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Author Topic: Some miniatures for Song of Blades and Heroes (Rust Monster face reveal)  (Read 395504 times)

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Thanks, all!

I'd been planning to use these Great Scaley [sic] Orcs, painted ages ago, for HotT, but decided last night that they really belong in a dungeon. They'll be easy to rebase if I do decide to make HotT elements from them later.

There's a bit more about them on my blog.

Offline James Holloway

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 763
Those pig-snouted orcs are stellar. Just a few areas resculpted, but they really give the figures a new look.

Offline Severian

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 440
Those scaley [sic] orcs are splendid - they'd do as fine lizardmen, I reckon; the skull shield looks great.

Talking of shields, I've been reading your blog discussions with interest. It definitely works much better to treat shields as a type of (mostly) non-damage dealing weapon, which I think is effectively what you're suggesting, and then extend the mechanic to parries with other weapons, rather than to do the standard D&D -1 to AC modifier. Runequest did something like this, didn't it, parries and the like. I've always liked the granularity of this. My temptation is always to add more complexity, though... But one goal of any system (I reckon) certainly has to be to allow the poleaxe-wielding shieldless foot knight in 15th century plate armour to be as effective as he clearly was...

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Thanks! I think they might be the creations and henchmen of some sorcerer or other. I'll probably use a gnoll-type profile, as they're quite big.

The plate-and-poleaxe thing is an obvious starting point, I think, as that's the height of armoured fighting. I hope the system I'm proposing (using ascending AC from 0 for nothing to 10 for full plate) should (a) make shields desirable for all but the most heavily armoured and (b) give players a few more options in combat. Runequest did have that parry option, which made shields sensible and also allowed the same sort of defensive fighting.

I also want to make full armour highly desirable for a straight battle but subpar for scrambling around in caverns!

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1083
Again, great painting.  Interesting thoughts about shields.  I have never really found rules I completely like for shields or armour in skirmish games.  In Sellswords shields seem simply too good and make armour, in the early levels, too expensive and not worth having until you max out the shield skill.

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1083
Again, great painting.  Interesting thoughts about shields.  I have never really found rules I completely like for shields or armour in skirmish games.  In Sellswords shields seem simply too good and make armour, in the early levels, too expensive and not worth having until you max out the shield skill.

Actually, I just did the mathematics and found I am wrong in the above assertion.   :?

Offline Vladimir Raukov

  • Mad Scientist
  • Posts: 538
I love the shield. It looks like there should be a secret lever that makes the mouth open! lol

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Thanks, all!

Painting progress with the pig-faced orcs has been slow, mainly because of the snow: we spent the entire weekend sledging, which was marvellous. I have got most of the first batch fairly advanced though, and I made a couple more tonight. The red one is the one I'm looking forward to painting the most:


Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
It occurs to me that this pair could almost be the uruk and tracker that Sam and Frodo encounter in 'The Land of Shadow' - in some bizarre parallel universe in which the Hildebrandt brothers' orcs actually reflected the text. (I don't like the Hildebrandt illustrations at all, but there's no denying their influence.)
« Last Edit: March 06, 2018, 06:07:47 PM by Hobgoblin »

Offline Severian

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 440
More nice work on the snout-bearers!

And you're right about those Hildebrandt illustrations...

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Thanks!

Some progress on the pigs. Work's been hellishly busy lately, so I haven't got much done. But these three are more or less there, three more are 80% done, and I've done three or four more conversions too. With the Reaper ones, which I've still to undercoat, I've got a reasonably sized RPG encounter group coming on.

Offline Ethelred the Almost Ready

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1083
Those have come out nicely. :-*

Offline Severian

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 440
Very nice! Grand bold colours and contrasts.

Is that a Bloody Tusk I see?

Offline area23

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1237
    • area23
Love it. Brilliant idea.
If you don't believe in lead, you're already dead.
+++AREA23 BLOG+++

Offline Hobgoblin

  • Galactic Brain
  • Posts: 4911
    • Hobgoblinry
Thanks!

Yes, these are the Orcs of the Bloody Tusk.

area23 - but a pale shadow of Spooktalker's original set of conversions!

Here's one more. He probably needs a few more highlights, but I'll consider those tomorrow.

 

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