Accursed Men-Things!

Tonight I had a demo game of Mordheim at the LUNAR club with D, who is a very nice chap and a decent opponent. Order was restored to the universe following my previous victory over N by me promptly losing at the first opportunity with a failed Rout check! Scenery was provided by the de-facto Club Warboss, M, and very nice it was too. I provided the warbands - Skaven and Marienburgers - and a jolly time was had by all. Except the Skaven, who discovered that those flashy clothes don't mean the men-things are bad at fighting, not at all...

Deployment from the Skaven side. We rolled up Skirmish, which is a straightforward fight. The mat is a 3'x3' one, which is a bit smaller than it should be, and there is definitely not enough terrain, but as this was very much a learning game for both of us it wasn't a problem

Deployment from the Marienburger side. I deployed first and then promptly lost the roll to go first, too!

End Marienburger Turn 1: A slow and careful advance in the centre and left, while the handgunners fired ineffectually at the slingers - the penalty for long range was just enough to make the shot a bit too hard for the BS3 Marksmen...

End Skaven Turn 1: in contrast almost everything ran, and I used the fighting claws on one of the Black Skaven to scurry up the wall of the ruined house and down the stairs - more to show off than for any practical purpose. The Sorceror didn't run because I thought that he couldn't run and cast spells... but they can! Live and learn, eh?

End Marienburg Turn 2: A speedier advance up the board, with the Marksmen reloading on the move. The Warriors on the left got some charges off against the Giant Rats, while the Captain carefully shot a rat with a sling and took it Out Of Action. Moments later one of the Warriors followed suit and skewered a Giant Rat, taking it Out Of Action too!

End Skaven Turn 2: The Black Skaven with spear on the left, and the Black Skaven with fighting claws in the centre, got charges off against a Warrior and a Youngblood respectively. The Giant Rats charged the Warrior that hadn't got into combat last turn and the Champion with two pistols. The Night Runners and Assassin Adept lined up for a series of charges next turn while the surviving Skaven with slings and the Sorceror made a firing line to challenge the Marksmen and the Champion with halberd. Shooting was ineffectual, with the six (!) slingshots only resulting in a light concussion and a Stunned Champion - but the Sorceror's Gnawdoom resulted in 10 S1 hits against the Youngblood with basket and, shortly afterwards, an Out Of Action Youngblood. On the other hand the Black Skaven both whiffed, and the Champion with pistols made short work of the Giant Rat that had charged him

End Marienburger Turn 3: The Captain and Champion both charged into ongoing combats, and the Marksmen fired (again ineffectually) at the Skaven in front of them. The Captain promptly shot the Black Skaven, Stunning it... and then the Youngblood stabbed it, taking it Out Of Action. Over on the left, the combats all resulted in no injuries or even hits in most cases. But it was enough! The Skaven had to take a Rout Check on a Ld of 7, and I rolled an 8. Back-flee to the safety-warmth of the burrow-nest!

I may have lost, but it was a very fun game and a really nice introduction to the LUNAR club. They all seem like a great bunch and I got to meet others, like E and B and a person whose name I didn't catch, who have a roleplaying/boardgame club on Thursdays which P and I are going to start going to from next week. And, of course, although I have a bunch of Jade Falcons to paint I now have the Mordheim bug itching at me...

And speaking of Jade Falcons, the Omnissiah has blessed me and the printer works once more (I levelled the build plate again and that seems to have cured the problem)! So I managed to crank out a bunch of bases for the Elementals, as well as that Warhawk, another Vulture, and more Elementals to finish Trinary Echo:

Two Stars of Elementals accompanied by a Warhawk Prime and a Vulture Prime

 Tomorrow, I think, I will knuckle down and see how far I can get with some serious painting after work. I really want to get these prints and the various Clan light 'mechs sorted by the end of the week.

Surprise! Another Marienburger

And you thought I'd finished them! Well, so did I, but I was rummaging in the tray as I put them away and realised that there was, actually, another Swordsman nearly finished that I'd started a long time ago. So I picked him up and finished him off tonight. After that, I applied Nuln Oil to the Space Wolf Venerable Dreadnought, and a coat of The Fang to the Long Fangs... and a highlight layer of it to the Iron Priest. So I have, at last, started to make headway on the Space Wolves. 

I really like the expression I managed to give him - he looks a bit apprehensive, a bit nervous, like he's less of a veteran than the others

A redhead!

Because he was part painted a while ago, his yellow stockings look different to the rest of the warband's yellow clothes, which I'm quite glad about honestly - a little less uniformity

The text on the shield is meant to say 'Marienburg' but of course I can't paint that small!

With the Marienburgers now finished (for the time being), let us turn to the 41st Millenium:

 As you can see I didn't quite manage to get the base grey down on all the Long Fangs, but it's a start! I'm torn between tackling a unit at a time, or going through the whole lot at once as a big batch. I think I might start with the "big batch" option and then, when I start losing the plot, break them down into smaller groups. I still need to work out how I'm going to sort out the howling wolf that's supposed to be painted onto their left shoulder pad on top of the white sun, or if I have useable transfers. I'll have to have a rummage.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 7
2025: 326

Fighting For Profit, Plunder, And Wyrdstone

And the Empress Magritta, I suppose. With the completion of the Captain of my little band of Marienburg Privateers I now have 600 gold crown's worth of primary colour wearing drunken sailors ready to brave the mean streets of Mordheim in search of this wyrdstone everyone's talking about. Who knows, some of them might even survive...

I'm disappointed by the photo quality, but it shows the general result!

The duelling pistol is a dark bronze with gold detailing and highly polished wood furniture; the telescope is brass

The big yellow cloak is a nice standout piece

The pistol's just been fired, and the angle of the wrist and pistol suggests it's mid-recoil (which is what I'm claiming after being unable to get the angle I really wanted originally)

The privateers in their finery! I think there might be a few more I should paint up somewhere, but they'll have to wait now

With the Captain - and the entire warband - now done, I have nothing standing between me and the Space Wolves other than a desperate desire for more Battlemechs. I am due to recieve the Mercenaries Kickstarter which I backed at a quite irresponsible level at some point this side of Christmas, so who knows - maybe one day there'll be a knock at the door and a truly hilarious number of 'mechs will be handed to me so I can begin to muster a force to rival C's 90-odd Davion Guards!

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 6
2025: 325

Mystery Mechs And Marienburg

A little painting tonight in the cooler evening hours after a quite busy and exhausting day saw me undercoat and base coat the 3D printed Battlemechs I collected at the weekend, as well as doing some tidying up on the Marienburg Captain readying for the last little push tomorrow. Yes, I know, Space Wolves, etc etc, but I have been thoroughly distracted by these Battlemechs even though they don't even have bases yet:

 
The Bull Shark (stuck to the paint pot) is in my friend C's Davion mercs/Guards colours of olive green with the right leg in red and white; the remaining 'mechs are in the British Racing Green of my personal mercenary outfit, MacLeod's Light Horse. The Stalker is a modified variant -3H, with ten LRM-5s and four medium lasers... and maximum armour. The Black Knight is a stock BL-6-KNT, and the Orions are... mysteries. They appear to have SRM-4s in the left torso instead of LRM-15s, and a laser of some description instead of the SRM-4. They have a cannon in the right torso, and one has two medium lasers and the other has what could be four medium lasers? Or two medium lasers and two small lasers? It's not clear. More research required there I think.

Anyway, tomorrow will also be a long day for a variety of reasons but I'm aiming to get the Marienburg Captain finished and the Bull Shark nearly done at the very least.

Almost (But Not Quite) There

Today was spent dogsitting for our friends T and O, which was a real delight - their dog, Bussia, is super well behaved and very sweet. I also managed to crack on and get the last Youngblood and last Swordsman done, leaving just the Captain to do.

A one-eyed old sea dog, and a bright-eyed youngster

The basket on the back of the Youngblood was quite fun to paint - much more so than trying to touch up the slashed clothes of the Swordsman!

I'm really pleased with how the checked leg turned out on the Youngblood - it went a bit wrong initially but ended up looking great

Feathers in your hat just to really emphasise that you're a stylish sort

The whole band so far - two Marksmen, two Champions, two Youngbloods, two Swordsmen. The Captain awaits!

 With just the Captain left, I think next week will definitely be a very Space Wolf sort of a week.

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 8
2025: 319

Fight For The Right To Wear Loud Clothes

I must say I'm really enjoying painting these Marienburgers; they're very colourful and yet quite a simple palette. Today P and I went to visit P's friend R, and we all hung out in her workshop room painting. R does a lot of gunpla, and 3d prints stuff like "a Reaver Titan" or "a statuette of an anime character" and has a lot of funky things like airbrushes, and similar tools. She's very skilled and certainly a better painter than I am! At any rate while we were doing that I managed to finish the second Marksman and one of the Swordsmen, leaving the Captain, one Youngblood, and the last Swordsman.

I gave the Swordsman a grey beard because I figure he's a gnarled old veteran who's seen some things - hence the skull on his belt!

Unlike the other Marksman, this one's handgun stock hasn't been painted. Like the Swordsman, he carries a skull. Why? Why not

I like the way the feathers turned out, even if they could maybe be a slightly different colour to the clothes

The Swordsman has a gold earring; the Marksman a votive paper wrapped round his sword. Both are lucky charms in a way

Not only that but I finally picked up the 3D prints I'd got R to make for me at the end of last year (!) - two Dreadnought Drop Pods for my Deathwing army, a bunch of Battlefleet Gothic Imperial ships just because, and some Battlemechs:

 

I think the Stalker might be a bit small, or the Black Knight a bit too big, but whatever - it's Battletech! I do need to source some hex bases though...

And then, after all that, we had a very nice little game of Tokaido which R won handily (I came dead last):

At rear, some of R's 3D printed anime statuettes painted entirely by her

All in all, a very nice and quite productive day really.

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 6
2025: 317

Primary Colours Are So In This Season

This evening I got the remaining Champion, one of the Youngbloods, and one of the Marksmen all done, which means I only have five more Marienburgers to do. I should easily be able to finish those this weekend, especially as tomorrow P and I are going to visit our friend R and do some painting as a hang out session which will be nice (and productive).

L-R: Champion with brace of pistols, sword, and helmet; Youngblood with spear; Marksman with handgun

Again I went for different skin tones, suggesting they have come from widely differing parts of the world

Every good adventuring party has rope. I also put a little anchor on the Marksman's powder flask, showing he's a marine

The feathers were fun to do, and reminded me of my friends' parrots a little - the stripes on the clothes were also good fun too

 The general vibe of this bunch is that of a well-funded expedition, wearing brightly coloured clothes and with expensive equipment - the gold buckles, handguns, and so on all attest to that. They are, after all, the Empress Magritta's privateers and need to look the part!

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 4
2025: 315

VE Day And A Marienburger

80 years ago today, the Second World War in Europe ended with the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. It did not, however, end the threat of ultranationalism, fascism, or even nazism itself. It is important to remain vigilant against these ideologies and oppose them whenever and wherever they appear: especially now, when they are on the rise globally.

And now back to the toy soldiers!

I had intitially intended to paint all the leather and so on across the whole Marienburger warband, but instead I decided to just focus on one model and finish it, starting with the Champion with halberd:

The mould line on what was a 6th Edition monopose plastic spearman is quite prominent here, but hardly at all in real life. I'm really pleased with his eyes, though!

The ability to advance with grim resolve and a bloody great big pointy stick - what else do you want in a shipboard soldier?

I'm going to try and really vary the skin tones on these guys, as Marienburg is a huge port and would invariably have sailors from all over the world living there; this chap's from the Kingdoms of Ind originally for example

With one Marienburger down and eight more to go, I'm hoping to spend a chunk of tomorrow getting a few of the others done - probably the Marksmen, or perhaps one or even both Youngbloods. We'll see how it goes!

 

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 1
2025: 312

Yellow And Grey

Today has been pretty quiet on the painting front, but I did (finally) get hold of the right grey for my Space Wolves. Turns out it wasn't Fenris or Russ Grey, but instead The Fang. Blue-grey, in other words. Anyway, I base coated the Venerable Dreadnought and highlighted the yellow on the Marienburgers - in the process messing up a chequerboard pattern on one of the Youngbloods which I'll need to fix tomorrow:

Having added some yellow patterns to the hose (and in one case jacket) of the various Marienburgers that needed it, I think I can work on detailing and finishing over the next day or two. I should have the whole band finished by the weekend. Famous last words, probably, but there we go.

500th Entry!

It's a silly milestone really, but there we go. This post, talking about the work I did today and yesterday, is the 500th entry in this web log (now there's a name from the past) about my wargaming and related activities. The blog's been more or less active over the years with some quite major hiatuses for various reasons, but since last year I've been pretty consistently updating most days - almost every day really - which has been both a source of some small personal pride and a little bit of a sort of mental health thing, too. Working towards making a serious dent in my Pile of Opportunity has also been very positive for that, so I'm glad that I decided to start blogging again when I did.

Anyway, on to the models. Yesterday I finished blocking out the red and blue on the Marienburgers, and then was unable to blog about it as P and I took my son, T, and one of his friends to a death metal gig in Birmingham. For us it was a nice little impromptu date at a reasonably nearby pub, and for them it was their first mosh pit in a grimy venue. Today I highlighted the red and the blue, and tomorrow I'll be adding some yellow stripes to various clothes (particularly on the Youngbloods) and highlighting the yellow. Once I've done that I don't think it'll take me long to finish them - leather, gold, a few various details here and there.

L-R: Captain, First Mate, Second Mate, two Cabin Boys, two swordsmen, two marksmen

 I don't think I mentioned it before but the Captain is actually a lightly converted limited edition miniature released, I think, around 2003 - it's meant to be the renowned explorer Marco Colombo. I cut off the pointing hand and gave him a pistol instead, thus destroying any resale value of this 1 of ~6,000 figure...!

The Merchant Prince Of Mordheim

With apologies to Shakespeare, etc etc. Having finished the City Watch, and still being out of Space Wolf-relevant paint, I had a good old rummage in the boxes last night and came up with the Marienburger warband for Mordheim. It's a lot smaller, made up as it is from various spare models and random kitbashes, but it does come in at 595 gold crowns and is a viable starting warband:

In the background you can see the Blood Claws, newly brought up to strength thanks to my bits box and a spare Marine body

Captain (light armour, duelling pistol, helmet, sword)
Champion (brace of pistols, helmet, sword)
Champion (light armour, halberd, helmet)
Youngblood (sword, dagger)
Youngblood (spear)

2 Swordsmen (light armour, swords, shields)
2 Marksmen (handguns)

My sort of mental image for this warband is that they're a ship's crew who've sailed through inland waterways to Mordheim and the Captain has taken a couple of cabin boys and a bunch of his ship's marines to go hunting for Wyrdstone. So far I've got most of the yellow blocked out, all the steel done, and am working on blocking out the red. Next up will be the blue. Not very subtle chaps, these Marienburgers...