Kobold Tribe

Larx Longtooth is known throughout the realm as one of the most crafty and troublesome Kobold raiders to ever curse the lands of Galaria.  Time and time again, he and his band have crept down from the foothills of The Crags to descend upon some unsuspecting trader's caravan only to disappear quickly into the wilds.  Along with his cohort, Binj the Mewler, Longtooth's Raiders (as they have become known) have caused trade between the North and South to become a dangerous and expensive endeavor.  In fact, trade has become so sluggish that wardens from Cumbria have been called to Donegal to track and stop the scourge of the North Road.  For the North and South to work together so closely on this matter certainly illustrates the seriousness of the problem.

Larx Longtooth is flanked by Binj the Mewler on the left and an unidentified raider on the right

It is believed that Larx and his band are part of the tribe known as The Children of Cridox.  This is a large group of Kobolds that call the eastern Crags home and have been known to prey upon trade and travel between The Dales in difficult years.  If this theory is true, then the trouble may only get worse as the year progresses, for the tribe is ruled by none other than Guart the Taker along with his minions Mange the Mighty and Rikt Wyrmcaller.  Trouble is brewing indeed.

A Kobold raiding party preparing for a "run"

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I've been working on my Kobold tribe for some time now and finally have an acceptable number for gaming completed.  Though I absolutely love the old school feel of Otherworld Miniatures, I chose the Reaper line of Kobolds to represent my little raiders on the field for several reasons....the biggest of which is availability and cost.  Ordering from Reaper only takes a few days to get my goodies and the minis are always reasonably priced.  With the release of the Bones line, I get an even better deal on rank and file Kobolds.  Don't get me wrong though.  It's not like the Reaper Kobolds were a distant second and chosen only due to logistics and money.  I very much like their Kobold sculpts.  It's just that I grew up with 1st Edition and I'm familiar with the old style Kobold illustrations that are so faithfully rendered in Otherworld's sculpts.

Anyhow, I've got the first twelve raiders finished and ready for action.  They are from Reaper's Kobold Raider blister (02470) and the Bones version (77010).  I also have additional reinforcements nearing completion.  They are four Kobolds from blister #03064 which includes an archer along with a blister containing a leader and a sorcerer (03024) and Snar Mangebelly (03295) which will represent Mange the Mighty, Rikt Wyrmcaller, and Guart the Taker respectively.

In doing a bit of research to decide how I wanted to paint my Kobolds I was surprised to learn that their background changed a bit over the years.  When I was a D&D geek during the 80's, no mention was ever made that they had draconic connections.  Apparently sometime during 2E and definitely during the 3E days, they became somewhat connected to dragons.  At first I was taken aback by the change but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.  With their new connections, they are still low level fodder but the gaming possibilities are greatly increased when possibly paired with a dragon. 

With this in mind I decided to pair my tribe with Cridox the Red and paint the Kobolds with a reddish hue.  I basecoated the tribe in Scorched Brown and worked up the red highlights with Dark Flesh to give the tribe a physical connection to a red dragon without ending up with "little red lizards".  I'm excited to try this process again with another tribe possibly paired with a blue or green dragon.  A dark organic blue with electric blue highlights might look interesting and definitely different from the standard fare players often see.

I love Kobolds by the way and they, more so than any other monster, bring back memories from my first D&D adventure....but that is a story for another time.