Shadows of Brimstone Goliath and Harbinger

Last time I showed you the smallest monsters from the Shadows of Brimstone game - the Void Spiders. This time I'm going to the opposite end of the scale and reviewing the two largest monsters from the core sets of City of the Ancients and Swamps of Death - the Goliath and the Harbinger. Most monsters encountered in Shadows of Brimstone conform to one of three Threat Levels - Low, Medium or High, depending upon the size of the Hero party - the bigger the party, the greater the Threat Level. However, depending upon the scenario being played, there is also an end-of-game threat that may be encountered and it is known as an Epic Threat. The Goliath and the Harbinger can only be encountered as Epic Threats.

"Hunched and lumbering, this towering behemoth dwarfed all other creatures my expedition had encountered. Its large head covered in soulless black eyes with a wide, round mouth surrounded by an array of sharp teeth, A dozen long tongues erupted from its face and writhed in a hypnotic dance."
An excerpt taken from the journals of Dr. Tobias Hedgebrook.

With a gigantic muscular body and horrendously long, flailing tentacle arms, the Goliath is an unspeakable horror like no other. Its bellowing roar and dripping mass of tentacle tongues consume all that stray within reach, smashing, crushing and devouring the souls of those who would dare to stand before it. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Goliath is the cold intelligence clearly visible behind its multitude of soulless, black eyes. It knows you're here... it knows why you've come... and it knows you have made a terrible mistake.

As you can see from the figure of the saloon girl I have placed alongside the Goliath in the first photo, this is a massive monster. It stands 65mm tall and measures 130mm from the tip of its tentacle tongues to the tip of its tentacle arms. It stands on a 60mm diameter base. I decorated the base with half of a plastic barrel taken from a Renedra pack of wooden barrels. This useful scenery set contains five large barrels measuring 15mm tall and five small barrels measuring 10mm tall. The barrels come in two halves, so I used one half here and the other half on the base of my Harbinger (see photos below). I used the large barrel for my bases. I also added a few pieces of cork bark to the base and a smashed wooden plank.

For the paint scheme I simply copied that found on page 49 of the City of the Ancients Adventure Book. The idea of adding the extra scenery items to the base came from a painted example of the creature found on page 45 of the same book. Its paint scheme is very similar to my own. A Goliath is potentially a party killer and must be treated with utmost respect, caution and extreme prejudice.

The massive, demonic Harbinger is one of the most fearsome creatures yet encountered by those that delve down into the cursed mines near Brimstone. With sprawling bat-like wings and long, sinewy limbs, nothing can escape the Harbinger's foul reach. Its bony, horned skull-head holds no eyes but rather two rows of pitted nostrils to sniff out its prey in the dark, and consume the flesh of the unwary explorers with its vicious maw of razor sharp teeth. Often accompanied by a swarm of slithering Hellbats, the Harbinger brings doom to all who gaze upon him and despair to those that hear his name.

The Goliath was a huge monster but the Harbinger is even bigger! Because it is crouched down, it is only 55mm tall from the soles of its feet to the top of its horns but its wings make it even bigger. The top of its left wing reaches 140mm above the ground and its wingspan is an impressive 230mm. Like the Goliath, it is glued to a 60mm diameter base, which I decorated in a similar manner to the Goliath. The Harbinger was amongst the first batch of figures I painted for this game, closely followed by the Goliath. These two figures are stunning, show-piece models that never fail to grab your attention when they make an appearance in a game.