Target

Empire Halberds: Citadel and Artizan

2012-01-30T19:32:00.000Z

Good day one and all; For your viewing and my playing pleasure (and also because I have entered a proper tournament) I am currently painting up a whole load of Empire Halberds.

I have always loved the mid nineties style of empire state troups with their ridiculous bows and overlarge silk shirts. Following advice I have opted to buy in some Artizan figures and have equipped them with Halberds.

If you like what you see, then please tell your friends (or press the Google+ button)

If you hate them, have ideas on how I could improve or what to paint next, leave a message below. It only takes a minute and I really appreciate it...

The chap on the right in the photo above is Citadel 1996, whilst the other two are armoured artizan Landskneht. As you can see there is a slight height difference, but on mass this is easily lost. Also it might be worth pointing out that not everyone is the same height; just look around you at work or school tomorrow...

All my Empire are painted in Nordland state colours. It is how I started the army, and I am getting far too many figures to change now. Once again, in the picture above we have two Artizan and one citadel, see if you can work out which is which. I found the pipe in the musicians hand very fragile and in the end I had to replace this after painting. I would recommend that you just bow to the inevitable and replace it at the start.

Slightly blurred picture here, but we have another three Artizan halberds. I like the models and I think they fit pretty well with the overall look of my army...

Finally some rear views...

From Landskneht to halberdiers

2012-01-22T20:48:00.002Z

I have started working up my existing Empire army into a playable force for 8th edition. In changing the army it was clear that I needed more troop figures. Specifically Haberdiers. I am not a fan of the current GW state troop figures. I have always preferred the halberiers from the 1996 journal. The problem with these are that they are getting difficult to track down. I had a small collection from a detachment I had, but getting more through places like ebay was going to get very expensive. They look like they go for around £8 GBP each. I need another 50, so there is no way that that was ever going to happen.

So I looked around. The warhammer-empire site gave some great advice and pointed me in the direction of Artizan designs Landsknecht regiment. So I took the plunge and ordered some. at £22 GBP for 20 I figured I would not be going too far wrong.

They don't come with any weapons so I made mine with a short piece of rod and harberd ends from the bits box. In making these 20 I have emptied by stock completely so I will need to find some more from somewhere ready for the next lot I need to buy.

I am very pleased with the figures that artizan make. There appear to be 8 basic figures, 4 with breastplates (armoured) and four without (unarmoured). The details are crisp and there was only a small amount of flash. I especially like the fact that they all face in different directions so a unit will not look to uniform

They include a four figure command group. I am not too sure if I will use the leader figure, but the rest are good.

I have also stripped the paint of some old mid 90's halberds I managed to get my hands on. The chap in the centre is off the old battle waggon whilst the chap on the right is one of my oldest figures. It is from the 1986 journal and was brought by me at the time because I quite liked the idea of buying some figures. I think that the paint job shown is my second attempt at painting it in the mid 90's. Lets see if my third is any better...

Flag painting

2012-01-10T21:04:00.000Z

To mark the new year, I have opted to enter a tournament and take the chance to tidy up my Empire army. So I have ordered some new figures... yummy...

Whilst waiting for the postman to knock I thought I would paint up a flag and talk you through the way I go about these things.

Way back when I started painting the Empire, I selected two colours that I thought would go together, looking at my colour wheel I choose blue and cream. Now, years later, I have done some research and it appears I am painting up a Nordland coloured army (who would have guessed). Complete with this new found knowledge, I looked up the appropriate flag on the Warhammer empire site. This sets the general tone of the principal army flag. In the case of Nordland this is red and blue with pictures of ships and griffins. Not liking the red and blue combination, I decided to keep to a blue and cream colour. I then had to decide what flags to use for the units. I decided to use either ships or Griffins.

20 minutes on the web, and I had found an image I wanted to try and copy. In this case I cut & paste from a website about cheshire heraldry (?). I then printed out the image and drafted on some guidelines to help me visualise the proportions...

I then took a flag which I had painted a background onto...

and marked out roughly the vague shape of the image I wanted.

I coloured in the shapes.

and then added a little shading.

A bit more work and I got to the rough look I was after.

...and don'y forget the other side...

I quite like this figure because the chap is working hard to hold a flag that is clearly too big for him.

Hope you like the pictures....

New year target

2012-01-06T20:33:00.000Z

It has been a busy Christmas period, but now it is time to return to real life.

At new year it is traditional to set yourself a new year resolution; and I am no different. In previous years I have set myself challenging new year targets.

In 2010 I tried to paint three armies in a year. This was roughly 15 figures a week. Needless to say I failed.

In 2011 I set myself a target of ending the year with less unpainted figures than I started it with. I blame the Internet. A quiet five minutes and I pay a little visit to the web and minutes later I have an order for yet more shiny metal.....

So in 2012, it is time to set myself a target I have some chance of achieving. I have decided to attend a full proper tournament and to tidy up my Empire army enough so that I am not embarrassed to present them at the tournament.

This seams more achievable.

To achieve this I first needed to find a place to play. After a tour of the web I have decided to attend The Polish Sausage Warhammer team event at Maelstrom Games in Mansfield UK. It is a team event at the back end of February. This should just about give me enough time to finish the army and to pull together the three other players I need to go with me. I have asked around my local club and I have plenty of interest and have one player committed. Just two more required.

The next step is to decide on a list. After a few hours reading the forums and with my own knowledge of the Empire I have decided on the following list.

Arch Lector with sword of battle, Dawn armour, Dragonbane Gem & Van Horstmans spectrum

Battle standard bearer with Armour of Meteoric Iron

Naked Master Engineer

Captain on Pegasus with Dragonhelm, Luckstone & crown of command.

Two level two Wizards (One fire with dispel scroll & one Shadow with rod of power)

Two units of Halberdiers (1 of 29, 1 of 30) both with full command

30 swordsmen with full command and 9 handgunners

30 Greatswords with full command and 9 handgunners

A mortar, cannon, Helblaster Volley gun and a steam tank.

I have most of these but I still need to get 50 halberdiers, 10 greatswords and I will take the opportunity to refresh my character models.

My preferred style of play with the Empire is to sit back a bit and then try and dominate the centre ground. I hope that this list will work with that.

No doubt I will change the list and probably rage quit many times between now and the tournament, but I need a starting point.

Now to visit the web and buy some figures.

Wizard House

2011-11-22T23:06:00.000Z

My local wargames club are always on the lookout for new scenery, but we have a very small number of club members who are willing to build or paint the pieces. Our scenery also tends to take quite a bashing from the club members. So when looking for new terrain recently I was looking for a ready made piece that would be nice and robust.

With this in mind I elected to buy the "wizards House" made by Ziterdes.

The model comes as a single piece, therefore no assembly is required. It is also made of hard foam and so will be very resistant to the level of abuse my club members can hand out. The only things that put me off when buying was the price and the uninspiring paint job that is given to the model.

The Manufacturer have chosen to undercoat (poorly) the model in grey and the roof in a dark red. This takes the eye away from what is a pretty nice model.

After giving it a good undercoat it is a whole different model.

What I love most of all with this model are the great details.

The model includes quite a good broom, a great bird box and quite a fun lunch table.

All in all, very strongly recommended.

Scenery

2011-11-22T23:03:00.000Z

I have made scenery from a number of manufacturers.....

28mm scenery:

Scratchbuilt:

Pegasus hobbies:

The square:
Egyptian/ Tomb kings

Ziterdes:
Wizard House

Time for a few more rats

2011-11-16T23:50:00.001Z

The thing about a Skaven army is that you can never have too many rats.

With this in mind it is time to add a few more furry criters with pointy sticks.

Nothing too smart or original, but I am keeping with the army colour scheme, so on masse they should look OK.

Is this wysiwyg enough? Engineer with Doomrocket

2011-11-14T19:49:00.000Z

There is a very simple tactic that can be used with a Skaven Engineer. Look, I will admit it, it makes me feel a little dirty, and no, I am the first to admit it, I learnt about it by reading a forum, not by careful study. However after being mind-razoured more times than I can count, it is time to embrace the cheese..

The play works like this...

Equip a Skaven Warlock Engineer with a doomrocket. It will cost you only 45 points!

Start him within 12" of a Grey Seer.

Turn one, use the skitterleap spell to place the Rocket carrier to the side of the Enemy's line and fire using only 4 dice. The rocket will go 14" almost every time, drops a large template which causes S5 hits. It will pay for itself almost every time and almost never misfires!

The rules ask that my figures are wysiwyg as much as possible and so to counteract the cheese, I thought I would make the figure as obvious as possible.

To achieve this I took a clan rat with spear and added a rocket from the crew of the Empire Helstorm rocket battery. I added a small length of guitar wire as a fuse and fixed a torch from the Empire flagellant set with the end of a paperclip. There you have it, one Engineer with rocket.

I had a slight spot of bother when I tried to mould the plastic of the flame over a naked flame. It all started to melt and turned to mush, but I think I have got away with it on the finished model and it holds it all in place.

The lit rat comes from the IoB warpfire thrower.

The lit fuse was enhanced by two pieces of static grass fixed to the end to represent the light. Bit of a happy accident, but goes OK. Hope you enjoy...

Skaven gutter runners, better when painted

2011-11-09T21:44:00.001Z

Last time I had started to paint two units of five gutter runners. Since then the paint brush has been put to use and I now hove two units complete with movement trays to show off...

I built the bases so that I could easily move them around on the battlefield. It is simply a piece of plastic card with foam card built up on top then based in the normal way.

As with all of my Skaven these are painted in the Clan Septik, with the colour of the outfits matching the respective rank or status. These are low ranking, so are quite yellowy/brown.

The rest is fairly conventional. Hope you enjoy.

Skaven gutter runners: A start is made

2011-11-07T20:01:00.001Z

Next on the list of desirable Skaven (if there is such a thing) are a unit or two of Gutter runners.

Who could resist the chance of having a couple of units of vermin complete with slings and poison running around creating mayhem. Well not me for one, the scout rule alone is sufficient reason, just to mess with the thinking of my opponents. These cheeky chaps follow the conventional approach of clanrats with the slings bitz pack. Not difficult and it works very well.

So far I have assembled the boys. You should spot a couple of the actual gutter runner figures in amongst them. looking back I don't think they add anything and I would have been better off with the clanrats entirely ...

I then blasted them with undercoat. I almost always go with black, beacuse I am convinced it goes on better and you cannot tell the difference when you have finished.

I have started the process of painting, by adding on the basic colours. As the remainder of the army, I have elected to have darker rags for the lower order rats, so these boys are going to be pretty shabby...

Rat Ogres, and then there were four

2011-10-21T12:44:00.000+01:00

When last I played with the Ratogres, I had three painted and one assembled. I guess it is time to finish off the last of this bunch..

This Ratogre is the model with the most conversion elements on this pack of figures.

The ratogres left hand is the giants hand from the giant model. This needed the fingers changing into claws. To achieve this I cut out the plastic from blister packs to make long nails.

The Arm had to be repositioned and raised to make this work. This left a massive hole in the ogres back.

Careful filling and that was resolved.

I painted the human captive to match the empire army I have and the ogre to match the remainder of my Skaven army.

Hope you enjoy

Arkhan the Black: A completed conversion project

2011-10-10T14:25:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I started a conversion project for a friend from my local gaming club.

The project is to construct and paint Arkhan the black, together with a staff of Negash and liber Mortis.

To construct this, I have used parts from;

Tomb King with great weapon
Helblaster volley gun (part of staff)
Vampire counts skeleton (skull)
Bretonnia peasant archers (shield on staff)
Tomb king skeleton archer horseman (left arm)
Vampire counts Necromancer (base)
Book from forgotten figure!

Thank god most of this came from my bits box otherwise it may of cost me a small fortune.

When last we saw the figure, I had painted on some very basic colours. I do this to set a colour tone. I find that if I complete a whole part of a figure in isolation, from a black undercoat, I end up with an overly dark piece, which I then need to lighten considerably when I complete more of the figure. Conversely if I work up from white undercoat, I get a very washed out look. By painting the whole figure in simple colours I can establish a tone for the figure and hopefully find those colour combinations that are just not going to work on the finished figure.

In the end I opted for a very simple red & blue combination of colours to give him a very classic GW look.

I tried to keep the reds on the cloak and book quite subdued to accentuate the brighter red of the gems.

I tried hard to draw the detail up to the face area so that the viewers eyes would be drawn here. I think a character of this kind should have a prominent face and hopefully I have achieved this.

Does not look quite so good when you blow it quite so large!

Most of the conversion work went into getting the staff of Negash to look similar to the inside cover art on the Tomb King book. Hopefully I have achieved this, you can be the judge. In hindsight I made it a little large, but not sure how I could have got it much smaller...

The worst part is the Liber Mortis. I kept the writing in the book nice and vague, but maybe more work was required.

Hope you enjoy...

White Dwarf: A gentle rant

2011-10-04T13:56:00.000+01:00

Before I start, let me get some things straight...

GW are not an evil empire
I would not be in this hobby without GW
This hobby probably would not exist (in any meaningful sense) without GW

Having said that I do have a minor gripe that is gnawing away at me. This background noise of discontent has now not to the point that I feel the need to vent. Albeit, vent is a very English and gentle way.

The source of my discontent, GW's sales magazine, White Dwarf

White Dwarf & me (a personal history)

Let me take you way back to a simpler time. Once upon a time GW pushed a little magazine, which covered most of hobby. To encourage customers to subscribe they gave away a quaint little cartoon booklet.

If you wanted the magazine, you could buy from the shops or you could get through the post with a reward for your loyalty.

Time passes and GW withdraw the freebie and limit their coverage to only GW products.

That is fine, if you like the products and like the magazine it is still worth getting and I continue to subscribe.

Time passes and I drift away from the hobby for a few years.

When I return it is 2005 and the hobby appears little changed, GW have reduced their ranges to core games only, but all is still fun. Occasionally, when I am attracted by an article I buy White Dwarf, otherwise I let it pass. The painting standard of the models in the mag appear to be set to a very low level, but I take this as a deliberate ploy to encourage those that cannot paint to well.

More recently my interest increases and at the same time the quality of the modelling and painting articles increases.

Yes! It is time to resume subscriptions!

Then within a year......

No real 'eavy metal articles, and then the worst blow, they decide to send out subscriptions after they go on sale in the shops!

I receive a little letter last month pushing the dreadfleet, and near the bottom they slip in the news that subscribers are to receive their copies after they hit the shops!

Is this deliberate?

I hear that there are a whole range of articles giving guidance on how to paint the dreadfleet in this months copy.

Can I read it?

No!

And the reason I cannot is because I have shown some product loyalty to GW and subscribed to a magazine. I can go to the shop and look up at the shelf to see the product I have already paid for, but GW no longer want to send it to me on time!

Of course I could buy and extra copy, but how is that going to make me feel?

Is it going to ruin my life?

No.

Is it going to ruin my week?

No.

But it will make me a little grumpy now, and it does not encourage me to rush into pre-ordering products again.

Gentle rant over, if nothing else I feel a little better....

Dreadfleet & liquid green

2011-10-02T10:41:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I collected a copy of GWs new game Dreadfleet that I had pre-ordered for my local gaming club. B.T.W. Don't you just love GWs "we don't believe that the game can stand up on its own merits so you must but in a two week window or else" approach.

Whilst at GW, my eye was dawn to their new product, "Liquid green stuff"

Now, this is a product that quickly grabbed my attention. I feel have spent a lot of time mixing together green stuff then desperately trying to squeeze it into joints. I always seem to mix together far too much and end up throwing away more than I use. I am also not a great sculptor, so any help would be appreciated. I have tried myself to get a more flowable version, but if you just add water to the traditional version, it goes grainy very quickly. Therefore I was very keen to give the liquid version a try.

To this end, I quickly assembled the scenery components of the dreadfleet..

From this I chose two components, the "castle Island" and the "corpseface cliff" which needed some work doing on the joints.

Before pictures....

The product

The liquid greenstuff has a constituency of a bread dough mix. It is pretty thick but is consistent in texture.

I spoke to the guy in the shop who suggested that it might be worth adding a little water. This worked quite well and I found I could add a little to give me a very nice paste.

I then applied to the models using an old brush.

First try..

The first tries where pretty frustrating. I found I had trouble directing the mixture to where I wanted it and that when it dried it shrank back into the crack. All I ended up with was a similarly poor joint just with less definition.

I then sanded back and tried again, but this time with the raw product, undiluted. This was just as difficult to control, but felt a little better going on. It still had a tendency to shrink into the crack whilst drying, which is frustrating.. Drying time was around half an hour.

The finished surface...

Above are the finished items with a covering of undercoat.

In conclusion;

This is a product that will require a few trial runs or a good user guide to get the hang of. The downside is that it shrinks and is difficult to control application. It appears to work better if you dilute it less. In all I am happy to continue experimenting and I believe that it has potential, but it was not the panacea I was hoping for!

Till next time, happy modelling.

Arkhan the Black: A conversion project

2011-09-20T22:42:00.000+01:00

I have made a relatively simple rule for myself. If someone from my club asks, then I will paint a model for them, but that is that. One figure per person per life. It is a relatively simple rule, but it has worked quite well for me in the past. I tend to only get asked to paint for others now and then, but when I am it is usually something quite interesting. Arkhan the black is a case in point.

The chap had an old metal model of a tomb king with great weapon which he wanted converting up into the Liche King. I then discussed with him exactly what he wanted in the figure. His basic needs were as follows;

Start with the metal figure
He wanted a Staff of Nagash modelled, he wanted this modelled based on the inside cover artwork of the new tomb kings book.
He wanted "the Liber Mortis" modelled. This tomb is one of the fabled nine books of Nagash.
He did not appear to bothered whether or not I included the Tomb blade of Arkhan.

The base model

The chap supplied me with his base figure. This was superglued to its slotter base and had a significant amount of super glue on a failed attempt to fix both arms onto the figure. The left arm was missing...

So the first step was to chisel off the superglue. It was quite old so has well and truly set. In hindsight it might have been better to dissolve it off, but I lacked the knowledge of an appropriate solvent nor the interest in looking one up.

The next step was to have a quick study of the army book for inspiration and to raid my spares box for anything that might help. I just collected interesting things with the idea that I would decide what to do once I had gathered it all together.

Staff of Nagash:

As already described my friend wanted the staff modelled as the inside cover art in the army book, so step 1 was to get a picture...

I elected to start with the tomb kings great weapon, which had a curved blade a little like the side of the staff.

I marked and cut some plastic card. to match the blade.

I stuck this to the side of the great weapon, together with two bits of plastic that were taken from the firing handles of the Hellblaster volley gun (thank god for the bits box).

I then added green stuff to repeat the pattern. It looks a little rough, but it is the best I can do with the material. Maybe I need to practice more at my sculpting!

I then needed two small shields. I took these from the defensive stakes that come with the Brettonia peasant archers. These had to be cut off and then filed flat, before being added to the staff.

The Liber Mortis

This is described as "accursed tome is one of the fabled nine books of Nagash, the most potent source of necromantic magic in the world". Now, I am fairly convinced that this should be either a stone tablet or papyrus scroll, but I wanted something that was obviously a "book of magic". Therefore I went with a straight forward book.

I have no idea what model the book comes from, but I do know that it was metal and needed the human hand that was attached to it cutting off. This was no mean feet, because I wanted to maintain as much of the book detail as possible.

I used a bow hand from a tomb king skeleton archer because not only was it the right pose, but it was clearly a skeleton hand.

The assembled figure

I then assembled all the components. I decided to pin every joint because the last thing I want is for the whole model to fall apart the first time he plays with it.

At this stage I trimmed down the greenstuff on the staff and added a smoothing layer around the front of the magic book and a tattered sleave for its left arm.

The base came from the new vampire counts necromancer, just because I had a spare.

A first lick of paint

I then undercoated the figure black and put down a first layer of colours to try out a basic colour scheme. I like to try models this may becuase I can then leave them for a day or two to establish if I am happy with the colours I have chosen.

Next post I will paint him up. Till then, have fun and happy brush licking....

Rat Ogres; and three is a crowd..

2011-08-30T19:17:00.000+01:00

To make the rat ogre get-togethers slightly more awkward I have added a third...

This model required very little in the way of conversion. I just filled in and smoothed over some of the skin markings. sometimes it is nice to just do womthing a bit simple. Hope you enjoy...

Warhammer Fantasy

2011-08-30T19:14:00.001+01:00

I have worked on a number of Warhammer fantasy armies over the years, these include...

(click a name to find what I have got)

Wood Elves

Empire

2011-08-30T19:13:00.000+01:00

The Empire army was the second warhammer army I ever started and is currently the army that is most progressed. The army was built to be played and has evolved over a decade or so. In this time my painting techniques have evolved somewhat, but whatever, it is what it is...

I have not photographed everything I have, but have placed links to those bits I have photograped..

Characters:

Arch Lector / Grand Theologist / Warrior Priest

Beltthasar Gelt

Karl Franz

General / Captain

Kurt Helborg

Templar Grand Master

Wizard (Light)

Wizard (Fire)

Ludwig Schwarzhelm

Luther Huss

Master Engineers

Core:

Knights

Handgunners

Crossbowmen

Archers

Free Company

Special units:

Greatswords

Pistoliers

Outriders

Great Cannon

Mortar

Rare Units:

Flagellants

Helblaster Volley Gun

Helstrom Rocket Battery

Steam Tank

Vampire Counts

2011-08-30T19:12:00.000+01:00

I started the Vampire Counts at the start of 2010 in the 7th Edition of the game. The original list was very heavily built around ghouls which were all powerful back in the day. The second list was a bit more all round...

Where I have photos of models I have included a link.

Characters:

Count Mannfred

Vampire & Lord

Vlad Von Carstein

Isabella von Carstein

Konrad von Carstein

Necromancer

Wight King

Core:

Wolves

Coprse cart

Special:

Grave Guard

Black Knights

Fell bats

Spirit Hosts

Rare:

Varghulf

Cairn Wraith

Blood Knights

Black Coach

Warriors of Chaos

2011-08-30T19:06:00.001+01:00

I started this army late in 2009 based on a couple of fun lists (here & here) built for the 7th edition of the game.

It is a fun army that I bring out when I am looking for a bit of light / fun gaming.

Where there is a link, there are photos..

Characters:

Archaon Dorghar

Lords and Chaos Champions

Scorcerers

Daemon Prince

Festus

Galrauch

Kholek

Prince Sigvald

Throgg

Valkia

Vilitch

Wulfrik

Core:

Chaos Warriors

Chaos Marauders

Chaos Warhounds

Marauder Horsemen

Special:

Chosen

Forsaken

Chariots

Ogres

Dragon Ogres

Trolls

Chaos Knights

Rare:

Spawn

Scyla Anfingrimm

Warshrine

Hellcannon

Shaggoth

Giant

Return; complete with a Rat Ogre

2011-08-18T19:42:00.001+01:00

It has been just over a month since I last blogged. For this I am sorry. I blame a combination of intense overwork, nice weather, two new kittens and some limited success for England at the Cricket.

For those that don't know cricket, it is a quintessentially English game, whose rules are best summarised as;

1. There are two teams. One out, one in.
2. The team that's out try to get the player that's in, out.
3. When they do get him out, he goes in.
4. Then the next player goes out. As long as he's out, he's in.
5. The object is then for the team that's out to get the second player out. When they get him out, he goes in.
6. This process is repeated for each innings until the team that's out gets the team that's in all out.
7. When the whole team is out, the team that was in goes out, and the team that was out goes in.
8. Then they play a second innings until they're all out. Except one player. He remains not out.

But it rained today, Cricket was stopped and I had little else to do but update the blog....

Some time ago I prepared a small number of rat ogres and last month I actually blogged the first of the finished chaps. Now it is time to show and tell with the second..

The conversion work on this young lad was pretty minimal. I repositioned the head so that it pointed forward (I was worried that if they all looked at their shoulders it might suggest either a poor masseuse or excessive in breeding). I also removed the symbol that was carved into the flesh of the animals back and got rid of quite a bit of the stitching that joined the various body parts together.

The painting heavily emphasised the skin colour. The hair texture was painted on as i thought I would be able to achieve a look of finer (or even thinner) hair this way.

Hope you enjoyed, more to come soon (unless it stops raining of course).

Skaven Muscle: A finished rat ogre

2011-07-09T07:21:00.000+01:00

When last we saw the skaven Rat-ogres they had been, assembled, converted and filled with green stuff. The nest step is to slap on a bit of paint. So that is what I have done with this young lad. Nothing too strange going on here, but I have cut off his hand at the shoulder strap and turned his arm around so that it is extended.

This resulted in it sticking out a bit so I added some chains and stuff off a chaos marauder. I also had to cut a block under his left leg because the chain would have been dragging on the floor..

I went for a skin tone and overall I am quite happy with him.

Off to paint a second..

Storm of Magic ready: Karl Franz on Imperial Dragon

2011-07-05T22:52:00.000+01:00

This weekend Games workshop will release "Storms of Magic" an expansion to the warhammer fantasy system. The expansion seeks to encourage the use of magic and monsters. The the words of GW themselves "Roused by the ever-changing magical tides, monstrous beasts emerge from their places of rest to once again wreak havoc across the lands."

Roused by such words, I could not resist the temptation to resurrect a part completed project from my own past. Around two years ago I set out to build Karl Fanz riding on the Imperial dragon. Unfortunately, I just ran out of steam.

Nothing for it but to brush the dust off the figure and set about finishing the beast.

The dragon is the High elf dragon, but I wanted him to look a bit less like everyone else's dragon, so I cut him into little bits and reassembled him, but this time standing on his tail. I had to remove all the little high elf emblems off the armour and I elected to replace the over large reins. His foot needed a little work as did his stomach, but generally I am happy with the pose.

I worked on the assumption that just about every army would be able to field a dragon, so I made its rider removable. This was achieved with the use of magnets in the riders bottom and on the seat. You will never see the underside of the rider so I am not too worried that I have not disguished this magnet well. This arrangement does give me the option of having alternative riders or none at all.

Karl Franz was painted using the colour scheme of the remainder of my empire army. This is cream and blue. I modeled him with his massive hammer, because I guess he would always choose it. The photos below so him sat on a brass rod, so I could photograph him.

The base I kept pretty plain, I just modelled a collapsed wall. I didn't want to distract too much from the big chap.

Hope you enjoy...

Rat Ogres: a time for muscle

2011-06-30T22:03:00.001+01:00

It was time to consider what was missing from the Skaven force.

Clanrats: check
Weapon teams: check
Cannons: check
Wheel thingy: check
Big muscular things with tiny little heads: d'oh!

Ok, it was time to whip out the Island of blood sprues and play with what lies within. With little clanrats, no-one is ever going to notice if you have two identical rats; with rat ogres it is a different matter and their were only two poses in the box set. Solution: out with the saw, hobby knife and green-stuff and roll up the sleeves.

I still have a few spares left over from a giant kit I used once, so I took the giant hand holding the human and sliced it onto the upraised arm of one of the rat-ogres. The problem with this is that the giant has nails whilst rat ogres have claws. The solution I went with was to cut plastic off a blister pack and fashion what I could. The other chap has his head repositioned so it points forward. That looking at your shoulder thing just did nothing for me.

For the guy who had both fist pointing down, I decided to cut him at the elbow and have his arm pointing forward. This looked a little daft, so I added some chains and skulls from marauder horsemen. The remainder of the messing about was bending and reposing of limbs. I had to raise the guy holding the chains because they were dragging on the floor.

Next up was to add some putty. Lets face facts all of the shoulder joints are pretty rough and need some work. The remainder was making my poor cutting and joining look a little less rough.

Mulg in red; he does not look happy about it

2011-06-28T22:06:00.000+01:00

Lets face facts, Mulg the ancient is not a happy troll...

So angry is he that he has had runes carved in his own back. He focuses his rage through these runes.

With this in mind, I was carefull to keep that anger evident when painting him.

I was asked to paint this chap for a friend at my gaming club and was grateful that I was able to go down a red skin colour route. The worry was that by painting him blue, he just looks a little too peaceful. I have tried to accentuate the anger in the red by highlighting up through orange. I went lighter still with the trolls veins by adding vomit brown into the mix.

I tried to paint bright green into the runes after completing the painting of the model. In hindsight this was a mistake and I ended up daubing on patches of bright green in the rune vicinity and then painting the rocks back on. Oh well, you live and learn.

I quite enjoyed painting the club. I elected to maintain this as a well worn light coloured wood. The advantage of this was that it would accentuate the skin. I therefore choose to keep to a colour scheme very similar to the skirt that the troll wears.

Hope you like him..

(please excuse washed out photos, I clearly got the camera settings wrong)...