More Dungeons and Dragons enemies

My continuing quest to have an extensive collection of painted monsters to cater for (almost) any Dungeons and Dragons occasion...  

Owlbears

I already stuck photos of my first Owlbear in a blog post (HERE), but wanted to include him in a comparison with the second one that I just painted. The first was the standalone Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures one, while the second comes from the Monsters Paint Set (Army Painter / Nolzur's). I think the two models complement each other really well, slight different poses and I wanted to paint the second one with more brown tones on the feathers. The paint sent owlbear has enormous talons on its forepaws and looks a little more feathery down its back and legs, so feels a little more owl-y whereas its counterpart feels a little more bear-y. 

I like them both! 

Both owlbears were painted using Contrast paints to start with, then drybrushed fairly heavily - they each have a lot of sculpted detail that works really well for that sort of technique. 

I can't wait to get the new one on the tabletop. One owlbear has caused the party a great deal of trouble in the past, having two of them charging in should be suitably entertaining! As its only a CR3 monster, the owlbear is a real challenge at the first couple of levels, but by the time the party hits levels 4 and 5 then one just isn't going to cut it. But a pair should be a good fight! 

Hook Horror

Continuing the theme of classic D&D monsters, I painted this Hook Horror (again from Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures). I was particularly keen to get a Hook Horror after listening to the Drizzt Do'Urden novel, Exile, where (SPOILERS!) a pech was turned into a Hook Horror by an evil mage. Drizzt named the beast Clacker and he managed to fight through his Hook Horror instincts to actually help the dark elf ranger in his quest. 

Hook Horrors are classically nasty pieces of work that should cause trouble for a party. I decided to introduce one as a roaming monster in The Lost Mine of Phandelver, as I figured the evil Black Spider would have access to these sort of Underdark monsters and be able to unleash them on the party to stop them thwarting his plans. 

Painting this beast was incredibly simple, just painted with Contrast paints and then the whole thing was washed with Army Painter Dark Tone wash to accentuate the definition of the details and dull it down slightly. Nothing else needed doing really, I liked the effect from just those simple steps. 

Umber Hulk

Again, I have posted this beast before, but I took some better photos of it - I think my photography skills have improved, plus I really like these little collages to show the different angles of the models, so here he is again! A bit of an unconventional paint scheme on it, but I like the pale shell. 

Ankhegs

I've loved Ankhegs since playing Baldur's Gate on PC and roaming around a farm, slaughtering the bugs to get enough of their carapaces to outfit my party with Ankheg plate armour! Of course, that was after getting surprised by them popping out of the ground and wiping my guys out with their acid attacks when I didn't know what to expect from them... Anyway, Nolzur's Marvellous Miniatures again supply some nice Ankheg models and I got two, painting them up very quickly with some Contrast paints. 

I then got some gribbly slugs from Heresy Miniatures - great little monsters. These can stand in for so many different things, but I figured that if I painted them green then they could be Ankheg larvae in the first instance. I've seen some unofficial rules for young Ankhegs, but equally they could use stats for Giant Centipedes or something. Whatever I use, I like the idea of having a bunch of larvae being protected by two adult Ankhegs, I think that could provide a good scenario for some adventurers to deal with. 

These were painted very, very quickly with contrast paints. I wasn't 100% decided on what shade of green to use, so I messed about with them a little bit - I like the variation. A couple of them have a yellow Contrast over the green, which gives an interesting sickly brownish colour that I think works well. 

Big Boris

Big Boris is a bit of a poster boy for Heresy Miniatures. I have a couple of other versions of him waiting to be assembled and painted, but this hulking dude with the massive axe deserved to be put on a skull-covered pedestal and painted up! I have no idea what I'm going to use him as at the moment, but it will definitely be cool when he does stride onto the tabletop! 

Fomorian Crusher

This is a great model from Games Workshop for Warcry. I think that game has provided them with a lot of scope to make some interesting standalone models, without worrying about how they fit into a larger army. Of course, this brute takes cues from the old cyclopean Fimir (I have two of them, awfully painted, upstairs!), and the Forge World Fimirach. The name is almost the same as the Fomorians in D&D, but aside from him having one eye he looks fairly distinct from them. As soon as I saw him, I knew I wanted to get hold of him. A great model, with a huge amount of potential uses. I haven't played Warcry as much as I would like to, but this model could proxy for a bunch of stuff in multiple games. 

I decided to go kind of weird with the paint scheme, with the dark purple skin and light hair colour. I was really pleased with it, and yet again it was a chance to use Contrast paints as much as possible to speed things up. I think he works. I particularly like the pauldron on his shoulder where I used the new Cryptek Armourshade Gloss paint from GW - that really is a nice pot of paint, giving an instant effect of ancient, burnished metal. I've used it in a few places. It reminds me of good old Tin Bitz (loved that paint), but with a better sheen to it and a nicer finish. 

Anyway, I'm using this Crusher as a stand-in for a Hill Giant that will be hiding out in a crypt to surprise the players tomorrow night so we'll see how they enjoy that! I could have used a more regular giant model (I have a few to pick from), but I've used them in Age of Sigmar a lot recently and I really wanted to get this model on the tabletop. However, I figured chucking a Fomorian at a level 4 party would be a bit overly tough, particularly as the current quest is supposed to be just a little diversion and they have a couple of other things to deal with during the session as well... still, I'm sure there'll be plenty of moaning about how many HP the giant has anyway!  

*Edit* they actually dealt with the giant quite efficiently, now that the paladin has finally learned how to use his Divine Smite to do some serious damage! The giant did do a lot of damage to a couple of them, but no lasting injuries, so all ended well. 

Ogroid Myrmidon

Another Warcry model that I thought was fantastic as soon as I saw it. A mix of ogre, minotaur and daemon as far as I could tell, with a healthy dose of Ancient Greek about the spear and shield... He was much bigger than I expected when he turned up, but he does look great.

I painted him at the same time as the Fomoroid and decided to sort of reverse the palette a little, going for lighter flesh and darker hair. Again, almost entirely Contrast paints, but very effective I think. And I couldn't resist using Cryptek Armourshade again on his shield - gives it such a nice finish. I have yet to use him in a game yet, but I can well imagine some pit fighting scenario where he stomps out on his cloven hooves to take no prisoners. 

I can see a lot of conversion potential for this guy in particular if I end up getting another one at some point - after clearing a lot more of my unpainted models first!