Matilda Molesworth

One thing I really enjoy is face-to-face game nights. Zoom calls and Roll20 and DND Beyond are great, and I’ve had a lot of fun with them as a player and DM, but I much prefer getting a group of friends together, eating some snacks, maybe having a couple of drinks* and rolling some dice. And after years of being put of by the idea of “doing voices” my wife has agreed to join a D&D campaign.

So, meet Matilda Molesworth, a halfling alchemist with a recipe to improve crop yields, and a habit of mistrusting every NPC she meets. Matilda is adventuring in Old Zamokot, city of nine gates and ten thousand lanterns, where the sun hasn’t risen for 1,000 years, with our old campaign friends Mike and Ali, playing a grizzled cop and a drug-addled barbarian. The miniature is from Midlam Miniatures, who are based just on the other side of the river from us – but I won’t hold that against them. It’s a lovely piece with nice deep sculpting and lots of character and details, which was loads of fun to paint.

In our last session Matilda was joined by Pesto, a homunculus in the form of a small mechanical bird. Pesto is named after a rook that my dad found injured on the road and nursed back to health. It’s the third corvid that he’s done that with, as well as a blackbird. I’ve used a very old Chaos Familiar from Citadel Miniatures, the ‘Iron Hawk’ for this. I’ve written before that I’m fond of that range, and I remember thumbing through the 1991 Red Catalogue over and over imagining all the creatures and characters I’d collect. This maybe wasn’t totally worth the wait. It’s one of the most simple-to-paint miniatures that I own – a basecoat of Citadel Leadbelcher, then washed with Nuln Oil, Ironbreaker drybrush, and some Stormhost Silver highlights. I painted the eyes to look like amber, but it’s hard to see that in these pictures.

Here’s the two of them together, ready for another adventure. We’re playing on Friday, and there’s trouble brewing – a suspected vampire attack. Ideal for Valentine’s Day.

*It’s normally a bottle of mead and a few glasses of whisky.