Last one for 2016

I took a few days of vacation for Christmas time to be with family and actually found myself both time and energy to do some painting. I usually get up at 7am and as the kids tend to sleep ´till 10 or 11 as they don´t have school now I´ve had a couple of hours to myself each morning. The best thing about that is that I got my part of joint effort dark elves done. Now I just have to deliver them to Traject0ry. I think I will manage that during january as I have some work related business to the town he lives in.

Painting those cross bow armed dark elves put me into a mood to paint some more darkies. I really don´t have too many of those left as most of what I had was traded to Traj. I didn´t feel like doing the half dozen cold ones and their riders I have but the repeating bolt throwers felt like something I might try. I´ve painted a couple of bolt throwers for my high elves (here and here) so the war machine model itself if a familiar one but the crew is naturally different.

The bolt thrower itself and the 2nd crew member are in WIP stage so the only thing that is completed is this spotter. I chose to paint him first because of his stance. He is clearly looking forward - perhaps towards year 2017 and what it might bring?

It must be hard working in a bolt thrower crew. That dark elf is perhaps the most jagged old school elf I have seen. On the other hand he has to be pretty strong to carry all that armor he´s wearing.

That´s all for 2016! Thank you for reading my humble blog and have a Happy New Year!

Joint effort darkies - Finally completed

Sometimes you just hit a painters block. No matter how you look into it you just can´t get yourself to pick up your brush and finish something. That is just what happened to me with this unit of ten cross bow wielding dark elves.

Last october I sort of got Traject0ry hooked to Oldhammer. He started building a dark elf army and TL and myself promised to help him with the project. That way the Dark elf army joint effort project was born. I wrote about the project itself here. It´s not mentioned in the posting but we set an unofficial goal for this Christmas. My job was to paint two crossbow units both ten strong to meet the WFB:Armies troop minima for darkies. First unit was completed in september but this second one really took it´s time.

So here they are. Bob Naismith Citadel C09 Dark elves. 

I´ve used the guard model as the unit leader.

The unit leader and the musician.

And a couple of troopers.

Now I have a good excuse to visit Traject0ry some day as I don´t think I want to mail the painted models. And I´ll get a chance to talk him into writing something about the rest of the army.

And perhaps we can get the first chance to do some battle with these guys...

Seeker of Sampo

Merry Christmas!

In my previous posting I wrote about Kalevale painting challenge I´m running next year. The ´winner´ will be decided by a draw in which I will not take part but I wanted to paint something myself too.

Here´s Kauko Saarelainen - son of one of the men that followed Väinämöinen to Pohjola to get the Sampo back from Louhi. As we know Sampo was lost to sea after a battle versus Louhi and her men. Kauko´s father was the last one of Väinölä folk to hold on to Sampo but could not prevent it from falling off the ship and sinking to depths. Kauko´s father never forgave himself and nor did the people of Väinölä. Known as ´Sampo waster´ he lived shunned by everyone except his own family. Kauko seeks to clear his family´s name by joining the party that goes after the lost artefact. He is an agry young man with bad temper. That temper has gotten him in trouble many times.

Kauko wields the same spear his father used in combat against Louhi and her minions. He covers his head with a hood to go as unknown as possible. His fathers reputation is videly know and affects Kauko too. Kauko is protected by a long mail skirt and a big round shield.

Kauko´s model is a ELF1 series Kyfaillion. I´ve replaced his plastic shield with a larger metal one.

The base has been left blank as the winner of the draw will be responsible for basing all the models he gets.

BTW at the moment we have six participants doing a total of seven models allready. Check my previous posting for details of the challenge.

10000 views and a painting challenge

Just a couple of days ago my blog hit the 10000 views point. I really don´t know if that is a lot or not for a blog that has been active for just over a year but I´m happy with it. A BIG thank you to everyone whos been here!

To celebrate that and the fact that year 2017 is the 100^th year of Finnish independence I´m going to arrange a painting challenge. The idea for this challenge came from the excellent Oldhammer Forum where similar projects have been running for at least three times. Last one was a chaos villager project. You can see the wonderfully chaotic result here.

edit. 17.12.2016 Participants added
edit. 20.12.2016 Participants added
edit. 23.12.2016 Participants added

Raiders of the lost Sampo

How does it work?

Those who want to join will paint a single miniature to fit Kalevala: Raiders of the lost Sampo warband theme (see below) and mail the painted model to me by December 1^st 2017. All participants will enter a draw that will be on December 6^th 2017. The winner of the draw will get the warband for him/herself. The participants will cover the mailing cost for sending their model to me and I will take care of mailing the whole warband to the winner of the draw.As the organizer I will paint a model myself too but will not be part of the draw.

This challenge is mainly for Finnish oldhammerers. Painters from other countries are free to send in a model but will not get to be part of the draw.

By sending their models to me the participants give their permission for me to use pictures of their the models in this blog.

What models can I use?

You are free to use anything that fits the Kalevala: Raiders of the lost Sampo warband theme. Kalevala is a work of epic poetry compiled from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology.  There are wizards, shamans, heroes, giants and mythical creatures. You could even do the golden lady crafted by Ilmarinen.

Sampo was a magical artifact in Kalevala that brought good fortune to its holder. Sampo was lost to sea and was believed to be destroyed but now rumours of it´s rediscovery has spread and adventurers from all over the Väinölä are gathering to recover it.

You don´t have to stick with the original story of Kalevala just connect your work to it somehow. It would be appreciated if you could write a short background to the character you are creating. Akseli Gallen-Kallela´s art is a good source of inspiration on the theme.

The defence of Sampo by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

How will it look coherent?

We shall make a warband of heroes so no evil or chaotic models please. As some of the main characters in Kalevala are quite troubled - Kullervo perhaps the most - you´ll have some freedom there.

For some coherency the colors of the Finnish national flag blue and white should be present in every model if that is possible. It might be just a small detail or nothing at all if you are painting a Kokkolintu (a fiery or metal bird) for example.

Entering models should be provided with a round base. The winner will be responsible for basing. That way the bases will look coherent and the winner can make the models part of his/her collection and use them with the stuff he/she already has.

How do I take part?

Email me (janikortesluoma(at)Hotmail.com) or comment this text and let me know you want to take part. I will have and update a contributor list on this site.

Who is in? Updated 23.12.2016

Myself - a defender of Sampo spearman
LM - Something inspired by Lemminkäinen and his companion Tiera
Finmirage - Antero Vipunen (a giant?) or Lemminkäinen´s mother. Or something else.
Traject0ry - A shaman leader?
TL - The tiny man from the sea
MM - A giant pike

Model count: 7

Elf parade

In my previous posting I mentioned the Finnish independence day and the military parade that is an essential part of celebrations. Going through my even older text I noticed that almost exactly one year ago I painted the first model in the blue and white theme that was then chosen for my high elf army. That me made think - let´s see how my army looks today. Elves! Get ready for a parade!

Here´s everyone. Not exactly in a parade formation rather than just arranged on a bookshelf to fit in one picture.

Backrow: Baggare train, Guards, Shore riders with Scouts behind them, a Wizard, a Spectre

Middle row: Merchant company, Archers

Front row: Two Marine bolt batteries, Ship company, Wardancers

That roughly 120 models painted during last 12 months if you count in the war machines and carts too. I´m pleasantly suprised with myself.

Here´s a closer shot of the left wing. The merchant company was the first unit I completed. I had quite a lot of those 4th edition archers and spearmen left and it was nice to practise painting after many years not touching your brushes.

The right wing. Pretty much everything here is old school citadel. A lot of Jes Goodwin sculpts here.

In my opinion the army has a naval expeditionary force feel in it. It´s an infantry strong army with just a small unit of light cavalry in support. Just like something you could expect to land from elven warships and merchant galleys.

I´m hoping to expand my army so that it would eventually have at least one unit of every unit type presented in the WFB: Armies book. That means that I will have to paint a dragon rider, a unit of silver helms, a unit of warrior, kith unit and a chariot. I have a dragon and it´s rider in WIP state and it would be finished quite fast if I took the bull by horns and just painted it. One day...

For kiths I would like to get some rural looking archers. Armed with longbows the kiths could add some firepower to my army with lower points value than the normal +1 missile elite archers. I did buy a chariot a few months ago and I think I will take it on the painting table some day during next spring. As I love Jes Goodwin sculps I will try to get my hands on some more hand weapon armed elf warriors and create a warrior out of them.

Independence day archers

Today we are celebrating the 99th independence day of Finland. It is a tradion to have a big military parade on 6th december and this year it will be in Kajaani. And it is also quite common that if the Defence Forces has aquired some new equipment lately it will be presented to the public on this parade. This year the new system to make it´s first public appearance is the Orbiter II UAV system that will fly over the city of Kajaani during the parade and the image it transmits will be shown on a big screen.

With all this on the background I felt it would be appropriate to have something new ready for my high elves today. As my army has been lacking a dedicated archer unit I decided a while ago that I should get one. I was lucky to score about 30 plastic fantasy regiment archers from two seperate ebay auction for a very low price. Now the unit is completed and ready to mow down my enemies.

The unit leader is a Citadel Eternal Champion EC05 Dyvin Tvar model. Both the musician and standard bearer are excellent Jes Goodwin models from Elf command groups range. And the rank & file are of course fantasy regiment unipose elven archers. The archers were in pretty nasty shape when I got them but I decided not to strip them but to just give them a facelift. I think it worked and will do just fine as rank & file. The command group was given a bit more care.

A close up on the command group.

The whole unit.

This is how the archers looked like when I got them.

Seventeen archers, standard, musician and a LVL5 champion is roughly 350 points. That is a lot but elf archers can be used in hand to hand combat too if needed. It would be nice if they had access to shields and magic standard. Those would add a lot to their usability.

I still have eleven of those unipose archers left so I might do another unit later. Or use them as scouts. We´ll see. Happy indenpendence day everyone!

First year behind!

I started this blog on 2.12.2016 so today it´s been running for a year and a day and this is my 49th text so far. Initially I wrote in Finnish but changed to English to reach wider audience. I my first ever posting I set myself three goals:

1. builf myself a playable high elf army 
2. play some 3rd ed WFB with it and 
3. blog about the aforementioned things

I feel that I´ve succeeded with all three. My high elf force is certainly playable as I´ve had three matches with it so far. And I´ve been pretty active with this blog I think.

Quite a lot of elves have been painted during a year. I really haven´t counted them but there a several dozens. My personal favorites are the baggage train and the ship company.

The baggage train was really fun to put together. It took me ages to get the suiteble minis as there are not that many choises available for elf civilians. But I´m very pleased with the result. Especially happy I´m with the painter and his model.

This is the ship company. The unit has a fixed size of ten models which limits it´s usefulness on gaming table but I like it in any case. Rank and file are Citadel ME-32 Noldor deep elf variants. The musician and standard bearer are conversions using bits from 90´s high elf archers and dragon princes. Well armed and armored they look like marines from an elven warship.

After six months of blogging I had 2849 views and 5 followers. At that point I set myself a goal of 10000 views and 10 followers by this day. Today I have just below 9000 views and 12 followers so one of those goals was met while the other was not.

The most popular posting so far has been this battle report of a game between my elves and some dwarves. My favorite posting is the Baggage train compendium as I´ve become a big fan of that area of WFB Oldhammering.

What next? This year is ending soon so I´ll set my sights for year 2017. So during next year I want to play at least as many games of WFB as I did this year (3). I have an elf chariot that I want to complete. And I´ll paint enough greenskins for a 1500 points O&G force. And I´ll continue blogging about my oldhammer activities.