A necromancer walks into a bar…

Preparing for the project after Rangers of Shadow Deep, I’ve finished another three miniatures for my Frostgrave warband:

First, the most evil wizard I could find in my lead mountain to represent my necromancer:

Tim the Enchanter expy, bought at Salute many moons ago from Studio miniatures I believe?

A lovely little sculpt, detailed but not overly fussy, which made him a pleasure to paint.

Next is his apprentice, who is a sculpt from Heresy that I’ve had for absolutely years that I hadn’t thus far built due to option paralysis (as there’s a choice of 3 heads, and a Black Mage esque hat, any of which I’d have happily painted), but the need for an emo looking apprentice wizard expedited my choice!

You can’t really see it from this angle, but I’ve even given him a little smudge of eyeliner, as this is clearly the wannabe goth student that my necromancer has picked up from the local wizard college to do his bidding (largely lighting candles and carrying things so far, but I’m sure unleashing the mighty energies of death is just around the corner…)

I used Mephiston Red as a unifying colour across the pair - while the Necromancer has his fancy red cape and cloak (accessorised with a black tabard, for maximum gothic street cred) he’s just given his apprentice a matching capelet that he has to wear over his otherwise quite austere robes.

Proving that there’s someone on an even lower rung than the Apprentice, the final figure for this post is a zombie:

The zombie, whilst not technically a member of the warband, and will instead be summoned into play each game, on the other hand is literally just a corpse they found and have tied a matching red cloth around his waist to denote ownership:

And when we say ‘found’, it’s probably a warband member that didn’t survive until payday, and is now doing some involuntary pro bono work for the Necromancer, probably not best to ask too many questions…

The model is a plastic Frostgrave figure with a metal zombie head (from Westwind, if memory serves). I gave him a sack and a grasping hand (converted from an archer arm, I seem to recall) as I imagine him being like the butter passing robot in Rick&Morty - they reanimate him, hand him a sack, and say ‘you fetch the treasure. That’s your purpose, now go fetch some treasure’ as my plan for him is largely that (well, and being a speed bump to throw in the path of marauding monsters, but he doesn’t need to know that). I know I could have used any of the hundreds of zombies I’ve already got painted, but I wanted one that looked slightly more controlled and purposeful than the usual wobbly biter.

Tally: 

42 vs 23 = +19

Next, who knows? I had started prepping some figures that were easy wins to get my numbers up, but seeing as I’m only 10 away from my target of averaging one a week I might just dabble in whatever odd single figures take my fancy, probably including some more figures for the Frostgrave warband so that I can be ready for some solo play in the New Year! On that front, I have something of a dilemma - when I first selected my warband, I chose an Apprentice, as it’s just good sense to take one. Then I decided to play Dark Alchemy, during which you don’t get to take an Apprentice if you have one, leaving me torn between leaving the warband as-is, or taking a Captain instead and buying an Apprentice once I finish the solo campaign, which feels a little meta. I already have my Captain picked out, and have vague plans to play through one of the solo scenarios from Spellcaster magazine with the Captain, leaving me unsure which choice to make…