Sabre Toothed Lion

The new Rangers of Shadowdeep expansion “Menagerie” calls for all sorts of beasts including lions and tigers and bears (oh my!).  The scenario actually calls for a tiger, which for some reason doesn’t sit right with my slightly grubby 12th century kind of Fighting Fantasy Allansia vision of the Kingdom of Alladore where the game is set. 

I have no idea why a sabre toothed lion makes more sense to me as an exotic animal to find in the setting,  but it does and here we are 

The figure itself is from Northstar and is a crisp one piece casting that’s a joy to paint.  I had a look at some pictures of real sabre toothed lions and they were quite spotty.  I couldn’t make that work - so I started again. 

Base coat is Vallejo Khaki with a drybrush of GW Screaming Skull.  Any warm off white will do. 

Then I added a couple of coats of old GW Flesh wash to bring out the colour. I concentrated it on the rougher parts of the fur. 

That all done I used GW Wyldwood contrast paint to colour the muzzle, add shadows under the tummy and to defund the musculature a bit.  I edged the “mane” and used the paint thinned with medium to do a gradually darkening colour going towards the end of the tail. The face and muzzle got some highlights with Screaming skull again.  

I through a mix of red and wyldwood contrast paint into the mouth. Then picked the teeth out with screaming skull. Agrax Earthshade at the base of the teeth and then a highlight with whatever white I had to hand. Much the same story with the claws.

All in all, a nice model given a quick paint job.  Pleasant to do and none too demanding. 

Boars & Bears!

This bear is partial to bacon sandwiches

The last few weeks have been packed.  Work has been demanding and family life in lockdown is a bit of a juggling process. Add that I'm doing a course at night and the whole thing is getting a little bit overheated.  My gaming for the past little while has been devoted to producing articles for Miniature Wargames and while that is fun, it's nice to do something that is just for my own amusement. 

Rangers of Shadowdeep has been my casual game of choice for a while now.  The latest expansion for the game "Menagerie" involves the players taking on a sinister caravan of evil animal tamers. 

A grumpy bear in pursuit of a boar

The expansion came with a list of animal figures that were required and I wombled over to Northstar Figures to ordered a few.  These bears and the boar are from their Wild West range, but they work perfectly for Rangers of Shadowdeep.  They are lovely clean castings and the customer service from Nick at Northstar is top notch as always. 

I painted these over a couple of evenings while doing other things and I'm quite happy with them. 

The running bear is a big chunk of pewter that has a pleasing heft in the hand. 

Northstar Bear rearing

These required the minimum of prep and were painted using a mixture of Citadel and Vallejo colours.  I undercoated the bears in white, then gave the figure an all over coat of Citadel Contrast Wyldwood (a dark brown).  They then got a drybrush of Citadel Tallarn Flesh all over concentrating on the top down. I then hit the upper parts with a light drybrush of Vallejo British Uniform Highlight (any cream or off white would do). 

The whole thing then got an all over wash of brown wash.  I used Citadel Flesh wash because it was what I had to hand and my Agrax Earth shade was in the other room and I am the laziest man that ever stood in shoe leather.  I let the wash dry over night, then hit the raised portions again with the Vallejo British Uniform Highlight. Added some Vallejo dark wash to the eyes to darken them up a bit and a dab of Citadel Contrast fleshtearers red to the mouth to lighten it a bit. 

Et voila. 

Quite happy with the detail on the face

I'm quite happy with how this bears face turned out.  I wanted to keep the look simple and not too cartoony and I think I succeeded. 

"Rawr!"

A Boar

The boar was a puzzlement.  I had originally intended to go with something quite close to European boar, but they were quite monotone and also this chap had a much pronounced mohawk than his real world contemporaries. 

Ultimately I decided I'd try something a bit starker than with the bears. Again working from a white undercoat I gave all his fur a lash with some Citadel Contrast Goregrunta Fur.  This did the job like a trooper.  I did his snout and other fleshy bits with Citadel Bugman's Glow. His trotters got a quick dab of Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde and threw some Citadel Flesh Wash over his snout. I then left him to dry overnight. 

He then got a quick drybrush of  Vallejo British Uniform Highlight on the top parts, just to add a little tonality and bring out the mohawk.  There's probably a name for that part of the boar now that I think of it. 

Making a quick getaway

I highlighted the face and snout with Citadel Tanned Flesh and gave his mouth a little Citadel Contrast Fleshtearers Red. I then highlighted the trotters, tusk and teeeth with Vallejo British Uniform Highlight  and declared victory. 

Prussians

In one of my madder moments,  I decided that in my copious amounts of free time I would contribute to a noble project that is taking place under the umbrella of Waterloo Uncovered.  This is the building of a massive Waterloo diorama in 1/72.  My contribution is a measy fifty Prussian Landwehr, but it's nice to be a part of something like this.  So while I was waiting for my bears to dry, I kept knocking off a few Prussian fleshtones and overcoats. 

My contribution is a very small one and there will be tens of thousands of figures used in the diorama. If you want to get a proper sense of the scale of this project, uou can see some pictures here at General Picton's blog. 

Better dead then red

With lockdown and all the challenges that has brought, the only game I’m managing to play regularly at the moment is Rangers of Shadowdeep.  If you’re not familiar with it - it is a co-operative fantasy wargame/role playing game. 

The specifics aren’t important, but the Kingdom is threatened by the Shadowdeep - a sort of land plague that takes over neighbouring kingdoms. All sorts of gribblies come out from the Shadowdeep, but amongst them are men corrupted by its evil who serve it. Sort of like cultists, but not exactly,  there isn’t much in the way of explanation. 

This chap is their leader.  He is one of the official Rangers miniatures from Northstar and he is a lovely sculpt.  Very clean casting which painted up quickly. 

I was pleased with how he turned out.  I primed him, hit him with some red contrast paint from GW and added some highlights.  I added green ink as a wash to the brass face mask to suggest verdigris, but I think the effect was too subtle. 

In retrospect, I have have gone a little overboard with the edge highlighting on this one. 

One of the strengths of the Northstar plastics is that there is a fair range of them and thus far I've found them quite interchangeable.  This figure is a sort of chief henchman sort of character, so I took the arms from the Northstar Frostgrave Soldiers set with the big montante style blade. 

They fit fine and he doesn't look out of place with his fellows. 

These are Temple Guardians.  Metal figures from Northstar's official Rangers of Shadowdeep range.  They painted up relatively quickly and I think they look suitably menacing. 

I might have gone a little overboard with the edge highlighting again, but I also tried to give their bronze face masks a sort of verdigris look by washing them in green ink.  I'm not sure I was bold enough and the effect seems a bit lost. 

Notwithstanding my reservations about my paint job, they do the job and most importantly they are finished!  I'll be using these for Temple of Madness, one of the later Rangers of Shadowdeep scenarios.  

Sometimes you just need a chap in a red hood with a club.  And these are very big and very stompy clubs.  The hats reminded me of Trotsky's pointed hatted armoured train guards - who probably have the coolest looking uniform of any military force of the last 100 years.  Sort of like a cross between Communist chic and the Wizard of Oz.    

Contrast paints did a lot of heavy lifting and they will work well as faceless mooks. 

I did four of them, which is about as many as I'll expect I'll need - given that the players will be attacking them from the get go.  In earlier times, I would have painted the maximum possible number required, but these days I try to be a bit more economical with my painting time. 

Proof, if proof were needed, that the crossbow is a bad guys weapon. 

The scenario actually calls for four Temple Guardians archers, but by long standing convention the bad guys always use crossbows in my games.  These are again from the Cultist box.  I think the crossbow arms might be from something else - but they fit like a glove regardless. 

If you look at the chap on the right, you'll see that one of the crossbowmen has a cloth cover covering part of his bow.  Unfortunately due to a mess up while transporting the figures, I managed to break part of his bow and I then, doubly foolishly, lost the piece, so I couldn't reglue it. 

I added a cloth cover with greenstuff as the best way to cover the lack and while it's not the best job, it serves it's purpose. 

These guys will be doing their worst in the Temple of Madness before too long. I hope.