Da Red Bastids - 25 Orc Boyz

 Back in 2021, as part of the 4th Old World Army Challenge, I painted two blocks of 12 Orcs from Warmonger Miniatures. I love the pot-bellied, barefoot aesthetic of these orcs, as well as the sheer variety of sculpts available (including plenty of nose-pickers and raspberry-blowers!). 12 figures set these up nicely as units that could be used for Dragon Rampant or Warlords of Erewhon, but I knew if I ever wanted to play WHFB, Kings of War or Oathmark with this army, I'd need to bulk the units up. November 2022, I decided to finally do just that and purchased an extra 26 Orcs during Warmonger's Christmas sale. I painted three figures in January, got sick of using brush-on primer, and decided to wait until the weather warmed up and dried out so I could spray prime the rest.

Over the past week, I finished up the first unit, including a new banner and new shields (also from Warmonger) because I didn't want to be fussed trying to remember where the shields I'd used for the original 12 came from and getting more (I'm pretty sure they were WHFB 6th edition Skeleton shields, actually). No longer "Dem Lads Ova Dere" or "the Beans Regiment," they are reborn as Da Red Bastids tribe.

I even did the smart thing and numbered their bases so that I can rank them back up like this in the future.

Chaos Rampant: Planning an Army

So there's two ways I could go about building my "Old School Chaos" army for Dragon Rampant.  I could buy figures willy-nilly, assemble units as I go, and hope for the best or I could plan ahead and go in with an idea of what I have ahead of me.  I've gone with the second.  

First things first, I decided to randomly determine which of Games Workshop's Ruinous Powers my army would follow.  I rolled a D10, with 1-2 meaning Khorne the Blood God, 3-4 meaning Slaanesh the demon of hedonism and excess, 5-6 Nurgle the plague God, 7-8 Tzeentch, the god of magic and trickery, and 9-10 being unaligned.  

A 4 means my army is dedicated to the sensual and depraved Slaanesh.  Iiiiiinteresting.  Not the Power I necessarily would have chosen for myself, but that's why we're doing things this way, to mix it up.  

The next step then was to pull up a PDF of the old "Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness" book, and use the warband rules there to determine the composition of my Dragon Rampant army.  I won't end up with a nice, balanced force but I should end up with something fun.  

First up, my general.  A D100 roll determines that my general will be human, and a second D100 roll determines that, in Warhammer terms, they're a Level 10 Warrior.  So a fighter-type, not a wizard or spellcaster.  Easy enough.  A few more dice rolls determines that my general has a Bestial Face, which causes fear in those who face them and a bonus to Willpower.  

So I'm thinking my general is going to be a Single Model Unit of Elite Foot with the Fear special ability tacked on, and "Charmed" as his Leader trait.  Resistant to magic, he wades into the midst of combat, hacking down enemies and sending the survivors fleeing in terror.  I have a model in mind but we'll get there later.  For now, that's 8 of my 30 points taken care of.  

Next, I make three rolls on the Retinue chart and come up with Chaos Thugs, Beastmen, and a special! We'll come back around to that last one.  

Chaos Thugs/Marauders/Raiders are (in my head at least) a disorderly, bloodthirsty rabble barely kept in check by the general's force of will.  Well that's Dragon Rampant's "Bellicose Foot" right there! I don't think I want to add anything on, so we'll leave that at the basic 4 points.  

Beastmen I imagine as being much the same as Thugs/Marauders, but tougher and harder to kill.  I decided to treat them as Bellicose Foot with the "Extra Shiny Armor" upgrade, for 6 points.  

Finally, the special.  The "Other," the 100 on the D100 roll.  A few more dice rolls determine exactly what it is that joins my warband, and it is...a cockatrice.  Ooh! Now there's something different! What do we do with that? A cockatrice isn't as big and nasty as a hydra, chimera or dragon, so I don't think the Greater Warbeast profile is quite right, but let's call it a Single Model Unit Lesser Warbeast.  Both historically and in the Warhammer lore, a cockatrice has a petrifying gaze ability that turns foes to stone at a distance.  The Flame Attack upgrade, granting the Lesser Warbeast a ranged attack, would model this nicely.  And the wide, batlike wings on the 1990 GW Cockatrice model also call for the "Fly" fantastical ability to be added on, so let's call that another 8 points.  

So let's see, that puts us at 26 out of our planned 30 points.  Hmmm.  I could throw in another unit of Thugs/Marauders for 4 points, or I could pull 2 points off an existing unit and add in a unit of Chaos Warriors as Elite Foot.  I don't really have any ranged capacity at present and I don't have a spellcaster present either, which could hamper me in future games, but on the other hand, I knew going in that this would not be a balanced force.  I'll think about it and get something squared away.  

The Lost and the Damned: Starting my Chaos Rampant Project

My big project for this summer/year is going to be building myself a fresh warband for Osprey's Dragon Rampant, and I've set myself some limitations to keep things extra interesting:

• All figures must be metal, and either be pre-2000 Games Workshop or by new manufacturers working in the "Oldhammer" aesthetic.  
• No two copies of the same sculpt can be used unless I do significant conversion work on one of them.  
• All shields must have freehand designs painted on them, with an emphasis on John Blanche-inspired monstrous faces.  Realm of Chaos 80s' shield tutorial is my guide here.  
• Every unit must have a standard bearer, which will be outfitted with a banner I've hand-painted.  Every unit can optionally have a Champion attached, which counts for two Strength Points instead of the usual one.  Champions will be mounted on a 40mm base instead of a 25mm one to show their status.  
• I have to be able to field a viable 30-point warband before I can call the project complete.  

The army will be one of traditional WHFB Chaos; big angry guys in heavy plate armor, vicious thugs, raiders and marauders in a motley of lighter armor and miscellaneous weaponry, mutant beastmen and horrifying demons.  Because I'm selecting figures based on the "Oldhammer" vibe, color schemes will be likewise based on the examples Games Workshop's 'Eavy Metal team painted for the pages of White Dwarf back in the 1980s and early 1990s.  

Last night I got a start on two classic figures I managed to score of the Oldhammer Trading Group on Facebook, who will be part of a unit of various Thugs and Marauders; these guys are technically both.  Originally released in 1985 as part of the F5 Chaos Marauders line (or at least, intended for it), these two later showed up again in 1988 rebranded as Chaos Thugs, though their slotta tabs both still say "Marauder" on them.  

The axe-wielding Marauder with the big exposed beard was base-coated in Reaper's "Viper Green," and given a wash of GW "Biel-Tan Greenshade." Highlighting was done back up to Viper Green, and then the armor plates given an edge highlight of Vallejo "Escorpena Green." The raised portion of his left pauldron and his poleyns were then picked out in Reaper "Marigold Yellow," washed with GW "Casandora Yellow" and highlighted with Reaper "Sun Yellow." His beard was basecoated in "Ultramarine Shadow," and highlighted with drybrushings of "Ultramarine Blue" and "Ultramarine Highlight."

His shield used mostly the same greens as his armor, though I took the highlighting a step further with a little bit of Vallejo "Livery Green" over the "Escorpena Green." The face was also glazed with GW "Wayfarer Green" before the eyes and teeth were detailed.  

His buddy with the odd chain weapon had his armor basecoated with Vallejo "Squid Pink," and given a light wash of GW "Druchii Violet" before being built back up to Squid Pink.  The final highlight was Squid Pink with a few drops of Pure White mixed in.  Helmet, poleyns and elbow pieces were painted using the same Ultramarine triad I used on the first guy's beard.  Weapons were basecoated with Reaper "Tarnished Steel" and highlighted with "Pure Silver."

Bases were given a coating of Vallejo Sandy Paste prior to priming, and painted with Vallejo "Goblin Green." I'll probably go back and give them tops of them a drybrush of "Escorpena Green" to pick out the texture a little bit.  

Pantheon of Chaos Kickstarter Shout-Out

Just wanted to do a quick post shouting out a Kickstarter I'm backing, Knightmare Games' "Pantheon of Chaos 3: Rise of the Beastmen" to produce more Oldhammer-appropriate beastmen and Chaos Thug-types for their on-going "Pantheon of Chaos" line.  It's a week out from completion and the next stretch-goal is a free bonus Chaos Warrior for everyone backing at the 50-euro mark or higher. 

I recently ordered a handful of Knightmare's Chaos figures to get a sense of them in terms of size and casting, and I love them.  Very crisp casts, unique and imaginative sculpts.  The figures I received have a mix of tabbed and untabbed feet, and because consumers have a variety of needs regarding bases, so Diego at Knightmare does not include bases with his figures.  I've got some on order, the four-armed Chaos Raider Champion is actually too big for any of the slotta-bases I had handy. 

I'm so taken with these, and with the new sculpts from the Kickstarter, that I've made the decision to replace all the Age of Sigmar-era plastic figures in my Dragon Rampant Chaos warband with metal figures, primarily from Knightmare, with the goal of having every figure in the warband be a unique sculpt.  With the breadth of Knightmare's expanding "Pantheon of Chaos" line, I think it's going to be easily done. 

Cultists of the Vampire, and Getting a Game In

The second unit of my Vampire Countess warband for Dragon Rampant is complete.  A band of fanatical cultists, dressed in blood-red robes and hoods and armed with an assortment of rusty blades, serving the Countess Winterthorn in the hopes of being gifted with eternal life.  In game terms, they're a unit of Bellicose Foot, quick on the charge but a little fragile in sustained fights.  They're made from North Star's excellent "Frostgrave Cultists" plastic set. 

In other news, I actually got my first game of Dragon Rampant in last week.  I threw together a 30-point list using my old Age of Sigmar Chaos figures and some Reaper demons I'd painted up:

Rhakosk the Arcane (Light Foot, Spellcaster, Single Model Unit) - 7
Khairic Acolytes (Light Foot, Wizardling) - 5
Chaos Warriors (Elite Foot) - 6
Chaos Warriors (Elite Foot) - 6
Bakarathi Demons (Bellicose Foot, Cause Fear, Reduced Model Unit) - 6

And brought them to Just Games' new location, which had just opened that day - two doors down from the old location and twice the space for gaming.  Neil brought his Moonclan Grots (Age of Sigmar's renaming of Night Goblins). 

We had a great game, our two armies converging on a plain dotted with ruined buildings.  Since we were both playing the game for the first time, we skipped on playing a scenario and just did a straight-up death match.  Though his Squig Knights and Fanatics polished off my Khairic Acolytes and I lost a few Chaos Warriors and Bakarathi along the way, ultimately the goblins were reduced to a single unit of archers fleeing for safety. 

The towering Bakarathi, armed with an assortment of cruel weapons,
bound into a unit of Night Goblins ready to slaughter the little green goons.

I'm definitely looking forward to playing a scenario next time.  This list is going to need some tweaking - I'm going to put the "Undead - No Feelings" special rule on the Bakarathi to keep them from failing courage checks, for example. 

Lady Winterthorn's Retinue

First thing's first, I am now a proud Union man - specifically, the Brush Wielder's Union, a collection of likeminded wargamers and miniature painters dedicated to getting their stuff painted and on the table and encouraging others in the hobby. 

One of my local wargaming friends expressed an interest in his Age of Sigmar goblins pulling double-duty as a Dragon Rampant warband.  All he needs is someone to play against.  This got me digging my Liche and Skeleton Legions army out of storage, and finding it sorely lacking for what I wanted.  It was too inflexible, had too many easily exploitable weaknesses.  The answer? Build a fresh army. 

After some brainstorming, and going through my project pile of shame, I settled on a warband led by a vampire, and composed of deluded and fanatical mortals who'd been duped by the vampire's promise of eternal life.  I put together a list with a little speed, some shooting, some melee capacity and a solid spellcaster at its heart, which I felt was pretty well-balanced. 

The army core is Countess Adrasteia Winterthorn (Reaper #07010) and her Sanguine Guard (six copies of Reaper's #77408, "Athak, Undead Knight" in Bones), comprising a Reduced Model Unit of Heavy Foot with the Spellcaster fantastical rule applied.  The robes are basecoated in Reaper's "Deep Red" and highlighted with "Fresh Blood," while the armor is done in "Gunmetal Blue" with some accent work in "Ancient Bronze" highlighted with "Antique Gold." Countess Winterthorn's cloak was basecoated in "Midnight Blue" and highlighted with "Twilight Blue."

Last night I assembled the next unit in the army - a band of fanatical cultists that will be rated as Bellicose Foot.  These vicious maniacs compete among themselves for Countess Winterthorn's attention, hoping to spill enough blood to win her favor.  They're a dozen figures assembled straight off the sprues from Northstar's "Frostgrave Cultists" plastic boxed set. 

From here on out, everything else is going to be a conversion or kitbash.  I've got a box of Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry that are going to be converted into mounted cultists through the addition of heads and missile-weapon arms from the Frostgrave Cultists, and some Fireforge Medieval Russians are going to get turned into formal soldiery employed by the Countess. 

Challenge Catch-Up

I'm so bad at cross-posting my uploads to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge to my own blog, so here's a photo dump version.

First up, a unit of Bidowers/Scouts for Lion/Dragon Rampant.  Figures by Crusader Miniatures, I'm not in love with the autumn flock as is.  I should have put down a layer of my usual basing grit and then layered the autumn flock over it. 

Next, a set of undead hounds, painted for the "Reconnaissance" bonus round, with the idea that these would be a unit of Lesser Warbeasts in my undead Dragon Rampant army, sniffing out the living wherever they might try to hide.  Figures by Reaper Miniatures. 

And finally, Reaper's "Abraxus the Dire-Dead," who when I saw him I just had to paint up as Skeletor from "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe."

Dragon Rampant Update - Giant and Billmen

Over the past week I've managed to finish off (mostly) two more units for my "Men of Albion" Dragon Rampant army - a Hill Giant, by Reaper Miniatures, and a dozen Perry plastic War of the Roses billmen.  These will be a single model unit of Bellicose Foot with the "Fear" special rule attached, and a unit of Offensive Heavy Foot, respectively.

In my thinking as to the story of this army, the giant was either press-ganged or sufficiently bribed (a daily ration of whole cow, maybe?) into joining the army; the mismatched gear he had accumulated - the shoulder pad, the shields strapped to his midsection - were painted with the colors of the army to show he was "theirs."

I chickened out on painting half his body as heavily tattooed; once the skin was finished I liked the way it looked too much to risk mucking it up.  And while I've seen a number of people paint his fur kilt as having been stitched from different color pelts, the uniform fur texture throughout made me think it's pieces of hide from multiple examples of the same critter; in this case, I opted to paint it as grizzly bear fur, with a dark brown basecoat and building up alternating drybrushed layers of a slightly lighter brown and a pale, silvery gray, probably three drybrushings of each color.

I still need to make a flag for the unit standard bearer and get these guys varnished; I had left my priming box in the hallway outside my apartment door overnight to air out and it got picked up and thrown in the trash while I was at work.  So I need to get another box; I've got a big Reaper order coming in on Tuesday that will hopefully work, if not I'll be grabbing one of the envelope boxes from work.

the whole army so far

After this, just a unit of archers left to paint; once they're done, I'm actually going to be going back to Kings of War and doing rank-and-flank fantasy and hopefully finishing a 2000-point army in time to play with it at a tournament in November.  I had always wanted to collect a Chaos Dwarfs army in Warhammer Fantasy; alas, Games Workshop had nuked the army shortly before I discovered miniature painting.  So I'll be building an army of "Abyssal Dwarfs" for Kings of War in search of much the same aesthetic.

Dragon Rampant Update - Elite Foot Finished

The first unit for my Dragon Rampant "Men of Albion" warband is complete - Lord Edward and his bodyguards, comprising a unit of Elite Foot.  Lord Edward himself shares a base with his standard bearer, and counts as two Strength Points in DR; his four men-at-arms are each a single Strength Point for the unit total of 6 SP. 

The figures are from Front Rank's War of the Roses line, and I recommend them highly; the figures arrived very neatly and securely packed, and had only the most minimal of flash to trim away.  The sculpts are good (though I admit I did basically buy two copies of two sculpts - the knights with similar weapons are the same figure with a different helmet) and the standard bearer came with the choice of a standard pole or a poleaxe.  I liked the idea of a command base with the army leader and a standard bearer on it, so that's what I went with here. 

Since the men-at-arms weren't wearing much cloth to carry the warband's color scheme of red and blue on to, I opted to paint their helmets as having been painted or lacquered before going into combat.  The men in the open-faced barbute helmets have their helmets split in half color-wise, with blue on the right side and red on the left.  The two knights wearing closed visors had their helmets painted blue with red visors. 

This was my first time making a paper flag from scratch, and I think I did alright; I drew it out on a piece of graph paper to get it nicely square and then painted over it in the army colors of Reaper Deep Red/Blood Red and Ultramarine Shadow/Ultramarine.  Once it was dry I cut it out, painted some white glue on to it and wrapped it carefully around the flag pole, bending it a little to give it a sense of fluttering.

Color choices, so I don't forget them when I go to paint the next couple units, are as follows:

Armor:

• basecoat black
• drybrush Reaper "Tarnished Steel"
• wash Citadel "Nuln Oil"
• very lightly drybrush Reaper "True Silver"

Fabric:

• basecoat either Reaper "Deep Red" or "Ultramarine Shadow"
• highlight either Reaper "Blood Red" or "Ultramarine," respectively.

Leather:

• picked out in Reaper "Dark Flesh." 

Skin:

• basecoat Reaper "Tanned Shadow"
• highlight Reaper "Tanned Flesh"

Bases are painted Reaper "Earth Brown" and flocked first with Army Painter brand brown basing grit, followed by GF9 "Meadow Flock." I didn't finish them early enough to get them varnished today but I'll have them out in the primer/varnish box tomorrow.  Next I'll be splitting my time between the giant and the unit of billmen and then finally take care of the archers.  

Rampanting the Dragon, Again

I need to start a project; I've got nothing really sitting half-finished (at least not anything I'm likely to pick up again), and I think having something to work on would help my stress levels.  I haven't bought the book yet for Gaslands, though I probably will, but my frequent opponent Tom has begun work on a Dragon Rampant army.  I have 24 points of undead but I'm not really feeling them; I decided to start a fresh army.

Last November I'd assembled a box of Perry War of the Roses plastic infantry, giving me a unit of billmen (Offensive Heavy Foot in Dragon Rampant terms) and two of archers (Light Missiles).  I'd picked up some foot knights with poleaxes (Elite Foot) and with just those, I could field either a Lion Rampant retinue for the War of the Roses, or a very mundane human force for Dragon Rampant.  I started brainstorming and playing around with list ideas over the past two days, and got the unpainted figures out of the closet.

The metal foot knights I'd bought were not good clean casts, unfortunately; they'd had a ton of excess metal and the butt-ends of the poleaxes were all malformed.  I did my best to get them cleaned up and presentable but ultimately I couldn't get them to a place where I felt happy with them.  They've been binned and replacements - six dismounted men-at-arms from Front Rank's War of the Roses line - ordered.

The next step was fantasy elements.  I started thinking about legendary or mythological creatures

from the British Isles, and hit on the idea of a Giant; I removed one of the units of archers from the list and added in a giant (treating it as a single-model unit of Bellicose Foot, with either the Terrifically Shiny Armor or Fear special rules applied).  This would be not only a hard-hitting unit that emphasizes the fantastic nature of the game, but also provide a visual centerpiece to the army, towering over the remaining troops.  I'm picturing the giant as having been rounded up and press-ganged into service; I think I still have enough pieces left over to make a couple more billmen to model prodding the giant forward on a big diorama base.  I selected Reaper's "Krug, Hill Giant" to serve as my brute, favoring the $8 Bones figure over the $40 metal version.  I'll probably have to put a steel pin in one of his legs to keep him from leaning and possibly do the same with his club to keep it straight.

I'm tempted to paint the giant as having Pictish-style tattoos; we'll see how ambitious I get when he's actually in my hands.

So my list at this point looks like this:

• Foot Knights (Elite Foot, Leader) - 6 pts
• Billmen (Offensive Heavy Foot) - 6 pts.
• Archers (Light Missiles) - 4 pts.
• Giant (Bellicose Foot, Fear, Single Model Unit) - 6 pts.

This puts me at 22 points, 2 points short of a standard game.  I could throw "Enchanted Weapons" on the Foot Knights, or upgrade the Archers with "Sharpshooter," which would make them activate (to Shoot) on a roll of 4+ on 2d6, or I could boost the Giant's armor to make him harder to kill.  Or, I could pick up some Halflings/Hobbits with bows and add a unit of Scouts.

Ultimately, I think I'm going to add a minor spellcaster, or "Wizardling" in game terms.  While a full "Spellcaster" costs 4 points as an upgrade and can cast any spell on the list in the book, the Wizardling costs 2 points and can have three spells, selected before the game starts.  Rather than the pointy-hatted wizard with a floor-length beard, I decided I wanted a more subdued-looking, utilitarian figure.  After doing some digging, I settled on an older figure from Reaper's Dark Heavens line of metal miniatures, #2306 "Lor Gorna of Kjord." I like the shorter beard, the simpler staff and the open book.  I definitely get a "hedge wizard convinced to help the army before returning to his hermitage" vibe off this figure.

I'm on the fence as to whether I want to add him to the Elite Foot unit as an adviser to the warband's general, or put him with the billmen to bolster them with spells like "Sharper Swords!" or "Stronger Shields!" If we end up doing larger game with higher point values, I'll probably separate him off as a single model unit of Light Foot, but for now he's mixed in with the troops.

So this is what I'm going to be working on for a bit.  The weather is finally nice enough to where I can spray-prime, so a dozen archers and the billmen are going in the priming box today.  Hopefully I can start painting tomorrow.

Good Mail Weekend

Gina and I celebrated seven years together back in November, and as an anniversary present she pre-ordered North Star's new Oathmark Goblins for me, along with a box of Fireforge Medieval Russians.  These are going to form the core of my Mordor-knockoff "Coalition of Evil" Dragon Rampant list, with the Russians standing in for Tolkien's Easterlings. 

Challenge Prep - Clearing Out the Project Box

In preparation for this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, first things first I needed to work on clear partially-finished figures out of my work-queue.  Which meant, tonight, finishing off three units for Dragon Rampant. 

First up, a Reduced Model Unit of Heavy Foot with an accompanying Wizardling for my "Men of the West" retinue for Dragon Rampant.  Spearmen are Conquest Games' plastic Norman infantry, while the Wizardling is the cleric "Diva, the Blessed," a special edition figure released by Reaper Miniatures for their 25th anniversary this year.

Second, a unit of Lesser Warbeasts (hounds, in this case) accompanied by a handler, again for the "Men of the West." Dogs are Reaper Bones (and far from my best work) while the handler is a Crusader Warlord that I received as a free bonus figure in my most recent order from Gripping Beast - who, I just realized, I managed to miss painting the strap holding his shield in place.  I'll fix that tomorrow.

Finally, Reaper Miniatures #03109 "Kouraneth, Evil Knight," who will be serving as the general of my "Coalition of Evil" retinue for Dragon Rampant.  Accompanying him is his beloved pet, "Lil' Pinchums," a metal scorpion, also by Reaper, that I dug out of my bits box to fill some empty space on Kouraneth's base.