The advance copies of Wildlands: The Adventuring Party landed at Osprey Games HQ recently, and we couldn't help but open up a copy. There are 4 miniatures in the expansion, so we decided to divvy them up among the Games team and showcase our artistic ability. First up we have the miniature from Phil Smith, aka The Chief, who threw the rest of us to one side to ensure he got his hands on the cleric!

We published the core game of Martin Wallace's Wildlands towards the end of last year, and I've had my eye on some of the miniatures for a while - there's a few I'm keen to paint up, but this is the first one I've got to the table. As part of the office challenge, the Games team divvied up the figures from the expansion with each of us receiving one to paint. I think I'm the first to finish, so I win in that regard, even if the other paintjobs are better!

 
 



As I wanted to use the figure in my wargaming, I had to make one important change to ensure it fits with the rest of my collection... The miniatures come with an integral base, so the first thing I did was slice that away and re-mount it on a metal base. With board game plastic (or resin, for that matter), the weight does bother me - I like a bit more heft. The figures are also supplied with a black wash to pick out details - this is easily painted over, however, so I didn't bother stripping it or anything.

At this point, I took leave of my senses and gave it a black undercoat. I hate black undercoats, and find it hard to make out the details I'm trying to paint. I've been using a brown undercoat for a while now - I have no idea why I reverted for this one model. It's not been THAT long since I painted anything...

For the paintjob, I took inspiration from one of my favourite cleric illustrations - this Priest of Groetus from the Pathfinder RPG. Incidentally, it's painted by Kate Burmak who has done so much great stuff for Frostgrave (check out her gallery!). The blue and grey also fits nicely with the figures I'm fielding for Frostgrave author Joseph A. McCullough's Rangers of Shadow Deep (found here), and the model is a much better fit for the Arcanist I'm fielding than the figure I'm currently using.

It was a quick and simple paintjob, really - I've pretty much got the blues and greys down at this point (I should probably consider starting an ACW project...). The belts were a little fussy, but that's because I'm really not great at painting belts - they took a few tries before I got them right! All told, I had it finished in a few hours.

All told, I'm really quite happy with how it all came out!

Wildlands: The Adventuring Party releases on 7 March, bringing a brave band of explorers to the Wildlands. Order your copy today!