Halloween Night Horror 2017 Diorama Competition

Another year and we limp towards the evil aura of that most dark of festivals...call it All Hallow's Eve, Sahmain or all Hallows Eve, you'll be lucky to survive it with either your life or the thin thread of your sanity.

Over on the Night and Gothic Horrors Facebook page we're running a competition to create a diorama themed around one of the classic Night Horrors range from Citadel designed to chill your bones and get your heart thumping in your chest. If you follow this blog you'll have seen me blog about the miniatures from it numerous times.

A classically inspired horror scene with victim prey to an ancient menace or a B-movie slime monster about to consume the teen who went out by himself if this sounds like it might interest you, come and join us!

The Villager's Party grows

Some of you may remember I painted up Corabell from Terror of the Lichemaster some time ago. She also features as 'Libertine' in the excellent C46 Villager range from Citadel Miniatures.

I've finished her basing and now given her a couple of companions of questionable character!

 The old fella in the middle is the 'Pedlar' from the C46 Travelling Players range of 1987. It's my favourite of all the civilians so far. There's so many small details and hidden surprises in the miniature and it tells a real story. Obviously the guy is tired but still ever so keen to sell his wares - presumably he's pointing the feathers trying to claim they are from some exotic bird? It's a Copplestone sculpt - a great sculptor and a concept that really plays to his strengths.

The second fellow is far less wholesome - he's named 'Scragger Luke' and from the C04 Thieves range. Apparently designed by the Perry Twins but it does beg the question, which one of the brothers? Maybe not as clean a sculpt (the knife isn't well formed and the legs are bandy) but an interesting sculpt nonetheless. He seems to be defending his loot - maybe from the local law enforcement? Something about it shrieked Native American to me so even though such a nation never existed in the Warhammer World this is how I painted him.

I have more from these fascinating ranges sitting untouched in drawers at the moment and I'm really keen to paint some more once my busy painting schedule quietens down a bit!

 

Watchmen Crew complete

Huzzah! Finally finished painting my Watchmen crew. Finished Ozymandias a couple of months ago, and then Comedian, Silk Spectre and Rorschach in quick succession.

They were a challenge as they are very detailed minis but it certainly felt rewarding finishing 'em. I'm particularly happy with the last two I completed.

"I used to be a masked avenger too, remember … I mean, I'm used to going out at three in the morning and doing something stupid."

"None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with you. You're locked up in here with me."

Now to pound on some villainous fresh meat!

Rogue Trader battle : Ork Versus Squats

I managed to find an opponent for Rogue Trader at my local games club and had a skirmish this week with my Blood Axe Orks versus his Squats.

There'd been a miscommunication and I'd brought 500 points while he'd brought double that so there was a lot of Nob promotion and additional equipment brought to bear to bring my total closer but I still ended up 200 points under.

  I'd brought the warboss and his retinue riding in their rhino, a large squad of 10 boyz with bolters, a smaller squad with bolt pistols and a mek, runtherd and a shok attack gun with a couple of bases worth of Snotling ammunition.

  

I'm no stunty expert but he'd brought 3 (or 4?) squads of squats, a trike and a couple of heavy looking dudes in exo-armour.

  

  The foot troops slogged it up the table with minimal casualties on each side, while the heavy weapon squats nestled up in the building took pot shots at my rhino. The trike shot at my smaller squad while took casualties but eventually both squats riding it were shot with the bike careering off the battlefield.

  My rhino got bogged down in terrain so my warboss took the executive decision to disembark with he and his nobs dodging heavy weapon behind walls and craters.

  Meanwhile the shok attack offloaded its frenzied snots behind the middle squad and into a protracted combat with the middle squat squad. Another squad joined that combat and eventually got rid of the nuisances but they are a right pain with spore weapons!

  

The larger ork squad eventually engaged a  squat squad in combat and was eventually defeated. But after the middle of the battleground battle with the snots, the rhino proceeded to drive up and down over the squat almost obliterating them all. The remaining squats used their krak grenade on it, immobilising it and rendering it all but useless. 

  Meanwhile the remaining nobs (and humie advisor) legged it to the building and engaged in a prolonged combat with the heavy weapon squats. We called it a night at one point at which time there were only two nobz and the stationary rhino on my side and about 5 squats on the other.

  All in all good fun but the vehicle turning rules are very clunky!