Bad Day at Ganish Aer - The Glitter Twins

OK, it's been a while. I know, it's been lax of me but I have an excuse. Well... actually I don't. Just the usual stuff but I have been getting a few things done hobby wise ticking away and scratching at the lead mountain behind the scences (and adding the the pile too, especially terrain, but that's a different story). Just not a lot to add to the blog completeness-wise anyway, but still kicking and playing about with stuff when I have the mind.

One bit that's been getting picked at is the next warband for the skirmish game I had planned eon's ago from the land that was the Covid Wastes of Isolation. This is the promised 'Glitter Twins'.

The Glitter Twins and support

The Glitter Twins is the disparaging nick-name for the two sisters, Elpeth and Melinda Thimmyn-karr. Adventurers of some distinction around northern Tir-Mor and eastern Fayrenneth.

Elspeth & Melinda Thimmyn-karr
'The Glitter Twins'

The sisters are rumoured to be ex-devotee's of the Elistainian patron goddess Kyenna, Elistain being their home land around the southerrn province of Thyr-Aranrith. This may be true as both sisters are powerful elemental spell casters with the nick-name coming from their showy style of casting and theatrics while abroad.

The figures are the original Sigilist and Apprentice models from the Frostgrave range, with some experimental bases constructed using a terrain roller from GSW for an intial trial.

Medlunga and Douchrie

Medlunga and Douchrie are the Sister's warbands heavies and are both skilled and resourceful fighter types. Medlunga, hailing from the wilds of central Fayrenneth beyond Elistain, Mernoth and Dalriada, is a man of few words, apparently not speaking a word of Elistainian, or any of the local languages, he has been with the sisters since they ventured away from Elistain at the beginning of their journeys.

Douchrie is almost the opposite type of man, being a self-styled gentleman of from northern Tollandor and a third son of a unlucky noble who had picked the wrong side in the current War of Rulership raging across the area. Douchrie is besotted with the younger sister Elspeth, a fact she plays on to good effect, and Douchrie will defend and protect Elspeth to his last breath.

Both the figures are once again from the Northstar Frostgrave range, picked up from the first couple of Nick-starters, and these two have a more traditional basing style.

Gnarlich Meb and Kanta Meb
Gnoll Mercenaries

The two Gnoll Mercenaries Gnarlich & Kanta Meb hail from the same tribe of dog-soldiers resident around the border of eastern Elistain and northern Cellebria. Typical of all Gnolls, they are rapacious and ruthless, however they do appear to have some degree of loyalty to the sisters beyond their pay and booty and it is rumoured that the sisters had performed some task in the past for the Gnoll's tribal Matriarch and the two fighters are 'payment' for this service.

Yet again, both figures are from a Northstar Nick starter purchase and are part of the Frostgrave range. Again standard dirt and grass basing for these two.

The Toughs
Arch, Toug and Flannah

These guys are standard hired muscle and hail from different countries in and around northern Tir-Mor area. Arch, an ex-soldier of some years comes from western Moonandor. Toug is a Lornian from Eridann and has a history of working for crime families in and around Thule and probably had to be somewhere else in a hurry. Flannah comes the Sonnorian League lands on the southern coast of the Moonandorian eastern seaboard with a history of indentured service with one of the Merchant families there.

Two the these bods are well OOP Citadel fighters from the first slottabase fighter range and have been kicking about at the bottom of a box since some time in the 80's. Now finally painted up. the middle figure is a mix up from the old Empire Militia box set with arms and hammer from the old knights set and a Chaos Warrior shield to complete, being assembled some years ago and partially painted but now complete and ready for battle.

The three figs all having standard dirt and grass basing to suit.

With this band complete, the project nears completion with the third band around half way complete, being the 'Merchant Adventurrers' the last of the trio of intagonists so will endeavour to complete some and actuall y play through the planned encounter 'Bad Day at Ganish-Aer'.

Watch this space.

Bad Day at Ganish Aer - The Celesterale

Back at the beginning of April (doesn't time fly when you're having fun) I posted up a small project that was planned to keep me busy during lockdown, 'Isolation Excercise' in painting up the terrain and figures for playing a Thud & Blunder based skirmish game.

As fate would have it, lockdown didn't seem to have as much free time available as I thought it may and with working from home and my better half thinking up lots of 'odd jobs' that suddenly required doing, the last three months have positively flown by. This being a good thing really.

Don't get me wrong, I have managed to get through much hobby goodness over the period, probably more than I would have normally, just not as much as I thought (or hoped) I may. Lots's of WIP to post about, some of which I'll do over the next couple of days, over several projects and not least 'Bad Day at Ganish Aer' which this update is around with the first of the three warbands finally getting completed.

A brief background for the Celesterale are that they are a Radical splinter group of the Magus Preceptory, which are the Magister faction of the ruling elite from the declining Celebrian Empire. The representative's of the Celesterale is the warband led by Graven, who is an 'agent at large' attempting to further the machinations of the Preceptory by any means he deems necessary.

Graven - Magister

A lot of you may recognise the figure here being the long OOP pre-slotta base Citadel Chaos Wizard which I've had rolling around for 35 years or more unpainted and un-loved, so he got picked as part of the project to do some. I found the figure quite hard to paint and couldn't settle on a paint scheme that I was happy with but ended up going for a dark blue and red scheme which didn't end up as dark as intended. Should of gone for a standard bad guy black and red with gold bits scheme but hey, turned out alright I suppose.

Ademar Vinx and his 'pet' Wraith

Ademar is the bad wizard type 'Vonatar' from the old Lone Wolf mid 80's Ciadel range and is a figure I'd already painted for a Mordheim campaign we had a couple of years ago, but received a touch up and a re-painted base. Ademars Wraith is a fairly newly acquired figure from one of the Northstar Frostgrave Nickstarter's a couple of years ago. This is a pretty easy figure to paint having a single colour or so to paint and highlight. One of the first to be put to bed.

Sooni Khawn and Vengtar U'Bharunn
Corrindessian Mercenaries

The two Corrindessian Mercenaries, Sooni Khawn and Vengtar U'Bharunn, hailing from much sunnier and distant climes, the figures are again from Northstar's Frostgrave range Cultist knights which I picked up as soon as they were released as they really fitted my idea of what Corrindessian's would look like as soon as I saw them. They took a considerable amount of time to paint, mainly due to the amount of detail on them but quite happy with how they tuned out.

Skeleton Bodyguards

The cannon fodder of the warband, the ubiquitous skeletons, are again figures which I had previously painted but again received a facelift and brightened up bases. They are early-ish citadel armoured skeletons which I picked up a pack of somewhere in a bring and buy and are some of my favourite skeleton figures. I would like to track down some more of these as they are full of character.

So, a small update this time and the next warband now moving into the WIP pile are Elspeth and Melinda, commonly known in adventuring circles of Northern Tir-mor as 'the Glitter Twins' and their band of colourful 'Toughs'.

Isolation Exercise

Setting myself a bit of of a challenge here and have set up a solo skirmish game using the Thud & Blunder rules. The challenge (exercise) part is that a good part of the table set up includes a large part of unpainted/incomplete terrain and figures and the idea is to complete all the terrain pieces and figures before I complete the game.

I deliberately chose pieces thst were either incomplete or not started in the main and have started working my way through the items on the set-up. So far most of the accessories are complete with just some barrels to do, the GW Osgiliath ruins are done and a couple of the trees are complete.

The warbands are a mixture of complete and incomplete figures (mainly incomplete) and I'll start working my way through the chosen figs next.

The warbands are all set up and 'The Merchant Adventurers', 'The Glitter Twins' and ' The Celesterale' are ready to rock in the scenario 'Bad Day at Ganish Aer'.

I'll introduce the players in more detail as they are painted.

I've a few more bits under way at the moment which I'll post seperately that I'm doing with all the extra time available with this isolation thing going on and flitting a bit from bits to bits as the mood takes me. So more anon.

Take care, stay safe and stay sane!