Well...the Thanksgiving holiday cut into my painting time considerably this last week but it was a nice break from the daily grind. I returned to the painting station on Saturday night and managed to put the final touches on the unit of dwarfs I've been working on which is created from a mix of classic Citadel Imperial Dwarfs and Bood-Wargames Dwarfs. The final push included finishing the shields, basing, varnishing and painting the inside of a few shields that show them prominently.
I'm quite happy with the way this unit has turned out. The Imperial dwarfs are some of the greatest Citadel sculpts of all time IMO. The Bood-Wargames Miniatures fit in with this style perfectly and help to fill out the unit nicely. With the addition of the Bood miniatures to my collection I was able to expand my one unit of imperial dwarfs to two nice blocks of classic looking infantry...they really fit together that well.
Just a quick note to mention that Joe over at Dragon Bait miniatures has just posted a new sculpt to join his latest release...the Kracatoans. At this point there are 12 sculpted and cast members of this warband including the fantastic Mage. And now...in an effort to make this force a bit more Frostgrave friendly Joe has asked Tim Prow to sculpt a second magic user to join the Fishmen...in this case a witch. Now with the ability to use the witch as an apprentice this group of fantastic figures becomes much more viable as a frostgrave force. Check out his excellent sculpt!
I love the fishing net as a shawl...perfect.
Also if you haven't seen the giant crab and riders that are available through the indiegogo campaign here are a few pics
Please go check out the campaign and support if you can here is a link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/28mm-krackatoan-warband-by-dragon-bait-miniatures#/story
As I mentioned in my last post I've been working hard to try to clear the many half finished projects that have occupied my painting desk for months. One of the long lingering projects has been a group of figures from Dragon Bait Miniaturescalled the Krackatoans. These are wonderful fishmen that would fit right in to pretty much any fantasy setting...and like most of the DB miniature figure line they are infused with some of that tongue-in-cheek humor that we all love about "Oldhammer" figures. I'm really considering using this group as a Frostgrave warband as well....:)
Joe at Dragon Bait is one of the nicest guys you can deal with in our community and he was nice enough to send me a set of these miniatures before they were released. They are now available through a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. What I love about Joe's campaigns is that he has the figures in hand and ready to go...when the campaign ends he sends your figures to you...no long waits. Joe does it right. Please go take a look at his offerings...I find that supporting small figure producers like DB is very rewarding and can add some very unique minis to your collection that look great on the table.
Lets take a look at the whole batch and then we will look to closeups of each individual.
I've spent the better part of the last week trying to clear my painting desk of the many half done projects that have been covering it all summer. the following is an update on the unit of Imperial and Bood Wargames Dwarfs that I have been working on for quite awhile.
I have 14 dwarfs that are within spitting distance of being done...just Shields, Varnish, and Basing left to accomplish. Here is how they look at the moment integrated with the completed Bood Dwarfs I posted about earlier.
Sorry about the crappy iPhone Pic...I'll get proper pics when they are done done. :)
And here are some smaller group pictures so you can see the latest victims a bit better. I've really enjoyed painting these very characterful models...but I must admit to being rather frustrated with the sculpting of the eyes on many of the citadel models...making them look good has been very challenging.
I'm not supper excited about painting 14 identical shields...but I am excited to have this unit completed.
As I have mentioned previously these guys will be joining my 5th ed Bretonnian army as an ally contingent. Hence the more muted colors than I typically used on my "Empire Dwarfs"
So there is some interest in the Frostgrave rules in my area and I have decided to start to pull together a warband that I can use during games in which I lose to my friend Roberto...:).
If you are not familiar with what Frostgrave is....well then you have been living under a (hobby) rock for the last year. Frostgrave is a new Skirmish game, put out by Osprey, that is focused on small warbands, 10 figures or less, led by a powerful wizard and his apprentice as they scour a long abandoned city for ancient relics of magical power.
Being the old lead head that I am I thought that this would be a perfect time to employ some of my long neglected figures in a new and interesting way....while keeping them available for potential expansion into a full fledged army for 3rd edition WFB fun....therefore I will be deploying them on square bases. BTW there is a fantastic range of figures produced by NorthStar that are specifically for Frostgrave...many of them sculpted by Mark Copplestone...but I couldn't possibly justify buying new figures when I have so many unpainted ones to chose from already...
Thouogh I am still extremely busy with end of Field Season work I have been plugging away on a number of projects. Included in this list are the Imperial Dwarfs that I have been painting to complement the Bood-Wargames Dwarfs I featured in my previous post.
While they are not yet complete I wanted to share an WIP picture of the little guys. As you can see I have finished the cloth, armor, beards, and flesh on these guys. This leaves me with the belts, bags, eyes, metals and other fiddly bits to take care of. I hope to finish these details of in the coming week and then get these guys based and ready for the table.
Anyway...enough jibber-jabber...here are the pics.
As I reported to you back in the foggy distance of time there is an upcoming crowd funding campaign for some new dwarf figures being produced by Bood-Wargames. This campaign has been delayed from a September start date to one later in the month of November but it is still forth coming...so keep your eyes peeled.
Mr. Bood was kind enough to allow me access to a small batch of his figures before their official release so that I could slap some paint on them and share them with you as a preview to the main event. In a previous post I shared with you my initial efforts on two of the infantry models. Since then I have been able to complete five more figures and add shields to the those that were completed earlier.
Here is a quick group shot of the whole batch that I took with my iPhone. Below you will find higher quality images of each of the individual figures for your viewing pleasure.
Here are the individual shots
I have several more of these guys in process as well as some of the Pony Riders...which I'm very excited about. I'm also working on a batch of Citadel Imperial dwarfs which I will mix in with these to form a complete unit.
Here is where they are at in the process.
As you can see I have the armor completed, which is the bulk of the painting on these guys, and am in the process of putting the base coats on the flesh and cloth portions. More on this as progress continues.
When combined I think this will make for a striking and powerful boost to my infantry forces. these will be tabled as a portion of my Bretonnian army...hence the muted colors and different skin tone which is a departure from my Empire Dwarf figures.
Please keep an eye out for the upcoming Bood-Wargames Crowd funder...I'll be sure to plug it here incase you miss the announcement elsewhere!
Here is the final batch of the Bretonnian Knights that have been haunting my painting table for the past couple of years. Now that they are done I'm really happy with how they have turned out...its been a long road to completion...
This batch includes the command section for this unit and a bonus model that I will probably use as my Army Standard Bearer in the future.
Musician
Standard...Ok, so he is not completely done...The actual standard will be forth coming...(shut up Kober!)
Leader...I'm particularly fond of this color combo.
And finally here is the Army Standard Bearer...and Opera Singer
While I had the figures out for these photos I tool the opertunity to capture moe of vignette image with a few of these knights and some of my other Bretonnian models as well.
Thanks for watching this never ending parade of knights!
Well...they made it onto the table at Oldhammer In the New World...but they weren't really finished. They didn't have their shields and the bases were only sanded...they weren't done.
...of course they paid me back for this indignity by running off the table at the first chance they got...so...well I guess I learned something there.
Anyway. Now they are done...the cowardly bastards. I'm certainly hoping that they prove a little more resilient in their next encounter.
Anyway...lets look to the pictures. Here are the first half of the unit.
After the epically long gaming session on Friday night I woke on Saturday and shuffled off to breakfast in a daze. The water eggs and weak coffee did little to improve my mood...but by sheer force of will I was back down in the event venue by 9:30am...
...and the sight that great me gave me enough energy to carry on through the rest of the day!
After we had all stumbled off too bed, the intrepid Brian K. had stayed up to set up the enormous New Alamo Table that he had built over the previous couple of months. This amazing set up was front and center in the room and was bound to be the center of attention for the entire day....at least for me.
In the morning and early afternoon....which I only vague recall due to lack of sleep and coffee, there were a number of other games that took place as well. For one the Green skin horde of Sean S. took on a combined force of Chaos (provided by ABG) and Dark Elves (provided by Adyer). This game took place on the excellent table provided by Rusty and proved a fun and lively game...unless you were the orcs...in which case there was also a lot of dieing and Running away...
Sadly I failed to capture even a single picture of this game...so I will have to refer you to the excellent report posted by Sean that covers the action in some detail. It can be found HERE.
I believe there were also some other gaming going on...maybe Heroquest...? Maybe BattleMasters...? Like I said its all kind of a blur at this point.
What I do recall clearly is the siege of the New Alamo! Brian K. really pulled something special together with this game. Its sheer size was impressive and the fact that it ran so smoothly for such a long time is testament to the amount of work and forethought that he put into it. The action was fast and furious with the momentum of battle swinging from one force to the other with shocking regularity...Lets look at some pics!
For Awhile it seemed as though the Orks would obviously prevail...but with stubborn resistance by forces like the Penal Legion seen above and the pesky Space Marines that wouldn't die the battle seesawed back and forth. At one point Santa Orka Himself mounted the walls and entered the enclosure...only to be jumped by an Imperial Assassin and a Murder bot.
But in the end the Imperial forces were able to maintain control of the central landing platform that was the goal of the attacking forces.
Suffice to say that great fun was had by all and this will go down in my gaming history as one of the best games that I have had the privilege to participate in.
In addition to the Big Alamo game, Saturday also saw the Event painting contest. There were many fun entries for all the categories and a great number of very well painted figures involved. Again I apparently forgot to take any pictures of these goings-on and so will have to refer you to ABGs excellent Blog post about the contest. You can find that HERE.
The overall winner of the painting contest was Mike C. Who entered an amazing RT halfling cook model that was head and shoulders above the rest despite it diminutive size. As a prize Mike received a large Warhammer as a Trophy. Being the gracious guy that he is, Mike decided to leave the hammer with us to pass along as the award for the next contest as well...but not before leaving his mark on it for posterity.
The fun didn't wrap up until well after Midnight...and driven out of the room by the thumping bass of the Nigerian Baby Shower that was (inexplicably) still going on next door I scooted up to my room and quickly passed out with visions of burning Drew-bots and imperial murder-bots filling my dreams.
As you have seen by the flurry of other blog posts and FB posts the Oldhammer in the New World event is done and dusted. It was an epic weekend full of laughs, hard fought battles, bleary eyed warriors...and yes...last minute paint jobs.
But I digress...lets start from the beginning.
If you will recall from my last post...I spent Thursday night enjoying life with my wife and children at the local fair. It was perfect night with lots of fun, and unhealthy food, for all.
Upon returning home around 10pm I set about filling my miniatures case and packing my books and all the sundry things needed for a weekend of dice rolling and miniature talk. It took way longer than expected and I didn't lay my weary head down to rest until well after midnight.
...this made the 6:30am alarm very unwelcome...but this turned out to be one of the better nights sleep that I would have for the whole weekend.
I was out the door and on the road by 8:30am heading south to Pennsylvania. The first leg of my trip took me down familiar roads toward Albany NY, passing along the southern reaches of Lake Champlain, Lake George and the upper portions of the Hudson River. Around Albany I picked up a college radio station that was playing a long uninterrupted set of Grateful Dead tunes and as I listened gleefully to "Sugar Magnolia" and "Box of Rain" I finally started to relax into what was bound to be an epic weekend.
As my journey carried me down along the Lower Hudson River the Grateful Dead started to break up and I switched my listening to my favorite Pandora Station: Cream! With the thumping bass of Jack Bruce and the driving drums of Ginger Baker Blasting through my exceptionally hot car I cruised down past the Big Apple and into New Jersey. At this point I turned my car westward and entered Pennsylvania itself.
A constant stream of encouraging texts and messages from the crew that was already in Allentown propelled me forward and as I drew closer my excitement level continued to build. As I exited the highway and began to pick my way through the bustling metropolis of Allentown...one of my all time favorite (and seemingly appropriate) classic rock and roll tunes helped me push through the heavy traffic and finally arrive at the event venue.
After a quick stop to relieve the incredible pressure in my bladder I strolled casually into the Magnolia Ball room (flash back to Grateful Dead tune) and found the lucky few that had arrived early already rolling dice and having fun. The Advance team had done a superb job of setting up the space and getting things kicked off as soon as possible.
In fact I found most folks engaged in the first play through of Brian's amazing Bretonnian Frog Hunt Game. There was much laughter and many terrible jokes to flow out of this incredible game.
Watch out for that MASSIVE crab!!!
After meeting and greeting everyone who was in attendance Dustin and I quickly pulled together an RT 40k game...something we had been discussing for months...obviously neither of us could wait. We took over half of Rusty's amazing table that he had provided and Dustin dressed it up with some scatter terrain that he had brought. This game found my imperials facing off against Dustin's Orks in a struggle to recover the Transport Homing beacon that had been recently eaten (along with its owner) by a rampaging T-rex and unceremoniously "deposited" (some hours later) somewhere on an inhospitable planet. And to make things even more interesting the T-rex was still in the neighborhood and protecting his "turf."
We had a great time with this game...it was quick and dirty with may feats of bravery and plenty of silliness as well....lets just say that the T-rex ate at least 30% of my forces...
As the afternoon turned into the evening we took a quick break for dinner and then returned to get Bulldog Lopez's RT Demo Game kicked off. I merely observed this one as I was still frantically trying to get some painting done on my Bret Knights but suffice to say to was a well run and impressive looking 4-way game that continued until well after midnight.
At this point you may be thinking: "well...that sounds like a full day! I'm sure that was enough for day 1!"
Well...you'd be WRONG!
After much convincing and cajoling I was pressed into a late night round of the frog hunt game...and I'm glad of it. Once again the constant frog leg jokes and attacks by random, and vicious, wandering monsters made this game a real joy to play.
My warband performed admirably...though I ended up losing by a single frog.
Bleary eyed and sore from laughing we all shuffled off to bed a little after 3am and collapsed onto our beds to dream of the excitement to come on Day 2!!!
I'm gonna milk this event for all the Bloggy goodness it has to offer...so that means you have to suffer through another "Prep" post while I download and process photos from the actual event.
...you'll be ok I promise...:)
So here goes...
I spent last Wednesday night touching up details on all the horses and riders. I also selected shields and started to get the base colors on those. This last task led to a long stroll through my shields box trying to select just the right shields for these guys...this took away from painting time but was alot of fun.
I have a lot of shields.
Anyway...here is the status at the end of Wednesday Night.
Group shot
And here are the individual shots so you can see the shield selections a little better.
And lastly here are the shields that I'm working on for the Knights that are already finished.
Looking good right?
Blue might actually pull this off right?
Yeah...ummm...no...
So...this is where my plan went a little off the rails...I had been underestimating the amount of time it would take me to pack for the event...and in the end Thursday night turned into a night out with my wife at kids to the fair (Yay! Fried dough!) and packing.
...no painting was accomplished...sigh.
In other words this is the way the knights were goning to be when I pulled into the event on Friday.
...My only hope is to work on them whenever I could on Friday and Saturday in order to have them on the table by Sunday.
Not ideal to say the least...but I'm finally enjoying painting this unit....even on figures as large as these mounted ones its the details that really bring them to life....it feel good to finally be at that point.
Work on the horses and riders is progressing and I managed to get all the barding on the mounts completed last night. This is a major milestone due to the sheer amount of cloth on each of these horses. There are still lots of details to finish up but in some ways it's down hill from here.
So this is a quick up date to show you the progress on the mounts. Here you go.
I wasn't excited by these plastic 5th edition horses when I started on this unit...but due to size I felt they were the only option for these Knights. But I must admit that the variety of heads (both plastic and metal) really add a nice variety of poses and the sculpting on the cloth is quite good...so they are growing on me.
Tonight I delved into finishing up the details on the horses and getting started on the shields. I'll put together an update on that in the morning.
