A reasonably good set. The figures are well defined and don't have the off-putting facial expressions that some digital figures express. A few of the figures should be redone, however, as they are flirting dangerously close with copyright/intellectual property infringement.

Pewter or plastic minis are great but can be cost prohibitive when amassing a reasonable variety for a campaign. Arion Games paper minis are a cost effective alternative that look great and can be printed in whatever quantities are needed. When printed on cardstock, they are also fairly durable. Most come in both 2-sided and 3-sided formats and all are in full color. Even if you intend to acquire more traditional miniatures over time, these paper miniatures are an outstanding base from which to start. Highly recommended!

Great set! . Arion games products have spoiled me for other counter sets Could use a little more variety in high tech aliens

Wonderful set of foes for my sci-fi mini's game. Only wish there had been more of them : )<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This set is well worth the money! Great looking mini's. Will buy More Sets. Looking forward to new sets.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Good looking on the board.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing. Everything I expected.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Overall, pretty good. The use of fully rendered CGI artwork places Arion Games well above the typical run of printable stand-up minis with traditional line art that usually ends up a bit cartoony. Several aliens are taken from famous sources (The Giger Xenomorphs from Alien, the Arachnids from Starship Troopers, and the Hydralisk from StarCraft are the obvious ones, and I suspect the Beast and Hive aliens may be from Doom or Quake), which I suspect is due to the ready availabity of their meshes on numerous 3D art support sites. If Arion did the meshes in-house, then I commend their skill even more than before.

The only drawback is the focus on bestial antagonists. I was hoping for PC or NPC type aliens rather than just monsters. Given their ability to make characters close enough to licensed sources without being suable copies, I would really like to see Arion make a set of "Alien Heroes" with aliens similar to the traditional PC races of games like Traveller, Star Frontiers, and Alternity. With both of the latter systems having been resurrected through D20 Future, interest in such a set may be on the rise.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

If you are like this reviewer, you have neither the desire, or space, or cash, to ?collect? traditional miniatures. Yet, with the tactical combat systems used in many game systems these days, being able to bust out the battle mat and a set of minis is often necessary. Thus you find yourself looking for a practical and inexpensive option for your miniatures needs. Paper miniatures meet this need. When they are packaged as a PDF, you are provided with a readily available source of minis for your games, being able to print as many of a particular figure as you need, without having to invest too much money in them, or time and effort, in the case of those who paint their minis. In short, paper minis are an attractive option for their low cost and convenience, and are also logical options for ?collectors? needing a particular miniature, or several of them, for their game.

The figures in Arion Games? miniatures sets come in 3 styles, ?A-frame?, ?Flat?, and ?Triagonal?. The ?A-frame? and ?Flat? figures can be constructed from the same sheets, depending on how they are cut out. The ?Triagonal? minis are constructed from a separate sheet. These construction choices provide additional options in preparing your minis for use in the game, major characters or monsters can be constructed as the ?Triagonal? versions to provide a more visual flair, and to emphasize their importance. Other figures can be done as ?A-Frame? or flat versions to make them easier to handle or distinguish them from each other, thus providing a functional use beyond their graphical characteristics. Vehicles done as Triagonal versions of the minis work very well, giving a better impression of their relative size.

The instructions, which are not included in this PDF, but are available on the publisher?s website, are easy to follow and assembling the minis is quick and painless, just requiring a bit of work with scissors and some glue. The minis look good, even when printed on plain paper. Each figure is drawn from a 3D rendering (done in Poser using figures provided by DAZED, according to the credits), providing sharp detail and life-like shading, even when printed.

This 3 page PDF (4 with cover) provides a set of 18 figures. The figures include, an Alien figure (obviously inspired by the movie, an Arachnid figure (obviously inspired by Star Ship Troopers movie, a Beast figure, large black xenomorph humanoid monstrosity, a Creeper figure (spindly multi-armed semi-humanoid), a Daemonite figure (large brown humanoid with two spiked head tail appendages., a Exterminatus figure (Heavily armed Borg like humanoid alien. 3 Grey aliens, 2 regular and a psychic version (these are more generic humanoid aliens than the classic little space men fond of kidnapping and probing helpless abductees.). Next there is a set of 3 Hive aliens, (Spiky organic humanoid aliens with insect like features.), a Hydralisk (a rip of the Brood alien from Starcraft), a Mechalien (Predator inspired warlike alien with obvious technological features), a Oracerbon (exotic floating multi-limbed non-humanoid), a Plantalien (Which looks vaguely like a overgrown Vlasic pickle with tentacles and a bad attitude.), and a large Alien Queen figure (an obvious adaptation of the Queen alien in the Aliens movie.)

Overall, this is a solid product from Arion Games. The aliens are more of the monstrous bug-hunting type, little in the way of humanoids with rubber forehead variety for use as PC?s. However, this provides additional adaptability in that they can be used as monsters in Fantasy/Super Hero games as well. Hopefully a 2nd set with more PC focused figures will be released. Adding in the fact that you can print as many as you need, and prepare your own figure sheets, this is excellent value as well. If you are looking for some baddies to spring on your player?s characters in a military-themed or survival horror SF game, most of these figures will serve you well. With the grey aliens suitable for generic humanoid aliens, many of the aliens will also make good monsters for fantasy, and are particularly well suited as invading aliens for a Supers game. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Alien Queen, Beast figures are cool<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Hydralisk is kind of lame. Plantalien looks like a pickle. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

If anything, do not discount the latest cardboard mini set by Arion as Sci-fi only. Because of their usual creativity and artistic flair, The new Alien Set is diverse enough to be included in your fantasy and superhero campaigns.

Alien Set is the 30th to be cranked out by Arion and their most diverse to date. I have found previous genre sets by the company to contain many similar pieces. This one, however, possesses the imagination that adorns their other monster sets, producing 16 completely unique alien monstrosities (It's really 17, but 2 actually do look a bit alike). I even enjoyed the takes on the traditional movie aliens from the X-files, predator of, of course, Aliens.

You have the option of printing out three dimensional cutouts or simple two dimensional cut outs standing pieces. The three dimensional cutouts seemed to stand up better after assembly and give my players the most immersion.

For the Player:

If you are two cheap to buy a mini for your game, try to slip in the Grey Alien Psychic mini as your albino androgynous Elf sorcerer and see if it flys with your dungeon master.

For the Dungeon Master:

Pewter Minis are quite expensive. If you are the traditional broke gamer, you can not possibly see the economic value of buying $32 worth of minis for one encounter that lasts all of 45 minutes. Before Arion Games, the quality of the cardboard mini was very cartoony and unflavorful. The Alien Set, as with their others, gives you very detailed renderings without resulting to cheesiness. Sure, any of these minis would fit nicely into your science fiction campaign. But that would be limiting your investment. Try using the Demon like Hive Beserkers as your next outsider or the Oracerbon for your interpretation of an Abberation. Any of these would make a great fit in the alien invasion for your Superhero campaign.

The Iron Word

The Aliens Set provides you cheap minis without the cheap looking feel. Just do not segregate it to the science fiction genre. Get your money?s worth and use it for all your games.
<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The artwork doesn't take a hit to the price. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: I AM the frugile guy my friends say I am. I would like a couple more pieces. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Everybody loves a good alien, be they the disturbing creations of H. R. Giger, the enigmatic Greys so beloved of Ufologists the world over, or the embarrassing rubbery blobs of 1970?s TV science fiction. This neat little product from Arion Games has representatives from pretty much every budget, all lovingly rendered and ready to paste onto cardstock.

?Aliens? is a set of 17 cardstock figures in the traditional mould. Each figure is set onto a simple card flat that can be folded into either the good ol? ?T? frame configuration or a triangular prism depending on the player?s preference. I have to say that the base shown is a little bit small to make a ?T? frame stable, but that?s a minor criticism since you could easily modify the design to make them bigger. Each alien is pictured from the front and back on the ?T? frame version, and all three sides of the prism from the front, the rear/left and the rear/right. This is of course the beauty of using 3D computer-rendered images for such a product. It allows you to precisely depict different angle shots of the same model with 100% accuracy.

The rendered models used in the product are mostly of a high quality. There are one or two images in here that aren?t so great; the plant alien looks like a predatory cucumber for instance, and the Exterminatus has the most ridiculously oversized and unwieldy appendages that you?re ever likely to see. There is also a definite bias towards combat aliens, with only the humble Grey really being suitable to represent an intelligent non-aggressive race. Mostly though the quality is good, the product is in full colour and the resolution is nice and high making for a good quality of print ? if you?ve got a good enough printer of course! I would have liked to see a larger set of images as well as although the resolution is quite high, the pictures are quite small and it would have been nice to get a closer look. As it is only the Alien Queen and the Beast (both meant to illustrate particularly large beasties) are of a significant size. That said, the scale is comparable with that of most cardstock figures and so their size is suitable to the product?s purpose.

The aliens presented clearly fall into various genres of space-nasty and will be easily recognisable as such to most people. There?s the typical Giger ?bug? alien, the vaguely sexual ?Species? type alien, the ?Quake/Doom? demonic alien and so on. In fact some of the aliens are uncomfortably close to well-known critters from the media with only a few minor differences to stave off the copyright lawyers. The arachnid for instance is almost identical to the staple soldier bug from Starship Troopers, with just a slight modification to the head. The alien queen is near identical to the one created by Giger. The Hydralisk is a blatant copy of the snakelike alien from Blizzard?s StarCraft series of computer games. This is just a little bit cheeky to my mind. Fortunately most of the rest, while clearly based on established science fiction stereotypes, are distinct and original in design if not entirely original in concept. At least this does mean that there is likely to be an alien in the PDF suitable for representing famous aliens if you?re running a game based on a movie though. <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Consistent high quality full-colour artwork. Two different formats of stand for every alien.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Several aliens obviously copied from famous aliens of movie and computer game fame. Assembly instructions (though hardly necessary) must be downloaded separately as a free PDF from the product?s website. Obvious bias towards dangerous violent aliens.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>