Black Orcs

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

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

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

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

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!

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.