Recreating the Dragon Warriors cover in miniatures

Dragon Warriors was the first full-fledged RPG I GM'd, and when it was re-released in a hardcover in 2009, I bought a copy and started GMing more or less regularly for a while.

The cover art was by Jon Hodgson, and featured four adventurers from the four original character classes in the game: Knight, Barbarian, Mystic, and Sorcerer.

Art by Jon Hodgson

The cover is also an Easter egg/tribute to the cover of the original paperback version of the book - as you can see the knight from the original book didn't get further into the dungeon...

The new cover art is a better fit for the mood of the game.

When I bought a fighter figure for my Lone Wolf game, I noticed that he bore a resemblance to the knight on the cover art. This gave me an idea and after some googling I decided I would try to recreate the party on the cover in miniatures.

This was what I started with.

The knight figure is less heavily-armoured than the cover version, but the flipped-up visor and his face were a good match and I wasn't prepared to do any heavy conversion like a body-swap. I had to replace his round shield with a plastic heater shield.

The barbarian figure is from Northstar's Frostgrave range and came in a pack with a thief figure (not-Fafhrd and not-Gray Mouser). The dress isn't a 100% match, but at least he wears a top - most 28mm barbarian figures are topless and wield a two-handed axe. I had to give his some facial hair with putty - it's amazing how much manlier it made him. I also had to give him bigger shoes - the original figure had tiny feet. The arm band matches that of the art and is a bonus.

The mystic figure is also from Reaper - I had to restyle his hair to a more bowl-cut look of the original guy. The sorcerer is also from Reaper, and did not require any conversion.

This was what I ended up with.

I think they will make a nice pregenerated party for a convention game.