Secret cults with exotic practices have long formed a staple element in roleplaying games and tabletop figure wargames of the more imaginative sort. Cast figures to represent cult members and their victims too have been around since the early days of RPGs, but for some reason paper minis seem to have lagged far behind in this respect. This small set from Skirmisher is one of the few exceptions, although it concentrates exclusively on, mostly naked, human women, drawn in the company's signature style, bold and somewhat cartoon-like.
Given its mildly salacious title, you might expect there to be some male figures too, perhaps some fish-men or man-frogs, but the closest things to anything male are the two identical, if differently-sized, standing stone pieces, carved with mystic runes and an octopus design, and which, like many standing stones, might be thought to have a phallic dimension. This seems something of a missed opportunity, particularly given the general inventiveness shown by this and other Skirmisher paper miniature sets. Even so, the eight cultist figures here make a useful "inner cabal" caught in mid-ceremony.
The full group of minis is available in colour and black-and-white versions in the PDF file, the black-and-white pieces allowing for some hand-drawn customisation, not merely in terms of colouring, but also affording an opportunity to add clothes, fresh weapons or other features as preferred. Although giving quite some extra work to achieve, this does increase the set's potential.
Construction is straightforward, either as flat, inverted "T"-shapes, following the enclosed instructions, or recutting the bases to form triangular "A"-frame standees instead. Full back and front artwork is provided for all except the three "magic circles", which are identical, flat, square counters in two sizes. One of the two smaller rings has a spreadeagled, naked victim tied face-up to it. These circles would benefit from some background surface texture, as like the "T"-form figure bases, they are plain white otherwise. While this might be added by hand with paint or felt pens, there is much very fine detail on the intricate circle designs which could be lost easily in doing so, so the absence of options for printed texturing here appears rather an oversight.
As seems uncomfortably standard with the Skirmisher line of minis, an "actual size" printout gets you standing female humans upwards of 40mm tall, much too big to fit with other typical 28/30mm figures and scale terrain, so some experimental resizing will be needed in such cases. Again, something of an oversight in the layout.
Looking at the care involved in the artwork, it's clear this set wasn't intended simply as a throwaway one-line joke. Give the cultists some powerful magics, and your players won't think so either!
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