Knights, Death, and Barbed Devils

Knight, Death, and the Devil
Albrecht Dürer - 1513

Originally titled Reuter (The Rider), Albrecht Dürer's engraving eventually became known as Ritter, Tod und Teufel (Knight, Death, and the Devil). There has been a lot of context assigned to the engraving by various people with different agendas, but nobody except Dürer can say for certain the intended meaning of the piece.

It really just goes to show that a work can develop an identity of its own, and in many ways make the intentions of the creator irrelevant.

Anyway, onto the actual subject of this post, which is primarily about miniatures of knights and barbed devils.

I finished painting these two figures not too long ago. The left figure is a Ral Partha Paladin (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-112) which was also available in the Fantasy Champions box set (Best of Ral Partha 10-306). The right figure is the Ral Partha Briar Rose Knight (Personalities and Things that go Bump in the Night 01-107) which was also available in the Adventure Fellowship box set as a Chevalier (Best of Ral Partha 10-305).

The paladin is painted in the colors and heraldry of the Grand Duchy of Ellay, while the Briar Rose Knight is painted as a knight from the Kingdom of Troy.

The next set of figures include a Minifigs Plated Armored Fighter w/ Sword & Shield (Fantasy Folk FF-016), and a Citadel Female Fighter in Plate Armour (Fantasy Tribe Fighters FTF32).

I believe that the next pair of knights are also from Minifigs, but I do not know which lines they come from.

Representing Death is the Grenadier Charon, Boatman of the Styx (Fantasy Lords 175).

One of these days, I'm going to make a figure similar to this of Death in a straw boater hat poling a Venetian gondola.

First up for the barbed devils are three plastic figures; a DDM Barbed Devil (Angelfire #35), a Pathfinder Sentinel Devil (Skulls & Shackles 015), and a Horrorclix Terror Demon (Base Set #078).

The first two miniatures are modeled after 3.5 edition barbed devils, and have spines on their backs. The clix figure has the look of a more traditional devil, but it has some spikes on various parts of its body and a barbed tail.

In metal, we have a Heritage Barbed Devil (Dungeon Dwellers 1288). A different Heritage Barbed Devil was also in the Demons & Devils boxed set (Dungeon Dwellers 3520). My figure was actually from the GFI Creature Pack II (Dungeon Dwellers MIF25921808).

The figure on the left is mostly covered in scales, though there are spikes on its back. It is also probably larger that I would like a barbed devil to be. The second figure has good height, and the back is completely covered with barbed spikes. Unfortunately this figure seems to be pretty difficult to come by nowadays.

There were also other lesser devil sculpts that could be found in the blister set, but the one that came in my blister was more of an imp.

Last up are the ex-Center Stage Miniatures Barbed Devils now available from Pacesetter Games & Simulations (Demons & Devils BAD1).

These guys have the appearance of the Trampier barbed devils that we know and love, but they are really too big for use with 1/72 scale figures. They also have a distinct lack of barbs on their backs. Otherworld also makes some barbed devils in this style, but they are too tall as well.

The next pictures are of conversions I did on one of the Minifigs knights and the Pathfinder Sentinel Devil.

Before and After

Before and After

Maybe you had an inkling of where I was going with this post, but here are the two converted figures posed in the start of a tableau based on the iconic DCSIII illustration from the AD&D Players Handbook.