Valkyries done

I managed to paint up the valkyries in two evenings.

They were nice sculpts to paint. I used a similar palette to that I used for the dwarves and Thor, and gave them raven wings instead of swan wings. The one with the braids *had* to be a blonde, and the other one became a redhead because we all know pre-Raphaelite women are all redheads. They have blue and green eyes respectively - not that you can tell at this scale... . Curiously, while they don't seem to have a need for warm clothing, they are wearing furred boots. Or maybe the boots are what's keeping them warm.

A rear shot showing the wing details and the gemming on the sword.

Finally, here's a shot showing the runic bases from Fantascape. I guess I should paint the sides of the base brown to match the rest of the force.

Valkyries

L to R: GW LOTR, Celtos, Red Box, Celtos, Reaper.

It took me a while to decide if I wanted valkyries in my Norse Dwarf warband, but once I decided, the choice of which ones exactly to buy was simple.

The two valkyrie figures above are Celtos Vanir (dwarf) figures (shown here without their wings), which happily match the rest of my dwarves. They do look rather sexist in their scale-mail one-piece, but then the whole concept of valkyries is just high school boys' fantasy, if Vikings had high schools... . Like their god Thor, they are based on Fantascape resin bases.

A little plug for Roy of Fantascape: the bases are well-cast with almost no defect (only one bubble on one of the bases), and they sit flat - I do hate resin bases that wobble because of an uneven bottom.

Roy also makes an Egyptian range of bases, which I bought a couple packs of because they look so good (and so I can have an excuse to start an Egyptian faction later...), so if you are planning an OGAM warband it's worth heading over for a look.

Lledo Days Gone vehicles

I bought these two Lledo Days Gone horse-drawn vehicles from ebay for our Victorian games.

I broke the hitch on the M&S wagon off while trying to pry the horses off..

As you can see, the vehicles themselves are about the right size, but the draught horses look more like ponies.

Curiously, while they used the same horse models for both wagons, the drivers came in different scales! The driver for the Fuller's wagon is about the right scale, but the M&S one has to go. Sadly, my Clydesdale seems too big for them. I need some horses which are in between these two in size.

The artwork on the wagons are probably wrong for the period, but I don't think I will repaint them seeing how nice they look. I particularly like the beer wagon, and can see it being a scenario objective in our games...

Veteran Beastmen or Tharn Ravager Whitemanes

I like my beastmen.

They are a sort of an "accidental army".

I started out buying a few leader type figures just because they looked good, and then added some GW beastmen fg had lying around to build them into a couple of units for our Strandhogg games. Before too long they are slated to do triple duty as Fomorians in our planned OGAM project, as well as Tharn Ravagers in Warmachines/Hordes.

The latest addition are these two Reaper beastmen woodcutter figures with heads from GW beastmen Gor.

As you can see from the second picture, they are about the size of the GW Gors, but hairier and leaner.

The reason why I painted them with white hair on the top half of their bodies is because I wanted them to represent Tharn Ravager Whitemanes, who are veterans under the rules.

Tharn Ravager Whitemane. Picture from the-outpost.co.uk

Well, there is some resemblance...

 

I didn't want to paint them completely white because I thought they would look weird, so I googled around and found some pictures of Fannin Sheep, which have white hair on their necks and heads - the other beastmen in my army are painted like Big Horn sheep, you see.

Fannin sheep. Photo from anne_shaw.tripod.com

With two Whitemanes, I can field a "themed" force under the Hordes rules, which gives certain bonuses, which is of course all rather irrelevant at this point in time since we haven't even layed a single game. I just wanted an excuse to get the Reaper figures, really...

Handgunners

Another unit of my WOTR/Empire army done.

I really hate painting these figures with the jacks - I can never get every single rivet picked out.

Bloodletter Demon of Khorne

I bought a few Khorne Berzerkers models along with this Bloodletter Demon for the Juggernaut model it came with.

Unfortunately, when I primed them with Army Painter's spray paint the paint frosted over. I kept them in a box, until earlier this week I decided to strip the paint with Dettol (who first came up with that idea?) and re-prime them.

The frosted over again.

Dunking them back into the jar of Dettol, I tried to search for another spray red paint that would give a good result. I decided to try Tamiya, specifically their Mica Red paint.

As it happened I came across a store that sold Tamiya spray paints the next day, but they didn't have Mica Red in stock. The staff recommended Kyosho, which appears to be a parallel range.

Wary of trying them on my Berzerkers again, I picked instead the Bloodletter Demon.

The paint gives a semi-gloss, sparkly, dark red, which looks good on a car, but I am not too sure I want for my Berzerkers. You can see the paint on the sword held by the demon.

Anyway, this has convinced me to go the traditional way of priming my Berzerkers back and then painting them red "from the ground up". Might be a while before that happens though...

Donald Featherstone, 1918 ~ 2013

One of the most cherished books in my wargaming collection is Donald Featherstone's "Featherstone's Complete Wargaming".

It was given to me by my friends who visited England more than 20 years ago. Back then the book cost quite a bit for us students, so it was all the more appreciated.

Years later, shortly after the Don had suffered a heart attack, another friend visited England and we sent him on an embassy with a gift and our well-wishes to the Don and to let him know how his works made wargamers out of kids thousands of miles away - he replied with this message:

To the wargaming lads in Singapore,

Your wonderful gift from out of the blue and the kind thought that goes with it, have given me one of the most pleasant surprises I have ever had. It is so satisfying to find out that the mutual interest we share links us across the world and has done so for so long. 

I am getting along very well and fully expect to be around looking over you all for a long time to come.

Thank you so much for giving me so much happiness.

Yours sincerely

DON

FEATHERSTONE

Amongst wargamers of our generation who mourn him today perhaps not much needs to be said about the man and how his works influenced the hobby and us, but I do wonder when our generation has passed if anyone will remember the Don or his works. Perhaps that is not really important - as long as wargaming remains, his legacy will remain.

Crossbowmen

After a long break, I decided to start working on my Perry WOTR/Warhammer Empire figures, but met a problem with my primer.

The primer beaded on the figures, and I was forced to spray it on thick to cover the beading up; as a result, much of the details on the figures were obscured.

Fortunately, I have painted their pavises (which have no game effects) a while back, and hopefully they draw the eye away from the poor painting on the figures.

Coming up next will be the ten handgunners, half of whom wear the riveted jacks which are a pain to paint...

There are still a lot to paint before I can call this project "completed" - eight more archers, half a box of foot men-at-arms when Perry releases them, and replacing my current ECW pistoliers with the Perry light cavalry (armed as mounted crossbowmen). All that will take me past 1800 points in WHFB; beyond that I can probably top up to 2000 points with magical items, or there is always the option of bulking my halberdiers to 30 or 40 figures, either by painting more figures or using unit fillers.