Grenadier Fantasy Lords 500 series 528 Mounted Grim Reaper

The sun is shining, which means that I get to spray the varnish on the latest nugget extracted from the Lead Mountain - a rather odd but rather well sculpted piece from Grenadier. The figure comes in two parts – the rider and horse are one piece, whilst the hands and scythe are another, more flimsy piece, secured in place with superglue. Once primed, it was actually a very simple piece to paint; a base coat of matt black, dark gray dry brushing for the cloak and the horse, then white to pick out the bones for the Reaper, with deep red leather for the barding. Simples!

I like the sculpt – it’s a dramatic pose, and it painted up nicely – but I’m not sure it will get much table top time, or even who it was aimed at. It’s not a standout figure IMHO, so I don’t think it would serve as the centre piece of an Undead army – and opportunities for the appearance of the Grim Reaper on horseback in D&D sessions are frankly limited. In addition, it sits somewhat uneasily with a lot of other Grenadier figures - as it is mid-period Grenadier, it is more finely detailed than the early ones, and smaller than the later  ones. These are probably the reasons why it didn’t sell that well, and why it appears to be a fairly rare piece – I’ve never seen another one, other than the versions still in blister packs on Lost Minis.

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM71 Bugbear

Had a bit of time on my hands, so I’ve been able to finish off another nugget extracted from the Lead Mountain. Next up was this overlooked morsel from Asgard; as any followers of the blog will know, I am partial to Asgard sculpts ;)

No two ways about it; this is an odd looking sculpt. Bugbears are generally viewed as larger, more intelligent goblins – hence the green skinned paint job – and the actual sculpt of the head, arms and torso is fine, lots of detail there, whilst the club is suitably menacing. But what is it wearing??! It looks like a boiler suit! And as for those boots… very dapper, and totally incongruous! The clothes are just totally out of keeping with the rest of the figure. However, I understand that in later editions of D&D, bugbears could be player characters, and I’m guessing that the figure was designed for that purpose – otherwise, if you put this figure amongst a horde of goblins (even Asgard goblins) it’s just going to look right out of place.

A pleasure to paint though – standard goblin green for the skin, blood red for the hair (just for contrast) and then a light khaki colour for the boiler suit, with leather for the boots. Apply washes, then dry brush. Simples!

I’m fairly pleased with the end product, although I can’t see it getting much table top time. From what I can make out, it’s a fairly rare piece (although I understand that Viking Forge still produce it, along with a lot of the old Asgard range) – I suspect it didn’t sell well because it is such an odd looking critter.  

Reaper Dungeon Dwellers 1246 Troll

Next out of the lead mountain was this sculpt from Reaper. I was NOT enthused; the figure seemed very clumsy, with little or no detail, and the pose seems very static. It looked and felt more like a toy figure rather than a fantasy miniature. Still, we must do what we can.

The first job was trimming away an inordinate amount of flash lines from the mould; this included drilling out a brand new eye socket where the original casting hadn’t been successful! After that, a coat of primer, followed by more trimming… it was a long job to be honest.

The paint job was comparatively simple; GW putrid flesh for the skin, then standard browns and leather for the fur loin cloth and belt/bag. Picking out the skull dangling from the figure’s hip showed just how coarse the sculpting was! After that, just a matter of picking out any spots/boils/veins in red, followed by a wash of Army painters Dark Tone, and then highlighting. The base is simply flock plus some stones and bark from the garden.

To be honest I’m not happy with either the figure or the paint job – as a sculpt it is just too clumsy and toy-like to see much table top time, and whilst I’d picked what I thought were suitable colours for a troll, I suspect the figure might have turned out better if I’d used brighter colours. This one may get moved on fairly quickly via a certain auction site…

Viking Forge FM-01 Giant Troll w/Axe and Spear / possible Asgard FM35 Hill Troll?

And now we have a bit of a mystery… hopefully solved. But first, a history lesson. Asgard Miniatures were one of the earliest British manufacturers of fantasy figures. Eventually, they were sold on to Table Top Miniatures (TTM), who eventually sold the moulds on to Viking Forge, where you can still get some of the excellent (and not so excellent) Asgard castings. 

A couple of years ago, I won a job lot of TTM miniatures – several of them were still in their original TTM bags and labels, so they were definitely genuine TTM - and some were loose, but the seller assured me all of them dated from a period in the 1980’s where he’d bought them from TTM. This was one of the loose figures from the TTM job lot.

At first, I couldn’t find him at all in Lost Minis, so I checked on the Viking Forge website and spotted him listed as FM-01 Giant Troll w/Axe and Spear. That in itself was kind of odd; he didn’t bear any resemblance to the other Troll sculpts from the range, and also the original Asgard FM01 Troll was a much dumpier (and very coarse) figure. Rather than a Troll… he looks like a Hill Giant, or perhaps… a Hill Troll? In Lost Minis, the entry for the Asgard FM35 Hill Troll is empty. No-one knows for sure what the figure actually looks like… no catalogue lists the figure. Could this chappie be the missing FM35 Hill Troll? He certainly looks the part - closer in appearance to a Hill Giant than a Troll, to be honest.

The figure itself is very well sculpted – lots of detail and expression, and good threatening pose. If I had a criticism, the weapons supplied with the figure are a bit flimsy, and I can see them getting bent or snapped very quickly. Actually, that's another pointer to suggest he’s an early Asgard sculpt - other figures in the range have flimsy weapons, plus the odd looking axe he’s wielding is a ringer for the weapon supplied for another Asgard miniature from the same range, FM85v.1 Lord of Chaos.

The figure was a pleasure to paint; flesh tones, browns for the furs, red hair and a dash of silver for the chainmail, then a wash of Army Painters Soft Tone, followed by dry brushing. The base is simply flock plus a few twigs and stones from the garden; the strange looking bulrush thing is a sprig from some grapes!

I was very pleased with the way this one turned out – it’s a wonderfully detailed sculpt, with a distinctly menacing air. Perfect for terrorising adventurers when they seek shelter in a cave! Now, if someone could just confirm whether this is the missing FM35 Hill Troll...

Grenadier Wizzards and Warriors W34b Medusa

The saying goes, “make hay whilst the sun shines”. In my case, it is “varnish figures whilst the sun shines”. After finishing the Asgard Land Dragon, the next figure to be extracted from the Lead Mountain was… this. 

My heart sank. Whilst I am a big fan of Grenadier sculpts in general, the figures from the Wizzards and Warriors range were pretty awful – coarse, low in detail, and probably designed more as toy figures than as miniatures for gamers. This one fits into that category. Alackaday. Still, we must do what we can…

The first thing was to try and get it in a reasonable condition to paint. That meant trimming and filing of flash from the figure, and then filling in small dents and gaps. After that, the paint job… starting from the top; the hair. There was little or no detail to suggest that these were snakes… it just looks like a bad hair day. I’ve attempted to paint each snake with bands, so it suggests something venomous like a coral snake; however, there is so little detail that the end product just looks like a Rastafarian Medusa. Not too happy with that! 

Medusa’s are supposed to be able to turn their victims to stone; with that in mind, I tried to echo that by painting the upper body grey, like stone – my reasoning was that if the Medusa kept taking glances at her body, the very least that should happen would be for it to take on a grey-ish tinge. I was quite pleased with this; I think it inadvertently channels Indian scriptures of Kali! The facial features are very coarse – barely etched into the face – and I’ve done what I can with it. Not sure what the harness it is wearing is supposed to be either, but I’m assumed it is gold jewellery and painted it accordingly.

The lower snake part gave a bit more joy; the sculptor had traced out banding (not with any consistency), so I was able to pick that out with GW putrid flesh for the underbelly, and green and yellow for the scales. The base is simply GW sand. After that… a wash with GW shades, and the highlighting. Lots of lots of highlighting, effectively repainting the figure again!

The end product has a certain naïve charm I suppose, but I’m not enthused. Having said that, it is more likely to see table top time than the Asgard Land Dragon!

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM64 Land Dragon and Lizardman

I haven’t posted for a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been painting – it is just that we’ve had so much rain recently, I simply haven’t had an opportunity to varnish the figures I’ve completed, and I preferred to wait for a couple of dry days rather than suffer the dreaded vanish frosting due to moisture in the air.

Anyhow… next to be extracted from the Lead Mountain was this rather splendid beastie from Asgard. The Land Dragon does seem to share a common ancestry with the Asgard Wyvern which I did earlier this year, but that is no bad thing.

The model came in 3 parts – rider, the main body of the Land Dragon, and the tail. The joint for joining the tail to the body was really poor, and it took quite a bit of superglue plus Milliput to get it in place. As with the Wyvern, the original Asgard catalogue drawing showed the tail hanging down, whilst in reality it is obvious from the casting the tail is supposed to curve upwards. It certainly makes for a more dramatic (if more fragile) figure! Originally the rider just sat on top of the Land Dragon, and there were huge gaps in the casting – this was alleviated by adding a leather cushion (sculpted from Milliput) for the rider to sit on. He certainly looked a lot comfier after the addition of the cushion!

And so on to painting. Quite a simple job, really; yellow for the underbelly of the Land Dragon, then red for the main body of it and the rider, with brown for the rider’s furs, followed by GW red shades to bring out the depth, and then highlighting. The base is just flock with a few garden twigs added.

I was quite pleased with the way this turned out – it’s a well detailed sculpt, especially for Asgard, who did turn out a lot of very coarse models, especially on the larger ones – and it is a very dramatic figure too. Having said that… there are definite issues with it, and I wonder why Asgard actually produced it. The rider is very small, especially when compared to other Lizardman figures from the Asgard FM range, although I suppose you could argue that the Lizard man race selected small riders for the same reason we select small jockeys to ride horses! If it were used as an encounter for a standard DnD session, I suppose the Land Dragon could give the party a hard time, but this figure strikes me as being more suitable for war gaming, with a unit of them charging the enemy ranks. Whilst this is a good idea in principle, I am guessing that the sheer cost of assembling a unit of Land Dragons and rider (plus the low popularity of Lizardman armies amongst gamers I know) meant that this just didn’t happen. Bit of a shame, as it is nice figure – just a bit too specialised for regular use.

Grenadier Fantasy Lords Second Series 030 Giant Ogre Champion

Next to be extracted from the Lead Mountain was this beastie from Grenadier. Initially I thought it was a Troll variant, similar to this chappie, and so he was painted accordingly with pale/grey skin. It took a bit of research on Lost Minis to find him, which is when he was ID’d as an Ogre!

The paint job was comparatively simple – grey for the skin, dry brushed with white, and then the main armour was GW Tin Bitz dry brushed with gold. The other colours are simply base colours – leather, green, yellows – with a wash of Army Painter Soft Tone. The base is just flock with a twig from the garden placed at the front.

Many of the early Grenadier figures can look slightly cartoonish – very much in keeping with the illustrations from the AD&D 1^st Edition Monster Manual  – and so I was quite pleased with the way this one painted up, as it still manages to look vaguely unpleasant and threatening. It also seems to be a comparatively rare figure; I’ve only seen it a couple of times on certain auction sites. Pleased with the way this one turned out!