"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!
