Red Box Dwarves... kinda

I'm going to touch up the eyes on these guys later, but here are the twelve Red Box dwarves I got from the kickstarter Tre Manor held a while back.

Kinda.

The torsos come from Red Box, but I didn't like the heads and I wanted these guys to be armed with spears. Some trading got me the heads and spear arms from Gripping Beast's Dark Age Warriors box set, and I was in business.

Now while assembling these figures, I realised why dwarves "in real life" didn't use spears or polearms: the distance between your hand and the ground affects how much length you can manage "above" your hand. Sure you can manage to hold a 15-foot pike, but that takes two hands and it isn't really a weapon you can use in a skirmish.

With these guys I now have enough "irregular" dwarves to make a Riot campaign viable. Plus they are always useful for fantasy RPGs.

One reason why I pushed myself to finish these guys is because I have decided to back the latest Frostgrave Nickstarter so I can get my hands on the multi-part plastic barbarians. Barbarians, like dwarves, are useful figures to have for most fantasy settings, so I expect quite good return on investment on those. I would like to paint them with black-and-white body paint like the Avvars depicted in the Dragon Age RPG, but whether I can manage that is an unknown.

If you are looking for some generic fantasy barbarians, do head over the North Star's page.

A Captain of Rohan

The final figures in my Rohirrim warband.

They are both Footsore miniatures: the mounted figure is actually their King Arthur figure, and the foot figure is from their Gawain and Galahad pack (and presumably represents Gawain). They both have purple flowers on their bases to distinguish them, but I picked these two figures to represent the leader of my warband because they are sculpted with the same crest.

The Arthur figure is a single piece figure: the rider is sculpted on the horse and the shield is sculpted onto the arm and the horse. This probably accounts for the short lower limbs of the rider. I have left the shield undecorated for now.

With the Rohirrim done, I started prepping my Dropzone Commander Resistance faction vehicles. These are really very detailed resin pieces and I am not yet sure how I will prime or paint them. Stay tuned, and wish me luck!

Riders of Rohan

Here is the last unit of my Rohan force. The standard bearer is from the Footsore King Arthur pack, and the leader is from the Late Roman General pack; I have mounted them on the LOTR horses for consistency.

The Rohirrim are my favourite race in all of Middle Earth. That's probably because Tolkien based their temperament on that of the Anglo-Saxons, and the Anglo-Saxons are one of my favourite races from history. I have only the foot and mounted versions of the warlord for this force to finish, which I hope to do over the weekend. Thereafter I hope to field them in a game soon, probably against my goblins and their warg riders.

Warriors of Rohan unit 3

Another week, another unit - admittedly a smaller unit as these figures represent the dismounted version of my mounted unit, which has 8 figures (yes, I only have 7 foot figures left to make up this unit).

The leader is again from Footsore, specifically the Bors and Tristan pack. I swopped the spear hand with a sword hand from my Red Box dwarves (which will be getting Gripping Beast spear hands...) and glued a Rohirrim shield to the left hand. The standard bearer is again a simple conversion, and I chose a longer pennon for the unit. This unit has white flowers to distinguish themselves from the other two.

Next up will be the horse and riders and then the foot and mounted version of the general/warlord for the force. After those I hope to work on the 10/12mm vehicles for our Axles and Alloys 2 project. Stay tuned.

Warriors of Rohan unit 2

Here is the second unit of my Rohan force. The leader is the other figure from the Hengist and Horsa pack from Footsore. I freehanded the horse motif on his shield in imitation of the Staffordshire Hoard Seahorse. At least I tried to. The musician is again a quick conversion - I cut the shield boss off his hand and grafted a horn from the Gripping Beast Dark Age warriors sprue onto it. This unit sports yellow flowers for identification.

That's about half the force done; the next unit is a mounted unit, but because I have to paint a dismounted version of it, it will take me a bit more time.

Warriors of Rohan unit 1

We have had the Warriors of Rohan figures for years - I say "we" because I can't remember who these figures belong to; I know for a fact I did not buy them, so they are either from wahj or fg, and were passed to me as part of some gaming plans we must have had many years ago...

Anyway, after our last Strandhogg game when Martin brought some of his Gripping Beast figures, fg decided to buy some Dark Age figures from Footsore Miniatures and Saxon Miniatures, and Martin and I naturally tagged along. I figured this was the push I needed to finally paint up the Rohirrim.

My order was very small - just a few figures to allow me to build three "squads" of troops together with the plastic LOTR figures I already have. The unit shown above is the first of these. The leader figure is from Footsore (ex-Musketeer) Miniatures. He is visibly larger than the LOTR plastic figures (which, although excellent figures in their time, do show their age compared to the plastic figures available these days), but painted in the same limited palette and based on a slightly thinner base he blends in. The standard bearer is a quick conversion - a hand swap on a Rohirrim swordsman - and the image for the banner came from a quick google search. I have put red flowers tufts on the bases to identify them as one unit, as I plan to paint the whole warband in the exact same few colours.

Over the next few weeks I hope to paint up the remaining warbands, after which a couple other new projects will await my attention.

Strandhogg Game 11: She's a Witch!

It's been almost two years since we last played a game of Strandhogg, but when Martin asked to use some of the Gripping Beast Romano-British figures he has painted in a game, the rules were my choice.

We lack opponents for the Romano-British, so I decided my beastmen will play Fomorian invaders (led by the mighty Balor) in league with Picts. The scenario comes from Miniature Wargames magazine #383 and was written by Dan Mersey (thanks once again, Dan!).

The British have learnt that the pagans have set up a base in the woods and will be performing dark rituals by the light of the full moon. The Dux and his men pledge to thwart them and end the pagan menace once and for all...

The game starts with the forces at the ends of the table lengthwise. The Fomorians start in their sacred circle surrounding the sacred tree, with their priestess on a sacred mound in the middle of the table performing her ritual. The British start at the other end and the game begins with them shooting and wounding the priestess. They must then attempt to capture her and bring her back to the town to be burned, and also chop down the sacred tree. The Fomorians must prevent them from doing either.

The set-up.

Martin's Romano-British with a few Saxons mixed in, and my dwarf rangers pretending to be short humans.

Balor leads the Fomorians and Pictish allies.

The British have an early start and race up the steps of the sacred mound to capture the priestess.

One British warband races for the priestess as the other two form shieldwalls and block off the approaches on the flanks.

The British engage Balor while one fellow (on the right) drags the priestess towards their baseline. On the right a small band decides to go for the tree instead.

The Fomorians eventually managed to wrest the priestess back from the British (at one point nearly killing her with a stray arrow), while the British managed to damage the sacred tree before being cut down to the last man. Over all this rated a marginal victory for the Fomorians, although one earned at great losses.

The session like most was also a chance for us to pass stuff to each other. Just to give an idea of how dis-co-ordinated we can be: I passed Martin some 15mm Hellenistic figures and fg some spare bits from my Perry plastic WOTR; Martin passed me some 20mm Fallschirmjaegers and a Flak 38 plus some books on WW2, and returned me my Black Powder rules.

I was inspired by one of the WW2 books to order stuff for another modeling project, but the seller I approached is currently out of stock on the bits I need... Hopefully the re-order comes soon!

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...

A Clash of Pantheons, and Three Warbands for the price of One plus some

As promised, here are my two OGAM warbands.

Balor leads the Fomorians against Thor and the dwarves.

It looks like quite a lot of figures for a set of rules that has not even been released, but really I have only added the two god figures to arrive at this.

The dwarves I have had for the longest time, and only Thor needed to be added for them to be a full OGAM warband.

The Fomorians are mainly my beastmen force. Configured for Strandhogg they look like this:

One beastlord with two warbands, each with a Wargor leader, 3 Ungor skirmishers, and 5 Gor warriors.

By adding a Hordes Skorne Cyclops Shaman as Balor, a Hasselfree Ceril as Bres, a beastman female shaman as some sort of priestess, I have an OGAM warband.

Balor, Bres, a priestess, a couple of beastmen heroes, a melee unit, and a missile unit.

Finally, with the addition of a minotaur and a barbarian figure, I get a legal Hordes Circle Orboros themed warband:

Kromac in his human form with his beastman form behind, minotaur as Ghetorix proxy, Gamezone troll as a Gorax, two Tharn Ravager units of 4 figure each, one with a Chieftain and one with a Shaman, two beastmen heroes as Tharn Whitemanes, and the Ungors as a Tharn Blood Pack.

So there they are. Three warbands for two sets of rules I haven't even tried before.

Time to take a break from figure-painting and do some terrain work next.

Dwarf Iron Guards

I acquired these figures the same time I got the other LOTR dwarves you see so often on my blog, but this is the first time you see a photo of them.

I bought the dwarves painted in a lot way back when. Unlike most of the other figures, these Iron Guard figures are metal, and already had many chips on them by the time we started playing Strandhogg regularly. Since I didn't really need them, I just kept them in a box.

A while back, I decided to refurbish them and painted over the chipped parts. Then disaster struck when I decided to protect my work with spray varnish. You can still see the frosting on the edges of the bases.

After that episode, they went back into exile in the box again.

Then yesterday, with nothing left to paint (the Reaper figures I ordered are a full month in the post by now), I took them out and re-painted them again, adding a yellow border on the hem of their surcoats.

I think they look passable now.

I've got 12 dwarven footmen from Red Box Games on order, which when painted will give me something like 80 dwarves. That should be enough to do a dwarven civil war scenario...

WIP: Gaspez Minotaur

I don't usually do WIP posts, but the latest model to arrive in my mail is such a neat model, I thought I just had to.

Now I've been looking for a minotaur figure to go with my beastmen force for a while now. It's proven to be quite difficult because it had to have the right head, the right 'clothes', right weapon, right size, and the right price.

When I decided recently to add a few figures to my beastmen to allow me to field them as a Fomorian warband and a Circle Orboros warband in the not-to-distant future, I decided I have to decide.

My choice is this Chaos Minotaur from Gaspez, made for Blood Bowl or other fantasy American football games, and shown here in its original 'green' form.

The head isn't really my "ideal" head for a minotaur - I refer one that is more like a real bull's head - but I really like the horns. The hands come loose, which means I can (and plan to) graft the hands and two-handed axe from a GW minotaur to it. The simple style of his 'dress' fits with the look of my beastmen, which is important for me. It also for some strange reason has Balor's eye on its belt, which sort of sealed the deal for me.

The figure is 6cm tall when assembled, and comes in 9 parts: a head, two horns, the torso, the shoulder plate, two hands, the lower half of the body, and a tail. There are two options for the horns, a pincer-claw and a tentacles option for the hands, and a rear loincloth flap option for the tail.

What is neat about this model is how the parts are "dovetailed" to give a snug fit so you can put it together without pinning. The horns have notches in them that fit to the top of the ears so they not only point in the correct attitude, but are also symmetrical. The tail fits into the butt in a squarish rather than round peg so it orientates the correct way. There is also a large peg on the right hoof of the model, which will help me secure it to a resin base. All in all it is a model designed to make it easy for you to assemble.

In assembling my model I nonetheless decided to make some changes to it.

First of all I decided I would discard the shoulder plate, which has too much of a Blood Bowl feel to it, and sculpt the strap so that it goes completely around the (now bare) shoulder - fortunately for me the sculptor did sculpt the shoulder under the plate. The shoulder plate will go into my bits box and perhaps one day "convert" a non-Blood Bowl figure to a Blood Bowl figure.

I also decided that the tail, while looking dynamic, is really just an accident waiting to happen for a wargames model. In addition, it makes the model hard to store in my newly-made sponge tray. So I clipped the connecting part and positioned it so it has a three-point contact to the model.

Finally, I extended the mane running down the back of the minotaur to its forehead - when I googled about the auroch and Spanish fighting bulls while thinking about a colour scheme I learnt that most bulls have a sort of a forelock.

This is how my model looks so far:

The assembled model, waiting for hands and weapon and a base.

View showing the sculpted forelock and strap.

Detailed view of the direction of the horns. Note also the good detail of the teeth.

Rear view showing how I glued the tail with a three points of contact for more stability.

I now have to wait for the arrival of the hands and weapon bits, as well as a 50mm round base before I can continue the project. Hopefully that will be some time within the next two weeks.

Strandhogg Game 10: Rescue Mission

Adrian and Thomas came over for a game of Strandhogg this afternoon.

Taking a Tabletop Teaser from Battlegames and weaving it into the narrative I've been using with the games, the scenario has the dwarves occupying the manor of a minor lord of the Barony after the failed joint expedition to invade the land of the goblins and holding his wife hostage, demanding compensation for their losses in the campaign.

The intrepid Lady Alexander manages to sneak a message to her husband that she will request her captors to allow her to attend mass at a church near the edge of their holdings, and the Barony troops decide to launch a raid to rescue her.

It was a close game that came down to the very last flip of activation card, so unfortunately I was too focused on the game to remember to take photos. 

The mounted men-at-arms attempt to sweep past the dwarves at the vineyard, but become bogged down in melee.

The dwarves hold off pursuers, and the dwarf lord strikes down the only knight who made it past the cordon to contact.

The humans had the advantage on speed and striking power on the initial charge, and the first dwarven warband that tried to stop them rolled poorly on their melee and got cut to pieces. However the second unit of cavalry did not move into contact quick enough, and this allowed the dwarf lord to retreat almost unmolested with Lady Alexander to the exit point. As the game reached its critical climax, it was the humans' turn to roll poorly - they failed all but one of the Courage rolls required to contact the dwarf lord and stop him moving off the table, and the only knight who made contact was quickly cut down.

Once again, Strandhogg gave an easy, enjoyable game. We had a few knights' horses killed under them and a few of the knights got pinned under their mounts. This created a bit of a laugh and slowed them down even as they neared their target.

I think the scenarios are what make the games challenging for the players, and here I benefit from the Command Challenge and Tabletop Teaser articles in Battlegames.

After the game we had a second beer and talked about upcoming projects. It looks like we are all pretty much in on OGAM, with Warmachines being a distant target. Now if things go according to plan, I should be getting a Balor figure in a week's time...

Swordsmen

I find myself losing impetus as I try to paint another 40 or so figures to complete my Warhammer (The) Empire army. Times like these it helps to have "unique" figures to paint.

The first one comes from Mirliton's Halberdier Command Group.

I really like the character of this figure. The original figure cradled its helm in its left arm, but the helm, while magnificent, was out of period for my army. I hacked the whole left arm off, and glued a matching left arm from the Perry plastic set holding a poignard in its place. This figure will join my swordsmen unit; the unit is armed with sword and shield, and the poignard in the off hand has a similar function, giving the figure a "parry save".

The second figure (the one on the right) comes from Mirliton's Swordsmen Command Group.

Again, I hacked off the arm below the elbow to swap the shield for a more period one, and embedded arrows in the shield and the ground to add even more dynamism to the figure. I like how the figure echoes the unit standard bearer which I painted before I even bought the Mirliton figures.

And here are the first two ranks of the swordsmen unit:

The flocking and shields have yet to be added. I've given the figures red pants to set them apart from the other foot units - swordsmen have a higher WS in Warhammer and are I suppose "semi-elite", and I am using red pants as a mark for "professional" troops as opposed to militia in this army.

These are the last figures I will be painting for the next couple of weeks. I'm off to Madrid next week and plan to drop by Atlantica. Hope I don't overbuy...

Greatswords

With the Picts done, I turn my attention to my WOTR/Warhammer (The) Empire army. The first to get painted are these seven fully-armoured men-at-arms with two-handed weapons from Mirliton.

As you can see, they look just about historical enough to blend in with the rest of my figures. They will be fielded as Greatswords, the elite foot units of (The) Empire. I like the look of a fully-plate-armoured figure, so this is one unit I will add to if I find suitable figures - perhaps Perry may decide to release a plastic men-at-arms set at Salute this year...

Skirmish Tray

We had a bit of a family crisis this past week but it seems everything is getting back to normal again.

On the plus side, it meant I stayed at home if I wasn't working and I got quite a bit of painting done - kept me from bouncing off the walls.

Anyway, this is one of the things I managed to finish:

When I started the WOTR project, I intended to use the figures for my Strandhogg games. When the guys started going into Warhammer Fantasy, I had to make a choice between styling my army as a Bretonnian army, or an (The) Empire army. Eventually I decided to go with the handguns and cannons, and so went for a (The) Empire army.

The down side to this, however, was that I lost the longbow effect - (The) Empire archers are strictly skirmishers, which meant no deep ranks of archers.

Under the 8th edition, skirmishers have to be deployed in a rank-and-file formation and the end of their movement, but rather annoyingly, the figures have to be 1/2" apart. This created a market for "skirmish trays", which are specialised movement trays with slots for square bases at 1/2" apart.

I got mine from Back 2 Base-ix. These come in two pieces of 3mm MDF (the top one with the slots in them, and the bottom as a base) and all the little slots that were cut out, which you can use as bases.

I didn't want my figures to look like they are standing on a platform, so I replaced the bottom with a paper-thin sheet of plastic - the top piece provides enough strength to the whole construct. To make the formation look less sparse, I added a couple of stakes and bundles of arrows from the Bretonnian archers set. It was when I was going to glue the stakes into position when I realised I don't actually know where to put them, or to put it in another way, where the archers stood in relation to the stakes. Behind? In front until they are charged? Beside? In the end practicalities prevailed and I placed the stakes so that they don't jut out off the base.

I also found out that the bases I based my archers on were a little bigger than the slots - I ended up filing the slots AND the bases to make them fit.

I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Painted Picts

Here are the Picts I promised.

They are from Tanatus Miniatures, a small range of figures which I did not know of until fg showed me the site.

I absolutely love these figures. I especially like the way the sculptor modelled the hair - it is like a Dark Age chart for grading of male pattern baldness - even if the leader does look like one of the Bee Gees, and the standard bearer Ron Jeremy (I was tempted to change the motif on the banner from a boar to a hedgehog...).

They are a perfect match for my Perry plastics, and thus also GW's LOTR range. In fact, I think they have more realistic proportions than Perrys. I replaced the soft metal spears that came with the packs with steel spears left over from my 15mm Attalid Pergamenes.

I painted them using my standard block-and-wash method, which makes them very dull - they look depressing if not for the addition of green flock. They can be used in three capacities: as Dunlending allies for my orcs in our Dux Britanniarum campaign, as peasants in my Strandhogg games, or in the front ranks with my armed peasants in Warhammer, where they will count as Spearmen. The "movement tray" they are on is actually a lipped chariot base, which I bought as artillery bases for my WOTR guns and crew.

I painted them all with black hair because they were described as swarthy and dark-haired by Tolkien - the professor was obliviously and unapologetically racist the way some old British gentlemen are, I suppose. Tolkien didn't tell us a lot about the Dunlending, but it is believed that they are based on the Celts (as the Rohirrim are based on Germanic invaders). While googling, I read that a computer game assigns them clans named after animals, and decided to give them a banner featuring a Celtic-styled boar.

Lacking the skills to make a "proper" banner, I simply found a "parchment" pattern I liked, printed that on a piece of paper, then found a boar motif, resized it to fit, and then printed that on the same piece of paper. This gave me a "pre-painted" banner which I simply cut and glued to the spear. I then painted the exposed edge of the paper with some Devlan Mud, which "sealed" the edge and added some staining.

I really like the way this unit turned out - let's hope I don't fail them in the next DB game...

WOTR Artillery

"Espy thou yonder Elven Mage? Confound him and everyone near him!"

While I wait for figures and bits to complete my Attalids and round up my Space Marines forces (it's a never ending process, isn't it?) I decided to get back into the saddle up painting the stuff I already on hand.

With the four figures from Front Rank painted, my artillery corps is now complete: two guns (counts as great cannons under Warhammer rules) and a volleygun (counts as Helblaster), all that I plan to field in my WOTR/Empire army.

The crew come from three different companies: Perry, Mirliton, and of Front Rank, who provided the Master Engineer. The guns come from Perry, Mirliton, and Artizan.

I know artillery crew were "civilians" during the WOTR period, but I have chosen to depict them as a "professional" body, with more a more uniformed look than my other units.

Let's see how they perform then...

Armed and not too dangerous

While I wait for the 15mm figures from Martin, I painted up some armed peasant, a project inspired by Matt.

The three command figures are Perry plastics, the men Crusader Miniatures 'Peasants and Pilgrims' pack, and the women and children I frankly can't remember now. I bought them mainly to use them in Strandhogg skirmishes, but with the addition of a leader, standard and musician, you can convert almost any 20mm square-based group of figures into a Warhammer unit. In this case I can use them as an Empire Free Company unit.

Inspired by Matt, I too decided to convert a few of the figures to make them look more varied - you get 2 of each pose in the Crusader pack. The first guy on the left was given a wooden shield from the Perry sprue, and the second guy had his sword replaced by a length of toothpick. I think he is the toughest guy in the bunch because who else would go into battle with just a stout stick?

The fourth guy had his axe converted into a flail using the end of a morning star handle and two links of chain from a GW beastmen sprue - rather than to use a real chain, I decided a rigid length of plastic chain was easier to work with.

The last guy had his spearhead swapped for a polearm head from a Perry sprue. I don't think there is a farm implement that looks like that, but it seems to work.

All the figures were spray-primed red-brown and then painted in earth tones. I chose a (very) limited palette to give them a sense of cohesion.

I think this is one group of figures I wouldn't mind adding to. Now when does Foundry have its sale?

Character-Building

With my Space Marines completed and the Attalid Pergamenes yet to arrive, I have a time slot between projects that is too short for me to start on any of my outstanding ones (several one-dozen 28mm figures jobs lined up), yet I do not want to stop painting for fear of losing momentum.

What do you do in times like this? You build characters.

The beastman is a Resina Planet Khaos Gor. After looking at a few options, I decided to add some putty onto his legs to disguise that fact that he has scrawny ones. Then for good measure I threw in a piece of driftwood I found on the beach at Foca (of the Phokians fame) in front of them, stained with Devlan Mud.

The female dwarf is from Scibor, a gift from fg. Her shield is unfortunately miscasted, but let's just call it battle-damage. I replaced her rather cartoony sword with a mace from a Perry WOTR box. I think I will call her Mathilde.

These two characters will join my small beastmen warband and my rather bigger dwarf hold.

St Teilo's Church

A while back I traded some figures with Matt. Since I didn't want any of the figures he had on hand, I took him up on an offer of a scratch-built building.

After browsing through the pictures of some historical buildings he took on his blog, I asked for a church building based on St Teilo's Church, pictures of which I have posted below:

We decided on a single-hall structure, and Matt went off to work...

Two months later, I picked up the church from the local post office, and what I saw was simply stunning. I'll let the photos do most of the talking. I've posed it inside a walled enclosure I bought off ebay and the trees I recently bought.

A wounded knight seeks sanctuary at a church

The gate swings open, and he is greeted by the friar and a lay follower of the church

The porch is removable. Note also the Celtic Cross made by Matt

The door swings open...

Matt has recreated the interior of the church too!

"Lie down upon this table and rest, my good sir."

The bell in the belfry actually swings!

I don't think anyone could have made a better trade than this one. :)

Added: Matt's post on this building here.