Spears and Impalers

 I have had bout 17 of these OOP Wizkids Horror Clix Vlad the Impaler 32mm figures sitting around since I bought them some years ago at the local Comic Book Store in a bin sale.   I had been planning to convert them to Impalers for a Vampire based fantasy army by replacing the end of the spear with just a point rather than an impaled victim, as a regiment of 16 would just look too weird, one victim as a standard is sufficient.

 

Wizkids HorrorClix Vlad the Impaler

Accordingly I cut off the victim on all but 1 figure and planned to put spear tips on the end of the poles.  After the figures sat around for a few years I finally got around to it yesterday. This was partly inspired by the new Fantastic Battles 1.2 rules that has a Night Stalker army list that will work perfectly for my Vampire War figures and these Impalers. They will be an elite Regiment called Vlad's Carpathian Impalers with 3 companies with the traits: Feast, Pikes, Highlanders and Doughty.

 Below are some of the various spear options I experimented with:

 

Different spear options

Figure 1 is just the original figure with the victim cut off.

Figure 2: has the entire spear replaced with a thick nylon broom stick bristle with the head flattened to form a point.  

Figure 3: Elf bits spear tip with a hole drilled in it and glued to the end of the existing spear point.

Figure 4: Orc bits spear tip with a hole drilled in it and glued to the end of the existing spear point.

Figure 5: Orc bits spear tip with a hole drilled in it and glued to the end of the existing spear point.

Which version do you like?

Figure 2 is is my favourite option as it is very durable (bends does not break or deform) and the thickness is the correct scale diameter, most miniatures have spears the thickness of mans wrist when they should be only 2 to 3 cm in 1:1 scale.  However this was a very difficult conversion as it involves drilling a hole through the figures upper hand which has to be done slowly with a pin vice as there is very little room for error, if the hole is not perfectly centred you risk destroying the hand.  While I succeeded in drilling the hole correctly I disconnected the hand from the figures wrist in the process (it appears it was assembled this way at the  factory) and I had to glue that hand back on at the correct angle with super glue.  The hole in the hand also has to be at the perfect angle or the bristle spear shaft won't meet up with the lower hand. Also you have to paint the bristle after it is inserted as the paint makes it too think to insert, the  option of using a larger diameter drill bit is not an option as it would likely destroy the hand. This also means most commercially available lead, pewter, steel, brass or   plastic spears would have shafts that are too thick to fit unless you want to rebuild the upper hand with green stuff epoxy putty. Thin piano type wire might work but you would still need to add a spear point..  You can find instructions on how to use nylon bristles at this helpful YouTube video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWYAGyj01vE

Figure 3 is my second choice and is the easiest and fastest to create.

Figures 4 and 5, are just as easy to create as figure 2 but the spear tip seems too big and looks more like a halberd blade..

Going forward I will keep all of 4 them to add variety in the regiment of 16, but the remaining figures will likely be mainly versions 3, and perhaps  a few more of version 2 with the bristle spear.

There is one other possibility, I have ordered some of these goblin spear bits below, if the point is not too big this may add some more variety although it might make the pike / spear shorter on the figures as compared to figure 3 with the longer point.