painting – Page 3 – Lair of the Lagomorph

The Silver Bayonet – British Unit

I wasn’t expecting to be working on this this week, but when inspiration strikes, seize it! I’ve been looking at running Rangers of Shadowdeep for my usual roleplaying games group, and while reading the books and doing some research I remembered one of Joseph McCullough’s other games that interested me while back: The Silver Bayonet. The Silver Bayonet is a skirmish game pitting Napoleonic era units against each other as well as against monsters brought about by the horrors of the constant wars of the era. This renewed interest in the game coincided with my reading of a book on the founding of “New France” (Canada/Quebec), so I was primed for some musket-based action. The game is really easy to pick up so I quickly threw together a unit roster (which can be up to 8 models), and started kitbashing!

I bought a bunch of different Napoleonic sprues a while back to use for Chosen Men so I had plenty of models to turn into a Silver Bayonet unit. As you can see above I ended up with 7 models rather than the max 8, so a slightly elite unit composed of my officer, a junior officer, two highlanders, two riflemen, and an infantryman. This eclectic mix is pretty standard for these units, which are made of soldiers (and others!) that have survived encounters with the supernatural rather than any particular regimental affiliations. The officer and the riflemen are based on the Wargames Atlantic Riflemen kit, the highlanders and junior officer on the Victrix highlanders kit, and the infantryman is from a Perry Miniatures kit. I decided early on I wanted to minimise the amount of shakos in the models, I see these units as being on the road a lot and being in full battle-dress for these skirmish fights doesn’t seem very appropriate (plus I could see losing your hat very easily when running away from a Werewolf!).

First let’s look at the officers:

My unit leader is Major Horatio Bellgrave, a 95th rifles officer reassigned to lead a Silver Bayonet unit and with a long history of hunting monsters. I selected the Supernatural Veteran attribute for him, which lets him pack extra supplies, which I used to cover all the super natural bases giving him silver shot, cold iron shot, and a salt bag for those pesky demons! Alongside that he has the quick reload attribute which lets him shoot every turn with a penalty rather than having to spend a turn reloading between shots. Modelling wise he’s mostly from the WA kit, with a head from a Warhammer Empire kit (with a ludicrous set of feathers!) and a bag from some other Warhammer kit to represent all the projectiles he’s hoarding!

The junior officer is Lieutenant Iain MacRae, from the Black Watch. I wanted a more traditional officer in the unit, as a counterpart to the probably slightly mad monster hunting Major. I selected the great faith attribute for the Lieutenant, and gave him a silver sword. The model is straight from the Victrix kit, barring the pouch and the crucifix which are from a Warhammer Empire kit (the crucifix is a cut down dagger). He has his official headgear on as it matters a lot to Iain to be properly uniformed, even when fighting the supernatural.

Next up the red coats! From left to right:

Private Ruairidh MacInnes, a highlander of the Black Watch, wielding a huge silver Lochaber Axe. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice he’s wearing red epaulettes, which are not correct for a private! This is a modelling constraints, as I used the officer banner arms to create the axe. I rationalised this by painting them red like French Imperial Guard epaulettes, clearly MacInnes bested a guard and took them as a trophy! For the rest of the model the head of the axe is from a Perry Agincourt set, while the head is again from a Warhammer Empire kit (some great grizzled heads in these Warhammer sets!).

Private Jack Fenner of the Buffs. As mentioned above, this one is from a Perry kit, with these great reloading arms. The bandaged head is from Warlord WW2 British paratroopers, and his dinner is from the Bretonnian Men-at-arms kit. I picked the Buffs for the regiment from a family connection, one of my Great-grandfathers on my English side was in the Buffs in North Africa and Italy during WW2. On top of his musket he’s equipped with a salt bag to pepper unholy creatures with.

Private Callum MacPherson, also a highlander of the Black Watch, with a classic claymore and bagpipes combo. We have once again a Warhammer Empire head, albeit an older one, and the sword is from the Warhammer Empire Knights kit. The body and pipes are from the Victrix set. I’m treating the pipes as a holy item in the game, clearly bagpipes have some effect on monsters!

Last but not least we have the pair of riflemen:

Private Isaac Crowe, follows in the steps of his major and on his way to becoming a great monster hunter. The model is almost wholly from the WA riflemen kit, the only exception the small chest hung under his backpack, from the Bretonnian Men-at-arms kit. Clearly some precious loot! He’s carrying cold-iron shot.

Rifleman Benedict Pryor, more junior (hasn’t lost his hat yet!), more proper, and likely feels closer to MacRae than to his Major. Also almost entirely from the riflemen kit, he just has a small pouch with a bird in it from the same Men-at-arms kit (slightly hard to see in the photos). He’s carrying silver shot.

There you have it! These were very fun to put together, and very quick to paint, I finished them in a couple of sessions. It scratched the Napoleonic itch nicely, with a bit of research on the uniforms, and my first ever attempt at painting tartan.

At the risk of making this post very long, Silver Bayonet also comes with a set of solo gaming rules, and I couldn’t resist trying the unit out so here’s a quick skirmish report for the first solo mission in the game: Wolf Hunt.

The premise behind the mission is my unit is looking for traces of another unit which has not reported in a while. While tracking them, my unit finds signs of a scuffle and starts looking around for clues as to what might have happened. The search is interrupted by wolf howls…

The game is played on a small board compared to what I’m used to (2.5×2.5ft), so I marked off the area with some spare wood I had lying around (the marked off area is closer to 3x3ft but I did what I could with what I had!). The unit starts in the middle of the board and 8 wolves evenly spaced out 2 per edge. The clues I need to investigate are marked by the triangular tokens, there are 6 all up. My goal is to find a clue as to what happened to the missing unit(and recover their orders if possible to avoid them falling into enemy hands) and get off the board, the game ending when I have no models on the board. At the end of each turn I have to roll on a table that indicates what happens (usually more wolves arrive!). Unlimited turns with wolves arriving every turn means I need to get a move on investigating those clues! Behind each of the clues is something that will help or hinder the unit, as determined by a small number of playing cards shuffled into a clue deck. As a model investigates a clue, a card is drawn from the deck and a table consulted for what the model found.

The game uses 2 D10 for all its rolls, one blue (skill), one red (power). The dice are rolled together and added up to see if an action is successful. The colours are used to indicate damage in the case of attack rolls, with more skillful weapons using the roll of the blue dice for damage and more brutal weapons using the red die. This is a really simple mechanic, but quite engaging especially when combined with the fate dice described below. As an example, assume MacInness attacks a wolf with his axe (uses power die for damage), he rolls 2d10 (7 Blue, 6 Red), adds them up (13), and compares to a wolf’s defense (12). He equaled or beat the defense, so he deals the damage, which is 6 as per the power die (+1 for the weapon being heavy!). A wolf has 8 wounds, so we mark off 7 of those and the wolf gets to strike back!

In solo missions, players get two fate dice, one of each colour which allow for one re-roll per dice type. This can be quite important as a re-roll may not only allow a model to hit, but also to deal more damage!

Turn 1

The turns are split into a first player phase (P1), where I can act with half my models, then a monster phase (MP), followed by a second player phase (P2) where I can act with the rest of my unit.

P1
- MacInnes moves towards the closest wolf and fires his pistol, killing it instantly (lucky!)
- Fenner fires his musket at another killing it (after I used a fate die to re-roll the 1 on the skill die!)
- Crowe fires his rifle at another and kills it too (3 shots – 3 kills so far! that has to be a record)
- Pryor fires his rifle, hits but only deals 4 damage.
MP
- The wolves all close in on the unit, all moving towards the closest member they can see.
- One of the wolves is revealed to be a werewolf!
P2
- Major Bellgrave fires a silver bullet at the werewolf, scoring a solid hit (7 damage)
- Lieutenant MacRae bravely charges the werewolf and skewers it with his silver sword!
- MacPherson charges the wolf closest to him, hits it for 6, the wolf bites back but misses.
End of round, two more wolves arrive.

*MacRae’s foolhardy but extremely effective charge!*

*State of the board at the end of turn 1. (Sorry for the blurry photo, still don’t have a sensible way to take board photos!)*

Turn 2

P1
- MacPherson attacks the same wolf, misses. The wolf does not miss back however and hits hom for a massive 10 damage! Luckily highlanders have 11 health unlike most of my other troops so he clings on, but things are looking dicey!
- MacInnes comes to his rescue and swings his axe at the wolf, killing it.
- Lieutenant McRae pulls his sword out of the werewolf and continues his rampage, killing a wolf with a pistol shot, then moving to the clue closest to him.
- Fenner moves onto his closest clue and investigates. Unfortunately, I draw the ace of spaces from the clue deck which means what drew Fenner’s attention was a lurking werewolf! Right before the monster phase too…
MP
- The werewolf swings its massive claws at Fenner … and rolls snake eyes! Critical failure. Normally this would cause the model to lose its weapons, but luckily for the werewolf those claws are well attached. Fenner keeps his head together and bayonets the werewolf, unfortunately his bayonet is made of regular old steel and only deals two damage to the werewolf.
- The remainder of the wolves close in further.
P2
- Major Bellgrave uses his quick reload ability and fires at the werewolf, hits after I burn my power dice fate re-roll (no more re-rolls now!) and deals 6 damage with a silver bullet.
- Pryor reloads his rifle and charges a wolf with his bayonet, but misses. The wolf bites back and inflicts 4 damage.
- Crowe also reloads and charges the same wolf, he is luckier though and finishes the wolf off.
End of round, one more wolf arrives.

Turn 3

P1
- Major Bellgrave quick reloads again and fires a silver bullet into the werewolf, killing it.
- MacPherson investigates the clue next to him, discovers an ornate silver ramrod, which gives me an extra Skill die in my fate pool.
- Crowe fires his rifle into the closest wolf, and scores a critical, killing the wolf instantly!
- MacInnes investigates another clue and finds a bag of silver shot, meaning he can shoot effectively at werewolves if any others arrive!
MP
- The wolves close in.
P2
- Fenner reloads his musket.
- Lieutenant MacRae investigates the clue he moved to last turn, and finds a silver knife (clearly whoever left all this stuff was prepared for werewolves!). He then charges the closest wolf, and deals 6 damage with his sword . The wolf bites back and deals 4.
- Pryor investigates another clue and finds a silver medallion, giving me an extra power die in my fate pool (back up to one of each!).
End of round, one wolf arrives.

Turn 4

P1
- Fenner fires his musket at the wolf Lieutenant MacRae attacked but misses
- MacRae then charges back into the wolf, rolls horrendously on both dice and I decide to re-roll both with my freshly obtained re-rolls. The new rolls are excellent and the wolf is killed.
- MacInnes moves closer to MacPherson and reloads his pistol (with his new silver shot!).
- Major Bellgrave quick reloads and fires at the closest wolf, but misses. He moves towards the board edge, time to think about finishing this skirmish!
MP
- The wolves close in.
P2
- MacPherson decides to leave the board, his wounds are rather bad.
- Pryor fires at the wolf close to him, misses, charges in with his bayonet and scores a hit for 5 damage. The wolf misses when trying to bite back.
- Crowe charges in too, and bayonets the last wounds off the wolf.
End of round two more wolves arrive

Turn 5

P1
- Crowe investigates the last clue, finds the missing unit’s orders! I need to get these off the table if possible.
- Lieutenant MacRae reloads his pistol and moves right to the edge of the board. He;s looking to draw the wolves there towards him, away from Crowe, to give him a better chance to get away with the orders.
- MacInnes fires his pistol at the closest wolf, misses, and moves towards the closest board edge.
MP
- The wolves close in.
P2
- Major Bellgrave quick reloads, fires at the same wolf, misses, then moves closer to the board edge.
- Fenner reloads his musket and moves towards the board edge.
- Pryor also reloads and moves towards a board edge.

Turns 6 & 7

Those two turns are rather uneventful, the unit simply retreats off the board and fires at any wolves getting too close.

Wrap-up

The unit achieved all the objectives and got maximum experience out of the scenario, not bad!

The game was very fun, I’ve never really tried playing a solo wargame before. The rules were very straightforward, and the scenario interesting and engaging to play. I think I got very lucky in the early rounds killing so many wolves in one hit, this would have been much harder with a few more wolves running around. There are 3 more solo scenarios in the the rulebook and I will be definitely playing through them. I’m not sure the top down photos are particularly great for these small skirmish battle reports, it’s a bit hard to follow what’s going on I think. I may try some other way of recording the action for future ones, open to suggestions if anyone has some!

Snotling Pump Wagons

Warhammer: The Old World

After last post‘s detour into card gaming, back this time with some more usual fare for this blog, models! I’m still pottering away at my Orcs and Goblins army and just finished these two extremely fun models: Snotling Pump Wagons!

For the non-initiated, Snotlings are what Orcs and Goblins call their even smaller cousins, which are even tinier goblins (The models are quite small as you might imagine!). Pump wagons are weird contraptions that are built, crewed, and powered by Snotlings, and as a result barely hang together but can surprisingly effective in the game … if they reach their target.

These models are actually the Blood Bowl Pump Wagons, which I much prefer to the proper Warhammer ones. Even though they’re plastic, they’re surprisingly fiddly to put together (to the extent that I think it’s on purpose to ensure they end up as rickety as if they’d been built by Snotlings!). They come as part of the Snotling Blood Bowl team which is packed full of characterful Snotling models, which meant I could cram them full of different sculpts.

While the models are the same model twice I tried to add some variety to them, mainly through the addition of different Snotlings as I mentioned, but also with some painting differences. The kit is also relatively flexible and lets you add pieces in a few different ways which is nice.

These were a lot of fun to paint as you might imagine. I had all the Snotlings separate for painting to make things a bit easier for myself, and gluing them to the pump wagon once everything was painted was very satisfying.

I’ve just embarked on a “small” side project which has my son very interested in miniature-related gaming so expect to see some (all?) of that next post!

The Galleon’s Graveyard: Dreadfleet Terrain

Board Games

I’ve been busy building and painting a big unit for my Orcs and Goblins Old World army and needed a change of pace (read: a smaller project!). I had a look around my hobby room and my eyes stopped on my Dreadfleet box. I’ve used the game as a palette cleanser in the past (Back in April 2022!), and it delivered once again. At the pace I’m painting it I should expect to be able to play a game in 2040 or thereabouts.

Rather than paint more ships, this time I decided to tackle the terrain pieces in the box. These are nicely varied and hold a ton of detail given the scale they’re representing. They also had the advantage of being mostly rocks and therefore were nice and quick to paint, which fit my purposes perfectly.

Painting them was quite relaxing, and apart from painting the water, they were really straightforward. The water was an issue for two reasons: 1) unlike the ships which have separate bases, this terrain has the water attached and mixed into all that detail I was talking about before, and 2) I never wrote down how I painted the water the first time around!

Considering “the first time around” was close to two years ago I was preparing myself for some hard trial and error. However I got extremely lucky there, and as I was painting remembered how I’d done it, as well as picking the right paint to use on the first try. I am preparing for the next long break between painting this set this time, and writing things down! So here goes:

Rocks:
1. VGA Dark Fleshtone [Airbrush] – All over
2. VGA Beasty Brown [Airbrush] – In generous patches
3. VGA Cold Grey [Airbrush] – Smaller patches, picked out some rocks entirely
4. VMC Stone Grey [Drybrush] – All over
5. MIG Panel Line Wash Deep Brown [Wash] – All over
6. AK Slimy Grime Dark [Stipple] – On the base of the rocks to add green algae
Wood:
1. VMC English Uniform [Basecoat]
2. VMC Stone Grey [Drybrush] – All over
3. MIG Panel Line Wash Deep Brown [Wash] – All over
4. AK Slimy Grime Dark [Stipple] – On the base to add green algae
Sails:
- VGC Black [Basecoat]
- VMC Dark Sea Blue [Highlight]
Bones:
- VGC Bonewhite [Basecoat]
- MIG Panel Line Wash Deep Brown [Wash] – All over
- VGC Bonewhite [Highlight]
- AK Slimy Grime Dark [Stipple] – On the base to add green algae
Castle Walls:
1. VGC Black [Basecoat]
2. 50/50 AP Kraken Skin / VMC Dark Sea Blue [Line Highlight]
Castle Roof:
- VMC Dark Sea Blue [Basecoat]
- 70/30 AP Kraken Skin / VMC Dark Sea Blue [Line Highlight]
Lava:
- PA Titanium White [Underpaint – Brush] – Painted the lava areas in pure white
- VMA White [Underpaint – Airbrush] – Painted next to the lava areas to create a glow
- VGA Moon Yellow [Airbrush] – Center of the lava areas
- VGA Orange Fire [Airbrush] – Outer areas
- VGA Gory Red [Highlight] – Picked out the raised areas to make “cold” lava crust
- VMC Black [Highlight] – Picked out raised areas within the red
Water:
1. Light Grey [Basecoat] – This was a mix to match the undercoat I used on the rest of the models in the set, a just off-white straying into grey.
2. GW Contrast Akhelian Green [Contrast]
3. VMC Light Sea Grey [Highlight]
4. GW Contrast Akhelian Green [Contrast] – Slightly watered down
5. VMC Light Sea Grey with a dash of GW Contrast Akhelian Green [Highlight]

Manufacturer codes: VGA – Vallejo Game Air, VMA – Vallejo Model Air, VMC – Vallejo Model Color, VGC – Vallejo Game Color, PA – ProAcryl, GW – Citadel/Games Workshop, AP – Army Painter, MIG – Ammo Mig, AK – AK Interactive

Here’s some detail shots of the terrain pieces. They’re all named in the rulebook so I’ve reproduced those in the captions.

Castle Island
Castle Island

Corpseface Cliff
Corpseface Cliff

Shipwrecks

Volcano Island
Volcano Island

Leviathan Island and Skull Island
Leviathan Island

Finally here’s a shot of the terrain with the ships I painted earlier. Really gives you an idea of the fantastical scale the game’s ships are!

It was nice to have a small project to tackle, gave me a sense of having accomplished something after a few months of working away at a bigger project without results I can show! What is true is that the pandemic days are truly over, I have to get used to hobby productivity levels that are much reduced when compared to the enforced downtime we had in the early 2020s. One thing I promised myself when I started this blog is that painting is meant to be my fun time, and should never feel like a chore. That means posting to the blog is secondary to that, and even if I feel it’s been too long between posts (which I’ve felt all of last year and this year), life and fun comes first, and I’m not going to make myself paint just to post something.

Japanese January

Uncategorized

I’ve been in contact for a few months with John over at Just Needs Varnish!, over which time we decided to tackle some of our respective Japanese backlog. He had some turn of the 19th century Japanese forces in need of painting, and I’d been sitting on a collection of unpainted Sengoku era miniatures for a couple of years.

I decided to kick off my Sengoku collection with some spear Ashigaru. The models are from Perry Miniatures and come in boxes of 6 metal miniatures so what you see in the photo above is two boxes of spearmen and a lieutenant from the ashigaru command box also by Perry.

The resulting odd block of 13 models works well for my current target rules system for playing this era: a repurposing of the MESBG ruleset. It’s one of my favourite skirmish systems and I think lends itself very well to historical gaming. The game system is very flexible and makes it easy to represent mixed units as the models are individually placed and moved. In MESBG you pick armies by assembling warbands lead by character models, with 12 models lead by a minor “hero” being pretty standard for the game. This means this group of 13 above makes for a nice warband.

If you’re familiar with the period you might have recognised the mon (emblem) of Clan Hōjō, with it’s three triangles (representing fish scales if I understand rightly!). I decided to go with this clan as I visited some the region they ruled over during my first visit to Japan back in 2015 and really liked it, it’s one of my fondest memories from that trip. In fact the foggy forest photo I’ve been using as a backdrop to my miniature photos for quite a while now was taken there! So the backdrop is very appropriate for these models.

Painting-wise these were relatively simple, with the black and blue scheme heavily reliant on Vallejo’s Dark Sea Blue. I used it both for the cloth areas and the highlights on the black, just mixing in different levels of pale greys in for highlights to differentiate them. For the skin I followed the recipes in my previous Samurai post.

I was planning on tackling some buildings I 3D printed early in the month but simply ran out of time, so they will appear on the blog at a later date when I get around to them!

John got some great results out of our themed painting month, painting some very nice cavalry and some matching infantry that you can see pictured above. Overall this was a fun exercise, and got me to paint some models which I had no immediate plans to tackle which is always a nice plus! So thanks John for the motivation, and I recommend you all go check out the models John painted (and generally follow his blog, lots of great stuff on there).

River Trolls

Warhammer: The Old World

With some leave over the Christmas break I’ve had a bit more time to paint (and game!) and have managed to get through a unit that I’d applied a basecoat to back in September-ish: River Trolls!

I’ve had these models for quite a while. I originally bought them to make Chaos Trolls back in the early 2010s and instead left them unbuilt for 10 years. It’s therefore nice to have them done for this latest project.

The models themselves are quite fun to paint as they have a decent amount of detail, much of which is quite characterful (including the infamous troll vomit!).

For units that are relatively unique in armies (i.e. that I won’t have to paint again) I like to experiment a bit with my painting. In this case I played around with oil washes in a slightly different way than I usually do. Normally I dilute my oils heavily with thinner, apply, blast with the hairdryer for a minute and get wiping the raised areas away with a sponge. I’ve had issues in the past with oil washes looking but not actually being dry by the time I varnish the models and found a few months later that the model has gone a bit tacky. Luckily this is easy to fix with a fresh coat of varnish. Here instead I went for a heavier wash (less diluted) and let it sit for a day or so before touching it. I was a bit worried that would limit my ability to wipe off the excess wash, but those fears were unfounded, and in fact I found it easier to get nice gradients with the wash in this way. To make sure the wash was dry before continuing, I left the models for another day or so, monitoring the areas where the wash had pooled the most. It’s a time consuming process but the results are worth it. Luckily for me I had something else to paint while I was waiting, which I will show later!

I wanted a cold green for these models to match their “riverness”, so I went for a basecoat of Vallejo Game Color (VGC) Heavy Blackgreen, and progressively mixed in more and more Vallejo Model Color (VMC) Pastel Green. The red fins are VMC Mahogany Brown, highlighted with a mix of the same brown and VGC Dead Flesh. The hair/fur is a mix of VMC Dark Sea Grey and VMC Black, highlighted with a mix of VMC Dark Sea Grey and VMC Pastel Green. The teeth/nails were a basecoat of VMC English Uniform, highighted with VGC Dead Flesh. The leather was VMC Chocolate brown, highlighted with a mix of the same and VGC Dead Flesh. All of these received the oil wash discussed above, which was a mix of Abteilung 502 Midnight Blue and Brown Wash oil paints.

Overall I’m very happy with these, nice addition to my Orcs and Goblins army.

As I said in the opening lines, I got some gaming in too this break, with a campaign game for our Border Princes campaign. The campaign was on a bit of a hiatus after the back end of the year got very busy for most of us (including a few weeks where 3 of us were out of the country!). The next match due was my Dwarfs against the Lizardmen, battling over a major crossroads. The game was a lot of fun and as a result I completely forgot to take photos! The outcome was our first draw of the campaign so far, which results in both armies retreating from the area. Here’s the campaign map at the end of Turn 6.

We’re currently planning our moves for the next turn, so hopefully I should have some updates soon.

One thing that happened during the game is I tried out the new engineer rules from the Dwarfs Arcane Journal. These allow you to take a Sapper Engineer, which allows all kinds of things such as entrenching your artillery, and booby trapping the battlefield. I equipped said engineer with a handgun inscribed with some of the new ranged weapon runes also found in the book. He then proceeded to cause more damage single-handedly than most of the other units I had in the game! I decided that meant he deserved a proper model and set about to making one as there is no Sapper Engineer model in the range.

I used an old metal dwarf handgunner (one of the first models I ever bought!) which has a really cool dragon head muzzle on his handgun. This looked appropriate as a runic handgun, and I also liked the practical attire he was wearing. One thing that was missing was anything that screamed “sapper”. The distinguishing mark for a sapper in the Napoleonic era (at least for the French army) was the carrying of a great big axe, but a dwarf carrying an axe just blends in so I went for a spade instead.

I wanted to accentuate the digging aspect so I tried to make it look like he’s taking potshots while digging a trench. Hopefully that comes through!

Goblin Archers

Warhammer: The Old World

I’ve been chipping away at this small unit of archers for my Orcs and Goblins over the past few weeks. I have not been in any particular rush and it’s been quite nice painting at a sedate pace. I have a tendency to want to get things done fast, but with work quite busy lately it’s been good to do the fun things in life in a more relaxed fashion!

These are new casts of old models like much of the rest of the newly (re)released Orcs and Goblins models for Warhammer The Old World. These are pretty old sculpts now and were current when I started the hobby in the early 2000s. I’m absolutely the demographic for this nostalgia fueled set of releases!

I tried to make them look generally cohesive but in a haphazard manner, picking out their clothes in different colours. For my own future reference (I have plenty more of these to paint!) these are: Vallejo Model Color (VMC) German Fieldgrey WWII (also used for the fletching), VMC US Field Drab, VMC Black, and VMC German Camo Medium Brown (also used for the furs). The rest of the colours used are the same as for the rest of the army as detailed in my Orc Warboss post.

One nice discovery painting these was a new method (new for me at least!) for placing pigment powders on the bases in a much less messy way. So far I’ve been applying them dry, which tends to get them everywhere, and fix them using airbrushed varnish (at low pressure but still very messy). For these I experimented with mixing them with acrylic thinner before applying them in patches to the bases. I then dipped my brush in water and blended the patches into the uncovered section to get an uneven look. This method was much cleaner than dry application and was a lot easier to control. I’d recommend trying it out if you’re using dry pigments on your bases!

Really Tiny Space Marines

Legions Imperialis

Back after what must have been the biggest break this blog has seen! I’ve been traveling for work and as such have had pretty much no time to paint in October between the trip itself and preparation for said trip. I’m back at home now, and started something I’ve been eyeing off for a while now: Legions Imperialis – the revamp of the old Epic 40,000 game system.

As I mentioned above, I’ve been thinking of getting started in Legions Imperialis since it launched – something about the scale of the battles really appeals to me (For the same reason, I’ve also been eyeing off Warlord’s epic scale offerings). What prompted actually diving in was a couple of happy occurrences: I was lucky enough to stumble on someone selling all of the books second hand for a steal, and my local game store had a sale a few weeks later during which I picked up the Battle Group box for the marines.

While I was travelling I re-read Legion, which might well be my favourite Horus Heresy novel, and (re-)enjoyed it so much that I decided these marines should be painted as Alpha Legion.

When I popped open the box I finally realised how tiny these models actually are. Looking at pictures online isn’t quite the same as holding the models in your own hands and as you can see from the comparison shot with the 28mm marine above, this is quite a departure from what I’m used to painting!

I often see Horus Heresy era Alpha Legion painted in a metallic blue/green colour. I decided to stray closer to blue here, with the markings in a minty green. The painting (by necessity!) is really simple. I started with a black undercoat and airbrushed some Ammo Mig Warhead Metallic Blue all over the models. The exhaust covers on the rhino and the boltguns on the marines were then picked out in Vallejo Model Color Black, and the bare metal details were painted in Scale 75 Black Metal. The markings were painted in Army Painter Kraken Skin. The models then got an all over wash of Ammo Mig Deep Brown Panel Line Wash, which was wiped off the raised areas to keep things clean.

The models come with these nice textured bases that I wanted to use rather than cover up, so I decided to go for an overgrown ruins look. I basecoated the surface with Vallejo Game Color Heavy Bluegrey, followed by the same panel liner as the models. I then applied a wash of heavily diluted AK Muddy Ground texture paint (a tip I picked up from the Cult of Paint youtube channel) all over the base. This adds a bit of texture and a nice gradient brown to the base while not hiding the texture modelled into the base. I then glued on a few bits of foam turf from Woodland Scenics, and applied some light washes of AK Slimy Grime Dark and Slimy Grime Light to add some green colour in patches. I’m satisfied with the outcome, it looks in scale to me, keen to hear what others think.

Overall these were fun and quick to paint, I think the metallic paint does a lot of work here, and makes the models pop despite their size. Unlike pretty much all my other models I did not varnish these as I didn’t want to lose the shine contrast between the marines and the base. I have a whole lot more of these to paint now, but I’m happy with the scheme so can safely proceed from here!

Giant!

Warhammer: The Old World

It’s been a little while between updates, but I’ve been slowly chipping away at the miniature I’ll be showing today over the past month. Slowly because it’s getting chilly here down under and my hobby table is in a cold part of the house (and therefore is being visited much less often than usual!) and slowly because I’ve been really enjoying the process on this model!

The model as you probably realised from the post title is a giant! This is the plastic Warhammer giant from the mid 2000s, which is still current in the range. I got mine during 8th edition for my Ogre army, and like many other models from that era it has sat mostly unpainted since then. I rebased that army for Age of Sigmar so this model was transplanted onto an oval base, before being cut off that and put back on a square base for the return to classic Warhammer.

As I mentioned above, I thoroughly enjoyed myself painting this model and I went probably above and beyond what I would usually do for an army model, although I always do tend to try to spice up centerpiece models!

I really wanted to make it look like his pants were made from banners he’d collected over the years, so I painted them in a patchwork of colours, and applied transfers from all kinds of sheets I’d collected over the years to add some interesting patterns to the patches. From memory there are transfers from the Bretonnian, Eldar, Imperial Knights, and Space Wolf ranges on his pants.

Another detail I enjoyed painting because of the scale of the model was the nails, I tried to go for a dirty nail look with some muck caught under there. This might be a bit hard to see in the photos though, I think the best example is in that top photo on the hand that is holding the hapless man.

I spent a bit of time on his face, I don’t get to paint large scale heads very often given my usual subjects, so this was a fun new thing for me to do. I tried to go for the classic pale/red/blue zones on the face which I think worked out nicely, but I’m keen to see how you find it.

Overall I had a great time painting this giant, but it’s time to move on to smaller models again! I have the largest unit in the army lined up next, a big unit of night goblins which will likely keep me busy for quite a while so the next post may also be a bit further away than usual!

Orc Warboss

Warhammer: The Old World

This week I have something else than Dwarfs for you, in fact something that Dwarfs really don’t like: a big green orc!

This model originally came with the limited edition version of the Warhammer Online video game. I never got the game but I did pick up this model at the time (can’t remember where from!). This orc is massive, much bigger than the average character model of orcs for the Warhammer fantasy universe, although probably in line with the Ork bosses in Warhammer 40,000 which are much bigger for some reason.

Regardless of the size, the model is packed with details and was really fun to paint. As this model will be leading my Orcs and Goblins army (another army!!?), I wanted to make sure he showed off the colours of the army: black, red, and yellow. These colours were not chosen at random, but rather they feature heavily in one of my favourite Warhammer arts of all time: the night goblin painting that graced the Night Goblin box for a while as well as the Ravening Hordes supplement for 6th edition. I’ve taken a photo of my copy you can see below for reference. I believe this is by Adrian Smith, who has done some of my favourite art for the setting.

As well as the main colours, I decided to match the skin tone from the painting, which is a yellower green than I’ve used on orcs in the past (see my Orks for reference). This model of course is mostly covered in armour so I used the freehand on the armour to make use of those colours, with the goblin on his shoulder directly matching the colours of the Night Goblin champion in the painting.

As is usual now for the first model(s) of a new army, I write down my recipes so I don’t forget them. Hopefully they can be of use to you too.

Skin: Vallejo Game Color Cayman Green, GW Agrax Earthshade, Vallejo Game Color Cayman Green, Vallejo Model Color Green Yellow, Scale75 Sherwood Green
Leather: Vallejo Model Color Chocolate Brown, GW Agrax Eathshade, 50/50 Vallejo Model Color Chocolate Brown/Vallejo Model Color English Uniform, Vallejo Model Color English Uniform
Bone/Wood: Vallejo Model Color English Uniform, GW Agrax Eathshade, Vallejo Model Color English Uniform, 50/50 Vallejo Model Color English Uniform/AK Ivory, 25/75 Vallejo Model Color English Uniform/AK Ivory
Silver: Scale75 Black Metal, GW Agrax Eathshade, Scale75 Black Metal, Vallejo Game Air Silver (This last one just on blade edges)
Light Bronze: Scale75 Necro Gold, GW Agrax Earthshade, Scale75 Necro Gold
Dark Bronze: Scale75 Decayed Metal, GW Agrax Earthshade, Scale75 Decayed Metal
Red: Vallejo Game Color Heavy Red, GW Agrax Earthshade, 50/50 Vallejo Game Color Heavy Red/Kimera “The Red”, Kimera “The Red”
Yellow: Vallejo Game Color Heavy Goldbrown, GW Agrax Earthshade, Vallejo Game Color Heavy Goldbrown, GW Contrast Imperial Fist
Black: Vallejo Model Colour Black, Vallejo Model Color Dark Sea Blue, 50/50 Vallejo Model Color Dark Sea Blue/AK Ivory
White: AK Ivory
Basing – Rocks: Vallejo Model Color Dark Sea Blue, Vallejo Model Color Light Sea Grey (Drybrush), GW Agrax Earthshade, Ammo Mig Medium Rust Pigment
Basing – Dirt: AK Muddy Ground Diorama Texture, Ammo Mig Medium Rust Pigment

I’m quite excited to paint Orcs/Orks again, the new release has made a lot of the older models for the range accessible again which is great news for someone nostalgic for the era of Warhammer in which they started, i.e. me!

Siege Preparations

Warhammer: The Old World

As I mentioned last week, we’re preparing for a siege game as the opening battle in our Border Princes campaign. Last week’s post covered the last of the defenders, and this week’s will cover the preparations I made to the attacking force: my Dwarfs!

As you can see in the photo above I decided that I needed more firepower! I painted two extra cannons this week to breach the gates of the fortifications, which is one of the main objectives of the scenario.

I painted the two cannons different colours to add a bit of variation to the models, considering this is the third of this cannon model I have in the army now. I picture dwarfs as being more artisanal craftspeople and therefore making the cannons as they see fit rather than follow a set pattern.

Of course the crews also being one piece models there is no variation in them, so once again I used colour to differentiate them, mostly through the beards but also by changing the colour of some of the clothes.

While the cannons attempt to breach the walls, I have another way to cross the walls: a siege tower!

I built this a while back and haven’t had the need until now to paint it. This siege game is the perfect excuse to get it finished and on the table!

The tower itself is built out of balsa wood, with the wheels from the Skaven warp lightning cannon kit. The ladders are 3D prints I did a long time ago for the This Is Not A Test games we were playing back in 2021. They ended up fitting rather nicely here!

I kept the tower rather faction agnostic so that it can be used for any siege game, it is probably less well constructed than Dwarfs would like, but much better constructed than Orcs could manage!

The platform at the front of course pivots, ready to come crashing down on some battlements and disgorge its occupants! I’m planning on filling it with dwarf Troll Slayers, so the above shot is probably a preview of the game to come!

The game is tomorrow and I’ll endeavour to take some photos that I’ll post here.