Cultists

The latest batch are mostly plastics, and all meant to stand in for cultists.

Left to right, a MageKnight figure, a modified Frostgrave cultist, Grenadier’s Grima Wormtongue, and two Descent figures, a PC and a modified warlock.

The Grima figure is very small — he might be 4 foot tall, in scale, if he wasn’t hunched over. The Guy in red is from the Descent game, and is some sort of character type, maybe a monk or necromancer. Skull-face has a head from a GW skeletons kit (which will eventually be showing up) but otherwise unmodified.

The lady in black needed a little repainting and though it’s not visible here, she has a white streak in her hair, Elvira style. The cultist next to her has a head from the Zvedza soldier kit but is otherwise all Frostgrave.

Leftmost, a Frostgrave cultist. His right arm is the archer pose, but with the dagger hand swapped in. He’s holding a book from the GW Flagellants kit. Next to him is a Zvedza soldier body with a Frostgrave cultist head, flagellant scroll, and sword made from a pin and a toothpick. Third up is a Descent warlock, unmodified. The last is the same guy with a head swap.

The last four here are all Frostgrave cultist parts except for the mace-man’s arms and weapon, the scroll, and the torch — all flagellants parts.

Here’s a full container of cultists. The remaining guys are older GW chaos sorcerers, a Grenadier evil high priest, and a couple of WOTC figures. I still have some more plastic and metal to paint — including two more Grenadier priests — but this should do it for now.

Some plastic undead

I worked on some more undead — I was hoping to finish all my unpainted undead by Halloween but there’s no way that’s happening. Here’s two and a half:

On the right, a Frostgrave Cultist assembled with the optional undead hands and head. Center, a MageKnight skeleton archer. I got him super cheap and his hand and bow were broken off, so he’s got a replacement from a Lionheart archer (the same donor whose head was used for a larva). On the left, a figure I picked up at Weird Realms on Free RPG Day. I’ve been there a couple of times and it’s a great little FLGS. Of course has a place near and dear to my heart because they actually carried stock of my book. In fact I thought I bought their last 2 copies the first time I went, but my brother found a copy on Free RPG Day too (which he bought). So next time I’m there I’ll have to see if there are any more. Either they restocked or I was mistaken last time. I have also seen all kinds of OSR publications there that I thought were only obtainable online or Print-on-Demand, like The Dungeon Dozen.

Anyway the figure was meant for some sort collectible game, and had a card with him. He was cast in transparent green plastic, which would have been fine for a ghost. Nice detail. I can’t remember the name of the game or company, but I don’t see this on the Free RPG Day web site so maybe they were not part of the “official” distribution? The other minis were also ghosts and ghouls IIRC.

Funny how photographing minis reveals stuff I missed, like the spots on his base that didn’t get painted black.

Lastly these two guys might be undead, or might just be recruiters.

They were also MageKnight minis that really needed a repaint. They are kind of bulky and the detail is not very strong, but that let me give them different faces by just painting them a little differently. Their hair reminded of an old Valley of the Four Winds figure. As I painted them I noticed they have slightly different postures, presumably because either one other both were bent in storage, or maybe something to do with the molding process. I don’t think they were copied from some metal original like many early MK figures.

I would use them like the “Gravedigger” monsters in Diablo 2, who attack with their shovels when approached but otherwise just scratch at the floor of crypts. Roll each round, on a 1, they dig up a zombie or skeleton. I’d add them to an encounter in a catacomb or crypt with a group of undead that can run interference while the diggers keep piling on more cannon fodder.

 

 

Plastic surgery disasters II

Here are few more works in progress.

First, a pair of leg swaps — the marauder on the left also has some additional conversion to change the position of his arms, which normally attach pretty close to the body, and I used one of the standard-bearer arms to give him a spear. His shield is an old Citadel chaos shield but I didn’t think to take a head-on shot. The angle of the photo makes his new legs look even shorter, relative to him, than they are. Maybe he’s part gorilla. The guy on the right has a nice pose IMO even if he seems a little long-legged.

For the next guy I used one of the elaborate shoulder pads included in the marauder kit as a skull mask. His head underneath is from the cultist set, as they are slightly smaller than the bare-headed option in the marauder box.

The Frostgrave cultists box is really a kitbasher’s dream, with a ton of extra heads and arms (though I wish there was more variety to the bodies). Anyway, one option in the box is to convert about half of the figures into zombies or skeletons. I gave this guy a zombie head and arms and he’d make a nice ghoul or wight. I’m tempted to give at least one thug a withered undead arm too.

The last one also more ambitious. I wanted to make an inquisitor or executioner with a sword, and the armored body from a Zvedza soldier gets a cultist head, a scroll from the flagellants box, and a sword made from a pin and a toothpick.

Plastic surgery disasters I

I spent a couple hours kitbashing some plastic figures yesterday. The original intent was to create some figures in the vein of the old Citadel “chaos thugs.” Thugs were the weakest kind of chaos warrior in Warhammer, so I can’t be too surprised they were dropped from the Warhammer line. However they had a lot of character and I always liked the mix of influences they showed — many had a lot of John Blanche’s surrealism and punk aesthetic, while others might have wandered of the set of the Road Warrior or a Mario Bava horror film. Some peak thugs here and here if you are unfamiliar. When I realized how many of the thugs I’d collected over the years seem to have disappeared, and how hard to find original castings seem to be, I thought I’d cobble together some using parts of other sets I was already interested in or already had.  My main ingredients are the Games Workshop “chaos marauder” set from about 2008 and a set of “Frostgrave cultists” from North Star Military Figures, with some pieces supplied by the GW “Flagellants” set (which will get its own post), some Zvedza soldiers from their short-lived “Ring of Rule” line, a few figures from the Lionheart board game, and a handful of chaos thug archers from the Milton Bradley/GW Battlemasters game.

The main challenge has been that the marauders are much larger than the other figures, both in terms of scale (maybe 30 mm) and build (steroid freaks). There is also a dearth of bare heads, so not nearly as many as I’d like can have mohawks or other weird hair styles like the old thugs. Still, I’m happy with a lot of them so far. More than a few will remain cultists, though, since the hoods and masks look so good.

Skeletor here just has a head from the Cultists box and the rest from the Marauders.

Body and head from Cultist set; arms from Marauders, mohawk from Battlemasters.

The hourglass is from the Flagellants set and the cleaver blade is from the really old GW “Fantasy Regiments” set, indented for an orc.

Cultist head and body, flagellant arms, with modified weapon.

Cultist with scrolls from the Flagellant set

Another somewhat pinheaded thug with a cultist head.

Marauder head on a Battlemasters body. Though the Battlemasters archers are nice, their pose is really hard to convert, and the heads are so  so I’m not getting a lot of use our of them. Also this is the first time I noticed they don’t have quivers.

Zvedza head on a cultist

Cultist head on a Lionheart peasant. Not really related to the chaos thugs and cultists but it seemed like a good fit.

Cultist with modified arm and book from Flagellant set

Another Battlemasters thug, this time with a skull from the Zvedza “Orks” set for a head.

Lionheart body with Marauder head and arms. This figure had already donated both his arms and his head to other projects so I was glad to have extra parts to “save” him!

Cultist with flagellant arms and flail

Cultist with torch from the flagellants set

These all need to have mold lines and joints cleaned up, of course. I’ll post more later. In the meantime here’s a metal figure I rehabilitated while waiting for glue to dry.

I got this poor balrog with no wings and his sword and sword hand missing for $1 out of a bin of broken or just old miniatures. The marauders had one sword-armed arm and the hand seemed like a good match so I used it to replace his hand. I have never had much luck scratch-building wings so I decided to stay a bit truer to Tolkien and leave them off (IIRC the book just refers to “wings of smoke” or something like that, not actual bat wings). I used some plumber’s putty I’ve been hanging onto for too long to extend the mane, which I will paint as fire. Maybe I’ll add more later. Though I’m open to ideas for how to add “wings” of black smoke.