WIP 2: Gaspez Minotaur and Kord the Destroyer

The Warhammer Minotaur arms and weapons bits that I ordered arrived in the mail today, allowing me to do the next step in my conversion project.

The arms of the Gaspez minotaur are further apart than those on a Warhammer minotaur, so I had to extend the shaft of the axe. To ensure that I have a strong structure, I cut off the middle section of the piece, drilled holes in both ends, and then fitted a steel wire in between. I then applied epoxy to the wire, inserted it into the two pieces, then blu-tac'd the hands onto the main model itself. The telescoping nature of the construct allowed me to adjust the alignment of the two pieces while the epoxy set to ensure that the shaft ended up straight.

The end product was rather long, so I snipped a bit off the end of the shaft, which still gave an eventual length of 7cm, or more than twice the height of a man in scale!

Once the epoxy has set, I needed to build some "meat" around the wire skeleton to match the rest of the shaft with epoxy putty. Rather than sculpting the shaft while the putty is soft, I decided it might be easier to just form a sausage around the skeleton and then shave it down later when it has hardened. I'll let you know how that works out later...

The hands needed a bit of bulking up too.

Also in the package today was the Reaper mini Kord the Destroyer. I got it because I wanted to use my beastman warchief as Kromac in Hordes. Now Kromac is a warlock who has a human form and a beastman form, which meant I needed a human form of my warchief. Using Reaper's Figure Finder, I found and bought Kord, the original form which is shown below.

When the figure arrived, I found that the axe was comically smaller than the one held by my warchief. Well, it can't all be perfect.

I removed all the spikes on the figure, shaved the letter M off his buckle, and decided to take off the nicked dagger in his right hand. The axehead was bent almost 180 degrees onto the shaft when the figure arrived, so I snapped it off and drilled through it, his left hand, then replaced the shaft with a length of wire such that the eventual length of the whole weapon would be the same as the axe held by the warchief, then applied putty to it too.  I also bent the arm at the elbow a little and turned the axehead so it is orientated in a more natural angle so the axis of the blade is in line with the axis of his forearm, and anchored the end of the shaft onto his cloak for stability. It is only now when I am typing this that I realised that I could have placed the axe in Kord's RIGHT hand to better mirror the warchief figure; well, too much trouble to switch it now. Grr.

I epoxied the figure onto a 25mm square base (as the warchief), and then puttied over the integral base on the model and added a piece of cork for terraining.

So when Kromac transforms into his beast form, his axehead also miraculously enlarges, and he turns from being left-handed to being right-handed? Seems legit.

Now to wait for the putty to set overnight. Hopefully the base which I ordered for the minotaur arrives tomorrow and I can move on to the next and final step of the conversion project.

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.

More Dux Bellorum - Macedonian War Edition

Martin and I played a game of our Dux Bellorum-Impetus mash-up rules this afternoon. Without wahj's armies of Romans and Carthaginians, we had to make do with Martin's Macedonians and my Pergamenes, supplemented by my Hittite allies. We got about 50 points on each side, which equates to around 200 points in Impetus.

With no heavy infantry to speak of, I set my some area terrain in each quarter of the table, placed my only unit of cavalry to face Martin's cavalry, hoping to tie him up on a face-off while my more numerous skirmishers and medium infantry outflanked his slow phalanxes.

After some stand-off on the Macedonian left flank, his cavalry drew my cavalry into a charge, feinted flight, then turned around and destroyed it. As my only cavalry unit was also my command unit (yes, I am painting another cavalry unit right now), this left me without Leadership Points for the rest of the game. His command unit wasn't unscathed either - it took 2 hits and had 1 left.

Meanwhile, on the Macedonian right flank, my medium infantry had driven off his skirmishers guarding his flank and was poised to charge into the flank of his phalax. Unfortunately, I failed my activation roll at this critical juncture. Martin rushed his cavalry back to his threatened flank in Alexandrian fashion, while he used his LPs to soak up the hits I inflicted on his phalanxes. When the cavalry arrived, I knew the game was up and we called the game and watched Going Medieval, which had just come on on TV.

The Macedonian Companion cavalry rout the Pergamene lancers. The light cavalry rush across the rear of the Macedonian line to reinforce the threatened flank.

Two units of Thureophoroi are unable to rout the phalanx. The cavalry arrive to tilt the balance. The little squares with tiny pebbles on them are casualty markers - I have yet to add shields on them.

Being a smaller game than our previous one, manoeuvre had a more important role in the game and there wasn't a slug fest of heavy infantry. The game moved pretty fast and was finished in less than two hours, which is a good thing because our campaign games are likely to be three times as large as this one.

Replica Roman coins used as Leadership Point tokens; they have a nice feel to them - throwing them behind a unit feels like throwing down chips in a game of poker.

Finally, we end with a couple of shots of Martin's beautifully-painted figures.

Macedonian pikes

Companion cavalry

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...

Fomorians

Since I had the table laid out for a Sunday game, I decided to pose my Fomorian warband.

I've got a unit of melee troops, one of missile troops, Bres as the leader, two melee heroes, and a shamaness - enough for a faction for OGAM.

Of course, Bres isn't (wasn't) really a god or an immortal, so I am now thinking of getting a figure for Balor. And I think I might just know which one to get...

Hasslefree Ceril

Well, it took about three hours, and here he is:

I wanted to model the figure after Prince Nuada from the Hellboy movie, so I asked fg to sculpt a sash for me.

fg pointed out to me that the real Nuada had a glowing sword, so I attempted to paint the sword so.

I think I got the colours about right, but this figure looks very different from the movie character largely (I think) due to the difference in the shape of the faces. The movie Nuada had a broader, shorter face.

It's still a rather intimidating figure though, and I think I will field him as Bres.

Now should I get myself a Balor figure?

Oblique view, showing the glowing sword.

Reaper Horned Hunter conversion

A while back I bought the Reaper Horned Hunter figure when I was getting a couple of other figures. I was hoping to use it a beastman Gor figure, but the figure is actually only the size of an Ungor, so he became the basis for a beastman Ungor hero instead. Here he is painted:

The head and the quiver of arrows are GW, and the rest the original figure.

Left view showing the gemming on the vambrace.

Right view, again showing the gemming on the vambrace

 

The original figure from Reaper.

Now the reason why I got the figure painted was because my plan to paint up a Prince Nuada figure to lead my beastmen warband. The figure has been sitting on my tabletop for a while now, but when I realised that I could actually field him as a god leading my beastmen as a OGAM warband, I got started.

A little reading on Wikipedia tells me that I can field the figure as Bres, a half-Fomorian, half-Sidhe king who was deposed and then allied himself with Balor - it just so happens that my beastmen wear the mark of Balor: the Evil Eye.

As with my dwarves, I only need to paint one god figure to have a ready warband. Joy.

Ungor unit.

Bear Country

Remember the single bear model I painted a while back as a unit filler?

Well, fg gave me another D&D pre-painted plastic bear, which meant I HAD to get a couple more to create a whole unit...

After much googling, I settled on two Reaper bears, and here they are all painted.

L to R: Pathfinder Battle - Rise of the Runelords Dire Bear, D&D Wrath of Ashardalon Cave Bear with Perry WOTR figures as handlers, bear from Reaper Animal Companions pack with Reaper bard Alfred Redlute, Reaper Dire Bear.

For some reason unknown even to myself, I actually based each bear on a 40mm x 60mm base, and then made a sabot base measuring 50mm x 75mm so I can field them all as a unit of Demigryph Knights for Warhammer, which I probably will never actually field in a game.

One thing I've learnt from this project is this: it's actually rather difficult to gauge how big a bear figurine actually is without some point of reference. For most humanoid or equine figures, you *know* they are going to be roughly man-size or horse-size, but with bears, especially *dire* bears, all bets are off. A few of the potential candidates I screened turned out to be enormous when I eventually found pictures of them posed beside other figurines (well, non-prehistoric ones at any rate - why is everything in the Stone Age so dire?), and the bear from the Animal Companions pack turned out to be even smaller than I expected.

Here is another view of the bard figure. I'm not quite sure why I got the figure or why I included him in the unit. I guess it's partly because I have at the back of my mind plans for a band of four bards - three on lutes and one on drums... Now if only I can find a left-handed bard figure...

Of God and Mortals

Once in a while our little group of wargamers get swept up in a new period or set of new rules and there is a frenzy of buying and (less of) painting and rules-reading.

OK, that happens all the time.

In fact, I'm not sure if we ever do things in any other way.

Anyway, the latest frenzy is a set of yet-unpublished rules from Ganesha Games which will be published by Osprey, called "Of Gods and Mortals", or OGAM for short.

I first saw the rules in an advertisement in Miniature Wargames magazine, and thought it was a cool idea. Not long after, fg, Adrian and Thomas all got interested in Crocodile Games' kickstarter, which featured armies from ancient Greece led by demigods of the Greek pantheon. At the same time, I have also backed Red Box Games' kickstarter through fg, which will give me some militia-type figures for my LOTR dwarf army.

It wasn't long before I realised that I can use my LOTR dwarves for a Norse faction, and that it would be a reason for Adrian to finally paint up those Celtos figures he has bought so long ago. wahj got roped in when I remembered he has several Trojan War figures from both Redoubt and Foundry. Now fg is several hundred dollars into the Croc Games kickstarter, and Thomas is waiting for them to unlock the Corinthians.

The great thing about this set of rules, as far as we can tell, is that you only need around 20 figures for a complete warband: a god, one to three heroes or legends, and two groups of warriors, with the heavy foot formed in ranks and the skirmishers/missile troops deployed on a movement tray made from a CD. I made my CD movement tray today, and here is my warband.

I still lack a god. I have ordered the Tharn Helmsunder figure from Reaper to use as a dwarven equivalent of Thor. It is a human figure, but I think his proportions fit that of a LOTR dwarf:

Tharn Helmsunder, painted by Witchhunter.

He should be taller than the dwarven figures, which is the effect I am trying to achieve here. I am wondering if I should paint it in the colour scheme of the Marvel Comic Thor...

Now something about my LOTR dwarves.

I bought most of them off a painter on ebay years ago, when he was just starting out and pricing himself competitively. I managed to get something like 60 figures from him at one shot (the now discontinued "Wardens of the West Gate" boxed set). Over the years I added several figures to them, some GW (like the Murin and Drar figures, which I think are excellent), some Reaper, some Hasslefree, and some Red Box, which are just a little smaller but have the same mid to low fantasy style as the LOTR figures. I have used them for Strandhogg, Dux Britanniarum, and will soon use them for OGAM. Pretty good return of investment.

Another thing: my new glasses have allowed to to go back and paint the eyes on the female dwarf and Drar (the bow-armed hero). I hope this means I can do a good job on the Thor figure too.

Random Sunday Shot: Reaper Juliette

I've always had perfect eyesight.

Then few weeks ago, when I was attempting to paint eyes on a 28mm mini, I realised that I couldn't see them clear enough to paint if I brought it close enough to see; and if I put it far enough for my eyes to focus, the mini's eyes are too small for me to see. I thought my painting days are over.

After some swallowing of pride, I went to an optometrist and had a pair of reading glasses made - when I put the glasses on, it was like I was given a new lease of painting life.

To celebrate that, I painted this Reaper mini this afternoon in just 2 hours and 20 minutes, including spray-varnishing.

 

Streets of London

fg came by this afternoon with the PVC foam boards he bought and we made the first two of the six boards we will need for our Empire of the Dead campaign.

The street surface is a cobblestone pattern printed on A3 sized paper which we glued to 60cm x 45cm x 3mm PVC foam boards using some tacky spray adhesive. The pattern disguises the joint between boards quite well - you can just about make out the joint in the background.

The building is a pdf from Stoelzel's Structures, glued onto 1mm PVC foam board. The pavement is from Metcalfe - I used it 'as is' for the shot here, but we will probably make the pavement wider for the actual set-up.

We need to print out a few more A3 sheets to complete the project, but at least now we how to do it relatively painlessly.

The boards will just be the beginning of the whole project: we need to make enough buildings and board clutter to make the whole thing look good.

Will take a while, this...

Merneptah and his followers

I haven't thought of a catchy name for the gang, but at least they are all painted.

The figure in the brown suit and fez is from Artizan's Thrilling Tales range, and the rest are from the North Star set.

With the mummies I've got and the figures from my Blood Bowl fantasy Egyptian team, I am set for our Empire of the Dead campaign as far as figures are concerned. We now have the task of building a set of terrain boards and buildings.

Meanwhile, Spartan Games has finally announced the release of their Ottoman ships for their Dystopian Wars range. It's going to be a busy year for me...

Cultist No. 1

All great villains need henchmen, and Merneptah is no exception.

After some discussion with fg, I decided that my robed cultists will be dressed in off-white with an Egyptian Blue trim. I did consider getting some decals of the Eye of Horus for the robes but then I decided they were cultists, not a football team...

Anyway, here is the first of the cultists, fending off an intruder to Merneptah's mansion using a stick of the stout persuasion.

One thing that painting this figure has done is to convince me that I need reading glasses...

Punic Action

We played another game of Dux Bellorum using our house-rules for the Macedonian and Punic Wars this afternoon. I still haven't got all the rules down, but we've got a pretty good grasp of the basic mechanics and turn sequence.

The two lines close.

Legionaries face down elephants.

Professor Flinders Petrie

History records that the mummy of pharaoh Merneptah was found in 1898. History is wrong.

The mummy of the pharaoh was in fact discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie almost two decades earlier. The ka of the pharaoh possessed the body of the young Egyptian assistant at the professor's side when his sarcophagus was opened; it was in that form that the pharaoh won the professor over to his plan of recovering the ancient artefacts that will restore him to his full power and allow him to reign over Egypt again.

Keeping his find a secret, Professor Petrie returned to England with his newfound master and the duo began to recruit followers with promise of arcane power and earthly wealth and luxury in the afterlife...

Portrait of Sir Flinders Petrie, c. 1886

The Merneptah stele, discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie in 1896

Horsies!

I've been trying to find a cheap 28mm draught horse for the past few days but given the recent increase in postage it was no easy task. Then today I came by a shop and found this:

A toob full of horses of about the right size, plus a couple of riders. There are eight different horses, each with a description of the breed or colour on the belly on the horse. As you can see, they are just a bit bigger than a Perry plastic horse.

Now the reason why I needed a draught horse was because I just received a Miniart 1/35 farm cart. For a long time I have felt inadequate because I lacked a wagon or cart model. I know there are many on the market but they are either too expensive for me, or else too... MDF, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I took the chance on the Miniart kit and was quite happy with the detail. However, as befits a 1/35 scale model, its wheels, at 40mm, were too big for my purpose.

The wheels are taller than a man!

What I needed now was a smaller pair of wheels. These Lego 34mm wheels are almost there. fg is going to pass me a few metal wheels from his bits box - hopefully something in the 25mm to 30mm range will do the trick.

 

I really like how heavy draught horses look. They may not be as graceful as an Arab or Andalusian, but the Clydesdales and Percherons have a power and majesty of their own. Now I just have to figure out a way to create a harness for this beauty...

Mummies!

I managed to paint up another one of the figures from the Servants of Ra pack over these past three evenings, and it joins my little gang of mummies.

The new addition is the one in the middle. Most of the rest are from Wargods of Aegyptus, a line which I love. The guy on the extreme left is from Eureka, and the tall guy on the right trying to blend in is a Reaper figure - I like their Nefsokar range too.

One reason why I chose to base my gang on the Darkfire Club in EOTD is because the Club President has the power to raise zombies - naturally, mummies are the logical equivalent formy gang! The rules call for a group of ten mummies when raised, but I think it's rather silly that mummies are being raised right here in London, so my fluff is that they are summoned magically, and so they will be accompanied by some of my animal-headed figures to bulk up the numbers. Or I can use the skeletons from my Blood Bowl team - in fact, the new guy can play for my team too...

Return of the King

While I wait for my next order of Xyston to arrive, I decided to start working on my gang for our VSF campaign.

My choice was the Servants of Ra set from North Star, chosen because I already own a few mummies and fantasy Egyptian figures used for my Blood Bowl team. Coincidentally (or maybe it's just a case of racial stereotyping), the boss of the gang spots the same bald look as my Blood Bowl team coach. I decided they would represent the same character in his Victorian and "native" dress respectively.

The character represents a young Egyptian man possessed by the ka of Merneptah, son of Ramses the Great, who plots his return to power.

Assorted Asiatics

As we explore further expansion of our Macedonian and Punic War campaign, we realised that we already own small "clusters" of figures which can be recruited: fg has several bases of Numidian horse and foot painted, and Martin has figures from his Sassanids which can be used. On my part I found that some of the figures from my Hittite Empire army can be used as African or Asiatic troops.

I guess that's the beauty of ancients gaming.

"Customisable" terrain Part 2

Remember the area-terrain piece I made?

I decided to increase the number of options I can use with it by doing up a few more sets of bases.

The first is a set of resin rocky bases, for the "rough terrain" option.

Then I made some pools to convert the piece into a marsh or bog. The texture of the water comes mainly from the texture of the bases themselves, while the bubbles on the surface are actually from the diluted PVA glue I applied over it.

 

Finally, there is the "Unholy Ground" inserts, made with Mantic Zombie parts, presented in daylight and also "night mode".

This was a fun project, and I think I may add to the collection if I come up with any more ideas.