Wooden Peg Warriors

Because I don't have enough projects on the go, I thought it might be fun to paint up some wooden peg characters. I thought the kids might be into it as well, especially Keira. She is ALL ABOUT making things these days. Every single day she sews or knits something. At times I wonder if they're too intimidated by all the miniatures they've purchased over the last couple years - and not yet painted! Like, maybe they are self-aware enough to realize that there skills aren't at the level to make the miniatures they own look they way they want them to look when they're done? If that makes any sense?! I mean, I'M intimidated by the details on some models, and I've been at this for 35+ years!!

So I ordered some pegs from Amazon. They batch it got was about 60 of them in three different sizes (55mm, 43mm, and 35mm) for about $17CAD (can't go wrong with the price!) - of course then I went out and bought some Milliput to add bits - but that was only about $12 and it will go a long way!

Initially I'd thought these would be fun to use for custom characters in role-playing games - and then making a bunch of very simple generic baddies to oppose them - or maybe some smaller scale skirmish games (like Song of Blades and Heroes). Of course when they arrived and I saw the big bags of them, I suddenly started having delusions of grandeur - entire armies for Dragon/Lion Rampant or any of those other games by Dan Mercy! (Because, y'know, having scores of armies for each of those games in regular ol'28mm metal wasn't enough!?)



Before I'd even ordered them, I'd done a few doodles of ideas in my sketchbook.



Just a few very generic characters - mostly medieval/fantasy... but I was thinking about so many others things as well.

I also found a few web stites and blogs that were very inspirational:

Zen Wood Peg People Page

Funny Little Wars - Molatero

Wooden Warriors

Some great stuff on these pages - varying from very simple/paint only - to very elaborate with either painting detail or adding on bits and bobs of wood or putty...

Here is my first stab at it:



Baron Phillipe do Lapin

(because why have the same character in only one scale/medium)



detail of bunny on back of tabard.



Just gave this guy a belt pouch. Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably should have given him a scabbard as well.

Dungeon crawlers could be given elaborate backpacks festooned with kit and rope and 10' poles...



SUPER simple ninja...



HAvent' decided which size will be standard adult male human. I was thinking the middle one (like the ninja here) so the larger ones could be for larger creatures - big orcs, ogres, trolls, etc... But I could always get some larger ones (I think I saw ones that were 65mm) as these 55mm ones are a nice size for getting details on...



I have a pile of others cluttering the workbench that are in various stages of paint and/or modelling...

I should really just STOP and finish up a few more Necromunda things before the game weekend!!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Hopefully more Necromunda...

Who am I fooling? It'll probably be loads more wooden peg warriors - at least until I run out of the current batch and have to order more!?

Cavern Terrain and Arvus Lighter Build

I haven't been doing a LOT of painting this week - put a few dabs of paint on some Eldar - ostensibly for a Shadow War Kill Team... It may or may not get done in time... I have been working on some Cavern Terrain again and started building the Arvus Lighter.



Over the weekend I did some of the foam carving and gluing of things into place. Monday morning, when the above picture was taken, I cleared off the hobby room table and was sloshing on a layer of "goop" (a mix of filler, carpenters glue and black paint)



This morning I was putting the finishing touches on enough of them that we should be able to put together a 90cmx90cm (~3'x3') table for some small scale subterranean skirmishing!

I've also been gluing up the boards for another 9-10 squares - so we could potentially have TWO 3x3 tables going at the same time. I noticed, building these first nine, that I really needed to make MORE with more than one or two exits!!

Eventually I'd like to make another 15 or so. That way I'd be able to fill TWO 4x4 tables (or a massive 4x8 table!!).

Though it is the Shadow War: Armageddon campaign I'm trying to get these done for - I am hoping they will be usable for MANY different games in many different genres - Generic fantasy dungeon bashing, Pulp era Secret Lairs of malevolent cultists, clearing out more modern cave-systems or insurgent fighters and all sorts of similar actions in the for (or not-so-far) future...

Is there anything else these caverns could be used for? specific scenarios that come to mind? Let me know in the comments below!!



In addition to that I've been plugging away at the Imperial Arvus Lighter I picked up from Forgeworld.



So far I haven't assembled much of anything - but I've started painting a few of the individual parts that will need to be painted BEFORE assembling - like the pilot here.



 Dry-fitting the hull pieces and the canopy I found there was a HUGE gap on one side of the canopy!?  Looking at others on the internet, some some seem to have a gap, others totally do - and the modellers just seem to put them together and ignore it!? I don't know, maybe I'm just a little too AR to let that go...



So I glued in some plastic card hoping it would  fill MOST of the gap...



... and it does... mostly... Hopefully it will look a little less obvious once painted.

The burning question in my mind is... What colour to I paint the private Lighter of a Rogue Trader... I was leaning towards Purple... but them was thinking that was just a bit TOO ostentatious.. Can a Rogue Trader BE too ostentatious...!? Also I was kind of starting to use Purples for my small collection of CHAOS marines and cultists... I have too much red stuff. Grey is boring... Don't really want to do camouflage...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I really hope this week we'll get to try out a game of Shadow War: Armageddon - in these caverns!!!