Lothar’s Expendables

Round 3
Lothar finally kills the zombie outside the inn and moves to distract the shambler heading for Quartermain – it turns to engage him and wounds him badly, the zombie presses its attack but is slain by the Lothar’s counterattack.
Squint reaches the barrel and kicks it over to reveal a survivor – hiding inside it is Gregori, a young farmer who was trying to sneak out to safety.
Gibberish fights the zombie off temporarily and retreats to recover a potion of Strength dropped in the grass by the front door of a nearby house.
Miraculously Quartermain fights off the zombie he has disturbed -pushing it off the cart. He makes a run for it heading towards Lothar and the door to the temple fort.
Slink stares open mouthed with fear and cannot do anything this round.
Event: As Slink cowers in fear a giant rat jumps out of the bushes where it has been lurking and attacks her.

Round 1

Lothar and Slink move to the inn to follow up on clues and Squint shoots a giant rat killing it
Gibberish moves to the furthest house confident in her own ability to handle threats alone
Quartermain casts a Burning Light spell and stunningly kills three zombies and badly injures a fourth – suddenly confused, the old man ignores the safety of his nearby crew mates to make a dash for the abandoned cart.
Event: Two additional zombies shamble into the village

Round 2

Lothar engages one of the zombies outside the inn but fails to injure it, taking some wounds in return. Following Lothar’s orders, Slink reaches the door of the inn and picks the locked door.
Gibberish kills a giant rat outside the furthest house but is then attacked by one of the newly arrived zombies shambling into the village. She remains confident in her prowess.
Squint heads into the woods having spotted a suspicious barrel moving from tree to tree.
Quartermain reaches the cart but searching the rags discovers another zombie under the blankets which attacks him; worse, he is now the closest target for the shambler that survived his first spell, and it now turns to head towards him. Things are looking are looking grim for the old mage.
Event Overwhelmed by the sight of wave after wave of undead shambling from the field to the village, Slink is frozen with terror at the door of the inn.

I have a lovely double sided mat from Gamemat.eu (Forgotten Realm and Highlands), which will serve nicely for the first two scenarios. The houses I built using Dwarvenforge City sets that I kickstarted several a years ago. I’m glad I never sold them now. The trees are 4Ground. I love them.

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.