This article describes making and painting a batch of Frostgrave and Oathmark 28mm fantasy miniatures. Frostgrave and Oathmark are a rules set put out by North Star Military Figures and Osprey Publishing. I have not played the Frostgrave or Oathmark rules, but I intend to use these figures with Osprey's Lion and Dragon Rampant rules. Although I have played many historical rules, this is my first recent foray into painting some fantasy miniatures.
Click on the photos below to see larger images.
Before describing the making and painting, a tale of a battle in the forest.
|
|
|
|
The leader carries his large two-handed sword and
an enemy's severed head to intimidate his foes.
The leader's captain marches by the his side with a blue Frostgrave banner.
|
|
|
Despite being outnumbered, the Frostgrave soldiers turn to face the zombies.
With their superior weapons and command, the zombies should be dispatched easily
if the soldiers stay together.
|
|
|
"Stick together men," shouts the Frostgrave leader. With crushing blows to the head and deep slashes to their joints, the zombies are held back.
But the numerous zombies are flanking the soldiers.
This is rapidly getting out of hand.
|
|
|
The melee goes back and forth.
Careful! If you are infected by a zombie, you will rot until you die and become undead too.
|
|
|
One injured human returned from the forest to tell this tale. The author attempted to get more details and the final result of the encounter, but the injured human mumbled "I was bitten," soon turned green, and died. No other humans have appeared with any information of the Battle in the Forest.
Thanks for reading the tale. Please read on to learn about construction and painting of these models.
|
|
|
For the Frostgrave soldiers, I decided to paint a blue and yellow scheme. The leather bags, straps, and shoes are mostly browns. Armor and weapons are typically a steel metallic color. Finally the figured are dipped in dark brown wash for shading dark crevasses.
Once figures are painted, they are glued to a metal base.
The base is then decorated with some stones and grass flocking.
Then everything is sprayed with a matte varnish for protection.
|
|
|
The miniature sculptors modeled some early medieval humans.
Some appear to have Viking helmets, others appear early English,
and others appear to be from a European peasant mob.
|
|
|
To the right of center is the leader, the one and only figure to have the large two-handed sword.
I took one of the arms which holds a lantern, cut off the lantern, and put a spare head in his grasp.
To the left of center is the soldier with the banner.
He is the only one with a pointing right hand.
His open left hand hold a staff that I made with brass wire.
The banner is made from cut toilet tissue which is painted and frozen into position with the matte varnish.
|
|
|
Sadly I forgot the make of these zombies, and I cannot seem to find them on the web.
They are not Frostgrave or Oathmark minis, but I think they came as an add on to
a zombie board game from 10 years ago.
They have modern clothing, but I think they will do fine as evil enemies for fantasy gaming.
|
|
|
They are an inexpensive set of 48 hard plastic zombies.
They are modular and have differing heads, arms, bodies, and legs that join to make a varied set.
I painted four groups of 12 differing colors so that multiple players could identify
the groups
I first primed these 10 year ago, and they sat in a box unfinished.
But now they are resurrected from dead and ready to fight.
|
|
|
I painted all the goblins with green skin, and a black and red wardrobe. Astute readers might notice that these gobos appear to be slightly dustier or grayer than the previous miniatures.
The dusty look is by accident.
I intended to give them a double coat of matte varnish for protection.
If one coat is good, two must be better.
Not so. I think the second coat really toned down the saturated
colors.
They are fine, but I wish I stopped at one coat.
|
|
|
Again a bit dusty looking.
The matte varnish is overdone and dried a little bit opaque when it
should be clear.
|
|
|
I like the smashy bits.
|
|
|
The swords a curved scimitars
The shields have curved cutaways.
I think the sculptors were inspired by the Lord of the Rings movies
where the orcs and goblins appear to be middle eastern rabble.
|
|
|
The banner staff and cow skull are included in the bits.
The banner fabric is made from cut toilet tissue.
"Huzzah!" say the goblins!
|
|
|
This box of hard plastic miniatures contains 20 bodies and enough arms, weapons, and heads to make a variety of poses. This first group of 6 has the bow and crossbow weapons.
Sorry to say, I repeated my mistake of making two coats of matte varnish.
This severely toned down the browns, khakis, and yellows of the figures.
I guess dusty and muted is fine for Barbarians, but I need
to tone down the varnish in the future.
|
|
|
Of all the miniatures in this article, I would say I like the sculpts of
these Barbarians the best.
They have a nice unified look.
They look like they would be modeled on some Dark Ages Germanic tribes.
The variety of heads with various beards and hairstyles are excellent.
|
|
|
My favorite figure of all here is the (slightly out-of-focus)
leader in the front.
He has a nice viking helm, big two-handed hammer,
and a white fur cape.
Why so many figures? My choice of gaming rules affects the number of miniatures needed. The Dragon Rampant rules required each warband have about 20 to 30 figures in groups of six or twelve. This is more figures than a typical dungeon crawl, but certainly less than a full blown historical or fantasy army. For gaming, I need one set of good guys and one set of bad guys, and then I figured why not two groups each of good and bad, and that is why you see four groups here.
Thanks for reading about my Frostgrave and Oathmark 28 mm fantasy miniatures.
These miniature were a joy to assemble and paint.
Stay tuned and you will likely see a few more sets of
miniature warriors.