Dwarf Army Progress Shots...Almost There!!

Hi all,

As most of you probably know I have spent the past six months painting frantically for the second Old World Army Challenge.  It was, once again, a grueling effort but I did manage to finish and add a significant new contingent to my Puff and Slash Dwarf Army...which is my oldest army and one of the largest.

As I was finishing the challenge and and preparing to take some shots of the entire 1000 point force that I had managed to paint...I thought it would also be a good idea to combine them with all my other Empire Dwarf figures to show the current status of the entire army.

This proved to be a lot of fun and, though the set up and prep work took some time I think it was worth the effort.  Now this army is NOT complete...several of the units will be further expanded....several have a few partially painted figures....almost all units are still lacking banners...and there is one entire unit not represented at all in these pics.  Despite these deficiencies I find this kind of photography to be very inspiring and feel that it really gives me a feel for where the army as going as well as indicating what needs to be finished up.

For this photo shoot I used two of my modular terrain tiles and a number of the houses and walls that I scratch built in the last two years...as well as a portion of the Might Fortress.  I'm still having trouble with the backdrop situation, but for the time being I used a sheet of green foam board as my backdrop...less than ideal but sufficient for now.

Anyway...lets take a look...

Here is the Dwarf line of battle for the Grand Army of Salsburg.

Filler Post #2: LPL Replay and Update

Howdy all,

I wanted to take a quick moment and get a post up...life has been truly nutty for the last month...between ever increasing work obligations, weather issues, my kids bringing home various plagues, and trying to get some teams done for the upcoming LPL I just haven't been setting aside the time to write posts.  But today has given me just enough time to get another filler piece together.

Progress on my first three teams for the current LPL has been good...I'm in the midst of final touches on all three of them, then onto basing and starting on the next two teams.  So far I'm fairly happy with where I'm at.

I thought that I would take this opportunity to post up a few of my entries from previous LPLs for your viewing pleasure.  Long time readers of this blog will have seen these pictures before...but will just have to suffer through...:)

To start with here are a few of my favorite Oldhammer Fantasy entries from years past...

The heavy hitters...LPL 5 Round 9

LPL Round 9: Averland's Best

Late last winter I was approached by a fellow member of the Lead Adventure Forum about a small painting commission.  thebinman had a group of old empire figures that he wanted me to paint up for him as a Mordhiem warband from Averland.  Since he offered to compensate me in old lead I had no choice but to accept....:)

...I had hoped to complete two teams of thebinman's figures for LPL teams but as things worked out with RL I was only able to get one completed before the contest ended.....this team was my Round 9 entry.  I picked my 5 favorite figures from this commission and went to town!  Among the group of figures that thebinman sent along were many classics and the choice was difficult but these five seemed to fit well together with their strong Puff and Slash style...plus the variety of heights/races made for an interesting team.

Anyway...here is my entry photo

This is a hastily taken iPhone picture...the camera does pretty well!

Loverly figures all!

As I have been laid up with my ankle, one of the tasks I've managed to complete is the basing on these guys...I also took proper pictures with my better camera...so lets look at each figure in detail with those photos.

On the left here we have a classic Marauder Halfling.  Just a wonderful face on this guy...I stupidly sold my complete unit of Marauder halflings when I got back into the hobby a few years ago and after painting this guy they have gone back on the acquire list!

 Next to him is "Piers," (...'cause he has a crossbow see?! haha...very clever) a venerable model from the early Citadel Empire range.  I like the figure overall...the look on his face is a bit odd...but still fun to paint.

In the middle we have one of the absolutely wonderful Marauder Puff and Slash Ogres...and one I hadn't painted before! I tackled most of this small range for a previous LPL entry but this guy was new to me and that made him particularly fun to paint.  I was a little perplexed about the severed head between his legs (see the picture of the back of the figure)...to me it was unclear what type of head it was....shrunken head trophy?  Head of another Ogre? Troll? so I went with a flesh color that could be interpreted a number of ways...:)

Next up is another bad ass figure... Smiorgan Baldhead from the Eternal Champion Personalities range...I figure I covet very much!  ...love the wicked scar on his face!

And last...but certainly not least....one of the absolute best dwarf miniatures....Ever!  The Marauder MM15 Zweihandler Figure.  My copy of this figure is still untouched....its one of those ones that I'm kind of intimidated by...so having another to work on in a completely different color scheme was really a pleasure.  His beard gave me fits...and still might get one more highlight...but overall my appreciation for this figure was only increased by having painted it....Now I'm itching to get to mine!

The Yellow and Black color scheme proved to be a fun challenge as well....both of these are colors that I tend to avoid doing large areas of if possible.  Black in particular has always been one I've avoided...I had to do a lot of internet research on different techniques before I found one I was willing to try...and over all I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Anyway....gotta get back to the couch and put my leg on a bag of ice!

Cheers for now...

Blue

3rd Edition Lives! New Recuits for Oldhammer!

Well folks by faithfully following my little slice of the blogosphere you have seen me accomplish a bit of painting, followed some of my obsessive collecting, and seen me try out new games like Cavern Crawl...what you haven't seen is me actually playing a game of 3rd edition...well that is about to CHANGE!!

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving I bribed (with food) three of my buddies into joining me in my geek cave (basement) for a basic game of WFB 3rd edition.  I have given up on trying to find current WFB players in my area that are willing to play 3rd edition...its just TOO frustrating...and I've decided to make my own Oldhammer Players by brainwashing some of my friends.  These guys have heard about my collecting habit and some have seen me putting my "toys" in baths of various solutions at work in a effort to strip off the horrible paint jobs, but none of them have any experiece with the game itself....so they have not been tainted by the competitive, list driven, crap that passes for WFB these days....perfect fodder for 3rd ed. brainwashing!

To this end I whipped up a couple of quick lists based on the figures that I wanted to play with...they both ended up in the region of 1400pts...based on the Warhammer Armies book.  The units were uniform in their composition...no heroes, no banners, no musicians...and each army was lead by one Character model, or general.  Additionally each army had one big gribbly.

On the "good" side, led by Alex (and me where needed), we had a force of dwarfs which consisted of:

• General 20th level
• Ogre Body Guard 20th Level
• 12 Thunderers
• 12 Xbows (Bugman's)
• 15 Dwarf Warriors (Marauder Clansmen)
• 15 Dwarf Warriors (Ulther's)
• 10 Hammers
• 6 Giant Slayers
• 1 Swivel Gun Team
• 1 Fire Thrower Team

On the "evil" side, led by Tom and Brian, we had a force consisting of Greenskins and Chaos Dwarfs..as follows:

• Orc General on Warboar 20th Level
• 8 +1 Shock Elite Boar Riders
• 8 Goblin Wolf Riders
• 20 Orc Warriors (Marauder MB1)
• 15 Orc Big Un's
• 20 Goblin Warriors
• 22 Goblin Archers
• 15 Chaos Dwarf Warriors (MM90s)
• 12 Chaos Dwarf Xbows
• 1 Chaos Dwarf Bazuka Team
• 1 Chaos Dwarf Mortar
• 1 Troll

Here is a Picture showing the Battlefield and some of the forces to be involved...These are all iPhone Shots...and the lighting in my "cave" is pretty bad so try not to cringe too much...Also There are a lot of naked figures on this table...sorry about that...I'm working on it!  You know I'm a slow painter...:-)

As you can see we have some quality "dish scrubber" hedges in the center....some beat up old Card houses from back in the day scattered about...and a sizable forest on one flank.  Not clear in these pictures are a number of smallish hills mostly around the outside edge of the table.

I failed to take enough pictures or notes to write up a clear battle report but I will try to illustrate what happened in general with the pics I have. 

Here we go...Tom and Brian sent the Boar Riders around on their right flank and the wolf rider around their left flank....the infantry headed up the middle with the Goblin warriors, Big Un's and Chaos Dwarf warriors clogging things up in the middle while the Orc Boys headed for the gap between the brown house and the forest.  The evil artillery advanced up the small hills in each corner of their deployment zone in order to get the best vantage point of the field and rain death down on their hated foe.

The Dwarfs carried out a general advance with the Thunderers taking up position behind the hedge and Bugmans squeezing into the space between the brown house and the woods.  The two units of Warriors advanced to hold the center and the Hammerers remained in reserve.  The stunties knew that a good defense was their armies best option against a fast moving foe.

Note the use of the old school unit cards...I wanted the stats to be easy to find for each unit...

The dwarf army is almost completely painted...the Evil side...not so much

Missile fire for the first few rounds was pretty much ineffective...with only a few casualties caused on both sides.

As the threat to each flank became apparent Alex (Dwarf commander) positioned his hammerer to await the Boar riders and his slayers and swivel gun to receive the Wolfriders.  On a side note the Chaos Dwarf Bazuka team blew itself to smithereens...they only got one shot off...and it missed.

The Evil side's double envelopment is shaping up nicely!

"Crump the Stunties!"

 As things progressed the Goblin warriors were pushed to the front of the traffic jam in the center of the table and they took on Ulther's Draagon company...an easy victory for the dwarfs right?!  Wrong!  amazingly the Goblins were able to push back the Dwarfs no less than 3 times!  The Marauder dwarf clansmen to Ulther's right were clobbered by a Mortar round and bolts from the Chaos Dwarf shooty tyes...when they were then charged by the Troll they decided to head off to the local pub for pint....sadly the Troll smahed most of them with his club before they could get service....

The Wolf riders were help up by the Swivel gun crew long enough to get charged in the flank by the Slayers...and the Boar riders got stuck into a slow grinding combat with the Hammerers. In the center Ulther's finally sent the Goblin warriors on their way but were promptly charged by the Big Un's...a much more challenging foe. The Ogre Bodyguard swept in and faced off against the troll...a true clash of the titans!  The Ogre inflicted a lot of wounds and the troll regenerated them...over...and over again  He also puked on the Ogre's shoes...which just made him even more angry!

Bugman's was charged by the Orc boys and fell back before the larger unit.  Things were starting to look a bit rough for the Goodguys.

But the Dwarfs gained a brief respite when the Slayers managed to drive the Wolf riders off the table and turned their attentions to flanking the Orc Boys engaged with Bugman's.  The Hammers managed to fight the boar boys to a draw.  And to add injury to insult for the baddies the CD mortar blew itself up as well.  Was the momentum changing? Were the dice finally warming up for the dwarfs?  Of course not you silly fool....

In the next turn the boar riders pushed back...and then broke the hammers....the still engaged Ogre champion was charged by the Orc General and the whole unit of Chaos Dwarf Warriors and Ulther's was slowly getting ground into mincemeat by the Big Un's....sigh

Plus it was getting really late...so Alex "threw in the towel" and ordered the retreat of the surviving Dwarfs.

Victory to the Baddies...but it was a near run thing...if a few die rolls had gone differently the battle could have easily swayed the other way....but it didn't and the evil army won the day.

Most importantly the guys had a great time and all are anxious to do it again...thats the best outcome of all!

Next time I'll take better pics...I promise....off to do some painting...naked figures look terrible on the table top!

Cheers,

Blue

Puff and Slash...Ogres?

I recently got my hands on some figures that have been eluding me since my youth....the Marauder MM41 Ogres...to go along with the MS4 Ogre hero that I've had since my childhood.  What makes these particular Ogres so interesting is that they are dressed in the Puff and Slash style...and you know I'm a sucker for that!
Here are 5 of the 7 Ogres sculpts with the hero in the center.