Painting Challenge Submission #11 - Leopold's Leopard Company

"Leopold's Leopard Company" is ready to meet an opponent's charge...

The XVIth edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is now wrapped up, but I have (naturally) fallen behind a bit on the blog posting, so I am quickly adding posts to cover the last few entries I had submitted. This one was a particular treat to share - another Regiment of Renown from GW's old "Dogs of War" collection - here is Leopold's Leopard Company, and they are ready to stand in your battle line - so long as the deposit is paid up front and on time. These battle-hardened pikemen are long-OOP metal castings from Games Workshop and the glorious before-times.

One of the front-rankers, pike set, ready for the clash.

A back ranker.

Leopold and his men started out as guards of the Temple of Lucan and Luccina in the Tilean city of Luccini. It was fancy, well-paid duty. The unit is resplendent in fine armour adorned with the symbols of the temple - in particular the visage of the leopard who had guarded the divine twins! They are further adorned with the pelts of leopards. As military units go, the Leopard Company dressed the part!

These chaps are ready for a fight too!

How did the Leopard Company end up as mercenaries? Well, let's just say "local Luccini politics" intervened. In the midst of some civil strife there may, or may not, have been a siege of the temple in which it may, or may not, have become necessary for Leopold and his men to, er, "borrow" the gold offerings stored within which in turn may, or may not, have brought down some kind of divine curse which can only be held at bay by traveling the Old World, fighting as mercenaries and sending a portion of the gold they earned back to the temple to, um, "repay" their "debt."

Leopold and the command group. He is carrying healthy-sized "sword" (more of a cleaver), and I love the pistol tucked into the belt.

Naturally the command group has the nicest collection of pelts!

It is a real thrill to get this unit over the line for a couple of reasons. First, this is a Dogs of War unit which I had not previously painted back when I owned my original collection. I had wanted to take a crack at them, but a) already had assembled a decent-size force and b) was kind of intimidated by all of the leopard-style pelts. Nearly every figure in the unit is wearing a pelt. The studio models in the army book looked amazing (of course), but painting those spotted pelts looked really tricky and beyond my brush skills at the time.

Another ranker.

25 years later wariness of painting the pelts was still holding me back, but I was determined to try...there was a lot of trial and error on the first couple of test figures, but I managed to work out an approach that seemed OK, and in particular looked pretty good when the troops were massed together. Even if the spot pattern is not exactly that of a leopard, I can always push the fantasy-escape-button. "Oh, you see, those are the pelts of the, er, 'Tilean Mountain Leopard', and the spots look...just like that..."

From this aspect you can see some of the assorted small details that add character. Like the chap at the rear with a portion of rope, the different types of packs etc. 

Each time I have completed one of these units, I have commented on how wonderful these old sculpts are. This time will be no exception - let it be said, again, that these old sculpts are just wonderful! So much character, brilliant metal sculpts from the Perry brothers. While there is, of course, broad similarity to the figures, there are a number of small little variants among the sculpts that add just enough difference, and a little touch of character, to let each figure be slightly unique while preserving the overall uniform look to the unit. It has been such a treat to paint these figures, with their crisp, proper metal lines and details. 

I love these big pike blocks!

So that is now three large, chonky pike blocks completed to serve as a solid backbone for my "Dogs of War" army, but this project is still not yet complete. The army will require some artillery support and a bit of cavalry to round things out. Time in this edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge is running short, so those elements are likely to have to wait until the next one, but who knows what might be possible before things conclude? 

"Ready lads!"

That's all for this entry - stay tuned for a couple more posts to cover everything off from AHPC XVI. Thanks for reading!

AHPC Submission #14 - The Marksmen of Miragliano

Another Regiment of Renown marches forth - the Marksmen of Miragliano take aim!

AHPC submission #14 saw a return to my Dogs of War project. It's another Regiment of Renown - behold the Marksmen of Miragliano, the finest crossbowmen in all of Tilea! Beautiful 28mm metal castings from GW.

A couple of the Marksmen.

Under the leadership of the dashing Maximillian Damask, the Marksmen have a long tradition of service throughout the Old World, their deadly crossbow bolts bringing victory in countless battles! Only the most skilled crossbowmen can join this regiment. It is said the recruits must prove their ability by putting a bolt through the head of the prince on a gold ducat at 300 paces! 

Love the many, many little details on these beautiful sculpts...rabbit on one belt, a pheasant on the other...some fine stew around the campfire tonight lads!

Maximillian Damark and the regimental musician.

These figures are Perry sculpts, and are just so wonderful to work with. I love their character, and all of the little details that hearken back to the high-water market of GW's Fantasy figure sculpting. Things like daggers in boots, different packs with a variety of kit, all add character to the sculpts. Several of them are carrying animals they have hunted - rabbits, a pheasant - for stew around the campfire after the battle. And many of them wear the coin they had to shoot in order to prove their skill to join the regiment in the first place. 

D'oh! Broken standard in the box...

Best not to look too closely at that left hand...or either hand for that matter...

These are very, very old castings - and time is not always kind to old castings which have bumped around in a box for 20 years. Sadly the standard bearer had broken apart in the box, and in practically the word possible way. I attempted a repair, seeking to drill out the broken standard and replace it. But I am just dreadful at such hobby engineering, and made a total hash of the poor fellow's left hand. Best not to look too closely...I painted the poor chap regardless, and he has taken his place here in the regiment for now, but my hobby OCD is such that I have been scouring eBay for a replacement - it has been found, and will be painted after it arrives.

"We hit the right spot every time!"

In the WHFB game the Marksmen were a fine regiment to employ as their ability with the crossbows actually lives up to the hype, and a shower of bolts from this unit will hit a fair bit more compared to the average human archers in the Old World. They can also operate as skirmishers, causing even greater harassment for opponents, particularly ones already trying to figure out how to deal with the pikemen. 

It was a real treat to get a second Regiment of Renown painted up during AHPC XV. Stay tuned for more, and thanks for reading!

Skaven Warp Lightning Cannon

So in the aftermath of the recent disastrous outing for the Skaven against Conscript Mike's Bretonnians, I decided to put the Warp Lightning Cannon on a base to match the other war machines in the army. This wasn't as straightforward as it sounds though, because the second-hand cannon in my collection was missing one of its crew, and THIS. WOULD. NOT. DO. 

So off to ebay I went to find the missing crewman, he's in the photo above. Of course no-one was selling a single crew model so I had to buy the pair at an exorbitant price... having said this, if you have a Warp Lightning Cannon missing the left-hand side crewman I will make you a good deal.

The other fun thing I did was put a little cat vs. rat vignette on the diorama base. The models are nominally 1/48 scale 3D prints from Green Stuff World that come in 25-rat or 15-cat packages for about $6USD. I got mine at Games Plus on my recent trip to Chicago. They're great little models but it's too bad the rats aren't a smidge bigger - they really are regular rat size for the scale.

Of course I have two grey cats so I painted this one as "Gilles", the male. This probably explains (ex-post-facto) the sub-par outing against the Bretonnians as Gilles was obviously a Bretonnian saboteur!

I based the Skavenslave crew on 20mm square bases, mainly because that was the way the kit was originally designed... I'd intended to put the slaves right on the cannon base but they needed the extra height of the slottabase for the cast-on poles to fit into their mount on the cannon body.

Anyway that was a fun little project, hopefully Warhammer; The Old World will come along soon to reinvigorate interest in fantasy battles!   

ps Now that I'm looking at the pics I might actually paint some more tiny rats for the base :-)

Bretonnians Finally Done!

I finally finished my Pegasus Knights for the Bretonnians! What a slog that was! I painted the Pegasus first then rapidly lost steam on the knights. I Didn’t do anything for about a week before finally just sitting down this weekend and getting them done. That’s six knights in total to complete the entire army. I feel it’s quite an accomplishment because for all intents and purposes it was a long dead project. I finished about half the army years ago. Late 2000’s I think. In fact, I’m pretty sure they pre-dated this blog! GW’s stubborn refusal to update the army for later editions made them unplayable and I stopped painting out of disgust. Now it seems a new generation of game designers are taking a look at Bretonnia for the Old World. That definitely helped motivate me to get them done. Hopefully this time around the army can do a bit more than just stink up the joint!

Now onto the Steel Legion!

Thanks for visiting.

Bretonnian Fay Enchantress

 The Fay Enchantress is a unique Hero in WFB and is the armies best spellcaster. I never owned the original model(s) and purchasing them used is pretty expensive. I already have a few proxy models in the army, so I figured one more wouldn't hurt and I found a suitable model made by Dark Sword Miniatures. It was far more affordable and fits well with the aesthetic, despite not holding a grail.

Last Bretonnian unit for painting is a group of 6 Pegasus Knights.

Thanks for visiting.

Mounted Damsel and Bretonnian Men-at-arms

 Chugging along on the Bretonnians, I present a mounted Damsel and 15 men-at-arms. The Damsels act as spell casters and can accompany units of knights to buff the unit. The men-at-arms are basic fodder drafted from the peasant rabble. They are terrible and can't be expected to stick around long, but they might hold a unit in place long enough for the knights to set up a charge on their flank. The men-at-arms were given a very quick paint job, since they're always crowded together in ranks and you only see their pole-arms and shields.

The full unit of 25. The other 10 were painted years ago.

Thanks for visiting.

Questing Knights of Bretonnia

 I completed another unit of knights last week, but have only gotten to posting them now. This is a unit of Questing Knights. In Bretonnian lore, Questing Knights abandon their knightly duties in favor of seeking the Grail through an arduous quest. They drop their lance and pick up a great sword. In the game they are for attacking monsters or units you may need a few turns to deal with. The models here are actually converted from the Knights of the Realm box armed with empire great swords. GW did make metal models of Questing Knights, but those were outrageously expensive and at the time I was living on student loans. The Doer Government ended up forgiving most of those loans a few years later in their ongoing quest to buy votes, but I didn't know that at the time.

Still a few more units to get through, so stay tuned!

Bretonnian Grail Knights

 A long time ago I was collecting a Bretonnian Army. I painted up several units and even managed to play a game with them. I think they stunk up the joint as my one memory is Dallas being quite astonished that his Skaven clan rats were marginally better than my men-at-arms. 6th edition was the last update for Bretonnia which resulted in the army being virtually unplayable in later editions. As such, I lost heart and stopped work on them in favor of other projects. I looked on with some amusement as GW killed Warhammer Fantasy. From my perspective, Bretonnia was simply the first one into the dust bin.

But now it's 2023 and GW, perhaps recognizing that their older and somewhat alienated customers are now in or approaching their top income level, is preparing to resurrect Warhammer Fantasy in order to squeeze every last cent it can from them before they become pensioners!  Jokes on them though, 'cuz I didn't throw out any of my Bretonnians!

Here's a unit of 6 Grail Knights. The knights are metal while the horses are plastic. This makes for a very top heavy model. The standard bearer is especially bad and is not allowed to ride on any inclines for fear of toppling.

These guys don't really match the ones I painted all those years ago. The colors are basically the same, but my painting style / ability has changed significantly resulting in a far cleaner and detailed paint job.

I'm going to keep going on these. I still have 6 Questing Knights (not the original, but a conversion), 6 Pegasus Knights, 15 Men-at-Arms, 1 mounted Damsel and a 3rd party Fey Enchantress. My goal is to have them done by end of May.

Thanks for visiting.

Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer Lord on Mighty Lammasu!

Wow, now here's a blast from the past... a Games Workshop Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer mounted on a mighty Lammasu! My first big "army" project - nearly 25 years ago - was a Chaos Dwarf army for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  

Affectionately known to the Conscripts as the "Big Hats", the Chaos Dwarfs were kin to the Dwarfs of the Old World, albeit twisted and mutated by the Chaos Gods. Having migrated thousands of years ago from the southern lands to the Mountains of Mourn, their empire spans a vast plain known as Zorn Uzkul, or the Great Skull Land. The Chaos Dwarfs have turned the skull plain into an industrial hellscape, crowded with vast factories, open pit mines, and mammoth red-hot forges echoing with the cacophony of pounding hammers and the screams of tortured slaves. 

The change wrought by Chaos upon the Dwarfs opened them to the influence of magic, and the leaders of the Chaos Dwarfs are great and powerful sorcerers. The race worships the Chaos bull-god Hashut, Father of Darkness, and consider their magical affinities to be their dark gift from Hashut.

However, the influence of magic on Dwarf physiology invokes a dark curse. As Chaos Dwarf sorcerers grow older and more powerful, their bodies gradually become more stone-like and immobile - gradually turning the sorcerer into a living stone statue. The main avenue of their capital city, the obsidian ziggurat of Zharr-Naggrund, is flanked by ranks of stone statues - all that remains of great and powerful Chaos Dwarf sorcerers.

Sorcerers sometimes ride into battle astride a mighty Lammasu, believed to be a mutation of a Great Taurus, itself a massive winged fire-breathing red bull. The Lammasu is possessed of a keen intelligence and breathes not air, but the Winds of Magic itself! 

Mutated Chaos Dwarf? You can see the resemblance...

Sorcerer getting ready to do his thing.

So this model has a long history of sitting primed in a drawer! I think I got my Chaos Dwarf army in a huge mail trade back in 1997 or so (I traded a load of Mutant Chronicles models for it and got more Chaos Dwarf models than I'd ever need). The Sorcerer Lord on Mighty Lammasu came in its box and while I assembled and primed it, it had never been painted... until now. Hopefully it won't take 20 more years to get it onto the table, but the way things are going, you never know.