Sunday, March 5, 2017

'Characters/Scene from' RossM: Rangers From Three Stories

For this theme entry have opted for three different ranger types from three very different books. From left to right you have a Ranger of Ithilien, Lonewolf and a A D&D Ranger. All three figures are from the hay days of Citadel Miniatures and are part of a series of rangers that are being -slowly- painted up just now.

First some group shots of all three together with the personal favourite centre stage.


The next pictures are of a Ranger of Ithilien as encountered by Frodo and Sam in the Two Towers. Tolkien describes these rangers as 

"Four tall Men stood there. Two had spears in the hands with broad bright heads. Tow had great bows, almost of their own height, and great quivers of long green-feathered arrows. All had swords at their sides, and were clad in green and brown of varied hues. Green gauntlets covered their hands and their faces were hooded and masked in green."


There are three figures in the set and the other two are armed with sword and spear, which will hopefully follow soon.



Next we have Lone Wolf and the first book of the Kai Lord series starts:

"You must make haste for you sense it is not safe to linger by the smoking remains of the ruined monastery. The blackwinged beasts could return at any moment. You must set out for the Sommlending capital of Holmgard and tell the King the terrible news of the massacre: that the whole élite of Kai warriors, save yourself, have been slaughtered. Without the Kai Lords to lead her armies, Sommerlund will be at the mercy of their ancient enemy, the Darklords.

Fighting back tears, you bid farewell to your dead kinsmen. Silently, you promise that their deaths will be avenged. You turn away from the ruins and carefully descend the steep track.

At the foot of the hill, the path splits into two directions, both leading into a large wood."



Lone Wolf at the split in the path - will he go left or right?







Next, we have the low level ranger from the Citadel A D&D character sets produced in the mid eighties, again there were three figures in the set with the other two to hopefully follow on.

The description in the 1st Edition Player Handbook reads as follows:

"Rangers are a sub-class of fighter who are adept at woodcraft, tracking, scouting, and infiltration and spying. All rangers must be of good alignment (q.v.), although they can be lawful, chaotic, or neutral otherwise. A ranger must have strength of not less than 13, intelligence of not less than 13, wisdom of not less than 14, and a 14 or greater constitution. If the ranger has ability scores of greater than 15 in strength, intelligence and wisdom, he or she gains the benefit of adding 10% to experience points awarded by the referee."






 These figures have been great to paint both due to the sculpts and the nostalgia they carry and I hope that you all like them.

In terms of points they are worth 15 plus the bonus theme award of 50 for a total of 65.

Cheers for now

10 comments:

  1. That's a great colour palette, I do like a ranger.

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  2. Good stuff I loved the Lone Wolf books when I was a kid

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    1. Thanks Adam, they were favourites here too.

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  3. The Ranger was always my favourite character class in my D&D days, and your figures all look the part. All are well done.
    I ever figured out why Tolkien described how the Ithilien rangers covered their faces. Camo, I suppose?

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  4. I'm with Michael, Rangers are such a cool 'class', made forever iconic by Aragorn.

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  5. Top work on the rangers Ross :)

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