Nathan’s rank and file #2 - more blue horrors

The title says it all really - I managed to finish ten more blue horrors. Seven more and I’m done. But those seven can wait a month as this month I’m working on my leaders for something a bit different. Anyway here they are:

Onto March we go!

  

Paul’s Dwarf Army Rank and file #2

 Well this has proved to be a tough month and I will be happy if I avoid the trip to the field of bones. Below you can see the completed unit. These guys include a full command group and add up to a respectable 221 points taking the army total to 337 points when taking the thunderers I painted last month into consideration. 

I have just finished the unit of miners but if I'm being honest I am not completely happy with certain aspects of the painting, notably the lanterns and the small pouches on many of the models. However, this month I painted a unit of 15 infantry and last month I only painted 10. 

The command group are character models all on their own and here are some images of the trio, as a collective and as individuals. 

I was expecting the miners to be an easier ride than the thunderers due to the fact that I didn't have to paint any of the yellow. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. The NMM of the chainmail and the helmets makes up the vast majority to these sculpts and my main concern was that they were going to lack definition due to large amounts having to be painted the same colour. However, with a bit consideration and a lot of 'to-ing and fro-ing" I think that there is a fair degree of separation which is created by the contrast of the highlights. Painting the candles was an absolute joy and I was hoping to do a bit of OSL from these but that was being far too optimistic. It may be something that I look at adding at a later stage. 

Hopefully these shots show off the individual rows of the unit.

Next month I have even less time to paint so I think I will have to look at painting a couple of character models or a war machine just to be able to hit the deadline. After viewing some of the other blogs I feel that I should also attempt a themed display board for this army. I would also like to thank everybody who commented on my post last month. Thank you for the kind words and support. I will endeavour to respond to everyone. See you all next month.

Nicolas' Chaos Army of Tzeentch - Monster Month

 After a staggering amount of hours for one miniature, I offer you my Tzeentch Hydra, the Spectral Dragon II from Grenadier, also known as Tiamat, the lawful evil goddess of greed, the queen of the chromatic dragons, for the more D&D versed companions!

War hydra - 200pts

That miniature was insane to get through to the level I had invisionned, and although I would still burn 4 more hours to refine the body and base, I am more than pleased with the actual result!

It all started with this beautiful kit I got my hands on during this OWAC planing. A lucky find, brand new, part of a "hobby shelve clearing lot", hidden in a closet for over 3 decades. It struck me, its called a dragon... but its anatomically a wyvern, and an epic lead scultp on top of that. A creature off-putting and unatural, clearly soaked in magic, perfect match for a Tzeentch army.

I attacked this project like a one of a kind, sort of stagging every step to realy feel the milestones passing by. 

First, assembly, not a beginners kit at all, parts are heavy and the alloy shrinkage makes the 2 huge body parts leaving a huge crevasse on the back along the spine, or the belly, depending on where you apply pressure. Obviously I went for the back fit.

The mixed plastic and clay base was also an interesting build, which allowed me to easily deal with the miss alignment and mostly hide this flaw.

Building the structure of the base... terrain from the Warcry Catacomb box, I better make proper use of these! Plus these old movement trays are such great massive base!

The plastic sprues I glued at the bottom of the base help minimizing the displacement of the clay when it dries up, so it cracked along the weaker points I left on purpose and the contact line with the model remains intact. Now that the exposed parts have cured some 20 hours with the model in place, i can remove it for the inner part to cure... and the model will sit back in place properly afterward... mixing clay plastic and metal is tricky but I love the process.

The original plan was to paint it exactly in my flamers color scheme, I even considered changing the heads for bird like demons... but that would have been butchery! 

I finaly started the base colors like my flamers but went for the standard 5 colors.  I aimed to bring up as highlight/accent the yellow on the blue, the red and the green heads as well as on the back spikes... then use blue highlight on the black and use green as shadow on the white... and the front and back carapace bleached bones on green.  I even kept my wet palette since January so that should go smoothly!

Which got me to the point of the actual painting, each head felt like painting an idependant miniature. It was very challenging, but after hours of grinding, it is done!  Overall, I enjoyed the process as much as the result.  Special mention to that lichen harvest I did in the forest behind one of the campsite I vesited last summer. My wife was delighted. 🤣

And a family photo of the "horde" so far;

Which makes me realize... I realy need a new background! 😅

Andrea's Space Elves - Month 2, Leader month: the Avatar(s) of Khaine

 Hi OWACERs,

here is my leader for the Leader month: the Avatar of Khaine!

It is the first time I paint this incarnation of the Avatar, having already painted the NewHammer one, and I never used in the battle. Honestly, I wasn't a fan of the model but after this month I can say it is really funny to paint. Unfortunately the model was a little ruined in some details, especially the gems, so it was not completely satisfactory but I liked the exercise of blending the colours to give the fiery aspect. Overall, I am happy with the result.

Well, short after finishing I though that this was the good moment to slap some paints on another model. If the 2nd edition Avatar looks badass, and the 9th edition one looks like the overgrown brother, there is another one that is so much badass-looking that he could sell chunks of badassery at the fish market: the Rogue Trader incarnation!

We say, in Italy, that in the little barrel there is the best wine. Well, I think this is exactly the case!

So, know I have (except for the side track of ForgeWorld ones) all official Avatars, that could help me start an old project: EvolHammer, or how miniature design changed over time (one day I will publish a blog on this). So, I can't keep myself and I have show you the series (Parental Advisory, heresy inside: NewHammer models will appear):

Someone says "scale creep"? The son, the father and the grandfather

And so, for the sake of army points painted, here we have:

The Avatar of Khaine (Leader)........... 300 pts

Well, thank you for looking and see you the next March!

ciao, Andrea 

The Relief of Plavigorica - Mark's Araby Contingent - February Rank & File Month 2

 A hard coming we had of it. For twenty days, we trekked north across the Badlands, finding water where we could; our astronomers guiding us by night.  On the ninth day, a great scorpion rose from the  scrub before our caravan, standing higher than a man. Emir Suleiman himself slew it with his scimitar.  In the days after, six of our brothers fell to the crude arrows of the Chomped Lug'ole goblins, whose wolf riders clashed incessantly with our brave vanguard.  We buried our martyrs before the sundown in accordance with our customs.  

We were not rid of the greenskin dogs until we crossed a great ravine and the first fast running water we had seen since Al-waha al-kubra.  Now the air is cooling and the grass thickening.  We press on to the Border Princes. It is our ardent hope that we reach Plavigorica and break the siege lines of the hated Skaven before it is too late.  This is our pledge. We cannot return to Araby before it is fulfilled. 

This month I've been painting a bow unit, the Rumah-Al-Sahra or "desert archers". These are converted 1996 Bretonnian plastic longbowmen.  The standard bearer (also plastic) is from the Perry's Mahdist war range, while the commander and musician are metal Gripping Beast Moors. 

The banner is supposed to read: "Arrows of the Wind". I replaced the standard bearer's straight sword with a Skeleton Horde scimitar, aiming to make him a little less historical and more fantastical.

Infidel origins - those crenulated hoods were tricky!

Front rank

Rear rank

  Baggy trousers and curves to the knives were the main additions.

In each unit, there's a little orange for Dundee United FC, known as "the Arabs" for their sandy pitch (sports field).

                                      

 

The Contingent so far:

January - Arabyan Guard with spears, shields, and a hashishin 165 pts link

February:

• 9 Desert Archers with standard and musician: 77 pts
• Level 5 commander with light armour and bow: 33pts

     ----

See you in March. More light, more days, what could go wrong?

Sybou's chaos dwarf_Rank and files_february_Owac IX

 Hello,

even if February is the smallest month, even if you plan to paint few miniatures we're all still in a rush to finish what we planned.

For February, I planned to paint some shooters:

Your classic crossbow guys for shooting support

These guys are from the citadel range, one of them is from the first chaos dwarf, one of the first shooter for chaos dwarf.

An other angle

When you build them, you got to be careful for the crossbow, they can be big and can give you difficulties to rank them properly.

The swivel gun

So when i build it, I wasn't really knowing what was a swivel gun and treat it more like a rocket thrower. So I added various rocket on the base.

 

An other angle

The crew

For the crew, as there are not much chaos dwarves crewmen, I added various goblinoids. It makes just some slaves that will help for the loading of the warmachines.

That's it for the month of February, I was willing to add the bazooka but I wasn't fast enough. It will be painted for March.

Here is the photo of February:

Thank you for reading me.

Cheers!                                                                                                                    Sybou

Ben D’s Skellibobs - Febru-Terri-Fying

Weather: Thawing

Mood: Frazzled

Music: Nine Inch Nails

With February done and dusted (we’re getting this one in under the wire folks,) I can safely say that we’ve cleared the ten models a month requirement for the challenge. I counted them all myself. 10. Ten skellingtons, or 100 boney toes. 

Hey, come on out, the rest of you! You’re making me look bad!

That’s more like it. Thank you kindly. 

This Month’s Total

+10 Skellibobs

100pts

I said most of what there is to say about their coloration last month, so in lieu of that, why don’t you look at this instead?

I enlisted my partner to help me construct some of these Halfling villas I’d gotten from TT Combat, to create some fresh set dressing for my future gnome vs gnome action. Since the undead gnome army is likely taken from the alpine gnome graves, I figured it only fit that they’d come back to haunt their descendants. This is my first time working with MDF board, and while it’s not my favorite, I have to admit that they fill a space quite well.

Their stacking capabilities are… poor, but workable. Hopefully they don’t quit their day jobs.

And then here we are, eyeing up all the models done to date. Twenty Skellibobs makes quite a handsome block of halberdiers, don’t you think? I’ve managed to misplace the tufts I was using for this army, so there’s a finishing touch left undone, but they’re otherwise ready for the table. All else that’s missing is some necromancer to raise them!

Total Points

 220/2003

It occurs to me that I’ve forgotten to pick minis to be Wights for these huge blocks. While this might have been a quieter post than most, I now have a new sidequest to add to the other surprises I’m planning for the next four months. Thanks for the attention ghosts and ghouls, and have a safe start to your March.

+++++

Next Month’s Preview:

🎩🐑💀🧠

Jaakko and Rugluk - Rank & File month #2

Night lay heavy over the valley. Trolls snored. Snotlings squeaked.

Rugluk squatted by the fire, gnawing a bone, when the flames twisted unnaturally. Smoke coiled, shadows stretched… and a towering figure emerged: Rugluk’s father, battle-scarred and ghostly, eyes blazing like forge fire.

“Rugluk,” the ghost’s voice rumbled, echoing across the valley. “Da path ya walk… leads only to ruin.”

Rugluk froze. “Father?”

“Da ambition in yer heart… it will devour ya if ya walk blind,” the ghost hissed. “Yer boyz, yer trolls, yer snotlings… chaos follows every step. Watch it. Trust none. Not even yerself.”

Rugluk tightened his grip on the bone. “So… what should I do?”

“Do?” the ghost spat. “Remember da blood ya spilled, da tribes ya crushed… and know… every choice… feeds da fire dat eats ya.”

A snotling peeked from a bush. The ghost’s eyes flared. The snotling squealed and ran.

The ghost drifted higher, silent now, its eyes burning like dying embers.

Rugluk’s gaze fixed to the ghost’s fading figure. “Dat made no sense... but I fink dis ain’t done. Dis ain’t over.”

Somewhere, a distant howl cut through the valley.

The ghost was gone. Only the fire and the whispering wind remained… and the uneasy knowledge that destiny had just spoken.

Here we are again! I had a lot of time at the beginning of this month and decided to start working on one of the largest units in the army. I ran into some unexpected trouble during the month, including a thumb wound that kept me away from the painting table for a while, and ended up ten models short of completing the full unit. The silver lining is that I have ten nearly finished models on the table, promising an easy month to come. But no more rambling-here are the models!

I managed to paint a unit of 20 Savage Orcs. They were pretty quick to paint, as many of them are equipped with just a loincloth and a blade. I loved all the sculpts and really enjoyed painting them.

I see the Savage Orcs as an orky version of the Dwarf Troll Slayers. That's why I wanted to take something from the dwarven death cult and turn it around, and decided that this tribe bleaches its hair. The original concept also included white body paint (ash?). I didn’t have time to experiment with it, so I skipped that part. I also have a unit of Savage Arrers, and might try the body paint idea on them though.

Da Boss

The month in points:

On the green skin

I’ve been painting models for Heavy Metal Hordes for their upcoming Kickstarter project as a side quest. They asked me for pictures and some explanations for a painting guide. I’ve also received some enquiries about the orc skin recipe I use, so I thought I’d share the pictures with you along with a few words about the skin painting process.

Start with a base colour of Elysian Green. Then apply a wash of watered-down Druchii Violet with a dash of Agrax Earthshade in it. Add small amounts of Druchii Violet to selected areas, like the eye sockets, between fingers, etc., for a more dramatic effect if needed. Highlight with Elysian Green, and add Ogryn Camo to selected parts of the skin on the face. Knuckles, knees, and elbows get Ogryn Camo with dots of Kislev Flesh.

And that’s it for February! Next month, I’ll paint a few more Savage Orcs, but I’ll try not to stop there. That might mean something a bit darker, something much bigger, or maybe some fast-attack choices.

See you later!