various boys and girls sent from the 12 districts, including the main characters.  Most of what you pull from the random boxes will be these, so I will focus on them.

The outfits are all pretty much identical except for coloration (which means nothing for repainters.)  Each is wearing boots (mostly covered by the pants, so could be repainted as sneakers, especially high tops.  The pants are military style fatigues, with cargo pockets on the side.  Paint these khaki, and they become cargo pants (people still wear those, right? It's not just me?)  Of course, you could always scrape/carve off the cargo pockets entirely, and create your own kind of pants if you are comfortable with doing that.  The pants tuck into the tops of the boots, which is fine for 'gangsta' figures, or you could use putty to sculpt cuffs, and cover up the tops of the shoes, turning them into whatever you wish.

Just your average bunch of teenagers on a normal day...

The figures are wearing T-shirts, covered by hoodies, covered by an outer jacket.  But clever repainting can alter this, painting the hood to match the outer jacket changes the layering, and the inner hoodie becomes a vest.  The heads are all well sculpted and have a variety of expressions and hairstyles for variety.

As I mentioned, there are a number of armed figs, including one 'Thresh' who is apparently armed with a buckler and a khopesh for some reason (southpaw, no less.)  If these weapons do not suit you, they are easily modified, as with any other mini.

A bunch of vicious hoodlums spoiling for a rumble.  Imagine them repainted with leather jackets and fleece hoodies over torn and faded jeans.

But what are they good for?  As I said, because of how generic the outfits are (boots, cargo pants, hoodies and jackets,) they could be pretty much anything.   Paint the same mini one way, and you have a stereotypical street gang member.  Paint it another way, you have a person out jogging or just coming back from the gym.  Change the color scheme again and you have a SWAT Team investigator, a safety inspector, or an average citizen out shopping.  Add putty accents, and you could create tons of possible versions.

But frankly, many of you are most likely to use them as criminals or gang members, simply because we tend to use minis in combat situations, and that usually means most of the minis you will own will be bad guys, unless you are playing campaign where the PC's are criminals themselves, in which case they will make fine PC's.  Either way, some of them will make good PC's for nearly any modern campaign.

They work great as survivors in a zombie apocalypse, too.  Add some guns and backpacks and the obligatory stains and battle damage, and voila.  Personallly, I am using some in my Fallout tabletop RPG game as wasteland settlers (innocent bystanders,) and the Followers of the Apocalpse.

Here are a couple of hapless wasteland settlers, caked in dirt.  I converted the quarterstaff that the guy was carrying into a hoe with some paper clip, putty, and painted sand to look like a clump of dirt.

And that's what makes the set so cool to me.  Any time I open a box, I get someone I can use.  Whether it's an innocent bystander or an armed combatant, I get my money's worth.   Well, mostly.

I mentioned that there are 27, and we discussed the main 24.  The other three are special characters, and are apparently more rare.  The first is 'Gale,' who is not a competitor and therefore has a different outfit. He's just a guy wearing regular pants, a long sleeve T-shirt with sleeves rolled up and a vest with pockets.  This is a crazy useful mini to have (he could be a field researcher, a photographer, a hunter, etc.) so of course he is rare.  I have yet to find him.

The other two are alternate versions of the two main characters, dressed in black body suits with capes made of translucent orange flames.  These do not strike me as especially useful as is, but if you remove the flaming cape (keep it for future use, you never know!) and you have characters in skin tight black leather outfits.

And then they're just like regular Heroclix minis, and you can convert as normal.

These minis won't be around forever.  Already they are usually clustered together with all the marked down tie-in items from the Hunger Games movie.  I found mine at Toys R Us, but when they were still hot they were carried at Target and Walmart.

So go find yourselves some fine minis at a great price.  I'd like to end this post with a witty phrase from the story, but I don;t know any.  So...excelsior I guess.