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Here is our current adventuring party for Iron Kingdoms. We started a new campaign shortly after Reapercon, so I was able to make use of several of the convention minis. This party is quite an odd mix of races. Lately, I've been quite fond of having a semi-cohesive color pallet for our adventuring parties. The last one I did was all in cold blues, so with this one I went for a very warm pallet. Lil is an investigator who 'secretly' is a Thamar Advocate. She's just the stock mini of the vampire hunter from Reapercon (by Bob Ridolfi) This Pygmie Troll is very fond of hitting things and also alcohol. He was made by resculpting the head and hands from the Jason Weibe's Dwarf Brewmaster (07015) Our resident Bone Grinder was made from Bobby Jackson's River Widow (03913). I only made superficial changes to her (adding a few extra bone-grindy items to her belt). ] For our Trollkin Axe Flinger, it turns out that we already had the perfect mini. This is the version from the Undercity Board Game. This Outcast Skorne Bushwacker/Warlock was made by simply head swapping a Malifaux rifleman. This Lazy Cyclopes (under the command of the Warlock) was a sculpt that I made quite a few years ago. I showed it off to several sculptors at Gencon, and they all gave me some pointers on things that I could improve on. Still, I was fond enough of him that I decided to paint him up.

Going for a Darkspawn elite from an Iron Kingdoms model from Privateer Press.

So, in my Iron Kingdoms RPG campaign, I needed a Soul Stalker -- a wormy, tentacled extra-dimensional monster that intrudes into the mortal world for the sole purpose of chasing down someone who reneges upon a deal with the otherworldly creatures known as the Infernals. Artwork from the newer Monsternomicon made it look more centipede-like, but old Iron Kingdoms d20 Monsternomicon illustrations of lesser infernals sets a trend wherein they tend to look almost embryotic, more soft-edged and squishy. Therefore: I had this fellow from the latest Bones 3 Kickstarter (Graveyard Expansion) -- 77541 Carrion Worm. I also had a few tentacles from 02664 Phase Cat, because once upon a time I needed some wild cats of the leopard variety, but couldn't actually find some ... so the next best thing was to pick up some Reaper Phase Cats, leave off the tentacles, and fill the gaps on their backs with some putty. I kept those tentacles around because you JUST NEVER KNOW when you'll need those for something, eh? And basically I just drilled a couple of holes (a little larger than I usually do for my pinning holes for wire) so I could insert the ends of the pewter tentacle pieces. Voila! Extra-dimensional horror! The scenery, by the way, is a combination of some Secret Weapon Tablescapes "Forgotten City" tiles (which I finally got to try out for the first time this weekend), and some kludged-together bits of scenery made from pink foam board.

Inspired in part by the Great Frogmeister's silly photos of Kaladrax getting into bags of snacks, doing battle against action figures, and tearing up rolls of toilet paper, I thought I'd finally get around to tackling my own Kaladrax from the Bones Kickstarter. Here is a very rough, un-glued assembly of the parts I have. All I've done so far is to cover all the pieces with Americana "Parchment" acrylic (a sort of yellowish-beige-white), then to apply a wash with a big jug of brown paint that has gone "soupy." (This happens to a lot of my acrylic paints: it turns watery, and my attempts to stir it up just result in a bubbly mess. It's not like there's a bunch of thicker sedative at the bottom; I have no idea how that transformation happens, but it's the peril of having too many cheap acrylic paints, I guess, and letting them sit around for too long. Fortunately, with the darker paints, they still work just fine as messy washes for "grunging up" terrain and such. Or, in this case, giant skeletal dragons.) There's a little bit of lime green in there, in the area between the ribs, but that was an early mess when I was still trying to sort out my "battle plan." That whole area will have to be repainted, especially after I applied the brown wash to muddle things up. Now, in a perfect world, I'd be able to pose the dragon a little more like this: Why? Because I'm running an Iron Kingdoms campaign on the high seas, and I thought I might find use for this model -- at last! -- as a great Cryx monstrosity. In Iron Kingdoms, the Cryx are one of the overt "bad guy" factions, consisting of a bunch of undead-steampunk lich lords lurking on the Scharde Islands just off the coast, with lots of pirate minions who raid the mainland for "fresh recruits." Their forces are characterized by lots of undead thingies with bolted-on armor and parts randomly replaced with mechanisms, plus mysterious "engines" that involve a lot of glowing green undead energy. So, painting schemes tend toward bone white, gunmetal/gray, burnished bronze, and glowing green. I would like to pose Kaladrax in a more "rearing-up" position, so as to maybe fit within a base with a somewhat smaller footprint ... but then, the more it is rearing up and vertical, the greater the danger that it's going to wibble-wobble all the time and the wings will simply fall off or worse. (If I can manage, I plan to NOT glue in the wings, because I'd like to be able to remove them for easier transportation and storage. If they make a habit of popping off on a regular basis, however, I might have little choice other than to wire them in, and just plan on keeping this critter in a bigger foam-lined box.) In the picture above, none of the pieces are glued in. Just getting Kaladrax into position was very troublesome, as parts kept falling off. The tail is particularly frustrating, with its ridiculous length, combined with its tendency to pop apart easily. My first order of business will be to find a suitable base that I can start bolting things down to. If I keep Kaladrax on its original decorative base, at the very least I'll need a base with a diameter of 8" just to accommodate the decorative base at its widest point. The dragon extends for quite some distance beyond that, however, so if I'm going to use this for miniatures gaming, I think 12" is a more likely minimum. If Kaladrax is posed as normal, and if the tail is to be included, I might end up with a base as wide as 16" in diameter. I hope that perhaps with a bit of pinning and some forced bending, I can get the tail to curl in more tightly. Another consideration I've had is that I might shorten the tail. Or, if I go with a "Kaladrax emerges from the sea" setup, I might do without the tail entirely. I also considered removing the rear legs (rather easy to do, with a bit of putty gap-filling, since the hip bones are separate parts), but I'm reluctant to short-change Kaladrax too much. ;) I've got a number of coffee can lids and such, but nothing approaching the right size. I do have a dead fan tower that I could borrow the base from, but I think that would over-shoot the intended diameter. (I suppose I should measure it. If it's within the ballpark, it would have the added benefit of having some WEIGHT to it, if I try for a more "dynamic" pose with Kaladrax rearing up.) My Reaper Kraken (77291) is missing the critical top ridged part of its body, so I've been borrowing its tentacles for "tentacles rising from the murk" pieces for RPG encounters. I might borrow its decorative "shipwreck" base as well, to add to Kaladrax's own decorative base, to give the scene a more nautical appearance. Once I settle on a way to bolt down Kaladrax without the thing wobbling all over the place (whether I attempt a more "dynamic" pose or just have it lounging on a rocky precipice), then there will be the matter of cleaning up the ribcage area and touching up my bone-and-wash look, then bolting on various Cryxian "evil-steampunk" elements to turn this into a giant magical-steampunk monstrosity -- the sort of encounter one does not go up against without an army or two. Here and my Colossal-class Cryx "Kraken" (different model -- basically a big steampunk robot with a couple of robo-tentacles) was going to be the big-shot opponent originally ... until I discovered in my first Iron Kingdoms RPG campaign that even Colossal/Gargantuan stats from the miniatures war game aren't all that impressive when faced by a properly combat-focused PC party. But THIS guy ... he might be worth a little more respect. "Kaladrax LAUGHS at your puny so-called 'Colossal' on its mere 120mm base!"

For this particular project, I start in the middle. That is, I already painted up four of #2763, "Shrend, Alligator Man" (by Jason Wiebe) for an over-the-top "Pirates of the Spanish Main" RPG campaign a few years back. One thing I love about this miniature is that the arms and head allow for some slight variation in posing, so even if I have four of them, they don't look like complete clones of each other. Now, a friend of mine is starting an Iron Kingdoms "Unleashed" campaign (after my own Iron Kingdoms campaign wraps up, so we've still got a couple months or so), so our thoughts have turned to writing up characters for this campaign. As it turns out, the "gatorman" race has been pretty popular -- I was even considering one myself, but we've got TWO players in the group (aside from myself) who have settled upon playing a Gatorman. I happen to have a few Iron Kingdoms gators on hand, and the Unleashed box set has "Longchops" -- a big happy gatorman with a rifle. As it turns out, "Shrend" is comparable in size to "Longchops," so it looks like these figures should work nicely! My first step has been to (with some regrets) remove the gatorman minis from the 40x40mm square bases they were on, and place them on 40mm round lipped bases for Iron Kingdoms instead. The integral base on each of the "Shrend" minis actually fits reasonably well into the 40mm lipped base central gap, and I used some putty on each one to pad out the remainder, using a hobby knife to try to add a bit of texture (tangled roots/vines, the occasional boulder) for interest. One of the PCs is going to play a gatorman chef who happens to be a bokor and a bone-grinder in game. A "bokor" is basically a practitioner of magical voodoo who can speak to spirits of the dead, and even raise "swamp shambler" undead servants -- as necromancy is apparently a lot more widely-accepted in the barbaric lands of "Unleashed" than in the big cities of "Iron Kingdoms." A "bone grinder" is a sort of grisly alchemist who takes trophies from slain enemies/creatures and turns them into talismans, potions, and such. In Iron Kingdoms, you pick two professions to combine and largely define your character's starting point. The player is inclined to go for a bit of humor here, so the idea is that I use some putty to give the gator a chef's hat, and he'll have a leather apron. It was suggested that the apron say "Kiss the Croc" on it, but I don't know if the GM will tolerate such anachronisms. The most challenging part will be a weapon swap -- going from the axe and sword currently held, to a two-handed battle hammer that happens to have "tenderizer" spikes/ridges on the face. I'm pretty sure I have a hammer in my "bitz box," but I'll have to hope that it's sufficiently over-sized that it'll look all right in the hands of a gatorman who occupies a 40mm base. Then there's the matter of either bending or replacing the arms for a two-handed stance. Again, scale is a factor here, since this figure is larger than most of my fantasy warrior figures I have "bitz" accumulated for. Instant Mold isn't likely to help me out. Worst-case scenario, I could make wire armatures and use the green stuff, using the existing arms as a guideline for proportions. The other PC is going to be a chieftain/warrior type, and the only specs I have so far for his costume is that he'll have a "big headdress." Toward that end, I've started with an Ogre Kingdoms skull (gator skull?) that was used as a battle standard piece, and affixed that (with a little putty) to the top of the gatorman's head. (This figure is partly obscured in the background in the Longchops comparison picture.) I'll probably dig into my Chaos Marines bitz for some other "barbaric" touches for his headdress and costume. As accessories, where possible to add, I also have a few bitz left over from a Tau Kroot set -- racks of ribs, chunks of meat -- that might be attached to belts, etc., as snacks. (Snacks are VERY important to a gatorman PC -- and to the continued well-being of anyone around him.) My generic base texturing really doesn't scream "swamp!" much, so I'm thinking of trying to make some cattails with pieces of wire and bits of putty. I guess we'll see how that turns out. Other general work will include using some putty or "zap-a-gap" to try to fill in the gaps around the neck joint (as right now it looks almost turtle-like, as if the head is poking out through a hole in an outer shell), and touching up various dings and dents in the original paint jobs, as I've got some metal showing through. Finally, I've found that marking off facing arcs on bases in IKRPG is pretty critical for heading off arguments during battle. (It's one reason why I've found that just using any ol' mini regardless of its basing doesn't work all that well.) Right now, the figures are on some translucent red Malifaux 40mm round bases I got on sale (cheaper than the black bases); I've normally just been painting those over, but I might leave the front arc as-is since the ruby red looks kind of nice. I'll just paint the rear arc black, and then add some divider lines (white) at the edges. More later. :)

Reaper Bones #80027 "Nightslip," converted with two "flintlock" pistols and some "brown stuff" epoxy putty: I saw this figure from Privateer Press, and at some point thought, "I could probably paint "Nightslip" up to look like that!" Having a gun in each hand helped -- but they weren't QUITE the right sort of guns. (Reference image from Privateer Press site.) Basically, it just boiled down to painting a lot of what (I suppose) would be skin on the Bones mini as cloth instead, swapping out the pistols, and then -- for bonus points -- adding a little extra putty to bulk out the shoulder/cowl area to make the hooded cloak look a little more rugged and all-weather vs. just being "superheroic." The arms of the Bones model are far too delicate for normal pinning. I was able to use some fabric pins to stab lengthwise into the arms through the wrist area, but I wasn't able to get a good enough anchor point to use some sturdy wire for the pinning job. Therefore, the pistols are actually pinned to the body/cloak, rather than to the wrists. The guns are a couple of flintlock-looking pistols I got as part of a "bits" grab bag from an old "game bazaar," so I have no idea as to their origins. I suspect that they were intended to represent holstered weapons, as the big bulky area around the middle looks something like a strap or sling, but I decided to paint them up as if that was just part of the gun. Alas, they're actually a bit TOO large compared to Taryn Di La Rovissi's magelocks, but it's the best I had on hand. I used some more putty to build up the wrist areas and to make it look -- at least at a glance -- like she's wearing heavy gauntlets or thick gloves. For basing, I was able to just put the figure's integral base down on a 30mm round lipped Chronoscope plastic base. The legs are fine enough that although it would have been quite simple to cut the boot bottoms free from the base, it would have been quite the challenge to pin them down to a new base. Hence, I just stuck with the existing base, but used some putty in an attempt to extend the "cobblestone" texture outward to fill the exposed interior area of the base. The white marks on the base are to help determine forward arc and direct facing for the RPG. For the end result, I'm putting this in my box of assorted Iron Kingdoms NPCs. (The GM has hinted that our business might eventually bring us into contact with the Llaelese Resistance, so I figured adding a few Llael-inspired figures couldn't hurt.)

77262 Vrock Demon (Bones plastic), converted In our current Iron Kingdoms Unleashed campaign, for a rare change, I get to be a PC (and suddenly NOT have extensive knowledge of what in the world is going on anymore -- how alarming!), while one of the players takes over as GM. I'm still hosting and providing the minis, and since I don't write the script, and the GM isn't afraid of using proxies rather than just sticking to what minis are already there to go ... well, we're using lots of proxies. However, if it looks like a character or critter is going to stick around for more than one session, I've been trying to make sure there's something more appropriate to go on the table. In this case, we had a situation where the party was attacked by two Rotterhorn Griffons ... and we actually managed to capture them rather than kill them. (This was very useful to the party, as certain members of the party are able to train certain animals as "warbeasts" -- kind of like, say, Pokemon, except that your new pets aren't as cute, they don't conveniently store away in little red-and-white Pokeballs, and there's the lingering chance that you might lose control and your beloved battle-pet could very well eat you, your other pets, and/or your friends, depending on the situation, its temperament, and how you've been treating it.) Well, the GM happens to have one model of an Unleashed/Hordes style griffon that I painted up. There's a very distinctive look, and base size is very important. For one thing, an alarming number of "beasts" in the Iron Kingdoms universe are humanoid in form, and it's hinted that they might actually have rudimentary language. Surely the fact that even wild specimens of these so-called "beasts" come clad in loincloths most of the time suggests at least some minimum level of sophistication (or at least modesty). So, my Bones Griffon (77157) that I painted and based up earlier doesn't quite cut it as a representation -- we don't have THOSE kinds of griffons in the world of Iron Kingdoms, apparently. Fortunately, I had a Vrock (77262) in my Kickstarter box, and it's remarkably close to the size of the Rotterhorn Griffon model, very bird-like, and has a generally humanoid form. The tail is different, but I don't think too much attention is paid to that anyway, and the GM didn't mind at all that I converted all the Warpwolves to have brushy, more wolf-like tails rather than the weird spiky rat-tails that they're usually depicted with. It was also buck-naked, but it didn't take much effort to use a bit of putty for a rudimentary loincloth. I popped off the vulture head (it was a separate, glued-on piece), and I used some Instant Mold in two parts to get an impression of the Hordes Rotterhorn Griffon head. That is, I heated up some Instant Mold via the boil-some-water-in-a-mug-in-the-microwave method, applied it to one side, used a stylus to jab some indentations into the facing surface, then stuck the whole thing in the freezer ... then pulled it back out, heated up the water again, mushed-up some more Instant Mold, and applied it to make the second half. The result, once both sides cooled and I separated them, was a two-part push-mold open on the back side, that I could use to roughly apply a more griffon-like head to the Vrock body. I wouldn't try to copy a WHOLE BODY this way, as that would be an awful lot of trouble and putty, there's definite detail loss, seams are inevitably extreme, and the putty tends to be very brittle and not to hold up well at thinner stress points -- whereas the griffon head alone is fairly compact and solid and hence (to my estimate) worth the trouble. The slight distortion to the head proportions (it's a flexible mold, after all) just serves to give it a slightly different "expression" from the original griffon. Additional putty was required to gap-fill and texture in some more feathers. I tried to paint it to look fairly similar to the Rotterhorn Griffon on the box, but ran into a problem when doing some decorative patterns on the tips of feathers for a little more visual interest (and less uniform gray): The wings of the Vrock are NOT symmetrical. Now, one might say that this is fairly obvious, given the dynamic pose of the Vrock, and one wing is raised higher than the other, but what I mean is, if I pick five feathers in a row on one wing to paint the details on, I cannot find a corresponding group of five feathers in the same row on the other side to detail the same way. The rows don't line up the same way. If you're just painting this very basic colors and dry-brushing or applying a wash to bring out the texture details, that's fine, but for any feather schemes that call for bands or other such details on the individual feathers, it's a bit off. So ... I had to "wing it" a bit. ;) Honestly, of all the things our players comment on, I don't expect it's a detail any of them are likely to notice or care about, so it's not a serious complaint about the mini. (And, after all, it's supposed to be a Vrock Demon -- a creature of chaos, right? -- so, if anything, asymmetry is probably entirely in keeping with the idea. :) )

Reaper Bones 77204 "Cassiatta" (92609 from KS II) converted with spare arms from "Grind" board game, random 40K Ork bitz, and wire I went through the Bones gallery and pinned this down as 77204 "Cassiatta" (AKA 92609 from the Bones II Kickstarter). I guess it's supposed to be a Dark Elf warrior, given the pointy ears and pointy just-about-everything and general "nasty" vibe. Original Mini from Gallery: I had some brief musings of painting such a figure up humorously with lots of stitches and scars on the suspiciously-exposed patches of elf flesh (as contrasted with the HUGE SHIELD and pointy shoulder pads, which don't seem to be viable accessories if your defense strategy is to *dodge* all the incoming attacks -- but, hey, Dark Elves are just ALL ABOUT the Dark Elf look) but I didn't do anything with it, because I've got a HUGE PILE of Reaper Bones minis and more immediate figures that need some paint. Until now. In our Iron Kingdoms / Unleashed campaign, the GM has decided to make use of Cryx (magical steampunk undead) adversaries, and I happen to have a Cryx army, but for an encounter, he wanted a Brute Thrall ... and wouldn't you know? I haven't any of those, and it seemed excessive to rush out to spend $18 on a figure that's a slightly-glorified mook that'll probably only appear in a single encounter and then only briefly. Now, a Brute Thrall normally looks like this: That's a 40mm base. Big, bulked-up undead magical-steampunk guy with HYOOGE fists, and smokestacks coming out back. However, those silly sculptors at Privateer Press came up with a "convention-exclusive" alternate-sculpt Brute Thrall (AKA the "Femme Fatale") that's on the same 40mm base, with the same game stats, but it looks like THIS: (I'm getting a slight "Bride of Frankenstein" vibe here, I think on account of the high cheekbones and the pulled-back "hair" / headpiece.) Now, I thought, I just might be able to convert something that at least looks a little like this. So, I picked out "Cassiatta" (77204) from the Bones box, because I had a female warrioress type with some exposed skin (that I could paint stitches on), some arms that are AWAY from the body (so they can be trimmed off and replaced), and she's one of the taller female figures (since while the fists will still be laughably huge, I suppose there's some vague point where if the body is too small, it would just look ludicrous). The replacement arms are spare Cygnar Runner arms from the "Grind" board game (since I was able to get it on sale, a great source of cheap plastic Khador and Cygnar warjacks as baselines for customizing for the RPG, rather than chopping up a much more expensive pewter model). They're pinned, of course, since there's no way glue alone would support that sort of attachment. The back piece is from a grab-bag bunch of Warhammer 40000 Space Orks. It's some sort of exhaust-pipe thing that might have been originally intended for an Ork vehicle of some sort, but since I don't have the vehicle to go with it, it doesn't matter much. The great thing about cobbled-together undead armies (especially STEAMPUNK undead) is that I don't have to worry about finding the exact same piece twice, because there's no enforced uniform code in the undead force; they're all cobbled together, so variety is good. For the added cables, I used my standard fallback for add-on vague-tech cabling circa the 1990s: I take a piece of safety wire (a slightly thicker gauge) and then spiral-wrap some of my very thinnest picture-hanging wire around it, and snip to length, with a little leftover space for the interior wire to extend to fit into the drilled holes at each point of attachment (and I use some needle nose pliers to carefully bend it around to something resembling a curve between points A and B). There's no need to paint it metallic, because it already IS metallic (although I went back and dry-brushed with a "platinum white metallic" for some added highlight shine). I painted the fleshy areas very pale ("Denim Blue" base, then "Snowflake White"), and free-handed some "stitches" with one of my older brushes with only 3-4 strands left together to paint very, very thin lines. ... Oh yeah, and in the actual encounter, the big bad Brute Thrall went down like, SPLAT. Hmm. Okay, so that was a little anticlimactic, but I guess to be expected. The more a mini stands out, the more the PCs are going to prioritize pounding on it, right? I still had more fun, I figure, than if I'd struggled to cobble together something from my "bitz box" that looked like a "standard" Brute Thrall. :)

EDIT: Experimenting with linkage to see if I can fix browser compatibility issues ... maybe. Reaper 77215 Eregris Darkfathom modified to be a Cryx Journeyman Warcaster (with a Harrower 'jack) for an Iron Kingdoms Unleashed RPG campaign. It's not the paint job that I'm putting up proudly for show-'n-tell (it's just base-color, wash-and-dry-brush for the most part), but rather just that I'm happy that Bones figures -- with a bit of minor kit-bashing -- can work so well as starting points for characters in a number of settings. (Large-size version so you can see the sloppy paint job in painful detail here: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GJhvNdkyt514MGN1hb8veAlp24sgCEq3nikUCaXL4OMo3vi2K62u0JHxxcavlTLcDKPo=w1920-h1080-no ) The GM's specs called for a guy in warcaster armor with a trident (chained to his right arm), with the left arm replaced with a blade. I used the fishy priest figure, obscuring the face inside the fish skull "mask" with a green necrotite glow, and painting up the figure under the conceit that this guy is either a Cryxian bog-trog "recruit," or else someone got creative when cobbling together his necrotech body. For the trident arm, I used a spare Warhammer Chaos Warrior arm-and-weapon bit to replace the bendy harpoon, and a section of chain from a Warhammer Flagellant pack. The harpoon tip ended up finding a second life as a replacement for the figure's left arm. To make him look more like a Cryxian warcaster, I needed a boiler and stovepipe on back of the armor, so I used part of the armored fore-arm I trimmed off from the Chaos Warrior bit. It formed a flanged shape that made for a pretty decent IKRPG-style smokestack, once I made a few regularly-spaced holes in the forward plate with the pinning drill, and then used some epoxy putty for gap-filler. The paint job is mostly just wash and dry-brushing, since, after all, this was a rush job for a single encounter. (I doubt we'll be running into fishy undead warcasters on a regular basis.) My main "innovation" was just the improvised "smokestack," since I think that captures the peculiar Iron Kingdoms look pretty well with just a minimal amount of work. (Well, that and the figure already having a rather top-heavy look to the armored chest piece and shoulder-pads.)

The "Iron Kingdoms: Unleashed" boxed set came with a nice group of miniatures, as well as a nice scenario and quickplay rule. So what better way to celebrate that painting them up? I went with a neutral "game" theme for the bases, as they're not really lipped or anything and I didn't want flock all over the board game style box everything came with. First off, we have the heroes:

I painted this guy up just a little while ago to be a mighty Dwarf Alchemist in our Iron Kingdoms campaign. He wears the mask in public quite a bit, but I suppose you would too if you were packing as many chemicals as this guy.

I'm not so good at conversions and sculpting, but here it is - IK miniature konverted as my Lady's shadowrun gunslinger/cat shaman character...

My Iron Kingdoms RPG group sometimes can’t hold back. When we saw that Borka: Vengeance of the Rimshaws was riding a polar bear… well, we had to figure out how that might work for us. Luckily, we have a very good GM who is willing to make up some rules in the name of Awesome. And then it fell to me to create some awesome minis featuring our heroes riding bears. I grabbed a couple bears from Scibor (they’re very large) and put a couple of Reaper Bones minis on them- then did a lot of sculpting. Here are the results: First off- the Gobber Man-at-Arms/Duelist/Horseman: And our Trollkin Alchemist/Earth Sorcerer/Long Rider

Reaper Bones 77160: Judas Bloodspire, Vampire (converted) For my first Iron Kingdoms RPG session, we spent a good portion of the time writing up character sheets, and not everyone came to the table with a concept -- so I didn't have everyone's custom minis ready (not knowing any better than the players what they were going to play). One of the players decided to go with a Gun Mage -- basically a spellcaster/gunslinger who specializes in infusing his pistols (and the ammunition therein) with special effects. I used a cowboy proxy for the first game, but to get the proper Iron Kingdoms look, I needed something with a long button-up, coat, tricorn hat, and very antique-looking pistol. There are official Gun Mage minis from Privateer Press, but none of my friendly local game stores had them in stock, and I wearied at the thought of putting in a mail order for ONE pricey miniature that might or might not arrive in time for the next game. So! Time to dig into the Box o' Bones! I wanted somebody with a fancy coat, and I'd already put the Bones Captain Barnabus Frost to use (as a Khadorite conversion), but Judas looked like a possibility with a few tweaks. My figure had a very bendy sword, so my initial plan was to chop it off and put the gun in that hand, but I decided to give the "dip it in boiling water" method another go. I've had spotty results with it in a few cases, but here it worked PERFECTLY -- it was rather uncanny, the way the blade straightened out on its own once dipped into very hot water. (Note: The right arm is actually a separate piece that comes glued on, but it's fairly easily snapped free. Therefore, I was able to dip JUST the sword into hot water, without having to subject the whole figure to the treatment.) Given that the sword looked just fine now, I decided to make the mini a lefty. That was accomplished by chopping the left arm off right at the joining point with the shoulder pauldron, drilling pin holes, then reattaching with wire at an adjusted angle. The trickier part was in taking a sharp hobby knife to the outstretched hand -- originally in a sort of "reaching out for something" pose, but I managed to extend the thumb, shave down the inside of the cuff, and hollow out the palm and thumbpad area so that a pewter "dwarf pistol" (from a Warhammer Fantasy sprue) fit nicely in, with the index finger going over the trigger, and bent-out thumb fitting behind the stock. For another conversion project, I had transformed a few plastic Clix "Crimson Skies" aircraft into passable starfighters -- and starfighters don't need props in space! (Technically, they don't need WINGS, either, but that's beside the point.) That left me with a few little clear plastic circles that were used to represent spinning props, and I've kept those around just in case they might be handy. I used one to slip over the barrel of the flintlock, and painted Khador runes (it's a letter substitution code) around the circumference. I've picked up quite a few HeroClix and HorrorClix minis on the cheap, including quite a few that were acquired simply for any translucent plastic "special effects" on the figures that I might be able to use for other purposes. One of these was a figure called "Shaman" -- basically a guy sitting in the lotus position, supported by translucent blue "lightning" effects. While that's a cool enough thing on its own, I don't need all that many people in spandex, so I got this just for the lightning. ;) I trimmed off a strand with an interesting-looking crook to it, and inserted the narrow tip into a hole that I'd bored down the barrel of the flintlock. (Thankfully, the flintlock was actually thick enough in diameter for me to do that!) The intended effect is that we've got the character firing off an enchanted bullet, and in my imagining, this one is some sort of lightning effect ... although I confess that I don't even know if that's an option for a Gun Mage under the rules, so -- artistic license!

This is an adventuring party I created for the Iron Kingdoms RPG. Our group has been playing for years, but this is the first time we've really gotten into playing Menites (there's an issue of them not playing well with non-humans). Our group started their own order of knights who like to emphasize that "there's a place for all at the feet of Menoth." In role playing terms, it has been a lot of fun- they're quite condescending to the non-humans, but at the same time, they try to convert the dirty children of the Wurm rather than simply killing them all off. They all started life as Reaper Bones minis: Warcaster/Priest: Paladin of the Order of the Wall/Man at Arms: Adherent of the Order of the Fist/Cutthroat Military Officer/Spy (impersonating an Ordic Aristocrat)

So here's another bargain grab from a closing gamestore. Julian Helstrom from the Iron Kingdoms Game which is some kind of variant of Warmachine or Hordes. Tried something new for the base. You guys turned me on to Apoxie sculpt and so far it's been pretty cool. So I decided to make some smooth river stones for him to be standing in.

Picked up a bunch of Privateer Press minis at half price when my local game store folded. Anyhow, Here's one of my first PP minis. I used what is sort of an old standby scheme for me. Red cloak and gold armor.

So I had mentioned in my WIP thread that I was working on a new massive board for my last Iron Kingdoms RPG session. I don't useally make things this big due to the time it takes to asseblme these and the fact I can't store them as assembled due to lack of space. The last time I made a board near this size was 2012 and it was about 25% smaller. Here's a shot of that from my WIP thread. Starting off this we've been running Privateer's Iron Kingdom's RPG (started of with the d20 and them moved to the much superior custom system they released) playing a modified version of their campaign the Witchfire Trilogy that deals with the city of Corvis. The image in my WIP is from the first time the city was invaded (by undead) and the climax is when it's invaded by a deposed king and his army of Skorn (humanoids that up until this time in the setting were unknown). to wet your appetite for the long write up. Because this was a defend the city type of thing I decided to build up the board in two parts: Inside the city wall and outside the city wall--but the city was the most important part. I decided to use two different materials: Terraclips for the city and Heroscape parts for the wall and outside the wall. I also decided that since this was a city invasion that I was going to play it out as a control point based battle where all the buildings were worth points and gave bonus if you controlled them for a certain number of rounds. After so many points were scored then we'd move back into the narrative and have the main boss fight. Ok, first off, as so many people have asked--this is made up of 3 Streets of Malifaux and 4 Buildings of. I also used somewhere between 7-8 packs of the connectors as well and actually ran out of connectors before running out of building materials (specifically the straight flat connector) as I planned another 6-8" of city that I wasn't able to build. I do apologize for picture quality, I'm using a mix of photos from my phone and friends phones and some pics just didn't come out as well as I would have liked. Now, without further ado, I give you Corvis: This is obviously a microcosm of the actually city itself and only has a few buildings (some pulled from different parts of the city whole). There are several that are important and I'll list them off here: 1) The tall tower is a cathedral and gave the controller the ability to buff map wide. 2) The building in the back of the board with the park around it is a wizard's school \ inquisition headquarters (depending on who controlled it) and it granted the ability to have a wizard added to squads. 3) The building along the upper parkway between #1 and #2 is the city watch garrison and allowed for the players to get reinforcements. 4) the building at the opposite end of the parkway from #3 was a player's house and granted a damage buff. 5) Across from #4, towards the gate, was another player's inn. It granted an attack bonus. 6) The small square building near the wall (on the same side as #4 and #5) is a workshop and granted the use of a warjack. Everything else was just for points only. ---------------------------- Play report -------------------------------- This was a big undertaking for one person to run so my friend Larry came down to run the Skorn. He also happens to be the guy who write's all of Privateer's Skorn fiction, when you have a ringer you use your ringer. * Note that all plastic minis (D&D minis) represent undead that the players had control of. The main NPC of the setting was a necromancer that joins forces with the players and she was raising everything that died as undead allies. All the blue metal minis represent city guard. At the start smaller Skorn forces were already in city with a larger force advancing to the gate. The players quickly got control of the church and brought out the head priest father Dumas (you can see a clean shot of him here. While the players were doing this the Skorn were attacking the garrison. The fight here never ended through out the whole session as it was a very important control point. One of the players grabbed a group of guards and ran to secure the gate (which started open). The players started to cut a safe zone around the garrison while the scorn were setting up a defense around the inquisition headquarters And started attacking the wall One of the things players could do is trigger special appearances by NPCs. This one was the arrival of an old player's character (the player had to move out of state for a job) which is a gobber sniper that liked to hang banners to taunt people. I don't have the original mini that I painted up for that friend (as he took it) but you can see it here. After a few rounds of battering the gate the Skorn warbeasts broke through! (the darts are cannons) A group of players and their thugs from the thieves guild took back the bar and moved onto the apartment while fighting against Skorn Ancestor statues. While another group fought off Gatormen and bog trogs that were coming up from the sewers (already dead in all the shots I have). When a Cygnarian General arrives to take over the defense of the city. Cygnar is the country where this takes place. Little did the players know this is an ally of the deposed king, Magnus the Traitor. Magnus attacks the players (this is the aftermath after the dead have been risen) While the Skorn rampage through parts of the city and destroy the church. Finally the players score victory in points and the main villain Van Oberon appears. You can see a better shot of him here. Thanks for reading through. This ended a year and a half of my friend's and my lives and I had painted a decent amount for this (which I'll have bellow as soon as I collect all the images).

Hey all. Over the past month I kind of dropped everything to get a bunch of minis done for my Iron Kingdom's game as it was winding down to the last few months and I had bought this stuff specifically for the game so I figured I had better paint them up. Most are from the Iron Kingdom's line by Privateer but two are from Reaper's Savage World line. So starting out is Father Dumas (one of the main NPCs) Next up is Vahn Oberen (the main Villain) Now for the generics: A Boneswarm Some Bone Fiends from Reaper And finally a bunch of Tomb Maidens that were each painted a different way that you can see in my WIP thread (link in sig)

Had this guys for a while and kind of spaced on him but decided to paint him up this week as he's an important NPC in my RPG game that may only have a few months left. Nothing super fancy here as he's a 5-6 hour paint job (gotten really good at those this year as it's about all I've done) with some washes for the armor and face (though I water down the wash on the face and used it as a glaze). The cloak is not freehand (I'm not Darkstar, Coporia or Cassu here) but via a stencil. Base was done in 10 with Pigments. (click for much larger) Thanks for the look.