Kidnap - An alternative use for the HOT103 Cockatrice 15mm monster

I am delighted to present to all you 15mm fantasy wargamers out there a new article by Andy Jefcoate!  If you missed the previous half dozen by Andy you can see them on the blog HERE. Great for Age of Might and Steel and also USEME 15mm Fantasy plus of course any other 15mm system this time his subject is a conversion of our HOT103 Cockatrice one of this years most popular releases.  Enjoy and Thanks.  GBS

Kidnap - An alternative use for the HOT103 Cockatrice 15mm monster!

Some of you may have read my earlier article about painting the new Cockatrice that has joined the excellent 15mm.co.uk HOT range of figures. By strange coincidence Sam Croes and I both painted the new figure using similar colours despite being separated by a few hundred miles! I was therefore determined to paint another and come up with a very different colour scheme so Gavin very generously provided another casting for me to use. At the same time I was planning a big fantasy game and needed a  general to lead my combined forces of evil, so I decided that the Cockatrice would make an excellent mount.

After much consideration I picked the mounted Chaos Knight figure from the Tabletop fantasy range (537 Chaos Knight on mount) to be my General. This was because the figure has a full helm so could be male or female, human or Vampire and could be used to fit various scenarios. In my game it was a Vampire Lord who had control of a Goblin tribe to fight alongside his Undead forces but as I've said before the only limit is your imagination. I clipped off the spear that the figure holds and replaced it with the sword from the Undead Cavalry standard bearer (HOT24) to make it different from my other Chaos Knights. 

To make the figure stand out further I decided to portray it as in flight as the Cockatrice already has it's wings spread. I carefully clipped off the base and used a flying stand (from the LBA1 pack) that was attached to the Cockatrice with a thin brass rod. The flying stand itself was then attached to a 40mm square base to give it stability.

As the bulk of my forces of good are human I decided to put a human command figure in the creatures claws to look like an enemy leader has been kidnapped for questioning. I used the command figure from pack MRC26 of the Altuos historical range as the majority of my humans are also from that range. 

For this Cockatrice I painted the scales in purple with a light blue underbelly and legs, then the feathers were coloured a light grey with the crests on the head in a vivid pink. The whole thing was given a black ink wash to tone it down so that it fit in with my Undead army but as the Chaos knight is mostly encased in metal, pretty much any colour would work.

I enjoyed this project as it's fun to spend a bit longer on your leader figures to make them stand out on the tabletop. I know that the colour scheme won't be to everyone's taste but you have to agree that it's very different to the last Cockatrice that I painted. I have a growing collection of characters with monsters as mounts and they are always fun to do. While I like having a good size collection of generic monsters that will fit with pretty much any army, it's good to tie some to a specific force as for me it helps to give the army an identity.

Here is the HOT103 Cockatrice as it appears on the 15mm.co.uk website.  It is a three piece white metal monster.

Recently the lads at 15mm.co.uk released digital downloads of Age of Might and Steel and UM002 USEME 15mm Fantasy.  These are excellent compact rule systems check them out!

Thanks for reading.

Andy