I Turn My Attention Back to the Army of the Marquis

  Hi all!

All those months of painting goblins and orcs....wolves and boar ...has compelled me to work on something completely different for awhile. And to work on something with a completely different color palate.

And so, I find myself returning to the Armee of the Maquis d'Saud-or...the small bretonnian army that I painted up 5-6 years ago.  This army is composed entirely of 5th edition Bretonnian figures sculpted by the Perry twins in the mid-1990's.  While these are decidedly "Middlehammer" figures you cannot deny that they are superb sculpts and paint up a treat.  Currently the army is infantry heavy with a unit of halberdmen, a unit of spearmen, two archer units (one of which can be used as scouts...the squires w/bows) a small unit of 7 mounted squires, and a unit of 10 knights. 

 

This small force has been seeing a lot of action in my recent Oathmark games and I really enjoy the way they look on the table...

 

So I've decided to add some to the force by painting another unit of shock cavalry...and for this I will stick to the 5thed figures and add a unit of 10 Knights Errant to the Marquis' forces.

 

I always loved the simpler paint jobs that were given to these figures by the studio painters and I've had these figures in my collection for a number of years now ...so, I am happy to finally have the motivation needed to get them on the table!  

Here's a early WiP pic of the knights as I was starting to figure out color schemes and block in the first colors and flesh tones. 

As you can see I will be mounting them on the cloth barded horses that are typical of 5th edition...at first I wasn't hugely fond of this sculpt, but it has grown on me....particularly with the variation that can be achieved when you employ some of the many optional metal horse heads that were included in this range. You will see that I used several of these head variant in my existing knight unit...but as the Knights Errant are meant to represent less experienced unit of knights I have opted to use the basic plastic heads for all the horses except for that of the hero which will have the metal head variant befitting his rank. 

 As with the first unit of knights I've opted for basic Heraldry with quartered surcoats for the knights and caparisons for the horses.  While somewhat basic on an individual basis I think this makes for a very striking unit on the table that doesn't appear as "cluttered" as some knightly units can that have a ton of complicated heraldry.

For colors I've returned to the same palette as the previous knights and selected the more muted tones again.  I'm really fond of all these colors and feel that they are a nice change from the pure primary colors traditionally associated with heraldry. Here they are a little further along in the process

In the foggy recesses of my mind I'm slowly coalescing my thoughts around these color schemes....basically each color being representative of particular noble family in the Lands of the Marquis.  When these families intermingle through marriage some interesting color combinations are created for their sons to wear in combat.  For example...you may notice that the leader of my first Knight unit has quartered salmon/grey livery (and portcullis Shield).

 

...while the leader of the Errants unit will have salmon/white livery (it looks orange now but will highlight up to that salmon color.)

 

...the presence of salmon on both leaders surcoats suggests that they are brothers, or at least closely related.  I will further reinforce this connection by also giving the Errants hero a shield with the Portcullis on it.  The rest of the unit will have plain shields.

Anyway...as I said its something I'm still pondering on.

Highlights have been progressing on the Caparisons and surcoats....here is the current state of the project.  Most colors have been highlighted...just the hardest one left to do...the White Livery....I see a hundred layers in my future!

 I hope to be back with some updated paintjobs on these guys as the years comes to a close.

Cheers,

Blue

A First for me...Some Fimir!!

 Hi all,

Back with a quick post to share with you some classic Fimir that I recently painted as part of a small commission that I've been working on.

These are the first Fimir that I have had the pleasure of painting and I have to say that they are just excellent sculpts...the "alien" anatomy of them is completely believable.  I used a slightly modified version of my Goblin skin paint recipe to achieve their pale green skin.

Here is the unit of four...and below are individual shots of each member.  The client will be taking care of the bases...hence their unfinished nature.

Individuals...

Cheers for now!!

Blue

9th Anniversary Repost. Darnog the Dank....

On this very night 9 years ago I posted about my feeble efforts in painting a figure for the first ever Golden Gobo Painting contest that was run from the Oldhammer Forum back in the day.  Back when Oldhammer still meant something specific and not the confused mess it has become these days...

But I digress...it was in the early heady days of the Oldhammer Community that a group of us conceived of this painting contest and made it a reality.  For this Painting contest I chose to paint one of my favorite Marauder Goblin figures...and recently I decided to update his flesh tone with my current recipe for Goblin Flesh.  

So, I'm going to take the opportunity to reuse my Blog post from October 12, 2012...which includes some background for this Goblin Wizard, a 3rd edition Statline for the figure, and even a narrative bit that I wrote for the contest which required no only a painted figure but also the associated Fluff.

Here are are pictures of the new paint job...below them you will see the 2012 pics, post, and story.

Cheers,

Blue

With the Pounding of Hooves and Paws...The Horde from the East Decends on the Old World...

Well it has taken the better part of two years....but my all mounted Orc and Goblin force is finally ready for some Army shots!!!  This army has basically become my Pandemic Project...sadly I have finished it before the Virus is done with us...

Anyway there isn't much more to say that hasn't already been said in the numerous posts leading up to this one.

...but to summarize this is just shy of 3000 points of (mostly) Marauder Orc Boy Boys and Goblin Wolf Boys.  Quite a few of the models are minor conversions either to standard bearers or infantry models converted into mounted troopers.

Here they are in all their glory!!

Full Army Shots...

Boar Boyz ...the Command Group

 Hi all,

Today I can finally present the final unit (for now) of my Marauder Boar Boy army....the Command group with Big Boss (General).

For my final entry in the Old World Army Challenge I reserved my command group.  This is a smaller unit of only five Boar Boys...but it includes the General and Army Standard as well as a small number of elite Gruntas on Barded Boars to fill out the unit and act as bodyguards to the General and the Standard.

Here is the Whole group 

 

As with some of the other units in this army a number of these riders are repurposed from other Marauder sets like Chariot crew options etc.  Included among this number is the General himself who was designed to be mounted on a Wyvern (MB8) but is here mounted on the Barded Boar that originally came with the Marauder Boar Boy General (MM22/6).  

The former boar boy general, now army standard bearer, is instead mounted on one of the Armored boars from Clam's Ewal Dvergar Range.The Army Standard is carried in the form of a back banner.  I was skeptical that this rider would work well with this mount...but now I think its my favorite of the bunch. 

Two of the Grunta body guards are also "converted" from The Orc Battle Chariot (MB6)...from which we have also already seen the archer who has also been mounted on a boar.

 

The last body guard figure is a actual boar boy figure (MM24/3)  but fits the part stylistically and the addition of a boar with a caparison makes him look even more intimidating.

So there we have them...the last of the Marauder Boar Boyz for my all mounted Greenskin Army! I may add a mounted mage at some point...and I started working on a unit of savage orc boar boyz as well...but those will have to wait for another day. 

I look forward to getting all of these along with their Wolf riders friends on the table soon for a photo shoot!

Cheers,

Blue

Moar Boar Boyz!! The horde grows stronger!!

 While my progress in the OWAC has been somewhat...um...lethargic the last few months ...progress is being made! At the end of April I posted up 8 new painted Boar Boys...all of which came from the close combat units of my Boar Boy force...namely the unit armed with hand weapons and shields and the unit armed with spears and shields....which I will run as the elite Gruntas.

With the completion of these 8 boyz I have also completed the two units mentioned above.

So...first up here are the hand weapon and shield Boyz...Led by Harrin Stephens

Marauder Orc regiment (MB2 and MM25)

 Hi all,

In addition to the Marauder Boar Riders that I have been working on for the OWAC, I had the opportunity to complete another unit that I've been longing to add to my army for many years.  I finally repainted and added to the Marauder Orc Warrior regiment that I've owned from my youth.

The MB2 Orc Regiment was one of my favorite units back in the day, and thanks to some selected internet purchasing I was able to flesh out the 12 warrior unit in a full regiment of 21 by adding some of the MM25 Orcs that were sculpted by Trish Carden (Morrison) for Marauder Miniatures that used the same scale mail armor and styling

This process required repainting the flesh portions of five figures that I had painted previously while painting all the other up from scratch.  here are the results!

And here are a few individual shots...

the banner is the original one that I painted up when I was about 16...but I have taken the chance to update it it a bit and add some shading and touch ups.  Very happy to still be using this classic banner from my youth even though it covers up the Bearer...who is one of my favorite sculpts from the MB2 Regiment.

 Thanks for stopping by. 

I'll be back with more Boar Riders before too long!

Cheers,

Blue