Frostgrave Illusionist & Apprentice - as Ellmorian nobles or traders from the South

Many of the Frostgrave figures from Northstar work well withing the EotSR world, not necessarily as the Frostgrave role they were perhaps intended for though, but they are well designed figures, always good to paint and typical of the medieval/fantasy genre so very suited to my fantasy setting.

I picked up a couple of sets recently including these two figures, the Illusionist and Apprentice.  These figures will be useful not only in their intended role as illusionists but also as merchants or similar.. 

I painted them as per the picture on the card supplied with the figures, a little lazy of me really but it saved me having to think of a new colour scheme.  In their fine green and gold I see these two as being from fairly wealthy backgrounds, suitable for a role as Nobles  or perhaps traders from one of the southern lands.

I based them on 25mm round plastic bases, I will be using that size for all my 28mm skirmish foot figures, and added a bit of greenery and soil.

I am tempted to glue a weapon in their outstretched hand just to give them a little more purpose, sword perhaps or a dagger, but it is only a temptation and maybe not necessary, I will wait until there is a game lined up for them to decide on that one.

   Whatever decision I finally make regarding weapons and roles, this is another set of great figures from the Frostgrave range and will make a very useful addition to my Empire of the Scarlet Robe collection.  

Reaper Dark Haven Legends - Josephine Lucere, a Cleric in the northern land of Cleff Tria

 Religion plays a central part in the lives of everyone in Illmoria, the main religion being that of 'the one true god'.  This religion is dominated by the Ellmoria Orthodox Church, which, whilst its rules are very strictly observed in the South lands, in the north there are many sub-sects which intermix old pagan beliefs with the one true god religion.  To the Ellmoria Orthodox Church, and thus the Elmorian Empire, any deviation from their Church is heresy and anyone preaching such heresy does so at risk of their life and such clerics often keep moving from one village to the next, or keep their meetings and identity very secretive .

This Reaper miniature of Josephine Lucere makes an excellent cleric or preacher of one of these sub-sects.  Well sculpted and in fine medieval fantasy clothing, armed with a staff  Little John would be proud of, she wanders the Northern land of Cleff Tria, possibly with a small group of companions, possibly alone.  As yet she has not come to the attention of the Ellmoria Church but it is just a matter of time.

This proved to be a fun mini to paint, and I can see a number of possible games set around this cleric, I will add more details about her at time goes on, for now I just happy to have her painted, based and ready for the tabletop.

Frostgrave Barbarian Apothecary & Marksman - as EotSR northern bandits or raiders from the Var

 As the Empire of the Scarlet Robe (EotSR) slowly begins to be mapped out, (a map will be up on the site soon), I have realised that the known lands of Illmoria are vast, the EotSR covers all of the Northern lands and most of the South Lands, only the Icy peninsular land of the Var in the North, detached as it is from the rest of the Northern lands, and the Kingdom of Tarkesh in the South lands are free from Ellxantium rule.  It would be a mad to attempt anything but to sketch out the scantest of details for most of the countries.

The Empire of the Scarlet Robe is primarily a world to game in, the main objective is to get miniatures and terrain on the tabletop, to play games with models that represent the peoples  and places of Illmoria but without some details of those people and places I would just end up buying minis on an incoherent basis, possibly never get a collection together that would allow even a few simple small skirmishes.

I plan to start by detailing just a small area.  The northern lands are of the most interest to me, I see the south lands as fairly stable, the main threat to the EotSR in the south comes from Tarkesh and the peoples beyond the Burning Desert, the north though, the danger comes from within, the intolerance of the one true church towards any of the older religions, minor lords and dukes who squabble between themselves and the Empires inability to deal with sea raiders from the Var all create problems for Ellxantium, all create outcasts and misfits who live outside the law.

Some great little skirmish games can be played here, raids on villages or monasteries by Var raiders, ambushes on nobles and merchants by brigands or Scarlet Robes hunting down outlaws, all perfect for small scale games, so with this in mind I began looking around for suitable figures.

Lets start with Frostgrave, these are smashing 28mm minis and many of them fit in well with how I imagine some of the less savoury characters in North Illmoria would look so I picked up a couple of blister packs, the first set to get painted, Barbarian Apothecary & Marksman.

I painted them very much as shown on the packaging they came in, the colours fit well in my world.  They could easily be used as raider from the Var and as brigands who live in hills and forests of the northern lands.

The figures have been around for a while now so I wont review them as such, sufficient to say they are super easy to paint, detail being so well defined on them.

All my 28mm figures will be based as these are on 25mm round bases, these two figures just squeezed on their plastic bases, a bit of filler, sand and flock finished them off fine.

The next task, find a few more figures that could join these two in the dual role of Var raiders or Northern Brigands.

Ral Partha Female Ranger - some old figures revisited.

 They befell our village, soldiers, red cloaks,  they proclaimed us as heretic's,  they set fire to our homes, forcing us out into the ope.  A few villagers fought back  yet they were cut down with sword, some tried to flee  yet  were shot with arrow, the few whom survived were taken aroint, i wot what happens to those accused  o'  heresy, belike it would  hast been better  they died that day.  I alone survived, i saw the massacre from the woods near by, i saw the village sear, what could i doth  yet  encave. 

 Mine name is mildritha, i am now a heretic, i am now an outlaw.

Ral Partha Female Rangers 

I bought six of these figures about 6 or 7 years back, I wanted them as archers for a fantasy game I had planned back then.  I remember having to very quickly paint them up.  Since then they have been stored in a box gathering dust.  Time to give these great little minis a new lease of life.

The Original paint job. 

 

Although the minis had been painted up quickly, they still looked reasonably okay but I had painted them as a unit of archers, each figure give the same colours, very uniform, the two photos above show how they all looked, not what I now wanted. In EotSR (Empire of the Scarlet Robe), I did not see there being any units of female archers,  they would be better served as outlaws, wolfsheads and rebel fighters, so I had to get rid of the uniform look.

The infamous five 

That sounded easy enough but the dust, oh the dust, each figure was thick with 6 years of the stuff, I had to very carefully wash each figure, allow to dry and then use a paint brush to remove any remaining dust.  The figures had been based on 25mm as shown in the picture, and I noticed that I had been a bit sloppy with the glue and flock when I originally painted the figures, so I had to remove any static grass that was attached to parts of the figures where it should nor have been.

 

Most of the paintwork was good enough to leave as was, it was just a matter of changing the colours on the cloaks, leggings and tunics, I decided to keep one as it was, only changing the other four.  I don't know what varnish, if any, I used back then but the new paint just did not want to adhere to the old paint, it took several thin coats to get good coverage.  

That said and after only a hour or so's work, these Ral Partha Rangers are now transformed, and ready to go back onto the tabletop, I now have 5 female outlaws ready to defy the EotSR, and they could also fit happily into my Robin of Sherwood games as well.

The grey tunic is how all the figures had been painted

There is a sixth figure, sadly she has lost the top half of her bow, a drop of glue will put her back together but that is a job for another day.

A quick update, the 6th figure has now been put back together and given a new paint job.