Imperial Army of Salsburg, Dwarf Corps, Crossbows

Hi all,

This is what I hope is the start of a string of posts about the Imperial Army of Salsburg, Dwarf Corps.  Today we start with a look at two units of missile support troops for the Corps...in this case Crossbows.

The Salsburg Dwarf Corps is composed of both troops from Salsburg proper (Guard) and also troops from the areas immediately surrounding the great city (Yeoman).  While both regions produce excellent troops for the Corps there are often stylistic differences in dress between the two.  The Guard troops from Salsburg itself have more thoroughly adopted the Puff and Slash influences of the Imperial style of dress.  The Yeomanry troops from the surrounding towns and villages tend to employ the same colors as their city counterparts but with less flash and more practicality (at least to their mind).

It is between the two units of crossbow armed troops that this stylistic difference is most apparent.

The Salsburg Guard crossbows are decked out in the finest puff and slash kit that silver can buy and the troops are as proud of it as they are their own beards!

Ewal Dvergar Boar Riders...Part III

Another quick post today...

...And another of Clam's fantastic Ewal Dvergar Boar Riders.  This one is another mix match...the body and Boar are from the Boar Rider release...but the helmet for this one comes from the earlier Ewal Dvergar warrior release, and it is one that I'm particularly fond of.

I've been meaning to try one of my chaos figures with black armor...but honestly I've been hesitant too until now.  Long time readers of this blog may remember a post I wrote about a system I had learned for painting black from a few years ago (LINK)...I have only used it sparingly since this initial attempt and never on a subject with this much area to cover...but this seemed like the perfect chance to give it a try on a more challenging subject.

...but before I reveal the final piece I want to take another opportunity to heap high praise on John Pickford for the sculpting on the boars he produced for this range and for Clam...They are superb and this one was another joy to paint.  Take a look!

Ewal Dvergar Boar Riders...Part II

Here I am back with with a quick post about some more Ewal Dvergar Boar riders that I have completed.  I had some time so cranked out two more of these lovelies.

Once again I opted to use a selection of different bits.  The red guy pulling the classic Jess Goodwin YMCA pose actually has a head that was supplied with the amazing "Ass Cannon" crew...also sculpted by John Pickford and sold by Oldschool Miniatures.  He is also mounted on a Marauder Boar.

The Yellow rider is made of straight Ewal Dvergar bits provided by Clam with this set of troops and he is mounted on another of the excellent Pickford boars.  Once again I can't say how much I like these boars...they are simply superb!

Here are the individual shots of the two...

Ewal Dvergar Boar Riders

Hi all,

Once again it has been a long delay since I have had a substantive blog post...but I'm trying something new today.  One of the big issues I've been having with blogging is computer related.  My laptop has been on the fritz for weeks now and that is where most of my pictures are stored...so in order to get something up I've decided to write a post on my phone with the pictures I have stored there.  So if the formatting is a bit weird...I blame the phone and blogger app...:)

Anyway...today I would like to talk to you about chaos dwarfs...or more specifically boar mounted Ewal Dvergar!!  My hook-up for all things stunty and Chaotic...Clam... sent me a batch of his newly released Boar riders a month or two ago and I've finally had a chance to get to work on them.

BTW...When you decide to get some of these...and you will...hit up Clam's Blog to order here:

http://claminiatures.blogspot.dk/

One of the fun things about these figures is that any of the chaotic dwarfy heads that John Pickford has sculpted for Clam (and others) fit perfectly on these bodies.  So this allowed me to have some fun mixing and matching bits and pieces from a variety of sets to make unique boar riders for my army.  as I started to play with the options I laid out all my bits...

2016 Year in Review...

Well...

I'm a bit late with this post but here goes....this is my attempt to summarize my hobby efforts for the past year and to look forward to what I hope to accomplish for 2017.

As with my previous review I'll address things in 3 broad categories:

• Gaming
• Painting
• 2017 goals

Gaming,
2016 was a great year for gaming in Blue's world...I played more games this year than I have in a very long time.  This included a bi-weekly gaming session with my local gaming partner during which we explored Space Hulk, Frostgrave, Dragon Rampant, and Rogue trader games.  I also played a fantastic game of RT with some of my other local gaming friends early in the year.

Pike Dwarfs...Unit building

Well...after enjoying painting that MM15 Dwarf with the Pike for the Paint it Forward event...I've felt the strong urge to build and complete my Dwarf pike blocks.

The Marauder Pike Dwarfs were, and are, some of my all time favorite figures from the Golden Era.  They are the figures that hooked me as a child and continue to do so today.  Though they have been long discarded by modern Warhammer Bullshit fluff they will always hold a holy place in my Oldhammer dwarf army.

After completing the MM15 I pulled out my current pike unit...a 15 strong force that is mostly sporting paint jobs dating to the Regan administration.  To these I added another 13 unpainted pike dwarfs and this is the resulting unit.

Johann Complete!

As promised here is a quick post to show you the final results of the painting I was finishing up on Johann...the fantastic Chaos Dwarf Sculpt by John Pickford...and in fact this figure was painted for John himself! (I hope he likes it!)  I think I have said all the wonderful things that need to be said about this great model...it really is something special...particularly the shield which inspires me to try something new each time I look at it.

Anyway...blah blah...here are the pictures...and below I will include pictures of my personal version to which I have added a Green stuff beard.

I believe that these are still available through Clam's Ewal Dvergar Range of figures...so contact him and get you one....and some of his other wonderful figures as well.

Here is John's Johann...

Johann II...Update 2...Nearly there!

Just a quick update to show how Johann is coming along.

• I added a couple more highlights to the armor to make it stand out a bit more.
• I painted his chest plate Bronze
• Wood grained the axe handle
• painted the chain mail and axehead with my typical metal system
• highlighted up the shoulder pads and gave them red eyes. 

All that is really left to do are a couple of touch ups and the base.

Johann II ...Update 1...Shield Work

Howdy all,

I've been plugging along with the variety of models that I previewed in my last post.  My main effort has been focused on finishing up a copy of Johann from the Ewal Dvergar Range that Clam has graced us with.

I've had this miniature for way too long...mostly because I've had a hard time figuring out what color to paint him.  Obviously I painted my copy Blue...but I couldn't decide what would look good on this copy.  Finally I decided to go with Dark Green armor with Copper/Gold and Grey accents.  To this end I set in on Johann's armor first and then got to the base coats on the wood, metallic, and grey areas....

Here is how he looks right now...

Not looking particularly stellar yet...but once I start to highlight everything else up it will improve greatly....

...However...I really put a lot of work into his shield.  As I mentioned when I painted my own version of this figure the Shield is one of the best parts...John Pickford really seems to have enjoyed making this fantastic face.  With looking at the design of the shield ...and the fairly tame colors of the armor that I chose for Johann... I decided to go a little wild with the shield colors.  In really staring at the shield for quite awhile I really started to see how it looked like flame...

...perhaps this is a demonic piece of armor containing a fire daemon of some sort? ...forced by one of the Chaos Lords to protect Johann from harm....

...thats right...FLAME SHIELD!!! :)

This turned out to be a lot of fun to paint...and it took a TON of layers to make it look convincing.  Having never really attempted to paint flame before I'm pretty happy with the results.  The main portion of the shield is orange flame while the eyes and tongue are meant to look like blue flame.

Here is a quick look at the final product....followed by a short movie showing the steps of the process.

Yes...he has a Gold tooth...my daughter suggested it...who am I to deny her...?

For those who are curious about such things...here are the paints that I used to achieve the flame effect...

I'm not really sure what the Orange paint is...some old citadel color...?  Blood Angel perhaps?

And here is a shot of my wet pallet showing all the different layers that I created with these paints and their sequence (ignore the green...that's from the armor).

I think that is going to look pretty sweet on that green armored model...so...

I better get back to it!

Cheers,

Blue

What's on Blue's table now?

Still nothing finished to show off yet...so I wanted to give you an idea of what will be coming in the near future.  I'm pretty excited about the figures I have in my painting queue right now. For once it's a rather eclectic mix of different races and types of figures which I hope will help with keeping my motivation up.

The first thing I have to finish up is another copy of the fantastic Johann sculpt that is available from Clam's Ewal Dvergar Range.  This one is going to a long-suffering client and I'm anxious to get it back to its rightful owner.

I have also been asked to paint a few figures for the Dragon Bait miniatures Indiegogo campaign. This is the second campaign by Dragon Bait miniatures and once again will be offering a lot of interesting and humorously old school style sculpts.  

I have agreed to paint the dwarf inquisitor... who definitely has that van Helsing feel to him.

Then there is the halfling scout...who has a great country bumpkin thing going on.

I will be also working on the small vignette of a executioner and his halfling compatriot who is luring the next victim to their death with a tasty doughnut.  I am particularly excited about these figures from the campaign...I just love the sculpts...which I believe are by Tim Prow.

This set comes complete with a block and a basket with a couple of heads already in it.  Just genius!

Next I have my entry for the Oldhammer forum's community war band. This is a very old-school citadel sculpt that makes me laugh because this archers quite pudgy!  I forgot to check his name before I glued him in...I think this is Edwin...?

Another odd duck figure I have ready to go is one of the really early citadel slotta Elfs...Gildor?  Who I will be painting up for thebinman's Averland warband.  You've got to love his Elvis style hair do.

Next up is the one remaining 5th edition Bretonian Squire with bow that I need to complete my unit.  The group has been languishing at 17 for the last year...it took me awhile to acquire another copy of this specific sculpt...so it will be nice to actually finish this unit off.

Finally I also have these fantastic mid 90 Perry sculpts of Bertrand and his compatriots. Obviously styled after Errol Flynn's Robin Hood movies and just loaded with bags of character even for relatively "newhammer" figures. These will obviously be becoming character models for my Bretonian army.  I've had them for a while now and I'm very excited to finally get them painted.

So you can expect to see all of these figures again in future posts hopefully in various stages of progress.

Of course I still have the Knights to finish that I showed earlier as well as half a squad of Orks that need their final coats of paint too!!.  My work schedule should finally be opening up a little bit as we approach Christmas and I hope to be quite productive during my downtime.

Cheers for now,

Blue

...and a Special Surprise!!!! I mean it this time!

So in the post I did last week on the fantastic Ewal Dvergar Xbows that have been recently released by Clam I hinted at something special in the title...

...and then forgot to mention that "something" in the post!  DOH!!!

Sorry about that.

Ewal Dvergar Crossbows ....and a Special Surprise

One of the great things about the current state of the "Oldhammer" Community are the number of small companies...and in some cases individuals...who are designing and producing figures that have that "Old School" vibe.  One of my absolute favorite ranges of this sort are the Ewal Dvergar being produced by Clam.  The Ewal Dvergar range takes its inspiration from the classic Chaos Dwarf models produced by citadel and Marauder during the heady days of the 2nd and 3rd editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.  Clam's figures allow a general to build a sizable force of evil stunties without having to collect innumerable duplicate copies of very hard to find and expensive classic figures

Ewal Dvergar "Unit Shots"

Building on my last post which featured the Ewal Dvergar that I painted up for Round one of the LPL... here are a few pictures of all the Ewal Dvergar that I have painted up to now.  In total I have 9 of these fantastic figures painted (though a few are still missing shields)...in order to round out the unit to two nice ranks of 5 I have also included the MM90/WK conversion that I refer to as the "Green Knight"...though I've stuck him in the back rank.

While this isn't a huge unit its starting to look pretty good!  I had orginally thought that I would mix in Clam's sculpts with my MM90s to make a big unit...now after seeing these guys all together...I'm thinking I need two units :)  One of MM90s and one of Ewal Dvergar!

Anyway...here are the pics.

LPL Round 1: Ewal Dvergar

Well...the time has finally come!  Round 1 of the Lead Painters League has closed for voting and Round 2 has begun....therefore I'm allowed to post up my first round entry for public consumption.

The entry requirements for this year's LPL have changed from previous iterations of the contest.  This year you are allowed to only enter one picture of your team...with no composite images allowed.  In the past I had the option of using a combination of images to best illustrate the details of my figures....this year one picture only.  So this was picture that I submitted...

Chaos Dwarf Comparison shots...

About a week ago Four A Miniatures released the Chaos Dwarf/beastmen that I covered in earlier posts.  These wonderful figures were sculpted by John Pickford...as were the Ewal Dvergar that Clam is sharing with the world.  When I put up the post about the Four A minis several people asked for some size comparisons...I promised to do some shots...and never did.

...Well today is the day!  I had the camera set up to take my first three rounds of LPL photos...so while I was at it I grabbed a few other Evil dwarfs and put them all together for some Glamor shots.

Four A Miniatures... Chaos Dwarfs II: "Thats 'Mister Tower Head' to You!"

Hello all!

Another of the fantastic miniatures that John P. asked me to paint for him is the other Chaos Dwarf that Four A Minaitures will be releasing in the future...a figure that John and I have been referring to as "Tower Head" (though I understand that another name may be forth coming...).

Bret Halberds Complete...and something Chaosy this way comes

Howdy all...well the heart of the summer is upon us....my ankle is healing well and my work load has gone off the charts...seems no one did anything at work while I was laying on the couch for a month...lazy sods!  So my hobby time has been quite restricted but I do have a couple of updates to share with you.

First of all I finished off the last of the infantry units for my Bretonnian warband....these are the halberdiers I was working on for the Monthly Unit Painting Challenge over on the Oldhammer Forum.  They still need a banner and few shields but they are done enough for now.  This unit didn't inspire me the way the others did but I'm glad they are finished and I'm fairly happy with the way they turned out.....take a look for yourself.  Sorry about the crappy wooden movement tray...its a WIP

This shot shows the 3 R&F sculpts...nice but a little more variety would have been great!

Shields detail...these guys look better from the back!

With the completion of these guys I'm getting fairly close to being finished with this small army.  On my painting table right now are a unit of 10 knights as well as a general and army standard bearer.  The only other thing I have to add are more mounted yeomen....I'm still hunting a couple of the sculpts down but that unit can grow slowly.

On a completely different note....last weekend my painting mojo completely vanished so I found some time to clean a prep models for future efforts.  Recently my boy Clam sent along a set of his new Ewal Dvergar sculpts for me to play around with.  So I spread them out with a batch of the first release castings that were still patiently waiting assembly and I went to work....here is what I started with.

As you can see there are a LOT of options here....so I spent the better part of night just fiddling around and trying different head and weapons options on the various bodies.  By the end of the evening here is what I had come up with....a group of 4 with pole arms...

I particularly like the guy second from the left...

 ...a couple with two hand weapons

here I used weapons from both 1st and 2nd releases

....and a sizable group of hand weapon and shield warriors

A right evil looking bunch eh?

Additonally I built this guy on the left with the two handed sword and started on a couple of conversions with some of the extra bits...which are sill very much WIP.

Bonus points if you can ID the base bodies on the two models on the right...

I hope to get these guys primed up in the next few days so they can join the great unpainted masses awaiting my attention on the painting table.

Of course if you want some of these babies for yourself you should check out Clam's Blog HERE

...tell him Blue sent ya...

Cheers for now!

Blue

Bitz Box Bonanza!

Howdy all...

A brief respite from the Bretonnian bombardment....

During a recent troll through the depths of eBay I came across one of the Marauder MM32/34 Goblin Wolf Riders that I am still missing.  This set is one of my long term projects and finding the last few has proven to be a challenge....though a fun one :) so I was pretty happy to find this guy from a seller in Germany...

  Sure he doesn't look that great now...but he should clean up nicely and will look great when he joins his brethren.

...but thats not the point of this post...as I often do when I find an overseas deal that I can't pass up...I looked at the sellers other listing to see if I can combine shipping and pick up a couple of things at once.  One of his listing was for a pile of bits from classic Marauder and Citadel figures.  I threw in a low ball bid and waited...and scored a win!  I was pleasently surpirsed and it cost me less than $4 US...plus a share of the shipping of course.

A heavy envelop arrived today from Germany so I quickly popped it open and was quite excited as I shifted thru the pile.  Here were a bunch of pieces of classic figures that I would never have the ....uuummm... "intestinal fortitude" to butcher myself....and now I won't have too!

Fair warning....if the sight of mutilated Classic figures is disturbing to you then go no further!

Here is the pile as I dumped out onto my work surface....

Ummmm...heaping pile of lead.....yyyuuummmm

...Go ahead...take a moment and see what you can pick out....I'll wait a minute....

(whistle...whistle....)

You Good?  Ready to see what we got here? ....ok here goes....

First your obligatory pile of random limbs and feet...

Mostly Plague Bearer parts...

 Then there are a few random warrior types

I'm pretty sure Orylgg just showed that guy on the left on his blog...

 Here we have a Chaos warrior missing an arm...part of a Battle Lord on the right...and a mystery figure in the middle...anyone know who he is?

Here are the Plague Bearers that used to belong to some of those feet...

Having never seen these figures in the flesh I've never had much interest in them...but now that I see some first hand...they do have a lot of character!

There are also a few dismembered Orcs...real classics here...

 ...including a villager...a standard... and a mage...

Next there are a few chopped up beastmen...

...this includes some of the Marauder Beastmen...I'm working up a unit of them so this might be useful for adding some variety to the rank and file.  There is also a couple of classic Iron Claw beastmen.

And here is the part I'm most excited about....the upper torsos of no less than 7 Marauder MM90 Chaos Dwarfs...(plus one CW torso...)

I see some Badass Bull Centaurs in my future!

These will be great for conversions...These are figures I would never cut up on my own but having it done for me minimizes the guilt and opens up a lot of possiblilities for mixing with the other MM90s and even Clam's Ewal Dvergar....oh yeah...this is going to be fun!

...now to find the time....sigh

...back to the batch painting!

Cheers,

Blue

Chaos Dwarf....Unit shots

All right...just a quick post today....and not the something different I had promised in the las post...maybe next time...:)

While I had those wonderful Evil Dwarf figures on my painting table over the couple of weeks I also took the time to assess the condition of the rest of my painted CDs.  Since I had them all out I decided to snap a few quick pics showing them as a unit.  I took these pics with my iPhone so they are not top notch...but this phone takes decent pictures (...is that an improbable sentence or what?  I must be showing my age!)

Anyway...here are two shots of the Whole horde...this is MM90s, a few of the classic Citadel CDs, and few conversions by me, as well as a number of Ewal Dvergar from Clam's range.

And here is one shot that is all the MM90s I have painted so far...plus my two conversions...and one Ewal Dvergar just to even the ranks...and 1 citadel CD...but mostly MM90s!

I still have quite a few shields to add...and 6 more MM90s to add to this unit...but I'm getting there...slowly...

Cheers...have a great weekend all!

Blue

Johann...nuff said!

Well I had wanted to wait a couple of days before posting this up....but I just can't!  this figure is just TOO good! This Chaos Dwarf which has been named Johann by Clam and the Sculptor, John Pickford, is a special one.  John Sculpted this figure on his own, just for fun, when Clam was just starting to contemplate the range which would become know as the Ewal Dvergar.  It didn't really fit with the multi-part Core Warrior range that Clam was interested in creating but when John shared the sculpt with him Clam couldn't pass up the chance to have it cast up....

...and I'm Glad he did. This is one of those figures that I fall in love with when I first hold it in my hands...figures like this are few and far between...the Ratnik Dwarf Minstrel...MM15 Dwarf with Arquebus...MM90 Mage and Skull face...are a few of the others that have stirred such feelings.  While this feeling can be great motivation...it can also create some anxiety for the painter.  I was intimidated by the figure...the level of detail is quite impressive...and I didn't want to FUCK it up!

...in fact, with Johann, this anxiety began even before that...with the Johann figure you have choices to make..before you paint!  The figure is cast as one piece and looks like this...

Note: Picture blatantly stolen from Clam's Blog (I hope you don't mind man!)

 Its very cool like this...look at that Breast Plate!  But since it is a dwarf, John felt obligated to include an option for the figure to have a beard...so he sculpted up this add-on piece...

Again...thanks Clam for the pic

Again...he looks very cool with that stylish beard...a beard which any self respecting dwarf...chaos or no...could appreciate.  But it covers up the exquisite sculpting on the breast plate...what to do...what to do?!



Well I couldn't decide....I wanted it both ways...so I took a risk and attempted to sculpt a GS beard onto the first figure that would look like a beard...but that could also be believable as hair for the face on the Chest too.

Here is what I ended up with...

This is actually my own picture....

Ok...hurdle one passed...now to figure out a color scheme for this figure....again I was paralyzed by the options...so much detail..particularly on the Shield, which we haven't even discussed yet, as well as the breast plate, and shoulder pads. What colors would suit them best?!  In the end I fell back on colors that I know well and love.  My typical blue and a nice medium gray for the highly detailed parts.  I felt that these colors  highlighted the best of the model without loosing any of its character with a motley of colors.  I tried to let the quality of the sculpt shine through.

Alright enough yammering from me...here are the detail shots...

Front...."You talkin to me?"

...Here comes the Shield!

There it is! So Sweet!

Alright that shield demands a special mention...it is like a complete sculpture of it own...just a remarkably expressive face...and the depth of the detail made it a joy to paint.  I tried to carry the Red eye theme through the shield, shoulder pads and Dwarf. 

There is a good teaser of the shoulder pads...

And a Detail of the Right Shoulder pad.

So there he his...Johann in all his glory.  You will notice that I based him on a 30mm Round lipped base...Thats because I don't see Johann joining a CD unit like the others...he is stand alone...in fact I might just find a pedestal I can put him on...so he can oversee work on my painting table.

Next up...something a little different...

Cheers,

Blue