Retainer Herald

Here's a herald and/or musician to join the retinue. I built this figure a long while back as a referee for my Shieldball game but I never painted him up. I've painted him with referee stripes as a nod to this.

Retainers (5/5): Family Photo

Here we have the whole retinue, all twenty-one of them. They're just barely not the largest unified force I've ever painted up (looking at you, brown-and-maroon troops and wizard and cyborg), but they're probably the most detailed. They're even all based properly! For posterity, here's the paint scheme:

• Primer
• Craftsmart "Black" (brush on)
  
• Eyes
• Ceramcoat "White" Semi-Opaque
• Skin
• Craftsmart "Brown"
• Craftsmart "Golden Brown" (mix with brown for middle tones)
  
• Clothes and Equipment
  
• Vallejo Game Extra Opaque "Heavy Charcoal" (this is a very dark blue)
  
• Vallejo Game Extra Opaque "Heavy Bluegrey" (this is a cool grey)
• Vallejo Game Extra Opaque "Heavy Red"
• Vallejo Game Extra Opaque "Heavy Sienna" (this is the deep brown)
• Vallejo Model Color 70.865 "Oily Steel"
• Wash
• Citadel Shade "Nuln Oil" (this stuff is so basic but so amazing)
  
• Base
• Citadel Colour Technical "Stirland Battlemire" (expensive but pre-mixed and easy to use)
• Vallejo Game Color "Beasty Brown" [sic] (drybrushed over the battlemire)
• Army Painter "Wasteland Tufts" (not a paint, these are the tufts glued to the bases)

This has been a fun project. I have some more I want to add to it, like militia or levies. Also, I should probably make the noble who retains these people at some point, just for completeness' sake.

Retainers (4/5): Magic Users

Here's a fun group that's not just more Warlord and Perry bits! (But there are some of those.) Here we have a dwarf cleric, a wizard, her apprentice, and her two skeleton bodyguards.

The dwarf was the first of this lot that I painted up. He's a Reaper Miniatures "Thain Grimthorn, Dwarf Cleric." He's in the old, softer Bones material, but he painted up well. The only reason I painted him at all was for the original Warcry warband, as my half-netdecked list called for a Dwarven Runelord. So, presumably, he's part of the retinue now because he works for the probably-human noble. I'm sure there's an interesting backstory to explore there. His colors would also technically work with my Stargrave crew, and he even has the fur collar, so that's a thing.

The wizard and her apprentice are also Reaper Miniatures. They're both from the Bones V Kickstarter as part of the "Townsfolk" option. It's actually the only part of Bones V that I ordered, since the core set wasn't what I was looking for (and I already have a massive pile of unpainted plastic shame). I didn't want anything super crazy for the wizard, so the giant cloak and simple staff really appealed to me. This is the kind of wizard that could go incognito while traveling. Under the robe, the red of her dress is much brighter than the red for the rest of the retinue; she's powerful, probably pretty rich, and able to get some better material for her clothes.

The apprentice is a similar color scheme (well, the whole retinue has a similar color scheme), putting the red forward a lot more than most of the retainers. His staff looks like a slightly smaller version of the wizard's, so they pair together really well. I didn't plan on making an apprentice at all, but I figured they'd look good together and they could always be used as a Frostgrave wizard and apprentice if I so desired. After all, this retinue has most of a warband already completed.

While the rest of the miniatures have Reaper Base Boss bases, the three Reaper Miniatures above are all based on 1" metal fender washers. This lowers their overall height so that they don't tower over the more realistically-scaled 28mm models.

Finally, two skeletons. I've maintained that in D&D, the "Animate Dead" spell should be legal in some places. It appears to be in this noble's lands (though taxed and regulated, of course). These two bony boys are landsknecht bodies with arms and skulls from the Frostgrave Cultist sprue. Since there was only one skeleton arm with that sword, I reversed the hand on one of them so he could drag the sword and vary the looks of these guys. Both skeletons also have Perry bucklers on the ground, so I guess they can have WYSIWYG shields if rules need them to.

I assume these two skeletons are the wizard's bodyguards. Maybe they should wait in her carriage...