Lothar’s Expendables

I decided I just didn’t want to wait to paint up some minis and none of the minis I have already painted to a decent enough standard fitted the concept of what I wanted from my ranger troop. I had in mind a bunch of misfits thrown together because they didn’t fit anywhere else. This story was going to be about a group of losers that would find redemption In the Shadow Deep.

Sergeant Erasmus Lothar was to be my ranger. Lothar is an embarrassment to the rangers. Once a promising and gifted young man he has over time become an embittered Middle aged drunk. Lothar is the ranger to whom all the shit jobs are given, and he knows it. His time as a ranger are nearly done, he is soon to retire. His men love him though

Quartermain the mage was once a professor at the Circle of Magi. Erudite, travelled and deeply book learned. All of these things have gradually slipped away from Quartermain as age has withered him and senile dementia has taken hold. Sometimes still capable of brilliant feats of magic he is just as likely to forget where he is or why he is there.

Gibberish the savage was named because no one in the ranger service can understand a word of the tongue she speaks (apart from Slink). Hailing from the far north her background is a mystery. She has a fiery temper and spends a great deal of time in a permanent state of incoherent anger and near violence. The only person she really gets on with is Slink the rogue.

Blind Squint the archer was once hailed as the most handsome man in the ranger service.  He was a lady’s man and spent a great deal of his time frequenting the many brothels in the capital city. As a result of his dissolute sexual incontinence he has been visited by a variety of unpleasant diseases, none of which he has entirely shaken off. Now prematurely aged by his serial infections he has lost one eye, and is now losing the sight in the other. How he hits anything is anyone’s guess (in fact he doesn’t most of the time).

Slink the rogue is a cold fish. A calculating psychopath she spent many years on the streets doing what she had to do to survive. Rising above the street gangs she developed a fearsome reputation as a vicious loner, expert at getting others to do her dirty work. Her life of crime eventually brought her to the attention of the rangers and it was Lothar who finally captured her. Lothar saw something in her, and offered to spare her if she joined his crew. For her part Slink sees Lothar’s crew as an opportunity to leave the street behind whilst manipulating the rangers to her own ends.  She has formed a strong bond with Gibberish and it appears that she understand a few words of the warrior woman’s language.

Lothar refers to his crew as the undesirables. Other rangers refer to them as Lothar’s Expendables.

To fit these ideas of  the crew I raided my collection of old D&D prepainted minis from my RPG days. I found a couple of painted minis from the rather weird Cadwallon City of Thieves prepaints that work well for Slink the rogue and Lothar the rather shabby drunkard I envisaged for my ranger. Three figures from the pathfinder battles ranges nicely fitted Squint, Gibberish and Quartermain.

In order to tie them together more effectively I primed their bases the same colour (Vallejo Leather Brown primer) and then applied one of Luke’s APS Base Ready products (Patchy Plains). This proved an excellent match for the mat I was planning to use. After a wash or two on a couple of the figures just to add a little more depth I was ready. Total preparation time was a couple of hours.