The Embers of Alexandria: Part Four

The Embers are once again burning brighter, as thirteen new recruits join their ranks.

Six of these were originally meant for a Frostgrave warband, painted up in purple. I never finished painting them, which is just as well, since now they're in the red and grey livery of the Embers. There are five in this batch that could be used in Frostgrave (the ones with archaic weapons), but I did add a shotgun to the hand-axe wielder, so he'll probably have to stay in modern times.

Four more were newly built and painted alongside the six. I put together two more light machine-gunners to provide heavy fire, since I feel like they would be the most common support weapon. There's one more pistoleer, because I wanted to see if a shaved-down SMG would look like a pistol. Finally, there's another Ash with an assault rifle, so that I can do three squads of three; each squad could also include an LMG Coal and a shotgun Ash. Nice little evil fireteams.

And then I built three more, because I was kind of on a roll. Another Ash with an assault rifle, another Coal with an RPG, and another Coal with a sniper rifle. The sniper got the "hero face" treatment. I haven't done an actual miniature face since February; everything's been robots, masks, skeletons, or aliens. So, since I liked the pose and wanted to do a nice face, I gave him good eyes, good skin blend, some redness on the nose, and the overall glow up treatment.

With these thirteen added, here's where the Embers of Alexandria stand in total:

• Ashes x25 (Assault Rifle x10, Pistol x7, Shotgun/Axe x4, Sword x2, Crossbow x2)
  
• Coals x11 (LMG x3, RPG x2, Sniper Rifle x2, Flamethrower, Hacker, Stalker, Executioner)
  
• Sparks x2
• Summoner x1
  
• Aliens x2 (Hybrid, Maw-nstrosity)

Total: 41

That's an insane number of cultists. The Embers' primary opponent, the 6Gun mercenaries, only have fifteen (human) soldiers; maybe it's time to start thinking about reinforcements. You know, to keep the cultist threat in check.

Supervillain: The Augur

Another supervillain (slash Frostgrave wizard). The Augur bears many mystical fortune-telling artifacts, like a deck of cards, a crystal ball, a planchette, and more! He uses his powers of foresight for evil, planning crimes for the most auspicious times.

The figure is a Reaper Bones miniature from the Bones IV Kickstarter. It was originally a Pathfinder Iconic character, but now the website has it renamed as "Erasmus, Human Bard." Sure, Reaper, he's just a bard; collecting all those divination tools is just a hobby.

We have a green coat with a yellow scarf, so mainly a secondary color with a splash of primary. Villainous. Fear the Augur!

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...

Spara Cagleoni

Here we have Spara Cagleoni, battle wizard, fire specialist, and planeswalker.

This was a fun little build that turned out pretty well. You can see an early stage of design to the right, held together by sticky tack.

• The majority of the figure is from Warlord Games Landsknecht sprues. The main body is from the missile troops sprue, while the metal right arm and matching plastic left arm are from the Landsknechts with Zweihanders box. The weapon was originally a halberd, but I cut off the main blade and painted it up as a staff/spear. The spell component pouch on her hip is also from one of the Landsknecht sprues.
  

• The head is from the Warlord Games Project Z Female Survivors sprue. 
  

• The heater shield on her back is from the Frostgrave Soldiers box. She seemed a bit bland with nothing on her back, and none of the backpacks felt right. I guess she picked up shield proficiency somewhere along the line.
  

The staff/spear came out as the focal point of the build. Being a battle wizard, a simple staff of power doesn't quite cut it. Spara's staff has a foot-long blade at the end that burns white hot. She might run out of spells (eventually), but she'll never run out of spear. In Dungeons and Dragons terms, given she's a high level wizard, I'd probably say it's a custom job that counts as a Staff of Power with +3s instead of +2s that also deals an extra 2d6 fire damage per hit. It probably also gives a damage bonus to fire spells. Let's call it "The Firebrand Staff," a legendary spear.

In terms of the paint scheme, it's pretty straightforward. Grey clothes with red accents. The tip of the spear is the only really interesting bit, paint wise. It's a simple blend coming up from red, through orange and yellow, to the white tip. I think the blend works pretty well. The metal on the staff is bronze metallic paint.

The shield bears the heraldry of a group that Spara works with, the Chargarde Veterans. My freehand skills aren't great, but the shield gets the point across.

In addition to being a great choice for an RPG character, she could clearly be a wizard in Frostgrave.

Goblin Horde

Goblins! Another monster that helps round out the bottom tier of adventurer fodder. The Reaper Miniatures Bones 4 Kickstarter included 27 goblins, of which I picked out 19 to paint. Aside from their obvious use in D&D, there are also enough of them to use as a (somewhat limited) Frostgrave warband. Also, since they're largely matched sets, they could be used for four teams for some one-off game. Let's look at what we've got here.

These are the leaders of the goblin horde. A shaman of some sort and a feisty-looking fellow waving his sword in the air. Yellow isn't the easiest color to paint, but I layered up from orange to bright yellow and they turned out rather striking. I also like the spider on the shaman's back; I assume it's his beloved pet. There are a lot of details on these guys (and on all the goblins) that make them fun to paint and pretty to look at.

Now, there are four nearly identical groups of models, each painted a different color. I say nearly identical because the Red group is the only one with the bulky chap in the center. Quite the bruiser. He was the final goblin I painted, so I chose to put him with what I considered the best team. I imagine the Red clan is the most brutal and powerful clan, with their intimidating red facepaint and all.

I envision the Brown clan as trackers and sneaky wilderness fellows. But here we see the four goblins in each type. A goblin with mace and shield, one with a bow, one with sword and board, and one with a two-handed axe. A nice, complimentary group of goblin types.

The Blue clan is probably the smart guys. The swordsgoblin's sword is bent, but I didn't notice until after they were primed, so I didn't fix it. Perhaps it fits his unique fighting style.

Finally, the Orange clan. These flashy fellows have an absolutely ostentatious orange color scheme. The picture doesn't do justice to how bright it is. These are my least favorite ones, but they still look OK on the table.

I mentioned the goblins could be a limited Frostgrave warband. Well, Wizard and Apprentice are the yellows, of course, and then possibly the big red bruiser as a barbarian, two archers, and five shield guys as thugs (just ignore the shields). It would be a decent group if I ever find myself in need of another warband on short notice.

Frostgrave Wizard and Apprentice

As I noted in the last post, the brown and maroon color scheme soldiers are diverse enough to make a pretty solid Frostgrave warband. So recently I painted up these two fellows from Reaper Miniatures. Both came as part of the Reaper Miniatures Bones 4 Kickstarter.

The figure on the left doesn't have a name I could find, but it was included in the Kickstarter core set as #47, one of the "Greybeards." Edit: As of September 2020 he's been released as "Zenfis Zadar, Wizard" on Reaper's website. I painted up his shoulder dragon with a nice green that compliments the red of his cloak. As a fairly generic wizard, he could be a part of pretty much any school of magic in Frostgrave, but the dragon makes me think Elementalist (or maybe a Summoner?).

The apprentice, also from the Bones 4 pack, is listed as #50, and is a part of the "Townsfolk I." His staff was originally a hoe, but I sliced off that part and painted it like wood, so it just looks like his staff has a little ring near the bottom. His belt was painted green to tie into the wizard's dragon color and further connect the pair.

With the matching hoods and colors, these guys go well together. On the table, they stand out among the other members of their warband, too, since the heroic scale of Reaper miniatures is a head taller (at least) compared to Perry figures.

Next time, another maroon and brown figure (and the last one for a while, I promise).