Big based undead nasties

Despite chugging through quite a lot of hobby stuff in the past weeks and months, I'm not finding taking photos of stuff any easier or more enjoyable, half the time things don't come out looking very good, the other half I notice that the figures aren't nearly as good as I thought!

Well that's the excuse for my slow updates out of the way, here's some pictures.

I've actually had the first bunch close to completion for a while, they just needed some final details and basing.  Its a unit of Vargheists, new additions to the army this latest version of the book.

The kit allows you to make the winged terrors shown here, or huge ghoul like creatures that really don't float my boat - I'm looking for some werewolves to use instead.  I've gone for a slightly unusual colour scheme, using the new GW paints - the space wolf armour progression I think for the skin and a slightly unusual blue to purple blend for the wing membranes and fur.

Each of the new guys is a completely separate sculpt which makes them all very characterful.  The downside is should you get more than 3, the parts aren't multi-pose or even compatible with different bodies, so without converting you are stuck with the same 3 poses over and again.

This chappy with the extra set of wings is the unit champ, my favourite pose of the 3.  I've found the unit to be an interesting addition to my army, so very useful in most match ups if you can save them from being shot!  I've based them consistently with the rest of my newly coherent undead, although I've added some small bits of shale to break up the larger bases.

Next up are the figures I use as spirit swarms who have been around for a while now.  I really don't like the current standard models, so I've used instead Lord of the Rings army of the dead models.  I've used the metal set that included the king which I don't think is available now, but you do get a lot of plastic warriors in the set now.  I've mounted 3 to a 40mm base (what we called Monster bases back in my day, relatively tame these days that size!) and when formed up they do look like a mob of ghostly warriors which is perfect.

I painted these very easily, I recommend the trick.  Painted over a black undercoat (my standard) I dry brushed the entire lot dark grey.  I then progressed the grey tone lighter and lighter till I used only the slightest amount of near white paint.  Once this was all done, I liberally doused the lot in green wash and ta-da, job done.

Its got nasty, big, pointy teeth...

My local games store 7th Heaven ran a painting/ diorama competition this year with an Easter theme - namely there must be a bunny in there somewhere.  I didn't have very long to ponder my entry or find different figures, so with my homage-o-meter running on full I decided Monty Python's Holy Grail was my best bet here.

So here's the finished entry.  Our valiant Sir Boris is ready to confront the beast at the cave of Caerbannog complete with a little title card in case its not clear to the casual viewer what's going on.

So here's a few more shots at various angles.  The piece is based around an old GW Bretonnian foot knight model I've had for an age.  As a grail knight he seemed to fit the bill nicely.

Facing him is a little bunny I put together in a hurry with green stuff and pro-create (not for any clever reasons, just my green stuff is a bit old so after making a few bits I threw it out and used whatever else I had).  Someone pointed out I could have used the Malifaux Jackalope instead - I wish I had thought of that (and had time!) as I do want to add one to my collection, but this little fella did turn out ok and definitely cuter.

The bunny and the knight are about to duel over a small clutch of Easter eggs as you can see from this shot.

Sir Boris, close up

Sir Boris, with film accurate heraldry!

The beast, ahhh cutey

Defending the eggs

Close up of the combatants

 

The base is made from mounting card with a couple of increasingly small circles of foam board stuck on top. Into this thicker base I was able to cut appropriate sized holes for the miniature's bases.  Next I used bits of cork, slate and sand to add some texture.  All the gaps were filled and smoothed using wood filler.  Lastly I scattered a selection of GW skeleton bones around the site to show just how wide the vicious streak this rabbit has is.

Warhammer Zombies!

Well another week gone and I'm a day late posting, but hopefully this was worth the wait!  I've added some new gadgets to the sidebar - there's an RSS feed which was a specific request - so enjoy.  I've also picked up a few new followers the last few weeks, welcome all - that's doubled my followers to 6!  

I've not played a huge amount of Warhammer for a while, but a couple of my friends decided we should fix this for 2013 with a slow (continental drift slow) grow "tale of 3 gamers".  My friends have limited time for painting, so the plan is to play 500 point games of Warhammer, once a month.  Each month we will increase the army size by 20 points and everything must be painted to be fielded.

I've had a largely painted set of Warhammer armies for some time, Wood Elves, Skaven and Vampire Counts.  What I haven't done is spruce these up for years, all of them are really inconsistently based and in need of a fix-me-up.  I can't seem to shake my undead fixation, so dispite some misgivings about using them at 500 points I chose them.  For reference my friends are using Goblins and Lizardmen, I'll see if they let me take some shots.

So after the first month, I found that my zombie summoning power was seriously dented by the fact I only had 27 painted.  Here's the shot of them in all their shambolic ruin.  Not based, not finished, this motley crue has been in this state for something like 7 years, from 2 army books previous when zombies were reasonably worth taking.

Operation: Pimp my zombies was kicked off.  I've been sitting on 60 odd GW zombies for ages but recently got some of Mantic's excellent minis (30 to start with) in hope that I'd be inspired to paint a more suitably sized mob.  For the GW mob, some rebasing and choice painting was all that was needed to get them  ready for the table.  My key discovery recently here is the wonder shade Anthonian Camoshade - seriously douse any figure that needs to be a bit drab over a base coat and your rank and file are done (works with skaven and all manner of swamp folk fantastically).  So here we see a GW spruced up and a comedy half zombie from the Mantic sprue - useful where some of my zombies are overreaching themselves a bit!

As there's so many of the damned things I was keen to try some regimental basing for the zombies.  My goblin using friend had a few spare, so here are the results of these experiments.  I've added a gravestone to a couple of them for fun.

I really like the Mantic zombies, so much more dynamic than GW's and a very good price too.

I did add a few more GW zombies to the unit as well as few solo Mantic shamblers.  All of the new additions were base coated in a strong (but unpleasant) skin tone, light greens, greys, light browns and a yellowish variant.  Next loincloths and other assorted clothes were added in darker colours, greens and browns typically.  A fairly liberal coating of dark red was added to assorted viscera and wounds and the teeth picked out.  This is all hit with camoshade and we're largely done.  I've added some brighter red blood to the more dangerous zombies where they've managed to find a meal and made everyone's eyes glow a selection of unpleasant colours using Tausept Ochre as a base, then a bright yellow plus optionally a shade if I wanted a really odd colour, blue or something.

So here's the entire unit of 48 ranked up - the standard and musician are frankly ancient lead GW figures, which while nice, fall over all the time so I need to sort those out.  I could use a banner too.

Here's them again without the flash - not sure there's much new to see but some of the colours show up differently.  The bases are simply sand stuck on with PVA (under and overcoated to stop it coming off) painted dark brown then drybrushed with medium brown.  Finally some some more PVA to glue random clumps of flock were added - I like the idea my undead are attacking over broken earthlands.

To finish, here's a complete army shot of the forces I've previously posted on this blog - essentially my most recent undead additions to my army and all consistently based.   Use the labels on the right to see the detailed posts about my Wight Lord, Skeletons and Ghouls.

The idea is to add to this growing horde by updating my existing collection to a fresher state or paint some of the hordes I have collecting dust (including the other 42 zombies) - or more likely completely new stuff as the evil retailers out there realise that undead are clearly the coolest figures.

Unexpected Agendas Tournament

After an exciting and fun filled day, here's my write up of the Unexpected Agendas tournament that ran on 02/03/2013 at the 7th Heaven Games Shop.

The tournament was based on encounter driven multi player games, which mean each table had a strong theme.  So on a busy Friday night of roleplaying, I snuck into the shop to set up the tables the night before with Rob's help.

Seamus's evil plans are on display for all to see on the Badlands table - here the Irish madman is going on a killing spree near the dead zone while the Von Schill crew toy with the other half of Sonnia's embattled crew.

From top to bottom, left to right we have the graveyard, the Badlands (actually from a game in progress- thanks to Bryan for his scenery here), the street of Malifaux and the bayou (with some excellent trees made by Will) .  

With the tables all set, I thought I was all ready for a busy day of running the tournament.  What I had forgotten was the Rob was getting all the agendas (much like schemes in a normal game) printed and I would need to get this cut out before the players arrived.  As our first contenders arrived I presented them with sheets of card and scissors and everyone got involved with the Blue Peter spirit!  This meant I didn't get photos of everyone's crews, which I apologise for.

Eventually we had 13 players with all the cards they needed and 4 great looking tables to battle over.

Here's an in progress shot from the first round battling over the graveyard.  The gremlins have found the real Necronomicon and are running away from Kaeris on the warpath with her pet bipedal stream train!  Lucius wants in on the action too so is frantically ordering his special forces into the mix.

Here's a Ronin reinforcement that Matthew hired into his Seamus crew during a game where he was the underdog.  Its a turtle fantasy football figure from Greebo's upcoming Nippo Goblin range (I got it early from an Indiegogo project).  Next to Leonardo is Bryan's hand from late in the second round - it looked like his Viktorias were about to unleash hell with cards like that!

Here's a battle unfolding on the Mailfaux table, with the Ortegas attempting to sneak into the creepy haunted house early before anyone notices!  Big demons have descended upon Ramos while the Viktorias are eyeing up the shape of the fighting and waiting for the right moment to break cover.

 

A couple of Andy's new recruits to his guild crew.  The Austringer is a homage to Richard O'Brian I'm told.  The cards and spell picture next to them is Leviticus casting unnatural wasting on Lillith for a staggering duel total of 30 - she was down 5 wounds after this, only to be punched in the face by Rusty Alice - who would have thought?

A furious rumble in the bayou is unfolding - the Silurids enjoying the watery scenery.  Leviticus is spreading out looking for scrap in ponds while Kaeris lines up some devastating fire-power.

 

I managed to snap a few crews on the day - here's Will's Kaeris in situ on the bayou board.  They are all mounted on metal grills over furnace like bases.

Here's Dan's Lillith crew.  Great use of Heresy's demon here as an alternative mature Nephilim.  Dan won the Sportsmanship award on the day, so well done!

Here's Karl's Ramos crew which won the best painting award.  My photo really doesn't do them justice - combination of bad lighting and a bit too much reflection.  There's some lovely subtle colours and highlighting on these figures and the crew look great together on the table.  There were some really nice crews in play on the day (see Bryan's here on his own blog) so Karl did well to come top.

So who won in the end?

3rd Place went to Louis with his Marcus crew - you can see him in action on the Bayou board above using his dratted frog men to great effect.

2nd Place went to Matthew with his Seamus crew.  Clearly his evil plans worked pretty well.

1st Place went to Mark with his Kaeris crew, which I really must get a shot of!  Mark was great fun to play against, scoring well in the sportsmanship award and he was certainly a contender for painting too.  However it was with an eye on the prize that Mark ruthlessly hunted down his agendas (note the Steam Golem bashing  his way though gremlins in the graveyard shot above) - to the point of even shooting Kaeris in the back with one of his own models to ensure he spent all of his soulstones in one turn to achieve a personal agenda item - that saw him ultimately victorious.  He didn't quite demolish the entire creepy structure in round 2, but it was close and he did manage to land mine about 50% of the figures on the table in one turn as well.

So that's all done and dusted for this month, but I am pleased to report many players were very keen for more, so I'll be planning something for April.  Any excuse to wear a cowboy hat and carry a nerf gun around all day...

Henching for Wyrd

I've been enjoying Malifaux a lot this past year so after discussion with Matthew the local Henchmen, I've applied for and been accepted into the Henchman ranks for Wyrd Miniatures.  This means I can demo games and run events officially on their behalf.

I'm very excited by this opportunity and have already run a number of demo nights at my local gaming store. Next up is a tournament on the 2nd of March - anyone who can make it is welcome!

Back to some minis then.  As the Malifaux league grew last year, I was wondering how to expand my Zoraida crew.  The stitched togethers were my first additions, but after those there were a lot of options so I had to decide which way to go.  Dolls was one route - with Collodi and his retinue and so on.  I'm not a massive fan of some of those models but I do really like the Puppets Wars plastics so I am hoping Wyrd will redo (in plastic) a number of figures in future.  Neverborn Nephilim were another route, but that felt more like Lillith's thing so I may come back to that.

So instead I went the cowboy/shooty route.  This isn't all that common from what I understand and the options are limited, but I was really interested in seeing what I could do here.  Zoraida is a subtle enhancing leader and can work with anything, in this case I was looking to maximise the amount of bullets I could put in the air.

First up, the only real Neverborn cowboy option, Tuco.  Clearly a reference to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, this chap is an ex-guild Ortega family member who was captured by the Nephilim and has become tainted whilst held in captivity.  Now resenting his former clan, he works for the Neverborn to try and reclaim Malifaux.  With a bit of "Smooth Criminal" style going on with this figure, I opted to copy the official paint job closely and am pleased with the outcome - although I can see a few chips on the photos so I need to sort those out an finally varnish him!  In game he's been amazing.  Extremely sneaky, fast and surprisingly durable, he's been a real asset to me.

Next up is the Brutal Effigy.  Created by Zoraida to learn about and exploit the other faction's weaknesses, the Effigies were created in mockery of the very things that made each faction unique.  This backfired during 'the event' and the effigies awoke with their own intelligence and agenda - they felt kinship with the factions they were designed to weaken.  All this said, the Neverborn can still command them when nearby so Zoraida can make good use of all of them.  I have chosen the Guild version, the Brutal, who at once resembles the Judge, death marshals and has 4 horse like legs.  This little chap lives up to his name, pretty cheap but hard hitting, he also comes with a pretty easy to cast healing spell that fills a utility gap in my crew. Again I've stayed close to the official paint scheme here and am very happy with the outcome.  Thinking ahead to the inevitable Guild crew I will own, I have started basing that faction differently - using cork.  My Kirai crew is on wooden boards, my Neverborn on swampy or badlands type bases, I wanted the Guild to be different again.

Next we have some minis that aren't official Wyrd products (traitor!).  I picked up some Black Scorpion cowboys as the Wyrd equivalents for the minions I wanted to use were't quite what I had in mind - i.e. more cowboys!  I've reviewed the complete pack on my brother's blog.  This slightly over the hill cowboy is my choice of desperate mercenary.  Very cheap to hire and in all honestly not great, these mercenaries are an easy way to increase my figure count and get more cowboys in to my game.  I've found that having a figure I really don't care about is actually very useful - more than once Tuco has plucked some treasure from the centre of the table, danced back to this guy and then left the poor sucker to lug it round and hide for the rest of the game while Tuco goes back to the party.

The last cowboy I've managed to squeeze in is this amazing looking chap.  The second Black Scorpion figure in my crew, I'm using him as a convict gunslinger.  The figure is suitably menacing and ready for mayhem.  Ruleswise this guy is where the pain is at, possibly the most bullet based output per soulstone in the game.  Combined this with Zoraida's abilities to control her minions, this guy is a one man army with the right cards. I've shot to pieces Dust and Ashes - and the urn he left behind.  I've also shot McMourning's face right off.  He's good.

So here's the main part of my Zoraida crew - the figures I've completely painted.  Its not quite everything I used in the league, I had some success with the Arcane Effigy and Zoraida's Avatar too, but they aren't finished yet.  I never quite got around to using my Spawn Mother or her Gupps, the all fishman crew is surely an experiment for another day :)

So just to round off on the league (as it finished last year I should really get these catch up posts out of the way!), I was very pleased to find that I had won the league with a combination of winning most games and getting so much of my crew painted.  I was also voted best painter, which I am really happy about as a lot of time and effort went into these guys.  Most hobby points went to Matthew who painted a huge array of mardi-gras themed undead and best sportsman went to Si, with his Orphelia lead crew and exemplary playing attitude.

Space Marin- erm, Interstellar Commandos?

In a week where GW made the news in a way they probably aren't too pleased about, I'm posting about my Grey Knights army that doesn't have any Space Marines, hopefully avoiding any legal issues.