77215 Eregris Darkfathom, Cryx Journeyman Warcaster

[Jordan Peacock]

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.)

Edited December 21, 2015 by Jordan Peacock

[malefactus]

While I wonder how he's going to wield a trident with only one hand, you did a FINE job with the conversion & painting. TERRIFIC WORK!

[Jordan Peacock]

While I wonder how he's going to wield a trident with only one hand, you did a FINE job with the conversion & painting. TERRIFIC WORK!

 

The specs for the character were pretty much based on the GM's interpretation of a Privateer Press model, "Aiakos, Scourge of the Meredius" -- which is, apparently, the only "journeyman" warcaster to be found among the Cryx, at least as far as miniatures go.  (In the Iron Kingdoms setting, "warcasters" are pretty nigh to superheroes.  To play in the Iron Kingdoms *RPG*, so this doesn't become one of those really broken Star Wars-ish games where the "Jedi" class dominates everything and the non-Force-sensitives are just along for the ride -- without simply forbidding PCs to play such powerful types -- the concept of a "warcaster" had to be a bit genericized, but most of the available miniatures come from the wargame line, where "superhero" types still dominate to the point that there may be 4 or 5 sculpts of the SAME warcaster character in different poses with slightly different costumes and accessories.)

 

 

Aiakos is shown holding a trident with a chain at the end one-handed.  How?  Maaaaaaagic with a bit of necrotech mixed in, I guess.  (As is not entirely unique to this miniatures line, there are plenty of examples of characters wielding weapons one-handed that really ought to require two ... or, just as often, look entirely too large to be reasonable to heft at all, let alone actually swing as a viable weapon.  I am reminded of the "surf sword" phenomenon from certain Japanese computer "RPG" series.)

 

I think I see a hand very clearly on the original model, but I think the intent for the GM was that he wanted to set up a situation where we'd have a lesser warcaster (i.e., someone we could plausibly defeat after a tough fight) who would have in his possession an enemy warjack, since our party's farrow (pig-guy) was on a side-quest to collect enemy warjacks for spare parts to make a war hog (a big hybrid pig-and-steam-and-magic-tech abomination) warbeast.  The enemy would have one potentially lootable (possibly cursed) magic weapon (the trident), but by having the off-hand be some sort of "sword-arm" rather than a carried weapon, it would limit the amount of crazy loot we'd get from a single encounter.

 

Not that I'd think that entirely necessary of a precaution: If you read up on the fluff on Cryx and just about all of the other major baddies, "loot" is something you generally DO NOT WANT to risk taking off these guys.  Everything's either corrupted by curses (at FIRST it seems like a good deal and then comes the drawback and a distinct lack of "Remove Curse" spells in the spellcaster repertoire), necrotite (poisonous and corrupting to living things, like it gives off glowing green magical radiation), or some sort of blight (a disease-like curse that warps flesh and bends minds).  The short-lived Farrow and ghoulish Gatormen don't seem to mind risking it so much, but saner PCs probably live longer if they don't go rifling around in the pockets of a dead bad guy who is dissolving into glowing toxic goo that's withering all the nearby plants.  :)

 

(I suppose that's a nice factor to limit the tendency in some fantasy games to discard your "merely" +1 magic sword as soon as you find a shiny one in a treasure chest with a big shiny "+2" on it: Every time you meddle with a new magic weapon, you run the very real risk that it'll come with some terrible curse, and there are no handy-dandy detection or curative spells to save you from such mistakes.)

[Mad Jack]

 Technically, you could use a trident one-handed, but you'd probably want to pair it with a shield.

[Limey72]

Weird it won't show up for me ;(

[Sanael]

Pic and link don't work for.my phone.

 

As for tridents...they have often been used one-handed. Although it is quite true, as mentioned, that such a weapon would often be paired with a secondary weapon.

 

Historically, the roman Retiarius fought with a net, trident and dagger. The throwing arm was well-armored, allowing for use as a shield. Although the net was likely thrown early in most bouts, it may also have been held and used to entangle arms or feet, much like a cloak would later be used when.paired with a rapier. Certainly a two-handed use of the trident was possible and would allow for powerful strikes and defensive fighting, but the nature of the Retiarius' armament would necessitate a good bit of one-handed use.

 

Less historically, the trident is a one-handed weapon in D&D, which (purple) I believe allows me to rest my case. (/purple)

[Jordan Peacock]

Pic and link don't work for.my phone.

 

 

Sorry, I haven't a smart phone to see if I can replicate the problem, but it seems that someone at Google must really, REALLY want to discourage me from using Google+.  (First, they take the Google+ tab off my Google home page, and I have to go through a drop-down menu to get to it.  Now, I try to grab an image address from Google+ and it gives me a long gobbledygarbage string that prompts the Reaper forum to tell me it doesn't like the extension, so I end up having to try to swipe the thumbnail image instead ... and for some people, it still doesn't work?  Grr.)

[Chaoswolf]

Weird it won't show up for me ;(

Me neither....

[arclance]

Weird it won't show up for me ;(

Pic and link don't work for.my phone.

Me neither....

I can't seem them and I am using a desktop computer.

It is probably because the posted images are in ".webp" format which is not universally supported (Chrome and Opera only).

That is especially true on smartphones where things don't update for this kind of stuff as quickly.

It is best to stick to (shudder) "jpeg" for maximum compatibility with other devices and the forums file size recomendations/rules.

"png" is better for large images you want to link to because jpeg introduces noticable artifacts into images.

 

Sorry, I haven't a smart phone to see if I can replicate the problem,

Go here using firefox and it won't work on a desktop either.

Now, I try to grab an image address from Google+ and it gives me a long gobbledygarbage string that prompts the Reaper forum to tell me it doesn't like the extension, so I end up having to try to swipe the thumbnail image instead ... and for some people, it still doesn't work? Grr.)

Upload it somewhere else as a jpg so google does not convert it to a webp image.

You might also be able to catch the thumbnail on firefox to get it as a jpg instead of webp since I believe google does not send webp images to firefox since it knows it can't open them.

Edited December 19, 2015 by arclance

[arclance]

I played around with the urls from the first post and got them give a .jpg instead of a .webp so everyone can see them.

Both urls contain a "-rw" in them somewhere which when removed caused the url to lead to a .jpg image instead of a .webp image.

 

This is the small image from the first post.

This is the link to the larger version from the same post.

[Limey72]

Woohoo I see em and I like em

[Jordan Peacock]

Okay, I tried changing the original post to remove "-rw" from the URLs.  I tried viewing it in Firefox, and I get the images to show up on my laptop.

[klarg1]

Neat. Eregis fits quite well into a Cryx force. You did nice work matching him to his "friends".

[Chaoswolf]

He looks great!

And he does mix very well with the Cryx minis.