Dogs of Law

Below is my contribution to the Dogs of Law, a lawful warband taking shape as a result of a challenge on the Oldhammer forum. Each participant commits to painting up a member of the warband in the shared colours (cream and olive) and everybody should get their submission in by the end of the December. The winner wins the whole darned lot (bases are undecorated so the winner can do that him or her self to retain coherency).
  There is some brilliant inventiveness stinging forth as a result of this challenge including a space-suited  Slann and an enchantress riding a knight giant. I sincerely recommend checking it out here…

http://forum.oldhammer.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2460

Anyway introducing my entry, the paladin Lord Thesoponius...

Ma latest boootay….

Sometimes it just feels proud to boast and I just wanted to show off my latest 'haul' as a number of orders as all came in at the same time.

  I recently got myself a bunch of imperial guard I acquired across a couple of lots - mid to late nineties metal and a horde of plastic. Recently did a trade for stuff a lot more characterful and closer to my tastes - selection of metal including Gaunt's Ghosts, Last Chancers, Escher, an Underhive Scum for Necromunda and a broken plague bearer. I am a happy bunny :)

Next bunch I bought was from an Australian war gamer trading forum. On the face of it I bought a bunch of Mordheim cultists but I wasn't annoyed when I noticed a couple weren't and are probably far older. I may use the guy in the KKK hat in my chaos cultist squad…Just stick an auto pistol on him and voila!

Number three is of the book variety rather than lead. I have been hunting for the Mordheim book for aaaages finally I bought it with Town Cryer from Ricky Hartley on the Oldhammer Trading forum for a very reasonable price (along with a free Mordheim coin). Top guy.

And lastly not Citadel or GW related at all but I recently participated in the Kickstarter for Johnny Lauck's Salvage Crew miniatures. They have a real Oldhammer feel to him and could be happily used as inquisitor acolytes, cultists, necromunda gangers or general rogue trader types. The personality really shines through in the sculpts even if some of the gun sculpts are a bit dodgy but can't really complain. I even have sentry droids :)

Full pictures for the (unfortunately expired) Kickstarter are here….

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/967512676/salvage-crew-28mm-humans

And now back to that knight I promised to paint…….

The Good, The Bad and the Decidedly Neutral

For some reason I can't seem to get my painting mojo on recently and minis are lying around unfinished. However I have some minis to display that may be of interest. The long awaited Necromancer I used in my Mordheim game with Captain Crooks, Radagast the Brown and a buxom pub landlady from Reaper Bones.

Radagast the Brown ('The Good'). I don't use this guy for gaming and so the reason for his getting the brush was that one day I decided I painted too much ugly and evil (you may notice this is a tendency of mine). I asked my girlfriend to pick a miniature for me to paint and this guy was chosen. I tried the technique where you mix the same base colour with every colour used (obviously brown). He was quite frustrating to paint as he was first metal miniature I painted in about 16 years and I was annoyed the paint didn't seem to hold. I have the more recent Sylvester McCoy version of this miniature too which I want to paint. I intend to paint ever Lord of the Rings character as some point.

My Mordheim Necromancer ('The Bad'). A lovely mini from Reaper. I like it that someone produced a voodoo necromancer as opposed to the crusty old men most lines produce. The base is fairly big but it did allow me to put on a mini diorama of a recently resurrected zombie scrabbling out of the earth ('Braaaains….').

 The Wench ('The Neutral'). Reaper's name for her not mine! I just bought her on whim after Captain Crooks mentioned he likes to buy something every time he goes to the FLGS we play at - the excellent Gamescube in Paramatta. I echoed the sentiment. She was fun and easy to paint and a handful of dollars. I imagine she is welcoming once your enter her establishment but trucks no nonsense once inside. The Reaper Bones line looks to be excellent for use in roleplaying adventures in particular.
 
  'Til next time :)

…And the Goliaths are finally here!!

Later than promised and they did make it into the Necromunda game with their base coat and shading and glazes at least. After a couple of weeks, I finished the rest with highlighting, dry brushing etc and the all important eyes. And yup, I got my light box up and running at last :)

(Any light box camera tips humbly accepted…)

The Goliaths are coming!

The last few weeks have been chaotic with preparations for my girlfriend leaving the country and so the miniature painting front has been a bit slow. Now that's all done I will have a lot more time on my hands and so expect to see a lot more from me on this blog.
  Next weekend is BYOL III (Bring Your Own Lead) Australia  (as I like to call it) where I'll be duking it out with Captain Crooks and Count von Bruno in games of Necromunda and 2nd edition 40K. And so I need a Necromunda gang! Goliaths being my mob of choice...

These are just work in progress shots and I now have six days including today to finish them!

Along with Escher, Goliaths are my fave Necromunda gang in terms of how they look. I think it is the physical brutality of the guys. They look as if they would just headbutt a wall for fun if they were bored. As well as this they also have a very Mad Max vibe to them.

  The plastic goliaths and the metal juve were acquired by eBay while the rest of the minis are the Catachan command squad acquired from my local friendly game store. They look good standing against each other even if the Catachans are skinnier than the plastic Goliaths but they ooze personality even for plastic. I particularly like the leader (the guy with the chainsword and bolt pistol) - he looks so smug.

To base them I have used broken up dead coral as well as chopped up empire bits - artillery weapons, banner poles and even part of a pistol.

Will keep you posted as they progress... :)

Many hands make light work...

Just a funny picture of my zombie's attempts to mug Crooks' mutant during our most recent Mordheim game. She has more hands than there are zombies. The mini is Deschala I believe...

Found: Wayward Heroquest Skeleton at Medieval Fair

Sorry I have been a bit AWOL from the blog recently. I have plenty of exciting stuff coming up soon what with the promise of a game of Necromunda at our next meet - yay! This has meant plenty of researching colour schemes for my goliath gang as well as realising I don't have appropriate minis for heavies or my leader. Much pondering and I have realised I will just have to cobble some together from the Catachan command boxed set - even if this gives me a perfectly valid reason to break my oath not buy any more minis *whistles*

I already have a juve almost painted up and a pic will be on its way once I have made my lightbox...

As well as this I finished off my Chaos Marine Sorcerer and started painting my greenstuffed skeleton pirates.

Speaking of skeletons check out my wonderful girlfriend's purchase for me at a medieval fair! Can't think of anywhere more appropriate to find this little guy....

(PS. In case you are wondering that is not my girlfriend in the picture but a friend of hers who found the smelly)

The Blighted Crusade : Black Legionnaires and the Devotees of Effluence

  I just had a very enjoyable Saturday playing games from Games Workshop's yesteryear with some of the guys from the Oldhammer forum among others, namely Captain Crooks and Count von Bruno. After a game of Gorkamorka, we had a 2000 point battle of 2nd edition 40K with a Squats-Blood Angels alliance (Crooks and Bruno) versus the evil forces of Orks-Chaos (Bruno's bro and myself). Count von Bruno's provided most of the forces with my Nurgle Chaos Space Marine army making up most of the Chaos Space Marine side with Bruno's Black Legion guys.

  Here is the unholy force all lined up together, courtesy of the Count's bro's camera:

It was quite a sight to see Bruno's forces out in full. I love his style and it has inspired me to go brighter myself as can be seen in the newly painted Sorcerer.

 Bruno's blog is here - http://leadoralivebruno.blogspot.com.au

 Even though he is not finished (he needs highlighting), I think the style is quite striking. This guy I feel is the true leader of my force even though I have a Chaos Lord Teminator too who has fought once, the latter has only served to be split open by a Space Wolf Dread while in previous battles this guy has taken out a Tau Commander and demolished an Ork unit by himself.

  Yesterday's battle was a defeat for us but still a riot to play. Chaos started to get demolished by the Squat heavy weapons who wiped out my cultists and a Chaos Hero prompting my ill equipped marines to hide in the ruins and hop up the board courtesy of the 'Gate' psychic power. Psychic powers played a large part in the game - my Plague Wind finishing off a Squat unit while a second attempt was reflected onto the Black Legion commander turning him into a Plague Bearer. Meanwhile Crook's Ancestor Lord mind controlled a marine to send a missile the Sorcerer's Way! Bruno and Crooks made a valiant effort and stole the game managing to pepper the Orks enough to stop them climbing the stairs up to the objective while we failed to destroy enough Imperials to bolster our Victory Points.

  Great fun to be had and I look forward to vengeance/a rematch (as well as the opportunity to play a Gorkamorka game steal back my captured Spanner!).

Mordheim Ghouls and a Dire Wolf

As promised here are the ghouls and the dire wolf from my Mordheim warband. I have only started recently using glazes and decided to use them pretty extensively on these models. I am happier on the results on the ghouls compared to the results the direwolf. Because of the latter's fur the glazes tended to feel into the recesses while they did a better taint at tinting the ghouls' flesh (which was a basecoat of GW's Rotting Flesh mixed with Skull White).

  Ghoul numero one:

This guy is from Citadel's C18 Night Horrors Range from the mid eighties. A real golden oldie. I have a banshee and wraith from that range also, but at the back of my mind is the idea that I would like to collect them all. If you have some to sell, send me a message ;)

This guy is a lot more recent but I am not sure when. If you know, send me a bell!

And lastly, the dire wolf. He was all painted up for the game last Tuesday and was then promptly slaughtered in combat by one of Dan's Shadow Warriors! Out of action turned into a kill when rolling post-game :(  For that reason, it is unlikely he will see a gaming table again for a while.

Mordheim Dreg and the Religious Freebie

My Mordheim warband is almost complete. In a painting splurge yesterday I finished two ghouls and a direwolf. One of the ghouls is from the Night Horrors range and is my own little Oldhammer injection into the warband. The second dire wolf unfortunately lost his head down our unnaturally large plug hole but luckily my warband only has one on the roster for now. Unfortunately the pictures did not come out too well but I did finish my dreg 'Arthur Drekweild' tonight (the pics will be put up later for the rest).

  You may recognise the mini - he was one of the Night Goblins included in the Citadel starter set a few years ago. There were much sweat and tears in converting this little fella including an unsuccessful pin a restarted green stuff job and an emergency order of a goblin shaman arm from the US. All in all I am quite happy with the concept if not the execution - the green stuff job on his left sleeve does not quite fit the other sleeve but despite this I think it looks okay.

  Poor little sod - not only was he born prenaturally small but the warpstone of Mordheim twisted his features so he looks like a goblinoid. I like that he seems to be leaning on his bow, giving the impression of being quite frail.

The guy is waving his skull wand, bringing another poor once-human into unlife. I figured he dotes on his dark sorceress mistress Izel Chamahez, so much so he aids her endeavours into the dark arts of necromancy with her.  She is last on the painting list for this crew.

 More dregs will be on their way eventually, helped by the acquisition of two from Captain Crooks as well as receiving another one in a recent eBay lot. Talking of ebay, I recently received this with a handful of Ral Partha miniatures I ordered from this auction site.

Now I'm not religious and I don't hold anything against those who are, but isn't a Christian cartoon pamphlet a weird inclusion especially in a mini order including a female demon with her wobbly bits out??

Old School Blood Bowl

 These are the oldest surviving miniatures that I have - a Blood Bowl Skeleton and a Wight. I still have the rest of the team unpainted and so one project (yet to be started) is to paint them all in the same colours. A challenge no doubt as none of the inks are made any longer!

I wish I knew what had happened to the rest of my minis from those days. These guys are about 20 years old. I have a feeling I threw out the rest in some cathartic purge :(

Count Von Hurlok

This little guy will end up leading my Mordheim war band. I like that he is a traditional Christopher Lee style vamp with a cape and not some overblown over-armoured bestial psycho. Nice sculpt and totally in keeping with the Mordheim vibe.

 I have acquired myself a couple of dire wolves who need repairing and repainting, two ghouls who are wallowing in Dettol who need some bits added and a lick of paint as well as a half converted dreg and all the zombies I need who just need basing.
  Next up - painting the necromancer. 

Braaaaaains!

  Just a little post today. A quick pic of a recent game of Mordheim where my undead trucked out it out with Captain Crooks' zealot witchhunter band and Dan's elves ( he played an elf faction whose name I can't remember but it wasn't one of the canon ones). Dan's merry band wiped the table with us with a final score of 3 warpstones to 1 each for myself and the Captain.

  The highlight for me was Dan's hunt for the Captain's merchant which according to the other players happens every game. The merchant hid in a building shaking in fright with pretty much half of the Captain's warband being his bodyguards while the rest of the skirmish raged on.
  My guys really need basing - Mordheim has inspired me to repair some poor misbegotten ghouls in my bits box. While inspired by the Captain's loaned dreg which is in actual fact a goblin painted as a humie, I will similarly convert one of my Night Goblins to be a dreg in the same vein.

Mini Oldhammer Day

Yesterday there was a get together to be had and it was goooood. I've been in contact with Captain Crooks from the Oldhammer forum and he invited Count von Bruno also and we got together for a day of Gorkamorka, Heroquest and 2nd edition 40K goodness.

Gorkamorka was a blast. We went in with three gangs with a simple 'grab the scrap scenario'. My guys were all bikers with grots. It was made all the more entertaining by poor Von Bruno's driving - he charged his vehicle at the Captain's only to lose control at the lost moment, leaving his back end exposed to the Captain's flamers. There is a real atmosphere of chaotic fun to the game and I would definitely play again - my grot ended up driving the bike after its driver fell off and landed in the dirt...

Okay - next game we played was Heroquest (and this time I have pictures).

The mechanics were simple, ALL the miniatures were painted and the company was great (couple of extra participants for this one). Probably the most fun I had all day. Above is my friend's elf in a standoff with a little goblin - I can just imagine the Sergio Leone music as the camera flits between their eyes.

  My attention deficit disorder barbarian recklessly opening yet ANOTHER door..

And lastly a badly lit pic of the undead picking on the Count's dwarf while a goblin blocks the rest of the party from saving him...

Last up the Count and I had a small game of 2nd ed 40K - his Squats and Space Wolves versus my Chaos. I like the old lists - Chaos was not specific to marines with a smattering of demons and you could field beastmen (not that I had any..).

  

The troops march to war...

Trench warfare...

Needless to say I was trounced. My missile launcher did little to dent his space wolves and their returning bolter fire was ruthless leaving one man of the squad cowering behind a building. On the other hand the cultist's fight was rendered ineffectual by the squats' flame thrower as well as the commander's grenade throwing skills - it promptly went off in his own hand taking out a couple of members of his own squad, breaking their morale!

Yep I have done a little bit of painting since my last post. All this Oldhammer influence has induced me to go back to my Chaotic Warhammer fantasy 3rd edition roots. Much browsing of eBay has brought back nostalgia for the chaos thugs. And much to my surprise there were female ones. Well only two, but I am sure other ranges can fill out a jazzy Slaaneshy female chaos thug warband. 

  Here be the first..

Yep lets say the colour combo might hurt the eyes but this Slaanesh after all - this is what she/he/it would approve of!

  'Til next time...

Doom, Guts and the Undead.

  More grossness for you to enjoy lol.

  First up, a Vampire Counts zombie painted up with Tamiya Red on his intestines - a kind gift from a new painting friend I have made :)

 

Next up is a Cairn Wraith. Great figure even though it is so simply designed. Shroud is a simple wash of Ogre Flesh or Reikland Flesh (can't remember which) on white followed by Bloodletter Glaze and drybrush with white. A real joy to paint.

Lastly an Imp from the Doom board game. Not the most detailed of figures but pretty good for a board game standard - one day, I will paint all the figures from my board games. One day...

And with the rest of his friends. The spidery things are called Trites. There are four different coloured teams in the game and I plan to paint each with its own corresponding colour. This is the 'red' team.

Until next time! :)

Decayed Goodness

  A friend of my girlfriend's recently asked me to send some pictures of my minis which has encouraged me to try and get better at lighting (as his were lit so well).

   So here are my zombies so far for my Vampire Counts army - admittedly they need basing.

Next up is my unit of Nurgle Chaos Space Marines, kitbashed from a space marine assault squad, chaos knights and VC zombies. The Champion is a favourite of mine.

And lastly my Nurgle Chaos Cultists from the Dark Vengeance boxed set. These are some of my favourite recent mins that GW have released. Really easy and enjoyable to paint too.

Nurgle Goodness

  Sorry I've been quiet recently. Time has been taken up by 40K playing and work rather than painting so much but I have managed to paint up a couple of these beauties. My havoc squad in the Nurgle Chaos Space Marine army have been a solid part of the force and so are definitely destined for painting.

Here are a couple of finished ones, one with autocannon and another with a missile launcher:

Apologies for the crap lighting - I need to get better at this type of thing. The older readers among you may recognise that the big guy is from Space Crusade. A blast from the past and a lot easier and cheaper to pick one up cheap from eBay than one of the newer missile launcher dudes. The other guy is metal from the mid nineties (I think). I like mixing up the styles - it is Chaos after all. Why would they be uniform? ;)

   I'll post some more up in the future. A significant while age I completed another two whole units completed for my Nurglites :)

Doctor Who and Amy

  Just a quick post today. I've been painting these minis up for my girlfriend's birthday as she is a massive fan of Matt Smith's Doctor. I bought them from Crooked Dice Miniatures. They don't name them as Doctor Who minis because of trademarks I guess but we know what they are really ;)

  Anyway pretty pleased with the result. I'm getting better at eyes and they were straightforward to paint. As a homage I based them based on the quarry landscape that substitutes for every alien planet in the programme. 

Old Rivals

  So I got to play my second game of 40K last night. Yay!

  I did not have time to rethink my list but I can give you my opponents as he sent it to me after the game. He uses a site called army builder to build his lists ( http://www.wolflair.com/index.php?context=army_builder ) and I sure will be checking it out. He played Tzeentch Chaos Space Marines and so this was a battle of old rivalries ;) Aspiration and Change Versus Disease and Stagnation (*cue drum roll*).

CB's army list:


Sorcerer (HQ) - Psyker (Mastery Level 2) -  Sigil of Corruption, Gift of Mutation, Power Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Warlord

7 Chaos Space Marines (Troops) 
Power Armour, Bolt Pistol (x7), Bolter (x6), Meltagun, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades,
Aspiring Champion - Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Bolter, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Gift of Mutation

7 Thousand Sons (Troops)
Power Armour, Mark of Tzeentch, Bolter w/ Inferno Bolts (x7); Aura of Dark Glory
Aspiring Sorcerer - Psyker (Mastery Level 1); Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon, Gift of Mutation

The mission was 'Crusade' and we concluded the battle as a draw as at the end I held two objectives (number two held by my reliable cultists) and he held one and had been the first to slay a unit outright (my bikers being substandard again!). Reading it now that scoring confuses me as a primary objective is three points and a secondary is one? Anyways it doesn't matter as it was just a fun game to learn the rules...

What I learnt from this battle was that rushing at your enemy is fine if your enemy is Tau and you are on a tiny table but is not when you are on a standard size table and your opponent has a unit of Thousands Sons. They are double 'ard b*****s. My poor bikers rushed them and got wiped out in two turns - rapid fire and inferno bolts with AP3 made Tzeentch happy! Sure they were not a fast unit but they really didn't need to be as they happily sat back and riddled my guys with armour bypassing bolter fire. Apparently a terminator squad or obliterator or two is a good unit to take to counter these guys (I guess a plus point being they actually still get an armour save against them).

  I also learnt that on a bigger table being deployed so that your Havocs are close enough to hit the enemy is important - they spent most of the game huffing and puffing lugging their equipment around and in the end only took out one chaos space marine in one of the final turns.

  My sorcerer warlord again did not use his power. He rolled and got Weapon Virus but instead I took Nurgle's Rot again (which was silly of me, Nurgle must be rotting my brain). He was attached to the chaos space marine squad. The guys spent their time trudging across the battlefield, one of their number being felled until a spectator suggested I detour into the courtyard to sit on the objective there. They were pretty safe at that point but it did mean Nurgle's Rot could not be used as he did not get into close combat while Weapon Virus could have been used in this scenario.

All in all, great fun. Next stop -  hopefully a session with the Games Workshop Sydney store manager to reinforce my rules knowledge. 

  Til next time!

 

Losing my 40K Virginity

Ok, so I have been aware of the Games Workshop universe from my mid teens and scary as it is I am old enough to remember Heroquest and the Lost and the Damned books when they were first released. Round about the age of eighteen I got rid of my little lead people and got terribly serious and starting reading pretentious literature and listening to the Smiths and the Cure. It was only about two and a half years ago that Games Workshop started to become noticed by me again. I was living in Sydney at the time (still am) and the biggest similarity between the times then and the times when I was a precocious teen was that I had a lot of spare time in the evenings and was living in an area with nothing to do to spend my time in the evenings (this time swap Kingsgrove in Sydney for the rural outskirts of Saltash, Cornwall).
  One thing led to another and I acquired a Night Goblin starter set with paints and brush. Some months later I had three of them painted and after a long story which I probably will recount another time, I now have a 500 point Nurgle chaos space marine army. Today was the first day they went into battle and the first time I have played 40K. My opponent brought Tau (who I will call JH as I have no permission to use his real name) and this scared me as I heard they are very shooty. Yet somehow I won!

  Here was my list:

Nurgle Chaos Space Marines (The Devotees of Effluence)

"Only in Father Nurgle do we trust. Through his generosity may his beneficent contagions bless the universe."

HQ Brother Halastis the All-Seeing Eye of Infection, Sorcerer
Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, Force Weapon, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades
Plasma Pistol, Mark of Nurgle
Troops
The Hand of Corruption, Chaos Space Marine Squad
Brother Alcrax the Decayed, Aspiring Champion - Power Armour, Boltgun, Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades,
Mark of Nurgle, Power Fist
Marines (3) - Power Armour, CCW, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Mark of Nurgle
Marine (1) -	Power Armour, CCW, Plasma Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Mark of Nurgle
The Death Head Cult, Cultist Squad
Supplicant Helgarnan the Base, Aspiring Champion - Improvised Armour, Autopistol, CCW, Shotgun
Cultists (8)  - Improvised Armour, Autogun, CCW
Cultist (1) - Improvised Armour, Heavy Stubber, CCW
Fast Attack
Bikers (2) - Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Chaos Bike
Biker Champion (1) - Power Armour, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Chaos Bike
Heavy Support
Havocs (2) - Power Armour, Missile Launcher (Frag and Krak Missiles), Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Frag Grenades
Havocs (2) - Power Armour, Autocannon, Bolt Pistol, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades, Frag Grenades
Aspiring Champion - Power Armour, Bolt gun, Bolt Pistol, CCW, Frag Grenades, Krak Grenades   Definitely, the men of the match were the The Hand of Corruption. Despite having a couple of their members wiped out by Tau fire they (with the Sorcerer as part of the unit) managed to destroy a battle suit and then with the assistance of the bikers demolished another unit with the Sorcerer killing my opponent's warlord with Instant death from his force staff. He then as a chaos boon received the ability to perpetrate instant death without the expenditure of warp points. This was after they were routed by having their number count down with fire just after the death of the Battlesuit.   The 'booby prize' goes to the bikers who failed their charge rolls and took an awful long time to get to the warlord's unit giving that they were on bikers and move 12". Next time as an observer suggested, I may replace them with a bolter armed unit of chaos space marines.   The havocs did an OK job of picking off a few Tau while covering the objective in my deployment zone and probably scaring off the opposing Kroot trying to get to the objective in my deployment zone.   The cultists sat on this objective on my side of the board were almost completely demolished and ran away, then rallying with only three of their number left by the end of the game. However given their stat line they performed the job I intended for them. This was to split the Tau fire (the rest of my troops were deployed up the other flank).   In the end I held one objective which sat in the pile of bodies of where his warlord and his troops were piled. While the cultists did not hold the objective in my deployment zone neither did his troops. The objective in the centre of the board remained unclaimed. On top of that I slew his warlord and was the first to destroy an entire unit making it a score of 3-0.   The other lesson I learnt was do not take Nurgle's rot as your Primaris Power when the table is less than 48" wide and only one unit have the Mark of Nurgle! That is unless you want to poison your own side too...   Only half of my force is painted at this point, but I will aim to post up pictures of the painted ones at a future point.