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. 

A Dark Troll for RuneQuest, etc.

 RuneQuest was the first RPG I ever got into, as quite a small child. I got the 2nd edition for my ninth or tenth birthday, I think. Recently, I ran quite a bit of it after our D&D adventurers found themselves transported to Glorantha. We switched systems and spent perhaps a year of real time playing through classic modules like Pavis and the Big Rubble and Borderlands - all of which were marvellous.

The Big Rubble is a superb concept for adventure games: a vast ruined city full of monsters and alien races (sometime indistinguishable), as well as plenty of loot. I've always thought it would make a great setting for a tabletop skirmish campaign. As I have plenty of broos miniatures, along with Citadel's Griselda and Wolfhead, a few baboons and access to plenty of historical miniatures, it seems a no-brainer. But trolls have always been a bit of a problem. Glorantha's snouted trolls aren't terribly like anything else, though I've pondered converting various gnolls and the like (possibly just 'converting by paint'). 

A while back, however, I bought the old Grenadier "Orcs of the Severed Hand" boxed set. I also picked up a couple of individual duplicates and a few each of the matching blistered trio, some of which I'd also retained since childhood. They make very good dark trolls, I think: appropriately snouted and tusked, and with quite sophisticated-looking equipment. 

This is the test piece: he's on a 25mm base, so quite large relative to humans. And if he deigned to stand up straight, he'd be a good 7' to scale with a huge head and arms, which is perfect. I'm also using some Asgard half-trolls and some of the old Citadel Gloranthan trolls. Those are based on Luise Perrin's illustrations for Borderlands, which have a much more traditional Scandinavian-folkloric appearance than the later (Trollpak on?) RuneQuest troll illustrations. But I'm happy mixing them together and uniting them by paint scheme. I also have a couple of Ral Partha RQ dark trolls to add to the mix; they work surprisingly well together.

Happily, there are matching goblins for the Grenadier orcs, which make perfect (if unusually well-equipped) trollkin. And I'm going to add in the two Ral Partha trollkin and some de-horned and de-tailed kobolds to bulk out the enlo hordes.

Edit: and here's a quick scale comparison with some WIP Gloranthan adventurers. I was trying to find some figures that would fit, size-wise, with old Citadel RuneQuest figures (represented here by Griselda and Wolfhead). The Frostgrave barbarian on the left strikes me as a perfect fit; the kitbashed Immortals/Warlord hoplite (perhaps with a Victrix head?) and Fireforge Russian work OK for me too.

An old Nick Lund orc

This is an old Grenadier orc by Nick Lund. I painted him to match some orcs I painted about six years ago, which is always a little tricky to do. I used slightly different techniques, but he should fit in well enough. I'll rebase the older orcs to match him (these generic sand/brush/dungeon floor bases work well on all my gaming mats, even if they don't look entirely natural on their own).

More Minfigs gnolls

 Here are a couple more Minifigs gnolls to go with the one I painted up last week. The new ones are from the 80s (?) Greyhawk range rather than the 70s D&D range and are somewhat more hyena-like. But I like the look of both types together - some more manlike, others bearing more heavily the Mark of the Beast.

Marauders of the Wastes

Any dusty sci-fi setting needs some primitive marauders to come howling out of the wastes at inopportune moments. These Copplestone half-orcs looked the part, I thought.

I envisage three main uses for these fellows in our sci-fi games. 

First, they'll offer a challenge for players who want to eschew the pew-pew for some brutal hand-to-hand action. 

Second, they'll provide a consolation prize for any player who gets knocked out early from a multiplayer game ("OK, these guys turn up - you're in charge. They want to take as many heads as possible/steal some tech/destroy all technology."). Because they don't have guns, they'll represent a fair step down from the starting force, regardless of the rules we're using. 

Third, they'll act as a band of wandering monsters, which we usually include in our games to add some spice. We typically set aside x monsters with stats and then roll dx if a d6 rolled at the end of the turn comes up with a 6. 

I'm going to add some accompanying beasts with the same markings as the shields. And I have a few more on the way: some with bows, which will give them at least some ranged capability.

A kit-bashed demon for Reign in Hell

 I picked up the Reign in Hell skirmish rules the other day and decided to kitbash some demons for the game. This one's an armoured demon (one of the regular troop types). He has the head and horns of a GW beastman, the body and tail of a Frostgrave demon and the arms and equipment of a Mantic orc.

I plan to assemble a few warbands to try out the rules, which can cope with up to four players. There's plenty of scope for using orcs, etc., as demons - appropriately enough from an etymological standpoint (orcneas = "hell-corpses").

I also have a big batch of kitbashed and half-painted broos that should slot in nicely. This fellow could work as a broo too, of course - albeit an unusually well-equipped one.

Tekumel: the Hluss (more or less)

After dallying on the Isle of Dread for some time, our D&D party has finally found itself in Tekumel, by dint of the 'Crimson Gates' (two vast, red stone pinnacles jutting from the sea with a shimmering horizon between them).

Puzzlement at a starless sky and the infernal heat soon gave way to terror, as a Hluss hive-ship attacked them during Monday's game. That session was largely taken up with exchanges of fire and ballista bolts; in yesterday's session, the boarding action began. And so these beasties - scorpion bugs from Irregular Miniatures - made their debut. 

They're not quite right as Hluss - they lack the centaurish tilt to the upper body and are possibly a bit small. I abandoned plans to give them a third eye and weapons in the interests of just getting them done. But they proved sufficiently terrifying: amid the abundant shrieking, much devastation was wreaked with an Eye of Advancing Through Portals applied to the hull of the hive-ship. We concluded with the Eye-wielder grasped by the Hluss queen deep in the bowels of the sinking vessel ...

Tekumel: Thunru'u - "The Eater of Eyes" - and another Hra

The Thunru'u is a nasty creature of the Tekumel Underworld that can serve as a henchthing for nefarious priests and magicians. I made this one by greenstuffing a Reaper Bones flesh golem:

I rather like its "WHAT TIME OF NIGHT DO YOU CALL THIS???" expression:

It's big for the base, but as the beast is going to accompany various human NPCs, it made sense to have it loom vertically rather than horizontally.

I also finished another Hra - this time, a Ral Partha "trill" ("troll", I think - probably a typo; Citadel certainly sold it as a troll in the 80s). I gather that this is the miniature used to represent the Hra in Barker's own games.

Tekumel: Hra

This Reaper Bones zombie ogre is the first of the Hra I have planned for the campaign. I'm not sure if his bared bones and seeping wounds are quite right for the relentless Tekumelani undead, but he'll do. I have a few more in the pipeline, including the Ral Partha "trill" figure that Professor Barker used in his own games, from what I've read.

Tekumel: a kitbashed Qol

Here's a quickly kitbashed and hurriedly speed-painted Qol. I didn't bother with the tentacle arms shown in the Tekumel illustrations (but not, as far as I can see, mentioned in the text of EPT, etc.). The tentacles are a wonderfully pulpy touch, though, so I might have a go at greenstuffing some in later versions. I think it's a fool's errand to seek utter consistency in one's snake-mutants, though!

Red orc, wizard and D&D

Our lockdown D&D campaign must be about 90 sessions long by now. We've been playing every day with only a handful of skipped sessions over the past three months. 

In that time, the players have ransacked the Caves of Chaos, explored Quasqueton, hunted demon-worshippers, saved the Keep on the Borderlands from a titanic and long-buried giant, played off merchant-prince factions against each other in the city of Kalbarad, explored the sewers of said city to break up an illegal orc-fighting ring, stolen a ship, sailed to the Fire Isles and the Far Isles, destroyed the threat of sea devils to shipping, rid the roads of Rothia of non-human bandits, fought off Red Hand assassins, killed the wizard Imrin Sark and - today - toppled his black tower. The wizard destroyed their ship with blue fire, however, thwarting their plan to get rich from trading Rothian wine. 

But soon a ship will sail from Rothia to a far, far land and a fabled city called ... Jakalla. One player has found a Tsolyani grammar, and others are intrigued by the prospect of powerful magical items said to be found in the underworld of this city - like the Eye of Advancing Through Portals, which they found on a foe's body. We'll see what they choose to do next ...

The late Imrin Sark

Anyway, one side-effect of the campaign's breakneck speed is that I'm now always dredging up half-painted miniatures to finish them off and get fresh foes on the table. I got two red orcs finished in time for yesterday's session and this wizard done in time for today's.

Some quick NPCs

This bunch were a group of assassins on the PCs' tail in our D&D game: two high-level fighters and a cleric of Kahreel the Dagger God. They led an assault on the party's quarters, unaware that an invisible elf had followed their minion and eavesdropped on their planning. Their hired thugs were swiftly dispatched and two of the main baddies were killed after a tough fight. The remaining fighter was Charmed by an elf following a lengthy interrogation and is now his bodyguard - at least until the spell wears off ...

"Where there's a whip ..."

Here's the hobgoblin torturer from our Keep on the Borderlands campaign. He was slain by the PCs before his miniature was quite finished, but such was the orgy of slaughter in the hobgoblin caves that I doubt any of the players noticed.

For some reason, the mercy that the PCs showed to certain lizardmen, goblins and orcs was not extended to hobgoblins - possibly because of the stinging defeats that the blue-nosed fiends inflicted on some of the party's early expeditions.

Having cleared the Caves of Chaos, the party has taken to the seas. So I suspect that this fellow will be reincarnated as a slave-driver in some future encounter.

I think these GW orcs make quite good Gygaxian hobgoblins: they've got the right combination of goofiness and menace. This fellow was made from the body of a space ork, the head of a black orc and various other bits and bobs from other kits.

Essex lizardmen

I bought these Essex lizardmen on a nostalgic whim. They used to be advertised in White Dwarf, along with the entire Essex fantasy range. They're crude but rather charming, I think. And they're certainly lizardmen, which has caused the kids no end of amusement.

Ungirded loins aside, they're clearly based on the Monster Manual illustration, as are Citadel's much smaller Fiend Factory reptile man and some of the big lizardmen that Grenadier made (now in production as Mabuyan lizardmen at Mirliton). Those would fit well with these Essex fellows - and would also explain why the slightly more civilised-looking Mabuyans are bothering with loincloths!

I painted these very simply, using just two shades of green and a wash. I didn't bother with paler underbellies; quite a lot of reptiles seem to be largely the same shade all over, and I wanted these creatures to look simple and bold.

Some very quick ghouls!

I did these on Saturday night/Sunday morning in time for the early-afternoon start to our D&D session. The party had met a few ghouls in a crypt during Saturday's session, and great fun/fear/loathing ensued. So I decided to add some reinforcements for their next session. I had a sprue of these GW "goblins" to hand, so whizzed through a few late on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. And they were ready to go after lunch.

They're pretty rough, and I will touch up the faces when I get a moment. But they did their primary job: producing squeals when players (both around the table and over Zoom) noticed that they'd appeared in the tunnels behind the PCs ...

As an aside, great as these miniatures are, I can't think of "goblins" that could be any further from those Tolkien describes in The Hobbit. His have clashing armour, well-made weapons and whistles. These ... do not. But for Lovecraft-style ghouls, they're pretty great.

But wait ... there's more!

More insufferably nerdishness and influence-spotting, that is! The miniatures above are from Citadel's Goblin Raiding Party, a terrific boxed set from the early 80s, complete with such euphonious names as Norgus the Flatulent and Gigblad Childsplatter.

Gigblad Childspatter

It's struck me before that the armament of these goblins was a bit out of synch with the usual Warhammer (and Tolkien) goblins: military picks and slings rather than scimitars and bows.

But after the last two entries on this blog, there are no prizes for guessing why. Here's the Monster Manual on goblin armament:

And sure enough, among the war party, we get a military pick, a short sword and sling, a short sword and spear, a morning star (here a flail rather than a spiked mace, but described on the box as a morning star). 

There's one with a warhammer too - but it's the historical sort of warhammer that has a pick head. And while the chieftain, Ubar Earbiter, has a falchion or scimitar, his lieutenant, D'Glish Sharpcut, has a short sword and a military pick on his back (leaders having the best weapons and two each, of course).

So I think it's pretty clear that these goblins are based on the Monster Manual entry. But there's something even more glaringly obvious. Just look at the illustration!

I can't believe that I'd never noticed this before, but the Goblin Raiding Party have exactly the same helmets - and in once case, exactly the same weapon - as David Trampier's illustration. Check out Torg Dwarfsmasher, bottom right:

Again, none of this is exactly earth-shattering. But it is interesting (to me at least!) to trace the origins of this rather distinctive bunch of Citadel goblins. 

Citadel's Fantasy Tribe orcs and D&D

All Gygaxed up: orc chieftain with sword and flail (centre)

This is a post that may well interest no one. And its conclusions are a little, "Well, duh!". But here goes.

I've long thought that Citadel's marvellous Fantasy Tribe orcs from the early 80s were designed specifically for Dungeons and Dragons rather than for any other purpose. They're certainly not Tolkien's orcs: they're too tall, for one thing, and they've often got long, protruding faces or upturned snouts, as well as a bizarre array of dentistry: tusks like those of a boar or a walrus.

Note the dentistry to either side of the bodyguard with battleaxe.

Now, on the one hand, this is obvious. The Fantasy Tribe range predates Warhammer, and the genesis of that game has been well documented as a means to get people to buy more Citadel miniatures than they'd need for a dungeon crawl.

Later in the 80s, when Citadel acquired the licence for Middle Earth miniatures, its orcs changed in appearance, with some becoming noticeably shorter and more bow-legged, and a larger number of bows

But I think there's a fair bit of evidence that the Perry twins - or someone else at Citadel - was paying a fair bit of attention to to the descriptions of D&D orcs as set out in the 1979 Monster Manual. Look at how the Monster Manual describes orc armament:

And look at the weaponry of the Fantasy Tribe range here or below:

(From here)

It's not an exact match: the Fantasy Tribe range includes an orc with a mace and one with a sword. But it's pretty close. All the Monster Manual variations are covered (barring the absence of an axe as a sidearm for the crossbow and polearm guys), including such combinations as "sword & flail", "axe & spear,  "sword & spear" and "axe & bow" (the archer has an axe tucked into his belt).

Note, too, that the rarest combinations ("sword & flail" and "sword & battleaxe") are assigned to Citadel's (sword & flail) and bodyguard (sword and battleaxe - always a two-handed weapon in D&D). And of course the Monster Manual tells us that orc chiefs have 5-30 bodyguards, so I think we can spot the provenance of those titles too.

And what of the other Fantasy Tribe ranges? Well, the dwarfs show the influence of the Monster Manual even more clearly:

(From here)

The first seven before the standard bearer match up to their Monster Manual equivalents perfectly - and the "chieftain in plate mail w. sword" nods to the note about "dwarfs above normal level".

But all of this only deepens the mystery of the Fantasy Tribe gnolls. By the time of Warhammer's first edition, the "gnolls" had been rebranded "great goblins". They might have passed muster as the original D&D's gnolls, who were possibly a "cross between gnomes and trolls". But they were nothing like the hulking hyena-men of the Monster Manual. Nor were they armed accordingly. So, given the Monster Manual's clear imprint on the orc and dwarf ranges, it's a bit of a puzzle that the gnolls were so defiantly free from its influence.

Blue-nosed bastards!

Seven rebased old hobgoblins to go with the recently painted Ral Partha one. A mix of Citadel, Grenadier, Acropolis and Chronicle.

These fellows caused the party no end of trouble in yesterday's Keep on the Borderlands session. Most of the party are currently cowering in a hollow in the woods beyond the ravine, one shot through the leg with a crossbow bolt, another with crushed ribs from a trap, all trying to still their very heartbeats ...

Knight time

Painting humans is, to put it mildly, not my forte. As a result, I have precious few in the Cabinet of Shame. As our online D&D campaign takes off - and as I contemplate assembling an army of 'goodies' for MicroHotT and Book of War - I've decided to get a few more painted up. They'll no doubt see some action as PCs and NPCs.

This fellow is a Fireforge Teutonic foot knight with the arms of an Oathmark human soldier. The slightly more cartoony/heroic arms give him a bit more character, I think.

The somewhat unimpressed-looking sun face was based on some real heraldic examples. I'm hoping to get a few more fantasy knights/fighters/clerics done over the next few days.