Sometimes it can take a lot of time - Dark elf war altar

 I think we´ve all been there. You start a new project and for some reason or other you just can´t get it finished. It gets overtaken by something new and more interesting. That´s just what I experienced with this dark elf war altar. Started back in january 2017 it sat in WIP stage for seven years until I finally got around putting the final touches on the model.

The model is made up of five altar guards one of which is carrying a standard and of the altar itself.

The guards in the front are a crew member from a dark elf repeating bolt thrower and

a Marauder miniatures dark elf warrior.

The guards on the back are two witch elfs and the standard bearer another 

crew member of a repeating bolt thrower. All slightly converted for their new roles.

A closer look at the banner itself and it´s bearer.

I wish I could remember what that demon idol was. It used to be part of a larger model that sawed in half to make it fit that wooden platform used to carry it around. It´s large I know but these are religious fanatics and can manage it.

Into the year 2024

 Last year was not as active for hobby activities as I had hoped for. I´ll try my best to do at least a little bit better during 2024. To start off I finished two little minis that I´ve had for a while,

First one is this elf beastmaster war boar. Brown fur with drybrushed higlights.

Black snout, legs and hooves. Bone for tusks and a metal nose ring. Pretty simple.

All six boars I have as a group.

And finally their masters,

The second miniature finished is this Mithril Miniatures M202 Ioreth the healer.

Her face and fingers was almost to small for me to paint.

She will be yet another addition to my ever growing high elf baggage train.

Not sure if just a cup of water will do much good for that fallen elf warrior.

Closing the year 2023 with a bang

 Or actually multiple bangs as the last thing finished for this year is a lead belcher organ gun. With all sorts of things going on there has been not that much time available for hobby activities. Yet I´m happy to have painted at least something. This is one of those models that has sat for months unfinished on my painting station so getting it done was quite satisfying.

My leadbelcher model was missing it´s original wheel that I replaced with 

the ones you see here. And I had only four of the six crew models. 

That is not a problem as per army book the gun comes with three goblin strong crew.

The gun from behind. There´s a lot of details both on the carriage and the gun itself.

And the gun shield is very detailed too.

Another view from the side. Can´t remember where these replacement wheels came from.

Finally Lead belcher organ gun as represented in Army book.

Gnovember is here again

 It appears that both september and orctober vent by with not much hobby activitiest around here. To kick my self out of painting stopur I started working on some Old School miniatures gnome sappers. It´s gnovember anyway.

These guys are small. I have to admit that I had some hard time with those tiny faces and some of the other details too. But they turned out good enough for my standards. These chaps will join their bearded brothers in my slowly growing gnome warband.

Kith band in making

 Had to scroll all the way back to 4.4.2020 to see when was the last time I painted some fantasy elves. It was some Scarloc´s archers then. And I can´t remember when it was and who it was that suggested getting a unit of Kith armed with javelins. After a few years of thinking doing it I found myself in a situation where I didn´t have much motivation to move forward with more chaos or epic eldar. So I dug out a couple of Jes Goodwin sculpts and threw some paint on them.

There are not too many javelin armed elf sculpts that look

like ´ordinary´ elves and not like wardancer.

As these are ´citizen soldiers´ I don´t want them to look

too uniformed but still keep the blue and white color

scheme of my high elf army.

With javelins these will cost 10 points each. Looking to build

a unit of 6-10 depending on how many models I can get my

hands on. Will be fielding these as skirmishers.

Leader for Cult Beastmen

 The Genestealer Cult Army beastmen don´t actually have a squad or platoon leader. They just come in bands whose size depend on the chaos power they are alligned with. As I intend to use my beastmen in WFB too I wanted to have a model that can be clearly distinquished as a unit leader. This Champion of Slaanesh model by Jes Goodwin is perfect for my purposes. A lovely sculpt he´s quite large and very fit to lead the beastmen. 

3142/3 Champion of Slaanesh: Huge Mace and Minotaur head

Funny little detail: a daemonette face groin armor.

Gnovember 2020 - final tally

 With both Gnovember and my gnome models running out shortly it is time to look at what got done this time.

The last two troopers. One with a halberd and the other with a large hammer.

A small earth elemental. A freebie I received from Krakon Games. "Painted" with

Astrogranite technical and higlighted a bit. Some turf thrown on his shoulder to

make it look like he´s been raised from the very ground he stands on.

My painted gnomes so far. They can already be called a war band, can´t they.

Gnome Command

That was one fast delivery! I ordered a few gnomes from Krakon Games after painting a patch of five in the beginning of Gnovember. And here stand painted some of those new ones.

From left to right: Geomancer, standard bearer, champion and musician.

The champion is from Krakon Games Gnome set 3. 

But with that pose he looks like a leader of some kind to me.

Those faces are almost too small for my ageing eyes. Or maybe I´ll just

havo to give in and get those eye glasses...

Gnovember is here

 My input to Gnovember 2020are these five Creatures Underground Gnomes. I painted another bunch of these back in 2018 when I got these. You can see those here. Used the same color scheme to make them into a unit of ten.

I still like the half-pick armed ones in the middle and farthest right most. The sword wielding chap is not bad sculpt either.

I have an old citadel pre-slotta gnome jester lurking somewhere... Perhaps I´ll seek him out and turn him into a leader of some sort.

edit.

Felt like the little prospectors needed a place to rest for night:

Really can´t remember where that tent came from...

Happy Orctober 2020

 My most modest contribution for this year´s Orctober are these two orcs brawling over a bottle of booze. Both have sat undercoated on my paiting table for too long and now I sort of forced myself into splashing some color on them.

Both are from the C15 / ORC5 / 0508 Orc Villagers series. They will join the orc

baggage train with some of the models I´ve painted earlier.

The bottle is a very crude green stuff thingie I came up with. 

To be honest I did not enjoy painting these that much. The details are somewhat shoddy and the face of that knocked-out one is just a complete mess in my opinion.

A somewhat chaotic 200th posting

Wow! When staring this blog just under five years ago I never thought I´d one day have 200 postings. At first I was thinking about doing something special for the occasion. Perhaps a look into those Oldhammer blogs that led me into becoming an oldhammer enthusiastic. Or once again returning to baggage trains, war altars, animal handlers or some one of those unit types that no longer exist in more modern rules sets.

However this will be an introduction of a new WFB army in building. Some of these models have been shown here before but not all and certainly not together.

So, it´s Slaaneshian Chaos. At the moment 19 beastmen, 3 minotaurs and 2 beastmasters with 6 chaos hounds. The beastmen are on round bases as the are to be used in a genesteraler cult army too. I will get a movement tray for them eventually.

Bird´s eye view. Pastel colors to give that oldschool look. Purple/pink, yellow and black used to tie the army together.

19 beastmen with a starndard. Equipped with light armor and shields that equals 13 points/model. So the cost for the whole unit without a character model to lead it would be 260 points. Not bad for WS4, T4 and W2 rank and file. Planning on adding a musician, champion and three more troopers to make it 24 (4x6) strong.

Two beastmasters and six chaos hounds. With ligh armor the animal handlers are 17 points each for total of 34. Chaos hounds are 23 points/model which means that this unit cost a total of 172 points. Not planning on adding anything to this.

The three minotaurs. With double handed weapons they are 48 points each for total of 144 points. I want to have six minotaurs in the end. In two units of three as their maximum unit size is five.

It´s a humble start. Just 260+172+144 = 576 points of rank & file so far. But throw in some characters and perhaps a bound host and it´s pretty quickly past 1500 total points. And I do have six trolls that could be used but in my opinion trolls aren´t very Slaanesh so I think I´ll stay away from that option.

What I´d really like to add is some chaos thug horse. Perhaps using those pre slotta C34/27 chaos beastman riders. And thugs on foot too. Thinking about some sort of cultist models. A war altar is a must. Just need to find suitable models for that first.

That it for posting number 200. Have a happy Orctober - go paint something green ;)

Couple of Chaos Beastmasters

 As those who have followed this blog know I´m a fan of animal handlers and have posted about them in several occasions: here, here and here. This posting can be seen as a follow up to the bigger article about the Chaos Beastmasters I wrote in 2017.

The two handlers. The one on the left is a Citadel produced one in heavy armor wielding some soft of warhammer or pick perhaps. That helmet/head piece was a tricky one but I chose to paint the lower half of the face as a part of the armor. A neck and chin guard perhaps. For the reast of the helmet I gave a bony look with metal reinforced sockets for those horns. Darkish brown hair is flowing from underneath the helmet. Armor is pastel violet with some metal details.

That guy with a pink whip is a Marauder Miniatures Beastmaster. Violet armor and pink details tie the two models together as does the small bone detail on his whip. Leather parts of his gear are all black. The over all look is Slaaneshian enough without going to extremities.

The more I look at the painted models the less they resemble the stat line and equipment given for beastmasters in 3rd edition Army book. That is a beastman line and the models look like Marauders or Chaos warriors. But as their faces don´t show - well they could be anything. I´m not gonna loose my sleep over this detail. 

The chaos hounds they will be leading can be found here.

Contrasty Scarlocs´ Archers

It sure has been a while since I worked on fantasy elves. As you know it´s been all eldar and IG as of lately. But I´ve had these Scarlocs´ archers sitting around in their original box since late 80´s and finally with arrival of those contrast paints I got myself together to actually throw some color on them.

So it´s only ten models now and that leader is not Scarloc himself but an ancient Legolas from a Lord of the Rings box I bought back in the days. Far from the best Scarlocs´ you´ll see around but I´m pleased with them as I wanted to test how fast I can make table top ready models with those contrasts. I wouldn´t hesitate pushing these around on a battle field.

Not going to set myself any deadlines here but I think I´ll have a beginning of a wood elf force here. It´s just 20 more archers and a general to meet the 3rd edition minimas. We´ll see what happens as I have a couple of other project going on too.

 All completed models so far. Some shields are still missing. Will add them later.

A closer look at some of the troopers and the standard.

I general I´m really happy with the way those contrasts work for this kind of mass painting. The result is just good enough for gaming and you can make units quite fast compared to regular paints. Just sprayed base on a few more Scarlocs´, a wardancer and a couple of other elves.

2nd Goblin Chariot

This one is a bit of a medley. I got most of the parts used here in a job lot I bought, some parts came from my bits box and other from eBay.

The whip toting driver is from the MD1 Goblin King´s Chariot set. The archer one is a goblin wolf rider whom I got without a mount.

Chariot itself is MD6 Goblin Battle Chariot with spear chariot sides. I got it without wheels and used some plastic ones (from 90´s Tiranoc chariot I think) as replacement. Some drilling and glueing was required to fit those scythes. The wolves are from that MD6 set too.

Here´s my other goblin chariot. More pics in this posting.

Some fantasy for change

The Finnish baseball season is running at full steam right now and with my son playing I´ve been less paining and more doing spectator sports outside. And I´m giving myself a bit of a break from IG too.

I did aquire a couple of bottles of those new cotrast paints at the beginning of july and geve them a try with some orcs. I had painted some Rugluds´ before and just wanted to try and find a speed painting method for them.

 The nine models I´ve completed so far. I tried using the contrast paints for skin and leather parts at first but that really didn´t works out too well. I didn´t like the skin tone that Ork Flesh produced. And the white base coating meant that I had to repaint the armor bits black after base coating. That took time and worked agains my speed painting idea.

So after a couple of models I went back to black base coating. Metal parts are Typhus Corrosion drybrushed with Ryza Rust and Leadbelcher. Skin is Warboss Green highlighted with Skarsnik Green. Mournfang brown washed with Agrax for spear shafts and different browns for leather parts.

I tried to achieve the original idea of the equipment being looted from some ancient tomb and being in corroded shape. I´m happy with the over all result and these will be good enough for me to be played with.

Here´s a pair of wolves that I painted using those contrast paints. It´s Snakebite Leather on white base highlighted with Ushabti bone. Works well enough for me.

Long time no gaming - O&G vs Dwarfs battle report

I think it´s been almost two years since my previous game of 3rd edition WFB. My usual opponents live half way across the country and things like work have prevented me from traveling there. Luckily I found a new oldhammer enthuastic via forums and facebook groups with whom we found time to play last week.

It was Orcs & Goblins vs Dwarfs, 2000 points of each side and pitched battle. Here´s some pictures and a shortish battle report about that game.

My orcs & goblins battle line. Goblin chariot, wolf riders (behind whom two O&G civilians who did not participate in any way), gobbo horde, two trolls, war boar mounted general and army banner, orc arrers, two more trolls led by goblin shaman, orc boyz, goblin arrers and two bolt throwers.

 The dwarfs left flank facing my goblins. Three dwarf cannon, hammerers, gyrocopter, iron breakers, flame thrower and quarrelers. My intention was to engage the elite dwarfs with my gobbos to keep them away from my main orc unit and trolls. I possible I would try to get the cannon with goblin chariot.

Rest of the dwarfs. Next to quarrelers a three barrel organ gun. Then pike armed dwarf warriors, another unit of dwarf warriors, bolt thrower, stone thrower and a small unit of slayers. I planned on engaging the warrior units with my orcs and then trying to break them with trolls.

My battle plan started to fall apart right from the beginnig as both troll duos decided to pick some flowers instead of advancing. And orc arrers fell victim to animosity and did not move. We played on a longish board with some distance between the armies and I knew my green skins would suffer greatly from those dwarf war machines.

Green skins advance. Well - most of them. Trolls are mingling around as they did for most of the first four rounds.

The wolf riders were the first to suffer casualties. Hit by a cannon they lost four goblins and had to roll for panic. That roll was suprisingly passed. They tried to retaliate by shooting at the gyrocopter but failed to hurt the pilot despite hitting him twice.

To slow down the elite dwarfs on that flank as planned (and not get shot to pieces) wolf riders and chariot charged the iron breakers. They would hopefully buy some time for my better troops to break the dwarf warriors.

As expected the goblin were suffering at the hands of the iron breakers and now were in danger of being flanked by the hammerers too. But they had slowed those two units conciderably now.

The dwarfs finally lost something as a warrior was impaled by a bolt thrower bolt.

The dwarf center advenced in good order and found good positions between two houses. They would not be flanked.

My orc line on the other hand was quite a mess. The boyz were blocking arrers advance and all the trolls were doing trollish things still at their deployment area. At top of the picture goblin arrers are sqeezing past the tower and prepare to shoot at slayer they are facing. Gobbo horde at the bottom moves forward behind the wolf riders and the chariot to forther block the dwarfs left flank.

Gobbos can see their wolf riding brethren being slaughtered in the distance.

Gyrocopter is heading for the orc bolt throwers and flying over orc arrers bombs them with a grenade killing several.

On O&G right the lone wolf rider hero is still finghting with the iron breakers when the gobbos close in releasing two fanatics. They move just five and three inches each falling short of their targets. In the next dwarfs round on is pin cushioned with cross bow bolts and in my next round the other rolls doubles and collapses. 60 points well spent. And with clear line of sight the organ gun released it´s barrels at gobbos who suffered roughly dozen casualties but held.

The gobbos bravely charged the hammeres in their flank. As iron breakers were jammed behind them it looked like my plan of holding the elite just might work.

On the other side of the battle field a fanatic and arrows killed all but one of the slayers. But that slayer charged the gobbos and eventually single handedly routed them.

The centers engaged but despite even trolls finally joining in the orcs were unable to break the darfs warrior units. As the last effort orc general himself joined in but it was too little too late. More dwarfs from their left flank (righ top in this pic) were closing in for charge. At this point I saw no hope of victory and congratulated my opponent.

Some lessons learned:

• You really need someone capable to lead the trolls
• Cannons are murderous with rule book rules
• Flying rules are complicated
• I need more gobbos (45 is not enought)
• I need more fire and hitting power