Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you well. Happily, this will be my last post dealing with the unit-sized minis from the Monolith Conan game, and after those awful pirates last week, we’re definitely finishing on a high note! As an added bonus, this final lot are just 6 models in total – a welcome change to the 20+ strength units!

Ok, so first up, we have 5 of these guys:

They were nice minis to paint – a nice bit of detail & texture going on so Contrasts were effective. I don’t know what these guys are specifically, only that they are listed as ‘allies’.

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This next guy is ‘N’Gora’ – he’s a named right-hand man for another character, (Bêlit – to be revealed at a later date):

Again, he was nice to paint up, and very similar to his pals in design and execution. I suppose if I’m being hyper-critical, it’s annoying that N’Gora is facing right when all his droogs are facing left, but that is a minor peeve. Here they all are together:

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Finally, I had my gaming table set up over the weekend so I took advantage of the situation to set out all of my Conan mooks completed to date – what they lack in quality, they certainly make up for in quantity!

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I’m going to ease back on the hobby over the next couple of weeks – work is crazy, and I need to recharge the old painting batteries a bit. Thankfully, it’s all Conan characters from here on, so I can just dip in and out as and when. Disclaimer: Some of the characters are very much ‘of their time’ – anyone who has read Howard, (or his entry on Wikipedia), knows that some of his views would be problematic today. In terms of minis, this is most clearly expressed in how some of the female characters are dressed – or not dressed, as the case may be.  Still, it is what it is, and I’ll paint them just the same.

Catch you all soon – stay safe.

Greetings Terrans, and I apologise in advance for another mob of Conan minis – this time its Pirates… Sounds good right? Well strap in folks, these aren’t the finest minis the folks at Monolith have ever produced.

As usual for the Conan warband-sized minis, the group is built around a core of 15 identical models, with a number of groups of 5 added to the mob, plus a leader. Thankfully, there was only one ‘bonus’ unit of 5 for the Pirates. Anyway, here’s an example of the core 15:

Hmmm… yeah…

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If you thought that was bad, I also had 5 of these monstrosities:

Wow… ok.

Yup, that’s it folks. They are really poor mini if you ask me – little detail, even less texture, fucking miserable to paint… As with all the models so far, I used Contrasts, but the lack of texture and/or detail really show the limitations of this painting medium I think. Really, these should’ve been painted with layers to get the best out of them, but I just couldn’t be arsed to put that much effort into such poor models.

For all that, the most annoying thing about them is actually the terrible posing of the models. Packing them away in a normal mini case was fucking irritating, but having identical ‘dynamically posed’ minis is the real annoyance here… The guards from last week could get away with the duplication because ‘on guard’, the Undead could get away with it because ‘mindless automatons’, and the Picts jut about managed to carry it off because they were more broody & hulking rather than swashbuckling… These Pirates just fail in all respects.

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The only redemption for the pirate faction is that the leader mini isn’t too bad:

Not too shabby, perfect for Contrast paints, and I even tried to do his eyes to elevate him a bit, but to be honest, all my enthusiasm had buggered off by this point and I think it shows.

So here we are – a final group shot of these & then hopefully we can agree to collectively forget this ever happened:

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And that’s it for another week! I have one more mini-unit of underdogs to show you next time, and then we’re on to characters. Onward and upwards!

Greetings Terrans, yes, I’m afraid it’s more progress on the Conan ‘minis’ this week, and we are back to the massed rank and file. So far we have seen two of the four main warband level factions – the Picts and the Undead. Now we get a bit more relatable with the ‘Bossonian Guard’. As usual, we have the majority of the minis being the same sculpt, and then a couple of groups of 5 alternative sculpts plus a character. Here’s the main mini – I did 15 of these Halberdiers:

I think it’s quite a nice mini for what it is – he’s well posed, and has just enough detail to be interesting while keeping within the limits of what can be done well with the material. The box art has the Bosonian Guard as having red uniform, but I’d already used red on the Picts, so I went blue instead – mostly with contrasts for the base coat & then traditional highlighting on the blue & flesh.

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Here’s the next pose – five of these guys:

Obviously painted in the same way as the main mini (please excuse the awful mould line – I couldn’t be arsed with tidying it up… the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze!).

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Slight departure for the next 5, with these bowmen:

These were painted in the same way, but with the palette shifting to the more neutral tones… they looked more scouty than the Halberdiers, so I toned them down a bit.

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Finally here’s a leader/captain for the unit:

Again, painted in the same way but with a bit more effort to elevate him slightly from the rabble.

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Here’s the whole group together:

I’m really happy with these – I’m a sucker for units like this where the monopose actually makes sense, but also, I think these minis are he pick of the rank & file bunch so far.

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So that’ it for another week – next week I’ll tackle the final warband from the Conan set – the Pirates! Don’t get too excited though – having previewed the minis, I can honestly say the Pirates are terrible minis… If this week’s guards were the pick of the litter, the Pirates are definitely the runts (and possibly other words that rhyme). I’ll be painting them through gritted teeth…