Thugs

There is one trope that is present in every of my D&D game: thugs attacking the PCs.

Inevitably, at some point, a bunch of never-do-well will attack them. Maybe as a warning to stay away from what they are investigating, maybe because they are infiltrating the Thieve's Guild, or simply as hired muscle from any BBEG in their way.

I already had miniature to represent some of them, but in every adventure my PCs where fighting the same 6 or so miniatures. I wanted to extend my collection of thugs, to represent more variation.

So I scouted the ASOIAF miniature line and bought a few boxes, to make me a group of ruffians with no two miniatures alike.

I went for all those that didn't wear any kind of recognizable iconography, nor very obvious military outfit. The various units of scouts and hirelings the best.

I primed them gray, with a light zenithal priming of white, and then drybrushed them white again. I then went on trying my Speed Paints on them, taking pictures next to the bottle I used, to better compare how each color actually look like once on a miniature.

I went with Red as the main color for the thugs. I want my players to quickly identify that a bunch of red armed men means hired muscle thugs. I plan on painting various groups of miniatures following a similar paint scheme, with one main color.

Even if I used all available Red, and if close-up pictures show the difference between all Reds, the overall effect make it look like a cohesive group.

Those miniatures were a joy to paint, and a great way to test the various shades of Speed paints.