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I have fallen off the painting band wagon a little the last few days. Not sure what happened, just needed a break. Cracked my Van Saar Necromunda gang out on Sunday starting them from scratch after taking a break from the Goliath's as they have gotten a little too powerful and need a breather, may restart them or keep them around for any new gangs that get too big for their boots. The Van Saar's performed well in their first outing against an interestingly set up Escher gang that had NO ranged weapons apart from a few pistols and a flamer. The match up didn't go well for the girls of house Escher and some absolutely appalling dice rolling meant I didn't have anyone even pinned until about the 6th turn by which time half of the opposing gang were already down or out. I think my opponent may have gone a little too far down the hand to hand route. Be interesting to see how he runs the gang in the future.

But apart from my gaming I have done a little bit of painting. I focused on trying to work out my unit fillers for the Gnoblars (in advance of getting the rest of the little green blighters) and I decided to go ahead with the idea of traps. You see I have taken a rather expensive upgrade called "Trappers" which represent the nasty breed of Gnoblars that like traps. Therefore, any unit charging the front of a unit of Gnoblars with attendant Trappers will take automatic hits from the various traps and pitfalls set up by the nasty little critters. I also decided that I would do 2 fillers per unit on square bases that fill the space of 4 Gnoblars (so 8 in total for each units). It is a perfect size as it turns out as I plan on running the units in 7 troops x 5 ranks which means I can set up the command group in the middle with a unit filler on either side which as you will see is kind of perfect.......


It is a little hard to make out in the photo, but here is my 'shieldwall' for the Gnoblars with spears at the ready. Each unit will have one of these on the front corners just reminding me and my opponents of the dastardly Trappers and their tricks....


The rear view is a little clearer for what is going on. The shields and spears are simply a cover for the myriad traps hidden in the front lines of the Gnoblar units ready to kill any unwary foes.


This is my favorite filler and therefore goes first. I figure after this little bugger finished setting up all those bear traps he had to pole vault his way out of harms way......


I imagine this is a couple of barrels filled with shrapnel, cannon balls and of course gunpowder which the pistol is ready to set off. Unfortunately it hasn't been explained to the rag picker Gnoblar here what exactly will happen when he pulls the trigger......


Here we see a clever Gnoblar using greed as a way of catching the enemy, a tasty bag of who knows what hangs above a snare ready to catch the unwary.


Finally my least favorite as I feel it has the weakest story a lone Gnoblar is laying out some sharpened spikes to slow up the enemy charge as they come over the top of the shieldwall.

So there you have my first ever unit fillers and I think they do a pretty good job of taking up space, will fit well into the units and most importantly tell a little story that also has the added benefit of reminding me about an important unit upgrade.

Let me know what you think and thanks for stopping by and reading.

Dude, those are sweet unit fillers. I just make boring ones that look like scenery or whatever. Yours are mini dioramas. My favorite is the one with the bag of gold.

Great work!

I love your Maneater conversion. I like his story of slaying the others and taking their gut plates.

I really like your unit fillers. I want to make some for my Night Goblin units but I haven't figured out what I want to do yet.

The gorger also looks fantastic. One of the best ones I've seen all painted up.

Looking at your Ogres makes me want to pull mine out and start painting them. I'm trying to build my list without any gnoblars, is that even legal? I haven't really looked at the army book.

Anyway, great painting! I can't wait for the next update!

Drat I missed those unit fillers... they're great

Can't have missed them Grim, they only just appeared ;-)

It certainly is legal to run an army without Gnoblars EyeamRai. So go for it. Ogres have got to be the easiest models to paint i have done yet. I considered no Gnoblars. But what would the caravan eat in an emergency?

Surely a night goblin unit filler (especially if it includes fanatics) has to be a mushroom patch? Or maybe a small hole leading into the ground?

Thanks Squall. I had a lot of fun trying to figure them out.

Thanks for the comments guys. Hope to have some more up soon.

I was thinking about the mushroom patch but I had not considered a hole leading into the ground. I like that idea!

I collected squig models for a while so I'm also considering some squigs bopping along in the middle of the unit.

Glad to know that I don't have to use the gnoblars. Between my metric crap ton of goblins and tyranids, I just did not want to paint another bunch of tiny things.

Definitely some kind of hidden/cave entrance, I still need to do that for my skaven.

I think gnoblars are just there to be the anvils to the hammers of the rest of the army.

These are great and very characterful. I'll have to rip off the "traps" unit-filler idea when I get around to doing my goblins (which won't be for awhile, bit still.

It a short update today, no Ogre Kingdoms models this time, just some terrain pieces I knocked off at a mates place. I needed to take a little break from the Ogre's so I turned my attention to some Pine trees that I have had kicking around for AGES and decided they needed some nice bases to go on. (They ended up being really easy and I think on a table they will look very effective).


So I ended up doing 8 bases with a combination of Pine trees and rocks. I wanted to have them reasonably busy by being pretty dense, but not very hard to position models on them. I was a little concerned that the trees themselves were a little too small out therefore out of scale so I thought if I went with a fairly bare and rocky looking base it could explain the trees are a little stunted. But once 28mm tall models are in amongthem they don't look so bad.

For reference, the area of the table these are sitting on is 2 feet x 3 feet, so with the 3 citadel woods I have already done I could do quite a convincing forest table, now where are my Wood Elves........


Obviously I play both 40k and Fantasy so I wanted to make sure that the woods would be capable of good use in both games so taking a leaf from the Citadel Woods and all of the Pine Trees are removable so if a regiment or a large model wants to move into the woods they are perfectly capable to pull the offending tree out of the way and position the unit. It also makes storage of the pieces really easy as they stack up pretty easily.

You can probably see that a couple of the pieces fit together quite neatly, this was intentional that I can use them as separate smaller woods or stick them together to turn them into a much deeper forest.


Here are those pesky Eldar Guardians again (I swear I will make an army out of them eventually, maybe I will update the first post with the true list of armies I want to do.....) but once positioned in the forests I was less concerned that the trees were going to be too small. Sure the Ogres make some of the trees laughably small, but they are also 60mm tall.....


Here we see an Vibrocannon hidden among the trees and it still looks pretty in scale even though it is a much larger model.

I am very happy with how these came together in only about 3 days (which included drying time). I have been meaning to get those Pine Trees mounted on something solid for ages now and glad I did. I promise that I will get back onto the Ogres post haste and the next update will hopefully include the next two Ogre Maneaters (both of whom are conversions......)

Also, look for the updated army lists that I am going to attempt with this plan, it is obviously impossible (yeah I can admit that) but unless GW changes some armies it is the list I am going to be working too.

Thanks for reading.

Those are great, excellent work

The trees *are* a touch small... but I don't think you really notice with models around. Besides, it could be a new growth, or as you say... stunted trees. Or miniature alien trees

Battle for the Christmas Tree Plantation! Not quite as famous as the Battle for the Tractor Factory, but still a historically significant event.

Seriously though, they look great. I only wish I could actually get that much good looking terrain done in a day.

The trees look really great!

Thanks guys I appreciate the comments and I love your sense of humour Azazelx. You must remember it is much easier to get things done when a pesky job isn't standing in your way....

...I don't think I ever remember that?

Wow archer, great work once again!

So many models to choose from... I think I have to pick the gnoblar unit fillers for my favorite. I always struggle trying to figure out unit fillers for fantasy. I don't want to do scenery because it always feels weird to me that these trees or fences or moving with the unit. But you pulled these off so well!

I am hoping my own blog will live up to yours (or at least enjoy a little love in its shadow) once I start it up. Just waiting for those pesky bits to come is... as always...

Thanks Freytag83 for the comment. Make sure you put your blog in your signature so I can find it easily.

There are so many great blogs on Dakka Dakka that it is a great source of inspiration. Just pick a subject you are keen on and the community can provide a lot of motivation and support.

I just went through all of your work... Wow!

Subbed!

Howdy all, its been slow going on the modelling front since my last update, I have yet to manage to secure work in my preferred field of expertise which has been frustrating, but I have been doing some cash in hand work which is helping pay the bills. I had forgotten how hard manual labor can be, its been a good ten years since I did sustained work "on the tools" (since walking away from the manufacturing industry as a Patternmaker). Its interesting I keep myself in a fairly reasonable physical condition (never know when you need to run away from the zombie hoard) but I was taken by surprise with how tired I would be from all the welding and repair work I am doing. But enough of my personal life and back to the realms of make believe and my little soldiers......

I again managed to get a game with my Empire Knightly Order, all 2,000 points of them this time. I took on a tricksy Wood Elf army that was a real pain in the Proverbial. What with Waywatchers that are able to ignore my 1+ armor saves and in their first turn absolutely devastated one unit of my knights, they are really brutal. Man of the match on my side goes to the Demigryphs, they can take a huge pounding and keep grinding away. Even though I completely forgot about their stomp ability for the entire game which may or may not have swayed the major combat in my favor. I lost the game in the end and it was largely due to me doing some really stupid things with deployment which left the Demigryphs unsupported and if I had just reached them a turn earlier I may have turned the tide. Plus I failed two pursuit rolls by 1" both times which ended up really hurting.


I snapped this photo as my left flank deployed Knights realize they are way out of the fight and needed to quickly redeploy, the table was really thick with terrain which made my movement quite hard, I think I lost a fair few riders to dangerous terrain which was something I am going to need to think a lot harder about in the future.

I also managed to get some more work done on the Ogres (read finished a single maneater) and present him here for your viewing pleasure:


This is the first of my Maneaters that are to armed with two Ogre Pistols. If you ask where his second pistol is wait for the next photo.....Obviously he is a conversion of many parts including a Tyrant, Butcher and Bruiser as well as a few plastic parts. I am not a massive fan of the Butchers head, but it went into place very easily. I tried to paint a bit of a scale pattern onto his pants to break the space up a little and give the impression they may in fact be made from the hide of lizardmen or some other large scaly beast. From a distance it works ok, up close it doesn't work all that well.


See he does have a second pistol, or in fact a giant rifle looking thing. Since this guy may be something of a reptile hunter I figured he needed some tattoos so I chose some basic serpent looking things. Maybe he adds one everytime he kills a serpent of note?


A slightly grainy close up of some of his tattoos. He actually has one on his cheek and the top of his head as well which I just couldn't get to show up in the photos particularly well.

So that is the hobby progress I have managed in the last week, nowhere near the speed that I was moving last month, but unfortunately life has insisted that I work. This means to finish the Ogre Kingdoms army I need to paint 2 Maneaters, 2 Scrap Launchers and 54 Gnoblars. Of which I need to still buy 1 Maneater (of the Pirate variety, 1 Scrap Launcher and 48 Gnoblars).

Thanks for reading.

I'm about to splurge on an Ogre Kingdom army, got any pointers for me?

Good to hear you got a game. Ogre looks good too.

I'm usually wiped out the first couple-three weeks after work after I've returned from a 3_month layoff let alone years off. You use different muscles to work than to work out and stay fit, you should acclimate eventually.

Glad to hear the Empire got to see some action! Sounds like a bit of a rough game but a good one none the less.

Missing the pursuit by just one inch this the worst!!

I like your newest Ogre. I really like the pattern you've gotten on his pants.

Thanks for the comments. In regards to advice on building an Ogre Kingdom army I am unfortunately not the best to ask. I am a novice with warhammer as it is and I have never used an ogre kingdoms army on the table top. Especially as I tend to build "soft" lists.....

That being said, from my observations their basic troops (ogre Bulls) are really brutal and it just gets better from there. You will have a really small army compared to almost everyone else so get used to that, just know you will likely outclass and outlast a lot of other units out there.

Ogres are a little weak on the magic front so if you are in a magic heavy area figure out some way of stopping magic quickly.

Try to avoid all the wonderful toys that are available to you until you have a nice solid core of ogres. Something my army lacks and I may come to regret it in the future. But not likely ;-)

Yeah, I've heard that you can get swamped pretty easily due to low body count, so you've really got to pick your charges.

Your knights look good on the tabletop. Nothing like being able to play with fully painted units on a fully painted table.

I really like the green wash you put on the higher parts of the gut plate. Its gives it a unique effect I haven't seen before. It goes well with the rest of the model (which is probably why you did it ).

Actually I did the green wash early on and it looked horrible, until I did the pants green too which blended everything together quite nicely.

I would like to thank everyone who has viewed and keeps viewing this blog. It's just reached its 10,000 view and I appreciate everyone that stops by. Thanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Quick update before I get some much needed sleep (this manual labor stuff is hard). On the model collecting front I have managed to secure some cheap Gnoblars off of my favorite eBay and eagerly await their arrival and have my fingers crossed another cheap box pops up sometime between now and when I will need them.

I finished this guy off last night and didn't feel like posting, so here he is a day late.....


This is the second of my pistol wielding maneaters. Like the previous one this is a conversion of mine based on the Ninja maneater model. I think I have done a pretty reasonable job making them look quite different even though I didn't mess around with the pose at all (I didn't feel like making major changes to the model, my converting skills would need a lot more work before I attempted that).


I figure the story behind this particular Maneater is he has developed a serious love of gold and has begun to weave it into all of his clothing. He even has a gold tooth (even though it didn't come out too well in the previous photo, look closely).

So as I said, this is a nice and short update and hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading.

That Maneater looks good, though I agree with you on the Butcher's head. Did you use AP green on the armour plates? It's come out effective with the overall palette of the figure. Nice work on the Godlfarmer's conversion as well. You've made him look very different to the base model.

The green on the butcher maneater was the biel tan green wash from GW applied over the mid tone metal they have. I have never had the courage to venture beyond the GW paint range.

Once you're cashed up again, you have to try some Vallejo. And Army painter. We'll give as much advice as you like on colours/etc. Now promise!

zomg. I love vallejo. Having fun with badger minitare now too.

Hi all, seems I am keeping the updates short and sweet, mainly this is due to an almost complete lack of progress on my part, but life has been well and truly getting in the way. Plus I ground the end of my thumb rather badly which has been making doing any fine motor skill work difficult, but I am healing quite well. I managed to track down some cheap Gnoblars on eBay and spent the evening cleaning and gluing them together and then making damned sure the little blighters would rank up neatly on their nice shiny movement tray.





When I paint them I will paint their position number onto the bottom of the base to speed the setting up process along. I did it with the Empire Knights and definitely makes a big difference when trying to get all of them ranked up.

Hoping this week I can get some paint onto them or at least have the bases prepared. I do have the Tyrant and one scrap launcher ready to paint as well, but I am hoping I can chew through these little guys first and then reward myself with the much juicier models.

Thanks for reading.