Mixed Bag 16: Clean Up on Aisle 16!

Since I last updated this blog I've been chewing away at finishing up some projects that have languished on my painting table or in my bitz box. These are projects that I always meant to do, but got side-tracked from completing - I have to say that it feels really good to have these projects done.
First up was a trip to Warhammer Age of Sigmar-land.

These five Blood Warriors have been on my desk for an eternity, but now they are
ready to bring destruction to the foes of the Blood God for an eternity! These guys
bring me to two ten-man units of Blood Warriors for the whole army.

Staying in a fantasy theme, I decided to turn my paint brush to my Oldhammer High Elves. I've had a unit of Dragon Princes that I've been nattering away on for months - doing one model at a time - mostly because I just found painting them somewhat tedious. Its not a bang on the sculpts, I think I'm just coming to a conclusion that I really don't dig painting cavalry!

These cats took way too long to get on the field, so I'm sure they will die horribly
on the battlefield without making an impact. FUN!

Next was a command section and a handful of bowmen to round out a new High Elf archer unit. Once they were done, I decided to finish the Elf Prince mounted on a Griffon that came with the Isle of Blood starter so long ago. I plumbed for a wild green color - I wanted something different and reflective of the Chaos-ey nature of the monster. I realize it's not going to be everyone's cuppa tea, but that's was kinda the point. 

SCRAAAW!

Finally, having picked up the new 40k Apocalypse rules-set I decided to try and round out my Nurgle army for some giant games. This led to the assembly of a third Foetid Bloat Drone. The Bloat Drones are pretty powerful units - nearly on the level of some tanks - and were a quick way to add some firepower to my army while only having to raid my bitz box. 

Three happy little daemon engines all ready for a good time!

This brings my yearly total for models painted to 241 so far. Still a bit to do to get to 365, but not too shabby. 

Cheers!

Quick "N Dirty Hobbit Holes

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

With the addition of some more models to my Halfling army, I realized that I'd need some bespoke terrain for them - to act as scenario objectives and/or add character to battlefields that the little legion would play on. I wanted to create some cheap and fast Hobbit Holes for my army to live in. I saw that Games Workshop was putting out some nice resin facades to build off of eventually, but I just didn't want to wait or spend the money. I looked for a good tutorial online for building what I was looking for, but I just didn't find one. So I guess I had to do one myself.

The material list isn't too long and mostly consists of stuff I had lying around. You'll need:

     -  Some 2" thick insulation foam.               - A plastic drinking straw.

     -  A blank CD to act as the base.                -  Some scrap cardstock/cereal box cardboard.

     -  Some balsa wood strips.                          - A push pin.

     -  Various flock/plastic flowers/tufts.          - Xacto knife and a box cutter with an extendable blade.

     -  Hot Glue gun.                                          - Wall joint compound

     -  Wood Glue or Elmer's Glue

Step 1: Cut a slab of foam about 1/4" deep, 5" long and 2" high.
Using a ballpoint pen, I drew out the windows, door and stonework for the
front of the house.

Step 2: Using a sharp Xacto blade, cut out the windows and door.
I also removed some of the non-stone area to recess that a bit and bring
the stone forward.

Step 3: Glue some scrap card onto the back of the front piece.
It'll give you something to glue the door and window bits to.

Step 4: Using a hot glue gun, I attached the 2" foam to the CD as a
base. I then used a box cutter with an extendable blade to shape the hill
until it matched the approximate curve and height of the front piece.

Step 5: I then attached the front piece using hot glue. Any gaps or joins were
hidden with some wall joint compound. I then glued a bit of drinking straw to the hill to
form a chimney. A few thin cuts of foam were added to make a walk.

Step 6: I added a door and cross beams using balsa wood.  A dress maker's
pin was used to make the door hand. I also soaked a piece of balsa wood in
water until I could bend it into a curve along the top edge and then affixed it
with hot glue. A small cap was added to the chimney with some cardstock.
Finally, sand was glued down to the front porch area. 

Step 7: I primed the whole shebang with a bit of flat latex black house paint.
Then I painted the whole thing up in a pretty standard way.

Step 8: I then flocked the hill to match my game boards and added some
tufts, clump foliage and flowers to really make the hole feel homey.

And that's it. Each Hobbit Hole took about an hour to make and cost me pretty much nothing as I had all the materials to build them laying about already. They aren't the most amazing pieces of scenery ever made, but they will really add something to the games I end up playing with my Halfling army. Hope this inspires!

Cheers!

A few nights work and I have my own little Shire to defend!

A SHORT Post Today

GET IT?!

The past couple of weeks have seen me working on some little projects (get it? Get It?!) that I thought I could finally share. Due to a trade with a friend, I came into the possession of some more Westfalia Halflings and I decided to expand my force a bit. I added eight more Halberdiers to the existing unit of twelve, so now I've got a nice meaty group of guys to anchor the core of the army. 

Ready to Rumble. Or at least their bellies are rumbly.

Now that I've got a good sized army, it was time to add some scenic bits for them to defend. I built the two Hobbit Hovels in the first picture because I just couldn't wait for the resin ones Forge World is producing to come out. Before making them, I scoured the internet for a nice step-by-step set of instructions on how to make a hobbit dwelling and nothing seemed to give me what I was looking for. I'm building a third hole at the moment and I'm taking pictures as I go, so I expect to put up a tutorial soon. 

Over in Age of Sigmar-land, the latest General's Handbook has dropped and that usually heralds a change in points and rules for some of my armies because of course it does. Seems like the Kharadron Overlords were the most affected - I lost over 200 points off my existing army! So now I had to add something to bring it back up to 2000 points. I didn't particularly want to drop the money or time on an additional sky-ship, so I turned my attention to the Shadespire war band, Thundrik's Profiteers. 

Thundrik + blimp guy+ some guys with guns = PROFIT.

These guys were cheap to buy, quick to paint and seem hideously over-costed for the game. Perfect! They are all really nice models and I continue to be amazed by the Plug-and-Play style models GW is making lately. 

Cheers!

The Halfmen of Westfalia!

"For the Shire!.. err... wait! For the Moot!... eh.. that's not right... For Snacks and Comfies! That's better."

Geez, it looks like four years ago I backed a small Kickstarter for some 28mm Halfling miniatures from Westfalia Miniatures. When I got my tiny pledge (literally - I only ordered a unit or two) I was a bit crestfallen because I hadn't realized they would be resin casts instead of metal. I put them on the back burner of my project list and when I discovered a friend had also backed the KS, I "gifted" mine to him in a clever ploy to get them the hell off my desk. But he realized that he'd never get around to them in his queue and the scallywag turned around and gave me mine back along with his! Dastardly.

Well, I guess I finally got a wild hair up my ass to paint them so I've put together a small army of them. I plan on using them for Dragon Rampant or as proxies in Warhammer Age of Sigmar. The sculpts were very obviously inspired by the old Warhammer Imperial Halflings of the Moot, so I like to imagine a little piece of the Old World spun off during the apocalypse and now the chubby little fellas are furiously defending themselves in a new nightmare reality.

The General, Philip "The Black" Wooltoes.
"Dost Thou Wish to Live Deliciously?!" is his battle-cry.

Cassandra Gentlebosom, seer and diviner, adds some
magical punch to the army.

The Knights of The Third Order of Breakfast  are the greatest of all time.

The Shirewardens patrol the edges of the Halfling lands, ready to battle intruders at a moment's notice!

The flashing blades of the swordmen of the Jack Rabbit Company are deadly to both foes and dinner parties.

The stalwart halberdiers of the Brotherhood of the Last Leg will fight until the end of any battle. Or until supper. Whichever comes first.

Robert the Hood and his Rapacious Rapscallions stand ready to waylay any un-guarded baggage trains they find. 

Professor of Gunology, Schmendrake Thistlebottom, guides the army's
artillery train.

A Heckblaster Volleygun is ready to send any marauding chaos worshippers straight
to the Hot Place!

In order to finish these guys as an Age of Sigmar Army, I've got to paint up an Endless Spell for them and they'll be around 1000 points. Everything in here is a proxy for Freeguild units ( Freeguild General, Battlemage, Gunmaster, 2 units of Guard, Archers, Helblaster Volleygun, Knights of Order, and Outriders), so it'll all port over easily. This has been a fun little army (EH?! GET IT?!?!?!) to knock out, and I'm pretty pleased with them. I'm sure they will get murdered in games, but that's kinda the point I guess. 

Cheers!

Big and Tall and Short and Plump

I missed updating last week, but this week has seen some good progress on my painting desk. I've got a bunch of diverse stuff I'm chewing my way through - Adeptus Titanicus stuff, a copy of Blackstone Fortress, a fantasy Halfling army, more High Elves and some other odds and ends that need doing. First on deck is a second Warlord Titan for my War Griffons Legion.

The complete force.

The second Warlord amps up the total game size I can play, and brings some much needed diversity to the weapons systems I can deploy. I've still got a second plasma cannon arm to paint, but I will probably do that in colors for my Legio Mortis force so they have some more options.

Clamor Aquilae - The Eagle's Cry - brings its massive firepower to the battlefield.

View of the plasma cannon and carapace lasers.

The other arm has a mighty power fist, ready to crush the foes of the Emperor.

If you follow me on Twitter (@Cwalton73), you've probably been watching me chip away at a bunch of Halfling models from Westfalia Miniatures for last week or two. These sculpts are just full of tons of character - which helps because the amount of air bubbles, mould shift and tear out on these resin casts is atrocious. Nevertheless, I'm hell-bent on getting a little army of them done. I figure I can use them as Freeguild (once known as The Empire) in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar or just stat them out for Lion/Dragon Rampant. I still needed to purchase a few figures to complete the army, but according to their site Westfalia can take up to sixty days to complete an order. So, who knows when I'll be seeing those models? In the meantime, here's an army shot of where I'm at so far. 

For the Shire! Or the Moot! Or what-ever!

With the titan done and the Halflings a bit stalled, I'm probably going to focus on knocking out the Blackstone Fortess box set this week. 

Cheers!

Day Late Due to Nerding

I usually try to update on a Sunday, but this weekend was a little full. But here we are! First up, I've got ten more Imperial Fists added to my Horus Heresy army.

"Yellow for the Yellow God! More Lemons for His Lemon Throne!"

This brings me to four ten-man tactical squads in the army. Along with a ten-man Breacher Squad and a ten-man Tactical Support unit. My next unit for the army will be an Assault Squad, giving me seven Troop selections, which doesn't seem too shabby to me.

In addition to painting this weekend, I also got in some gaming. I took my Kharadron Overlords out for another spin, this time against the crazily mobile and magical Stormcast Eternals. I knew the Stormcast were tough, but wow - I didn't realize just how hard hitting they were. 

We played a 1500 point Matched Play game.

The scenario would be won by whoever inflicted the most Wounds by the end of five turns.

I went for broke on Turn 1, sending my Frigate and its compliment of Arkanauts straight through a Realmgate and into
the teeth of the Stormcast. It. Did not go. Well.

Eventually, I did get stuck in with the rest of the army and the shear weight of my firepower carried the day!

I'm really enjoying playing the Kharadron Overlords. They offer a nice mix of shooting, mobility and squishiness that makes commanding them a bit of a challenge. This game saw me play much closer to "competent" as I remembered and used most of my army special abilities and utilized the shooting phase in a much more correct way. I'm looking forward to getting more games in.

I also got in some role-playing gaming - I've been running a mini-campaign with a Gamma World theme for my group. They've been trying to secure an Atomic Totem (Nuclear Missile) for their village and ended up having to transport it across a deadly highway populated by giant Kaiju. I created a little mini game where copilots had to try to "Drift" a la Pacific Rim. 

The biggest, dumbest Kaiju in existence - this blog's Author;
explains how to play this madness.

The Jaegers, "Delta Stryker American" and "Beam Head Blitz Wrecker", had to escort a hauler carrying
a nuclear missile down the highway while fighting an ever increasing array of kaiju.

It was a lot of crazy fun and the group successfully got their totem off the table, but just! The mini game was successful enough that I might develop it into something in my spare time, but that's probably just the dice and Mountain Dew talking. I dunno. 

Cheers!

Mixed Bag 14: Singles, WIPs and Gaming!

Trying to continue with the weekly update... I've done it twice now, so I'm totally gonna keep it up all year, right? Ha! We shall see. Most of my painting this week has been one-off figures and prep work, so not super exciting.

    

I finished up two single figs this week. First was a High Elf Dragon Prince. I needed a commander model for an upcoming game of Kings of War and this guy had been languishing on my painting desk for a while. I figured he'd make a good Elf King to game with. He also acts as a test scheme for a full unit of these guys - a project I should get cracking on.

Later in the week, I cranked out a quick Aethermic Navigator hero for my Kharadron Overlords. This was the last model I needed to bring me to a 2000 point army. I ended up having to mail order him directly from Games Workshop, as no local stores or Amazon dealers carried him in stock. So much for giving the FLGS the business if they can't get what I want. Ugh. In any case, I should take some nice beauty shots of the whole army at some point, because I think I'm done painting Sky Dorfs for a little while.

    

I also worked on a few more High Elf archers and, you guessed it - started ANOTHER Tactical Squad for the Horus Heresy. This is the last one for a long, long time; I swear!

Finally, I wrapped the week up with some gaming. I managed to get in a small game of Kings of War to kick the tires on the system. Its fine. I like the simplicity of the game and it goes quickly, but I think we really need play it with larger forces. At 1000pts, everything dies just a little too fast. Until I can expand my army for the game, I think its hard to judge the game's merits.

My High Elves stand ready to defend a small settlement.

A rampaging horde of Gobbos advance from the hinterlands to crush the Elves.

Later, we played a big game of Age of Sigmar. I got to use my Kharadron Overlords against an immaculately painted Beastmen force. We had to control bits of falling stars that randomly arrived on the table. I decimated the Beastmen in a hail of bullets, but ended up chasing my own tail so much that I got blitzed when it came to scenario points. It was a ton of fun though, with a lot of back-and-forth. 

Those minotaurs go down hard. Don't let anyone tell you different.

After killing the shit out of a Minotaur Lord, my commander fell to the fury of a very upset Bestigor herd. I guess that's why they are the best...igor.

A unit of Gors and a Beastman Chariot totally crushed a unit of Arkanauts. Unfortunately, one poor dumb bastard survived so I couldn't shoot at these units with the rest of my army.

Every time I play Age of Sigmar, I like it more. And I already liked it a lot. Its just a nice fun and intuitive game - even if it does use way too many die rolls. I've been on a bit of tear with it lately - a few weeks ago I got in a game against an amazingly painted Daughters of Khaine army. I managed to squeak out a victory with my Overlords on that one. 

I was very worried about the amount Witch Elves on the other side of the board, but some judicious application of hot lead saw many of them off to meet Khaine in the afterlife.

These girls are hot. No really. That's magma.

Morathi is a beast. Literally. Look at that tail. But like any rabid beast, a gun will solve that problem.

More gaming and less painting lately, I guess. It'll probably flip back to normal soon. 

Cheers!