Rangers of Shadow Deep – Solo play project

A zombie. Bit freshers and more eager than some of my others.
Made from a Warlord Games Celtic warrior torso and legs with a Mantic Games Ghoul or Zombie head.

He is going to beat a Ranger to death with his bloody stump. He’s hardcore. ?

Poor Goredon, alas he turned into a zombie in the dungeon. His blood lust saw him tear and wrench his hand free of the lone manacle securing him. Goredon caught his jailer napping and took his head as a snack.

Made from a Warlord Games Celtic warrior torso and legs with a Mantic Games Zombie head and the Zombie hand with the head attached.

The gore is made from dried Blood for the Blood God paint from the pot lid. ?

Between the NorthStar sprues there is a minor scale issue, but only in how buff the barbarians are compared to the normal soldier sized sprues. Which makes thematic sense.

I used the body from the NorthStar soldiers sprue and arms from the barbarian sprue. I wanted to use one of the soldiers sprue heads with a helmet, but the head looked tiny compared to the huge shoulders. I cut the helmet off and stuck it onto the head of a Barbarian sprue head.
He has the tan uniform of the local militia. He has the blue and white stripe livery of the local Lord on his shield. The rough looking clothes and helmet being the wrong size shows that the militia aren’t well funded.
I like that the uniform ties in with the mini I painted yesterday.

The pessimist in me has me making a back up ranger or companion, just in case. ?

@brennon set us a challenge to kitbash from NorthStar “legos” kits. These are some of my efforts so far.

First guy is made from Frostgrave soldier body and sack with Frostgrave barbarian arms and head.

I will use him as a survivor / citizen model for some of the scenarios.

He might pass as a Frostgrave thief too. ?

The base is made from the cut up feet tabs from other minis to look like dungeon or castle flooring.

I liked making this guy. The right arm if a bow string drawing arm, but I think the fact that he is heavily laden makes it look like he is adjusting his shoulder strap.
The head is from the barbarian set.
The rest of the body is from the NorthStar soldiers sprue, but I think one of the pouches on the back might be from the female soldier sprue.

He will make a fine survivor model or a pack mule again for Frostgrave. Still can’t remember what the pack mule’s advantage is in game. ?

Another survivor with a lantern. ? He clearly used to be a sergeant with pointing skills like that.
NorthStar soldiers body with a head from a Conquest Games medieval archers box sprue.

Not much of a kit bash, but enjoyed the basing and trying to hint at some light coming from the lantern.

Survivor or civilian model. Packed her bags and decided “that’s enough giant rats for me, I am off to me mother’s”.
Made from the Frostgrave NorthStar female soldiers box.

The wife thinks she has a mustache. I did wonder why some of the female head sculpts aren’t more femanin, but I couldn’t sculpt a better one so I will not judge.

Frostgrave female soldiers box mini again.
She took some scrolls for a bit of light reading, a dagger because why not, and a lantern? She seems suspicious… ?

Variety.

I used Mantic Games Ghoul body parts and Mantic Games Zombie heads to add some variety to my zombies (common all garden).

Basing.

I chose to use the tab between their feet as a pathing slab and this gave me the idea of having them on a path with forest flock and flower tufts either side for their bases.

For my RoSD painting efforts I got a community spotlight Golden Button. 🙂

I had painted some skeletons, some gnolls and most of my warband at the time and the praise was really welcome, at a time when it was really needed and appreciated.

@brennon shared a doodle on instagram and it inspired me to write a piece of narrative that jumped to my mind as soon as i saw it.

“Don’t the locals usually make their sword offerings in the lake? Why are these here?” asked the young ranger on is first foray out into the forests beyond The Pale.

“Don’t touch that sword boy. There’s a reason no one goes to the lake. There’s foul dark magic there. Not even we go there unless we have to. And this tree hid an ancient king that the locals successfully revolted against. They overthrew the Gillhammer line of kings centuries ago, but the king that hid here kept a bloody civil war going for another grusome decade. They say that since then, the tree has lost all it’s leaves; summer or winter it stays bare. Not sure if the swords are meant to thank the Gods for overthrowing tyranny, or maybe there’s a darker purpose. Lets get moving. This place chills my bones…”

Archibald punched the youngster playfully in the arm to try and shock the look of concern from his face. The young man smiled unconvincingly and stepped away from the ring of ancient swords. Archibald unconsciously gripped the pommel of his sword for comfort and led the scouting party deeper into the woods…

On the RoSD Facebook page someone was asking for thoughts on the Lore. I offered my thoughts, that i have formed from reading only the opening sections of the book, and the directions my imagination is going in as a result.

I like the description of the cities in the book. I see the mining men of one border being well represented by the NorthStar barbarians minis, being hardy and less bothered about the refinements of capital life.
I see the capital as a cosmopolitan mix of all the region’s people and more in the way of Dwarves, Elves etc that have a healthy taste for trade with us. So any fantasy minis would seem to fit in there.
I see the capital as a city where there is political strife, but ultimately the threats to the kingdom focus the collective mind against outward enemies rather than within. The kingdom is relatively well run. Those that show strength and feats of arms are held in high regard, though wealth and historical links to the Crown still hold influence, even in the state of emergency they must be approaching.
The king being young always creates strife early in a reign, but it appears that balanced heads and advisors are around him and none of the standard power struggles at court seems to threaten the status quo.
The further you get from the secular cities the more religious the people become. The traditions differ wildly from region to region. Some commit offerings of swords to lakes and rivers. Some encourage magic users in their community to be schooled by druid-like, experienced magic users in the expectation they will return with spells to benefit the villages of their birth. Most communities have a healthy respect for the land and live in harmony with the seasons.
My band has a member from each of the 3 main cities, one’s full past isn’t really known and one comes from a rural village in the North.