I was rooting around the hobby bench a couple of months back and came across a plastic GW Gimli figure and an old Heroclix mechanical ram. I was about to recycle them when I sat Gimli on the ram and the phrase "Steam Punk Santa" jumped into my mind. And thus was borne a nice holiday diversion: a Santa-themed army.
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But who will fight for Christmas and fill out Santa's army? Well, I had a bunch of GW hobbits so those were some obvious recruits. I have a few more on the way but I can currently field one base of household guard (blades?).
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These are backed up by some snow-ball throwing shooters. It is not exactly the scouring of the shire, but I'll take it.
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For some back up, Santa can release the hounds (beasts). So far this is a pretty polyglot army (shades of Carthaginians) which will be a trick to play.
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Bilbo doubles as the head elf (magician) who keeps track of who has been naughty and nice in his velvet book.
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Smeagol is a lurker, haunting the ice flows that surround the north pole.
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To fill out the ranks, there are four bases of snowmen (warband? hordes?). These guys freak me out a bit (kind of like clowns) with their happy faces that bely ice-cold hearts.
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With a workshop handy, we can also expect Santa might spend a bit of time tinkering to come up with some mechanical reinforcements in case the boys from Walmart come knocking and look to expand their market share. I think this fellow is a behemoth.
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Up next: A 15mm Etruscan army is half-way based up. And I have just glued down a 1/72-scale British AWI army to the paint sticks. This is for DBHx and the figures are by Imex. Nice enough (if a bit thin and willowy--short rations?). But they are in an eye-searing red. I hope I can find paint to cover this!