I had planned to stick to models from the ASOIAF starter set until I had a couple of little armies up and running but unless you’re new here you know by now that I’m the biggest hobby butterfly that ever lived so going off on a tangent is parr for the course. Sure enough, rather than sticking it out with the core units as I planned I decided to paint Arya Stark, the wolf girl of Winterfell, instead. Her face looks very, very pale in these photos and no matter what I do I can’t get them looking right, suffice to say she looks a little bit healthier in real life.
From the same set of models as Arya Stark comes Shaggydog, the dark furred dire wolf of Rickon, the youngest of the Stark children. Honestly I fancied painting a wolf and he had “easy win” written all over him!
Shaggydog is often described as the most feral and dangerous of the direwolves, which is exactly what will happen if you give a three-year-old boy a large, savage wild animal and expect him to train it all by himself. I do see where Eddard was coming from with his insistence that the children should care for the puppies themselves (a dire wolf is for life not just for Christmas and all that) but a little more thought in regard to his youngest son might have been worthwhile. Then again no-one else seems to have given it much thought either. Anyway, as usual when the owner fails to do any training it’s the poor beast which gets the blame so now he has a reputation for being a bad dog – and Shaggy’s protestations that “it wasn’t me” have fallen on deaf ears.
Having painted Shaggy I decided that whilst I was on a roll I should paint up Rickon as well, on the grounds that he’s only small and so should be a fairly easy win too. Sure enough, I powered through the little lad as well.
Neither of these latter two are models that I planned to use in my Stark army to begin with but easy wins are easy wins and it’s always nice to have options. However whilst character models like these are great I still need to be working on some troops for them to lead and so lately I also turned my attention to the Stark Bowmen. Having powered through the Sworn Swords I found myself wondering if I could tackle the Bowmen at a similar pace, and the answer is… yes, possibly.
Like the Sworn Swords they may be a bit plain but they’re also wonderfully quick and easy to paint and right now that’s a huge bonus in my book, so we’ll see if I can crack on with them over the next little while or if I get distracted by something a bit more showy like those opulent Lannisters which are forming an angry mob on the edge of my desk…
Convert or Die 
June 2nd, 2022 at 8:15 am
All very nice! 🙂 I think Arya’s come out really well, but my favourite has to be Shaggydog!
June 2nd, 2022 at 6:06 pm
Thank you! I’m very pleased with Shaggy myself, and though he was quick and straightforward to paint I think he’s come up well. 🙂
June 2nd, 2022 at 9:25 am
Sweet! Arya has come out very nicely in particular. Do the children fight in the ASOIAF game or are they more like tokens? I remember Arya being quite dangerous in the books but I don’t think she was often on the battlefield.
June 2nd, 2022 at 6:24 pm
Cheers! Some of the Stark children fight in the game and some don’t. There’s basically 2 types of characters; combat and non-combat (plus some characters can be either – Robb for example can be a combat character on the battlefield or he can be commanding from afar as the King in the North). As well as the troops manoeuvring on the tabletop as you’d find in any wargame there’s also a tactics board which represents the political to-and-fro as the houses try to influence the outcome. Arya (and Sansa) are non-combat characters so you’d use them to control different parts of the tactics board, unlocking different powers depending on which zone they control. Rickon on the other hand is a combat character. He’s not very good in a fight in himself but he gives the unit he’s with a moral boost (they’re fighting harder to protect Ned Stark’s little boy) and he unlocks Shaggydog – and whilst Rickon may not be a close combat monster Shaggy looks like he’d be more than happy to eat a few Lannisters. I think it’s quite a clever way to bring some of these key personalities from the books into the game without changing the nature of the characters – it wouldn’t make sense for Catelyn Stark, Cersei Lannister or Grand Maester Pycelle to be strapping on armour and getting stuck in but it wouldn’t be ASOIAF without them either.
June 3rd, 2022 at 9:06 am
Cheers for the explanation. That seems like a very neat way to include these characters who wouldn’t be at home on the battlefield.
June 2nd, 2022 at 9:47 pm
Very nice- love the dire wolf.
Cheers,
Pete.
June 4th, 2022 at 8:04 am
Thanks – he a fierce looking beast isn’t he? 🙂
June 2nd, 2022 at 10:38 pm
These look great, you and the fact someone at my local club is getting into these is starting to really get me interested in the game.
June 4th, 2022 at 8:27 am
Cheers! I’ve not played a game yet myself but I’ve read over the rules and it looks fun (and I mostly understood it which is always a good sign – I find poorly written rules hard on the brain; GW take note!). It scratches the old rank-and-flank itch of WHFB, positioning of troops seems very important, but it adds some extra flavour with things like the political intrigue on the tactics board. The way “real life” is at the moment it might be a while before I’m able to roll any dice and try it out properly but in the meantime I’ll keep chipping away at getting things painted. 🙂
June 4th, 2022 at 6:10 pm
That sounds cool, I’m hopefully going to get a demo at my local club, I’ll let you know how it plays
June 2nd, 2022 at 10:45 pm
Excellent stuff mate – they’re all great, but Arya looks amazeballs 👍👍
June 9th, 2022 at 8:49 pm
Cheers man – she’s turned out a bit good hasn’t she? B-)
June 3rd, 2022 at 1:20 am
Great progress all around and there’s a nice variety across these different units too. I like the Dire wolf best but maybe that’s just because he’s one of the fiercest defenders of the North in this lot 🙂
June 9th, 2022 at 8:51 pm
Cheers man – for me it’s Arya or Shaggydog (joint favourite for the fiercest defender of the north too!).
June 3rd, 2022 at 6:11 am
Arya was one of my favourite characters and she looks splendid here as does Shaggydog. The archers look very cool too. 🙂
June 9th, 2022 at 9:03 pm
Thank you! Arya was one of my favourite characters as well, both in the show and the books. It’s always a bit of an uncertainty when you see a character you know well from a novel appearing on screen, you never quite know how the script/actor is going to interpret them and if it’s going to fit with what you had in your mind’s eye but Maisie Williams did a fantastic job, especially starting so young. In fact there was some really top-notch acting across the whole cast.
June 9th, 2022 at 10:03 pm
Totally agree.
June 5th, 2022 at 2:05 am
I think all of them are painted really nicely. Tempted by the game and hope to try it some time
June 9th, 2022 at 9:05 pm
Thank you! I’ve not played it yet myself but I’m curious to give it a try, you’ll have to let me know what you think of it as/when you get to play it yourself.
June 8th, 2022 at 4:55 am
Great work on the lass matey,but you always do great jobs on your figures!! funny thing is that as soon as I saw young Ricson he reminded me of a kid I new long ago!!
June 16th, 2022 at 8:47 pm
Cheers mate! 🙂