Urbad Vagrant Oghurithne

It's been a lean month for painting, but finally I have something to post. It's Urbad Vagrant Oghurithne by Mierce Miniatures, part of their Darklands range. I picked this up as part of their kickstarter earlier in the year, the best kickstarter experience I have had. The models turned up within three months of the end of the project, with no delay, no problems, no customs hassles (but that's a different story for a different day).

The figure was part of a big package of goodies that is still waiting for my attention. I will probably get to use some of the models in my chaos army, but I just fancied painting something non-wargaming related for a change of pace. I noticed that WAMP were running an online painting competition, so I went for this guy instead. I spent a bit of extra time on the base and face in particular, the latter I wanted to portray an older look, hence the grey washes and the age dots on his head.

I will be writing a review of some of the other figures included in the kickstarter at a later date, hopefully sooner rather than later. The short version is - they are superb models, top quality casts and lovely sculpts and they come highly recommended. Hopefully I will be able to squeeze some more in before long.

Avatars of War offers

It seems that Avatars of War are switching from resin/restic to injection plastic moulded figures. They recently introduced plastic Dwarf rangers to their product range and kicked off with a special offer of a promotional figure and a discount on the first 200 boxes. Now they are making a similar offer on dwarf gunners and warriors of apocalypse corrupters. There's also a new metal figure release too. Full details on the Avatars of War facebook page.

I was a big fan of Avatars of War, I bought and painted up their plastic dwarf berserkers (shown here) and have several of the metal figures in various armies. I pledged to their indiegogo campaign too, though only in a small way - the army standard bearer. But that's when things started to sour a little, as delays and lack of updates plagued the project. Reading between the lines, I guess they had some real production problems casting up their sets in the new wonder material, plastic resin, which was obviously cheaper to start up with than plastic injection moulding, but has cost them many problems in the longer term.

I much prefer plastic to restic, so am tempted by these new boxsets, but find myself with a little dilemma. I don't play warhammer much these days, but these figures are really nice. Should I buy them and hope that I can resurrect my interest in the game (or find a decent alternative), or should I continue to explore new gaming systems like Saga, Lord of the Rings, et al? I prefer other gaming systems to warhammer, but I still love the fantasy genre minis best of all and get most enjoyment out of painting them.

The Russian Alternative Miniatures

I am always on the look out for alternative minis for my Warhammer collection, the official figures are increasingly out of my price range and lacking in the detail and aesthetic that others can provide. A good example is this very striking vampire lord from The Russian Alternative ebay store. It's a lovely looking figure, with detachable wings and an alternative head. The price is a very reasonable $12.50, which at current exchange rates is about £8. Shipping adds a further $7, so a total price of around £12 for UK customers. That's comparable with most of the quality ranges these days, which in my book contains Avatars of War, Mierce Miniatures, some GW stuff (if you can find the old metal figures) and some of the more exclusive boutique figures like Enigma and Studio McVey.

There is the option to buy several figures from the ebay store and thus save on postage. I was impressed by most of the range, but these other two sculpts caught my eye. The chaos figure would perhaps give me the impetus to finally bring my years-old Tzeentch warrior collection into line with my more recent warriors force - rebasing would be required but I am considering doing this anyway. The dwarf would be purely a painting project, I have not played the dwarf army for about two years.

All images are used without permission, but I hope the owner does not mind (in the highly unlikely event that he knows about my blog)!

Mordor Orc Banner

I have a real mental block when it comes to banners. My freehand skills leave a lot to be desired, so I nearly always put off finishing them. This orc has been standing around on my painting to do list for about six months. I finally plucked up the courage today, googled a few designs, adpated one and took the plunge. It turned out okay in the end, but I still feel pretty inadequate in this area.

The good thing is that I can now cross another item off my 2013 painted list - it's over on the left of the screen if you have never noticed it before. I find keeping a list like this quite a decent motivational technique. I add an item to the list when it's prepped and primed, then cross it off when it's fully finished and photographed. In theory, the shame of having several half-finished items on the list forces me to complete them. And it works too, I hate seeing something lingering on the list for too long. I have got steadily better in the past three years at finishing half-painted items.

Fly My Pretties

Here's the next job for the Vampire Counts army - a unit of fell bats and a female vampire.

The bats are the Riesenfledarmaus set from masq-mini. As I mentioned in my last post, I reckon these are the best models for fell bats currently available. They are pretty accurate to life sculpts of real vampire bats, they even have the little fingers on the wings to help them cling to their prey. The poses are superb, one soaring through the sky, one coming in to land and one crawling along the ground, covering the last few yards to it's prey.

The quality of the casting was very good, there was a slight miscast on the wing of the left model, which I scraped away and then repaired with a little green stuff. There was no flash at all and almost zero mold lines, something pretty unusual on metal models. The fit of the components was very good too, there was a small gap to fill on the join between wing and body on the landing pose. All other joins were good, I have given them a coat of liquid green stuff just to be on the safe side.

The female vampire model is by Mad Puppet miniatures. Again, it's a lovely sculpt with accurate anatomical details. The quality of the casting was not quite as good as the bats - there was a good amount of flash on the sword and hand. Luckily, this is a fairly old school metal cast, in that it was quite soft and easy to scrape away with my craft knife. Mold lines were visible but very fine and easy to remove. I decided to add the flying bats at this stage, this might make painting a little more difficult but I cannot imagine how I would have painted such small bits separately. Again, it was not really necessary but I gave a few areas a wash of liquid green stuff to cover any joins and flaws.

Watch the skies!

I have finally found some fell bats to include in the Vampire Counts army. The stock models are far too comical for my taste so I have been looking around for some time for alternatives. A lot of gamers convert ghouls or daemonettes - add a pair of plastic wings and the result is a decent enough model. For me, these conversions are more batman (or batwoman), but I very nearly went down this route. The problem is, I want to use the "batperson" concept for my vargheists, so having two similar looking sets of models for two different units was always going to be confusing. Happily, I have found the solution in the sales section of the Warhammer Forum and am busily assembling my new unit. I will get into the details in a future post, for now I am thinking aloud about colours for my new unit.

As most of you probably know by now, I am a big fan of natural, muted colour schemes, even in my fantasy armies. I have been looking around for inspiration and I think I have settled on something like this little chap. A brown furry body and grey wings with fleshy arms, ears and face, not quite as dull as this picture. Some scenic elements on the base will also add interest. Notice that the wings have blood vessels and veins running through them. Something like that would add interest to the scheme, but it could be hard to pull off in a convincing fashion. Still, there's little else to complicate the painting so I will probably give it a go.

While I was searching I came across a lot of cartoon and anime illustrations, which are not really my cup of tea but can be useful sometimes for palette inspiration. This is a case in point. It just so happens that I am also prepping a vampire character to temporarily lead my army. I have a trio of ladies lined up and had decided a while back to paint them in different schemes - a red, a black and a white. This deep red will do nicely I think.