Another starter warband: ratmen

 Here's another little warband destined for the same recipients as the orcs and dwarves in my previous post.

The plague monk serves as a sorcerer and leader for the band. 

Some starter warbands: orcs and dwarves

One thing I've done a fair bit of over the years is paint up some 'starter sets' for friends' kids - often by painting up a few extras when painting stuff for use with my own kids or other gaming friends. These little warbands are the seventh batch of this sort I've done, I think, using the same paint scheme as the eighth, which is a Hordes of the Things set for the Battle of the Five Armies.

I put together these warbands for use with Echidna Games' Fantasy Forces. In the past, I've accompanied rules with Ganesha Games' Song of Blades and Heroes, but this time, I went for something simpler (Song of Blades would be the natural progression).

The dwarves are from EM4, with a leader converted with some Oathmark and Frostgrave parts.

These, and their Nick Lund metal counterparts, are my favourite dwarf miniatures - especially (barring the crossbows) for Middle-earth.

Anyway, Merry Christmas!

A kitbashed orc wizard for Frostgrave

 

Here's a kitbashed wizard to replace the orc leader from my previous post for Frostgrave. This fellow is almost a straight build from a GW orc sprue, with a spearhead replaced with a skull and some Frostgrave cultist bits and bobs on his belt (round the back), along with a Skaven plague-monk scroll. 

His fellows are a repainted metal orc from the 80s and a marksman ktibashed from Frostgrave demon and Mantic goblin parts.

Orcs in Frostgrave: some old roots replanted

 I needed a Frostgrave warband in a hurry for Friday night, so I rapidly repainted bases of these old orcs to match the earthy tones on my current skirmish stuff. I also matt-varnished over their ageing gloss and touched up the odd thing here or there. The chap with the two cleavers made for a rather militant necromancer, with the whip-wielding hobgoblin as his ferocious apprentice. A couple of Descent undead dog-things filled out the ranks as war hounds. 

They looked the part, I thought, but proved rather less than fearsome on the table (aside from killing one of the other players' apprentices. As a result of a total wipeout and a failure to gain any treasure, they'll be taking to the field in round 2 with neither wizard nor apprentice, both of whom are badly wounded, and neither of the dogs, who are dead. So I'm looking through their decade-old pallid kin to procure some suitably low-rent thugs and thieves ...

C14 Lesser Goblins as a 15mm warband

 

Here are some Citadel lesser goblins painted up for use in 15mm skirmish games. These six will form the basis of a Frostgrave warband: wizard and two thugs at the front; apprentice and two thieves at the back.

Citadel produced two kinds of lesser goblin: these fellows and their ilk, who were lesser versions of the great goblins (or gnolls); and the hooded lesser night goblins. Both types work fine in 15mm as large goblin-types (hobgoblins or man-sized trolls or whatever). The 'great' breed are especially good for Frostgrave, as most of them have either a large one-handed mace (good for thugs) or a short club (fine for thieves in Frostgrave). 

An ugly old Fantasy Tribes orc

 

Here's a particularly nasty-looking Fantasy Tribes orc from the early 80s. I've got loads of these fellows based up; they make nice little palate-cleansers between sections of larger projects.

A wizard and his warband

 

Ahead of some games of Frostgrave this weekend, I painted up this wizard and his entourage for a friend: bold colours and some heavy if unfashionable blacklining with acrylic ink.