Fantasy Flight: Citadel Adventurers and Nolzur's Giant Spiders

It's great to get back into the fantasy painting thing after taking a bit of a break. The impetus is a new game that's just come out - Rangers of Shadow Deep. This is a cooperative tabletop miniatures game that's essentially "role-playing lite." And since I've been trying to work up my nerve to run an RPG game for some friends who are anxious to try it, I thought that Rangers would be a great way to get back into the DM mindset.

ANYWAY... first up on the painting desk was this amazing set of Citadel Adventurers. I found the box on eBay from a seller in Vancouver, complete except for the "stout Dwarf warrior." Said Dwarf warrior was duly procured from an eBayer in the UK, and I set about painting the set.

This fighter was really the model that sold me on this set. I just love this figure! While I painted most of the models in the colours shown on the box illustration, I already have a bunch of blue-and-yellow liveried fighters, so I opted for red and white. The gryphon decals are from a sheet I got for my Howling Griffons. 





How's this for a magic user? Just a great sculpt, down to the snake-headed staff.





What's an adventuring party without  gnome fighter? Nothing, that's what.











One class of PC that's often hard to find a model for is the good old reliable cleric. Citadel's come through nicely here with a southpaw clergyperson wielding an unfeasibly large war club.

 









The box set even includes a pack mule, laden with all sorts of adventuring supplies.

There's a starting-out fighter included in the set, too.

Stout dwarf warrior checking in. The fact that some of these models come carrying packs and pouches is great, and underlines that these are adventurers, dammit!

Lastly we have the Dwarf thief, another great figure.

While these Citadel models were released nearly 35 years ago (!) I think that the sculpting has really held up to the test of time. What hasn't, unfortunately, is their scale... these are much more "true 25s" and are somewhat smaller than modern fantasy models like those produced by the likes of Otherworld. A shame, but these are definitely still useable when segregated in a party of like-sized figures. 

Also in preparation for Rangers of Shadow Deep, I picked up two packs of giant spiders. These are the pre-primed models from Wizkids' "Nolzur's" range. They're inexpensive (a pack of three spiders goes for $6.49 CAD) but the material they're made from is not the best... it's a semi-bendy plastic which gave some hassle on these spiders...



The sculpts are quite nice and scary, but some of the legs were all over the place and bendy. Fortunately these responded well to running under hot water, rebending, and immediately soaking in cold water to set the plastic.



Each blister of three spiders came with a "victims" piece which is pretty cool also.



All in all the spiders are nice and represent good value - a must for the discriminating dungeon designer!