January Painting

 *blows off the dust* I guess it's been a minute since I updated around here, huh? Well, I do have some painted miniatures to show off.

First up are "Totleger's Carvers," my first regiment for the "Defenders of Vogelburgh," my 3rd edition Empire/Halflings army for this year's Old World Army Challenge. A unit of halberdiers (or Helblitzen, as they're called in the 3rd edition Warhammer Armies book), the human figures are War of the Roses infantrymen from Front Rank (since as of 1987, GW hadn't settled on a landsknecht aesthetic for the Empire yet), supported by a mercenary ogre from Knightmare Miniatures and a particularly feisty rooster from Dunkeldorf. Chickens of various types are going to be a theme throughout this army. 

The banner is painted on graph paper and entirely freehand. 

Here's a better look at the ogre; the barrel on his base is a resin bit from Dunkeldorf, and represents the regiment's lager ration.

With these figures finished around January 21st, rather than jumping right into the next unit for the Old World Army Challenge, I decided to paint up eight more orc archers from the 1987 Harboth's Orc Archers boxed set. I painted a dozen of them, including Harboth himself, back in 2021 as part of my first entry into the Old World Army Challenge, but wanted to finish the rest of the command group and enough rank-and-file to bring the unit up to a proper 20 figures. And that meant I also had to paint shields and a banner for the regiment.

The box describes Harboth and his boyz painting their shields with the faces of particularly noteworthy enemies; I went instead for a variety of grinning, disgruntled and suffering faces, with pallid green skin and glowing orange eyes. Are they orcs? Zombies? Who knows!

I went for a similar face, framed with wild white hair, for the banner; in retrospect it's got a little bit of an Eddie vibe from the band Iron Maiden, which I think works well.

 

Again, the banner is freehand on painted graph paper.

Finally, here's a shot of Harboth's shield; I had originally done a plain shield for him back in 2021, but pried it off and replaced it with an original Citadel plastic shield from the 80s. As I painted the face, it started to look like one eye was squinting a bit so I added a little Carroburg Crimson wash for a bleeding, empty socket. It differentiates him just a little bit from the boyz under his command.

All in all, January was a very productive month for me; February is shaping up to be less so, but we'll see what the next 12 days bring.

Also, I have bought the rulebooks for Warhammer: The Old World, as well as movement trays with spacers to adjust for the changed base sizes for the new game. I am hoping to be able to bring out my all metal orcs and goblins army and begin actually playing with them!

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.