Hobby Horse

Monthly Mini Porn Issue 1

2012-01-31T11:27:00.000Z

Welcome to this new section of the blog. I spend an unhealthy amount of time browsing mini-related sites on the web. I get to see lots and lots of shiney new toys that I know I will probably never own, because I don't have enough money or time to spend on them. And so they tend to fade away, lost and forgotten. This little corner of the blog will summarise the minis I have been admiring in the past few weeks. Then, one day, if I win the lottery*, I can read back through my mini porn collection and buy them all.

Forgeworld released not one, but two sets of minis that really caught my eye this month. The Fimir transported me back to my early days in playing Warhammer. I think they would make very nice one-eyed ogres in my chaos army, maybe as part of my growing collection of monsters (ogres, dragon ogres, trolls, etc). Alternatively, they would be lovely models to paint on scenic bases, imagine them wading through a swamp with a few celtic scenery elements.

They followed this up with an astounding set of chaos dwarf characters. I once owned a chaos dwarf army which I sold a few years ago. Recently I have really regretted it, so maybe getting a set of these models and painting them would help to fill the void.

Continuing the short, stout, bearded theme, check out these World War 1 Russian dwarfs. They are a hobby project by Akula's Armies. Have a look at his blog for more of the same. Lovely stuff.

From 20mm marvels to 54mm finery. I have a growing desire to paint a bigger model, but the choices out there are vast. Just this month Andrea Miniatures announced two figures that really caught my attention.

Finally, I have been looking at vampire character minis, particularly alternatives to the GW female figures. If you like your vampires to be a bit more "lithe" then there are plenty to choose from, but this Guild of Harmony blood priestess caught my eye as contender for queen bee.

That's it for the first issue. These are the figures that have really caught my attention in the past month. I might never own them, but at least now I can refer back to them whenever the fancy takes me.

*highly unlikely as I never buy lottery tickets!

Vampire Counts book first thoughts

2012-01-29T09:53:00.000Z

The new Vampire Counts book arrived last week. For an old timer like myself, this is the fourth edition of the army list (if you count the original Undead book that also included mummies, catapults, etc). So how does it compare to previous versions?

Let's gloss over the cover, quite possibly the worst in all of history (hence the randomly selected picture above). Inside there is some nice artwork, a potted history of the Vampire Counts, a bestiary and the army list.

The background is very familiar to veterans. In fact, it's word for word exactly the same as the previous book in many sections, or maybe slightly rephrased in parts. There's an added chapter on the latest actions of Mannfred and the Lichemaster, but overall there's nothing new. I found this section to be a little dull. In fairness, it's hard to imagine a complete rewrite for the background so some duplication is bound to occur, but I reckon there was scope to include more of the vampire personalities rather than just the same old von Carstein story. On the plus side, there is a very nice new map of Sylvania, one of the best warhammer maps I have seen.

The bestiary is also subject to a lot of duplication from previous books. Of course, there are some new entries to cater for the latest additions to the army. There's a colour illustration for each entry, and a few paragraphs of text. What more can you say about a bestiary? Similarly, the colour section containing photos of the models is familiar to all gamers. Most of the page spreads have already appeared in White Dwarf or on the web, so few surprises here. As an old timer with my own painting style, this section is the least inspiring of the book, but I know for a lot of newcomers these pages will prove invaluable.

As a hobbyist rather than a gamer, I never thought I would say this, but it's the army list that's the most interesting. It's nicely laid out and there is a lot crammed in. The choices for players have never been so wide, and points costs are much reduced in many cases, so there is plenty of scope to include lots and lots of models if that's what you like. I took an existing army list that I had used from the previous book and found that I could afford to double the number of skeletons and add three more hero characters!

Overall, I am reasonably pleased with the book. It's not an instant classic, but neither is it a damp squib. There's not much new in terms of background, but there are plenty of new models and army selections to ponder. It's not quite got the flavour of previous books because of the lack of bloodlines, but there's enough flexibility in the army list section to allow players to emulate these kinds of list if they so desire. I am looking forward to trying out a few ideas in the coming weeks.

BaneLegions Kraan review

2012-01-27T10:09:00.000Z

Banelegions have released some pretty nice stuff over the past year. When the Kraan model was announced I thought it would make a striking addition to my chaos army. And funnily enough, when I reread the fluff, it turns out that some daemon steeds take the form of a large bear. Sold!

I had to wait over a week for it to arrive, I guess they were inundated with orders. Here's how the figure is packaged, in a clamshell pack with all the bits securely snuggled by a big wedge of sponge. So no rattling round in transit. This in turn was securely packed in a cardboard box with plenty of bubble wrap. Excellent packaging, which is very reassuring when it comes to the slightly more fragile resin material.

The components look like this. Lots of bits, which I like because I appreciate the possibility of customisation. More on this later.

The sculpting is wonderful, highly detailed and nicely proportioned. The casting is very good too, there's a little flash, I have found just three bubbles, and a couple of mold lines. That's far better than most resin models I have worked on in the past.

I have already assembled most of the bear (I might paint the tusk head armour separately). It went together really easily, all the joints are really snug fits and gaps are minimal. And I had not one mold line to scrape off! The thing you have to be careful with is cutting the big blocks of resin off the model. This is probably the easiest resin figure I have ever assembled.

The rest of the components I have bagged up for a future session. I would like to change the pose of the rider to be pointing or beckoning his troops forward, but I am not sure that the figure on foot would look good with his weapon hefted on his shoulder as he is running, or at least in motion. I might attempt to add some other bits to make these changes, possibly the new AOW warriors will fit the bill. That's something to ponder. In the meantime, I can work on a scenic base for the bear.

Chaos Marauders

2012-01-24T16:41:00.000Z

A unit of 24 chaos marauders are the first completed item of the year. I started these over the xmas holiday and have been working on them each weekend since. The flesh and trousers were airbrushed over a white primer, then I painted the metals and woods, cloth, bindings, etc. After that, it was mostly glazing to add some texture. Just the banner top received a little highlighting.

This unit will be added to the black armoured chaos warriors that I completed roughly this time last year (here's a reminder). I want to build up a black armoured faction within the whole chaos army. Next in line is a character, a reward for painting the rank and file unit. I also have a really BIG reward lined up, but I want to get another unit or two completed before I start that particular treat. Of course, the real reason I painted this unit was as an excuse to include this figure in my army. He's Eric FusRoDah, a name familiar to most geeks out there! Fortunately, he has not yet taken an arrow to the knee.

Avatars of War new regiment revealed

2012-01-22T11:04:00.000Z

Wow, this one certainly took me by surprise. After the release of the dwarf berserkers by Avatars of War last year, I was looking forward to their next regiment set. Most of the hints seemed to be that female elf warriors would be next, but then it slipped off my radar. So thanks to Tabletop Fix (and their sources) for this scoop.

It looks like Avatars of War are making their next regiment in a plastic-resin mix they are calling Warcast. From their description it sounds like the mantic plastic-resin mix. If you don't have experience of these, the components come in little plastic bags rather than on a sprue, it's slightly softer than hard plastic but still holds detail well. It's a little more expensive than plastic but easier to get into production. We don't yet know how much more expensive, or how often releases will be made. Claims on the website of every other month sounds a bit optimistic, but it sure would be nice. Hopefully there will be more details revealed in the coming days, but until then, have fun looking at this teaser picture of Warriors of the Apocalypse.

Further details on the AOW website.

Parcels are like buses

2012-01-20T16:25:00.000Z

You wait all week for one to arrive, then three come at once. Yes, I have been spending some leftover xmas money on hobby items.

No prizes for guessing that I ordered the Vampire Counts book. My first impression was, wow it's thin. And that cover is awful. I already knew that when I ordered it, but as I took it out of the envelope I couldn't help thinking, it's a Beano annual! Thankfully, the contents are much better than the cover, the overall look and feel of the book is good. After a couple of quick skim reads I am hopeful that I can get some enjoyment from the army.

The second parcel that arrived is related to the first. I noticed that mantic were selling off stock over the holidays so I took a chance and ordered a mantic bag stuffed full of minis, hoping that there would be some undead troops in there. I was not disappointed, as 60 skeletons spilled out. No zombies or ghouls, but it was a lucky dip type of thing. It makes choosing my core troops a little easier, I will basically make the best of what I have.

The third purchase was for my chaos army. I am currently putting the finishing touches to a unit of marauders, with a character primed and next in the painting queue. With some chaos warriors and hounds I already have painted, I realised I could make them into a small warband. Every chaos warband needs a leader, and I could think of none better this last parcel. I will be opening it up and reviewing it over the coming days.

So that was 2011

2012-01-01T11:17:00.001Z

Another year gone by, more miniatures bought, sold and some even painted. A quick look at my painting log for 2011 shows that it was a patchy year. I started by painting a couple of units and a character for my chaos army, then switched to orcs and goblins when the new book was announced. I bought and started two boxes of savage orcs, but never really got the urge to finish them, then switched to building war machines, which again never got finished. In fact, the only painted figure added to the army was a lone night goblin shaman. Not a good start then.

Things improved in the middle of the year. The release of the Avatars of War dwarf berserkers put the fire back in my belly and I rattled off a unit of them, converted one to an engineer and even painted a unit of dwarf rangers. That's a good 500-600 points added to the dwarf army, the high point of the year.

Reflecting my waning interest in fantasy, I then switched to painting some 40k figures, a squad of plaguebearers, a squad of Nurgle marines and a rhino. These were probably my best paint jobs of the year. I can fully understand why 40k is more popular than fantasy, painting these seemed like a holiday compared to the slog of the endless rank and file of fantasy figures. I never actually played with them, maybe I will get to do that this year.

The latter part of the year had me in planning mode, as I contemplated about how to celebrate my upcoming 20 year anniversary of playing the game of fantasy. I managed to find some old photos of one of my undead armies, which sealed the deal. Project XX was born, my plan to build and paint a complete Vampire Counts army in about a year. Determined to get a good start, I painted up 30 zombies and a couple of necromancers, before my enthusiasm drained, mostly it has to be said as I came to dislike more and more some of the aspects of 8th edition.

The last couple of months I have played mostly WWII games, the excellent Blitzkrieg Commander at 6mm is a breath of fresh air. Simple rules but complex tactical decisions, gaming for the thinking man. But as they say, a change is as good as a rest, and recently I have got the urge to paint fantasy figures once more. All it took was a simple random painting table based on my chaos collection and the spark was ignited. The new year will be started with additions to my Chaos Warriors army.

The new book release in January should inspire me to crack on with the Vampire Counts, though I have been less than impressed with GW this year, they really need to do something special to win me over again. I will get the Vampire army done, as I have already collected most of the bits needed, a real eclectic mix they are too. Whether it will contain any of the new releases is the big question in my mind at the moment.

I reckon 2012 will be a year of uncertainty for me. The price rises, bad products and dubious antics of GW have really left a sour taste this past year, freshened mostly by the efforts of the many smaller companies that are really improving in leaps and bounds. While I am committed to completing my 20 year Warhammer anniversary project, it may well be the year when I turn my back on the company that has given me so much pleasure over the past two decades. Or maybe I will take a greater interest in 40k? There is also the possibility of a move into 1/72 WWII gaming. I still love the painting, I am looking forward to tackling a wider variety of new projects on this front.

The only thing I can say with any certainty, is that I am completely unsure how the year will turn out.

2011 - a good year for WHFB?

2011-12-28T00:00:00.000Z

As is traditional at this part of the season (and to fill in the boring bits between xmas and new year), I thought I would look back over the past twelve months at how Warhammer Fantasy has progressed. It's quite a long post, so grab a cuppa and a stale mince pie and settle down for a long ramble up and down the meandering path of 2011.

It was around eighteen months ago, in the summer of 2010, that the new edition of the game was launched. The impact was felt immediately by postmen all around the world, struggling up garden paths with their two kilo parcels. The thud of the 600 page book landing on doormats was audible, and geeks all around the world marvelled at the production values of such an epic tome, or complained at the size and usefulness of such a stupidly massive book.

An expectant hush fell on the gaming community as we waited for the first army book of this brave new world. And waited. And waited some more. It was March, 2011 when Orcs and Goblins was finally released, with the seismic revelation that this would be a hardback army book. The price tag of £18 raised a few eyebrows, given that army books had been £12 and then some had moved up to £15. But we shrugged as we always do, it's only a few quid right, nothing to be concerned about? There were further price shocks, in that the decade-old orc boys were re-packaged and re-priced at the same time. Just a month earlier they had been £15 for a box of 19 models, now they were £15 for a slimmed down box of 10 models, practically doubling in price overnight. But most of the attention was grabbed by the big new gribbly in town, the arachnarok spider. A brilliant plastic model by GW, up there with some of their best sculpts, such as the Skaven Screaming Bell and the Corpse Cart. The other big release was plastic savage orcs, again £15 for a paltry box of 10 figures, though at least these were actually new sculpts.

Looking back at my blog entries for this part of the year, I was enjoying the new game. The complex movement rules had been simplified, saving time and arguments. Magic seemed more potent but not overly damaging, though I did have concerns about how artillery would impact on the game, given it's new found accuracy. I also noted at the time that one or two units might have to grow a little to be resilient in this new world of uber-destructive combat, but I was happy with the game and the new emphasis on scenarios, variety and good old-fashioned fun. The old ways of static combat results, cavalry charges and super skirmishers was swept away on a wave of renewed enthusiasm and optimism for the game.

But then, as so often is the case in the UK, the summer brought grey clouds and the promise of storms to spoil the party atmosphere. When Storm of Magic was released, I immediately declared that I was not interested in an Apocalypse style expansion for my favourite wargame. Casualties were high enough in 8th edition without the introduction of even more powerful magic and monsters. But my biggest protest was that armies could ally with each other with little or no restrictions. Daemons could fight alongside their age old nemesis High Elves, the Empire could rely on Vampire Counts for support, even Dwarfs has access to awesome new powerful spells. The fluff and back story of the past 15 or 20 years was completely ignored in a blatant marketing exercise and I hated the whole concept even before it hit the shelves.

My midsummer hibernation was made all the easier by the models released to support the campaign. Though GW are undoubtedly at the forefront of plastic miniature model development, the new monsters were eye-wateringly ugly. The turkey of the crop was the chimera, though the manticore and black dragon were almost as unconvincing. There was a ray of hope in the release of plastic characters, but these turned out to be single pose with no customisable options, so they might as well have been metal. Just when I thought a new low had been reached, the laughable skull infested terrain was released. I felt that I had made the right decision in avoiding this marketing ploy, though some sections of the internet community obviously enjoyed the break from the norm and declared it fun. Finally, a ray of hope appeared in the dark skies as GW announced that they were about to launch something big, something awesome, the biggest and best change the hobby has ever seen.

Never in the field of the hobby has so much been promised in such a spectacularly bad product launch. We expected a revolutionary new material that was easy to prepare, would bounce off the floor with no breakages and would be lighter and cheaper than metal. What we got was resin models, but not high quality resin figures as produced by myriads of smaller companies over the past five years. The internet was awash with horror stories of models melting in shop windows, of bad casts with masses of bubbles and missing details. My own experience was poor, I bought an Eldar homonculus and spent longer preparing it than I would a metal figure. The excess of bubbles were there, along with copious amounts of flash, though luckily the loss of detail was minimal. Apart from it being lighter then metal, I could see no benefit in this change. Somehow, the year had gone from bad to worse in just a few weeks. Surely, things could only get better?

It was the release of Avatars of War dwarf berserkers that made my summer. Twenty finely detailed plastic miniatures in a box, with just about enough options to go round, a few spare bits and even a movement tray. It was almost revolutionary, everything you needed for your regiment in one package, at a reasonable price too. A couple of years ago, twenty plastic fantasy figures for twenty pounds would have put these in the high price bracket, but such is the rise in GW pricing that these can now be considered mid-range price. In terms of quality of moulding and sculpting, I would rate them as among the highest in the market, certainly when it comes to dwarfs.

The next major GW release was the second army book of the year, the Tomb Kings. This is one of the few armies not owned by any in my gaming group, so my interest in it was purely an aesthetic one, I just wanted to see some nice new models. The price of the book was £22, a £4 increase on the previous release of just a few months ago. Also in common with the previous release, core troops were re-tooled, reboxed and doubled in price. Sadly, the badly aged skeletons and steeds remained untouched, the emphasis turned to monstrous infantry and centrepiece models. I was quite impressed by the model of the necrosphinx and admired the new tomb guard models ( though not the £25 price tag). The rest of the range was disappointing, the snake surfers rivalling the tomb giant in the awful sculpt stakes. Character models were poor too, I felt that collectors of this army had a bad deal. My main interest lay in the next release.

I had collected a small army of ogres in 7th edition and played quite a few games with them. The models were appealing in some ways, though in gameplay they were basically a melee army that lacked the visual appeal of my chaos warriors or the mass horde appeal of my orcs and goblins. Still, I expected some interesting updates and was looking forward to the new book.

The first disappointment was yet another price rise, with £25 being asked for a 96 page hardback book. This is quite ridiculous when you compare it to most books on any other subject. One of my other interests is photography, books on this subject have to be high quality and are generally hard backed. The average price for them is around £15. Fans of GW pricing argue that £25 is comparable to other rulebooks in the hobby. For me, I think back to just a few years ago when books were £8, then £10, then £12. But you don't need a long memory to look back to March when the Orc and Goblin book was relelased for the princely sum of £18. A price hike of around 40% in six months meant I was not going to pre-order the book, I would wait a little while before taking the plunge.

The rash of leaked pictures of the new big gribblies seemed to please most ogre players. For me, they were a little bit too cartoon like. It's hard to put my finger on this sentiment, after all, an army of fat ogres interested in mostly eating pies is not meant to be taken seriously, certainly not by the game designers. The sad fact was that I only needed the book and one or two boxes of the new minis to make up my collection to a 2.5k army. But the prices and overall look of the new stuff left me feeling cheated. I was probably in a minority when I nailed my colours to the mast, declaring I did not like the models, and sold my existing collection. To date, I have not played against them either, so have no idea if the army book is good, bad or indifferent. Hopefully I will get a few games against them in the new year as my main opponent has collected a small force.

That just about covers what I believe to be the main releases in WHFB for this year. Reading back through my comments, it makes for quite a depressing read. The year started well, declined in the summer months, then plummeted even further as the price rises, finecast and the march of the massive monsters all took a toll on my interest in what was once my favourite wargame. There have been some brighter spots in among the doom and gloom, with the plastic dwarf bersekers shining like a beacon of hope. On the GW releases, the Garden of Morr kit was probably a highlight for me, though to date I have not bought one. And the Nurgle Lord plastic figure is a decent enough model, which I reckon could be easily improved with a few plastic bits. That aside, it's been an extremely disappointing year given the large number of major releases. Next year, it's likely that GW will switch attention to their other main system, so it's possible that 2011 will have been the most productive year for WHFB in a while. For me, it's been a case of quantity over quality, though to be fair there are plenty of other commentators on the web who have been very pleased with the year and declared it a fine vintage.

It's a shame really that I have felt a bit let down by GW, as I approach 20 years of playing the game. Now that I have played more games of 8th edition, I find it good in some ways, poor in others. My biggest complaint is that "everything dies", which sucks the enjoyment and the tactics from the game. It also smells like yet another marketing ploy rather then a serious attempt at games design. However, I still intend to build a celebratory army, my so-called Project XX to rebuild my vampire army coincides with the next army book release. I have many of the components already bought, and it's quite telling that the GW components are now in the minority.

Ending on a positive note, the best thing that happened to WHFB this year was the emergence of so many alternative ways to build your army. Plastic technology is no longer in the hands of just one company, and the figures being produced by mantic and Avatars of War are encouraging developments. When it comes to single metal or resin figures for characters, the choice is growing by the week. There are some excellent companies around that deserve support. I have already started to use non-GW figures in my armies and this trend will continue. I want to support these companies in my own small way and will be highlighting some of them in the new year.

If you got this far, I admire your endurance. Happy New Year!

New Vampire Counts Pictures

2011-12-26T11:14:00.002Z

It's that time of year, when kids all around the world wait excitedly for the arrival of the guy in the red cloak. Only this year, he has no beard, but sharp pointy teeth and a big sword instead. Some naughty elves have circumvented the GW secrecy policy, and the pictures of the new Vampire Counts are spreading over the web. A victory for freedom of speech, here's my impressions of the upcoming releases.

The book cover is a either a deliberate attempt at a slightly retro look, or a bit bland, I can't decide which. It's not bad, it's not particularly exciting either. Never mind, it's the contents that matter, we shall have to wait a few weeks before we can decide on that.

There are at least three new character models, two finecast are Krell and Isabella von Carstein, with a generic wight king in plastic. These are certainly an improvement on the last set of characters, GW have never really hit the nail on the head with their vampire characters.

The two wight models appeal to me, with the plastic model possibly having a slight edge over the Krell figure. The female vampire is an improvement on the current figure, though I reckon there are better alternatives around. All in all, I like them, I may even buy one or two after I have read the book and decided on how to develop my army.

The release of a Krell suggests that maybe there will be a Heinrich Kemmler model too. I would be very interested to see that, Heinrich was one of the first models I ever owned.

There are also new characters included in the big dual role kit, the plastic Mortis Engine/Coven Throne. I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the Ogre Kingdoms large models, and was dreading what they would do with regard to the Vampire Counts "centrepiece" models. The terrorgheist/zombie dragon was reasonable but ridiculously overlarge, so I won't have one of those in my army. These two new models are also seemingly large, probably too big for my personal taste.

However, there are some interesting looking bits in these kits. The billowing clouds could be the basis of a number of models, a spirit host springs to mind, as could the floating skeleton steeds. The spirits flying around the engine look superb for this kind of conversion too. The throne itself could possibly become a piece of scenery, depending on how the components are constructed. The standing cloaked figure could easily be a necromancer/wraith/vampire character model, while the three female vampires show promise, though as they are seated it might be a challenge.

As a whole then, the models are not really to my taste, but the kits have plenty of bits that could reward further scrutiny and kitbashing. I will maybe pick up one of these, depending on how the components break down.

Quite possibly the pick of the new releases for me are the Black Knights. The existing kits are 15, maybe 20 years old. An update has been needed for a long time. The black knights do not disappoint, they look very characterful without being over the top. It might even be possible to use these as mounts for the characters from the engine kits. Again, further scrutiny of the bits is needed, but I reckon at least one box of these are on my shopping list.

The hex wraith options (not shown) of the kit are not appealing to me at all, the barding looks a bit awkward and the flames unconvincing. The bits from the riders might be useable, but otherwise these are not for me.

And finally, the one kit that worried me the most. The rumours have been some kind of flesh golem for months, of which I always hated the idea. The reality has turned out to be something entirely different. I have always liked the concept of winged vampires in a non-character form, so these show great potential. The kits are decent enough and I might well include them in my army, depending on what they do. It does make me wonder how they will be different to Vampire Bats, if indeed these still exist in the new book.

When I first saw the non-winged version of the kit I thought they were plastic ghoul three-ups. They are basically ogre sized ghouls. Nothing amazing there, but I reckon these could find their way into non-VC armies. Ogre Kingdoms gorgers? Trolls? Even skaven rat ogres are a possibility?

Having seen the new models, I think I can safely say that my Vampire army is back on my to do list. It won't include all the new releases, but I am sure that some of them will be useable. I am now praying that the army list itself matches up to the "better than expected" feeling I have right now. I am awaiting the army book leaks with renewed interest.

The Odd Couple

2011-12-20T12:08:00.000Z

I have not spent much time on hobby painting recently, having had a lot of commission work it makes it less enticing to paint my own figures. However, I have managed to squeeze in the figure on the left, a Rackham figure I have painted up as a necromancer. There's lots of nice little details that you can't see from the front view, including a cat and a crow hanging from his belt, very useful when mixing up potions I would imagine. The glowing green contents of the pot is the result of the mixing and spellcasting, an elixir of unlife. I imagine him stalking the graveyards and crypts, stabbing the corpses he finds, the green fluid coursing through dessicated veins, enslaving the bodies to the necromancer's will. The figure on the right I have talked about in this post.

Another reason I have not painted any more Vampire troops is the rumoured release of the new army book. I have around 30 more zombies to paint, but my uncertainty about how the book will turn out is holding me back. If the book is good, as I hope, or even just average, then I will continue with the building and painting of the army. If the new book turns out to be poor, or does not appeal to me (as the Ogre kingdoms book was), then I will have to make some difficult decisions.

In the meantime, over the holiday period I am hoping to get some quality time with my figures. The lure of Chaos has gripped me again, inspired in no small way by the hours and hours of adventures I have had in the snowy landscapes of Skyrim! I have also been inspired by fellow hobbyists on the Warhammer Forum, in particular this thread about building chaos warbands. I have come up with a slight variation on the warband idea, a table (below) that will hopefully help me to get through some of the unpainted mounds! The dice rolled were 2 followed by 3, so marauders it is. A block of 24 marauders with hand weapon and shield will add a bit of meat to my chaos army, so that's my xmas project.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2011-12-05T12:21:00.001Z

Here's the little corner of the house where I do most of my painting. It's nothing fancy, nor permanent. It's simply one end of the dining table, covered with an old cloth. The grey plastic box contains most of my paints, brushes, etc. These are then stored away in a cupboard at the end of each day (so we can use the table to eat from!).

The patio window faces south east, which means it gets plenty of sunlight in the morning, less in the afternoon. In spring and autumn this is ideal, I can generally paint all day long in good, natural light. Summer can be a bit problematic, in that too much light (and heat) streams in, so I tend to use a portable desk away from the direct light, sometimes in the garden in the shade of a tree. But winter causes the biggest problem of all.

You probably cannot see it, but there's snow falling in the garden. And the light levels are very low at this time of year. Painting by natural light is often impossible during these darker months.

The solution is one I have struggled with for years. I have tried several lamps, with varying costs and various levels of success. The main problem is not so much the bulbs, but the lamps, with complicated angle poise or bendy metal arms to allow multiple positioning of the lamp. I have gone through three in as many years, and at £100 per lamp it's costing me dearly.

However, I think I might have found the solution. My latest attempt at illumination is showing great promise. It's a floor lamp that sits just above head height (when seated), so it's perfect at providing plenty of light just over the shoulder, at eye level. I don't have to hunch forward to peer into the pool of light provided by a desk lamp, I can sit back, which is comfortable and more healthy. It has "daylight" bulbs, which are supposed to roughly match the ambient light that would be produced at midday in summer, or at least that's the claim. It's not the same as natural light, it's more of a white light, which is a decent second best to the real thing (for me at any rate). So it gives a good amount of light that is similar to the real thing, a little bit brighter than I would like, but nothing is ever going to match that lovely soft light from an overcast day in the north of England!

Best of all, it's much, much cheaper than previous lamps. I got mine from Amazon in the UK. I had been looking at it for a few weeks, it was already a bargain at £40, but then amazingly it cropped up in the Black Friday promotion and I snapped it up for £30. Here's a link for the lamp in question, still a very good buy at the £40 price tag, if you are looking for a new lamp.

Please excuse the lack of painting.....

2011-11-16T09:44:00.001Z

......but a dragon ate my paint brushes.

It's a pretty flimsy schoolboy excuse isn't it? Since the day it was launched, I have spent most (my wife would say "all") of my spare time playing Skyrim. My wood elf character is wandering around the jaw-dropping scenery of the game, helping those in distress, clearing dungeons of miscreants and vanquishing the odd dragon. But it's not all hack and slash. Last night I wandered the shores of an icey lake, the moon rose above snow-peaked mountains, and the northern lights glowed green and purple. I just stood there slowly rotating, drinking it in. Awesome. It's early days yet and I can foresee another hundred hours play at least, but I reckon this is the best game I have ever played on the xbox.

At the other end of the scale, my interest in Warhammer has hit rock bottom. After nearly twenty years of playing the game I am really disheartened by many things. I think my attitude is best encapsulated in this little tale. The Undead are possibly my favourite army in the game, certainly in my top three along with Chaos and Elves. So you would think that the recent rumours of a new Vampire Counts book would have me jumping up and down with excited anticipation. Sadly, it has the opposite effect. I am almost dreading the new book. The recent trend of wow-cool-massive-monsters and the disneyfication of the sculpts is a real turn off for me. Even if I like the new sculpts, the pricing issue is forcing me to seek alternatives, so I don't really see anything to look forward to. On top of this, I am coming to dislike 8th edition the more games I play. The mass casualties from every phase of the game can be viewed as fun and exciting after some of the more "static" games under 7th edition. Or it could be viewed by a cynic as a ploy to force gamers to buy more boxes and blisters just to keep up and compete.

So I am having a break from painting Warhammer and turning my attention to other aspects of the painting and gaming hobby. It's amazing how much there is out there, companies seem to spring up on a monthly basis, or maybe they have been around for a while but I have missed them while wearing my Warhammer blinkers. I must get a list up on the blog at some stage. When I get some spare time.

PS. Having said all this about my interest level in Warhammer being lower then ever, I did think that the dragon logo would make a lovely banner for my Vampire army!

Dreadfleet (part one)

2011-11-05T15:40:00.000Z

When Dreadfleet was announced I was quite surprised that my wife seemed interested. She's not really a wargamer and having tried to introduce her several times to various games, I was on the brink of giving up. When it arrived I put together a few bits and had a couple of trial games with her. It's reasonably easy to pick up the rules, very important when you play only infrequently. With a couple of house rules to cut down on the randomness of the fate deck, it could become a family fun game, joining the likes of Talisman, Cluedo and Risk as a Christmas staple.

My task is to get the components painted up. I want to get them done in a reasonable time frame, so I thought I would make a start on a cross section of ships. It's possible to get a decent finish in a shortish time scale, but the sail ships are definitely the harder subjects with all those details, even if they are etched on. My favourite so far is the skaven ship (even if I do hate them in Warhammer)!

Necromancer

2011-10-28T15:58:00.000+01:00

The first necromancer for my new Undead army. If you are wondering what the model is, it's a witch by Enigma miniatures. I have long been impressed by their sculpts and wanted to see how they looked in real life. They are metal models, finely detailed and easy to assemble. The 20mm base is a plastic mantic base, I prefer the non-sloping sides, it gives marginally more room which is useful when the models are slightly larger than 20mm wide as in this case.

Next on my list is more zombies and another necromancer. If I could get those done by the end of next month I will be on target.

My enthusiasm for painting the models remains, but I must admit that I am a little worried about what GW will do with the new army book, rumoured for a new year release. I don't particularly like the direction they have taken with the last two books. The introduction of snake-surfing skeletons and large Flintstones-esque models is not appealing to me, so I am half dreading what they will come up with for the Vampire Counts. The new terrorgheist model missed the marked in my mind, a little too comical and unfeasibly large too, so I don't have high hopes. Still, low expectations are easy to meet, so maybe I will pleasantly surprised.

Zombies

2011-10-14T16:23:00.000+01:00

I am almost done on the first unit of zombies. The bases need some extra work, I think the addition of some rotting grass and some moss might be in order. I am not happy with the gravestones, they will have to be re-worked in some way.

On the meat of the unit, the zombies, I am pretty satisfied with their appearance. There's a few rough edges, but these are only really visible up close and to those with a critical eye. The mix of different parts works well, as long as you don't mind this more dynamic look. The old shuffling, comical GW zombies from yesteryear are a different breed to this species.

And here they are in horde formation. It's pretty unlikely they will appear in a game like this, but it looks nice!

Zombies almost finished

2011-10-11T11:02:00.001+01:00

I am nearly finished on the zombies. They are painted and glued to the multibases, there's still the earth and grasses to complete. I took a quick snap to show how they look ranked together, but the photo was awful. However, a quick play in the photo editor and I almost rescued it - it's still not focussed properly, but I thought the end result was a bit of fun, certainly worth a mini update.

Zombie horde assembled

2011-10-04T10:56:00.000+01:00

I have been assembling these zombies for some time. They are a mix of mantic zombies and ghouls, with a few GW bits thrown in. The scale difference is quite negligible, though it takes a bit of cutting and trimming to get them together. There are around 50 zombies here, though I have recently decided to make it up to 60 and paint them in two batches of 30.

The black bases are plasticard. I am mounting them in large groups with a few odd spares, to give the appearance of a disorganised horde. It's a technique used by historical gamers and it gives a much nicer appearance, as well as being more convenient to transport and game with.

The metal and resin bits are from ebay (of course), a selection of gravestones and monuments to decorate the bases, or to become scenery pieces. I am still not 100% sure how to tackle the bases, I want to move away from the sand and flock routine, which is becoming a bit old.

This overhead shot shows that there is a fair bit of real estate to play with. I don't want to go overboard and cram it with graves and skulls, I like the sense of spacing in between the figures. This picture also shows the more natural groupings, the zombies are bunched together rather than lined up neatly in ranks and files. I have already started to speed paint the first 30, so hopefully I will have my first regiment painted in the near future.

Project XX Unveiled

2011-10-01T11:11:00.000+01:00

Not so much an unveiling as I have been banging on about my old army for a couple of weeks at least. My main project for the next year will be a Vampire Counts army, partly to recreate my first fully painted warhammer army, but mostly to play once again with one of my favourite armies.

This piece of art is from the original skeleton horde box set. I think there were 30 skeletons included. I actually have some of them somewhere and it would be nice to include them in the new army if possible.

I have been collecting models and ideas for the army over the past year or so. At first I was going to try to recreate the army as it had been in the mid 1990's, complete with metal zombies and lots of the old school metal characters. But after looking around the web at all that is available for Undead generals, I decide not to limit myself in such a way. I will be using a combination of plastics and metals from a variety of manufacturers. I am choosing them mostly for two reasons ; affordability and aesthetics. I have already made a start on the first unit of zombies and a lone necromancer.

And yet more old pics

2011-09-29T11:35:00.000+01:00

Zombies are a staple unit in Vampire Counts armies, in my old army I had about 60 of them. The sculpts are starting to look a bit dated, the huge hand syndrome that we all seemed to overlook ten years ago is mentioned all the time now. I guess as gamers and collectors we have become more discerning (or demanding). Big limbs aside, these don't look too bad to me, the muted tones help to hide their deficiencies.

This unit contains an ogre zombie I made from one of the heroquest ogres, which are a bit smaller than the current plastic ogres and fit into the unit a little better. I think I still have one or two of these round somewhere, I might see if I can sneak one into my new army.

I can remember quite clearly that I did take one photo of all the zombies in one huge regiment. Sadly I have no copy of it. There is something very impressive about a mass horde of figures on the tabletop, so one of the first tasks in building the new army is just that - a zombie horde.

And that concludes our meander down memory lane. There were other units in the army, but the photos have melted away to a virtual graveyard somewhere out there. Maybe they will turn up again, in another ten years.

More pics from the past

2011-09-27T19:33:00.000+01:00

Here's a picture of one of my favourite regiments. It's from an Undead army I painted about ten years ago, I can't remember exactly when it was done. It's part of an army that I eventually sold to a gamer in America. The pictures I found on the Vampire Counts forum, I had long ago thought they were lost forever.

The idea for the regiment came from the GW regiments of renown. They released the Cursed Company, which included a few non-human skeletons: a dwarf, a skaven, a lizard, and orc I think. I added some old metal armoured skeletons and built a few other plastic dwarf skeletons. There's even a couple of non-GW figures in there somehwere. The regiment is long gone, but I did keep hold of a few minis as a souvenir of the army. I might even be able to include them in my new army, though it's doubtful as stylistically they are very different to the current build.

The army included three regiment of skeletons, including this unit with nifty wooden shields. I had used the army in tournaments and it had been "spotted" by some GW bods. Consequently, I was invited to the HQ in Nottingham and had the army photographed. However, some of the components, these shields included, were not GW made and so ultimately they did not print the photos. I seem to recall sitting in the studio reading the new Tomb Kings book before it was released, while the photographer got all the shots that were never to be published.

The third and final regiment of skeletons I had built from the old single pose plastic high elf spearmen and spare skeleton bits. I don't have a photo of the full regiment, just a single rank, but it gives a rough idea of how the unit must have looked. I think in total there were about 60 or 70 skeletons in the army, spread across the three regiments. Certainly more than those in my first army, which was a single regiment of 30 skeletons, reflecting the growing size of armies as newer editions of the game were released. None more so than the current version of the game, which really encourages large blocks of infantry. I will probably aim for two skeleton regiments in my new army, of about 25 - 35 models each. It's never easy giving exact sizes when planning a Vampire Counts army, magic tends to inflate regiments almost as quickly as enemy units decimate them!

A Long Time Ago....

2011-09-25T11:46:00.000+01:00

.....in a gaming world far, far away.

It's hard to believe that I have been gaming and collecting for nearly twenty years. So many things have changed in that time. Most of my collection from that time has disappeared, I probably sold it on to other gamers (this was the pre-ebay era). But I do have a few models that I have kept for sentimental reasons. Here's the cream of my early 1990's painting.

The army book at the time was simply the Undead and included what would later be split into the both Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings ranges. The figure on the left is a liche, the one in the centre is a necromancer on a converted dark elf pegasus, and finally on the right is Krell. I also had a vampire, but he has vanished into the night. All the units are long gone, but from memory there was plastic skeleton warriors and horsemen and chariot made from the Undead Army boxset, a large metal regiment of zombies (large being 28, 7 ranks of 4 wide), 3 carrion riders, 2 screaming skull catapults and I think that was it. You didn't need many models to build a 2000 point army in the 1990s.

The liche was my general. I can remember being really pleased with the painting on this model. Though it looks very garish through modern eyes, it was in fact quite muted and understated for the period! For a while it was my best painted model. The robes were a massive breakthrough for me. Notice the rather bright red scarf. Every model has red accesories in the 1990's.

Then I decided to take a chance at Golden Daemon and painted up Krell. Brightly coloured single figures with hand painted banners were all the rage and believe it or not, this figure made the final cut. Some of the highlights are drybrushed on, the only guide we had back in those days was White Dwarf, which continually recommended drybrushing and ink washing. Check out the goblin green knee pads.

While I have a fondness for these old models, I do think that many of the changes that have taken place over the two decades have been for the better. I have never really understood the viewpoint that "old metals are automatically great sculpts and have bags more character than the modern day rubbish". Though I am not particularly a fan of the current Vampire character sculpts, I would not to go back to these.

Project XX

2011-09-23T12:00:00.000+01:00

According to my calendar, today is the first day of autumn. The season of death and decay, when colour and vibrance seeps away all around us, first in golden and red hues, then pale and sickly yellows, finally leaving bare skeletons where once there was life.

For me, autumn is not the end of something, not the transition from summer warmth to winter cold. It's the start of a new year. The days get shorter and there's less incentive to be outside. It's an ideal time to start something new in the hobby, start a big project to tide you over the long, cold winter months.

This year (or rather next year) is extra special for me. In autumn 2012 I will have been playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle for 20 years. I'm not sure of the exact date, but it was in September or October 1992 that I bought the fourth edition box set. To celebrate I intend to recreate my first fully painted army. Welcome to Project XX.

A lot has changed in the game over twenty years. Back then it was the introduction of the fourth edition that got me started. Single pose plastics (elves and goblins) and cardboard cutout characters, which we battled with over a bare dining table. Fast forward to eighth edition, the elves are back, but in some of the best plastics I have seen. Even the characters are present, for me the high elf lord on griffon is the best introductory (snap-together) model ever produced. High elves were probably my first army, if you count number of models as being the primary consideration in owning an army. But they were not my first painted army. They were far too difficult for a beginner to tackle, so I went for a much easier option. What could be easier than painting a skeleton in bleached bone, applying a chestnut wash and basing in green flock (the official 1992 recipe from White Dwarf)? That was my reasoning as I put together a 2000 point Undead army for a tournament back in the mid 1990's.

Today then, the first day of autumn, seems a fitting Day One. I have, of course, been cheating, in that I have been assembling plastics in spare moments over the summer. And I already have a few models from a previous project to get me started. But before I get to those, I will be taking a trip down memory lane.

Dwarf Berserkers painted

2011-09-22T13:06:00.000+01:00

The Avatars of War dwarf berserkers have been finished for some time, but I am not sure they are painted to their full potential. At first I thought that my lazy technique of base coat and wash was to blame, but looking at them as a regiment there's no real problem.

I think the main issue for me is that they are very different to all the dwarfs in my army. They have no armour (well duh, who would have thought it) and so are much lighter in appearance. I have also painted their beards in very warm colours, which is quite a contrast to the dour look of most of the other dwarfs in the army. I think at some stage I will add blue or green tattooes to draw attention away from all that pink flesh - it's almost elfish, which just won't do. But that's a project for another time, to be precise, when the new army book arrives.

My final thoughts on the Avatars of War kits? It's a superb addition to a dwarf army. The sculpts are top notch, stylistically a little different to GW dwarfs in that the AOW figures are very broad across the shoulder and slightly narrower in the face. I actually prefer them to the GW sculpts. If AOW were ever to release armoured dwarfs, I would have a lot of redundant GW models.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Here's a photo of the two recently completed regiments in a side by side comparison shot. Obviously you have to look past the fact that some are heavily armoured while the others are practically naked. Even if you don't like the style of the AOW models, the scale is compatible and the price is reasonable. It's like travelling back in time, when you could buy a boxed regiment from GW and it would contain enough models to make a proper regiment and include a movement tray too. Ah, happy days, makes me feel a little bit like reminiscing.......cue wavy picture and jingle jangle music....watch this space!

Dwarf Rangers Painted

2011-09-21T12:40:00.000+01:00

The dwarf rangers are just about finished. A few of the models will be given shields at some stage, but I am putting that on hold for a while as I re-consider the shields and banners across the whole army.

These were speed painted, most of the colours are a base coat and a wash or couple of glazes. It gives a reasonable finish that is quick to achieve. I have kept the colours fairly muted as I wanted them to look a little travel worn. I have included a few fifth edition arms to add a little variety to the poses. There's also a couple of conversions in the unit, weapons slung over shoulder, or a sneaky pull on a pint, that kind of thing.

I am happy to put the dwarfs aside for the time being. At the start of the summer I didn't really have a project in mind, when the release of the Avatars of War berserkers spurred me into some beardy action (I will be posting pictures of those models tomorrow). Now that I have added two units to my dwarf army and brought it up to about 2500 points painted, I feel like I am in a strong position for when the next dwarf army book is released. If some of the rumour mongers are to be believed, it won't be long before we get to some new beardy action.

Ogres for sale

2011-09-18T19:52:00.000+01:00

I have some ogres up for sale on ebay. I bought them a couple of years back, thinking I could use them in my chaos army and maybe also develop them as a standalone army. I played them a couple of times, but never really got excited about them. When the new version of the book was released I decided they were not for me.

If you are interested, please click here to visit my ebay page.

Dwarf Rangers painting progress

2011-09-02T15:43:00.000+01:00

I am painting the dwarf rangers slowly, a snatched hour here and there. They are still some way off completion, but I thought I would show what I had done so far.

The first step is nearly always armour and metals. These are painted on as chainmail paint, followed by a wash of a mix of black and chestnut ink. Pure black ink is very stark, the chestnut makes it slightly greyer.

The next step is to paint the flesh. I have mixed up a pot of a blend of Tallarn Flesh plus white, for a pale tone. Once this is dry, it gets a wash with a mid brown, the rough equivalent of Ogryn Flesh. I apply this to the whole unit, by the time the last is done, the first is just about dry so I can apply a second coat where heavier shading is needed, basically around the eyes and mouth, in between fingers, etc.

The next stage is to paint in the clothing and leather. For these I have used a variety of fairly muted colours from the coat d'arms range, sticking to chestnut, grey blue, mid grey and dullish greens. The leather bits are just a selection of mid browns, while the boots are a darker brown.

That's all I have managed in the past week or so. The next stage will be a wash on the clothing and leather, to add a little shading and texture. Then it will be time for the beards, after which there will be very little left to do.

Dwarfs getting a new book in 2012?

2011-08-28T14:43:00.000+01:00

With the Ogre Kingdoms book on advance order, it's time to think about the next book to be released. Isn't that always the way with wargamers?

There is plenty of speculation and rumour on the next book, but the most reliable guesses seem to be one of three contenders - Bretonnia, Dwarfs or Wood Elves. I have no idea if these are the only contenders, they are the ones most often cropping up in internet forums, but only a handful of GW employees know for sure. It would be nice if all three of these were released in 2012, more than a year into the new version and only two books released with a third around the corner is not the best support to my mind.

I have a small collection of wood elves, currently on hold until I get some idea of how they will develop in the next book. I have a much larger collection of dwarfs, pretty much one of every unit, more than half of them painted too. So it's the dwarfs that get most of my attention at the moment. I have recently painted up a unit of the new Avatars of War berserkers and am currently working on a unit of dwarf rangers. Once these are completed I will have around 2500 points of painted units, with enough bare metal/plastic to add at least another 1000 points. That's a lot of beards.

When the new book is released I do not intend to shelve any of these models. I don't play in tournaments so I don't have to optimise my choices. I usually play in narrative style campaigns/games, where the unfolding story and spectacle of battle is more important than the outcome. Thus I fully expect to continue fielding the same units and characters I have been building up over the past few years.

I have to confess that I have not been overly impressed with some elements of 8th edition. The move to mass casualties, devastating magic, laser guided artillery and the like are the main areas that concern me. The game seems to have changed from a considered tactical challenge to a more hectic, random dice fest. That's not to say I don't enjoy 8th edition, because I do (mostly), it's just different now. I wonder how dwarfs will fit into this fast paced, blood soaked, magic infused universe without making major changes to the classic dwarf character. In fact, I am slightly worried about what effect a new book might have on the dwarfs.

A further move toward a steampunk image will not be good for me. I am concerned about rumours of mechanical statues/constructs. These smack too much of chaos or magic devices to my mind. A steam tank might be feasible, but that has already been done by the Empire and is very close to what's happening with the new chaos dwarf range. A zeppelin/flying machine has also been mentioned, but again this would overlap with the gyrocopter and seems to duplicate rather than innovate. A new artillery piece might be an option, but it's difficult to think how it could be much different to the current collection.

Maybe none of these will come to pass and the dwarfs will stubbornly cling on to the old ways, but somehow I doubt it. Whichever way the dwarfs are taken in the next book, I really hope that GW consider their older customers and avoid the wow-awesome-cool-massive-model syndrome of recent releases. Ask any dwarf and they will tell you - bigger is not always better.

New plastic Nurgle figure

2011-08-25T09:40:00.000+01:00

I spotted this photo on one of the forums. It's rumoured to be a plastic Nurgle Lord. I sincerely hope that it is plastic, because I will definitely buy one and hack it around to make it more lordly. At the moment, I would say it is merely aspiring champion or even unit champion. It needs a little bit more to make it a lord.

The new plastic characters that have been released recently are nice enough but come as they are in the picture, with no extra bits or options. Of course, plastic is easy enough to hack around so that's not a major problem if you have plenty of bits.

I am jumping the gun here a bit as I am trying to stick to painting dwarfs, the rangers are only just started and I still need to finish the berserkers. I also have a large pile of plastics to assemble for my next army, which I hope to start in September. So the Nurgle items will have to wait a while, probably November is the month of Nurgle for me. I have a few more models that I will be painting for my Chaos army, some of them much more interesting than this guy. It's going to be a busy autumn.

Dwarf rangers started

2011-08-21T17:36:00.000+01:00

The berserkers are not yet finished but they are tabletop ready, so I have moved on to the next dwarf unit, 24 rangers. These will be much easier to paint as they are mostly armour and beard. They are a mix of plastics, mostly current version, with a few axes hefted on the shoulder from the previous plastics set. There's also a couple of metals in the unit, including one of my favourite dwarf minis of all the time, the champion with eye patch and wooden leg.

Today I primed the unit, most with metallic paint, some with a white primer then painted on the metal areas. The next step is a wash, when I apply this I will also use it on the weapons of the berserker unit. When I paint the beards of this unit, I will also touch up the beards of the berserker unit. This makes me feel like I am making good progress, even though I am going back to a previously painted unit. It's a little technique I use to keep up impetus on an army - get one unit to a reasonable level, then just work on it in little sessions here and there to bring it up to scratch. It makes painting a difficult unit seem less of a chore.

Table Top Fix

2011-08-16T14:04:00.000+01:00

I have recently been looking more and more into non-GW hobby materials, be they games or miniatures. There is a lot of stuff out there, but some of it is hard to find. So a site like Table Top Fix is a nice shortcut, it updates practically every day on new miniatures, games, etc. Take a look, maybe even put their banner on your own blog as I have done, you might win a prize.

Click on the image to learn more.

Berserkers causing problems

2011-08-15T10:25:00.000+01:00

I really wanted this post to be a picture of the completed regiment of berserkers. However, they are causing me some headaches to paint them to a decent standard.

Several years ago I painted in a fairly conventional manner - a base coat, a wash, then highlights (or layers as some call them). More recently, I have been experimenting with cutting out the highlight stages, as these are the most time consuming to perform. I thought I had made good progress with some of my recent efforts and was hoping I could do the same on these dwarfs.

Here are the two "cheat" bases to show how they look at the moment. They are a decent tabletop standard, but I like to get above this level. Trying to achieve it without using highlights is proving a challenge. On these figures, I might have to throw in the towel and admit defeat. Some highlighting is perhaps inevitable. There is certainly more work required on the weapons, the skin and the hairy bits ie just about all the model. I guess you just can't rush a dwarf!

Death Guard Rhino

2011-08-07T11:54:00.001+01:00

The chaos marines are proving surprisingly quick to paint up. I suppose being basically one colour helps! This is proving to be one of the most relaxing armies I have painted. Adding a unit or vehicle once per month is a nice pace to tick along to.

I tried the hairspray technique on this vehicle, having already experimented a little on the squad. Each time I do it I learn something new. The patches of flaked paint are still a little bit too large to be realistic, but I am getting there. I have two more to do, hopefully I will be hitting the nail on the head by the time I get to them.

Dwarf Berserkers ready for paint

2011-07-30T17:23:00.000+01:00

I have finally got the berserkers assembled and ready for priming. They are deployed 7 wide and 3 ranks deep, adding in the "engineer" that's 22 models from the original box of 20 models. Of course I am using a couple of 40mm bases with just 3 on each to save me a bit of space when racking up, as well as squeezing extra value out of an already very good value box of toy soldiers.

The test colours proved useful, I am definitely not going to paint all their beards the traditional bright orange. I tried it on the engineer and it just does not appeal to me. I think I will go for a mix of browns and blondes, ignoring the fluff.

A little makeover and some plans

2011-07-27T19:48:00.000+01:00

I realised today that the blog has been running for just over three years. As a belated celebration I have whipped up a new banner, including a little montage of some of the figures I have painted. Deciding what to include was a tough one, in that time I have painted dwarfs, chaos warriors and deamons, orcs and goblins, elves, orks, chaos marines, a gameboard, plus a smattering of terrain. In the end I went with the most numerous/most recent, hopefully a good cross section of my painted armies.

As well as looking back, I have also been planning ahead. In the short term I intend to add reinforcements to my dwarf army, including the lovely AOW berserkers. I have also made a good start on my Nurgle chaos marines and am hoping to keep to my squad per month commitment. Looking further ahead, I think I have decided on what to do for my upcoming anniversary (20 years of Warhammer hobby in just over a year's time). It's quite ambitious, a complete army in fact, so I will have to get started in the autumn. Maybe.

Vampire Counts New Releases

2011-07-24T20:25:00.003+01:00

Vampire Counts players rejoice! Feast your eyes on this little lot, click on the thumbnails for a nice big view. And try not to drool on your keyboard.

Taken from the latest White Dwarf, here's the new releases for the Vampire Counts army. The first two pictures show the options available in the Zombie Dragon box, including the new monster called the Terrorgeist. Two different riders make this a tempting prospect, hopefully the spare will be compatible with a plastic steed.

Pick of the bunch for me is the Garden of Morr scenery set. The potential in this set looks amazing. Coupled with the Chapel, this would make a fantastic centrepiece for a Vampire Counts themed piece of terrain. I will definitely be ordering this one!

Finally, there's two new plastic blisters in the cairn wraith and tomb banshee models. There are rumours that these are now hero choices rather than rare, which would be a return to the old style rules from the Undead army book from the early 1990's. It's been many years since I played a Vampire Counts army. Suddenly, I feel very nostalgic!

Berserkers and an engineer

2011-07-19T13:31:00.000+01:00

I have finished putting together the dwarf berserkers. Most of them are assembled straight from the box as slayers, but for the last one I wanted to try something a little different. So here he is, a very simple conversion that I think makes a reasonable engineer. The bits used are a combination of the AOW boxset and some GW dwarf bits. He has a pistol in his left hand and a handgun in his right, not strictly game legal but I just wanted to see how the components went together.

The majority of the box are made up as a unit of 21 slayers, deployed 7 x 3. There are actually just 19 in the unit but it's pretty simple to stick 3 on a 40mm base and sneak it into battle! In their debut game the slayers faced chaos warriors. Though they were keen to get to grips with the dragon ogres or giant, they ended up fighting Khorne warriors. I feared for the shaven ones, but they managed to hold their own, admittedly partly due to some woeful dice on the chaos side of the table. Still, a unit of Khorne warriors was a very impressive first scalp, though I think they got a bit carried away when they charged a unit of Chosen. They did manage to take down about half the unit before finally returning to their ancestors. Now I just have to paint them all.

Happy Smiley Giant

2011-07-12T16:55:00.000+01:00

The latest in my fairly random list of things painted over the summer is this very smiley giant. It's a resin model released by Ilyad Games, a French miniatures company sadly no longer in business. I managed to track this specimen down on ebay. The level of detail is very good and the sculpting is top notch, making the painting a very straight forward experience. Starting with a white primer I applied most of the colours using glazes and washes.

It came complete with a 40mm resin base, but I used a 50mm to be more correct for gaming and to be a more comfortable fit. It will be used as a Nurgle giant in my chaos army, it could even be classed as a daemon prince. It will be a while before Smiley sees some action, as I am taking a break from Warhammer while I try out some 6mm World War 2 gaming. When I do get to debut the happy chappy in a game, you can be sure I will report back to let you know how he gets on. Just hoping he manages to avoid an Empire army in his first game.

Nurgle Death Guard

2011-07-07T16:08:00.000+01:00

Happy Nurgle Day!

The first squad of Death Guard painted for my Nurgle Chaos Marines army. These are mostly plastics from the chaos marines box, one of the flamer armed guard is a metal model.

I tried out some new techniques on this squad. The models were primed black, then painted in chainmail. Then I applied some elementary shading in a black/brown wash. Then I painted the models browns and oranges, to emulate rusted metal. At this stage I gave them all a coat of Klear floor polish to act as a varnish.

The next stage was the radical bit, as I sprayed them with hairspray. About an hour later I painted over a pale cream colour on all the armour bits. When this had dried, I took a few old splayed brushes, dipped them in warm water, and scrubbed off the pale cream. The warm water dissolves the underlying hair varnish, leaving a very nice random scratched effect. Then I glazed the armour with Gryphone Sepia to give this mellow yellow armour. Then it was back to more conventional painting methods as I picked out the remaining details.

It's a technique used by military armour modellers, google "AFV hairspray technique" for dozens of articles and tips. I believe it's also covered in the Forgeworld painting manual. I will be using it again on the rhino for this squad, a subject better suited to the technique, though I am pretty happy with the way it has turned out on painting the individual squad members.

AOW Dwarf Berserker components

2011-07-05T12:30:00.000+01:00

I noticed there was a lot of interest in my previous posts on the Dwarf Berserkers, so I took a picture of the components from the main sprue. There are a few other bits which I am adding to my bits box - a small dragon skull, a few dwarf medallions which I will probably use as shield bosses, a severed orc head, body piercings and chains. This photo shows the bits you will almost certainly use. Click on the picture to see them up close and personal. Anybody sitting on the fence about buying this boxset, I hope you find this useful. I could tell you how much I love these figures and they are the best plastic dwarfs I have found, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so have a look and make up your own mind!

Avatars of War Dwarf Berserkers

2011-07-03T15:59:00.001+01:00

More progress on the stout ones. Three quarters of the unit assembled now, so you can get a good idea of how the unit ranks up. And for such little guys, it's a tight squeeze! You really have to assemble them as a unit, they each can take up a lot of real estate if you let them.

Eagle eyed viewers will notice that I have slightly cheated here. Three of the dwarfs are stood on a 40mm base, in effect giving me an extra model, which is very useful because I will almost certainly deploy them 7 wide in 3 ranks.

AOW vs GW dwarfs

2011-06-29T11:19:00.001+01:00

I managed to get through one sprue of the new berserkers. The hair bits are optional and have not yet been attached, I am wondering if a unit of bald dwarfs would look good? The figures are very easy to assemble, each sprue will make up 3 dwarfs armed with two weapons and a single dwarf with a great axe. There are also spare hands giving the finger (very rude, my dwarfs are far too polite for that kind of thing), body piercings and bits of chain. Note that even though dwarfs are small in height, they are bulky and you will need to be careful to assemble them so that they rank up together.

Here's a comparison shot with a plastic GW dwarf, from my artillery crew, chosen as he also has a bald head and is quite close in pose to the AOW dwarf. Note the similarity in height and proprotions, with the AOW dwarf having possibly slightly finer facial details in a slimmer nose and head width. Note also that the AOW dwarf legs and torso are separate components, so it is possible to introduce a side on pose with a little twist of the hips.

And the final comparison with a conventional plastic dwarf warrior, again chosen with similar weaponry in mind. Note that the AOW dwarf is raised by a couple of mm as I have stood him on slithers of plastic, to prevent the "help I'm sinking into the ground" effect that can happen when the basing material is added to the plastic base. Speaking of bases, one little oddity in the AOW box is that the bases supplied are slotted, while the plastic legs are not tabbed, so solid bases would have been better. Luckily I have stacks of both variety, if you don't have then be prepared to cover the slot with bits of card or whatever.

So that's a quick rundown on the new AOW dwarfs, I want to get the whole box assembled before I give a full review, hopefully later in the week.

Avatars of War Dwarf Berserkers are here!

2011-06-28T11:12:00.000+01:00

My wait is over! I ordered a box of the Avatars of War Berserkers as soon as they went on pre-order, which was a about 2 or 3 months ago. And then I had to sit back and put them out of my mind. Until now.

The box is just lovely, nicely laid out with a very nice piece of art on the front. Notice that the hair is not orange, for me this enhances the overall look of figures.

Flipping the box over there is a very clear list of the components included, a diagram on assembly and a picture of an assembled regiment. The quality of the box art is a thing of beauty in itself, let's hope that we can judge this book by the cover.

So what is included in the box, assuming you are too impatient to read the list of the contents on the box? You get this little lot - 5 sprues containing the berserkers, 1 sprue containing the command pieces and a few extras, one packet of 20mm square bases and one green movement tray.

The final photo shows the two different sprue types in more detail (click on the picture to see it bigger). You don't need me to tell you how good they look. I am hoping to get a sample snipped and assembled just as soon as I can and will be comparing them with my existing dwarf figures in the next post.

Nurgle Marines WIP

2011-06-20T09:28:00.000+01:00

These figures have been lying around in my cupboard for a long time, I think I sculpted the greenstuff on to them about 5 years ago. Back then I did not play WH40K, they were just some models I had left over from a commission and were suitable fodder for practising my sculpting. When I eventually took up WH40K as a game, I plumped for orks.

Recently, I have been frustrated by a lack of progress on some of my armies, they all seem too big! So I wanted to switch to a smaller force, one that I might conceivably finish in a few months. And then I remembered about the chaos marines. Things have changed in five years, I now use grey stuff rather than green stuff, it's a little more pliabe and better suited to organic sculting like rotting torsoes.

The metal figure is not mine, it's on loan so I can copy it while trying to sculpt on to the plastic bodies. I have also added to some of the earlier green work. This is the first of a planned three squads of Death Guard, chosen because they are fairly easy to sculpt, they are very expensive in points and thus small in number, and let's be honest they are far better than Chaos Marines with a mark of Nurgle. I am aiming to get one squad complete each month, it should be all over by Christmas. Where have we heard that before?

Grotesque WIP

2011-06-15T09:14:00.001+01:00

I am tinkering on a number of projects at the moment, one of which is the grotesque I featured a couple of weeks ago. This picture shows the progress so far. The skin is being built up using multiple glazes of thinned paints. The colour at the moment is a bit too rotten/green, I intend to make some of it look a bit more healthy, which should (bizarrely) enhance the diseased look of the model. I want him to look afflicted, not undead. The base is a temporary holder and will be rebuilt and landscaped in some way.

I have also started to build a regiment of beastmen gors. I have had these in my collection for many years, some of them were bought back in the days when the chaos army list covered men, beasts and daemons, some are the newer versions. Inspired by historical gamers, I am trying out a slightly different basing technique. In gaming terms I will use them in friendly games as part of my chaos warriors army, longer term I have enough models to build a complete army. I can't quite settle into a groove on my painting at the moment, so expect more random updates in the next few weeks.

Plaguebearers

2011-06-07T13:47:00.000+01:00

I am taking a break from Warhammer Fantasy for a while, I think I have overdosed on it, so the greenskins are on the back burner for the time being. It was a nice change of pace to paint up these plaguebearers, with virtually no green paint needed.

Just a minute, are those round bases? Does that mean, surely not another army? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that these plaguebearers will be part of my new 40k army, which has specifically been chosen as it's small (in number of models) and will allow me to try out lots of new techniques. And no, not a new army, these will also be used in my fantasy daemon army, with the use of some clever movement tray building. Well, not that clever, think of the War of the Ring movement trays and you will know what I hope to achieve.

These are the first models I have painted that are not highlighted in any way. It's a technique I have been experimenting with for some time. Over a light basecoat, glazes and washes are used to build up some subtle colour and shade. Some of the skin colour is achieved through the stippling of thinned paint. The metals and bases are quickly and easily coloured using a mix of brown paints and MIG pigments. It's a system that works particularly well on models such as these.

The next regiment in the army will be chaos marines, which I am currently building and converting with my limited sculpting skills. More on that in a future post. I will also be trying out a few new games over the coming weeks, having decided that there's more to this hobby than just WHFB. So a hotch potch of posts coming up in the summer months.

Grotesque

2011-06-04T14:55:00.000+01:00

It's a historic day here at Hobby Horse. Check out the amazing detail on this incredibly finely cast model. It's lightweight, it was an absolute breeze to clean off the minimal mould lines and the parts glued together easily with a little super glue. It's a revolutionary step forward in miniature design and manufacture, one that will echo down the centuries.....

Or maybe it's just a resin model from a few years back, now sadly no longer available (unless you are lucky on ebay as I was). It was produced by a French company, Ilyad Games, which produced a small range of fine figures like this one, but then folded about 3 or 4 years ago. On this 50 mm base, it will make a fine addition to a number of armies. For me, it will be a Nurgle giant, sometimes a Nurgle Daemon Prince, or maybe even a unit filler in a horde of zombies.

It's also as good a model as I have put together, resin really does hold fine detail far better than metal, cleans up a treat and glues together very quickly and easily with super glue. I will be buying more resin figures in the future, but not necessarily from the leading miniatures company. It's all part of my mid-year resolution to steer away from the most trodden paths, to look into alternatives that might just offer the same quality I want in my collection, but at more reasonable costs. Or maybe just offer something a little bit different.

Enigma Winged Vampire

2011-05-26T16:14:00.000+01:00

With all the hullabaloo about GW prices and the rest of it, I think it's worth remembering that there are plenty of other manufacturers out there. I spotted this model on my morning trawl of the net. For me, just how a vampire should look. I was so impressed I immediately lifted my Vampire Counts book off the shelf and started to think about a list with a flying vampire, wondering if it would be viable.

The scale is 32mm, which is possibly bigger than a typical troop sized model. Not that it would bother me too much, heroes are meant to stand out of the crowd. I have a completely unpainted Undead army waiting for some attention, this figure might just have shunted them nearer to the front of the queue.

Also by Enigma is this lovely sculpt. What a fine pair of models! A lord standing in the ranks of the skeletons, a lesser vampire flying around the battlefield, it's a tantalising prospect. Damn it, I am feeling distracted by the possibilities. Must resist, must resist.....gah, I am as weak as a busty maiden in the arms of Dracula, who am I kidding?

Favoured of the Gods III : The Wizard's Tower

2011-05-23T10:21:00.000+01:00

The Favoured of the Gods is a series of linked scenarios, pitching rival chaos champions into bloody combat. Each champion is striving to impress the chaos gods on the battlefield, hoping to earn favour in their eyes. If the champions fight well they will be rewarded, but failure in battle may result in punishment from the gods.

The third scenario is fought over two games, each army's sorceror aiming to defeat a wizard in his tower, claiming a magical artefact if he is successful. The 2500 point Chaos army contains 3 characters, the champion from scenario 1, the sorceror from scenario 2 and an army standard bearer. Each of these characters carries any magic items/chaos gifts gained (or lost!) in the previous battles. The enemy army is chosen by opponent. The game is played on a 6x4 table with a wizard tower in the centre and roughly six other pieces of terrain. In addition, three markers should be evenly spaced around the tower, about 12 inches from it.

Wizard. A wizard lives in the tower, he is placed on the top floor and never moves from this position. He is a level 1 wizard but knows all the spells from a randomly determined deck (we chose from fire, shadow, metal and death). Each magic phase he is controlled by the player who's turn it is. He can attempt to channel the winds of magic as normal. He can cast one spell per turn, randomly chosen by rolling a d6. The controlling player then decides if he wants the wizard to cast the spell, using dice from the casting pool (and the wizard's channeled dice if he gained one). The usual rules for casting spells from a building apply.

Terrain rules. The wizard has magical traps and enchantments in place to protect his domain. Around the tower are 3 markers, which represent magically concealed terrain. When a unit gets to within 3 inches of a marker, the terrain is revealed. Randomly determine the type of terrain and any effects it has on the triggering unit. In addition, the tower is magically sealed and can only be entered by single characters.

End of Game. The chaos sorceror is aiming to impress the chaos gods. He can do this in two ways. If the chaos army wins the game (using victory points as normal) the sorceror may be able to advance a level. Calculate the margin of victory and divide by 100, rounding up. The sorceror must then roll equal to or less than this number to gain a level. For example, if the margin of victory is 237 points, dividing by 100 gives 3 (2.37 rounded up), so the sorceror would have to roll 3 or less to advance a level. A roll of 1 is an automatic success, a roll of 6 automatically fails.

If the chaos army manages to get a character into the wizard's tower then he can fight the wizard. If the wizard is slain, the chaos sorceror may ransack the tower at the end of the game. Roll a d6 to determine what he finds:-

1 - the wizard's revenge, a magical trap causes d3 wounds on the sorceror!

2 - nothing is found

3 - Channeling Staff

4 - Earthing Rod

5 - Power Scroll

6 - choose any arcane item up to a value of 50 points from the main rulebook or the chaos army book

If any chaos character loses all his wounds during the battle he is removed as a casualty in the usual manner. At the end of the game his fate is decided by the roll of a d6:-

1 - dead!

2 - turned to spawn

3 - lose a randomly determined gift/magic item

4+ - no long term effect, but miss the next game in the campaign

That's what I call a longbeard!

2011-05-16T21:23:00.000+01:00

This happy chappy made me laugh, he has the best beard in the world. Coincidentally, I am thinking about updating my dwarf army to convert it from 7th edition to 8th edition style, so I have been browsing various forums to see how the stout ones have been affected.

It's pretty glum reading in some respect, as armies seem to gravitate toward a certain style. For dwarfs this means taking a runelord, a thane army standard, 40 great weapons in a horde unit, a unit of Hammerers, some rangers, and one each of a cannon, grudge thrower and organ gun. That's if I want to build a competitive list.

But what if I want to continue using my army of old? It has unit sizes of 7th edition, 15 longbeards, 20 warriors and the like. Should I boost these to the bigger units of 30 or even 40 strong. Or should I stubbornly refuse to change in true dwarf fashion, clinging to the old ways? Is it better to follow the path already forged by countless players around the world, or should I plot my own course?

Mad Machine # 4

2011-05-12T18:51:00.000+01:00

The snotlings have been at it again. Another pump wagon ready for testing. This one is built from an old metal chassis that had both bolt thrower and stone thrower components. Some of these have been hacked around and re-assembled, the two "horns" for example were originally uprights to support the bow. Half of the bow has been recycled as a spiky roller. I guess it's quite easy being green if you are a snotling!

The crew are proving to be difficult to source, my old metal snotlings are tiny and would be difficult to see. I do have some old metal goblins carrying rocks that might fit the bill a bit better. Along with a few gnoblars I reckon they will be ideal.

Mad Machine # 2 and # 3

2011-05-11T15:04:00.000+01:00

The second and third of the gizmos ready for action! The one on the right is straight from the box, a goblin doom diver. The rock lobba on the left is made from a number of bits scrounged from ebay. As far as I can tell they were originally stone throwers of some type, I have simply recycled them in a slightly haphazard manner, as a mad goblin inventor would.

I have one more gizmo to build, in it's original form it's a bolt thrower of old, but it will make the perfect basis for a second snotling pump wagon.

Mad Machine # 1

2011-05-02T16:03:00.001+01:00

Here's a work in progress shot of the first of Gobrat's Gizmos. It's a pump wagon with the out-rigga upgrade (which is basically a makeshift sail). As I was building the chassis and main body I was struck that it resembled half a boat, so the upgrade suggested itself really. Most of the bits are from the chariot kit, with a few other bits and bobs from the orc warriors sprue. Only the barrel on top of the mast has been looted (from the Ogre Kingdoms sprue). There will be a lookout in the crow's nest plus a selection of motley crew. I have some old metal snotlings but they might be too small, so I might have to draft in some snotlings from the Bignose tribe (aka gnoblars).

Gizmo 1 is pretty much complete and ready to be primed and painted. I will build at least one more pump wagon before I get the paints out. I might even paint all the gizmos in one batch, after a mass building project. I also want to have Gobrat himself involved somehow, I would like him to be a bit like the greenskin equivalent of a dwarf engineer, but I'm not sure how to pull it off.

May is Mad Machinery Month!

2011-05-01T20:00:00.000+01:00

Stand at ease! Now chaps, settle down and pay attention, especially you at the back. This fine example of a World War II British commanding officer is Major General Percy Hobart of the Royal Engineers. He designed a number of adaptations to battle tanks to overcome anticipated problems in the planned invasion of Normandy, better known as D-Day. Tanks were adapted to build bridges, to clear minefields, to lay temporary road over marshy ground and overcome many other problems associated with amphibious operations. These weird and wonderful vehicles had fittingly bizarre names, such as the Crab, the Crocodile and even the Rhino (40000 years ahead of his time obviously). Collectively they were known as Hobart's Funnies, for more information you can browse this article on Wikipedia.

Apart from a tenuous link to a Space Marine personnel carrier, what has this got to do with Warhammer? It's an example of how the strangest thing can determine how my army is shaped, of course. I was intending to paint savage orcs in the coming month, but I have hit a wall with that particular project so have decided to put it to one side and do something else. Reading about Hobart gave me a flash of inspiration, to have a mad inventor character in my orc and goblin army. With a one letter change and a slight re-arrangement of letters, Gobrat the Goblin was born. He is going to invent and build some wacky contraptions for my army, known as Gobrat's Gizmos. May is mad machinery month!

Dribble, Snivel and Grubb

2011-04-30T15:27:00.001+01:00

These two night goblin shamen are the default magic users in my army. They are both level 2, one of them has a dispel scroll. This gives me a pretty good magic attack, and a reasonable magical defence phase, for a low cost.

The spells of the Little Waargh are mostly annoying to the enemy rather than game-changing, which is very fitting for goblins when you think about it! In the last game for example, a Vindictive Glare caused 4 wounds on an enemy giant, a Gift of the Spider God gave poisoned attacks to a unit of savage orcs for one turn, Gork Fixed It and cancelled out a couple of chaos warrior attacks, and a Curse of Da Bad Moon killed one chaos warrior. The scroll was used early on to cancel a powerful enemy spell and one of the shamen suffered a wound from a poisoned mushroom. As I said, annoying to the enemy but certainly not game-changing, which is the way I like magic to be.

Dribble is the little guy on the left, he's the shamen from the Battle for Skull Pass set and was painted a couple of years ago, I just took the opportunity to add a highlight to his nose. Snivel is made from a few bits (see the details in this post). He uses the head as a conduit for the raw energy of the Little Waargh. And Grubb? He's the snotling assistant, he fetches mushrooms from the squig caves, tastes the fungus brew and generally gets all the dirty work that shamen are too clever to do. Both are painted with a very simple style to fit in with the rest of the army, only the faces get more than a single highlight.

I have also painted a night goblin boss, he was half finished and I thought I might as well apply the finishing touches, even though I don't use a boss in my army. He can become the unit champion in the block of spears for the time being. And that's about all I managed this month, a very poor showing. I blame the weather, it's been uncharacteristically fine and sunny and warm in the UK, so outdoor pursuits have taken precedence over painting. I still have a unit of savage orcs to paint, but am lacking the inspiration to do so at the moment.

Blood Bowl Pitch

2011-04-23T13:48:00.000+01:00

Good afternoon sports fans and welcome to the new season of.....

It was my son who got me involved in Blood Bowl. He plays it over the summer holidays with a group of friends and I watched a couple of games and got interested. A couple of years ago I made a Norse team from some spare plastic marauders, played a couple of games and then put them back in the cabinet.

Recently I have played the odd game of Blood Bowl Legendary Edition on the PC, using a Norse team of course. We don't actually own a physical board so if we want to play in the real world (as opposed to the virtual world), we have to borrow a board and all the bits that go with it - the rules are freely available to download on the web. So I put on my Blue Peter thinking cap and got busy.

An old grass battle mat, a pair of scissors, a steel rule, a pencil and a couple of hours of measuring, cutting and marking lines with white paint. That's the basic recipe and technique for a homemade pitch, copying the measurements from a real board. I added a couple of touches of my own, blood stains, mud patches and even a message from the game sponsors. All I need now are the blocking dice, a range measure, and plenty of lucky rerolls!

Storm Warning

2011-04-12T10:48:00.000+01:00

Games Workshop have announced a summer expansion for Warhammer called Storm of Magic. Go check it out on their website if you have not already. To summarise, it sounds like Warhammer with supersized magic and monsters.

I guess your response to this is broadly one of three. You might be jumping up and down with anticipation, eager to get your hands on another monster or two, or keen to try out some really destructive magic on your mates' armies, salivating at the prospect of cataclysmic mayhem. Or maybe you are hopping mad, ranting on a forum somewhere about dumbing down and pandering to the demands of kids, the lack of balance this will bring/exacerbate, that the emphasis should be on updating the army books.

Or maybe you are a bit like me. A pretty boring middle of the road guy, shrugging at the latest attempt by GW to raise a bit of money with a Hollywood style blockbuster. Just like the typical big budget summer action movie, it will be all spectacle but little substance. And just like the latest action movie, you may well see it, be impressed by the special effects, laugh at the plot and dialogue, enjoy it for a couple of hours and then forget it about.

It brings to mind the previous big expansion for Warhammer, the Storm of Chaos. A book containing several new army lists, a massive online campaign and a raft of new minis to support the project. Some players built armies and took them to tournaments, and for a while it was absorbed into the mainstream. Eventually, the campaign ended, the army lists were dropped and were no longer considered official, some players were left with unplayable collections.

However, I am a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I will say that I am cautiously looking forward to the new models. It's always good to see new minis, that's what makes us hobbyists tick, so hopefully there will be something in among the new releases to please everyone. I say cautiously because the latest releases have not really been to my tastes (giant robots, surfing skeletons and dancing snakes just don't do it for me). The terrain I am guessing will be magic effects, craters, shattered buildings, chasms, whatever. Okay for the occasional game but not something I would expect to see on a permanent basis. Hopefully there will be some new wizards in there, not just to fill the gaps in the Empire range but perhaps for other races too. But I can't help thinking back to the Albion campaign, when armies could employ mercenary wizards and it all got a bit silly. If it turns out that dwarfs have access to magic over the summer, that's it, I am throwing my popcorn on the floor, and storming out, as it were. I can wait a few months, the storm clouds will blow away and Warhammer will get back to normal.

Three Games Later

2011-04-09T14:16:00.000+01:00

I have now played 3 games with the new orc and goblin army book. It's very early days, but I am learning as I go along. I am using most of the models I have painted as a core of my army, with a few additions each game to try new units or adapt from the previous game.

In a 2500 point army I typically have an orc warboss on boar with an Ogre Blade, a Charmed Shield and a Talisman of Preservation. This guy is an absolute beast in combat and so far has not even suffered a scratch, even though he has no real defence against shooting and magic (apart from driving the stone trolls before him as a shield). He has destroyed chaos knights, minotaurs, Empire greatswords and halberdiers.

The obligatory black orc army standard has the Enchanted Shield and Talisman of Endurance and usually leads a mob of 25 orcs with extra choppas. If I am honest he has not really achieved much in combat, but that's not his primary role.

For magical support I am still testing the water, but two level 2 night goblin shaman have given reasonable results at low cost. The Waaargh spells have not been spectacular, though a Curse of Da Bad Moon did take out about 30 Empire troops in the last game.

My main fighting troops are the 25 orcs mentioned above, 20 black orcs and 24 savage orc biguns, the latter two don't seem to need characters to boost them. Support troops are 30 night goblins with spears and nets and one or two fanatics, another unit of 20 night goblins with bows and a couple of fanatics, and a squig herd of between 10 and 20 models. I usually take 3 units of fast cavalry (2 wolf rider, 1 spider rider). Other units available to me are 4 stone trolls, 3 trolls, 2 spear chukkas and an orc chariot. I also have a couple of orc shamen painted I could use. This is pretty much all that I have assembled and painted (for the most part).

The army seems to be reasonably well equipped in combat. The black orcs and savage orcs are highly destructive against most enemy. The orc boyz are fairly average but do well supported by characters and/or chariots. The night goblin spears have surprised me, doing well against average troops like Empire halberdiers but also standing up well to more scary foes like minotaurs. I am planning on making this unit 40 strong.

It's in the support areas that I am likely to make most changes. The squigs and fanatics do as much damage to my army as they do to the enemy, so I really have to learn how to cope with that. Squig herds and manglers on paper look a no-brainer, but once they have gone wild they can (and do) cause as much damage to friends as they do to foes. The obvious thing to do is keep them on the flanks and push them forward as fast as possible, out of harm's way, but that can be easier said than done.

The game that caused me most problems was against Empire, greenskins and black powder are not a good combination. I need something to cause a long range threat from turn one. The magic decks are quite short range really (and magic is too fickle to base strategy on), so artillery is an area I am currently investigating. Spear chukkas are unreliable and cause relatively little damage, so I am going to try out a rock lobba and a doom diver in future games. I am also aware that wolf chariots have a very long reach and could easily charge on turn 2, which might be useful against pesky Empire shooty detachments, elven archers, etc.

So that's a brief overview of the story so far, still a long way to go with many more enemies to fight, but I am enjoying the new army and finding the book to be pretty well balanced and in character. For a casual gamer like myself, it's a good book. My most amusing moment of the battles to date was a charge by a lone troll into a unit of 10 Empire knights, hoping to maybe stall them for a turn or two. The knights failed their fear test, missed all their attacks, the troll vomited over the captain, won the combat by one, the knights fled off the board. A classic against the odds moment!

It's big, it's scary and it's got eight legs!

2011-04-01T09:51:00.002+01:00

It's a unit of four trolls of course. What else could it be?

This is the first addition to the orcs and goblins army in my Spring Challenge - I am dedicating March, April and May to painting greenskins. Okay, so these are not green, but you get my gist.

I will probably field these as stone trolls, hoping that the scaly skin will give them a little more durability against their favourite targets of knights (they do like a bit of roasted horse). The magic resistance is handy too when facing magic missiles, I can screen more vulnerable troops behind them. Just hoping that they don't become too stupid too often.

I chose the LOTR models because I really dislike the official metal stone trolls. These are big and impressive models and add interest to the masses of green and black that my army is (orcs and night goblins). I also thought I would be able to use them in my chaos army, and these fit the bill more to my mind. It took me a while to find them cheap enough on ebay, trolls have become fairly popular in the past few months.

I painted them by stippling on the colours over a light undercoat. Glazes and washes have done most of the hard work, just a tiny bit of highlighting here and there. This kind of technique works well on organic subjects like these. It's nice to be able to cross off a unit from my to do list. Just have to get them through their first game as a freshly painted unit (I fully expect the curse of the newly painted to strike them down). So just in case they get completely obliterated, here's another picture.

Dwarf Berserkers plastic regiment

2011-03-30T09:45:00.000+01:00

So there I am, just coming to the end of the first month of my 3 month commitment to greenskins, when up pops this news. Avatars of War, well known for their lovely metal character models, have taken their first steps into the plastic regiment market. Full details can be found here.

From the picture and previously released videos they certainly look impressive. I am pretty sure I could find a space for them in my dwarf army, which has not received much attention of late. Recently, I have been pondering what to work on after the greenskins, and maybe this is a sign from the, er, miniature geek gods. It would be quite fitting to get my orcs and goblins up to 2500 points painted, then do the same for my dwarfs.

I really hope that the sales for these models go through the roof and a company producing high quality plastics at reasonable prices gets established. I will be doing my bit and ordering a box. It will probably take some time for the plastics range to get up and running, but who knows, maybe a future post will be me talking about plastic goblins, chaos marauders or even chaos dwarfs. It's a tantalising prospect. However, that's just wishful thinking at the moment. Back in the real world, my next post will be back on track with the greenskins - here's a clue, it's big and scary and it's got eight legs.

Cooking up a sneaky plan

2011-03-28T12:24:00.001+01:00

This little fella is a night goblin shaman built from a few plastic bits. The body and left arm and half the right arm come from the night goblin box set. The shaman head, the bubbling cauldron and the snotling assistant are from the fanatics sprue. The top of the staff is cut from a marker from the Battle for Skull Pass set. And the right hand holding up the shrunken head is from, well, if you can identify that bit you have a big clue as to my next big project. But let's not get distracted by that.

In tandem with another night goblin shaman I am hoping that the pair of them will give me a pretty potent magic phase for a small cost. Two level 2 shamen gives me four Little Waargh spells, two chances to channel an extra power dice, a lore attribute that gives me the chance to sneakily steal opponent's magic dice, and mushrooms to really give me the edge in casting (except when I roll a 1 of course). For those that are unaware, the shaman has to eat a mushroom each time he casts a spell, adding it to his casting roll. This is a free dice not taken from the power pool. If a 1 is rolled, the mushroom is poisonous and might wound the shaman. It's a brilliant little game mechanism that really captures the inherently powerful but risky aspect of the night goblin shaman.

First Game with the new Orcs and Goblins book

2011-03-26T09:52:00.002Z

It seems like forever since the new book was talked about on the web, let alone released to the masses, but finally I have played my first game with the new army list. I simply packed in as much of my existing army plus a couple of new units into 2000 points and played a chaos warrior infantry heavy army.

I was keen to see the look on my opponent's face when he found out how much better the animosity rule has become (worse from his side of the table). I had six units testing and, yes, you guessed it, not once did I roll a 1 in the entire game!

I was also trying out a couple of new to my army units, 4 stone trolls and 24 savage orc biguns. I was hoping that these two units would be adding some real hitting power to the army, which up until now has been provided by black orcs and characters. I must warn you that they are not fully painted and I truly believe that unpainted troops are punished by the dice gods. Let's see how they got on......

The scenario called for random placement of troops, which of course meant the trolls were stranded in one corner with the characters on the opposite side of the table. Drooling and dribbling and wandering forward aimlessly, they were hit in the flank by 3 dragon ogres with extra weapons. Not good. They took a real hammering, but regeneration came to the rescue and all four trolls survived, even managing to get a wound or two back on the dragon ogres. But flank charges and low leadership are not a good combination and off they ran in turn 2. And turn 3. And turn 4. And, well, you can see where this is heading. But wait, it gets better. The best thing was they outran the dragon ogres and survived plowing through two enemy units and a blood forest. Sadly, they managed to stamp on not just one, but two of my night goblin fanatics, who were whirling round dangerously close to lots of heavily armoured chaos warriors. Curses. This took it's toll on the trolls, last time I looked there were just two of them left, standing in front of a large rock asking it for directions back to the battlefield. Ah well, at least they didn't die. In a more standard game with better leadership I have high hopes for them. At 45 points each I think they are an absolute steal.

Surely the savage orcs would do better? 24 biguns with extra weapons, deployed six wide, that's 25 attacks on the charge, S5 with choppas. That's competing even with chaos warriors' bucketfuls of dice. Granted, they are far less resilient, but surely they will cause damage on their first charge. Well, theoretically yes they would. Getting flanked charged by warriors while a giant jumps up and down on them was not my dream first time scenario. I didn't even get to prod the giant with the big stabba, charging is essential for these boyz. Sadly, a very early departure for the tattooed naked ones.

Things can only get better. My lone night goblin shaman had an absolute blast, he was scoffing mushrooms and casting spells all game long. He did swallow a couple of poisonous ones but survived the whole battle. His spells did not have a huge effect, the random nature of the deck didn't go my way this game but I have a sneaky plan to use two of these little beggars in future games for a potentially effective and very cheap magic phase.

In the end, it was down to the old stalwarts of my army, the warboss and black orcs, to dish out the pain. The warboss was an absolute beast, surviving a flank charge from a unit of chaos knights and swatting them into the ground with his ogre blade. The black orcs had a real slugfest with a unit of Khorne chaos warriors, they practically wiped each other out, but a well timed intervention from the orc characters and a chariot finally swung it for the greenskins.

The new book feels good to me, not just from this first game, but from reading about it on the web ( the excellent Troll Tales is an absolute must visit destination for greenskin players). It seems to hit the right blend of brute orc power and sneaky goblin cunning. I am looking forward to adding a few of the more wacky elements, after I have finished painting the savage orcs and trolls of course! By then, my troll-like attention span may well have wandered on to something else, but for the next few months, it's gonna be green.

Free Savage Orc Shaman!

2011-03-10T16:45:00.000Z

There's a free savage orc shaman included in the box of plastic savage orcs! You just have to be a bit cunning like Mork (or is it Gork) to find it.

It's not very often that I buy brand new release items, I am too old and wily (or is it cynical) for that kind of thing. It's very easy to get sucked into the marketing hype and internet clamour. I usually wait a few months to check if a) I still like the new stuff or b) I can pick it up a bit cheaper on ebay. But with the release of the new savage orcs, I was reckless and pre-ordered two boxes.

I want to get the maximum value from these two boxes. I am doing this in two ways. I am building a regiment of 24 figures, even though two boxes of 10 theoretically holds just 20 figures. With a bit of multiple basing trickery it's easy enough, but more on that next time. The second bonus is this free shaman. Obviously it's just a kit bash using the components. The staff is built from a couple of chopped up bows and the dangly wotnotz from the big stabba. It's not difficult, no sculpting involved and the end result is a very nice model.

Regrets of an old gamer

2011-03-08T10:41:00.000Z

Here's a scan of one of the photos I found in the loft. It shows the majority of my old Chaos Dwarf army - I think there were some hobgoblin archers too. This was a 2000 point army about a decade ago, it seems tiny in comparison to armies of 8th edition. It's photographed on my brother's "gaming board" - a green cloth on the dining table, a couple of basic polystyrene flocked hills and a little wood hut he bought from a garden centre. It's almost laughable when you look at the battlefields of today, but this was the norm back then, even the battle reports in White Dwarf were fought on tables like this. And as basic as it is, we had some good times fighting over this hut!

Sadly, I no longer have this army. Over the years I have collected and painted numerous forces like this, including High Elves, several Chaos armies, at least two Undead - most of them I subsequently sold when I relocated and found it difficult to get to a gaming area. I don't mind that, I have since re-collected several armies and have more than enough to keep me painting for years to come! But this is the one army I wish I had held on to.

Twenty Years Ago

2011-03-06T15:34:00.001Z

I was up in the loft yesterday, sorting through some old photos which I intend to scan and store digitally. I came across some buried treasure...of sorts. In among the piles and piles of old family snaps were some pictures of a couple of my old armies. I will get them scanned and post a few samples in the next few weeks.

I also found my old boxes of White Dwarf, which I had bought occasionally during my Heroquest era, then pretty much every month for years after I took up Warhammer from issue 153 onwards. That was in 1992, this picture shows the cover of that White Dwarf, it was also used as the box art for the fourth edition game, my first copy. Naturally I started to reminisce about my first games, my old armies, my painting, etc. Then I realised (with a sigh of resignation at the passage of so much time) that it was nearly 20 years since those first faltering steps. I want to mark the anniversary in some way, some big way, which is why I am thinking about it now, 18 months before the actual event.

The first thought I had was to recreate the armies from the fourth edition box. If I remember correctly it contained plastic figures (elf and goblin spearmen and archers) as well as cardboard pieces to represent the bigger characters and war machines - a high elf on a griffon, an orc shaman on a wyvern, an elf bolt thrower and an orc stone thrower. I actually have all these pieces, mostly in their current or recent form, some the original models from the early 1990's, some even painted already! So it would be relatively easy to put them together in the coming year. It's achievable but not particularly balanced in the current version of the game.

The second option is to recreate the main characters and units from the fourth edition box set, but build them as part of my current army projects. For example, include an orc shaman on a wyvern and a stone thrower, plus archers and spear gobbos, in my existing greenskin army. This is a tempting option, as I will be working on the greenskins in the near future, with the allure of a shiney new army book just days away. The High Elf army would be even easier to achieve, as I have long ago painted the griffon, speamen, archers and bolt thrower (along with other troops). An 8th edition equivalent of the 4th edition starter set is a tempting option.

The third option is not particularly related to the fourth edition starter set, there's not an elf or goblin in sight. Broadening my thoughts to my Warhammer history, I could attempt to recreate my very first fully painted army. This came about because I attended my first tournament in 1997, so this option would be a joint celebration of 20 years of Warhammer, 15 years since I first entered a tournament. This is probably the most exciting option because it allows me to rebuild one of my first armies, but also I would incorporate some ideas I have harboured for yet another army, giving me a "two birds with one stone" army. So this is the most ambitious option, the most exciting in my head, but also the most daunting in terms of work required. If I do go for this option I will have to make a start in summer this year.

A Sorceror's Tale

2011-02-23T19:55:00.000Z

A few weeks ago I posted the second scenario in the chaos campaign - the Sorceror Apprentices. My sorceror, Bl'nd the Reckless, faced an Empire army. He rolled two spells from the Tzeentch deck, Baleful Transmogrification and Infernal Gateway. The battle took place in a magic infused landscape, and it did play a big part in the game.

The first major event was the Empire wizard casting Metal spells at my knight, obliterating them in turn one! Not the best start in a 1600 point game. With my forces also coming under pressure from Empire handguns and artillery, it was a tough first half. Bl'nd the Reckless lived up to his name, choosing to roll 6 dice at every opportunity. He managed to cast Infernal Gateway a number of times, wiping out several Greatswords, halberdiers and virtually a whole unit of handgunners. His kill tally mounted up rapidly to over 30. Meanwhile, the bulk of the chaos army made it into combat, helped by screens of chaos hounds.

With most of the handgunners, the cannons and the wizard destroyed, towards the end of the game it was a simple task for the chaos forces to mop up the Empire stragglers. Greatswords and then halberdiers fell under the onslaught. In the last turn of the game, the remaining unit of spearmen was surrounded by chaos units. But Bl'nd proved too reckless in his quest to prove himself to the Chaos gods. He once again threw 6 dice and up rolled 3 sixes. The miscast saw him sucked into the Realm of Chaos. I could easily have played safe, but got carried away by the aims of the scenario.

So in subsequent games I will be severely limited in my magic capability, just a level 1 sorceror lending me aid. However, this is not disastrous, as my opponent's sorceror failed to impress the gods in his game against a Beastmen army. He foolishly got embroiled in a combat, only narrowly avoiding death at the hands of a Wargor, and barely escaped from a unit of rampaging minoaturs. Surrounded and desperate, he miscast and died a pathetic death, so the campaign continues with us both in a similar position. As an aside, it was my first time using a beastmen army and I really enjoyed it, so expect more beastly updates later in the year!

Those pesky greenskins!

2011-02-16T13:35:00.000Z

I should really be working on my chaos army, but those pesky greenskins have put a spanner in the works. With the imminent release of the new Orc and Goblin book, I thought it was a good time to review my greenskin army. What started as a few night goblins in the Battle for Skull Pass box set has grown into my second biggest army. I have about 1800 points fully painted, and much more hidden away in boxes. It was the latter I decided to rummage through.

I knew I had picked up some arrer boyz on ebay in the past, but I had completely forgotten about a large number of orc boyz. They are mostly the two weapon variety, but I already have a unit of those fully painted, so I was hoping I could adapt them to be shield and hand weapon boyz. With a bit of chopping here and there, and with the addition of a couple of boyz sprues, I was able to put together a small unit fairly quickly.

In the picture you can see the ebay boyz, they came already sprayed, but with mould lines still visible (why do people do that?) There are also some of the sprue boyz that I assembled. Best of all, there is one huge orc on the left, he will eventually become my army standard bearer. I also have a large number of arrer boyz, spear boyz and more double choppa boyz, so plenty of raw material to work with. And as if that wasn't enough, I would love some of the new savage orcs too. Pesky green blighters, ruining my painting plans!

Favoured of the Gods II : The Sorceror Apprentices

2011-02-07T09:47:00.000Z

The second scenario is fought over two games, each army's sorceror hoping to prove himself against an army other than Warriors. The Chaos army is to be led by a level 2 sorceror, who may take a mark of chaos and the usual 50 points of magic items (these must be from the chaos book, not the main rulebook). He leads a 1600 point army, which may include special and rare choices, but see the will of the beasts rule below. Enemy army to be chosen by opponent, with no lord characters allowed, just one rare choice. The game is played on a 4x4 table with as many rocky features as possible, 3 being special terrain as detailed below. There should be at least 8 inches space around each rocky area to allow troops movement.

Will of the Beasts. Any non-mortal special or rare choices may be included in the chaos army, the sorceror uses his foul magics to bind them to his will. However, at the start of each turn, roll for each unit that is not in combat/fleeing. On the roll of a 1 for special choices, or the roll of a 1 or 2 for rare choices, the sorceror temporarily loses control of the unit. Roll a further d6:-

1 the beasts turn on their new master, attacking the nearest friendly unit if possible
2, 3 the beasts become confused, doing nothing for this turn
4,5 the beasts are subject to stupidity (if they are already subject to stupidity, treat this as a roll of 1)
6 the gods intervene, the sorceror may control the unit as normal

Terrain rules. Nominate 3 of the terrain pieces as special terrain:- one is a set of arcane ruins and one is a magic circle as per the main rulebook, the third piece is an altar of chaos. For the altar of chaos, each chaos turn roll a die to see which diety is in the ascendant: - 1 none, 2 Slaanesh, 3 Nurgle, 4 Khorne, 5 Tzeentch, 6 all of them. Any units with the ascendant mark gain +1 on all to hit dice rolls for this turn. Any sorcerors with the ascendant mark gain d3 magic dice and +1 on all magic rolls.

End of Game. The game ends at the whim of the gods! From the end of turn 4 onwards, roll a d6 and add it to the turn number, if the total is 10 or more the game ends immediately. Thus, a roll of 6 will end the game on turn 4, a roll of 5 or 6 will end the game on turn 5, etc. Obviously the game ends sooner if the sorceror and/or his army is destroyed. Victory is determined in the usual way, with an additional 10 victory points for each unsaved wound caused by the sorceror in the game. He also gains 10 points for each spell he casts. Once the victory points are added up, the sorceror's fate is decided.

If the sorceror wins by more than 500 victory points, he gains the favour of the gods. He becomes a level 3 Sorceror Lord and may make an Eye of the Gods roll, adjusting it by +/- 1 if he wishes.

If the sorceror wins by between 100 and 500 victory points, he remains unaffected and may continue to the next game. Any Eye of the Gods rolled during the game are carried forward to the next game.

If the scores are within 100 victory points, the game is a draw and the sorceror gains no special reward. Any Eye of the Gods rolled during the game are lost on the dice roll of 1.

If the sorceror loses by between 100 and 500 victory points, he attracts the wrath of the gods for his failure. Any Eye of the Gods rolled during the game are lost on the dice roll of a 1 or 2. Also, the sorceror is reduced to level 1 on the d6 roll of 1.

If the sorceror loses by more than 500 victory points, he is turned to spawn.

Chaos Ogres

2011-01-31T08:38:00.002Z

I spent much of the weekend putting the finishes touches to a unit of chaos ogres. These are old metal models, from the early 1990's. I added a couple of plastic components to emphasise the fact they are equipped with additional weapons. I also tried to suggest a Khorne allegiance, with splashes of red armour (and blood of course).

And so on to the dreaded first game (newly painted troops always seem to suffer undue attention from the enemy). Lining up against an Empire gunline I had grave concerns for them. Sure enough, one fell to the ground full of lead and cannon balls. As they are frenzied, they have to charge enemy on sight, so it was with some relief that they crashed into a unit of handgunners after a very long sprint across the board (I rolled a 10 for the charge). One of them finally succumbed to his wounds, but the remaining duo made short work of the musketeers. They then turned their attention to a huge unit of spearmen, the prospect of eating 50 speamen was too tempting to worry about odds! The ogre champion picked on the Empire general, gutted him with a swift stroke of his fist spike and tossed his bloodied remains into the snow. Several spearmen joined their leader in a gory pile at the ogres' feet, but eventually the massed ranks proved too much and they were driven off. In the end, killing a unit of handgunners and a few spearmen plus the general was a decent performance under heavy fire, a feat excelled by just one other on the chaos side, but that's a story for another day.

Edit. Just been browsing the Ogre Stronghold and I realise that I forgot to stomp at the end of each combat, so the ogres could have been even better. Next time......

A Chaos Champion arises

2011-01-27T13:16:00.001Z

I played the Clash of Champions scenario over the weekend. My fledgling chaos champion, Ragnar the Undecided, led his troops into the chaos forest seeking glory. Both he and his rival chaos champion broke off from the combat to search the ogre infested woods (every guardian we rolled turned out to be an ogre). Both were successful and emerged with chaos rewards and magic items! And both armies virtually destroyed each other in the six turns we played (not surprising perhaps as the armies were almost identical and equally destructive). A well fought draw was a good result for the start of what will be a fairly long campaign.

The final tally for Ragnar was the acquisition of the Glaive of Putrefaction, and two chaos rewards - Iron hard Skin and Flames of Chaos. For me, this suggests mostly favour from Nurgle, so I decided to paint up the metal Nurgle champion model in preparation for future scenarios. However, after an hour of searching the model could not be found. This means two things - (i) my pile of unpainted minis needs a major tidying up and (ii) Ragnar will have to be constructed from plastic bits instead. At first I struggled with ideas on how to convert a chaos warrior into a convincing champion, but then I realised that perhaps I was looking at the problem from the wrong angle. Ragnar shall not struggle into battle on foot, but riding on a mighty chaos steed.

This got me thinking about Ragnar's retinue. Of course he will have to be accompanied by a unit of chaos knights. A unit of six knights led into battle by Ragnar, making the magical Nurgle number of seven, is the next project in the army. Well, the next construction project, I have a half-painted unit that I am hoping to complete in time for the next scenario.

Favoured of the Gods I : Clash of Champions

2011-01-23T11:11:00.008Z

The first scenario is a battle of around 1500 points fought on a heavily wooded 4 x 4 table, which represents a chaos forest. There should be a minimum of 8 woods, with paths (gaps) of about 6 inches between them, to allow some movement of troops. The two armies are each led by an exalted hero armed only with a hand weapon and shield, no magic items are allowed in this game, they have to be earned in battle! Additionally, troops should be marauders, warhounds and chaos warriors only, the champions do not yet have the renown to attract ogres, trolls or the like.

Searching for items. If an exalted hero enters a wood, and if there are no enemies in the wood, he can search. Toss a coin, tails means nothing is found. Heads means there is some adventure to be resolved. Roll a d6 to determine the guardian of the forest:-

troll
minotaur
chaos ogre champion
chaos ogre
chaos forsaken
the gods are kind, there is no guardian

Now the champion must fight the creature, as a challenge. The fight is concluded immediately, so if several turns of combat are required they are resolved consecutively, until one of the combatants is dead or has fled. If the champion is victorious, he can claim his prize as he loots the lair of the beast. Roll a d6 again:-

the gods are cruel, no magic items are found
Whip of Subversion
Glaive of Putrefaction
Helm of Many Eyes
Collar of Khorne
the champion is truly blessed and may choose 1 of the above items, plus he makes a roll on the Eye of the Gods table

The exalted hero can search as many forests as he is able to in the game, subject to his army surviving the battle. However, he may only claim 50 points of items maximum, once this total is reached he must join the battle at the nearest available combat. Also, each forest can only be searched once per game.

Other special rules. The exalted hero must challenge any unit champion he encounters in combat and gains an Eye of the Gods roll if he wins.

End of Game. The game ends after 8 turns, or sooner if the champion and/or his army is destroyed. Victory is determined in the usual way, with an additional 100 victory points added for each magic item claimed. Each champion should also add 10 victory points for each unsaved wound they cause in the game. Once the victory points are added up, the champion's fate is decided.

If the scores are within 100 victory points, the game is a draw and both champions retire intact but with no special reward. Any items found/rewards gained are carried over to the next game.

If the difference in scores is more than 500 victory points, the loser is turned to spawn. The victor makes one roll on the Eye of the Gods table and he may choose to adjust his Eye roll by + or - 1.

If the score difference is between 100 and 500 victory points, both champions retain their magic items for the next game. Any Eye of the Gods rewards gained by the loser are removed on a roll of 1 or 2.

Chaos Warriors

2011-01-11T17:07:00.000Z

After building the chaos champion over the weekend, I wanted to finish painting his personal retinue. These warriors have been painted for several years, though originally they were garbed in a metallic armour. I have never really liked it, so decided to try black. It seems to work quite well, especially with the snow bases and dark red of the cloaks and banner. I also tidied up the horns and a few other bits here and there. In total, I spent about 3 hours updating the old paint scheme, so it feels like I have completed a regiment in just half a day. If only all my figures could be so quickly transformed.

Aspiring Champion

2011-01-08T14:44:00.000Z

A new champion emerges from the chaos wastes. No, not those chaos wastes of frozen tundra, plains of skulls and shattered mountains, but the chaotic shambles that is my pile of unpainted miniatures. Filled with resolutionary zeal (a common affliction in early January), I am keen to expand my chaos armies. This is the first of my efforts. And also my second.......but more on that in a future post. For the time being, this character will lead a small force into battle against a rival chaos aspiring champion.

The two champions will be battling through an enchanted forest, hoping to earn gifts from the gods by their prowess in battle. There will also be the opportunity to find magic armour, weapons and the like during the game. It's all part of a Clash of Champions, a linked series of scenarios currently at the planning stage. I wanted to use a model that represents an exalted hero, with some flexibility on options. At the moment, he has a sword in hand, another at his waist and a shield. This will be adaptable for future scenarios.

His army will be a personal retinue of the more common chaos denizens - marauders, hounds, warriors and maybe knights. He will begin the first game with no magic items or gifts. These will be earned/found during his battles. If he does well in battle, he may become an army standard bearer or chaos lord, or perhaps even better. If he fights badly, suffering defeat or fleeing from the fray, he may well be turned into a spawn.

It's amazing how all this geeky planning has got me fired up about my chaos army again. This character and his personal retinue of warriors are the first on my list. It's been a while since I painted chaos, but their time has come again.

End of year musing

2010-12-31T10:38:00.001Z

Another year goes by, another pile of miniatures bought, some even painted. As is traditional, I have been looking through my blog for the year, it's a useful reminder of the highs and lows of 2010. The high of the year for me has been the expansion of my painted armies, with my chaos, dwarfs and orcs and goblins armies all reaching around the 2000 point mark. Additionally, I have two 1000 point armies in wood elves and daemons, useful starting points for expansion. These are likely to be the areas that will get the most attention in 2011, though I do have plans for another army. More on that in the new year.

From a hobby perspective, I guess the year was a big one with the release of 8th edition. It certainly seemed to ruffle many a forum feather. From a personal viewpoint, it's had little effect on my collection, having always been a fan of basic core infantry. The main impact has been on my ogre-sized units, which I now collect in blocks of 4 or 6 rather than 3. Other than that, it's been business as usual for my army building exercises. In gaming terms, I think I am enjoying 8th more than 7th, the game has improved in more areas than it has declined, so on the whole I am enjoying the game.

The end of year event was fought yesterday - a 3000 point battle featuring two fully painted armies! The combined forces of chaos warriors and daemons fought against the massed infantry ranks of the Empire. It was a fine spectacle to behold, though I was unable to get any decent photos. It made me think how much more I enjoy the game when using painted figures. I did reflect on the rather haphazard nature of the growth of my chaos army, something I am hoping to address in the new year. For those who remember such things, I will be redesigning my army around the champion/retinue system. More on that in the coming months.

After a brief break from the hobby in the past couple of months, I am feeling the urge to pick up the glue and brushes again. Happy New Year indeed!

10 reasons why I might start an Ostermark army.

2010-11-26T16:14:00.001Z

When I started this blog one of the main purposes was to log my progress on my armies and painting projects. Most of my posts do just that.

Another reason for the blog was to jot down any thoughts I was having at the time. Often these thoughts will be fairly random and short-lived, but occasionally they will develop into something a bit more substantial and with the potential of actually developing into something concrete (or should that be plastic). This post is one of these, a series of ideas and musing that has developed in my head over the past few days and now I just can't seem to get rid of it. If I write it all down, I may be able to forget if for a while and come back to it later. So here are 10 reasons why I might start an Ostermark army.

1. Ostermark is a rural region in the north of the Empire, bordered to the north by Kislev. It is often subject to raids by chaos marauders and the like. Meanwhile, in the real world, I live in Cumbria, a rural county in the north of England, bordered to the north by Scotland. The lands around the border were contested by the Scots and Cumbrians for centuries (the region was known as "the Debatable Lands"), and raids by reivers were common.

2. The largest city in Cumbria is Carlisle, the Border City. It contains a fine castle and remains of a stout town wall. The wall gates were originally guarded by two huge bastions known as the Citadel. The coat of arms for the city (shown above) contains a red wyvern, which matches the red beast shown as the symbol of Ostermark (there's a picture of this in the Uniforms and Heraldry of the Empire book).

3. The colours of the state troops in Ostermark are purple/burgundy and yellow/white. This would make a striking army different to the usual red/blue garbed soldiers.

4. One famous regiment to originate in Ostermark are the Deaths Heads, masked warriors bearing halberds and wearing red and black uniforms rather then the typical purple and white. These would make an interesting modelling and painting project and add some real character to the army.

5. Life is tough in Ostermark and the locals are hardy folk, though not particularly well equipped. This suggests to me a preponderance of spearmen, archers, crossbows and hunters, rather than blackpowder armed troops. However, garrisons at the border would be well equipped, so the army would not be just a bunch of peasants and farmers! Not only would this make for a characterful army, but it just happens to match most of the figures in my current collection.

6. I often fight against chaos armies, so there is plenty of opportunity to develop a scenario based campaign around these two armies.

7. Because of the proximity of the border with chaos (Kislev) and the Vampire Counts (nearby Sylvania), there is a strong opportunity to include a witch hunter theme in some of the regiments.

8. There is a suggestion is some of the background material that ogres are quite common in Ostermark. I could include ogres as allies or unit fillers.

9. Similarly, there is a suggestion that dwarf slayers often roam into Ostermark from nearby Karak Kadrin, obviously seeking out undead or chaos monsters to slay. One of my other armies is dwarfs, which desperately need some shaven-headed berserk troops.

10. There is a long-term project that could develop, incorporating units from both Ostermark and Ostland, probably my two favourite Empire provinces.

Now that I have that off my chest, perhaps I can get back to real painting instead of head in the clouds dreaming!

Christmas is Coming!

2010-11-11T15:41:00.000Z

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please don't step on the frog, or something like that, I never was one for carols.

This little chap represents a big part in my warhammer world. He's the toad from the Talisman board game. It was the first game I ever bought from Games Workshop, back in the 1980's. Me and my brothers and friends would play for hours, first with the original set and then later with all the expansions added on. Good times.

Eventually I progressed into other boardgames such as Heroquest and from there it was perhaps inevitable that I would take up Warhammer. Once the switch was made from boardgame to wargame, my old set of Talisman languished in the cupboard for many years. A few years ago I was surprised at how valuable they were to collectors and sold it on ebay, making a tidy sum, though with a hint of regret.

Recently, the game was re-released by the Black Library and I bought it in a nostalgic moment.The game was subsequently taken on by Fantasy Flight games, who have released a number of expansions. And that's where this little chap comes in. He is part of the FFG version of the game, which includes plastic figures rather than cardboard pieces. I painted him up very quickly and will eventually get round to all the characters.

How does this relate to Christmas? It's the one time of the year I can persuade my rapidly growing teenagers to gather round the table for a board game, and Talisman is the one we always seem to come back to (that and Cluedo). So this year I am hoping to surprise my family with these new additions to the game. It's become as much a part of Christmas as turkey, tinsel and TV!

Arcane Ruins

2010-11-10T13:53:00.000Z

I am slowly building up my terrain collection, with this set of arcane ruins the latest addition. As you can see, I have mounted it on the base piece that comes with the Citadel Wood. One of the trees is currently sat in a swamp, the other two are still be used in other projects I have in mind.

The remainder of the ruins set I will use as an altar with a removable monolith, hopefully this will give me some variety/choice.

The painting is mostly washes and glazes over a light grey colour, with little bits of drybrushing here and there. The ground is covered with woodland scenics flock and foliage. This was done to tie it into the bases of my daemon army, after all it's quite likely that they would be attracted to magic infused places like this one.

Pink Horrors

2010-10-19T16:23:00.000+01:00

I picked up a dozen pink horrors recently on ebay, but when they arrived I realised that some of the metal arms were missing. A quick search in my pile of unpainted figures and I found some ghoul arms. I also added some twisted tree roots from the wood elf sprues. I like the slightly more mutated result on a few of the models.

I don't know if 12 is a good number for a unit of horrors, it just happened to be the number I had available. I do have another 10 that I painted some years ago, which I might add to this unit. But I think first I should try them out in two smaller units and see how they get on.

It's interesting to see the difference in painting styles of the two units. The older unit I painted by layering and blending. It gives a very smooth look, but is quite time consuming. The newer unit was speed painted, mostly glazing and stippling in quite a loose manner. It's difficult to compare the two because of the different colours, but I definitely like the time savings involved in my current technique. It allows me to paint more models!

Dragon Ogre Shaggoth

2010-10-08T17:39:00.000+01:00

A bit of a contrast from the teeny tiny nurglings of the previous post, this shaggoth is a model that I have had "in progress" for a long while. For several years I have had the old dragon rear half and the body of a minotaur lord glued together. It's only in the past month that I finally picked up the gauntlet, adding the chaos spawn smaller arms and the bloodthirster head to complete the model (well, some fairly rudimentary greenstuff work was required too). I like the dynamic, aggressive pose that results from all those chunks of metal.

When it came to the colours, I was initially tempted to paint a dark colour scheme, possibly even a black hide. But I decided that it was a chance to add some colour to a mostly metallic army, so I went for this green hide instead. I think it works reasonably well with the flesh tones, though I can't help thinking that a dark red might have been a better choice. Then again, the splashes of red gore on the model stand out more against the green scales. I guess I am undecided!

Now that I have finished this brute, I am keen to paint up some more chaos units to add to the Warriors of Chaos army. I have some marauder horse that have been assembled but unpainted for around two years, so I should really get those done. I also have a fair few marauders that I would like to try out some ideas on, which would add some numbers to the army. But possibly most tempting of all are some lovely old metal ogres that I have patiently collected from ebay. Which should I choose?

Cute nurglings

2010-09-27T21:07:00.001+01:00

The daemon army has come to a minor halt this last couple of weeks as I turn my attentions to a couple of other projects. However, I am determined to add at least one regiment per month. For this particular month I can smugly claim to have two regiments.

Nurglings are pretty easy to paint up, so adding six bases to the army and calling them two regiments is maybe a bit of a cheat. But I do actually intend to use both regiments. They scout, so can take up advanced positions in deployment and hopefully threaten artillery, small units of shooters, enemy scouts and the like. Daemon armies seem very fragile to my eye (though I have never actually fought with or against them as yet), so I am a bit obsessed about countering artillery and shooting.

Keen eyed observers will have noticed that these little bands of mischief makers contain a few surprises, in that some of the models are not nurglings. A quick scrabble through my bitz box and I found a few old familiars that helped to add a little variety to the mix.

She Who Must Be Obeyed

2010-09-21T20:25:00.000+01:00

Here's something you don't see very often; an old Warzone figure I picked up from a sale bin about ten years ago. I knew it would be useful at some stage. I chopped off it's rather clunky arm and replaced it with a plastic daemonette claw, trimmed down the badly sculpted loin cloth to a more fashionable mini skirt and painted it up to match the daemonettes. It's stood on a 25mm base to act as a herald in that unit, though it's not a very good fit, all those arms/claws get in the way.

My time on the army has been limited in the past few weeks, though I have also managed to churn out a few nurgling bases. I will post pictures of them in the next couple of days.

Handmaidens of Slaanesh

2010-08-17T16:12:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, I seem to have started another army. But wait, this is one army that I really think I can finish in a matter of months rather than years. Daemons are high points cost, so the number of models per army is low, typically well below 100 for an army of 2000 points. So that's one reason. I also have the models already, so I won't have to hunt round for bargains. But the main reason is that these are some of the few models my wife actually likes and she said that if she could ever be persuaded to play, it would have to be these models. And as we all know, "yes dear" solves 90% of all problems so daemons it is, for the next few months at any rate.

This unit of 18 daemonettes will be added to 10 horrors, 5 screamers and a Tzeentch herald I already have painted from a few years back. That's over 500 points to get me well on the way. I will probably concentrate on the Slaanesh regiments to start with, to get some smaller games started with my new pupil. Ultimately I would like to use the army myself and would like it to contain one core unit from each of the deities, but that's not a short term prospect. For the time being, it will be mostly Slaanesh, with a reasonable slice of Tzeentch and a smattering of the other two.

First game with 8th edition (finally)

2010-07-31T14:35:00.001+01:00

It seems a long time since 8th edition hit the shelves. The pre-order countdown, the buzz on the internet, the wait for the parcel to arrive, it all built up to an exciting wait for this old nerd. But then one thing or another seemed to get in the way of actually playing the game, until last night. Finally, the moment of truth arrived, my Chaos Warriors took to the field against an Empire army. The game was a straight forward pitched battle and we left out the terrain effect charts, we were just concentrating on the rules changes. Having read quite a few forum posts about how vicious and quick the new game was, I was expecting a bloodbath.

For my army I pretty much stuck with my old style of small blocks of warriors (12 strong) and slightly larger units of marauders (18 strong), with a unit of 5 knights and 5 marauder horse and a couple of characters, one of which was a sorceror so I could try the new magic rules. My only change from 7th edition was to bump up a unit of ogres to 6 strong, to see how monstrous infantry performed. The Empire army was similarly built along fairly traditional lines, though there was a horde of 40 spearmen to contend with and a big unit of 12 knights. The rest were fairly typical blocks of 20 melee troops or 10 missile troops, with some elite/special infantry in smaller blocks.

I like the new movement phase, it's clean and easier than of old, no problems encountered. Charges are much easier to resolve, the random element can seem a nuisance but it's clear that the game is no longer about getting the charge so this turned out to be less of a concern to me than I first thought it might.

The new magic phase is a blast (ha ha). The random winds of magic, the casting restrictions (or lack of), it just seemed more exciting. We both managed to get off a handful of spells, but none caused massive casualties, even the much feared Infernal Gateway was not devestating. We both threw plenty of dice to cast, but not one irresistible force came up.

Shooting had a bigger impact, artillery are obviously much improved without having to guess ranges. I was certainly glad that my marauder horse were able to take out the cannon after it's first shot blew away 2 ogres and a chaos knight. Anti-artillery measure will definitely be uppermost in my mind when I make future lists.

Combat was more involved. I like the fact that the whole unit gets involved in rolling some dice, not just standing at the back of the unit to make up the rank bonus. In one combat between 40 spearmen and 18 marauders with flails, there were half a dozen casualties each side, but most of the other combats were much like 7th edition in style, with just 1 or 2 per side. This might have been down to the heavy armour saves of the chaos warriors of Tzeentch and the Empire knights, so more games will be needed before I can say too much here, but it felt reasonably balanced to me. I was pleased that my chaos knights still managed to carve a fairly bloody trail through the enemy, just at a slightly slower pace maybe than of old.

I really enjoyed the game, the rules seem well laid out and pretty logical, with less "fiddling" and guessing in game. The changes it will cause to my armies are minimal, though I have always collected infantry blocks as the core of my armies, with cavalry, shooting and magic as support elements, so maybe it's just a case of the current game designers having a similar mindset to my own. I can't wait to get more games in, trying out my other armies and moving on to the scenarios in the back of the book. I am one excited old nerd!

One last thing, this is the 100th post of the blog, so it seems fitting that it should be about the new version of the game I have played for nearly twenty years. It's certainly feels like the dawn of a new era. I have lots of ideas floating around in my head, on what to add to existing armies, starting new armies, getting my terrain collection painted up, etc. so there's plenty to do. Enough perhaps for another 100 posts......

High elf archers

2010-07-20T15:08:00.000+01:00

A blast from the past! These archers are the first Warhammer models I bought, way back in 1992 or 1993. They are the single pose plastic models that were included in the Warhammer fourth edition box set, which was the first time GW released the game as a starter set with miniatures, rule book, etc. Since then, the game has gone through several versions, with the most recent being 8th edition of course, currently available in rule book only. There will be a starter set released later in the year and it's been confirmed that the two armies will be Skaven and High Elves.

In the nearly twenty years that I have been playing the game, I have collected a lot of armies. Starting with these elves, I moved on to Undead (as they were in the 1990's, none of the distinction back then between Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts, mummies and zombies happily shuffling along together). Then came Chaos, several of these in fact, including a chaos dwarf army. After about 10 years, I stopped gaming and sold off or shelved my many armies. But the High Elf army, my first ever Warhammer purchase, I kept.

Recent whispers and pictures of the upcoming starter set, along with the GW announcement that High Elves will be getting more models in the autumn, has got me excited about them once more. I am seriously considering them as my next army. I have a fair amount already painted, some of which I could easily update to fit in with my current style. The time seems right for the Glittering Host to take to the field once more.

Trolls

2010-07-09T13:52:00.001+01:00

A trio of trolls added to the army. The centre one is possibly the most numerous troll in existence, being part of the Skull Pass boxset, but the other two are a bit less frequently seen, being Reaper models. They have been painted in fairly sombre colours, I wanted to play down the more comic aspect often portrayed in trolls.

In gaming terms I have fielded them as common trolls in this unit of three, generally they are good against knights and smaller units. They give me some speed and hitting power (stupidity allowing), which is quite handy in my infantry heavy army.

Next to be painted? I do have three more trolls which I have spent several weeks patiently sifting through ebay to acquire. These new models are earmarked as stone trolls, but I could also field them in 8th as one large unit of 6 trolls, which by all accounts will be quite powerful in combat. I also have a giant, artillery and many more infantry waiting for some brush attention. And I got a set of the new boar boyz which I will probably allocate to a couple of chariots. While I make up my mind, I have switched back to 40k for a brief interlude, though still green skinned.

Spear Chukkas

2010-06-18T14:03:00.000+01:00

I completed painting the two spear chukkas over the past few days. The chukkas themselves I cannot remember where they came from, even if they are orc and goblin models, but they sure look like it. If not then they have obviously been looted from a defeated foe. The crew are a variety of old models, while the orc bully is made from plastic bits.

A pair of chukkas can often cause the enemy problems, especially if I place them on the flanks. Though they are not the best marksmen, there's usually a 1 in 3 chance of hitting the target, so they can be very effective, especially if they manage to take out heavily armoured units like knights. The enemy have to come out to deal with them, so at just 40 points per chukka they are a real steal and are always my first special choice. Having said that in the last game they did absolutely nothing, not helped by their crews rushing forwards under the influence of a first turn Waaargh spell!

The second chukka crew is made up from plastics bits from the goblin sprues. Notice that two of them are having a squabble so the bully is rushing over to sort them out. He's getting on a bit so uses an iron bar as a walking stick. I did wonder if I should embellish it with a severed goblin head, just to "show them snotty little crew wot 'appens if they muck about."

Orcs sack Averheim!

2010-06-14T09:25:00.000+01:00

I took the newly painted orc unit along to a campaign game last night. The Empire troops were manning the barricades in the hastily fortified village of Averheim, while the orcs streamed on from two sides to sack and pillage. The orc boyz got a lucky 6 roll for animosity and stormed forward, almost to the barricades. The Empire general sent his army champion (standard bearer) with a unit of halberdiers to counter the threat. The orc boyz stood up to this charge and hacked down a few humans in return, winning the combat and sending the humans racing back in to the village square to "regroup". The orcs then quickly despatched a detachment of militia before slamming into the flank of a unit of swordsmen. Freshly painted and in the thick of the action, a gaming geek's dream.

Things were going quite smoothly for the rest of the army too. A unit of spider riders managed to disable a hellblaster before being hacked down by a unit of greatswords, a worthwhile exchange. A large unit of night goblins were in a grinding combat with a unit of flagellents, trolls were almost at the main gate of the village, while a unit of black orcs (with the help of the general's Waargh) had managed to charge a unit of Empire knights. The one minor setback was the giant stumbling as he tried to cross the fences, he would have to spend a turn getting up again and then try to cross the barrier again.

Empire relief forces turned up but were hampered by night goblin fanatics or charged by rampaging black orcs, leaving the dwindling forces in the villages to fight on. A minor victory was scored by the Empire as they sent the trolls fleeing from the main gate, strength in numbers winning the combat. The orc boyz were charged in the flank by a unit of greatswords and it seemed that the balance of the game was going to swing back to the humans. Four hits were scored but incredibly four 1's turned up on the to wound rolls! Just like a White Dwarf report. Even so, it was still a desperate moment as the boyz needed a 4 to stay in the game - yep, the second amazing roll turned up trumps for the greenskins. They had survived the Empire counter attack and could now hack down swordsmen to the front and greatswords to the flank. When the giant finally managed to negotiate the fence and charged in to help, the casualty toll was too high for the Empire and they fled.

The newly painted orcs suffered more than 50% casualties but racked up an impressive tally - the halberdiers' standard, a unit of militia, a unit of greatswords and a unit of swordsmen (with the help of a giant). What a debut, one that will be hard to beat. On my painting table at the moment is a couple of spear chukkas, then I will have to paint up some trolls and the giant. I was hoping to have them ready for the climax of the campaign, a siege at the Gates of Nuln, but I won't have the time for that. Still, I will try to remember to take my camera along for a final report.

Da orcs are here!

2010-06-10T14:56:00.000+01:00

The Waaaargh gathers momentum, in the shape of 25 boyz with extra choppas. This unit can be quite useful in games, especially when led by a black orc who quells animosity and adds considerable punch (and I have a very nice model lined up for this role). In 8th edition I expect this unit to be even better, if it's true about both front ranks fighting the unit will be pumping out 20+ attacks. Not too shabby, especially in the first round when the choppas rule gives them additional strength.

In terms of the painting they were very straight forward and I spent little time on them. There are some slight variations in the skin tones, which I figured would add a little much-needed variety to a unit that is mostly wearing brown clothing. The banner design is very simple but the bold colours really pop out against the drab tones.

I have also finished painting an orc shamen (left). The one on the right is a Rackham Confrontation figure which I painted a few years ago. I think of him as a savage orc, both in appearance and in the difference in skin tone (there's no particular reason why bright green = savage, it just seems fitting in my mind). I need to repaint the base edge, just realised it's brown rather than black. I have some other non-GW figures to use as savage orcs, but they will take me some time to complete so are on the back burner for a while. Next on the list are trolls and a giant. That will add another 300 points or so to the army, my ambition to have 2000 points fully painted for the launch of 8th edition is looking good.

One minor problem I have is with the new boar boyz. They are so much nicer then the old plastic boars that I am really tempted to bin my exisiting unit and get a box or three of the new plastics (for a unit of 10, steeds for 2 chariots and a character mount). The leftover boyz could be incorporated into a unit of biguns, which I have been pondering for a while. If I get that little lot painted up I reckon I would be closer to 3000 points. Not bad for an army that started life as a change of pace from my dwarfs!

Black Orcs

2010-05-25T19:58:00.000+01:00

I am going through a Magnus Magnusson phase. He was the question master on the TV show Mastermind and if the end of round bleep sounded while he was in mid sentence of a question, he would say "I've started so I'll finish." This unit has been partially painted for a long time and is the first of a few I have in mind to finish prior to the release of 8th edition.

One thing I was particularly pleased about was the banner. I am usually very hesitant to paint freehand as I'm not particularly proficient. An orc design is about as basic as there can be so it's not a huge achievement, but it does look good in the unit. The horns of the skull I added to mirror the helmets of the boyz. Next on the Magnus list is a bigger unit of orc boyz, some of which isn't even primed yet, so plenty of work involved. I also have a couple of characters that are half painted, so lots more greenskins on the way.

Treeman

2010-05-14T16:02:00.001+01:00

The elves finally get some serious hitting power. I cannot imagine a wood elf army without a treeman, he's an iconic element of the game. However, I was never a fan of the current model, I much preferred the Treebeard look from the Lord of the Rings range. I could have bought the model and used that, but I already had an old style treeman and decided to use that as a starting point. There's a thread on the Warhammer Forum showing in detail how I made the conversion.

I will be taking a short break from the elves. I don't want to spend too much time building new units until I have a better idea of the implications of 8th edition. The forest sleeps for a few months!

Next on my agenda is some greenskins, I have a couple of units that are half-painted that I would really like to complete before the new game is bought. I am also about half way through a mini campaign featuring the greenskins against the Empire, so it makes sense to get out the green paints.

Space Wolves on my mind

2010-04-28T09:55:00.002+01:00

I'm feeling a bit confused about what to paint for myself next! Having painted elves for the past few months, plus a few goblins, I realised I was meandering through my fantasy armies. I think this is because I don't want to commit too much time to armies that I might have to alter when the new edition arrives. I don't really think this is the case, I suspect most of my armies will just carry on in the next version much as they do in the current one. But it seems to be a psychological block to starting something new. Which is why (as discussed in my previous post) I was intending to finish off a few units that I have already partially painted, or just assembled and never even primed. No new builds was my mantra, certainly no new purchases.

But then I started work on a commission, painting some Space Wolves. The new plastic kits are really nice work. I can see there's a lot of potential for some characterful marine builds. I have never really been a big fan of marines, not the models, not the background, they just seem a bit dull to me. The Space Wolves are the one exception, because their heads are visible it's far easier to get some expression, some feeling out of each model. There's just one problem for me - duck egg blue! Is there anything less vikingesque than pale blue armour? It's just so pastel, so 1980's, so girly. Hence the attempt above (using the rather spiffy Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine Painter). It looks very plain, but of course there would be wolf skins, skulls, runes, etc. added to the model. Perhaps I should dig out a marine from my old Macragge set, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Chaos army

2010-04-23T18:12:00.001+01:00

Some time ago I promised to upload better pictures of my chaos army, so here we are. I made good progress on the army at first, painting these warriors, some marauders, hounds, a spawn and a character or two. But then I put it to one side to paint orks.

With the upcoming release of the new version of Warhammer Fantasy I am pondering what to paint next. I would really like to celebrate buying the new book by fielding a completely painted 2k army. The elves are leaving me a bit cold at the moment, so I need to take a rest from them. I have recently played my orcs and goblins a few times, and have a regiment of black orcs about 90% completed. But still I would have to add quite a few more models to reach the 2k mark. The dwarfs are probably the easiest, strictly speaking I have enough now, but it's not the army composition I would normally use. A regiment and a war machine would be an easy target.

Finally, there's the chaos army. High points cost means low model count, the last time I looked at my list I think I needed just a couple of mounted regiments to get me to the 1.5k mark, so it wouldn't take much more effort from there. In fact, I did paint up an unmarked regiment of chaos warriors a few years ago, I could touch them up and re-base them quite easily. Something for the weekend then, play around with a few lists to see which I fancy painting the most.

Easter Boardom

2010-04-03T20:27:00.001+01:00

What can you do in a rainy long weekend? It's Easter, so there's not much on TV (hundreds of adverts for chocolate, films like the Sound of Music, and the interminably dull Grand Prix). Plenty of time for hobby then, so I thought I would finally take the plunge and paint up my gameboard.

I bought it last year and sprayed it black in the garden one fine sunny day in October. Then the worst winter for 50 years happened and I have been waiting for fine weather ever since, thinking I would take it into the garage to minimise any mess. But still, the weather is cold and wintry, so I have decided to tackle it indoors.

The first thing I did was the rocky outcrops, painting them grey and then a creamy highlight, then finishing them with some brown tinted antique washes. I'm using some cheap and cheerful art paints I picked up in a DIY shop bin end sale. The effect is really quite nice.

Then the bit I had been most perplexed about, the grass and earth bits. I bought some Woodland Scenics Earth pigment to use as a base colour, but it's really disappointing and does not cover the black very well. Once it was on I scattered on Woodland Scenics turf, in various colours. I was then hoping to spray it with some diluted pva glue and water mix, but that didn't really work either. So the scatter is still very loose. The photo shows some patches that I missed, these are showing as black.

This was a test run, I need to make some changes for the other tiles. The black needs to be fully covered with the antique washes, these go on very quickly and finish to a nice opaque finish. Then I will simply dab on pva glue, scatter the turf and allow to dry overnight. Then I will seal with diluted pva using a decorating paint brush for speed. With a little luck it will be finished over the Easter break, now that I know what I am doing.

Killer Frogs!

2010-03-22T16:51:00.000Z

Spring has finally sprung here in the north of the UK. The frogs in the garden pond have been spawning day and night for about a week, I guess all that waiting for milder weather made them extra keen! I could see them from the kitchen window, hopping down the garden path to the pond, and the idea came to me to paint the squigs like frogs. With extra teeth, claws and horns of course.

The large squig is from the Skarsnik set. I still have the special character model somewhere, to paint up at a later date and add to the base here, as the herder on the rock is magnetised. So at a future date I can field Skarsnik and his pet giant squig, or I can field the goblin model stand alone as a goblin shaman.

There's a rumour circulating that plastic squig herds are on the way, possibly as early as this summer. If that's true and the models are nice enough (and reasonably priced enough) to buy, I can expand this unit or even start a new unit. Mixing the older and newer models in a unit such as this seems to reinforce the chaotic nature of the herd. Or it might be posssible to take the new plastics and convert them to squig hoppers. We'll just have to wait and see.

Boar Boyz

2010-03-12T10:30:00.000Z

After fielding the orcs and goblins in a recent game, I realised that I had never got round to assembling boar boyz. I picked up some metal figures on ebay maybe a year ago, which I stripped this week. Add in a few plastic bits and the job was easier than I expected - I spent just a couple of hours bashing these together. Not sure why I waited so long, I guess there's always something else to spend hobby time on. I love the guy with the banner, with his hook for a hand. The boss has a trophy rack, just in case you are trying to make out the silver blob in the centre of the picture!

Mad as a March Hare

2010-03-10T09:52:00.000Z

I made a pledge to myself earlier in the year that I would stop buying stuff and try to make an impression on the piles of soldiers I already have. For a couple of months I held steady, but then GW released pictures of the Ork killa kans and I knew I would have to have them. But, I reassured myself, I can have them for my birthday later in the year, so that doesn't count, so I have stuck to my pledge.

Then I made the mistake of browsing ebay. I spotted some lovely old ogre models that I have always liked and managed to snap them up. They have already been stripped and will most likely be allocated a place in the Chaos army, with maybe a couple of them making it to my Ogre Kingdoms army as maneaters. I convinced myself that this wasn't too bad of a slip, because I picked them up quite cheaply and they will be used in two armies.

Then I made my second mistake. Though most of my collection is GW, I periodically take a look around all the mini manufacturer sites, just to see what else is going on. And I spotted something I really like. I never thought I would go for this particular thing, but they were just so nice. An idea started to form in my head. I would need a few extra bits, which I will have to pick up from ebay, but it should allow me to collect (yet another) army at a fairly low cost. I won't say what it is yet, just in case I come to my senses and abandon the project.

I suppose after nearly twenty years of collecting, selling off, then re-collecting armies, I should have known better. But then, Monogarmy has never appealed to me!

Springing Forwards Again

2010-03-07T20:27:00.000Z

Another unit of glade guard added to the wood elf army. And I think I can use the term army now, it's starting to shape up quite nicely. At the moment, it comprises 2 units each of glade guard and wardancers, a unit apiece of dryads and waywatchers/scouts and a single character in the spellsinger. That's about 750 points I reckon.

Next to be painted will be 2 more units of dryads and a treeman. That will bump up the value considerably. After that, I have to decide if I want to add glade riders or convert them to wildriders. Add in another couple of characters and maybe one more unit of glade guard and the army will be complete.

First game with the Wood Elves

2010-02-26T09:24:00.001Z

I played my first game with the wood elves last night, a 2k pitched battle against their arch enemies, the beastmen. I was a bit apprehensive about the army, it looked very small and weak compared to the big blocks of muscle and horn across the table. Things started quite badly with some abysmal dice in the shooting phase - 30 Glade Guard shots and just 4 chaos hounds dead. The next turn was similarly disappointing, my dice really letting me down - even the Hail of Doom Arrow failed to cause a single wound. I was starting to think that my pre-game thoughts on the power of shooting (or lack of) would turn out to be true.

By turn 3 combat had started. Dryads were torn apart by minotaurs, but the doombull failed to make an impact on the wardancers thanks to their shadows coil dance. A second wardancer troupe led by a noble leapt in and sliced the mighty beast to pieces. The wardancers went on to rashly charge a full unit of bestigors in the front, thinking it was suicide, but caused massive casualties and eventually defeated them, with a little help from some dryads.

Towards the end of the game the one surviving unit of glade guard finally found their aim, felling a giant and a tuskgor chariot. There were quite a few dead elves around, but even more beasts. A solid victory for the wood elves in their first outing.

Looking back at the game, I played the elves reasonably well but was far too cautious. My treeman ancient spent most of the game hiding in a wood, worried about bestigor axes. The wild riders defeated a tuskgor chariot but then were defeated by a unit of bestigor, even though they managed to get the flank charge. I learned some lessons for my next game, was pleased with their debut but doubt they would have such an easy ride next time.

I'm still puzzled by the beastmen. The lack of skirmish troops really hurt them in this game, it was reasonably straight forward to neutralise the slow blocks, deal with the fast troops, then turn back to pick off the infantry units at leisure. Maybe I'm missing something, but they still look poor at the moment.

Ork Warboss reboot

2010-02-25T16:30:00.000Z

Just a quick update. Most of my painting time at the moment is going into the elf army, but I did recently finish the ork warboss and took some decent photos. There are still a few rough bits here but he will probably stay in this form for a good while. Of course, just as he was finished I discovered the benefits of using a Big Mek so he's not actually seen action yet!

A rustle in the forest

2010-02-13T17:03:00.001Z

I forced myself to slog on with the wood elf army and managed to paint 6 more wardancers. Compared to previous efforts on the army, it seems quite paltry, but I'm pleased with this effort. Why? Because my enthusiasm for the wood elves has waned as I switch most of my efforts to the ork army, the very fact that I could temporarily divert to crank these out is a good sign. The last time I put the orks to one side, for example, it was over a year before I came back to them! I am determined not to make that mistake again with the wood elf army, so while 6 wardancers seems like a drop in the ocean, it does spur me on. Little acorns and all that......

The other rustle in the forest was made this week by my first encounter with the new beastmen army. My regular opponent has collected and played beasts since we first gamed together, so I was looking forward to seeing how his army got on with the new rules. First thing I noticed was that it had shrank......his 2000 point force seemed considerably smaller than previous armies. It seems that most units have experienced a points raise, especially the characters. Next thing I noticed was that they were all huddled together in more compact units, not running wild and free (i.e. skirmishing) like the old army. Some units can still ambush, though in a slightly different fashion to the previous version.

After the game, against my "weakest" fantasy army of Ogre Kingdoms, we decided it was roughly a draw and discussed the changes to the beastmen list. In summary, they have become less manouverable, remained about the same in shooting capability (that's virtually none still then), have possibly gained a little in combat effectiveness, lost considerably in magic due to their magic users being far more expensive and with more expensive casting rolls, suffered a little in psychology as base leadership of leaders is lower, seen a price rise on most units and ......well we had to stop and sob into our hands at this point.

Of course, it's quite ridiculous to make a sensible judgement based on one game and we have not given up hope just yet. The beastmen still have to face my dwarfs, my high elves and my upcoming wood elves, not to mention the chaos army, after which we will have a better idea, though I shudder to think how they will cope with these more effective armies. Unless we are missing something, it does seem that the book was thrown together with little thought to effectiveness or even background. Perhaps the upcoming 8th edition will address some of these concerns, but if they do then I think we can look forward to some fairly radical changes to the way the game plays!

Anyway, let's end the post on a diffferent note. A dozen brightly garbed elves leaping for joy at the castration of their enemies (oops, sorry beastmen players).

Even more gubbinz

2010-02-07T16:32:00.000Z

"Err boss, I fink I we is goin da wrong way." That's what the little grot is probably shouting.

After playing for about a year with basically a chimera minus the turret, I got my act together and bashed together this looted wagon. My original idea was to make it magnetised, allowing me to swap options, but as it took me this long to get this far I decided to just glue it all together and hope for the best. It's got a nice mix of ramshackle and solid, slightly more robust than a trukk.

The skorcha is something that I haven't really used much, but I just love the little grot in the turret so decided it was a must. The passengers will usually be burna boyz, so there's going to be some serious pyrotechnics involved.