Skaven general

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm planning a skaven army - probably about 1,500 points. The 60 that I need for the bulk of the rank and file arrived this week, which was exciting. But before I get cracking on them I wanted to paint up the general.

And here he is.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I took my time with it and used it as a learning experience, going out of my comfort zone with several things. First time I've painted checks, and I worked up to the highlights from black primer, rather than priming white, mid tone then washing and highlighting as I did for my wood elves. I also worked on each colour in turn - rather than blocking out all the colours, then washes, then highlights - which is something I don't usually do.

I don't think there's much I'd do differently, to be honest, and I don't think there's anything I could have done better - this is as good as it gets from me!

The model is Malis Manwrack, one of the Jes Goodwin classics from 1986. Now to paint him an army to lead!

Warpfire thrower template

One of my favourite parts of Oldhammering is scratch building, and making little odds and ends. I've also decided to paint a 1,500 point skaven army (more about that in a later post). So that gave me a perfect excuse for making a template for my warpfire throwers!

I'm not too keen on the flimsy paper template in the back of the 3rd ed rulebook. Even stuck on some card, it doesn't look that great. So, how to make a 1 inch radius template that looks something like a mass of burning warpfire?

Starting point was some plastic card I picked up from one of my favourite shops, Reverse Garbage. I cut out a circle of the right size and used a protractor to mark 30 degree angles. I then cut out notches to give me the 'clock face' for working out deviation.

For the 'fire' I decided to see what would happen if I mixed polyfilla with pva glue and a bit of water. What happens is as soon as you mix the glue in it seizes up into quite a solid mass. I then used a toothpick and a silicone modelling tool to shape it. This is a test piece.

I found that as it dried the detail smoothed out, so I just went back and redetailed it before it completely dried and that seemed to work.

Here's the finished product.

Bless you

I painted it with a mix of white and VGC Escorpena Green, then a heavy drybrush with straight green and a lighter drybrush on the high bits and at the edges with - I think - VGC Dark Green. Some green ink was splotched on, followed by yellow ink which I think has worked quite well to give it a warpstone-like tinge.

Burn, baby, burn

At some point I'll do something similar for a poisoned wind globe. Thanks for stopping by!

Serpentine dragon

I started collecting White Dwarfs from issue 95, and it was issue 96 that was - and I think still is - my favourite. The centrepiece of that article, for me, was the 'Eavy Metal article on how to paint Nick Bibby's new range of dragons. They are just the most amazing sculpts, with fabulous painting by Mike McVey.

Look at them - just look at them!

(Thanks to Eldritch Epistles for the pictures.)


Back in the day I managed to get the young forest dragon, but with the Australia tax on miniatures the rest were out of my price range. Fast forward to a few years ago when I got back into the hobby and I decided to try to collect the set. Which I did! I got the last of them - the lava dragon - last year.

I water a break from fiddly detail after all the wood elves, so a dragon seemed like the way to go. I've painted the young forest dragon and the young fire dragon, so the serpentine dragon was next up.

And here it is!

Roaaaar

It was really quick to paint. I took a bit more care priming it than I usually  do, so I got a quite nice coverage. The skin is P3 Mouldy Ochre, washed with a mix of MO and P3 Bootstrap Leather. The scales are VMC Golden Olive washed with GW Salamder Green. I used a matte medium in the wash for the first time, and I think it helped give a more even coverage.

Highlights were just drybrushed, which really sped things up. For the base I've used Green Stuff World's cobblestone textured roller and some sphagnum moss that I've soaked in dilute green paint, dried and crumbled to a fine texture.


Really pleased with how it's turned out - I even managed to shade yellow successfully which has never happened before! I went with green so that it'll fit in with the wood elves if I ever decide to give them a dragon. For now, though, it's quite happy sitting in my cabinet. Thanks for stopping by!

The war-host of Maloran Brightblade Part 2

In Part 1 I went through the first three units of my little wood elf army. Each of them was only 5 models. Next up was the massive, by wood elf standards, unit of 16 warrior kinband. I didn't realise these sculpts - sylvan elves - were so popular when I first acquired some. I wasn't planning on having such a large unit, but I found some relatively cheap on eBay and ended up with enough for a good strong anchor for my line (T3 and light armour notwithstanding!). The spears mean six attacks at WS4 which with the elves' high initiative will hopefully prevent too many incoming attacks. The musician is a bit redundant, but it's a nice model and meant a little more variety when painting them.

Spears - perfect for skewering goblins

I had put the archers off until almost the end of the project. Nice looking sculpts, but I hate all the fiddly detail - especially the wrist-bands, shoulder-bands and god-knows-what-else that Jes in his omniscient wisdom chose to adorn them with. Again, more heavily armoured than my theme would suggest because it was less work to paint shields than remove them! On the shields, I wanted to freehand designs on all the shields, but lacking the skill to do artwork I opted for runes - simple but effective.

Jewellery on and ready for fun

The last unit is the falconers. Another fluff unit, as I think they'll have limited usefulness in a game but nothing says wood elves like a squishy unit with insane BS. I'm quite proud of the conversions. I scratched my head for ages trying to work out how to get the right models. There's nothing really that suits even from modern manufacturers. In the end I've press moulded the falcon from Jes elf captain, and the birds from Skaw the Falconer from 4th(?) ed (I got them in a job lot, took the moulds and then sold them on). The fifth bird - the one that looks like a pigeon - is a Reaper Bones familiar.

The elves didn't need too much work - removing weapons and shield bosses - except for a former wardancer who's had a hair replacement and an arm swap to make him look more foresty. By this stage I was a bit over blues and greens, so I've gone for mostly brown.

The general was the last to be painted, while I did the wizard about the middle of the project. When I still liked green. I don't think I'd really have a wizard in a 1000 point army - I think magic with that few points unbalances things a bit - but I really wanted to paint the model. I've loved these elf personality models since I saw the ad for them in White Dwarf 95. They really sum up everything that's great about that era of Citadel miniatures.

And of course, no third edition army is complete without a baggage train. Here, a young messenger and an injured wardancer team up with a family of Halfling pedlars to protect the odds and sods that an army needs to support itself.

And that's the army. It did feel heavy going at times, and I'll be glad for a break. Hopefully one day soon I'll get a game with it and a chance to see how it plays. Thanks for stopping by!

The war-host of Maloran Brightblade

The incursions were the worst in living memory, and living memory is a long time for the elves of the Great Forest. They had begun as the first snows of winter fell, and gained in strength as the land froze. By the spring the enemy was three days' march from the Sacred Grove. With his father absent at the Grand Council it fell to Maloran Brightblade to rally his people and sally forth with his warband and protect the heart of the realm.

At his side was his father's trusted advisor, the old seer Silfeth. Maloran's personal cavalry guard, friends from childhood all, rode out with him. The scouts from the deep wood came, and the falconers from their craggy homes at the forest's edge. A troupe of wardancers consented to stand with them. And his father's people gathered their spears and their great bows and turned their faces towards the foe. The time for great deeds was at hand.

Last year Snickit's Tail suggested a new dad/slow painter challenge to paint a 1000 point army. Some folk on the Oldhammer Australia Facebook group suggested doing something similar. I decided to have a go and picked wood elves. Elves were my favourite race back in my RPG days and as I love Jes Goodwin's sculpts I'd picked up a fair few in the last couple of years.

About 10 months later, it's all done and I have my first ever painted army!

The war-host ready for the fray

I chose a pale, desaturated (is that the right word?) palette as I've always like that subtle lookmon miniatures. I went with lots of greys, purples and blues to suggest the shadowy depths of the forest. Models-wise I wanted an army that I think of as quintessentially wood elf - lightly-armoured and mobile, using hit-and-run tactics. I didn't want to have to buy too many more models so I limited my choices choices a bit that way too.

The wardancers were the first unit I finished. This range is my favourite set of elf sculpts, and I remember looking at the ad for them in a White Dwarf and being blown away by them. They do have  shields and light armour, which doesn't quite fit my lightly armoured plan, but they suffer no movement penalty so I think I can get away with it! Plus 20 points a model is an investment I need to protect! Their blue and grey colours are my favourite combo in the army.

You put your right hand in...

I think the scouts were next. These are a fluff unit - I'm not sure of they'd serve a useful purpose in an army this size, but I think any wood elf force needs its elite woodsmen, er, woodselves. Unarmoured, because I can't imagine scouts clanking around in armour, which means I can't see them lasting too long if I try to use them to screen other troops. The red blotches on the bases are leaves made using a leaf punch from Green Stuff World.

Deadly accurate cannon-fodder

 Next to be painted were the cavalry. These are the only shock elites available to the wood elves. I'd have been quite happy to have them with less armour, but I didn't feel like removing the shield bosses so they have light armour and shields. Three of the models had their heads swapped for more wood elfy ones, including the standard bearer, who started life as a silver helm I bought back in the day. I found the riders curiously unsatisfying to paint - I think because they're rather fiddly.

Half a league, half a league, half a league onwards...

I'll call it a day there - to avoid overly-long-post-syndrome I'll cover the rest of the pale, pointy-eared ones next post. Thanks for stopping by!

Stone barn

It's been a very long time between posts, but hopefully this marks the start of more regular blogging.

My latest completed project is a stone barn.

Over on the Oldhammer Community Facebook group, one of the chaps has started a collaborative project to scratchbuild every building in the Warhammer Townscape pack. I decided to have a go at the stone barn. I already have a few 'rural' terrain pieces and I thought that the barn would complement them nicely.

Unfortunately, I didn't take very many WIP shots. Here it is with the build finished and awaiting painting. The guts of it is 5mm foamcard, with balsa and wood veneer for the timbering. The plaster is polyfilla mixed with water to form a paste, which is then smoothed with a palette knife.

After this picture, I textured the plaster walls with fine sand in a water-pva mix with a bit of brown paint added. It needed two coats to get a relatively even coverage, and even then it's quite patchy. It needed more sand in, I think, and possibly a more dilute glue-water mix. I was a it unhappy with the result at first, but it painted up ok. This is with base colours applied, before highlighting.

And here it is again after drybrushing, detailing and basing. The lichen is fine sand painted with P3 Menoth White Base then with dabs of green.

I'm really happy with how this has turned out. It's the terrain piece that I'm happiest with!
Here's how it looks with some of my other pieces...

Thanks for stopping by!