Dungeons And Dragons 8 Week Project - The Heroes of Nentir Vale

As I mentioned in the introduction, I'm putting together minis for a face to face D&D session in August. 

Player Characters are the most important requirements, so a big welcome, please, to....

Two thirds of the Heroes of Nentir Vale

The Heroes of Nentir Vale

The party consists of Roland, a half elven paladin of Bahamut; Tharnak, a dwarven paladin of Kord; Harrow, a tiefling cleric of the Raven Queen; Namfoodle Timbers, a gnome bard; Kei, a dragonborn wizard; and Tarryn, an elven rogue

Of these, Kei's player has chosen a Dragonborn Elementalist, an old WotC pre-painted mini.  He's going to repaint it to bring it more into line with his vision. Tarryn's player has an idea of what she wants and is looking at various options, probably from the Reaper Miniatures range, and again, want's to paint her mini herself.

So that's four player characters to paint and, in some cases, convert.

Kei plus the base models for Harrow, Tharnak and Roland.  

Below is the necromancer about to donate her scythe (and left arm) to Harrow

Roland 

I had several options for Roland, mostly needing weapon swaps to show his magic glaive. The player has chosen Reaper's Erick, Paladin Initiate (SKU 77197). It was pretty simple to swap his sword for a polearm taken from the ever useful Frostgrave Soldiers sprue. I know it's not actually a glaive, but it's close enough and it looks nicely ornate.

Painting wise I gave him a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone to act as primer and to help the detail stand out more*.

Armour and other metalwork was Chainmail, washed in more Dark Tone, then highlighted up.

The player requested royal blue for the tunic. I tried a lighter blue for the undershirt, but this didn't look right, so I went with white highlighted up from wolf grey. 

The shield is something he must have picked up in Gardmore Abbey (he doesn't normal use a shield, but the mini has one slung).  The device is supposed to represent the claw marks left by Bahamut, and ties in to my adaptation of the original module.

I'm really pleased with how Roland has turned out.  The fairly passive pose is unusual for an adventurer, but I imagine him resting for a moment, contemplating Bahamut's glory.

Tharnak

Tharnak was a bit harder to source than I thought; the bulk of my dwarf miniatures use axe or hammer, not sword. But I found this Reaper dwarf, Durgam Deepmug (SKU 77400), and removed the axe in his left hand, ready for a shield (added after the bulk of the painting was finished).

As with Roland, I gave Tharnak  a Dark Tone wash. This has the same effect as Reaper's liners, but I've misplaced my Reaper paints.

Metalwork was painted in the same way, and at the same time, as Roland. His player wanted dark red for the tunic and reddish brown and yellow for the pants and the fabric portion of the gloves. Other gear was painted in appropriate brown shades. The brief was good quality, but worn. He's still using the stuff he left his clan forge with.

As with Roland I'm pleased with the result, with the exception of the shield.  The detail of the symbol is good (for me), but far too small.  It's something to revisit if time allows.

Harrow 

Harrow was also difficult, mostly because a lot of the female tiefling miniatures are, shall we say, underdressed. I did find a Reaper Hellborn Paladin (SKU 30185) but she's equipped with sword and shield.  However, my son found a necromancer mini with a great scythe.

It seemed sensible to use the elf's left arm to replace the paladin's left arm and shield. The right hand, without sword, could then hold a holy symbol.

Harrow's player has a portrait, which gives me the colours for skin, hair and horns. She's trying to avoid the goth stereotype of the Raven Queen, and would be happy if strangers just thought she was some sort of itinerant farm worker. So muted colours, a mix of metal and leather armour and nothing too showy.

Again, another fun mini to paint, I'm particularly pleased with the skin tones.  But I was running out of ideas for colours for clothing and equipment.  The mini is rather more armoured than the character (better than some of the cheesecake alternatives) and the player specifically wants her to look as ordinary as possible; difficult with some of the fancy armour pieces. 

I've only just noticed that I completely forgot to paint her arm bands.

Namfoodle Timbers

I was anticipating difficulty finding a mini for Timbers, gnome bards with acceptable instruments are rare.  In the end, the Wizkidz Pathfinder Deep Cuts Gnome Male Bard (73205) pack has acceptable options. I hadn't appreciated how petite the mini would be until it arrived, so I had to scrap my plans to give him a more appropriate instrument.

In fact I sometimes find it difficult on a mini this small to pick out fine details. It might be me, but these WizKids minis are particularly prone to this, especially the supposedly ready primed ones. I can paint equivalent sized 15 mm minis perfectly well, but I struggled here. Thinking back, it was the same with Torin.

The player asked for burgundy tunic and dark green trousers. 

The burgundy was a base coat of VGC Dark Flesh, highlighted with VGC Gory Red and Blood Red. The trousers were VGC. I thought his boots and pauldron would look better in grey than brown.

I could complain about his lyre, but it's actually a reasonable representation. The solid plastic for the strings is annoying, but I don't suppose there's any other way of modelling strings at this scale.

This was the least enjoyable mini, probably due to the difficulty of actually working out what I was painting.  It might be the sculpt, or my painting, but I think he looks very worried.

So a set of character minis, and the most important minis for the game.

Some of the players have never experienced face to face D&D, so using minis will be a new experience for them.

Converting and painting these minis reminded me of the ones I did back in 2019.

Moving On, What's Next?

With the PCs done it's time for some opposition. There's one encounter the players have been building (and levelling) up to and I think there's a good chance it might be on the agenda for the session. 

*I was surprised just how much detail is on the mini.  The first Reaper Bones minis were criticised for lack of detail, but I think it's often just harder to see in the white plastic