Baltor, the barbarian/ranger in the group, has a background in an assassins’ guild. He wields two swords and tries to blend in with his clothing, and he always has his trusty wolf companion at his side. There are many miniatures of roguish characters wielding two swords on the market. Baltor’s player found the “Male Dual Wield Rogue” from Darksword Miniatures and was in love with the model.

Here is the group of adventurers from my D&D 5th Edition Storm King’s Thunder campaign:

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  Balthor (human totem barbarian/beastmaster ranger)
  Darksword Miniatures (DSM 7320) – Male Dual Wield Rogue

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  Otiris Firebird (half-elf phoenix sorcerer)
  Reaper Miniatures (03449) – Halmar, Young Wizard

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  Janikarumshed Hopsward (rock gnome arcana cleric/order of the sages wizard)
  Reaper Miniatures (02667) – Halfing Wizard

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  Meria (lighfoot halfling monk of the open hand)
  WizKids Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures (72627) – Halfling Female Rogue

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  Gwendolyn Stonewarden (hill dwarf stone sorcerer)
  Hasslefree Miniatures (HFD019) – Svala

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  Quarion Silverhand (moon elf divine trickster rogue)
  Reaper Miniatures (77384) – Arathanel, Elf Ranger

The Dual Wield Rogue (DSM7320) from Darksword Miniatures was sculpted by Tre Manor. I really like Tre’s sculpting, and I supported a whole Kickstarter of his miniatures. Fortunately, most of the Darksword Miniatures I bought fit well together in character height with Reaper miniatures, which are the biggest part of my collection (five Reaper Bones Kickstarters can do that to a collection).

Character Background

Baltor is gruff, impatient and a real scoundrel. He grew up on the streets of Neverwinter, where he was forced to work for a strictly organized assassins’ guild. He mastered his agility and swordsmanship as a lackey of the guild, always looking for a way out of this life.

During a raid, he managed to escape the city, never looking back. He took shelter in the Neverwinter Wood and finally found his peace in the nature surrounding him. The young ranger met Tara there, who became his loyal grey wolf companion.

Baltor channelled his rage into his swordsmanship and he learned to master the rapier quickly. He embraced the totems of nature during his adventures to aid him in combat.

Later during his adventures, he was bitten by a wererat and contracted lycanthrophy. Baltor struggled to hold onto his humanity, but he prevailed and learned to control the beast within.

Preparation/Priming

I am so sorry, but I painted the miniature when I had no camera available to take pictures of the various stages.

As Baltor is a ranger foremost, I pinned him on an overgrown wooden planks base from Tabletop Art. Then, I primed the miniature via airbrush using first black and then white primer.

Painting

Baltor’s player wanted the character to be dressed in darker, earthen colors to blend in as an infiltrator. I decided on a lighter sea gray as a contrast to the browns. I tried some more highlighting and shadowing with this miniature and used several washes for that. The result is a more dirty look, I think.

Overall, this miniature was very fun to paint. Even the face worked pretty well and in one go this time.

As Baltor was bitten by a lycanthroph, he occasionally transformed into a wererat in game. I had a Reaper miniature for this (of course I did)! The wererat was painted to look very similar to Baltor and also turned out pretty neat 🙂

This was my first fully painted figure from Darksword Miniatures and it was fun to paint!