Deep Cuts | Dragons of Lancasm

Actually the current state of tray has a lot of colour on it. The photo below was taken on Saturday and I did some base coating on some figures on the weekend, and a bit of painting every evening after work so far this week. Now that the Chaos Marines are done, everything on the tray is a WizKids Nolzurs/Deep Cuts figure.

There’s a deliberate, strong beholder-kin theme here. A few months back I looked at the new releases that WizKids had. Last month I found a Oz store with the proper Beholder to go with my undead one, and they had a few more figures I wanted. The “Gazers” (Eyeballs in my ‘Monsters of Faerun’) are almost complete after I painted eyes tonight, and the Spectator has his base coat and ink. I’m not sure whether to highlight him now or start base-coating his big brother.

I bought a pair of boars mostly to use in Frostgrave, though I’m sure I’ll use them for D&D at some point. At least one blog I follow has mentioned this game before, but I never looked into what it involved. With more time at home to myself this year, I’ve been sorting through the myriad game resources I’ve collected over the years, especially looking at stuff I hadn’t actually read. Back in April this year, Osprey offered three PDF’s (including the Frostgrave 1st Edn rulebook) for free. A month or so ago I was sorry I hadn’t actually looked at it when I downloaded the copies. I really like that I already have most of the figures that anyone would likely want to play (Wizards) or encounter. I’ve developed a single session game for my gaming group. A multi-wizard delve into the city ruins (with more monsters than usual, and possibly less PvP fighting) using Frostgrave is basic enough (rules-wise) and similar enough to our D&D that everyone should get the hang of it really fast and have fun. An actual campaign would also be a nice change for the occasional get together with one friend instead of playing Zombicide. I have the second edition rulebook on my personal wish-list now too.

I recently bought a second group of WizKids Nolzur’s/Deep Cuts Miniatures. I think they are getting better! My complaints the first time around were about mold lines and obscured fine detail. The detail has generally been very good, but something like a medusa’s snake hair with mold lines is ridiculous. Cleaning up the mold lines is fairly easy, but not when you risk damaging some feature of the figure. The mold lines on this set are mostly in places that are easy to clean up without messing up detail. On the cage and pillars, they are all on corners. Once I’d cleaned them up I wanted to start painting…

Azazel painted a Deep Cuts cage a while back, which sent me looking at the new range. I’ve wanted a cage like that for a long time, and now I have one, plus a bunch of pillars, two air elementals and two Yuan-ti malisons (snake men). I should have bought two cages, one to look shiny and another rusted. (Maybe next order?) I got one other figure that isn’t in the shot above. Considering that my players aren’t likely to see it in use for at least another 2 months, it probably isn’t worth keeping it a secret. When it’s painted, I’ll want to post it anyway! The pillars are a set of four, a broken pillar, and four banners that socket into the standing pillars. I can’t see myself using the banners, so I’ve filled the hole in each pillar. If I change my mind it will be easy to blue-tack a banner on when I want it. The snake men will be a great addition to my two reaper snake men, and I’ll paint the snake parts with the same colour scheme.

One of the snake men surprises me. It’s got great detail with the scales, but its a five part figure stuck together; torso, two arms, and a two part tail. I don’t think I’ve seen more than two pieces to other Nolzurs figures. It’s a pity there’s a mold line right along the tail, but it doesn’t marr the scale effect much. I’m more concerned that the joins aren’t the best, but a little filing, filling and paint should cover those up. I’m very happy that the mold line across the head goes from side to side (not through his face) and that he has no hair. The lighting on the pic is a bit bright, but it does make the gaps more obvious.

Coronavirus and lock-downs haven’t had any direct effect on me up to this point, except that my D&D group hasn’t been getting together. I’ve still been going in to work every day while two-thirds of the staff work from home. The newest lock-down here in Victoria (Australia) has had an unexpected effect of making something I was going to be doing next week much more complicated and now I’ll be spending nearly all next week at home. Since I can only do a small part of my normal job at home, I’ll have more time to write and paint. These figure arrived in perfect timing in a sense. I really want to paint these (and finish the last few Star Wars minis) and I have time to do so!