Aquatic Warriors

 I assembled aquatic warriors from two tube fantasy sets to get ten warriors. They are unique sculpts and rather good. The things I disliked wee gaps between one of the arms and body and the weapon. The first problem was caused by an attachment of a separate arm mainly taken care of with filler. 

The second was an impractical looking club. It would be difficult to replace it due to the nature of the hand which has spread out fingers. Usually the weapon can be cut off and a hole drilled for a new weapon. The nature of the plastic also made the weapon bendy; some were so bad that I cut off much of the handle to make it a shorter weapon.

For the colours I chose a nice Games Workshop eerie green specialty wash (often used for painting spooks or eerie light) which went on over the bone spray undercoat. The club head I painted in a vaguely shell colour or, actually pink mixed with silver and highlighted silver. The shaft was painted an off white shade. One issue I have with aquatic intelligent and technological species is that without fire they cannot technologically progress. Dolphins are never going to make spears, tools etc unless one day after humans vanish the dolphins (who somehow were not also wiped out) move back on to the land and evolve hands. Anyhow, assuming an aquatic intelligent species WITH hands these creatures have managed to sculpt their clubs, etc from rock, shell or coral.

The crests began in the same washed out green but I eventually overlaid them with a pinkish wash to get  a two tone colour which looks suitably fishy. The breechclout - would such a species really share human prudishness - I painted in a thin blue which left the lighter highlights. 

The bases are cut with my guillotine from card folders. They were coated in PVA and sand and also had small shells and worm castings from the beach added - I knew I'd one day find a use for them all. I had previously used worm castings on some of my Games Workshop 40k orks (spelt with a K in 40K but with a C in Warhammer Fantasy and Tolkein).

USES: I imagine these chaps living in seas, rivers and the odd swamp. Wars of Ozz has swamp creatures as mercenary options. I may use them as random factors in my fantasy campaign game that have to be diced for near bodies of water. They could also be employed in certain armies.

RULES: I would make them fairly strong, to make up for their small numbers, maybe with two wounds. They are over 60mm but then they don't have armour. An interesting additional rule would be that they are limited in how long they can stay out of water. I am going to assume they have gills, although they are not obvious on the figures. Alternatively they could have very good lungs that enable them to stay under water a long time (like frogs, maybe with a lava gilled stage). They could also breathe through their skins. In any case the rule would be that they can stay only X number of moves out of the water before having to return to replenish. Most of the games I have with Mat and I are around 12 moves so I'd probably say six/eight moves so they are not totally useless. Then they would have to remain in the water for a move until replenished. Of course, they could just remain in the water until ready to launch an attack.