Gnolls in Space!

Every now and again, I get the conversion ‘bug’. I’ve talked about it many times before, and about my love of converting plastic miniatures. Back in WS&S 82, I mused that the Frostgrave Cultists would make fine Sci-Fi cultists. Moving forward to WS&S 86, where I reviewed the Frostgrave Gnolls, I thought that these again could be re-equipped for a Science Fiction setting. So imagine my delight when North Star announced the release of a special resin upgrade sprue for converting them! I simply had to have a play…

The North Star sprues.

The North Star kit comes with a good selection of weapons, including a cool-looking machine gun and a mix of several long arms & side arms. I decided to play with the plastic Cultists first, but I was also keen to see if the parts would extend to working with the plastic Frostgrave Gnolls. The parts were carefully put together with superglue. I waited for each part to dry before starting on another - there’s nothing worse than attaching yourself to a model you’re working on with glue!

Converted Cultists

To my delight, the weapons worked fine with all the North Star plastics I tried. The Gnolls tend to have longer arms than the other plastics, but even so, they looked fine. I had to slightly trim some of the shoulders (as the Gnolls’ shoulders are wider than the human ones) but not by much, as the plastic resin the guns are made out of is quite flexible.

Space Gnoll and Cultists

The weapons are quite modern in appearance: maybe the odd ‘las gun’ or shotgun - very ‘Traveller’. While a little ‘low tech’ for Beyond the Gates of Antares, these guys will make excellent Chaos Cultists or Beastmen for the 40K universe or be a cool faction for Rogue Stars (there is a cultist faction in the game). I’m sure they would work on the new plastic Barbarians too (feral freemen?).

Armed Gnolls

Some may be wondering why anyone would bother with ‘dog men’ in space (not fans of Marc W Miller eh?). Well apart from being a staple of some well-established science fiction universes, they are just as cool as Raccoons with guns. Me, I just like having a play with models and seeing what they can do.

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