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Thursday, 6 July 2017

The Spectral Host

Up until now I have been using my existing HOTT armies to try out Dragon Rampant. However I reasoned that it wouldn't be too hard to put together a few warbands by 3D printing them, so I decided to give it a try. As ever I resorted to the vast collection of 15/18mm figures assembled by DutchMogul on Thingiverse.

Back in his early designs I found some wraiths and other warriors that didn't seem too hard to print; some of his more recent designs, whilst excellent animated figures, require a little more skill with the slicing software than I currently have, in order to ensure a successful print. I printed off a few test figures, designed a list and then printed the whole warband. I say 'printed the whole warband'. It actualy took me several days, in part because the printer developed an issue which needed fixing part way through, causing some failed and aborted prints.

Here's the Spectral Host, a 24 point warband.


1 x Spectral Nobles (including the leader) - Elite Foot with Fear and Undead (No Feelings) @ 8pts
1 x Spectral Knights - Elite Mounted with Fear, Level-Headed and Undead (No Feelings) @ 10pts
1 x Spectral Soldiers - Heavy Foot with Undead (No Feelings) @ 4pts
1 x Banshees - Scouts with Undead @ 2pts

As you can see, the Nobles and Knights make up the majority of the points, being powerful but, with the Undead option, slightly brittle.

Here's the leader and the other nobles.


DutchMogul's collection doesn't include much in the way of mounted figures, for some reason. These older figures have an old design where the caparisons of the horses are used to allow the figure to be solid, rather than having to deal with legs. A lot of early foot figures have cloaks or long robes to achieve a similar effect. Anyway, these are the Knights.


These simple spearmen, in a robe (see what I mean) make up the ranks of the Spectral Soldiers.


The banshees are a fairly recent figure. I have built them as a reduced figure unit; three models representing six strength points. The Knights and Nobles could be fielded in the same way.


The painting was as easy as it looks. I undercoated in white, then painted the figures in a very slightly thinned dull green. This was dry-brushed in white, then I used a different green to pick out the faces (such as they are).

Printer difficulties aside, these were straightforward prints. The nice thing about being able to print the figures is that if I decide to expand the warband to 36 points I can do so in the course of a day or so with little difficulty.

Now I need some opposition for them, and will try some more ambitious designs for that.

2 comments:

  1. Wow very nice! I've heard talk of 3d printers but seeing this really brings it home.

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