A skinflint's guide to Mcdeath (Act 3)

TIn part 3 of my epic virtual shopping trip we have a look at alternative figures to represent the forces at the battle of Dungal hill. 

First up we go back to Ral Partha and the old Heartbreaker range to use for Arka Zargul and his striking dwarf miners. They actually have some miners armed with pick axes. 


And a dwarf armed with a hammer to represent Arka himself.
Lead Adventure also do a useful range that includes miners and adventurers.
Next we look at the proper baddies from this scenario. The evil forces are led by one McDeath's leuitenants, Een McWrecker, a powerful wizard.
My favourite is the above from Reaper but they also do the figure below. 

McWrecker has sidekick in the form a treacherous halflings called Raybees. Loads of companies to halflings. 
The Battleforge do an extensive range with lots of characters.
And Otherworld's halfling is very heroic as well as well armoured. But my favourite for a halfling called Raybees has to be this guy from Hasslefree.

Een McWrecker's force is made up of Orc's and I am Inclined to head straight for Renegade miniatures Orcs as sculpted by the mighty Kev Adams.

They include crossbow armed orcs that you'll need for the scenario.
As well as a characterful leader in the command pack
Ral Partha again have ex-heartbreaker/kev Adams sculpts that would supplement the Renegade stuff and are really nice models in their own right.

If you fancied and different approach you could always go for Otherworld's pig faced orcs which are almost too tempting to ignore.
Other option include Mantics plastic offerings to give you lots of cheap cannon fodder.
And these eastern looking Orcs from Scotia Grendel

Foundry do some pig faced orcs hidden away somewhere in their subsidiary ranges.
And these figures have recently appeared through kick starter by Kievan Day.

Goblin archers are also required and we can look at Ex-heartbreaker/ral partha again for kev Adams sculpts.
More Kev Adams sculpts are available from the awesome  Crooked Claw miniatures.


And Otherworld do a load of gorgeous Gobbo's as well.
These little green hoodies are from black hat miniatures
And Heresy miniatures do a deal on a unit of their goblin archers which are very tempting. 

McWreckers forces also require a giant who is fixing the windmill at the start of the game, their are loads of options on the market for these big boys but my favourite two are Otherworld's ginormous offering

And also this less massive Hill Giant which are much more affordable and quite yummy!
Or this slightly less big but very reasonably priced (a fiver!) copplestone babarian giant again from the old Fantasy Warriors range carried by Forlorn hope amongst others.

Now on to some goodies. These are made up of Sir John Quicksure who could be quite suitably represented by the above figure from Claymore castings.
Alongside sir John fight the Earl of Harkmess and the knights of harkness and while we are talking about Claymore castings we'll just consider their foot knights for the job. 

But before we go deeper into the knights we must first think about Sandra Prangle, Sir John's squire. As you can imagine a lot of miniatures of women tend to be on the, erm, 'fantastic' side but I've picked a few hear that aren't too silly. First up the above is one of the few of Brother Vinni's mini's that actually have their mammary glands covered up.
Hasslefree do a great range of female fighters like this fully armoured lady.
A more savage looking type.
And this lovely lady of more realistic proportions.

Otherworld also do some female fighters in their adventurers range. 
Fully armoured and poised for battle.
Dangerous but less well armoured.
And take no shit barbarian type!

Back to the knights of Harkness and we can try going a bit more fantasy with the offerings from Forlorn Hope/ grenadier. These are great models and sometimes the photos don't do them justice.
I recently found out the Left Handed miniatures carry some of the Hearbreaker range that Ral Partha don't and amongst them are several paladins sculpted by Chas Elliot and they are certainly worth a look.
Foundry do some fantasyish knights buried away in their Flyte of Fantasy range.
But if you were going dark ages with the rest of your forces you might want to consider the late roman/ Arthurian range from Footsore/musketeer. You could use the mounted characters for sir John,
Foot character for the Earl
And some of the armoured foot as the knights if Harkness. I reckon it's quite intrigueing way to go.

Of course their is always the option to go plastic with some of the excellent sets from the Perry twins. The war of the roses range has some great sets including a box of foot knights and they have recently released a box of figures for the agincourt era which feature foot knights amongst the box. Again a cost effective route.
That's just about it for Act3, next up, the final Act of the Tragedy!

Comments

  1. Good bit of research, Colin. Look forward to seeing you collect and paint these, so that I can help you play the scenarios! ;)

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  2. Just caught up with the blog and wow! So much good stuff. Even if one wasn't going to plat McDeath, a good resource for figure ranges.

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  3. And for a reasonnable price you have blacktree design for the goblins and orcs, not all but a big part sculpted by our goblinmaster :)

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  4. Some more great choices - a great resource.

    I particularly like the look of those Kievan Day orcs, but I'm not sure I can justify needing them!

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  5. You've picked out some really nice minis. I especially love the Hasselfree - I've looked through their range for moderns, but never thought of them for Fantasy, so this was very helpful. I really like their sculpting style - very clean, simple and dynamic.

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  6. I hope you conclude this series with the choices you have made... seeing the lead/plastic mountain of others grow is always interesting.

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