Carried Away

So I've had a busy couple of weeks and am in that 'in the middle of too many projects without finishing any' phase which has meant I've not posted any new pictures on here.  I have managed to play a game of warhammer with my vampires against the local GW manager (a very sociable gent called Anthony) and enjoyed a victory against his nicely developing Orc and Goblin army.  I also had a second game of Malifaux, The Ortegas vs. Kirai, again far more of a learning experience than competitive, but very interesting as I get to grips with the rules and different characters.

On the hobby table at the moment is a Garden of Morr scenery set, a Contemptor dread (with 5 different arms), my entire Kirai crew, an ABC warrior and a few tactical marines.  I really must finish one of these...

My idea to make the Kirai crew a bit more individual to me is to include some references to the excellent Spirited Away.  Hopefully as I work through this I'll share the ideas.  In the meantime, the reason I know this film so well is that my wife is a huge Studio Ghibli fan so for her birthday I am working on a small diorama with hand made characters from the film.  Last weekend I started with the centre piece, 'No Face':

'Uh'

The little fellow is made of Fimo, (not the most fun I've had to tell the truth) and then painted with the usual GW acrylics.  He's holding a soot sprite, I intend to have more of these on the piece. 

Here he is from the side - he's got a Chibi (not Ghibli!) style to him so he's a bit pudgy but still clearly the character from the film.

Spinning many plates

I find it very difficult to know when to stop when it comes to deciding which hobbies to try and keep going.  Part of the joy of most table top games if that once you have the board game, a pile of cards or an army you can, if you wish, keep on playing over and again with the same collection, often in new or at least varied ways.  Of course many of these games are produced by companies that are keen to keep you buying new things...

Anyway as a result of expanding my circle of wargaming friends and also revisiting some old interests I'm currently wrestling with a lot of different bits and bobs.  I do seem to keep coming back to GW's Warhammer Fantasy and more recently 40k too - so you'll see lots of posts about those on this blog and this post wont dwell on those any further today.

So what are the other things distracting me?

Well a good friend of mine is a keen fan of Warhammer Ancients - and I mean really ancient here, around 600 BC at the most recent!  I've dabbled with the game in the past owning a modest Macedonian army (a bit modern at 330BC) and I'm in the process of dusting down the pikes for some more games to see if I can actually work out how to win.  Coincidently one of the local model shops phoned me this week to say that a nice new box of Warlord Phalangites was waiting for me (I forgot I even asked!) - its been a long time since I've been able to buy models for 50p each brand new!

Recently my brother encouraged me to try out a format of Magic the Gathering I might find interesting.  Its called Commander (also known as Elder Dragon Highlander - there can only be one!).  I've not been collecting magic for a few years but have a pretty huge back catalogue of questionable value in the face of today's impressive cards, however a 100 card deck with no duplicates actually rewards diversity and depth of your collection.  Suffice to say I had a lot of fun but can't say my first attempts at decks worked very well in a fairly powerful environment I encountered in the Midlands.  I also tried this with a mate more locally and found that its definitely a way to look at those cards stacked in a corner anew and have some fun along the way.

My commander, from my treemen and ferret deck (yes ferrets)

Lastly (for now) the local club has got me interesting in playing Malifaux.  One of the blogs I follow got me interested in this some time ago (thanks Jody) and my brother also painted up a Rasputina crew (I can't find any pics of his to share sorry) so I was sort of aware of the game.  I've seen several demo games and played my first encounter now (thanks Brian) and I have to say I am enjoying it, playing with a standard(ish) deck of cards rather than dice is a really interesting mechanic.  I will no doubt be posting more on this topic in future.

I don't even collect this faction (yet?) but how cool are giant fishmen?

Who doesn't like Jason and the Argonauts?

I love that film, had it on a VHS video for years as a kid and as a result, once I was introduced to the game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I had to get some skeleton warriors.

I've documented some of the skeletons I field in my army on my previous blog, you can see these here and here.  While these figures are good enough for tabletop use, I've been sitting on some nicer figures for years and with the rules rewarding skeletons without spears for a couple of editions I had no excuse really.

Back when GW sold lead figures, there was a huge range of skeletons to pick from.  I picked out 3 armed with scimitars and wearing chain mail that I could order in bulk and make a unit.  Here's the 3 poses (I have each 7 times) standing around on a temple.  I've used some spare shield details (the cross bones) from the spear regiment and a bag of plain shields to try to make the unit WYSIWYG.

Warhammer rewards a unit that's well led, so I usually have (from left to right) a musician, standard and champion in every one that is allowed to do so.  Again these are all metal figures, I think these are tin as they are a bit more recent than the core of the unit.  The banner was painted based on a design I Googled - it really should be a magical when when I use the unit in game!  The champion looks rather grand as he is from a time when skeleton units were led by Wights - still no mistaking which one he is.

Here's the full unit ranked up, on a matching movement tray.  You may be able to make out the same guys waving their swords around over and again.  With the new edition of Warhammer encouraging the use of wider and deeper units, this presents a bit of a problem for me as I don't know if I'll find any skeletons that match the aesthetic of these guys.  The closest I've found so far is Foundry's and Reaper's but I'm not sure I like them enough.  

Here's the unit ranked up including my Wight King from my previous post.  He fits in quite nicely, but has a darker, more gritty feel to him, which is fine as he's a lot older and nastier.

I might try mixing these in with Mantic skeletons.  You'll see how they look and the first one I've painted in this previous blog entry on my brother's site.

A fresh start

After a long break from blogging, I decided I would start keeping notes of what I get up to again in my various hobbies.  As inspiration strikes and my experience of using this blog editor grows I hope it'll look a bit nicer, but for now its all sorts of orange.

My previous blog exists under a profile that isn't very handy for me to get into, so I may revisit the chapters in there one day.  This is quite fortunate really as the title was disproved some time ago on my brother's blog, that I contributed to from time to time.

So to open the proceedings I present a recently painted miniature.  With the Warhammer Fantasy Battle's Vampire Counts army getting a new army book and a bunch of new figures I interrupted what I was working on to get this figure ready for battle.

This is the new plastic Wight King produced by Games Workshop.  The colour scheme is a blatant copy of the original, but as my army is green and red this suited me very well indeed!

Fear my strange floaty cloak!

I've made the sword have a slight blue glow to it, he's got killing blow after all.

I had the opportunity to use the new liquid greenstuff on this figure to tidy up his shoulder pads, you can see on the cloak a slight line I should have also filled.

From this angle you would also see a gap in his helmet and cloak if the greenstuff hadn't been applied.  Great stuff this liquid greenstuff, recommend it highly - its non-toxic too (unlike the real stuff).

Alas in his first game he proved less than pivotal - I'm sure I'll find a use for him in future.  Despite the changes to the book, vampires seem better than ever as heroes and lords, but more on that another time I think.