'East' from RobertH: Frostgrave: The Summoner's Apprentice

"Summoners work their magic by opening doors to different planes of existence. This is usually to bring forth creatures from other planes to use as servants, although this is not the limit of this school of magic. It is perhaps worth mentioning that the term 'demon' refers to any being from another plane of existence - demons are not all necessarily evil, nor do they all have horns or hooves. That said, demons are not usually happy about being summoned, and the life of a Summoner is a dangerous one."

~ Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City, pg. 16.

"Because of the great power that they wield, most [Summoners] are utterly convinced that their specialty is superior to others. Illusion and divination are trivial, alteration and invocation are inconsequential, abjuration and evocation are too weak, and necromancy is too repulsive. Though tending toward smugness and arrogance, [Summoners] are also confident, courageous, and bright.

"[Summoners] tend to rely on summoned creatures to perform difficult tasks for them; hence many [Summoners] grow flabby as the years pass. Many consider [Summoners] to be downright lazy.

[Summoners] recognize the importance of keeping evil in check, and most are of good alignment. Evil [Summoners] flourish, however, particularly those who maintain contact with evil entities summoned from other planes of existence."

~ The Complete Wizard's Handbook, pg. 12.

"While it is not strictly necessary for a wizard to have an apprentice, it would be both unusual and probably unwise to go without. Apprentices offer a huge degree of tactical flexibility and are the only way to have a second spellcaster in the warband. . . . Essentially, the apprentice is learning his trade from the wizard. if the wizard is good at something, the apprentice will be too. As the wizard gets better, so too will the apprentice.

~ Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City, pg. 16. 

And so here we have my first theme entry, and second entry overall. As the title suggests, he's an apprentice for the Summoner in one of my Frostgrave warbands. My other is a necromancer, but more about him later. "Aha," I hear you saying, "how can that possibly be East themed?"

Well, I shall tell you.

North Star miniatures - really great chaps, by the way - designed their Summoner and (female) apprentice as shown (these folks were not painted by me):

They both have a very Middle East/Arabic feel to the miniatures, and so I have taken that into consideration in building my warband. My captain, archers, and infantrymen are all Gripping Beast Crescent and Cross miniatures, and are en route via ebay and the USPS as we speak. I plan to have all of my warbands to match thematically in dress and apint scheme, despite soldiers (and apprentices) in Frostgrave being expendable sellswords one rounds up after a few drinks in the local taverns. Each band I want to have two wizard and two apprentice miniatures, one male and one female, for all kinds of adventuring combinations.

This apprentice began life as a Brigade Games imam (see, told you he was Eastish), originally purchased to be part of my Sudan collection as a dismount for a Perry mounted imam. However, using him as such would have required way too much greenstuff work, so instead he crossed over to the Dark Side, from pure upright historicals, to those degenerate fantasy wargamers.

And here we have them all together. The lead summoner and his female apprentice were painted pre-Challenge, and are really only included to show how well these go together. More points on the board!