You can always use more generic bad guy minions. The Royal Guard from the Underdark set of old D&D miniatures line is a general humanoid in full plate armor and a spear. The halforc executioner from the same set is a hooded brute with a bardiche. I repainted both to add them to the Dragon Cultists’ army for the final encounter at the Well of Dragons.

Both miniatures are from the 2005 Underdark set. I had one Royal Guard #11 and two Halforc Executioners #36 in my collection. The factory paint job was very good. Several of the modern Icons of the Realms miniatures from WizKids I bought actually have very decent factory paint jobs. But these old miniatures needed fresh paint.

I don’t think the Royal Guard is supposed to have a crooked spear. There are other pictures of the miniature showing it with a straight spear. My figure also had a heavily bent spear.

Basing and Priming

There was no need to rebase them, so I just added some sand on the base and then primed the minis in black and white.

Painting

As these are pretty basic miniatures and would only be minions, I didn’t want to put too much time in them. Also, I didn’t want them to have bright colors and take away the spotlight of the boss miniatures probably fighting with them. The factory paint job color schemes would be just fine, then.

I chose brown leather colors for the executioners, but painted them with Caucasian skin tones. With them wearing a mask, it doesn’t matter if they are supposed to be halforcs originally.

For the royal guard, I painted the arms with brown leather. Then, I mixed burnt iron with a little tint of blue for the basecoat of the armor. Then I washed it with black ink and redid the highlights with careful drybrushing.

Overall, I am happy how they turned out for the low effort I’ve put in 😉