Necron Test Pieces

I tried a couple of quick ways of painting Necrons recently. Continue reading

Blood Bowl Elf Test Piece

Well, strictly speaking its not a “Blood Bowl” elf per se, but the figure is painted for use in my Blood Bowl games.

The miniature is from Shadowforge and a very nice figure it is too.  Some of the Shadowforge sculpts are a bit overly sexualised for my tastes, with high heels, chainmail bikinis, S&M accoutrements and ensembles etc, but these figures dont suffer too badly from that.

Obviously long flowing hair isnt very practical in a contact sport and the “belly top” (are they still even called that?) seems more of a fashion statement than a sporting decision, but in the context of the vaguely WWE panto that is Blood Bowl, I am ok with this look.

I found this photo while confirming that common or garden humans do still use the phrase (and indeed occasionally wear) “belly tops”.  I can confirm that “belly top” is still in use as a term and also a garment, as this mildly amusing photo shows.

The sculpting, detail and general design of the figure combine to give a simple and somehow vintage look.  There are few extraneous bits and pieces hanging off the figure but it still has lots of character.  I like this approach to miniature design.  The figure looks more iconic than the overburdened designs often seen from GW and the like.  Extra detail does not automatically make a figure better.

The model was very nicely sculpted and cast too.  It was genuinely a pleasure to paint, largely because of the clearly defined sculpting.

I considered painting the gems blue rather than the amethyst that they ended up, but I wanted to use some of my new purple paints.

I also couldnt decide on a suitable area to paint the player number on, which is a bit of a failing for a miniature designed for use in a football game.  I may resort to simply painting the number on the base, but that somehow feels like cheating.

The yellow and orange were painted in ways that I hope will be fast and simple to replicate (I do have about twenty more BB elves to paint after all), whenever I get the Blood Bowl urge next.  The pale flesh (of which there is a fair amount) was a bit time consuming to paint, but painting any significant area of flesh to any sort of decent standard always takes a while really.

As a test piece for my long awaited (since the 1980s) Blood Bowl elf team I am reasonably pleased with it.

10mm Mounted Goblin Heroes

These three guys represent the flower of goblin nobility in my 10mm Orc & Goblin army.  I plan to put a pennant or banner of some sort on the central figures lance at a later date.

What is curious about these Copplestone figures is that they are marketed as orc (not goblin) wolf riders.  Unsurprisingly, the armour, style and dimensions of the riders also look a lot like the armour, style and dimensions of the Copplestone orc foot troops, which also feature in my force.

In the post regarding Hobgoblin Wolf Riders I mentioned how this blurring of the line between orc and goblin doesnt bother me one jot in conceptual terms, but how it can be a bit inconvenient in practical wargames terms.  It is mildly irritating here.  I decided that the line of least resistance is the “if it sits on a wolf, then its not an orc” definition, therefore these guys are simply big goblin beefcakes.

This will be the last 10mm fantasy installment for a while I reckon.  I have a pretty solid core of a force painted up since I started the project, which is satisfying.  With games of Kings of War using 10mm figures likely to crop up over the next few months, that seems likely to motivate me to add occasional units to the force from time to time.

10mm Hobgoblin Wolf Riders #1

 

The latest units that I have finished are these two units of wolf riders.  Each unit consists of two bases.

Kings of War is our fantasy game of choice right now, as determined by theottovonbismark and MT after they played some experimental games using a number of systems.

In KoW the goblins and orcs each have a separate army list.  Both armies feature units called “Sniffs” which are described as bow using lesser orcs.  The sniffs in the orc list are infiltrating scout troops and the sniffs in the goblin list are these guys, bow armed wolf (or “fleabag” in KoW parlance) cavalry.

With scale creep and stylistic differences the line between an orc and a goblin in 28mm can sometimes be a bit blurry.  This is further pronounced in 10mm I have found, with some manufacturers goblins being larger than other manufacturers orcs for example.

Although I am fine with the notion of orcs and goblins being quite variable in appearance (like dogs), it is usually important to be able to easily distinguish which troop type a tabletop model represents.  It is important that this is apparent not only to me, but very obvious to my opponent too.

So I decided to paint my sniff units with yellow skin tones to distinguish them from the orcs and goblins.  For reasons that I am unsure of I associate yellow and orange with hobgoblins.  It could because of the old GW “Hobgoblin Orange” paint, but I think that its more that that.  Seeing as sniffs straddle the line between orcs and goblins I figured that yellow flesh might work.

The models themselves are GW Warmaster goblin wolf riders.  Whatever issues people might have with GW, their 10mm fantasy figures are better than any other manufacturers that I have come across so far although predictably they are eye-wateringly expensive.

10mm Kings of War Session

This week theottovonbismark, MT and I focused the Saturday of our gaming weekend on Kings of War in 10mm.  It represented the first proper outings for my new 10mm orcs and goblins and also my first proper session of Kings of War.  It was fun.  We will do it again.

2012 so far…

Early August is a little late for this, but whatever.

On February 1st last I put up a post about my hobby plans for 2012.  I listed a number of projects that I thought would likely be tackled this year.  As part of the mission statement for this blog is to get a clearer picture of my hobby output and stick-to-it-ness levels, today I am going to review my progress so far.

Firstly I will list the items that I thought most likely to be worked on when I wrote the post in early February.  Secondly I will list other projects that have come to the fore unexpectedly and that have in turn reduced output on some projects that seemed like safe bets at the start of the year.  Try to stay awake.  Just look at the picture perhaps.

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The predicted projects last February were:

Adeptus Mechanicus: I have only got a pair of figures for this project finished, although I did get some other preparatory work done on it.

I am not too worried about slow progress on this one.  I have enough long term interest in it to reckon that it will bubble to the top sooner rather than later.  I also quite like the monochrome look that these figures have, although I dont know if it translates very well to the photos.

Gears of War: No progress.

Dreadfleet: No progress.

Judge Dredd:  No progress.  This is a little unexpected really and a little disappointing as a result.  The time that seemed likely to be spent on this project has been eaten up by a couple of unexpected out-of-the-blue projects, as shown below.

Inquisitor Warbands: Slow progress here, although as this project dovetails with the Adeptus Mechanicus above and the Veer-myn and Space Dwarfs below it isnt really static.  But as far as actual Inquisitorial retinues go, its really just these two figures shown.

Standard Falls post-apocalyptic terrain: No further progress on the shanties worth talking about.  I will get a bout of enthusiasm for it at some unknown point in the future and plough through the remaining bits that I have.

Zuzzy Mats: Completed.

Although the urban mat is still waiting for the appropriate terrain before it gets used properly, the wasteland terrain has been used for about thirty or so games of Malifaux since it got finished, which is satisfying.

Of note is that the Wasteland mat is currently showing zero signs of wear, which makes me about as happy as I can get from my toy soldier stuff frankly.  The mat adds immeasurably to the visual aesthetic of the games that I have played on it and it looks durable enough to last for quite some time yet.  Hooray.

Unusually the mat hasnt been used to play a dice game yet due to Malifaux using card decks as its random number generator.  Tomorrow is scheduled to be the first time that dice will be rolled on the mat (via Kings of War, which involves large quantities of dice) and sad as it sounds, I am actually looking forward specifically to that bit.

Yeah its pretty dorky, but if you dont like dorky stuff then what the flip are you reading this for? 🙂

Graveyard Terrain: 90% complete.  Other than an afternoon spent working on making some more strips of gravestones, this project is complete.  Like the wasteland Zuzzy mat above, this terrain has been involved in a decent number of games already, which increases satisfaction levels.  Another success story, go me.

Colonial Marines: All the stuff is bought and has been sitting in a box ready to go for about two years now I think, but as yet nothing to show.

This project has become a running joke of sorts in my mancave.  It is a monkey on my back that I will have to spank soon.  But right now I dont know when.  Bah.

Riddick: Completed.  The entire single figure project has been bought, cleaned, assembled, undercoated, painted, varnished, based, photographed, blogged and put in the display cabinet.

Titans: No progress.  No prediction of possible delivery date.

Zombies: The closest things to zombies that I have finished this year are the Dark Judges. I get a warm fuzzy from looking at my own painted versions of icons from my childhood 🙂

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Unexpected projects that got done this year are as follows:

Malifaux:  Getting regular local games of Malifaux played since February has been a big motivator and time sink.  Although I havent got many Malifaux figures painted I am pretty pleased with the figures that I have finished so far.  Malifaux games are the reason that the Zuzzy mats and Graveyard terrain shown above got completed too.

I have plenty more figures for this in the pipeline too.

Veer-myn: After I returned from my 2012 trip to Salute I felt compelled to paint something other than Malifaux for a while.  Firstly I painted the Veermyn that came with the Project Pandora game.

Space Dwarfs: After the enjoyable process of painting the Veer-myn, for reasons that I am still unsure of I decided to paint space dwarfs.  They came out well I think though: they have a Rogue Trader vibe.

10mm Fantasy: The most recent project that I have been working on is 10mm fantasy.  As a pair of the old guard dug out their Warmaster armies and have been playing Kings of War with them, so I decided to get in on that too.

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So thats the output for the first seven months of 2012.  Totals are ~70 miniatures and ~55 terrain elements (which vary from a 28mm book to 6×4′ terrain mats).

Not bad I reckon 🙂  I slumped and got nothing done from September to Xmas last year though, so it will be interesting to see if this higgledy piggledy approach, regularly chopping and changing from one project to another rather than forcing myself to work on specific things when my enthusiasm wanes will make a slump more or less likely to happen.  We shall see.

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10mm Saruman the White

Saruman the White

Saruman today.  Another Copplestone figure, this guy was a pleasure to paint.  Lovely sharp detail and nice deep recesses, the figure lent itself to my painting style rather well I think.

The robes go from black through to a very light cream (GC Off White).  The high contrast may not be terribly realistic, but it does make the detail on the figure stand out easily from a few feet away.

“There will be no dawn… for men.”

I made an effort to paint eyebrows on this figure, which was a bit risky.  Mainly I did it because the look of the character when played by Christopher Lee in the movies relies heavily on the big black bushy eyebrows and black ‘tasche.  So I thought that I would give it a go in 10mm for fun.

I think that this is the figure that I found most enjoyable to paint in this project so far 🙂

10mm Evil Army Shot #1

After a phase of chaotic mancave reorganising I got the place ready for gaming in again over the weekend.  After a couple of games of Malifaux today I cleared up enough space to take a group shot of my 10mm orc, goblin and general evildoers army.

I have plenty more additions to the force in the pipeline, but here is everything completed to date.  Not too bad at all ocnsidering everything in it has been assembled and painted this month so far.

Lots more 10mm Fantasy

Mounted Nazgul

Nazgul mounted on Fell Beast

My first unit of Orcs…

…and how those orcs look alongside last weeks goblins.

Orc heroes alongside last weeks goblin shaman.

My first unit of wolf rider goblin cavalry.

My stone thrower (along with Sweetums-like propulsion system…

… and a shot from the side to show the brains of the artillery unit.

I am enjoying this project a lot.  The turnover rate is rapid, allowing me to get to paint units with a little bit of care while still amassing a force reasonably quickly: very satisfying.

Comments and criticisms all happily received.  If anyone has any questions about the stuff shown then let me know.

10mm Kings of War

Real life has been kicking me in the nuts a bit lately, so I havent managed to get any photos of my most recent 10mm fantasy stuff taken yet.  There are quite a few new things coming though.

In the meantime I will direct you to the blog that a long term gaming crony of mine has been getting up and running recently.

My orcs rounds the mountain into insult hurling range of TheOttoVonBismarks halberdiers.

The Otto Von Bismark (also known as SOS around here occasionally) has recently been documenting various attempts at gaming with 10mm fantasy figures.  The system that has been getting the most love has turned out the be one designed for use with 28mm stuff: Kings of War.

It seems to be suiting our group for now, with its quick and streamlined play.  Its early days yet, but it has been working better than many other systems that we have tried over the years.  Its free too (although there is a new and rather nice hardback rulebook thats worth a look).  The free stuff is available here.

Some photos of my new 10mm bad guys will be up soon.  They are fully painted and all that, so its just photography time required.