Category Archives: Dungeons & Dragons Monsters

Realm of Chaos – Nurgle’s Children 2021 #25, D&D Monster Manual 57: 44116: Thrasher Snail (Reaper Bones Black) as Proxy Beast of Nurgle #Monstermarch5

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Reaper Bones Black 44116: Thrasher Snail, Proxy Beast of Nurgle

Long enough post title for you? Sheesh, yeah!

Today’s model has a few layers of “what is this one?” in it. More than you’d expect for a simple snail model, anyway. The official name of this model from the Reaper Bones 4 campaign is “Thrasher Snail“, though as with a huge proportion of Reaper’s stuff, it’s their “Not-” version of a D&D monster, just renamed to avoid copyright issues. In this case, it’s a Not-Flail Snail. So that’s all pretty straightforward to start. However, as I’m much more of a Warhammer guy than a D&D guy, when I saw this thing, the poorly-cast flails did trip me up for several months as I scratched my head on this low-import figure trying to clean them up properly, and then figure out how to assemble them, as I just didn’t like the look of the flails.

Reaper Bones Black 44116: Thrasher Snail, Proxy Beast of Nurgle

So last weekend, motivated to get the thing painted now and finally by both Swordmaster’s Monster March and Ann’s “Neglected But Not Forgotten” painting challenges, I decided to just say “fuck it” and forget about the flails, fill in some of the holes on the sides of the snail’s head, and give it a lovely twisted unicorn-style horn to make it fit in with how I’d always planned to use the model anyway – as a Beast of Nurgle. I did need to do some carving to assemble it, as it didn’t fit together nicely. I found that adding the Bones Black to boiling water softened it enough so that my hobby knife cut through it very easily, as opposed to it being closer to resin in regards to resistance to a blade (though not shatter-fragility) when at normal room temperature.

Reaper Bones Black 44116: Thrasher Snail, Proxy Beast of Nurgle

Once I’d made that call, painting was a little tedious in painting the striations onto the shell before adding multiple glazes (and some Contrast), but overall a breeze that went quickly and easily, and was simple enough that I was able to add a layer here and there before work and after work even when bloody tired and not really in the mood to put brush to plastic.

Reaper Bones Black 44116: Thrasher Snail, Proxy Beast of Nurgle

In the end, this was a nice quick project that adds one more model to my very slowly growing Nurgle Daemonic horde.

As an addemdum, fellow blogger Imperial Rebel Ork (or, IRO) has asked people to post up some of their favourite t-shirts. I’m currenly in a state of T-Flux, but I did manage to find a few that kinda fit well enough to wear, and so here are a couple of them, with my ugly mug suitably covered so as to not scare small children and pets.

D&D Monster Manual 56: Tomb of Annihilation – Zorbo

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Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, Tomb of Annihilation – Zorbo

I picked up my first D&D Adventure Boardgames quite a few years ago – when I was first getting into nerd-boardgames again and seeing them as a source of miniatures. Because more is always better, right? 😡 So my group at the time played through Ravenloft, and then we got about halfway, or 2/3 of the way through Ashardalon, but then it fizzled out as we played other games, and even though I painted my way slowly through those miniatures at the time, and then revisited them over more recent years, it wasn’t until last year’s lockdowns that Marouda and I revisited them properly, and in doing so, I picked up the games I was missing – Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeon of the Mad Mage. After opening both games, I basically did that thing where you separatre the models that you think will paint up most quickly and easily… and then put them into tub and forget about them for 6 months or more.

Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, Tomb of Annihilation – Zorbo

Satin varnish made them a bit too reflective in the photos.

That’s where the three little misshapen lumps of plastic we see today came from. I took a peek into the tub a couple of days ago, after posting up the F̶r̶o̶g̶l̶o̶k̶s̶ Grung models, and pulled them out.

Grey fur, *check*!

The lumpy little sculpts in green looked more like Nurglings to me than anything else, and the name “Zorbo” made me think of Zorba the Greek rather than anything D&D related, and so I did need to look up what the actual fuck these things are supposed to be. And found this illustration alongside this text: “Zorbos were typically around three feet tall, and covered in gray fur. They had sharp teeth, as well as sharp claws on both hands and feet.”

Drop Bear, close relative of the Koala

Anyway, after a little more reading it became plainly obvious that Zorbos are simply silly-named fantasy versions of the very real and very vicious Australian Marsupial, the Drop Bear. Just with “the flesh of elves” and some silly shit about “taking on the aspect of their surroundings to make themselves tougher” added to their existing reputation for viciousness and chlamydia. As an aside, one positive of the recent travel restrictions is drop bear attacks and fatalities are WAY down at the moment.

Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, Tomb of Annihilation – Zorbo

Here, even a Froglok stands over the lazy little drop bear bastards who can’t be arsed even to stand up.

They’re not good sculpts, nor do they photograph well, but they’re bloody small and simple enough that did at least make it easy for me to paint them, and so the actual painting went pretty straightforwardly, and now I have another three down for Ann’s “Neglected But Not Forgotten” painting challenge and three more little mini-monsters for the D&D boardgaming ready to go!