I need some help with my Saga of Symbaroum project. The whole project fell out of a general, ongoing task of Painting models for a Symbaroum RPG campaign. I got to the stage where I wanted to explore that world in a different way, to look at some of the less adventurous aspects of the world and into the very fractious elements of the world. All of the various factions – the Ambrians, the Barbarian tribes and the Iron Pact Elves (and their allies) – exist on the edge of all out war with each other and with themselves. Fertile ground for a wargame. But as well as the major factions and their constituent sub factions, there are minor players in the world who, while not likely to be achieving global dominance, nevertheless have the ability to change the course of events or just generally being a spanner in the works of the major players.

One such faction would be the Blightborn. As far as factions go, they are not really like any of the others because they are not a unified force, nor will they ever be. They are groups of people and creatures that are corrupted and mutated by magic (not necessarily dark magic, for such is the nature of magic in Symbaroum). In some ways they are to Chaos in warhammer, or undead armies that are bound to their leader.

But while they may well represent a village or community that all follow a single leader they also differ from the undead and chaos armies in that there is no unifying force that will ever make them more than what they are. There is no unifying force such as a common god that they serve, beyond whatever leader they have. Unlike undead armies the followers retail a level of intelligence of their own and may decide to go their own way, nor can the leader simply summon up more corrupt followers to swell the ranks. They’re never going to rule the world and if (when?) the world of Symbaroum succumbs to the corruption of magic, that world will ultimately be a world full of the madness of a thousand independent warlords. But, they have significant scope to upset anyone and everyone’s apple carts simply by existing. They’re a second front Ambria have to worry about. They’re an unexpected problem the Barbarians have to deal with

At mass battle size, they don’t really make much sense. But for saga? Perfect. But there’s one problem, I don’t really know what miniatures to use. Conceptually the best match I can think of is Chaos, probably nurgle. The magic of Symbaroum has a corrupting effect, known as the blight. If you use magic too frequently you slowly start to become corrupted. That corruption can be quite mild, mottling or discolouration of the skin. Or it can be severe with mutated/Extra limbs, tentacles, horns, spikes. I am trying to find some miniatures to represent them, but they need to meet some additional criteria (because if it were that easy, I’d just use GW Chaos).

1) I am using a scale closer to historical. So “true” 28mm. As a rule of thumb, they need to scale well with Footsore and the GW LotR models

2) I am looking for a very grounded look. I don’t want the models drowning in skulls – it’s not the old world and this isn’t Chaos.

3) The world (or at least my vision of it in miniatures) is a mixture of dark age (for the barbarians) to early mediaeval (for the Ambrians). The Blightborn need to look like corrupted versions of either.

4) I need a variety of models that allow me to represent everything from peasant rabble to soldiers and knights.

Put your suggestions below please. I will also say that I have a 3D printer so STL suggestions are welcome.