Minion Unit Customizations
So we Minions players all knew it going in. Thornfall Alliance and Blindwater Congregation might have a lot of character, but their troop selection is a little lacking, at least until Domination comes out. That’s where conversions come in.
Although with Thornfall and Lord Carver making Farrow Brigands a really strong unit, and with Gatormen just being pretty epic in general I don’t think anyone’s complained about that so far. Still, as some of you may have gathered by now, I like variation in my armies. Here are some of the mods I made to my Minion Units to help make them all a bit more distinct.
For my Farrow I don’t really have a problem with having a mass of the standard Brigand troopers. Especially with the multiple poses and head swaps they have available. But it definitely seemed wrong to have four identical shaman leading those Brigands. After a bit of thinking I came up with some ways to make each of them a unique character.
First up is goggles here. Goggles are fairly popular amongst the pig-men it seems, with Rorsch and some of the Bone Grinders sporting them. Seemed like a natural fashion accessory for a pig shaman who’d gotten sick of that weird hood they usually wear. Since the Farrow Shaman head attaches separately, with the hood being part of the body, I easily snipped it off with some heavy clippers and ground down the nub it left on his back. I covered that area with some Green Stuff sculpted fur. Since the goggles made him look a bit more technologically inclined, I decided to work that into his character a bit more. Since farrow are known scavengers I decided I’d give him a gear axe (what… adeptus mechanicus… never heard of ’em) made from a piece of warjack that fell in a battle against the farrow. Its a safe bet he thinks that by wielding a piece of the machine in battle he’s harnessing its strength.
I wanted to push the shaman/mystic vibe a bit more on the next one so I sculpted a more sinister looking hood for this guy. I also bent his knee and trimmed away from the stone he’s leaning on to give him a more hunched pose. To further the character, I decided to give him a much more traditional looking staff: in this case just a simple looking crook with rivets glued to it in an effort to thematically tie it in with the IK setting.
Finally I wanted a shaman who related to the bone grinder theme of the farrow. My final Brigand leader has found the skull of some goat like creature, perhaps a young Satyr, and now wears it as a mask. The horns were one of the most fun parts to sculpt. I started with kind of an elongated flattened tear drop shape which I then simply twisted up to form the horn. The head of his staff came from a Gatorman Bokor.
And speaking of Gatormen, I decided to spice up my second unit of them as well. The Bokor was almost as epic a project as my War Hogs, and required me to sculpt a lot of fine detail. I knew I wanted to give him some kind of totemic mask – something distinct but not as fancy as Calaban’s. I decided to make it somewhat bird-like, as a carrion bird would make an ideal totem for a people that are as obsessed with death as the Gatormen. I also sculpted on some bone armor, almmost identical to Wrong-Eye’s. Then he got a gray stuff loin cloth like all the gatormen from this unit. But what I’m the most proud of is the little carved wooden gator idol I sculpted for his staff. I’m glad it turned out looking better when painted then it does here as Green Stuff.
For the Gators in the unit I wanted to make some really savage looking weapons. Ever since I was fortunate enough to go to Hawaii a few years back I’d been fascinated by the shark tooth clubs the warriors there once used. The brutal look of them was something I’d been looking for an excuse to use on a mini for awhile now. Weapons like these fit really well into a setting where bone and wooden weapons can be enchanted to be every bit as strong as their steel counterparts. The traditional pointed look of the weapon just didn’t seem to work for something that was going to be wielded two-handed. In the end I went with a weapon that looks a bit more like an Aztec maquahuitl with teeth standing in for obsidian blades.
After figuring out how big I wanted the weapons to be, I cut out four pieces of plasticard to the appropriate shape. Then with my Hobby knife I made little V-shaped cuts down the side of each piece until I had two rows of teeth on each club. I then rolled out a little snake of Brown stuff, kind of flattened it in to place, then used my sculpting tool to add a wood grain texture. If you try to make weapons like these, make sure you leave enough room for a pin at the base of each “blade”. I neglected to do this and had to go back and clumsily green stuff them to the haft. Fortunately this join is on the bottom of the “blade” so it doesn’t really show. I also made my weapons too long and had to cut the top most row of teeth off of my original weapons since they looked so oversized.
The shoulderpads were actually a little easier to handle. I came up with kind of an odd method to make them all exact. I cut out a plasticard stamp that I then pressed into green stuff i had rolled flat. Then I added the wood texture while it was still curing. After it had dried I had a nice pre-made outline to cut them from. It worked okay, but if I do something like this again I may try to come up with another way.
~So with these guys finished I think I can finally call my Minion forces done. At least until we see the Slaughterhousers in May. Pretty soon I hope to write my first tactics article in what seems like forever. This time for the Trollkin Sluggers.
