Tag Archives: Stonehaven Miniatures

Dwarf Adventurers – Pathfinder & Anti-Paladin

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A couple of Dwarves to share today. These, like much of what I’m showing at the moment were painted during the latter months of 2016 when I was too busy to post. Basically, my free time was right down, so I spent a few months where my “hobby time” was spent painting instead of writing posts and following blogs and my “gaming time” watching YouTube videos before falling asleep for the night. Reaper Miniatures really has some lovely models for wargamers. We all know that their bread and butter is the D&D/RPG crowd, but the effect that this has for the wargamers is that their models tend to have a lot of character to them, and so make great low-level heroes, individuals and unit leaders (as long as you don’t mind some uniform variation amongst your usually-quite-uniform plastics. Since I’m an old grognard and love my old metal models this isn’t a big issue for me. On the other hand, they’re not especially cheap. They’re not expensive, or anywhere near the prices of GW’s hero models mind, but if you were looking to make a unit of Reaper metals, well, they’re not so cheap as to make that an easy option.

Reaper Miniatures 14460: Dwarven Pathfinder Grunt, 03508: Bregol Jagstone, Dwarf Ranger

Anyway, I saw this guy somewhere at some stage, and knew I had to have him, so I picked him up. He’s sculpted by Tom Mason and alternately known as Dwarven Pathfinder Grunt with a slotta or in “broccoli base” form, as Bregol Jagstone, Dwarf Ranger. Oddly, despite the “Pathfinder grunt” moniker, I can only find a single other dwarf pathfinder by Reaper, so…

Reaper Miniatures 14460: Dwarven Pathfinder Grunt, 03508: Bregol Jagstone, Dwarf Ranger

When it came to the figure, I of course got the slotta version, so he fit in immediately. Anyway, with his wrench shaped axe and hooded cloak, he could easily go in any of several directions as far as paint goes. I chose for reasons unknown to me to go with the “ranger” look and painted him with a series of naturalistic colours – a series of greens to give him some variation and red-browns to give the model a nice rich tone. I have a box or two of AoW’s dwarf rangers somewhere, so one day he’ll no doubt lead some of them. He did get a great ginger beard, since I felt that fit the sculpt and palette nicely.

Stonehaven Miniatures Dwarf Anti-Paladin, Death Knight, Shadowknight

Stonehaven’s sculpting is a little uneven, but many of the figures have a definite old-school charm to them. I’ve shared a few of them a little while ago, and will have more soon as well. They’re clearly also going for the D&D/RPG market that Reaper aims at, but that’s ok by me, and I’m sure it’s fine with roleplayers, who obviously have an absolutely huge range in what their characters look like. This model is their Anti-Paladin (Death Knight, Shadow Knight, etc). As such, I painted her armour with metallic blues with a sea-green/black tabard and gloves, and bright red hair as a nod to my old (non-dwarf) EQ character. Her sword doesn’t quite reach down to the ground (at least on my casting) so I hid it with a little skull at the front and a tuft of grass at the rear.

Stonehaven Miniatures Dwarf Anti-Paladin, Death Knight, Shadowknight

In game terms, they’ll both work well in RPGs and various board games. Bregol will have a place leading some Dwarven rangers, or as an Artillery guy in the interim (because wrench-axe) and the Shadow Knight can no doubt have some sort of spot in the Undead or Chaos armies. Until I get the Chaos Dwarves properly out and about, anyway…

Stonehaven Dwarves – Berserker, Undead and Unconscious

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Some time ago now, I backed the Stonehaven Miniatures Dwarf Kickstarter. The Kickstarter managed to pretty much deliver on time and provided a rather nice assortment of Dwarven RPG tropes for a very reasonable price. They have run several other campaigns, both before and after but none resonated with me in the way that the Dwarves did, so it’s been the only one I’ve backed, since a bunch of random gnomes, halflings, half-orcs or even elves don’t resonate with me in the way that Dwarves do. They’ve got a nice little line of trolls as well, but at US$20 a pop plus international postage, they’re out of my impulse shopping range. Still, they have a nice range if you’re looking for an RPG-themed model from any of the ranges they offer.

Anyway, this post isn’t here to be an advert. It’s to show some models~!

Stonehaven Undead Dwarf, Berserker Dwarf and Unconscious Dwarf.

The three that I’ve painted so far. I found another trio part-painted in a figure case the other day, so I might get some more done before the end of the year! The Stonehaven models have something about them that’s a throwback to the late ’80’s-early ’90’s. In some ways it adds to their charm and in others it makes aspects of the models quite meh. Many of them are quite “flat” in the same way that many one-piece models of that era were, and while the details are great in some spots, they’re a bit flat and plain in others – particularly on faces, and especially on the females (and that skull above!) They’re nice models, but their sculptors are no Perrys, Prows or Adams.

Stonehaven Dwarf Berserker

Stonehaven Dwarf Berserker – with a Slayer-themed hair colour.

Stonehaven Dwarf Berserker

Rather subtly holding that second axe for the upswing into some fool’s jaw…

This guy was started quite some time ago – probably not long after I received my KS models. For some reason he lagged out, and was finally picked up and completed a few days ago alongside Aenur from the previous update. I went for a Dwarf Slayer look, as I figure that a bit of spiky armour doesn’t preclude the seeking of an honourable death in combat. I tried to add some tonal qualities to his weapons and armour to make them look well used without going down the road of rust and decrepitude. He’ll be incorporated in with the other slayer models I’ve shown and worked on, and will likely have an additional role in my eventual larger dwarf projects.

Stonehaven Undead Dwarf.

Stonehaven Undead Dwarf

Did the sash and twin hammers denote authority before this dwarf met his fate?

Speaking of decrepitude, here’s the Undead Dwarf. The main feature of this model is his arms and armour, to which I’ve tried to make look both uncared-for but still in use. Hence not going to town with the rust effects. The skull sculpt is lacking a little in terms of definition, and I didn’t want to (couldn’t be bothered to) paint in depth in the maxilla, so I painted it “as is”. I do like having some non-human undead, so he’ll probably find a home in the Undead army in some form eventually, as he was started long before I began to raise the undead hordes.

Stonehaven Unconscious Dwarf.

Stonehaven Unconscious Dwarf.

…and still down.

Dead? Knocked out? Drunk? Or just sleeping? That series of questions explains why this unconscious dwarf is painted and simply laid on a round, plain brown base devoid of all “context markers” like blood, grass, weapons, shield or a helm, or even a beer stein. I wanted to keep this fellow as non-specific as possible so that the model can be as flexible as possible. he could lay slain on a battlefield or lying unconscious on the dirt(y) floor of a cell or a dungeon. He could be passed out in the horse stables after way too much boozing. Whether he’s being used to mark the long sleep or just a nap between goblin-slaying, this guy is done!