Human minis with serpent-themed armors?

[BlazingTornado]

Was curious if anyone knew of any minis in armor that carried a snake theme. Less so egyptians and cultists of Set or whatever and more chainmail/platemail stuff.

There's an NPC in my campaign, this imposing knight who leads a company of warriors and snakes are their iconography, want to have minis to represent them.

 

I found two minis that could represent the leader, but being old 25mm minis, they would lack the imposing size I attributed the character whenever used with 28mm minis. (I described him as having the height and build of the first actor who played Gregor Clegane on Game of Thrones).

Anti-Hero/Anti-Paladin with Battleaxe from Ral Partha/IWM.

Moritorus from Citadel's Lords Of Battle.

 

And for his mooks I found this Adventurer With Breastplate And Sword/ Armored Knight from Ral Partha/IWM. Curious if maybe there's some serpent-knight who favors more mail armor than partial plate, while not being as armored as their leader would. (I originally described them to my players as wearing full mail armors with reptilian leather surcoats and half-helms with fangs and snake-eye-shaped eye holes)

 

If anyone knows others of this type I could add to my possibilities, I would really appreciate it.

[ManvsMini]

Don't know of many Reaper (or other companies) minis that are exactly what you want. But a cursory glance at DGS Games found this guy in their Freeblades line:

 

He's called a Viper Veteran in his faction (Traazorite), the top of his helmet is a snake. Maybe give their website a glance, they might have something else that'll work.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Hate to point out the obvious but Citadel Miniatures (Games Workshop) Warcry Splintered Fang gang come to mind.

 

For actual heavy armour 'though I'm not so sure.

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by Balgin Stondraeg

[BlazingTornado]

3 hours ago, ManvsMini said:

Don't know of many Reaper (or other companies) minis that are exactly what you want. But a cursory glance at DGS Games found this guy in their Freeblades line:

 

He's called a Viper Veteran in his faction (Traazorite), the top of his helmet is a snake. Maybe give their website a glance, they might have something else that'll work.

I dig the scale armor ont his one! Shame he only has a Cobra on the top instead of having a proper serpentine helmet.

 

 

1 hour ago, Balgin Stondraeg said:

Hate to point out the obvious but Citadel Miniatures (Games Workshop) Warcry Splintered Fang gang come to mind.

 

For actual heavy armour 'though I'm not so sure.

 

 

 

Yeah, cool looking but not armored enough.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

I think the problem you're going to run into is that generally snake themed fantasy miniature wearing armour (note the order of the wording there) are ... some kind of snakemen or lizardmen wearing fairly normal human looking armour. It's very rare to find miniatures wearing animal themed armour that's snake or lizard related although that does raise an interesting question. Normally animal themed armour is wolf, bear or boar themed (with occasional stag and rat sightings but that's about it). If he's wearing some kind of magical armour that sheds it's skin to heal him (like a snake) that could be an interesting twist.

 

There are some nice miniatures wearing heavy armour with snakes wrapped around them but, as far as snake themed armour goes, there's not a lot (and it tends to be on the lighter side or some kind of Aztec/Inca character).

 

Actually, wait  a minute. What's Werner Klocke's minature company called? Freebotoer's Fate. They do some amazonian women who wear animal themed armour (one wears crocodile themed armour). I'd also suggest checking Arena Rex. The miniatures are Roman Gladiators (from an alternate history with some minor fantasy elements and other cultures coming in like the vikings who went and found America who's minis have an interesting Viking/American Indian mixed cultural design). Some of their more tribal gladiators (Germans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons) might have snake themed armour. I know one wears a great big bear pelt.

[Great Khan Artist]

Absolutely! The problem is, they're kind of in limbo right now. Dark Fable has a line called Temple of Set that I love. The leaders have snake head shoulder pads. Sadly, the owner recently passed away from a long battle with cancer. The line has been acquired by Dragon Bait and they are in the process of acquiring it from the UK into the US. 

 

EDIT: most are in stock. Huzzah!

Edited December 14, 2020 by Great Khan Artist
update

[Twalrus]

Would it be acceptable to also look at dragon-themed armour? There's a certain overlap between the creatures in historical art so you might find something that works.

[ManvsMini]

6 hours ago, Balgin Stondraeg said:

If he's wearing some kind of magical armour that sheds it's skin to heal him (like a snake) that could be an interesting twist.

 

That's actually inspiring for lore on how magical armor made from snake works. Not so much that it heals the wearer, but in how the magical armor isn't destroyed after battle. More of flavor to add to the story telling. I like it, thanks.

[BlazingTornado]

6 hours ago, Balgin Stondraeg said:

I think the problem you're going to run into is that generally snake themed fantasy miniature wearing armour (note the order of the wording there) are ... some kind of snakemen or lizardmen wearing fairly normal human looking armour. It's very rare to find miniatures wearing animal themed armour that's snake or lizard related although that does raise an interesting question. Normally animal themed armour is wolf, bear or boar themed (with occasional stag and rat sightings but that's about it). If he's wearing some kind of magical armour that sheds it's skin to heal him (like a snake) that could be an interesting twist.

 

There are some nice miniatures wearing heavy armour with snakes wrapped around them but, as far as snake themed armour goes, there's not a lot (and it tends to be on the lighter side or some kind of Aztec/Inca character).

 

Actually, wait  a minute. What's Werner Klocke's minature company called? Freebotoer's Fate. They do some amazonian women who wear animal themed armour (one wears crocodile themed armour). I'd also suggest checking Arena Rex. The miniatures are Roman Gladiators (from an alternate history with some minor fantasy elements and other cultures coming in like the vikings who went and found America who's minis have an interesting Viking/American Indian mixed cultural design). Some of their more tribal gladiators (Germans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons) might have snake themed armour. I know one wears a great big bear pelt.

The armor doesn't have to be blatantly serpentine all around, with nothing but sculpted scales or a snake head atop the helmet and a snake head on the breastplate and snake heads on the knee guards like the Ral Partha Anti-Hero has.

Something more heraldic like Citadel's Moritorus works. It's closer in theme with the visual reps I gave my players the first time they met him (a crude composite of a snake greathelm CGI render by Audrius Caplikas with some snake-themed armors from a game mod called Prophecy of Pendor), but I'm open to any proper armor with a serpentine theme atm.

 

1 hour ago, Great Khan Artist said:

Absolutely! The problem is, they're kind of in limbo right now. Dark Fable has a line called Temple of Set that I love. The leaders have snake head shoulder pads. Sadly, the owner recently passed away from a long battle with cancer. The line has been acquired by Dragon Bait and they are in the process of acquiring it from the UK into the US. 

 

EDIT: most are in stock. Huzzah!

Hm, those leaders look like they'd have Darth Vader's voice.

 

58 minutes ago, Twalrus said:

Would it be acceptable to also look at dragon-themed armour? There's a certain overlap between the creatures in historical art so you might find something that works.

Yeah, absolutely!

Or anything generically reptilian that doesn't explicitly make it look draconic, crocodilian, etc.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

On 12/14/2020 at 4:32 PM, ManvsMini said:

 

That's actually inspiring for lore on how magical armor made from snake works. Not so much that it heals the wearer, but in how the magical armor isn't destroyed after battle. More of flavor to add to the story telling. I like it, thanks.

 

 

Well I once had a game featuring a suit of armour that fed on the blood of it's enemies (and used the blood it soaked up to heal it's wearer). The curse was that the "healing" involved causing the wearer to slowly fade away (in terms of their personality) eventually causing the person to fade away entirely leaving just an empty suit of armour.

 

The old Chronopia line had animal themed armours. The dwarfs had dark tusk (boar), wolf, vulture, "blood bone" & ram clans with themed armour. Some of the other Chronpia races like the orcs (who had a vaguely Saracen theme) had armour that might look a bit serpentine in fashion.

Edited December 15, 2020 by Balgin Stondraeg

[BlazingTornado]

Found two snake-armor guys I'd never heard of before. Trerok Toungefire and Drakar Dubledeath from a RAFM boxed set called The Iron Brotherhood.

But oh wow are their armors and proportions very stylized.

Not sure the scale on these but I think I'm still better off using the Anti-Paladin or Moritorus for my main guy. They're also out of production so very likely would be hard to find.

[BlazingTornado]

If anyone cares about this mini-quest of mine, I was checking old ebay sellers I'd bought from previously to see if maybe something in their inventory would spark something and came upon this guy from a Grenadier Julie Guthrie boxed set Lords of Decay, Gulgevar Taz. His scale armor overlaid with plate are really cool, sadly closer inspection made me realize the design of the helmet and pauldron are more draconic than serpentine.

 

I'm still keeping him in the "maybe" list.

[buckyball]

 

The Haradrim from Lord of the Rings used serpent images on their flags and heraldry. You might look into both the LotRs figures from Mithril and GW.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS19SAjmw8lhPZ8EyEtUOP9lUuByjLl_7j9Kw&usqp=CAU

 

   buckyball