Frostgrave Warband

Large Construct made from a broken Mantic Games abyssal dwarf lesser obsidian golem and my bits box.

The Abyssal Dwarf Lesser Obsidian Golem came in a fantasy bargin box from Mantic Games a couple of years ago. I started to build them, then they got broken and I seem to have somehow lost some parts. I always thought I would find a use for at least one of them.

The base has a Mantic Skeleton sprue bundle of bones, an Mantic Orc head (gargoyle?), a Mantic dwarf head (from a broken statue?) and off cuts of sprue as crumbled masonry.

I imagine that all my wizard’s Constructs are last minute creations from whatever parts are available at hand. Very much the Macgyver of Enchanters.

The belly is meant to be some kind of oven or stove with a grate, but perhaps it looks more like cell bars.

The head is just a Mantic dwarf head, with the blood from the statue’s eyes to be in keeping with the blood from the Small Construct’s eyes.

The swords and spear protruding from the missing arm are explained in my head by the enchanter getting his rushed animation spell slightly wrong; with the nearest weapons and a banner being bound into the spell instead of some intended rocks adjacent to them.

I still need to decide what design I might put on the banner. Maybe a simple blue stripe down the middle and some specks of blood.

The metal grey and the rock grey I intended didn’t really go together well. No contrast just made it look lazy and uninspired. So I rusted up the metal a touch with a GW orange and GW rhino hide brown and used Citadel Camoshade wash on the stone and it helped define things a little better. The patches of blue green dots, to try and give a better rock feel, was with nighthaunt contrast paint.

I know that I will have more room for thieves and thugs in my party now that second edition makes them free to field. I also wanted to get a sprue of the new Oathmark Dwarf Heavy Infantry.

This mini is made from a Heavy Inf. Dwarf body but with the Oathmark light Inf. Dwarf head and arms. The left arm is a shield arm and the right was a sword arm that I cut down to be knife. I really like the shifty look of the pose. He is probably too well armoured for a Frostgrave thief of any kind, but he looks great and the knife helps define his soldier type.

I used a Halfords red primer as the base. I hit all the armour and knife with leadbelcher, then the whole mini with Nulin oil, then a GW silver over the armour again as a highlight. The red coat is hit with Mephiston Red as a highlight. The arms have a steel legion drab base, with a zandri dust highlight and Agrax Earthshade wash. Bugman’s Glow and Barbarian Flesh highlight on the flesh.

I did a lazy flint chippings rubble, with the standard tab base and snow flock to cover any bits I wasn’t happy with.

A lot of the earlier made minis didn’t get under the photo booth until the group shot at the end and felt it didn’t really show them at their best.

So I added snow to their bases and had a photo shoot.

One of the thugs technically has a two-handed weapon and might be promoted later, but for the current list he’s a thug.

I wanted to make one more thug from the Heavy Inf. Oathmark sprue, to replace Thrax because he really has a double handed axe and should be a specialist in a later adventure.

I ran out of the light Inf. shield arms in my kitbashing so had to turn to a Gripping Beast Viking arm instead and the fist came up a touch smaller than the dwarf arm wielding an axe. Always wanted to use Traantje (Trang-cha) as it’s a cool sounding Dutch word and Smallfist is self evident.

I also didn’t find a Light Inf Oathmark head I liked so I found a Heavy Inf one and removed the helm crest and painted it to try and look like leather armour.

With the Viking chainmail left arm I used a piece of card to mirror the “pauldron”? on the other side and I’m happy with the result.

After this kitbash it gives me two more bodies on the Heavy Inf Dwarf sprue to make maybe a knight, templar or a man-at-arms to bulk this party up if I get them into a campaign and level up a bit.

I was going to have to ignore the armour on the minis and their Frostgrave soldier classes because thugs and thieves shouldn’t be as well armoured as some of these guys are. (To some mini makers a dwarf without armour is a gnome and that’s not the look I was going for.) I have tried to play down the level of armour in my paint schemes as at least a nod to wysiwyg. Loin and Groin with their red leather armour for example and some shoulder plate pieces on thugs painted brown to downgrade to leather where I felt it looked OK. With my Templar and Man-at-arms I can paint everything like it was intended. Metal plates gleaming to make them standout from the beige thugs etc. Looking forward to that.

I have been quite impressed by how easy it has been to build character into what are essentially designed as ranked up mass battle infantry for Oathmark.

Dwarf knight.

Wanted to do a Heavy Infantry Oathmark Dwarf in the style that the sprue intended, apart from the light infantry shield.

No more painting plate as leather. Primed black, heavy dry brush with Grey Seer, contrast red with Mephiston Red highlight on the leather under armour. Leadbelcher and a GW high sliver on the armour. Army Painter Weapons Bronze on the accent areas and the shield edge.

I like Ardour as a name. Sounds a little Dwarvish, Enthusiastic and ‘arder than your average dwarf.

Heavy armour and double-handed weapon is the fighter class for a Frostgrave Templar.

I have built this guy purely from the Oathmark Dwarf Heavy Infantry sprue.

He is painted up in a similar scheme to Ardour the Knight. Primed black, heavy Grey Seer dry brush to show all the details, leadbelcher and a higher GW silver on the metal, a Vallejo Russian Uniform Green on the gloves and sleeves, Red Contrast on the under armour around the waist and Army Painter Weapons Bronze on the accent metal parts.

I made a rookie mistake. I built most of a box of Barbarians without giving it too much thought to soldier types in-game wise. This example is a basic thug. Primed them all and they’ve sat unloved for a while now. I think I will try to rig some solo rules to suit the Forgotten Pacts campaign and see how it plays out.

This guy came out nice and neat.

I printed out a checker pattern on a basic printer and glued it to the base. Hoping it would look like a tile floor, but it just didn’t look right so I covered the majority of it with chippings rubble, coffee stirrer planks and snow flock.

The paint job is almost all washes and contrast with some highlights after. He was primed Army Painter Monster Brown I think. Knowing I was using Contrast I gave him a Grey Seer dry brush and this spared me some highlight work. E.g. The hair was literally just a citadel yellow wash over the primer and Grey Seer dry brush.

Braveliver is just a heavy drinker who thinks he’s a hero when drunk. He’s not an alcoholic. Alcoholics go to meetings. He’s just a drunk.

Shirt sleeves in the snow and already been in a fist fight? Had to call him Geordie. Obviously there’s no stereotyping there because there is no Newcastle in the Felstad Frostgrave world. Any connection to modern day is strictly coincidence; I just thought the name fitted nicely.

This is a Hasslefree dwarf mini.

I am disappointed with my efforts this time. It’s a great mini and I have given it an average paint job.

He scales very marginally underweight to my other dwarves so was happy to base him on the slotter base that came with the mini. It gives him a slight height boost and the basing from cut up sprue and cuttings from a spare lipped base help unite him with the rest.