Harry Potter miniature adventure game

Assembly blues! (the Rant)

This is it! I have had this game sitting on my shelf for quite some time, having picked up a copy after much deliberation and procrastination, on a rare and wonderful trip into town with my daughter. Sharing our love for the Harry Potter universe, it tipped the balance and off I went, with a tin can filled with promise. The copy is first edition so the components are very flimsy but that is covered well enough by a lot of people. The resin figures are absolutely stunning but also absolutely fragile and extremely fiddly to assemble. Wands have broken off, parts are so tiny, they’re almost impossible to hold on to, let alone keep in place and for some reason the superglue would stick to any surface in seconds except for the models. Hermoine’s left leg took a good 40 minutes positioning, keeping steady (almost impossible) and an unreasonable amount of tries to get in place. Seldom have I cursed more during an assembly than on this project. Even Infinity metal helmet antennas are nothing compared to this. They don’t break.

Basing.

So. Rant over, once assembled they do look fantastic! I didn’t like the look of the bases, unfortunately after having glued 3 Deatheaters to them already, and so decided to try a different approach. I used Milliput and the Green Stuff World Temple texture rolling pin to create a new texture. (Thanks Gerry!) They look a lot better but I haven’t solved the issue with the slotta bases yet. I’m afraid to remove the supports from the minis as their feet are very small and probably won’t have enough contact surface to glue them in place. I could try to drill and pin them but again, there is hardly any volume to drill into. I’ll have to ponder a bit on how to solve that.

Take aways and tips

1. Use a medium thickness superglue to assemble the different parts and tweezers to hold the smaller ones in place. The thicker glue will provide a bit of a goop to hold the bit in place and tweezers avoid everything from sticking to your fingers.
2. The resin casts are very crisp but do have some very thin mouldlines. I found the round file from The Army Painter to be the best tool for the job.
3. The base slots are too wide for the miniature’s tabs to fit snuggly into, having quite a bit of wiggle room. Filling the slot with modelling putty and pressing the figure in that will provide a much better fit and make it easier to position the model upright.
4. Don’t glue them on their bases and change your mind. 😀