Friday 4 September 2015

Frostgrave Warband


Regular readers may know that although I'm first and foremost a historical gamer I occasionally like to dabble in more "exotic" periods/genres. Last year I did a smallish fantasy project over the summer, and well – this year I did too! Inspired by my mate Dalauppror's superb kit bashed warband for Frostgrave, I had a rummage through my bit box and built a warband of my own.

An old GW plastic wizard was used as the central character. At this time, I didn't have the rules yet, but after flicking through Dalauppror's book I knew there was a wizard type called soothsayer and the crystal ball in the wizard kit would be a perfect match for this school of magic. After trying a couple of different heads, I used one with a fur hat as it looked good and would fit the winter theme of Frostgrave.



For the soldiers, I went with some old Bretonnian men-at-arms as the basis. I liked their heavily armoured look, which I think also fits nicely with the winter theme. The heads, arms and weapons are from a couple of different GW kits, including the original Bretonnians, Empire militia and State Troops. It was fun trying out different poses – tiny adjustments can really make a big difference for the look and character of the model.



To make the soldiers look less uniform and more like a hardened band of mercenaries, I mixed shields from the original kit with different metal shields from Curtey's and Gripping Beast. The lion heads are overpainted transfers.



The apprentice gave me some trouble. It wasn't until I started playing around with a Gripping Beast model it all seemed to click. The model is from the Saga baggage set. He got a spare head from the GW wizard kit, a pole arm from the Bretonnian kit (it's a bit over-sized but hey, it's fantasy!) and a fur cloak for a bit of dramatic flair. I liked the look of the cloak so I went back an added one to one of the soldiers. 



Then it was just a matter of painting them up, trying to find a paint scheme that tied them all together as a force. To make them stand out, I added a bright green colour to some parts of the wizard and the apprentice.

As I said, I didn't have the Frostgrave rules when I built the models. After receiving the rules and reading up on warband creation, I discovered my warband is too large, especially kitted out like this. Oh well, it's nice to have some models for when the warband grows – and of course I can use them for other games as well. 

Thanks for reading – have a great weekend everyone!

34 comments:

  1. Those are fecking lovely Jonas, the extra figures give you options.

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    1. Thanks Fran, good to have you back! Good idea about the extra figures giving me options – I hadn't thought of that!

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  2. Exellent looking warband Jonas !!!

    Now we really need to set up a couple of frostgrave games!

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    1. Cheers Michael! Indeed we should have a game or two. :)

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  3. Great work indeed Jonas - love the clever use of colours

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  4. Superb painting Jonas and I love the variety of models you have used. Keep up the good work!

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    1. Thank you very much for your kind words Steve!

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  5. Excellent job Jonas, colors are amazing!

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  6. These figures and painting look gorgeous - Superb brush work!

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    1. Thank you very much for this Phil, much appreciated!

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  7. Great brushwork with a really nice and striking use of colours!
    /Mattias

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  8. Remarkable painting man - really like the way you've done the metal parts with the dark tone and glimmers of silvery metal.

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    1. Thank you very much indeed Sören! I tried a new technique for painting metal on these and it worked a treat. (Though in the close-ups it really shows how I rushed some parts.)

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  9. Great work building and painting these.

    I particularly like the "all around" pictures, which nicely show off all your hard work on conversions and painting.

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    1. Thanks! I'm glad you like the all round pictures – it's one thing I really appreciate when other painter post picture of their work, as you can learn something from studying how they painted certain parts.

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  10. Absolutely superb work sir. Love your colour choices and the modelling aspect is very creative as well.

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    1. Thank you very much for your kind words Michael!

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  11. Inspirational stuff - quite literally! Lots of great ideas there, thanks very much!

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    1. Thanks Evan, I'm happy you found my work inspirational!

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  12. Excellent painting as one would expect! I thought about these rules, but just too many things going on at the moment. Anyhow these will look great on the tabletop!

    Christopher

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