Category Archives: Ghost Archipelago

Ghost Archipelago: Dire Straits part 1

07 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Ghost Archipelago

≈ 27 Comments

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? A while back I posted this & described a Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago invitational I was getting involved with. As most of you will probably know, Ghost Archipelago is a pirate/lost-world themed skirmish game written by the excellent Joseph McCollough, and set in the same world as Frostgrave world. It uses the same ruleset with some tweaks here & there to make it more combat oriented & less magic-based. It’ a great looking game, but hasn’t seen the same commercial success as Frostgrave – most likely because the terrain bar is quite high for GA (jungles, pirates, dinosaurs, rivers, pools, etc) whereas FG was very forgiving from a terrain perspective. I’ve also put off getting heavily into GA for that exact reason, so I am really pleased that the invitation arrived & gave me the kick up the arse I needed to get into this. Since my initial model, I have refined the concepts that I’m applying to this project & thought I’d share my thinking with you all:

1: Island of Dr. Moreu inspired warband – use long-neglected beastman-esque figures but de-chaos them and make them more anthropomorphic – they are the once-human victims of cruel scientific experimentation rather than ‘because magic’ capital-C Chaos types. I’m using up a load of minis from the lead pile & oversculpting them to suit, so no splashing the cash. I’m also going to cover as many specialists as I can & have spares, so that I can adjust the warband as it gains in wealth & power.

2: Lost-world bestiary – a mix of mythological creatures, dinosaurs, pulp monsters, etc. Inspiration includes anything by Harryhausen, classic dinosaur films, Tarzan, Indiana Jones, King Kong, etc.  (all firm favourites from my childhood!). I’m permitting myself some purchases here, but again, mostly this is going to be using up what I already have.

3: Jungle terrain… this has been on my wishlist for a long time now, but I’m going to make it happen… I’ve got all the bits I need for the jungle itself so no purchases necessary, but I might splash out on some jungle ruins & maybe some water features too.

4: Other items needed to play GA (boats for example, or specific terrain items), and maybe a big-assed pirate ship to use for a home base.

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So far, I have worked through about half of the minis I have earmarked for the warband itself:

Heritor Edward Prendick (centre) and two crewmen – these guys had clothing sculpted over them & in the case of the crewmen, had their swords re-sculpted to move away from the fantasy genre.

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Stormwarden Niamh (centre) and two more crewmen – same here, although I kept Niamh’s trident-dagger (looks suitably magical) and pig-man’s axe.

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A trio of Mercenaries – two-handed weapons & heavy armour – I sculpted the Conquistador helmets on to Lion-Man & Turkey-Man, and Lion-Man got shoulder armour too. The tall fella is unmodified – he’s probably a bit weird for this warband, but I think he’s pretty ace.

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Freebooter – heavy armour, hand weapon & shield (left) and Crackshot – Heavy armour & counts-as crossbow (right) – the Freebooter got a Conquistador helmet & re-sculpted sword, while the Crackshot had his pike turned into a musket.

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The crew so far.

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I’ve taken a leaf from The Imperfect Modeller’s book & made the bases a real feature of the minis – I really wanted them to feel different from anything else I’m doing, so put is a bit more effort in this regard.

Aaand that’s it for this week – I hope you’ve enjoyed the pics & me sharing my thoughts on the project. Plenty more fun stuff to follow 😊

Mythic Battles: Pantheon continued AND a new project!

28 Thursday Jan 2021

Posted by in Ghost Archipelago, Mythic Battles: Pantheon

≈ 18 Comments

Greetings Terrans, I hope this finds you all well. I have two lil’ updates for you today, starting with some reinforcements for my Son’s Mythic Army:

On the left we have King Eurytus of Oechalia… I think! The Mythic Battles folks had him down as ‘Eurystus’, but I can’t find any reference to that name anywhere… Eurytus on the other hand, is a renowned archer who, depending on the author, might’ve challenged Apollo to a shooting contest & got killed for his hubris, (a common theme in Greek Mythology), or possibly he was killed by Heracles as part of a feud over his daughter’s hand, (another common theme).

Next, we have Marsyas – a Satyr who rocked it on the double oboe… (that is an actual instrument, and not a fantastic innuendo by the way). He is famous for challenging Apollo to a music-off, and guess what, he lost & got killed for his hubris… by being flayed alive… I’m getting the feeling that Apollo was a bit of a bell-end, and that the ancient Greeks disapproved of hubris!

Finally, we have a trio of Satyrs – ‘Lustful, drunken woodland gods’… (Wudugast?). Interestingly, in Greek mythology, Satyrs were depicted as men with horse ears & tails, and it was actually the Romans who went with the whole goat vibe… who knew!

All were painted mostly with contrast paints by my Son, (with a little help from me on the most fiddly bits)

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Ok, so now for something of mine – not much to show, just a single model, but he’s a proof-of-concept for a whole new warband and a long-overdue exploration of Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago.

I was honoured to be invited to join a collaborative Ghost Archipelago project a few weeks back, and have been kicking around ideas since. I knew I wanted to use minis that I already own, and also that I wanted the warband to be unusual and cool, with an oldhammer vibe and a strong pirate theme. I had a good look through my lead pile, and a promising line of possibility involved a load of Pantheon of Chaos minis that I have been sitting on for far too long. I really like the Beastmen in the range – they are proper Realm of Chaos Beast-Men rather than the Broo that modern GW peddle, and I started thinking about the H.G. Wells classic ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’… In that book, the eponymous doctor experimented with stitching together beasts and elevating them to near-humanity. It’s a cool story but is quite a different kind of sci-fi to the Pantheon of Chaos range, so the PoC minis didn’t really fit the theme very well…

Until, for laughs, I sculpted a Tricorn hat on one of them – a particularly imposing chap that Knightmare Miniatures call ‘C’Chak the Silent’. I got some good feedback on the Facey group, and while the hat helped to prove that they could look more anthropomorphic, I didn’t think it went far enough to ‘humanise’ the mini – it still looked too Chaotic (with a capital ‘C’)… After thinking it over, I decided to go all in and over-sculpted proper clothes onto the chap. I then applied a weathered & ‘sensible’ paint job, and I ended up with this:

Now, I may be biased, but this guy doesn’t scream ‘Realm of Chaos!!’ to me any more… instead he has a humanity about him, despite his bestial form, and he has a nautical flavour to boot! In short, I’m very happy with the result, and as with all good warbands, we have fluff… with apologies to H.G. Wells:

“The noble Heritor Edward Prendick & his crew were en route to the Lost Isles – like all Heritors, Edward felt the inexorable pull of the Crystal Fountain, the source of all his powers. During the journey, their ship got caught in an incredible storm & they were wrecked on a lonely and mysterious island, where they were subdued and captured by bestial men loyal to the nefarious scientist Dr. Moreau. The Doctor was obsessed with animal/human hybridisation, and he proceeded to experiment on Prendick and his crew, keeping them drugged while he surgically altered them into parodies of humanity, before conditioning them to obedience in ‘the House of Pain’…

However, the Doctor had not reckoned on the superhuman fortitude of the Heritor taint, and was thus unprepared when an enraged Prendick managed to regain enough awareness to break his bonds & take his revenge. Now inhabiting a huge reptilian frame & with Heritor strength, Prendick made short work of the Doctor, crushing the man’s skull before tearing off the hand that had caused him so much pain… Prendick wears that same hand on his belt as a reminder of how he became the creature he is today, for the cruel truth is that, along with his crew, his humanity is slipping away piece by piece. Every day it gets harder for them to remember their lives as men and women, and every day they grow closer to the beasts they resemble. Now, accompanied by those of the Doctor’s former experiments that retain enough awareness, Prendick and his crew continue their search for the Crystal Pool. Their quest is simple – they seek the pool in the desperate hope that it can restore their stolen humanity…”

So that’s all folks – there will be plenty more on this warband, but first – Fembruary!! I’ll be adding some serious muscle to my all-girl Banshee gang, while my Son will be adding some fab females from the Mythic Battles: Pantheon range… I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys do!!