An Eight-Legged Reptile with a Petrifying Gaze - The Basilisk

A basilisk is an extremely dangerous beast. Its gaze can petrify living creatures up to 10 yards away, and has been known to dissolve flesh and metal.

But who knew they looked so cute?!


The majority of fantasy creatures don't really fit into my preferred Rogue Trader setting, but every now and then there's a miniature that is perfect as some kind of alien monstrosity. The mid-1980s Citadel basilisk is exactly that sort of thing. A 'large' monster from the C22 Creatures range, the basilisk has a portly lizard-like body, eight stubby little limbs and a rather goofy looking face. It's the perfect beast for space adventurers to tangle with, and could easily represent something like a sumpkroc in modern Necromunda.

Pic from Stuff of Legends.

I picked up the basilisk on a whim and decided to repaint the model based on the colour scheme the previous owner had selected - purple and yellow. I hid the integral base by screening it with some pieces of a cork mat (almost as if the basilisk was basking on some nice warm broken concrete!).

Look at its cute face!

It was a very quick paint (basecoat, wash, drybrush), with some gloss varnish on the eyeballs and gums to finish. And there we have a nice new beastie to terrorise ash waste nomads, downed shuttle crew or underhive denizens!