D&D Monster Manual 19: Wrath of Ashardalon – Gauth (Bellax)

Wrath of Ashardalon - Gauth

Bellax, Baby Beholder?

Since we’ve been playing a bit of the D&D boardgames lately, a few more of the models from those games have sneaked into my painting queue. Despite my fairly effectiove use of “The Tray” unfortunately some of the stuff there just isn’t driving me to paint it right now, and the D&D stuff belongs to that most relevant painter/gamer clause of “I need it done now for a game”. So when I found this thing in the bottom of the game box, primed and basecoated red. Well, I could see that the model was going to be simple enough to finish pretty quickly. So over the course of not too much time over two days, I got it finished.

Wrath of Ashardalon - Gauth

Dancing Dragonborn Fighter for scale.

As I understand it, a Gauth is like a small Beholder, which is a bloody silly monster in and of itself, and as such, very D&D. It’s also one of the noises that – should you find yourself making it with any frequency – means you should go get yourself tested for COVID-19. As for the model, I dunno. While I actually have an amazing looking paionted variant of this model in my mind’s eye with mottled skin and transitions between distinct shades, it was already basecoated red, and given how much of a zero-sum game my painting time is, it’s really not a model that calls for such effort. It was an easy paint, it looks alright, it’ll work well when we need it for the boardgame or if I ever play D&D/Pathfinder again, so it counts as an easy win, I guess!

Reaper 02341: Stefan Von Kruger (Sandra Garrity)

Reaper 02341: Stefan Von Kruger (Sandra Garrity)

Still on the D&D-ish train today, and we have a Vampire model from Reaper that manages to straddle both the “classic gothic” and the “fantasy armoured” vampire tropes amazingly well in my opinion. Stefan Von Kruger here is very nicely and finely detailed, and only took me 10 or 15 years to get finished. He was moved onto a 32mm base a couple of years ago, but still took some time to get to the point where I was able to make myself complete the model, ultimately using the Tray to force the issue.

For the colour scheme, I stuck with pretty bog-standard Vampire tones, whichg also happen to fit in with my Vampire Counts-themed Undead/Kings of War army. I also added some blood spatter, which I don’t do all that often, but I felt like it fit here, as Stefan here has a pretty ferocious pose – so a bit for his clothing and face, a touch on his shield, and some streaking on his blade. It’s a subtle look on his red shield and tabard, but that suits me quite nicely to be quite honest.  …anbd just a few dots to mar his otherwise perfectly regal face.

Reaper 02341: Stefan Von Kruger (Sandra Garrity)

The embossed detail on his shield is a nice touch, with a little Easter Egg there that you may not notice at first. This model also serves as a good example of why something like the poor old weedy Count Strahd model is barely likely to get a look in, even if we’re playing the actual D&D game that Strahd comes from. Why would you use that, when something like this is available?