Shadespyre's Wild Card Month - The Kingdom of The Gnolls (An Orcs & Goblins Army) (50 pts!!!)

OWAC V - Wild Cards - But I've Already Played My Joker?

June

So what's left? A few minis that got left behind, or added at the last minute, and some scenic bits and bobs, I suppose?

Let's take a tour of the left overs! First up, some camp guards and some markers. I would have liked to make a whole unit from these fellas, but Gnolls in this pose are extra-rare and somebody kept bidding £10 each for them, so I gave up trying. I kept these three who I'd repaired with new polearms, however. I wanted to use some more of these shields as I'd gone to all the bother of making a press mould for them, so I made these with them. Might be useful as objective markers or unit fillers, but mostly I thought they'd look nice with my Royal Encampment.

Speaking of which, a bunch of campaign tents:

These ended up being so much work! I was planning to make my own, and then I spotted these resin models on eBay at a really good price. I bought a set, only for them to be broken in transit as the resin was really thin in places. A second set was sent, free of charge, and they survived the trip. Pretty good result, as I was confident I could repair the broken set. Which I did. But the surface finish on all of them was really uneven - one tent even has a thumb print cast into it - that I ended up spending hours filling and sanding and filling and smoothing, to the point where I'm sure it would have been quicker to have started from scratch... then I dropped one and had to re-repair it...

I decided to spray paint them (to save time) and succesfully sprayed three red and three yellow. Then I masked them up and sprayed each set with the other colour to give the pattern. For some reason, painting the tape caused the glue underneath to go all wierd (yes, I tested the tape before hand) and it made the paint underneath gummy. I ended up scraping areas of paint off and hand re-painting the lot... BUT I'm quite happy with how they came out in the end!

Another eBay purchase, this resin cart turned out to be much easier to adapt! The poles and axles are actually wooden skewers cast into the resin (clever!) which you can cut to length as required. I just had to make the yoke for the boar. I'd be tempted to add a driver, and probably another cart, but it's hard to get excited about spending more time and money on non-combatants, if I'm honest.

Back to actual Citadel Miniatures, there are a few more in the range that I haven't included so far. These are the last two I bought, finally losing the willpower to *not* pay way too much for them. Presenting FTG12 Gnoll Children, representing a young Prince and Princess of our royal family

Here's a daft little addition, a pet boar piglet. This is actually an Alternative Armies mini, it came free with an order of 15mm SF miniatures and just happened to fit with this project. So here she is.

And because if it's in the miniature range, it's rude not to: Two Drunken Gnolls (FTG 10)

Filling that role of "unarmed civillians for the baggage train", if nothing else. I made the discarded "Gnoll Beer" bottle as a nod to "Hobgoblin Beer" which is a very popular bottled beer here in the UK. 

Finally, I thought I'd throw in a picture of Ursula the Dwarf for comparison with her Queen Boardica incarnation. I'd forgotten how much I'd changed her face to be honest! Other minor tweaks include losing those odd webbed feet and removing some rather too dwarfy decorations.

Scores for June:       0 points (!)                    19 models

Running Total:             2779 points            211 models

PHEW is that it now? All done?

Coming Next: Wrap Up Post

Somehow I need to get all this in one photo. I also need to balance the army list and maybe produce that unoffical Gnolls & Goblins variant I keep going on about...

Overlord note : I'll put you in at an extra 50 pts for the terrain pieces submitted in a wildcard month

Shadespyre's Rank and File (II) - The Kingdom of The Gnolls (401 pts - An Orcs & Goblins Army)

OWAC V - Rank and File (II) - In which Emergencies Emerge and are Overcome

February

Remember, Dear Reader, that just last month I said, "I've painted a lot more miniatures than I needed to for this month, but I shall be holding many back in reserve to protect against disaster"?

The start of this month was rather interrupted by my previously trusted work chair collapsing under me and throwing me to the floor, hurting my already troublesome back. A couple of days on codeine later... and I was violently sick at work, rendering me fit for nothing for a couple of days. 

Fortunately, a trip to the physio later and I'm assured my back is okay and so I'm back at it, albeit in a less comfortable chair for now, having only lost a week to this Chaos. And no more codeine for me! 

Holding back that strategic reserve means that, despite all this, I can post my progress mid-month, because most of these were pretty much done in January. I know, annoying isn't it?

This month, for Rank and File episode 2, I bring you my Gnoll (or is it Goblin?) Clansmen. The rough and tumble, half-naked and possibly foaming-at-the-mouth core of the army.

First up, a unit of Gnolls with Handweapon and Shield. Chance to expand my collection of brightly coloured round shields.

I'm experimenting a bit with a Christmas purchase, a small foldable light box from Green Stuff World. It's doing an okay job of giving me a plain background and even lighting, though I find if you turn the LEDs up too far you get shadows, which is what I'm trying to eliminate with a light box... still, happy with my £15 spent so far.

The purple cloaked chap at the front is the FTG4 Gnoll Chieftain. Right now, he's holding a position for a 20th Clansman, or maybe a standard or whatnot. We'll come back to him in afuture installment, probably Leader Month.

From an army list point of view, I would like to count these as Savage Orc Boyz - being unarmoured and all - but for strict army list adherence, I need to paint more "ordinary" Boyz to do that. Such is life.

And to accompany the infantry, my first boar riders. There are a lot of boars to paint, so I thought it important to get to a few early on, just so they are not a horrible surprise later. More dazzlingly bright shields I'm afraid!

Just the five of these for now. I do have some more in this vein but not enough to make a nice neat unit of 8 or 10, so I'll hold off on those for now. Probably obvious to all that there are three repeats of the same model here, just that one has a much bigger mace to replace a broken one. But as it happens the Gnoll (or is it Goblin?) holding the spear is also the same model, with a slight re-posing, a little bit of work on the arm and, of course, the spear added. Interesting that the face, hidden somewhat in the mace pose, is perfectly formed when you move the arm away from it.

Before I finish, he will surely end up with a banner of some sort flying from that pole, but one thing at a time.

Bonus Unit

Actually, I just nipped back to check my intro post, and those Gnoll boar riders are not in my original army list, so are technically a bonus, too. But I was always likely to include them, I think.

Here's a proper bonus - Gnoll Halberdiers! These are a pain to track down, so I'm pleased to gather a round dozen to make this little unit. Most of these were broken so the weapons have been replaced. A couple of halberds are old Citadel Empire plastics, but most of the new ones are metal and from Perry Miniatures! Very much enjoyed repairing ancient Perry Twins models with their own modern products.

Another army list disappointment - there are NO Savage Orc cavalry or Savage Orc halberdiers in the Warhammer Armies list. I *could* count the halberds as double handed weapons, and Savagify (?) the unti that way. OR I can use the presence of these Halberdiers as Orc Boyz to fill *that* minimum allowance and Savagify the larger unit. But somehow I'd rather have all these guys Savage, or none at all.

I think that, as I conjectured last month, all this naked yellow Gnoll (or is it Goblin?) skin is asking for another highlight or two, so that might become a thing that happens later in the project. Highlighting a whole army at once? Fun times...

Anyway, right now the February additions look like this:

Scores for February:        401 points        37 models

20 x Gnoll Clansmen       (Orc Boyz)                                               170 points

5 x Gnoll Clan Riders     (Orc Gruntas with Shields)                    105 points

12 x Gnoll Schiltron       (Orc Boyz with Halberds)                    126 points

Running Total:                685.5 points        67 models

Coming Next:

More Rank and File! Yes, I've started work on the Leaders (and it's going pretty well I think?) and on some stuff for my Wild Card but these are not things I want to rush, which means in March you'll be getting either (Lesser) Goblins or the bulk of the remaining Gnolls.

Shadespyre's Lizardmen - Karnac's Return (2675 points) - Wrap Up and Reflections

Wrap Up

It's actually so long since I finished working on this project that I almost forgot that I needed to do this bit...

Army Shot (minus the extra bits and bobs)

Compact, isn't it? Just 61 points scoring models. I think some of you painted units bigger than that.

Army List

I've pretty much thrown away the available "official" listings, which straddle 2nd and 3rd edition, and worked this up from the 3rd Ed WHFB book and Warhammer Armies. Also I wanted to "level up" Karnac into a proper Dwarf-kingdom-threatening-badass.

To my surprise, due to the cost of characters, this tots up to 2675 points! A few magic items could take this to 3000, I should think. It's a lot of Wounds in a small model count, I've no idea how it would play.

Karnac's Raiders

Karnac (level 25 Lizardman Hero)    - Bow, Light Armour                                     - 278 points
Huris (level 5 Lizardman Hero)        - Bow, Light Armour, Shield                           - 80 points
13 Lizardman Raiders                        - Bow, Light Armour, Musician, Standard    - 420 points     

Karnac's Other Raiders

10 Lizardman Raiders                        - Bow, Light Armour                                     - 280 points 

Karnac's Teeth

The Black Lizard (level 15 Lizardman Hero)    - Great Weapon                             -  174 points
7 Lizardman +1 Shock Elites            - Great Weapon                                                -182 points

Karnac's Scales

Champion (level 5 Lizardman Hero)    - Shield                                                        - 74 points
14 Lizardmen                                        - Shield, Musician, Standard                        - 352 points

Karnac's Slaves

Slavemaster (level 5 Lizardman Hero)    - Spear                                                    - 72 points
9 Lizardmen Slaves                                - Spear    -                                                 198 points

Witchdoctor (level 15 Lizardman Wizard)                                                               - 245 points

Shaman (level 5 Lizardman Wizard) -                                                                     - 70 points

Baluk's Bane (level 1 Dragon)                                                                                 - 250 points

Reflections on my first OWAC

How Did It Go?

For a project that I barely put any planning into - not bad at all! Colour schemes, basing, unit make-up were all established and changed on the fly as I bought extra minis or had new ideas. I was glad to get off to a good start and once I was into my stride I was flying through it - most of the painting was done by March, I think. Which was just as well as my back and other health issues have caused a few problems since then... I would *try* and plan more - both do more planning AND plan to paint more models - for the next OWAC, I think.

I didn't end up hating the miniature range, and I'm pleased with the results, so that's all good.

Favourite Bits

It's always nice to finish the first unit, that's always the moment when you know a project is a goer. Painting a dragon is always a high point, and fiddling around with mushrooms, stalagmites and the little dwarven influences was fun. The foolish checkered banner was a challenge, but came out okay and I think I could do better next time.

What Went Wrong?

Apart from the back problems, there were two main issues. One was the expense and difficulty of getting more minis, which is the main reason why there isn't a proper spear armed unit - I just wasn't prepared to spend £150-200+ that even a 15 strong regiment would have cost, if I could even find enough models.Actually, that brings up the "Meso-American" problem. Those spear armed minis especially are just too junglified to match in with the Dwarvish basement lurkers theme, even if I could source them.

The second was the basing scheme, which seemed like a good idea for the first 20 models and then became dull and laborious to do, especially as my supply of slate started to dwindle and there was less material to choose good bits from. Ultimately, I think this would stop me adding more than a few more minis to the unit - making another movement tray would be a big hassle.

Expansion Plans?

If a dozen more spearmen fell into my lap I'd have to find a way to include them as another unit. The same goes of course for the three or four rare minis from the range that I haven't been able to find. As I think I said during the project, I considered making Baluk's Bane be a Balrog or similar, and I think that is the most likely future addition - a big scaly demon!

What's Next Time?

One of:

Citadel Fantasy Tribes Goblins

Citadel Pre-Slotta Dark Elves

Ral Partha Tom Meier High Elves

Citadel Pre-Slotta / Early Slotta High Elves

Rogue Trader Eldar / Space Elf Pirates

I have an almost endless pile of potential projects, but these are the most OWAC compatible choices

Shadespyre's Lizardmen - June - Wildcard - Baluk's Bane and other strangeness (250 points)

 Wild Card Month

With everything I *needed* for the army finished a while ago, it has remained only to dream up some extra bits and pieces to fill it out a bit and tidy up loose ends. So I found a few models which seemed to fit, only one of which is really part of the army and so worth any points. 

Baluk's Bane

As noted back at the start, the background for Karnac and his raiders is basically a rip off of Tolkien's Moria story, only the Dwarf lord gets eaten by Karnac, not the Balrog. I strongly considered digging out one of my many old Balrogs to add to this army, to play to that theme, but firstly I couldn't decide which to use and secondly since I buggered up my back I can't climb into the loft to look for them. It's something I might come back to.

The next most obvious choice was to include a Very Big Reptile in the army, either a dinosaur or a dragon. My available dinos are all modern plastic models and very, very big, and I wanted to use something old and lead if possible, and more of an Oldhammer scale. Going through my Dragon spreadsheet (I do like Dragons!) I decided a wingless model would seem more subterranean, which sent me looking at old Grenadier dragons because I knew there were a few to chose from. 

My first pick was the Iron Dragon, because it came with Dwarves which it was fighting, but the pose doesn't suit use in an army. And then I found it - my spare Swamp Dragon i.e. the one missing it's long froggy tongue!

One other problem - he comes modelled on a swampy base, not a rocky one, so I had to fix that with a lot of milliput, as well as sculpt a new tongue. And so here he is:

The second picture gives more idea of scale. For colours, I chose to keep him more lizard than dragon, and so used the same palette as the Lizardmen, in bands. A very quick paint job as the same shade and highlight was applied to all the colours to tie them together. The base was much more work than the mini!

Let's says he's a Level 1 Dragon, wingless of course, for 250 points

Purple (and Pink) People Eaters

I promised our Overlord pink, so pink (and purple) he shall have. These are some of the more "exotic" Lizardmen models which I didn't want to use in the main force, so I have painted them in more "exotic" skin tones...

I considered collecting enough of the spear poses to make their own unit, but it would have meant spending another £100+ on minis and I'm not *that* fond of them! I'm still missing a couple of rare poses, I suppose if they turn up I'll add them to this group.

Not a unit, so I'm going to award myself nil points for these. 

Unit Fillers / Bits and Bobs

This little chap has been sitting around my desk for ages, thought I might as well paint and base him to go with this project. Doesn't have a particular role, he's on a cavalry base so he could add two spaces to fill out a unit, maybe?

A few more scenic bits, including a dead Dwarf

It seemed wrong not to use this deceased dwarf here...

And talking of dead Dwarves, how about some Undead Dwarves - if that old Lizardman Witchdoctor is going to be a necromancer, he needs a few corpses?

These are from Midlam Miniatures, they come naked except for weapons so I bent their metal joints a bit to change the poses, then added the shields and some scraps of clothing so that I had something to paint in my three Dwarf cloth colours to tie them to the rest of the army.

All that lot - no extra points (unless using them as unit fillers I suppose)

What Next?

Just the July army shot and a completed army list. It's changed a bit from when I started (mostly by buying more Lizardmen) so it'll be interesting to see what the final points tally is!

Shadespyre's Lizardmen - Karnac Returns - March (240 points)

 Rank and File III

I feel a bit bad only putting 10 miniatures in this update, because there is a lot else going on which is finished or nearly finished but which I need to keep back to fulfill the monthly milestones. I don't feel bad for keeping my first OWAC project small and achievable, but there's a good chance that I'll have finished the project before the end of April, to be honest!

But, you'll have to wait to see it all, sorry...

For this month, then, I present the second batch of Karnac's Raiders - 1o archers at 24 points each, for 240 points in total.

The nearest things to news here are the introduction of some of the newer colours (as seen on the melee unit in the last update) and the use of the "other" archer pose (oooh!). Everyone loved the grey, so expect to see more of those in other units, too.

The "other" archer isn't actually a model from the Regiment of Renown, I've dropped him in here as a leader / champion figure, because in gaming terms it would make more sense to deploy two units of 10 archers than a block of 20 with a front rank of command and heroes.

This elevated status makes him the first (only?) Lizardman to be painted BLUE, albeit a nice dark "Prussian Blue" sort of a blue.

What's Next?

Well, that's the third of my four main units for this project. The fourth is the small unit of Lizardmen with great weapons, so I suspect April's update will include those and a few others to bring the model count up to muster. 

Shadespyre's Lizardmen - Karnac Returns - Rank and File I (240 points)

Only one way to start this challenge, really, and that is by painting some of Karnac's raiders themselves.

There's some guidance for colours in the original blurb for the regiment, from which I took the copper / bronze armour and black equipment. I decided pale bows would stand out from the rest of the model, and chose a variety of browns and muddy greens for the skins, inspired by there crocodilian appearance.

The basing material is raw natural slate, assembled in individual jigsaws puzzles over the cast-on bases. It's a bit fiddly  but I like how it looks and I think I can stand to do it 50 times. I'll paint and decorate the movemement trays to match before the end of the OWAC.

For now, that's my first 10 rank and file painted, and at 24 points each that's 240 points. 

Ultimately. the three different green skin tones I used turned out quite similar. From here on I think I will keep the brown and the greyist of the greens, plus one of the other greens. I want to introduce some more colour to the other archers, so that when I paint the characters in more distinct / primary colours there's more of  a sense of progression amongst the force. 

Looking ahead, I spent some of the time between coats making this simple conversion from a broken spearman to standard bearer. This chap will be the focal point of my swords and shields unit, and save me shopping for a 12th member of that regiment.

Next up?

More Rank and File, I think. I might just keep on with the next 10 archers while I'm on a roll.

Shadespyre Intro Post - Baluk's Bane: Karnac Returns

Should you wander into a tavern near the coast, maybe in Marienburg, ply the patrons with ale and then ask for tales of Lizardmen, you will hear all about the jungles of Lustria, and pyramid cities stacked with gold, and the exotic blue-scaled Lizardmen and other huge reptiles that guard them. 

But in the East, in the shadow of the mountains, you may find an old dwarven prospector who will recount a different story.  Of how the Dwarves built the glorious mountain city of Caraz-A-Carak, but then delved so deep into the mountain roots that they disturbed all manner of foul creatures. How chief amongst those was Karnac and his savage band of Lizardmen. And that in the main chamber of the 142nd level, Karnac slew and subsequently ate a dozen Dwarf warriors, including Baluk Ironfist, the heir to the Kingship. How for almost a hundred years the Dwarves battled against the Lizardmen, chamber by chamber and level by level, until they gave up hope of ever recovering the lower tracts, and sealed them off by collapsing the connecting passages. And so the white lizard Karnac, presumably now trapped back in the depths, passed first into history and then legend.

But what if Karnac survived, and prospered, adding more warriors to his band of Lizardman raiders, and bringing other champions under his command?

And what if I was to paint them?

Let’s see...

Yes, it’s going to be Lizardmen. Specifically, The Regiment of Renown “Karnac’s Lizardman Raiders” and the similarly styled C19 Lizardmen range. Even more specifically, only the pre-slotta versions of those models from 1984(ish).

NOSTALGIA WARNING: this is for me a “golden age” of Citadel miniatures. That strange space where the early Fantasy Tribes based ranges were starting to be replaced, but before slotta-tabs appeared. Where the scale moved away from true 25mm towards something more heroic, and where, bizarrely, someone decided to emboss a label (race and/or D&D character class) into the top of every miniatures base. In this space we find wonderful chubby Halflings, some gloriously over-dressed High Elves, some nice Norse Dwarves, a truly unmatched range of Half-Orcs – and these Lizardmen. 

Anyway, these are serious Lizardmen. Big enough to eat a Dwarf at one sitting, scaly enough to justify that 2W profile. While some of them do have a touch of the Central Americas about them, most of them would look at home in your standard Fantasy Europe dungeon or swamp. I shall be using the less exotic minis for the OWAC IV project, though I do hope that alongside this force I can get at least one of each variant painted, just for the sake of the collection. 

Because some of you are still scratching your heads and wondering what I’m on about, and because it is The Done Thing, here are some pictures of some miniatures and a vague shape of an army list. The specifics may change a bit – there are some minis still in the post, and I have a whole lot more of the Raiders than are pictured – but this is approximately what is needed to get me over the line. For an army list, I’m using the old RoR profiles and the vague entry in Ravening Hordes as a guide.

The Leaders of the Raiders – Karnac on the left, the model I’m using for the Champion, Huris, on the right. In classic Citadel style, though Huris is named in the blurb and has a listed profile, there was no model included in the sets...

367.5 points for that lot. 

Raiders – I think there’s 15 in the shot, but I expect I’ll be painting at least 20    (yes I have a lot of these guys!)

20 x 24 = 480 points

Warriors with hand weapons and shields

10 x 21 = 210 points

Warriors with Great Weapons

6 x 22 = 132 points

And finally, some more Characters - two (level one?) wizards, and the infamous Black Lizard, another Lizardman hero.

180 + 180 + 80 = 540 points (roughly)

A few rank and file short, I will feel these gaps with maybe some converted command figures ( as I have a few broken models) or just by painting even more of the archers. I'm certainly not going to struggle for the 1000+ points target, I haven't even counted gear for characters, for example.

If anyone does have any models from this range they would like to contribute (for money or swaps or whatever) then do let me know. I'm still missing a couple of the rarer sculpts.

Wild cards? There's also the option to add something else to the force, a big monster probably, but I haven't decided what that might be though I've got a few options in mind. I'd like it to be another Citadel model of similar age, I think.

Oh, and no - I haven't chosen a paint scheme, I haven't chosen a basing style (though I'm thinking underground caverns) and I haven't painted a test model. The fluff has Karnac as being white, Huris as green, and let's say that The Black Lizard is black, so maybe I'll start with those and see how it goes?

Overlord's Offering

I went for the easy route here - scrabbling around for my left over Space Marine parts, I put together (one last?) member of The Unicorns Chapter to send on his way...

(The base is temporary, he's got pins so you can fix him to the base of your choice in future)