The Doomvault turned out to be a wonderful place to encounter golems for my players. I could even incorporate a more powerful construct, a Dungeons & Dragons Iron Golem! Naturally, I just had to look in the bag of the Reaper Bones II Kickstarter to find a fitting miniature. Even though Reaper does now have a real Iron Golem (which looks awesome!), at the time, the Battleguard Golem would serve as a stand-in.

The Reaper Bones Battleguard Golem (77168) was sculpted by Ben Siens. It does not really look anything like the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition Iron Golem to be honest. Reaper’s more recent Iron Golem (77514) however does. By today’s standards, I would more think of the Battleguard Golem as a large warforged character instead of a golem monster. But it’s a metal war machine golem kind of thing, so it would do. Maybe it wasn’t meant as a real golem then, too. Maybe I just didn’t see it as a warforged because it is larger than the usual 28 mm character miniatures. Anyway, it would make a perfect monster encounter.

Basing and Priming

As the other Golem miniatures from Reaper, this one was large. So it required a 2-inch base. I primed the figure as usual in black and white.

Painting

I wanted to try something different with this miniature. Even though as I would use it as an iron golem, I wanted it to look bronze. And for that, I wanted the miniature to show some cool aging/patina effects.

So I first painted the miniature in the metallic green of old bronze statues. I really liked it and was thinking if I should just be keep the look and call the miniature finished. However, I did not want the fearsome golem in the battle encounter to look like an old statue (although this could have been fun, too). It should be the star on the battlefield!

So I dry brushed layer after layer of bronze/gold on the figure. Maybe I overdid it. Looking at it now, I think the bronze should have been kept more subtle. The green patina barely shows.

But that was it, the miniature was done! To make the base less boring, I added a little yellow moss.