Ankhegs are insectoid monsters as big as a horse, they burrow underground, can detect vibrations in the earth, and spit acid when they are not attacking with their claws. In D&D, these beasts are interesting opponents in dungeons, caves or while travelling overland. I don’t exactly remember where I put an Ankheg encounter in the Storm King’s Thunder campaign, but it was definitely there. Reaper has some great Bones miniatures for these monsters, why not just take three of them?
Almost done! Just a few more beasts. Next to beetles, Reaper Miniatures “vermin” of course also includes spiders. They are a great low level threat to adventurers in ancient ruins. Again, these miniatures are very, very simple and maybe took a couple of minutes to paint. I’ll post them anyway, but I promise the next miniatures I post are less dull!
And still, more beasts are coming! What about some beetles and beetle swarms? These miniatures look so trivial, I was hesitating to post them. But I wanted to share my painting journey here, so here they are: The beetles from Reaper Miniatures “vermin” labeled figures and a set of two beetle swarms, also under the label “vermin.
In the lair of the goblin wererat, my players encountered a lot of rats. Large rats, small rats, rat swarms. Reaper was so nice to include a dozen of Rats in the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter. But this post would be boring, if I only show you the old and plain regular rats. So I also include the wererat miniature I used for the goblin wererat. However, at the time we played the session, the mini was only primed. Baltor, one of the player characters, was bitten by the wererat goblin during this session. He became a wererat himself! A great chance to finish painting the miniature and use it for the hybrid rat form of my player.
In the cave of the goblin tribe that attacked Nightstone, a goblin wererat and his pack of rats waited for the adventurers to find them. The goblin had a nice range of different beasts to send after the intruders: rats, giant barrow rats, and rat swarms. Reaper packed these miniatures in the first Reaper Bones Kickstarter, so now I would paint and use them all here 😉 Let’s start with the barrow rats and the swarm!
After things cleared up in Nightstone, my players started to explore where the goblin raiders came from. They followed them into a nearby cave. Surprise! Rust monsters live in a forgotten pit there. These classic monsters are the bane of every fighter using metal weapons and armor: They are gradually destroyed (in 5th edition) when fighting the rust monsters.
A group of Zhentarim called the Seven Snakes arrived in the village of Nightstone after the goblins were dealt with. Their leader Xolkin Alassandar is a sly bandit captain. His gang wants to meet up with a Zhentarim spy named Kella Darkhope who hid in the village a couple of days before. Both NPCs needed a nice miniature. Dub Bullock from Reaper would make a great bandit leader. For Kella Darkhope I, used a female rogue miniature from my old bag of minis.
More goblins! The Pathfinder Goblin Pyros from Reaper Miniatures are a group of goblins with torches. They were part of the second Reaper Bones Kickstarter, and they were perfect as a part of the goblin raiding party pillaging a village in my Storm King’s Thunder campaign.
Wargs and goblins sometimes get together to make trouble. Not only in the Lord of the Rings, wargs are used as goblin mounts – this fantasy trope is also used in Dungeons and Dragons. So naturally, if a goblin raiding party comes to pillage a village, they bring some wargs! I had one warg from the Reaper Bones Kickstarers, and bought a couple more for an exciting D&D encounter in Nightstone. I also had some old Ral Partha wolf miniatures that I also painted in parallel.
bones, dungeons & dragons, Ral Partha, reaper, SKT, warg, wolf
It’s the start of my Storm King’s Thunder D&D campaign, and the village of Nightstone is overrun by goblins and wargs. That’s a welcome reason to paint up some Pathfinder goblins from the second Reaper Bones Kickstarter! The Kickstarter included the Pathfinder Goblin Warriors, a warchanter chief, and a group of four Pyros. Let’s start with the Warriors!