Acheson Creations Centrosaurus/"Monoclonius"

 I've been sitting on this figure for two weeks, dying to show it off, but I couldn't until it had posted as part of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge "Toy Story" Bonus Round. The theme was to paint something relating to toys from your childhood, and for me that meant dinosaurs! I was 6 when Jurassic Park hit theaters, and didn't get to see it for a few years but I had all the toys. But before Jurassic Park, there was another dinosaur toy line I was obsessed with.

Released in 1988, Tyco's Dino-Riders had a short-lived tie-in cartoon series and a comic book series released by Marvel Comics. In the toys' lore, the heroic humanoid Valorans and the evil, half-humanoid, half-animal Rulons were battling in the distant future; a ship of Valorans tried to escape the Rulon invasion of their homeworld using the Space-Time Energy Projector to travel through time. Unfortunately, they dragged a Rulon battleship with them, and the S.T.E.P. device malfunctioned, hurling both spaceships back to the Age of the Dinosaurs. 

Here, the Valorans used their psychic powers to befriend the dinosaurs they met, while the Rulons used mind-control to enslave them. Thus, both forces continued their battle, aided by the power of dinosaurs!

I took a look through galleries of the classic toys, dredging up 35-year old memories of which toys I had - and which ones would be interesting to paint up! Frankly, a lot of them were extremely dark olive drab - the T. rex was such a dark green it was almost black! Fortunately, one that I remembered owning did have an attractive splash of color to it. Say hello to "Monoclonius."

This is a Centrosaurus from Acheson Creations; it comes in two pieces, with a resin body and metal-cast head. It has an integral "rock" base that all four feet are touching, despite the galloping pose; I've glued it to a 50x75mm 3D printed base, which has been further gussied up with flock and some plastic "school diorama" plants I got a couple big bags of off Amazon a few months back. 

But wait, I hear you say. Centrosaurus? Didn't I just say Monoclonius? Bear with me, I'll come back to that.

Monoclonius was part of the first series of Dino-Rider toys released in 1988; part of the Rulon faction, it came packaged with the Rulon Sharkman "Mako" and had a simple action feature; the head and tail were linked and moving one back and forth moved the other with it. 

Unlike the dark olives and muddy browns of much of the line, Monoclonius had a dark green body, fading to a lighter shade on the legs, and a splash of bright turquoise on the face. While I wasn't up to the challenge of scratch-building Mako and his weapons platform, I could absolutely copy this color scheme.

So, to address the relationship between Centrosaurus and Monoclonius - they're most likely the same animal. The name "Monoclonius" was assigned to extremely fragmentary remains in the 1870s, possibly remains from multiple different species jumbled together. Some "Monoclonius" remains are probably Styracosaurus, others might be Einiosaurus, but the most likely candidate is Centrosaurus; all three are medium-sized relatives of the more famous Triceratops, lacking the long brow horns but having other ornamentation and long straight- or forward-curved nose horns. So while Centrosaurus was technically named *after* "Monoclonius," and normally the first name would be the one given precedence, because the fragments of "Monoclonius" are so small, and so "we can't really differentiate this from other animals," that Centrosaurus is the name given priority.

Up until the late 1990s, there were still scientists arguing for Monoclonius to exist alongside Centrosaurus as separate animals, but as of 2025 the consensus seems to be that it just isn't it's own species. And this happens sometimes with paleontology. So while "Monoclonius" might no longer exist as a valid animal, it remains a valid part of my childhood toy box.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, especially the nose horn. And it was fun to go through the list of Dino-Riders figures trying to remember which ones I'd had as a kid! I've already factored this one into the tally below.

Miniatures Acquired: 47

Miniatures Painted: 47

Terrain Acquired: 0

Terrain Painted: 1

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 0

Tusk: The Last of the Thunder Lizards

 The mighty saurian lumbered slowly across the landscape, pausing occasionally to gnaw on a shrubby tree; it had been many years since it had seen another of its kind. Following the course of a swift-flowing river, the great long-necked creature wandered vaguely south. Perhaps it would find another of its kind - perhaps a female. If the saurian had the mental capacity to consider something "nice," it would have thought such a prospect so. 

I was recently made aware of a dandy little beer-and-pretzels wargame called "Tusk," distributed by Wessex Games. Set up for solo, co-op or competitive play, players control a hunting party of cavemen, pursuing a woolly mammoth across the landscape and trying to slay it for the tribe's larder. The game also includes rules for Victorian big game hunters and relic dinosaurs surviving into the 19th century in isolated locales. While I do not currently have a woolly mammoth in my collection, I do have some Lucid Eye cavemen painted and a toy Brontosaurus on my work-from-home desk. Being geared towards solo play and me having everything I needed to play already made the decision to give it a go a no-brainer. I printed out a copy of the rules and got the table set up. 

I put together my hunting party, consisting of Og the Hero, three melee hunters and a dog; the other troop types available are archers and fire-makers (the latter of whom can set fires that drive beasts into bogs or off cliffs). Then, I set up my table, with a river crossing one corner and a few hills, and the Brontosaurus dead center on the table. The game is written for 15mm or 6mm scale figures, but I doubled all the ranges for 28mm and increased the table size from 2' square to 3'. 

The dog ran ahead to harry the Brontosaurus around the ankles, with Og jogging not far behind. After a few turns of closing in and having the Brontosaurus turn and withdraw each time, Og, frustrated, charged in, swinging his club. Unfortunately, Og the Hero's legend ended before it truly even began, as the Brontosaurus stepped on him and kept going, oblivious to the Hero mashed flat beneath its thunderous tread. 

As the dog continued to keep the Brontosaurus moving, the remaining hunters closed in. Finally, one of them darted forward, jabbing his spear deep into the creature's muscular neck. With an agonizing bellow, the Brontosaurus collapsed to earth, narrowly missing taking its killer with it. The tribe would feast for the next moon. 

And so passed the great saurian, the last of its kind. The story of this hunt would be told and retold, echoing down the centuries, the names and locations changing to suit the needs of each new retelling. Marduk and Tiamat. Ra and Apophis. Herakles and the Hydra. All containing the germ of this one, great hunt, and the last of the thunder lizards. 

So I really enjoyed playing this; the game took all of half an hour, making it a great pick-up game for a weeknight after work or something like that. Obviously not having archers or fire-makers on the table impacted how I played, and I'm looking forward to incorporating them into a future play-through. 

The rules are simple enough that I think a six year old could learn them, but gameplay requires some thoughtful resource management - you get 1D6 "action points" per turn, used to activate figures, and there's a good chance you won't be able to activate your entire hunting party in any given turn. There's also a nice element of risk management; it's easier to kill the Brontosaurus (or Mammoth, etc.) in melee combat than at range, but each turn there's a 1-in-3 chance that a random hunter within an inch or two of the beast gets stomped into beef stroganoff. Fire can be used to force your prey into a panic, stampeding into a bog/tar pit or off a cliff; however, the fire spreads on its own accord, and can easily turn back and pen your own hunters in a deadly inferno. 

All in all, I'm super happy I picked up "Tusk" and can't wait to give it another go.