Bretonnian Knights ...Finally Finished? Part 2

Here is the final batch of the Bretonnian Knights that have been haunting my painting table for the past couple of years.  Now that they are done I'm really happy with how they have turned out...its been a long road to completion...

This batch includes the command section for this unit and a bonus model that I will probably use as my Army Standard Bearer in the future.

Musician

Standard...Ok, so he is not completely done...The actual standard will be forth coming...(shut up Kober!)

Leader...I'm particularly fond of this color combo.

And finally here is the Army Standard Bearer...and Opera Singer

While I had the figures out for these photos I tool the opertunity to capture moe of vignette image with a few of these knights and some of my other Bretonnian models as well.

Thanks for watching this never ending parade of knights!

Cheers,

Blue

Bretonnina Knights...Finally finished...?

Well...they made it onto the table at Oldhammer In the New  World...but they weren't really finished.  They didn't have their shields and the bases were only sanded...they weren't done.

...of course they paid me back for this indignity by running off the table at the first chance they got...so...well I guess I learned something there.

Anyway.  Now they are done...the cowardly bastards.  I'm certainly hoping that they prove a little more resilient in their next encounter.

Anyway...lets look to the pictures.  Here are the first half of the unit.

Oldhammer in the New World 2015. Event Recap Day 1

As you have seen by the flurry of other blog posts and FB posts the Oldhammer in the New World event is done and dusted.  It was an epic weekend full of laughs, hard fought battles, bleary eyed warriors...and yes...last minute paint jobs.  

But I digress...lets start from the beginning.

If you will recall from my last post...I spent Thursday night enjoying life with my wife and children at the local fair.  It was perfect night with lots of fun, and unhealthy food, for all.  

Upon returning home around 10pm I set about filling my miniatures case and packing my books and all the sundry things needed for a weekend of dice rolling and miniature talk.  It took way longer than expected and I didn't lay my weary head down to rest until well after midnight.

...this made the 6:30am alarm very unwelcome...but this turned out to be one of the better nights sleep that I would have for the whole weekend.

I was out the door and on the road by 8:30am heading south to Pennsylvania.  The first leg of my trip took me down familiar roads toward Albany NY, passing along the southern reaches of Lake Champlain, Lake George and the upper portions of the Hudson River.  Around Albany I picked up a college radio station that was playing a long uninterrupted set of Grateful Dead tunes and as I listened gleefully to "Sugar Magnolia" and "Box of Rain" I finally started to relax into what was bound to be an epic weekend.

As my journey carried me down along the Lower Hudson River the Grateful Dead started to break up and I switched my listening to my favorite Pandora Station: Cream!  With the thumping bass of Jack Bruce and the driving drums of Ginger Baker Blasting through my exceptionally hot car I cruised down past the Big Apple and into New Jersey.  At this point I turned my car westward and entered Pennsylvania itself.  

A constant stream of encouraging texts and messages from the crew that was already in Allentown propelled me forward and as I drew closer my excitement level continued to build.  As I exited the highway and began to pick my way through the bustling metropolis of Allentown...one of my all time favorite (and seemingly appropriate) classic rock and roll tunes helped me push through the heavy traffic and finally arrive at the event venue.

After a quick stop to relieve the incredible pressure in my bladder I strolled casually into the Magnolia Ball room (flash back to Grateful Dead tune) and found the lucky few that had arrived early already rolling dice and having fun. The Advance team had done a superb job of setting up the space and getting things kicked off as soon as possible.

In fact I found most folks engaged in the first play through of Brian's amazing Bretonnian Frog Hunt Game.  There was much laughter and many terrible jokes to flow out of this incredible game.

Watch out for that MASSIVE crab!!!

 

After meeting and greeting everyone who was in attendance Dustin and I quickly pulled together an RT 40k game...something we had been discussing for months...obviously neither of us could wait.  We took over half of Rusty's amazing table that he had provided and Dustin dressed it up with some scatter terrain that he had brought.  This game found my imperials facing off against Dustin's Orks in a struggle to recover the Transport Homing beacon that had been recently eaten (along with its owner) by a rampaging T-rex and unceremoniously "deposited" (some hours later) somewhere on an inhospitable planet.  And to make things even more interesting the T-rex was still in the neighborhood and protecting his "turf."

We had a great time with this game...it was quick and dirty with may feats of bravery and plenty of silliness as well....lets just say that the T-rex ate at least 30% of my forces...

As the afternoon turned into the evening we took a quick break for dinner and then returned to get Bulldog Lopez's RT Demo Game kicked off.  I merely observed this one as I was still frantically trying to get some painting done on my Bret Knights but suffice to say to was a well run and impressive looking 4-way game that continued until well after midnight.

At this point you may be thinking: "well...that sounds like a full day! I'm sure that was enough for day 1!"

Well...you'd be WRONG!

After much convincing and cajoling I was pressed into a late night round of the frog hunt game...and I'm glad of it.  Once again the constant frog leg jokes and attacks by random, and vicious, wandering monsters made this game a real joy to play.

My warband performed admirably...though I ended up losing by a single frog.

Bleary eyed and sore from laughing we all shuffled off to bed a little after 3am and collapsed onto our beds to dream of the excitement to come on Day 2!!!

Cheers for now,

Blue

Oldhammer in the New World Prep Part 3

Alright...lets get this out of the way...

Yes...this is another Prep post...

and...Yes the Event is already over...

So what...?

I'm gonna milk this event for all the Bloggy goodness it has to offer...so that means you have to suffer through another "Prep" post while I download and process photos from the actual event.

...you'll be ok I promise...:)

So here goes...

I spent last Wednesday night touching up details on all the horses and riders.  I also selected shields and started to get the base colors on those.  This last task led to a long stroll through my shields box trying to select just the right shields for these guys...this took away from painting time but was alot of fun. 

I have a lot of shields.

Anyway...here is the status at the end of Wednesday Night.

Group shot

And here are the individual shots so you can see the shield selections a little better.

And lastly here are the shields that I'm working on for the Knights that are already finished.

Looking good right? 

Blue might actually pull this off right?

Yeah...ummm...no...

So...this is where my plan went a little off the rails...I had been underestimating the amount of time it would take me to pack for the event...and in the end Thursday night turned into a night out with my wife at kids to the fair (Yay!  Fried dough!) and packing.

...no painting was accomplished...sigh.

In other words this is the way the knights were goning to be when I pulled into the event on Friday.

...My only hope is to work on them whenever I could on Friday and Saturday in order to have them on the table by Sunday.

Not ideal to say the least...but I'm finally enjoying painting this unit....even on figures as large as these mounted ones its the details that really bring them to life....it feel good to finally be at that point.

Cheers for now.

Blue

Oldhammer in the New World 2015 Prep Part 2

Greetings all,

Work on the horses and riders is progressing and I managed to get all the barding on the mounts completed last night.  This is a major milestone due to the sheer amount of cloth on each of these horses.  There are still lots of details to finish up but in some ways it's down hill from here.

So this is a quick up date to show you the progress on the mounts. Here you go.

I wasn't excited by these plastic 5th edition horses when I started on this unit...but due to size I felt they were the only option for these Knights.  But I must admit that the variety of heads (both plastic and metal) really add a nice variety of poses and the sculpting on the cloth is quite good...so they are growing on me.

Tonight I delved into finishing up the details on the horses and getting started on the shields.  I'll put together an update on that in the morning.

Cheers for now.

Blue

Oldhammer in the New World 2015 Prep...Part 1

Well....what a crazy summer it has been to this point.  As you could probably tell from my lack of Blog output I have been extremely busy with RL concerns the past few months.  Work and family are very demanding on my time during the warmer months...

...but one thing has been keeping my spirits up...and that is thinking about the Oldhammer in the New World Event that is now just a few days away!  

So here is a brief run down of what I'm trying to get accomplished Hobby-wise in the last few days before I head out the door.  As I knew that my time would be very limited this season I have also kept my goals fairly limited...and hopefully achievable...:)

First off I'm very excited to finally get my Bretonnian army onto the table for a game.  Long time followers of this blog have seen this force build slowly over the last two years and it has been mostly completed except for the hard hitting part of any Bret army,....the Knights.  So my principal for this years event has been to complete a unit of 10 mounted knights...plus a hero

Progress on these has been sporadic for more than a year but I have really been focusing on them for the last couple of weeks.  Painting horses is one of my least favorite parts of this hobby but I have been pushing through.  I have five knights pretty much done at this point and six more nearing completion.  Here are some pics...First some close up of the riders very much WIP

Adding some Character to my Bret Force

I'm finally back with an update...I'm shocked to see that it has been three weeks since my last post...but such is life right now!  Sorry about that...

Despite the craziness I've managed to get four new figures done....three of which I'll be using to add some characters to my slowly growing Bretonnian army. (the fourth is the missing Squire with bow that completes that unit)

As you may have guessed...since this force is made up of fifth edition models ...the three figures I'm talking about are Bertrand and his coompanions.  However...I don't really care to play any pre-made "characters" in my forces (other than Bugman from time to time)  In my army these three men are Gordon, Jacques, and Tobi.

Obviously as they were released these figures were intended to represent Robin Hood, Little John, and Friar Tuck....or their Frenchified counterparts, as the case may be.

...For my army...I have decided to keep the "Frenchified" part that but get rid of the "Robin Hood" part...

...at this point..as I blather on... you may be asking yourself why these three figures have such differing color schemes???   ...and the reason for that is that I do not intend to run these three as a group...a la Robin Hood...but as character models that can drop in and out of certain units....so if you see them with their respective units...it all makes more sense.

Lets look at each in turn

Jacques is the commander of the infantry in the Marquis border force so he is often found leading, or at least close to, the armies unit of elite spearmen...le Cerfs Rouges (the Red Stags).

The figure originally intended to represent Little John...I use as Gordon....the leader of the armies mounted Scouts.   Though he runs on foot (they say they can't find a horse big enough for his massive size) his long legs and inhuman stamina are more than a match for the mounts of the other troops. Some accuse Gordon of questionable paternity...implying that he has some Ogre blood in is veins...but when confronted by such accusations Gordon typically fells the accuser with a single blow from his enormous quarter staff and mutters "u-shud-up..I'm de bestest and de fastest." (I will treat him as a mounted figure during game play).

And finally we have Tobi.  Despite his ponderous bulk...and the 15 gallons of fortified wife strapped to his back...Tobi is able to move through even the densest wood without making a sound.  And for that reason he  is often found slinking along with the armies unmounted scouts.

The fortified wine that he freely dispenses to his troops can act as rations in the field and can keep them warm on cold scouts.  With only that barrel this unit can carry out scouting missions lasting several days....

...and return completely pissed...:)

So there they are...the Character that my Bret force was sorely lacking.

I hope to updating on the Knights that I will be adding to this army soon.  I'm in the process of modifying the Front Rank horses that I found to mount them on and will get them primed and ready for paint...once we have a day arm enough to prime!

Cheers for now!

Blue

Wood Grain Technique

Howdy all,

Yes...I am alive...I've just fought through a week long flu which has had me completely debilitated (boo hoo...poor me).  I'm finally getting back on my feet and actually did some painting last night for the first time in many days.

Anyway, after I posted pictures of the Dragon Bait Miniatures Executioner set that I painted up recently I received a couple of requests for information about how I did the wood graining on the chopping block.

Luckily I took a series of pictures of this figure while I was painting it in hopes writing up a longer "how-to" post.  That post never materialized...but now I can use some of those pics for this quick demo.

My technique for wood graining is all about contrasting colors and texture...and applying these colors with short quick motions....and this is true for large surfaces like this block as well as narrow spaces like along a bow stave or weapon haft.

Here we go.  I started with coating the entire block with Vallejo Model Color 872 Chocolate Brown.  Nothing fancy here...just lay it on thick enough to cover the Dark Gray primer.

Joining the "Horsey Set"

Despite the lack of obvious evidence in the form of Blog posts...I have been plugging away at a number of hobby projects but have failed to finish anything of late that is worth writing a post about....

...So I'll do a quick post about my continued efforts to find decent horses for my 3rd ed Brets....and show that I actually have been painting.

I've never been a big fan of Citadel's plastic horses...They vary drastically in proportion depending on release date and the number of variants possible is usually quite low.  For this reason I've been searching high and low for some decent metal horses that I could mount my knights on.  After a detailed discussion of this topic on the Oldhammer Forum...and encouragement by fellow Oldhammerers who have trod a similar path I've placed a sizable order for 20 metal, barded horses in a number of poses from Front Rank Miniatures...


...and they showed up while I was away for Turkey day!  here is what I received.

Unit Building....adding Command sections to my Old Brets

As Mentioned in my previous Post about building new units for my classic Brettonian army I mentioned that I had several units without command sections.  This is due to the fact that the, somewhat obscure, range of Brettonian figures that was released during the 3rd edition didn't contain any command sections.  This has forced me to look outside the Citadel catalog for some suitable models.

I've been looking at some of the sculpts sold by Black Tree Designs and when they had their summer sale I took the plunge and ordered a couple of blisters that I thought would work nicely.  I purchased figures from their fantasy range Men of  Averaign (all of which make great Bret alternatives) as well as some from their Hundred Years War Range.  Lets take a look at how they worked out.