Dracula's America Crossroads Cult Faction

Here is the third of the factions from the Dracula's America: Shadows of the West skirmish war-game - the Crossroads Cult. A Crossroads Cult posse serves diabolical masters, masquerading as wealthy rail barons back east, and can call upon unnatural Abyssal Entities in battle. Native American posses can never join this faction.

At the far left is Maximillian Underwood, a Harbinger of the Abyss. He is the true diabolical power behind the throne of this faction. A Harbinger is Flying, Supernatural and automatically knows the Summon Arcane Power, but does not count as an Arcanist. If he is not Downed and is within 6" of their posse's Magister, then the Magister gets a +1 Die modifier on all of their Casting tests.
Next in line is Brother Zebulon, the Magister and boss of this posse. He automatically becomes an Arcanist for free. One of his three chosen Powers must be Summon.

The other two figures are both unique Abyssal Entities who must be Summoned. All Summoned models disappear at the end of a game - they do not increase a posse's Infamy and they cannot Advance or suffer Injuries. The monstrous, four-armed Abyssal Entity whose eyeless skull is crowned by four curling horns is a Major Entity called a Behemoth. Its Special Abilities are Fearsome and Flying.
At the far right is a Hell Hound, a Lesser Entity with the Fearsome Special Ability. The Behemoth and the Hell Hound can only be Summoned by the Crossroads Cult, which is why I have included them here.
These figures are all official Dracula's America sculpts produced by North Star. Set DRAC112 - Crossroads Cult contains the Harbinger, Magister and Hell Hound and costs £7.50 from the North Star webstore - http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=10762
The Behemoth can be bought separately as set DRAC108 - Abyssal Behemoth. This multi-part figure costs £6.00 from the same webstore - http://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=10758
To complete this faction I need to add some standard Cultists. There are a number of companies who make Cultist figures. At the moment I'm favouring the male and female Cultist sets sold by Crooked Dice Games to use with this faction.

Shadows of Brimstone Goliath and Harbinger

Last time I showed you the smallest monsters from the Shadows of Brimstone game - the Void Spiders. This time I'm going to the opposite end of the scale and reviewing the two largest monsters from the core sets of City of the Ancients and Swamps of Death - the Goliath and the Harbinger. Most monsters encountered in Shadows of Brimstone conform to one of three Threat Levels - Low, Medium or High, depending upon the size of the Hero party - the bigger the party, the greater the Threat Level. However, depending upon the scenario being played, there is also an end-of-game threat that may be encountered and it is known as an Epic Threat. The Goliath and the Harbinger can only be encountered as Epic Threats.

"Hunched and lumbering, this towering behemoth dwarfed all other creatures my expedition had encountered. Its large head covered in soulless black eyes with a wide, round mouth surrounded by an array of sharp teeth, A dozen long tongues erupted from its face and writhed in a hypnotic dance."
An excerpt taken from the journals of Dr. Tobias Hedgebrook.

With a gigantic muscular body and horrendously long, flailing tentacle arms, the Goliath is an unspeakable horror like no other. Its bellowing roar and dripping mass of tentacle tongues consume all that stray within reach, smashing, crushing and devouring the souls of those who would dare to stand before it. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Goliath is the cold intelligence clearly visible behind its multitude of soulless, black eyes. It knows you're here... it knows why you've come... and it knows you have made a terrible mistake.

As you can see from the figure of the saloon girl I have placed alongside the Goliath in the first photo, this is a massive monster. It stands 65mm tall and measures 130mm from the tip of its tentacle tongues to the tip of its tentacle arms. It stands on a 60mm diameter base. I decorated the base with half of a plastic barrel taken from a Renedra pack of wooden barrels. This useful scenery set contains five large barrels measuring 15mm tall and five small barrels measuring 10mm tall. The barrels come in two halves, so I used one half here and the other half on the base of my Harbinger (see photos below). I used the large barrel for my bases. I also added a few pieces of cork bark to the base and a smashed wooden plank.

For the paint scheme I simply copied that found on page 49 of the City of the Ancients Adventure Book. The idea of adding the extra scenery items to the base came from a painted example of the creature found on page 45 of the same book. Its paint scheme is very similar to my own. A Goliath is potentially a party killer and must be treated with utmost respect, caution and extreme prejudice.

The massive, demonic Harbinger is one of the most fearsome creatures yet encountered by those that delve down into the cursed mines near Brimstone. With sprawling bat-like wings and long, sinewy limbs, nothing can escape the Harbinger's foul reach. Its bony, horned skull-head holds no eyes but rather two rows of pitted nostrils to sniff out its prey in the dark, and consume the flesh of the unwary explorers with its vicious maw of razor sharp teeth. Often accompanied by a swarm of slithering Hellbats, the Harbinger brings doom to all who gaze upon him and despair to those that hear his name.

The Goliath was a huge monster but the Harbinger is even bigger! Because it is crouched down, it is only 55mm tall from the soles of its feet to the top of its horns but its wings make it even bigger. The top of its left wing reaches 140mm above the ground and its wingspan is an impressive 230mm. Like the Goliath, it is glued to a 60mm diameter base, which I decorated in a similar manner to the Goliath. The Harbinger was amongst the first batch of figures I painted for this game, closely followed by the Goliath. These two figures are stunning, show-piece models that never fail to grab your attention when they make an appearance in a game. 

Impact Chibi Pit Lord

My final (for now) review of Impact Miniatures' range of 28mm scale Chibi figures focuses on one of their larger figures - the demonic Pit Lord.

You can find him in the Chibi Adventurers section of Impact Miniatures' webstore as CA-PITF Pit Lord. He costs £12.57 but he is huge! Compared to GW prices for a similar sized monster that is a bargain. He stands 65mm tall from the bottom of his hooves to the tips of his horns and he has a wingspan of 90mm.

He was beautifully sculpted by Juan Miguel Lopez Barea and he comes in 8 parts - body, head, left hand with sword, right hand with half the flaming whip, the second half of the flaming whip, two wings and a 48mm diameter base. Please note that as with all Impact Minis' bases that come with their figures, the slottabases are plain and untextured. However, Impact do sell textured bases with a dungeon floor pattern on them with both a slot in them and without the slot. They come in two diameters - 24mm and 48mm. The Pit Lord does not come with a slottatab under his hooven feet so I pinned and glued him onto a textured base that did not have a slot in it.

The figure fit together extremely well. I used superglue to stick him and it worked just fine. I added a small bit of Milliput to the join between the two halves of the whip just to strengthen it a tad. Please note that he is made of Trollcast resin, as are the majority of Impact's figures. I feared that his fiery whip might easily snap but actually, it is quite springy and providing you take good care of your figures he should last a lifetime. Incidentally, I store all of my Chibi figures in foam-lined cases made by KR Multicases.

I like demons a lot and the main reason that I bought this particular one was to use him as a substitute Dungeon Boss for Starfire the Dragon in Super Dungeon Explore. Yes, he does have a big head and big eyes (all four of them!) but I would certainly use him in other fantasy games like AD&D or Warhammer (a Chaos Khorne Demon) if I still played them.

Mantic Demon and Rackham Werewolf

Today I'm going to review two very different figures - a Mantic Games Plague Demon from their Deadzone range and a Rackham Miniatures Wolfen Warrior from their Confrontation range. So why am I reviewing these very different figures in one post? Simply because I received them as gifts from my good friend and fellow blogger, Lord Siwoc aka Johnny Frandsen. I have often commented on the kindness of zombie gaming bloggers and Johnny has always been one of the good guys with his extreme generosity, both to me and others.

I know very little about Mantic's Deadzone game other than it is a sci-fi skirmish game. This is a Plague Demon type 1A from the Plague Faction. "Bloodthirsty monsters created by an alien virus, the Plague exist for one thing only – to spread their contagion as far as possible. The virus affects its hosts in a variety of ways; its earliest victims become towering hulks, filled with a steadfast will which drives their lesser kin. In its second generation, the Plague creates smaller, faster, but no less deadly monsters. The third stage infected show considerably less extreme physical changes, but they retain the ability to use technology, laying down covering fire with looted weapons while their larger brethren advance." This hulking brute stands 60mm tall. Its skin has gone and has been replaced in part with an armoured carapace. Its skull-like head looks far too small for its body but it's a demon so I suppose, anything goes. This was a five part plastic model consisting of two arms, a head, body and legs and a 40mm diameter base. It'll cost you £9.99 from the Mantic webstore and is still available to buy.

The giant werewolf is a member of the Wolfen tribe of lupine warriors from the world of Aarklash. This was the setting for Rackham's Confrontation fantasy skirmish wargame. Sadly, Rackham ceased trading in 2010. I have searched for this particular figure online but I can't find him listed anywhere. That said, he is definitely a figure from this range. He stands 58mm tall and he came in four parts - head, right arm, body and limbs and a 40mm diameter base. I drilled, pinned and glued the arm and head to the body. His weapons are very unusual but they do look extremely lethal.
Although I know so little about the games these figures were intended for I can still find uses for them in my own games. The Wolfen will fit in with my collection of werewolves for a contemporary horror game. Ditto, the Plague Demon. So, a big thank you to Johnny for sending me this wonderful pair of monsters. I very much appreciated the gesture and I'm sorry it took me so long to get round to painting them.