Sabre Toothed Lion

The new Rangers of Shadowdeep expansion “Menagerie” calls for all sorts of beasts including lions and tigers and bears (oh my!).  The scenario actually calls for a tiger, which for some reason doesn’t sit right with my slightly grubby 12th century kind of Fighting Fantasy Allansia vision of the Kingdom of Alladore where the game is set. 

I have no idea why a sabre toothed lion makes more sense to me as an exotic animal to find in the setting,  but it does and here we are 

The figure itself is from Northstar and is a crisp one piece casting that’s a joy to paint.  I had a look at some pictures of real sabre toothed lions and they were quite spotty.  I couldn’t make that work - so I started again. 

Base coat is Vallejo Khaki with a drybrush of GW Screaming Skull.  Any warm off white will do. 

Then I added a couple of coats of old GW Flesh wash to bring out the colour. I concentrated it on the rougher parts of the fur. 

That all done I used GW Wyldwood contrast paint to colour the muzzle, add shadows under the tummy and to defund the musculature a bit.  I edged the “mane” and used the paint thinned with medium to do a gradually darkening colour going towards the end of the tail. The face and muzzle got some highlights with Screaming skull again.  

I through a mix of red and wyldwood contrast paint into the mouth. Then picked the teeth out with screaming skull. Agrax Earthshade at the base of the teeth and then a highlight with whatever white I had to hand. Much the same story with the claws.

All in all, a nice model given a quick paint job.  Pleasant to do and none too demanding. 

Boars & Bears!

This bear is partial to bacon sandwiches

The last few weeks have been packed.  Work has been demanding and family life in lockdown is a bit of a juggling process. Add that I'm doing a course at night and the whole thing is getting a little bit overheated.  My gaming for the past little while has been devoted to producing articles for Miniature Wargames and while that is fun, it's nice to do something that is just for my own amusement. 

Rangers of Shadowdeep has been my casual game of choice for a while now.  The latest expansion for the game "Menagerie" involves the players taking on a sinister caravan of evil animal tamers. 

A grumpy bear in pursuit of a boar

The expansion came with a list of animal figures that were required and I wombled over to Northstar Figures to ordered a few.  These bears and the boar are from their Wild West range, but they work perfectly for Rangers of Shadowdeep.  They are lovely clean castings and the customer service from Nick at Northstar is top notch as always. 

I painted these over a couple of evenings while doing other things and I'm quite happy with them. 

The running bear is a big chunk of pewter that has a pleasing heft in the hand. 

Northstar Bear rearing

These required the minimum of prep and were painted using a mixture of Citadel and Vallejo colours.  I undercoated the bears in white, then gave the figure an all over coat of Citadel Contrast Wyldwood (a dark brown).  They then got a drybrush of Citadel Tallarn Flesh all over concentrating on the top down. I then hit the upper parts with a light drybrush of Vallejo British Uniform Highlight (any cream or off white would do). 

The whole thing then got an all over wash of brown wash.  I used Citadel Flesh wash because it was what I had to hand and my Agrax Earth shade was in the other room and I am the laziest man that ever stood in shoe leather.  I let the wash dry over night, then hit the raised portions again with the Vallejo British Uniform Highlight. Added some Vallejo dark wash to the eyes to darken them up a bit and a dab of Citadel Contrast fleshtearers red to the mouth to lighten it a bit. 

Et voila. 

Quite happy with the detail on the face

I'm quite happy with how this bears face turned out.  I wanted to keep the look simple and not too cartoony and I think I succeeded. 

"Rawr!"

A Boar

The boar was a puzzlement.  I had originally intended to go with something quite close to European boar, but they were quite monotone and also this chap had a much pronounced mohawk than his real world contemporaries. 

Ultimately I decided I'd try something a bit starker than with the bears. Again working from a white undercoat I gave all his fur a lash with some Citadel Contrast Goregrunta Fur.  This did the job like a trooper.  I did his snout and other fleshy bits with Citadel Bugman's Glow. His trotters got a quick dab of Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde and threw some Citadel Flesh Wash over his snout. I then left him to dry overnight. 

He then got a quick drybrush of  Vallejo British Uniform Highlight on the top parts, just to add a little tonality and bring out the mohawk.  There's probably a name for that part of the boar now that I think of it. 

Making a quick getaway

I highlighted the face and snout with Citadel Tanned Flesh and gave his mouth a little Citadel Contrast Fleshtearers Red. I then highlighted the trotters, tusk and teeeth with Vallejo British Uniform Highlight  and declared victory. 

Prussians

In one of my madder moments,  I decided that in my copious amounts of free time I would contribute to a noble project that is taking place under the umbrella of Waterloo Uncovered.  This is the building of a massive Waterloo diorama in 1/72.  My contribution is a measy fifty Prussian Landwehr, but it's nice to be a part of something like this.  So while I was waiting for my bears to dry, I kept knocking off a few Prussian fleshtones and overcoats. 

My contribution is a very small one and there will be tens of thousands of figures used in the diorama. If you want to get a proper sense of the scale of this project, uou can see some pictures here at General Picton's blog. 

Better dead then red

With lockdown and all the challenges that has brought, the only game I’m managing to play regularly at the moment is Rangers of Shadowdeep.  If you’re not familiar with it - it is a co-operative fantasy wargame/role playing game. 

The specifics aren’t important, but the Kingdom is threatened by the Shadowdeep - a sort of land plague that takes over neighbouring kingdoms. All sorts of gribblies come out from the Shadowdeep, but amongst them are men corrupted by its evil who serve it. Sort of like cultists, but not exactly,  there isn’t much in the way of explanation. 

This chap is their leader.  He is one of the official Rangers miniatures from Northstar and he is a lovely sculpt.  Very clean casting which painted up quickly. 

I was pleased with how he turned out.  I primed him, hit him with some red contrast paint from GW and added some highlights.  I added green ink as a wash to the brass face mask to suggest verdigris, but I think the effect was too subtle. 

In retrospect, I have have gone a little overboard with the edge highlighting on this one. 

One of the strengths of the Northstar plastics is that there is a fair range of them and thus far I've found them quite interchangeable.  This figure is a sort of chief henchman sort of character, so I took the arms from the Northstar Frostgrave Soldiers set with the big montante style blade. 

They fit fine and he doesn't look out of place with his fellows. 

These are Temple Guardians.  Metal figures from Northstar's official Rangers of Shadowdeep range.  They painted up relatively quickly and I think they look suitably menacing. 

I might have gone a little overboard with the edge highlighting again, but I also tried to give their bronze face masks a sort of verdigris look by washing them in green ink.  I'm not sure I was bold enough and the effect seems a bit lost. 

Notwithstanding my reservations about my paint job, they do the job and most importantly they are finished!  I'll be using these for Temple of Madness, one of the later Rangers of Shadowdeep scenarios.  

Sometimes you just need a chap in a red hood with a club.  And these are very big and very stompy clubs.  The hats reminded me of Trotsky's pointed hatted armoured train guards - who probably have the coolest looking uniform of any military force of the last 100 years.  Sort of like a cross between Communist chic and the Wizard of Oz.    

Contrast paints did a lot of heavy lifting and they will work well as faceless mooks. 

I did four of them, which is about as many as I'll expect I'll need - given that the players will be attacking them from the get go.  In earlier times, I would have painted the maximum possible number required, but these days I try to be a bit more economical with my painting time. 

Proof, if proof were needed, that the crossbow is a bad guys weapon. 

The scenario actually calls for four Temple Guardians archers, but by long standing convention the bad guys always use crossbows in my games.  These are again from the Cultist box.  I think the crossbow arms might be from something else - but they fit like a glove regardless. 

If you look at the chap on the right, you'll see that one of the crossbowmen has a cloth cover covering part of his bow.  Unfortunately due to a mess up while transporting the figures, I managed to break part of his bow and I then, doubly foolishly, lost the piece, so I couldn't reglue it. 

I added a cloth cover with greenstuff as the best way to cover the lack and while it's not the best job, it serves it's purpose. 

These guys will be doing their worst in the Temple of Madness before too long. I hope. 

Work in Progress

An altar from Mantic's Terrain Crate

 I got a bit of painting done during lockdown, mostly aimed at knocking out some stuff for Blackstone Fortress and Rangers of Shadowdeep.  This is a Reaper altar.  It looks pretty grim. 

Another view - needs something I think

I'm probably going to add some brass to the handles and some weathering on the top.  

Conquest Plastic Norman Infantry

I've been messing around with some Robin Hood figures for a while now and sometime in the near future I hope to actually get a game on the table. But every good hero needs some baddies, hence the Norman infantry.  This chap has ten mates so I decided I would go with a super quick paint scheme of mostly contrast paints. 

Another view - mostly Contrast paints

The Conquest miniatures are plastic and are very affordable.  Twenty quid for a box of forty.  You get a good mix of axes, spears and swords and lads in different sort of armour.  I've messed around with a couple of different setups and the figures go together easily and are clean with out too much detail. 

Needs a little detailing, but mostly there

I took these pictures a while ago and I've actually finished these figures since then, but given my terrible record of blogging over the last year I thought it was better to post and be damned.  

With a bit of luck, there may be more to follow. 

Mind Bullets

Being a psychic demands skill, talent and an interest in amateur dramatics

I've been neglecting proper toy soldiers of late and doing nothing with my Stalingrad project which is pricking my conscience. I had intended to pick up some Winter Russians in the recent Elheim sale, but didn't get around to it. Work and family has just been so busy that I catch myself running both ways.  

I really must clean up that base

The little bit of painting I have been doing has been for Blackstone Fortress.  I've been tipping away at the figures for this, a little bit at a time - I've found that I can get one colour done sometimes in the mornings. The most recent effort have been some rogue Psykers - chaps that we haven't seen much of in the game as of yet, but they have a certain something. 

I was quite pleased with how the glowing eyes turned out

"Dramatic? MOI??!?!?!"

I am quite pleased with how the glowing eyes turned out.  I followed a tutorial from Guy at Midwinter Minis  which I heartily recommend.  It was a bit tricky at first, but I cracked it in the end. 

Fur accents to ones frock coat are so this season. 

This picture did not do it justice, but I am pleased with the depth of colour on the coat. 

That's it for Joy & Forgetfulness at the moment, though I am looking forward to a game of Napoleonics at the weekend.  Probably going to be Waterloo, because well, it's Waterloo and we have the pleasure of a visiting Mad Padre to entertain.  Mike and Joy visited in what I hope will be the first of many trips.  It was a real pleasure to make their acquaintance and they demonstrated admirable fortitude and patience in the face of a disgruntled Kinchlet.  

I did discover, sadly, that our visiting clergyman is a raving Bonapartist.   I hope we shall be able to teach him the error of his ways.  

Space Germans

So I finally got cracking on those Traitor Guard.  The grey uniform naturally lent itself to some Second World War style stuff, but I wasn’t quite happy with it exactly.

As you can tell I didn’t go with grey or dark green in the end.  Stormtroopers of the Imperial German army during the Great War uses a sort of geometric camouflage on their helmets and I went with something like that.

I’m not sure if this is a replica or an original, but I regardless I think we can agree it is “pretty metal”.

One of the crazy things about this chap is that he’s the squad sniper.  He will also stab you with a trench knife!

I found various types of painted helmet on line. I can’t remember where exactly I found this one - but it looks postwar rather than Great War.  I know the Freikorps used to paint stuff like this on their helmets.

The helmets used during the war itself were a bit more restrained.

On the whole, I’m very pleased with it.  I had to repaint the brown section as it was a bit too light, but it looks rather well now.  There is one squad of seven with black helmets and one squad of seven with the stormtrooper specials. It’s very handy from a gameplay perspective, being able to tell one from the other.

For me?

Life is bit manic at the moment as the Bear is not sleeping and it’s rather wearing.  One can economize on food and drink, but sleep is the one necessity.

Fortunately,  it is a life that has many other advantages.  Gentlemen, I don’t know if you’ve ever brought your toddler daughter a flower (tactfully removed from the bunch bought for her mother before I came in the door),  but I can assure you that you will feel ten feet tall as a result. She was absolutely delighted.

Fatherhood also means you also get invited to a better class
of tea party.

Decisions, decisions.

I’m torn about these two.  I’ve got two sections of seven lads each and I need some way of distinguishing them.  I was thinking about helmet colour, but I’ve seen them in white and didn’t care for it. 

Red maybe? Any thoughts gentlemen? 

Of course I should be doing something with my #Squaduary2019 pledge and therefore I should be working on my 1/32 scale diorama. However, we’re actually playing this game at the moment and I’d like to be able to play with a fully painted set before we finish. 

And now for something completely different.

An unusual football player - I'm not sure if he's League or Union. 

One of the pleasure of the hobby is being able to share it with others.  I don't play Bloodbowl, the comedically overblown American football game from Games Workshop, but I have plenty of friends that do.  I recently came into a few spare figures, including these two goblins. 

Off to frolic on pitches new. 

I did these two for a pal who has very kind to Mrs Kinch and I last year.  He plays Orks and I thought they might make a worthy addition to his team.

The first chap is a fellow called Fungus the Loon, who brings a sort of giant morning star to the game.

That blasted "bomb" writing was a pain in the neck.  

The second goes by the name Bomber Dribblesnot - and he a football playing version of "The Professor" from "The Secret Agent".  I'm not sure II could swear to his politics with any certainty, but I think it could be safe to say he's a bomb throwing anarchist.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take proper pictures before I handed these figures over to their new owner, but I at least had taken some shots with my phone. Probably the trickiest thing about Bomber Dribblesnot was getting the yellow lettering on a black background right.  

I don't paint 28mm figures very often, but they are fun to do.  I think the next ones will be some Genestealer Hybrids.  I've been trying to find a painting guide for the Rogue Trader era ones, as I've had a look at the new version but they aren't quite the same. Something to mull over for when I next get a little time to paint.

Legio has said that he might put one up on his blog in the near future which would be ace. 

I had never encountered Sir James MacMillan before, but came across his work recently. It's very rare that I find modern choral or church music that I like, but this is absolutely fantastic.  Wonderful stuff.