Dark Sun Character: Human Female Gladiator

The Gladiator Wars range from Old Glory does have some excellent figures suitable for Dark Sun. I've done some minor conversions on this female gladiator to maker more suitable for the DS RPG sessions I'll be running.





I added the shoes and the loin cloth. The rest seemed perfect for DS. I'll need a few more such figures to fill out the encounters I am planning!

--Scott

Skaven Assassin!

Looking through the Skaven army book, I found a listing among the characters for an Assassin. This is an easy way to add 120 pts. to a Skaven army by only painting one model. And he is fairly effective if used well!

I decided to convert my own plastic Assassin from available bits. Here he is!







I decided to give him a magic blade, hence the blue effects.

At this point, he'll usually be hiding in my Clanrat horde.

I think the next step with the Skaven will be to await the release of the Island of Blood boxed set and start in on the 40 Clan Rats you get with it. I need a second large infantry unit.

--Scott

Mage Knight Minis Suitable for Dark Sun?

I thought I would post a short list of some Mage Knight minis that folks could acquire cheaply, and that could be used for Dark Sun games with little or no conversion. I have tried to include the set number and name in parenthesis.

Lyra Fairhame (092 Pyramid Set)




Amazon Priestess (040 Uprising Set)




Nexus Psychic Scrounger (Mage Knight 2.0 Set)




Cult Enforcer (043 Sorcery Set)




Galeshi Stalker (045 Omens)




Elven Acolyte (009 Minions)



There are many more than this available, but this just gives you an idea of what a great wealth of material is out there. All of the above figures can be had for $1.00 a piece on eBay, and most sellers have multiple copies.

With so many great figures out there, I'll be sure to re-visit this in the future!

--Scott

Dark Sun: A Dwarf Conversion

Dwarves in Dark Sun are tricky. They don't have beards and they're largely hairless.

This presents some challenges for someone wanting to create convincing minis for a DS RPG session. I found one excellent candidate so far, however. Wargames Foundry makes one of the best-loved lines of Gladiators around. In it are several dwarf gladiators perfectly suited to Dark Sun.

With a few bits added, here's my first DS Dwarf!





I worried his blade a bit and made it look more like a natural substance, some sort of green crystal in this case. I need to clear coat the mini, then varnish the blade.





The above spiked shield bit is from the Tyranid Warriors plastic sprue. The pouch is from the Bretonian Men at Arms sprue.

And here's a comp shot for scale reference:



More DS conversions and finds to come as I work on them!

--Scott

Dark Sun Character: Thri-Kreen Conversion

My buddy Bill ordered a few packs of the Myrm from the 100 Kingdoms line (he's making a Thri-Kreen for my game). He was kind enough to pass one along to me.

These are great figures and will make excellent Thri-Kreen, even unmodified. But I was not that keen on their large, monstrous heads, so I actually got out the green stuff and made one of my own. Is it a bit crude? Yes, but by my standards I am pretty happy! Judge for yourself!








And a couple of comp shots against the Valiant Miniatures Thri-Kreen:






The thorax is still a bit of an issue, but for an RPG, it works. The question is, can I actually sculpt an equally good, or better, head for the second one? With my meager talents, it's a crap-shoot!

--Scott

Painted SuperFigs Surprise!

Every now and then a SuperFigs customer will send me some pics of his painted stuff. This past week Stephen Scothern sent me a link to some of his first painted SuperFigs, and I had to show them off here. Very nice work!



Here's an awesome close-up of that impressive-looking Megladon paint job:



I love Stephen's basing scheme and his use of paper terrain. We're seeing more and more paper terrain show up in SuperSystem battle reports, and the stuff looks just amazing! Paper modeling is like a hobby unto itself, and I highly recommend the stuff made by Mel Ebbles.

--Scott

Tak Fleshshaper--Master Moulder!

I'm always plugging away on my Skaven army, so I thought I would show off a nifty conversion I did with the help of my good buddy, Sky.

It's Tak Fleshshaper, my Master Moulder! He'll spend much of his time using his vaunted LD 6 to keep my Rat Ogres in line.









Never at a loss for an encouraging word (or two!), Tak is a gifted conservationist and masterful motivator of vermin!

--Scott

Dark Sun Character: Thri-Kreen Ranger

Continuing in my search for viable Dark Sun models to use for my D&D game, I realized I'd ned some Thri-Kreen models. I found a perfect mini from the old Magnificent Egos fantasy line (now owned by Valiant Miniatures). I purchased their excellent "Tru-Keen" figure from Noble Knight Games, an online vendor I recommend with confidence.

Anyway, between other painting duties, I banged him out this weekend!







I did the blades in crystal, as metal is rare on Athas, the world of Dark Sun.

And some comp shots to give some scale reference:





Honorable mention goes to Black Orc Games' Hundred Kingdoms Myrm models. We'll be adding a few packs of these to our collection for more variety.

Later this week, I may have a good lead on some Cannibal Halflings, and a Skaven surprise!

--Scott

D&D Dark Sun: Phase 1

I am running a D&D 4E Dark Sun character generation and short adventure session this Saturday night.

In getting ready for it, I realized I needed some minis to run the little adventure at the back of the DS book. Silt Runners are small-sized lizardfolk who maraud about the deserts of Athas taking things that don't belong to them. Pawing through my collection of metal and plastic minis, I realized that I had just the thing to represent them.

The Greenspawn Sneak from the D&D pre-painted collectible minis sets:



Not bad for pre-painted plastic, huh? Since he is a common, I have a good handful of them.

Now I needed to fix that paint job for a desert setting. I busted out the Foundation Paints and the Devlan Mud and had at it!











I used Khemri Brown on the skin tone, Deneb Stone for the weapons, and for the flesh tone on the leader. It was washed with a 70/30 mix of Devlan Mud and Elmer's Glue.

Not much in the way of conversions. I did add spears to 3 of them, and did some strategic re-painting on their weapons to make them bone instead of metal. Instant Silt Runner warband!

Some folks have contacted me with ideas and links to possible DS mini sources (thanks, Charles!), but I am always up for more, so please let me know!

--Scott

Battletech: Rampage!

My "new-era" BattleTech unit gets a new member today with the addition of the 85 ton Rampage!

I painted this big, nasty 'Mech in the same style as the Crimson Langur and the Longinus Battle Armor. Check it out:









And a nice comp shot that takes in all three of the new unit:



I'll slowly add more to this as I go along, but I may take a break from Battletech the rest of this week to tackle a more pressing project: Dark Sun! The itch to DM has again struck me with the release of Wizards' re-vamp of the Dark Sun campaign world, this time for D&D 4th ed.

The only problem? Lack of appropriate miniatures. I'll need help in the form of suggestions as to where I can find the following: cannibalistic halflings, Thri-Kreen (mantis men), fantasy models without a lot of metal armor and weapons. And that's just for starters.

Anyway, I may run a character generation session Saturday, but any help in the mean time is much appreciated.

Thanks!

--Scott

Battletech: Crimson Langur and Power Armor

When I first started playing BattleTech back in the later 1980's, there was no power armor available. That all changed when the Clans arrived, and since then, all sorts of PA, or Battle Armor, exists in the InnerSphere.

Below I took a pic of the Crimson Langur with Longinus Battle Armor. This was from the defunct MechWarrior DarkAge plastic range. I tried to match the two paint schemes, and I am quite happy with the results.




I'll be doing a whole unit of Longinus suits as time goes on.

--Scott

Old PC Art III

The latest installment in an irregular feature here on the blog, this time we have the character sheet from one of my latter-day MERP games. Take a look and then I will explain.





Ok, by this time, probably 1986, we had graduated from using straight MERP, to the more advanced Rolemaster, MERP's parent game. Unlike most other RPG groups, we began our gaming careers with the ICE family of games. I did not really seriously play AD&D until college. Anyway, Odo Took, the rather burly hobbit pictured above was one of the many characters I made for myself, then commissioned my friend Matt to draw for me. I likely never got a chance to run Odo in a game, because I was the GM more often than not.

The character sheet is pretty clean, so I suspect that Odo was never truly unleashed upon the unsuspecting populace of Middle Earth. Well, he's now gained a measure of immortality, and perhaps now he can move on to his final rest at the Gray Havens.

--Scott

BattleTech: A Bit of Layering

Most of the 'Mechs I've shown to this point have been inked in some way. The two for today's post were painted using a 3-step blending style made popular by Foundry and Reaper's lines of 3-step paints.

It takes longer, but the results can be more pleasing. It's a different look. I am still debating whether or not to weather these, dirtying them up and making them look a little more care-worn.

First, we have a 50 ton Crimson Langur, a Clan Omni-Mech I intend to use for a high-tech, 3085 era Merc unit.









Next we have a 70 ton Shootist, a very blocky, but well armed 'Mech:







And some comp shots between the two. I like how the Langur is noticeably smaller than the heavier Shootist:





Of the two schemes, I prefer the one on the Langur, so I think I might base an entire unit on that. However, the Foundry Slate gray I used on both does tie them together, and they could be used in different lances of the same company.

--Scott