Rangers of Shadow Deep Recruits

Why Recruits?

In a recent three player game* we didn't have many recruitment points, so we ended up with a ten point Recruit each. For the game we simply used some of my Frostgrave collection and relied on player memory to know which mini was a Recruit and which was a Man at Arms (not always successfully). Having seen how useful they were, I'd like to have some dedicated minis for future games (they will, of course, be suitable for other small scale games as well).

What to use

North Star recently brought out Human Light Infantry for Oathmark, stylistically similar to the normal infantry, as seen in my Karpath army and donating torsos for some of the other Companions. But the Light Infantry are obviously unarmoured, wearing short tunics, and all have short cloaks. Whilst I'm not sure I'd want a whole unit in cloaks for my army (I tend to think of the cloaks as denoting rank or quality), I can imagine the young Recruits to the Rangers of Alladore being given a short cloak when they are inducted. Presumably this is then swapped for a full length cloak when they become full Rangers.

Anyway, enough justifying my minis choice, here they are, Alladore Ranger Recruits.

The four Recruits

The simplicity of the minis fits the role. I've gone for similar greens and yellows as the Alladore infantry. The cloak is the same shade of green as the Rangers cloaks or long coats.  Recruits only get hand weapons, so I used the different options on the sprue to add variety.  I even used a set of arms from the other infantry sprue, with puffier sleeves for a bit of variety.

I'm sure that in game these Recruits will be referred to as simply 'those axe guys'

As with the earlier Companions, I gave them a base coat, some highlights and then I used Marine Juice again.

I added a few extra details and highlights, then done.

Sword guy and mace guy?

I'm pleased with the results. They are simple minis with straightforward paint jobs, but I think they look the part.

*This was a three player game to introduce T'Other One to the game. Andy played a similar Ranger to Portus Fell, I went for a very martial build.

The game was fun, though the event cards didn't produce the glut of zombies we got in our first game, so things seemed, perhaps, a bit easier. Having three Rangers probably helped too. 

It was this game that inspired me to build the four Recruits. Their low points cost means they fill gaps in the recruitment process.