Conversion - Amazons with bolas

Once again we have a conversion tutorial and this time John uses the power of superglue to arm his Amazons with bolas. Whilst I haven't yet tangled with them on the tabletop ...okay, okay I'll get my coat and leave you to the tutorial... :-)

We've started playing a war game that has a rule in it that allows for entangling opponents. The miniatures I chose to play are Amazon warriors and while I'm extremely pleased with the choice, there weren't any weapons included with the figures that would be able to entangle an opponent. My choices for the ancient history period we're in are fairly limited (basically a net or a bola). After very brief consideration I decided to see if I could fashion a bola or two for my miniatures.

I started off looking up how the bola is made normally. Apparently it's simply three leather or rope cords about 2 or 3 foot long that are tied in together in a knot at one end; weights (stones, metal bits, etc) are fastened to the other end. The thrower uses the knotted end as a handle and swings it round and releases toward the target (s)he wishes to ensnare.

To create my bolas, first I got a bit of thread and three tiny beads. I probably should have used smaller beads or made the weights from a bit of greenstuff as I think the end result may be a bit big as far as the weights are concerned, but what I had at hand was what I used.

I measured and cut three pieces of the thread into 2 inch sections and tied them together at one end. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to measure out 6-7 inches per piece and tie them together and then cut off the excess to the correct length, as that would have made tying them easier.

Once the three pieces were tied I slid one bead on far enough that the end would wrap around the bead and touch back to the main piece of thread. With a touch of super glue I affixed the bead in place and then wrapped the end over the bead and fastened it to the thread with another drop of super glue. I repeated the process for each of the other two threads.

At this point I was fairly happy with my bola. It was quite floppy but I thought it was a good representation of what I wanted. My next task was to superglue the bola to the figure. In the process I accidentally got superglue all over the thread and my fingers, which caused the happy consequence of making all of the threads stand stiff. I let them dry in that position while I cleaned the glue off my fingers and then finally glued the first bola to the figure.

I followed the same process for the second bola (avoiding gluing my fingers the second time). After a spray undercoat of khaki color, bleach boned on the thread and then a wash in sepia, the cords were completed. Ghost grey was used for the weighted ends.