I used to have one of those Terminator captain models. That built in grenade launcher used to cause all sorts of havoc on the tabletop. Think you used to roll a D20 for it. I can't remember.

That mini was my favourite marine mini for years, why isn't the rim of the base goblin green?

Cool captain. Nice work on the freehand I can see why you're hesitant to strip it. The improvements you've outlined should make a difference though.

EDC

He is also a favorite of mine from the old days, Along with the chaos terminator captain and the inquisitor with bionic leg.

Love the old Terminator Captain. Brings back some crazy memories of Assassins charging two feet across the board destroying dreadnoughts and tanks like nobodies business. I really like the paint job, could so with some touch ups and I would like to see a bigger base. You may need to do some filler on it so he doesn't look tiny compared to modern Termies.

 Slinky wrote:
I think a thoughtful touch-up is going to make him look great - I reckon your list of jobs is spot on, though personally I would leave him on his 25mm base for nostalgic reasons

I do know what you mean, though I've really liked the effect that giving some of my models 32mm bases has had. That would probably be the ideal size for these old Terminators, actually.

 Thraxas Of Turai wrote:
It would be great to see you tackle a whole BA army, I look forward to that. I think your plan seems great, the only thing I can think of is to either change the hair colour or to differentiate it more from the rest of the yellow on the miniature.

It is amazing the difference that the bigger bases make on Marines. My Iron Warriors just look odd to me now on 25mm bases.

I'll probably tone down the yellow on his chest, though I was considering doing the same to his hair. Still, don't want both to end up too similar so I'll choose one. I need to get back to my Iron Warriors as well at some stage - they were being built to 3rd/4th/5th? ed spec.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
I used to have one of those Terminator captain models. That built in grenade launcher used to cause all sorts of havoc on the tabletop. Think you used to roll a D20 for it. I can't remember.

Frag or Krak? Rogue Trader was such a fun, wonderful mess!

Joyboozer wrote:
That mini was my favourite marine mini for years, why isn't the rim of the base goblin green?

I never did Goblin Green rims. I always stuck with black, which I copied from many of the Rogue Trader models. The only exceptions are my desert-based models which got brown rims. I should go back and finish some of those armies as well...

 evildrcheese wrote:
Cool captain. Nice work on the freehand I can see why you're hesitant to strip it. The improvements you've outlined should make a difference though.

Thanks. I'd rather touch it up and be happy with it in 2016 than strip it. After all, stripped old-school figures are easy enough to get hold of. I probably have another one or two of this guy buried somewhere, so no point wrecking this one.

 Theophony wrote:
He is also a favorite of mine from the old days, Along with the chaos terminator captain and the inquisitor with bionic leg.

I started to convert that Inquisitor with bionic leg into an Ultramarine Captain (ripping off that 'eavy Metal article pretty directly.) I never finished either the conversion or the paint, sadly enough - though he did stand in for Captain Invictus during 2nd edition. The poor Chaos guy never even got any paint...

 Archer wrote:
Love the old Terminator Captain. Brings back some crazy memories of Assassins charging two feet across the board destroying dreadnoughts and tanks like nobodies business. I really like the paint job, could so with some touch ups and I would like to see a bigger base. You may need to do some filler on it so he doesn't look tiny compared to modern Termies.

I remember my Assassins being hated on the tabletop. I didn't use them much, but I was never a huge fan of using or playing against psykers, so I always felt that my Culexis was a fair trade. If I go 40mm, I might have to find an appropriate resin base in order to give him enough bulk.

I remember that Terminator! I have a bunch of those old metals, also painted up (badly!) as Blood Angels. I loved them as a kid - 3+ on 2d6 made them seem like such unstoppable juggernauts.

Terminator armour was so amazing. Even plugged by a las cannon you had a chance on those 2 dice.....

Your ideas for revamping the Captain seem spot on. The only thing I might add to the list is to tone down the edge highlights-- the orange is pretty strong. That said, the blending is remarkably smooth, so it might be best to not fix something that isn't broken.

Your point about "character" is well taken. A lot of those older, single-piece metal models had "character" mostly because they were unique sculpts, and didn't have to be compatible with dozens of parts from other kits. Sadly, there were a lot of not-very-good sculpts out there. Funk value and nostalgia go a long way in this hobby, but even so, there is a lot to be said for 21st century miniature sculpting as well.

Yeah, they were bloody nasty. Well, since I fielded some, they were awesome.

BA Captain is now on the painting desk. There's some stuff in the queue before him so I'm hoping to have him done by the end of April at worst. I'm going to leave the orangey-red, since it's part of the "core" of that model. Plenty more models to paint in darker reds, after all. That's a good point, though Josh - this captain has a bit of character, but less than the newer models precisely because due to the way his first-wave arms worked he needed to remain compatible with the rest of the range. It wasn't until this guy came out in the mid-2000's sometime that there was really a dymanic individualised model for a Terminator Captain.

Last June I ordered a bunch of "Fir Bolg" Skeletons from Brigade Models, originally produced and still sold for the "Celtos" skirmish miniatures wargame. By August, I'd managed to paint up a unit of them armed with "Warscythes" to use in Kings of War before my focus in 2015 shifted to finishing off models that had been started months and years before.

For the Tale of Gamers challenge, I decided to paint up some more skeletons. After all, they're quite work-friendly, and it's always rewarding to finish stuff off. I've got a nice bunch of Skeletons done for KoW, role-playing or any kind of skirmish from Age of Sigmar to Dragon Rampant.



Once again, the colour scheme is pretty simple and in keeping with the rest of the army - Red and Black, Iron and Brass, Rust and Verdigris, Cadmium-Red wood - and Bone. The tabards and cloth have either been quartered or feature a par chevron to tie them in with one another or allow a distinction when both units are run side by side. Of course, they can be combined into a "Horde" formation as well.







There's quite a lot of these guys. By my standards, anyway. The initial two models from eBay that led me to Brigade's website have been incorporated into the units, so that just left me with 22 others to paint up to complete the units. As I've mostly worked on them during lunch breaks, they took quite awhile to get done. And yes, I need to touch up the bottom of the base rims.







Yes, I need to get more brown Renedra unit trays. Unfortunately the last time I ordered them from Firestorm they sent me sets of green ones, which clash with my model bases. Spray paint time, probably.



Awkward shield placement. Crescent shields to the rescue! I found the shields on these three to be a little problematic. They came with damaged Celt-ish shields, but these three guys were having none of it. I figured out a workaround, which was to use these really old Citadel shields, and then I followed up with the rest of the models by using selected WHFB4 Starter Goblin shields with skeletal iconography - for what is very much an unrealistic but old-school Warhammer-esque Undead look... (Why are "traditional" RPG and gaming undead covered in skeletal iconography? Who is smithing and painting their gear? - At least the sadly-Squatted Tomb Kings had some rationale behind theirs.) The original shields have gone into my bits boxes, and might come back out when working on Historicals down the line.



I used white for the embossed shield devices shaded with Vallejo's Pale Grey wash so that the shield iconography would be distinct from the "real" bone of the actual undead.



Both regiments combined into a Kings of War "Horde"-style unit. ...Skeleton Horde. There's a ton more photos on my Wordpress - I don't usually manage to paint this many miniatures in one hit, and these guys took a lot of effort and a lot of time - pretty much a full month. As much as I enjoy painting bone, I'm pretty sick of it at this stage. I'm still cleaning up the next unit batch of skeletons (only 12, thankfully), but I'll get the basics done (clean, prime, base coat spray, basing, first wash of brown) and then leave them for a week or two before getting back to them. I think in April I might try to do more character models for the painting challenge rather than masses of troops.

A Wordpress reader requested a tutorial on painting skeletons/bone in my style recently, so I took some photos as I painted these guys up. In the coming days, I'll sort them out and do a write-up. It's actually pretty simple.

Love the look of those skellies - your bone painting technique produces some very pleasing results. Nice models too! Looking forward to that tutorial.

Dude I really do like that approach to bone! it's very nicely done, the colour is perfect for the other spot colours throughout and as a whole look darn impressive!

Actually I'm reminded of Orlygg's (of Realm of Chaos 80s Oldhammer fame) similarly old school painting style. Maybe it's the models? In any case, it still looks great!

These particular models definitely follow the old-school style in many ways. The main things that define my style of bone is that it's (probably unrealistically) clean, and it's all in pale brown tones rather than whites and greys. Basically a result of the paint colour of my formative years being called "Bleached Bone", and the influence of a bloke called Dave Marshall who used to commission paint when I was an impressionable teen and was easily one of the better painters around my circles at the time - He used a technique that wasn't a mile away from what we now call "dipping" but he used various shades of ink, broadly similar to Weety's style. His method of "bone" was also quite yellowish.

And of course an attempt to emulate this sort of thing.


So mine has evolved from that, and while I don't mind using other techniques, that's basically my "default" bone style, particular for army painting when consistency is a thing.

Very nice. Harryhausen would approve.

Lovely work on those Fir Bolg (fun fact: Fir Bolg means Men of the Bag in Gaelic. It might mean Men of the Stomach (since Bolg is the modern Gaelic word for stomach) but Bolg seems to mean some sort of leathern bag or couldron! They were the race who inhabited Ireland before the Tuath De Danann.)

I was not a big fan of those minis when I saw them in the Celtos rulebook, but your clean style really brings out the best in old school minis. It's not cartoony exactly, but it's sort of working really well with those slightly cartoony models.

Everyone else has said it, but it bears repeating: those are some very well done skellies. They seem pretty hefty-- are they metal?

 Theophony wrote:
Very nice. Harryhausen would approve.

Thanks Theo. I have sometimes wondered what Harryhausen would have made of our hobby. I've got my Foundry Argonauts as well that I hope to get painted sometime this year - and WGF Skeletons that seem to be the heirs to his Hydra's Teeth.

 Da Boss wrote:
Lovely work on those Fir Bolg (fun fact: Fir Bolg means Men of the Bag in Gaelic. It might mean Men of the Stomach (since Bolg is the modern Gaelic word for stomach) but Bolg seems to mean some sort of leathern bag or couldron! They were the race who inhabited Ireland before the Tuath De Danann.)
I was not a big fan of those minis when I saw them in the Celtos rulebook, but your clean style really brings out the best in old school minis. It's not cartoony exactly, but it's sort of working really well with those slightly cartoony models.

I did know that they were a Irish/Gaelic raceof men from folklore (like the Fimir come from the Fomorians) though I thought undead were an odd fit at best for "Fir Bolg". Not that I've looked deeply into the mythology/fluff of Celtos to be quite honest. I got the rulebook with some of the models but haven't done any more than browse through it, and I understand that they have a new edition coming out soon(ish) that they're currently playtesting.

 JoshInJapan wrote:
Everyone else has said it, but it bears repeating: those are some very well done skellies. They seem pretty hefty-- are they metal?

Thanks Josh - yep, they're metal. I'd have loved to buy up a bunch of "proper" "oldhammer" skeletons and undead, but I just can't stomach the prices being asked, so these models made for a good enough substitute with enough of a similar feel, since I was after sturdy, one-piece metal cast skeletons that looked decently good and were reasonably priced. Most others I found fell down in one or another of those criteria.

Late to the party, but I do like those skeletons - Definitely give me the "Skeleton Army" vibe as you say - I remember originally painting those with the inks from the Expert paint set - Just a mix of brown and chestnut slapped all over Yours look a bit nicer, obviously

Love both the sculpts and the paining of the skeletons, the drummer especially is full of character.

A bone tutorial from you would be much appreciated.

Celtos is a pretty suped up version of celtic mythology. The "orcs" of the setting are semi-aquatic, being Fomorians. I find the idea of that really cool, but the Orc models leave a lot to be desired. GW River Trolls would go well with the look though.

The Sidhe are also a bit weird - elemental faeries crossed with dragons. Again a cool idea, but the models don't pull it off too well.

Honestly, the Fir Bolg models are the nicest in the range, and they were supposedly wiped out by the Tuath De Danann, who are the "good guy" analogue in Celtos, so it makes sense for them to be the undead faction too.

I've the rulebook since forever, but never got around to playing any games with it unfortunately!

Those skeletons got me into the hobby when i was 14!

I've just got so many rulesets. I still haven't tried out SAGA or Frostgrave, so those are much further forward in the queue than Celtos right now. Let alone things like Wrath of Kings or GW's latest boardgames.

A bone tute will be forthcoming - hopefully within a week or so. I've been putting all of my energy into a big clean-up of the house and (especially) the war room, which has slowly become a dumping ground for boxes and random junk. So as soon as I can manage to sit down and write it up properly.

Awesome stuff, Nerdy - you'll have to start an undead skirmish warband for some good old retrogaming

Now something new to show that's actually very old! (by miniature reckoning, anyway)

Back in the early 1990's, shortly after the release of Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, a small set of Chaos models was released. At least one for each of the four Chaos Powers, and seemingly Khorne got a few extras. These particular models aren't seen a whole lot, as they weren't sculpted by Jes Goodwin, but by Mark Copplestone - and so had a much shorter production life. They're not the equal of Jes' classic sculpts, but they do have an interesting character (there I bloody go) of their own. Objectively, they're not amazing models compared to what has gone before or since, but I still like them.

I haven't managed to find them in Stuff of Legends nor in the old issues of White Dwarf, but I seem to recall seeing them named both as "Chaos Champions" and as "Chaos Warriors" at different times - which also happened with more than a few of Jes' champions. They're that "in-between" style of model that could reasonably fit into either category. These days at least, my thoughts on Chaos Warriors tend towards the more generic models as used in more recent years, so I'll call these guys "Champions" in my own collection - especially as the more generic "foot knight"-style armoured Chaos Warriors were a thing as far back as the pre-slotta days.



This guy is Slaanesh's entry. He features all-original paint from the 1990's as well. Amazingly there were no touch-ups needed whatsoever, nor any embarrassingly garish colour combinations that needed correction. All I needed to do to "renovate" him to 2016 standard was to rebase him - onto a 32mm round in this case since he overhung the 25mm square pretty badly. This way I can legit use him should I ever try Age of Sigmar as well. It doesn't matter in Kings of War as the game uses regimental bases, so as long as the footprint is sound, this guy and whatever other heavy, psychotic bastards he hangs out with can wreak havoc just as effectively once I actually start on them properly.

I've added flowers to his base not because I see Slaanesh as effeminate, but as followers of Chaos that can appreciate beauty as well as debauchery - just as they were back in the RoC days. The shield is NOT freehand, I should point out. It's a decal. It had some silvering but a coat of satin over the top fixed that up well enough.



A rather "cheeky" (hur hur) shot to finish up. It's more than a little silly, but such was life in Nottingham back in the late 1980's and early 1990's and it's pretty well known that the studio didn't take themselves so seriously back then, and took the piss out of everything including themselves (and they liked to sneak stuff past management) so I'm willing to give it a pass while if such a thing were released today, the implications would be a lot more disturbing.

I've got a Khorne Warrior-Champion from the same release who I'll show shortly. He just needs a bit of updating, so hopefully before too long!

Awesome. I have absolutely no memory of that model. I'm not really a fan of Slaanesh, but you made this one work.

Crazy beautiful colors you got going on their. I loved all those chaos warriors when I first started playing, still very cool to see them all painted up in style.

Those oldhammer minis certainly work best when they got a bright paint job going on.

Slaanesh dude looks very cool, cant say I remember him though.

Nifty and always nice when something needs barely a retouch to see use again

Thanks guys! Yeah these models weren't on release for all that long. Or at least compared to the older "classics" like Jes' Champions or the Slave to Darkness (and pre-Slaves) warriors. The ones for Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch might be a bit more familiar, but I'm going to wait until they're painted/ready to show before posting them up.

I might actually gloss his protruding "inner mouth" to make him look a little more freaky.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks guys! Yeah these models weren't on release for all that long. Or at least compared to the older "classics" like Jes' Champions or the Slave to Darkness (and pre-Slaves) warriors. The ones for Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch might be a bit more familiar, but I'm going to wait until they're painted/ready to show before posting them up.

I might actually gloss his protruding "inner mouth" to make him look a little more freaky.

Cool Champion. I really like the choice of colours for the paint scheme, very eye catching.

EDC

Love the gums! it just makes it cool and creepy!

Thanks guys.

A pretty inconsequential update today. I haven't spent much time online over the last week or so, as I've been making some changes to the War Room which involved a lot of cleanup and turfing old stuff, and a sizable donation of old hardware and software to a local retrogamers' group. I'll show the room changes off later on. Probably. This update is simply about documenting another unit completed for the monthly challenge - this one finished at the end of March (see, I've been slow at updating!)

I didn't actually paint all of these guys this last month, but due to the rules of the painting challenge - it's about completing units - which can be finishing off a whole unit of models that only need 2 more hours work on them, or (as in this case) painting two models needed to complete a unit where all of the mother models are already done.



I noticed yesterday while learning to play SAGA that I have another unit that only needs either two more spearmen or a command pair added to complete it as well. That one's getting bumped to the front of the queue for April!



This guy is just here since he's a repair and complete job, and I wanted to document him and forget about him. It's either a Foundry or Warlord metal spear in place of his broken plastic one. I'll sort him out into a unit later. Perhaps in the second half of 2016? I've got 12 or 13 sprues of Moria goblins to paint, plus a few metals - so reasonably achievable to complete with a concerted effort. Oh yeah. Plus trolls.

Nothing like a good hobby room clear out to re-invigorate the juices and establish some areas to focus on, looking forward to the pics. Good to see more Gondor, and timely given the rumours of GW possibly continuing to back a LOTR based game.

I'm more than a little jealous that you have a whole room for hobby stuff. I have a shelf to keep my painting station when it's not on the table before everyone wakes up in the morning.

It's a double-edged sword. It's obviously really good and inspiring to have the room set up to go again, but at the same time, I'm just fething exhausted, and it's going to take some time to get over that.


Here's the next of the Mark Copplestone series of Chaos Warrior-Champions from The Lost and the Damned-era.



Once again, this guy was painted back in the 1990's but needed a little bit of touching up. He'd gathered some dust and such over the years, so he needed a cleaning scrub with a toothbrush and soap(!) to get the stuff off. I highlighted the brass of his armour, and also added a tint of green to it. I also touched up the bone on his horns and skull-pommel which were originally painted with the "base coat-and-ink glaze: done!" method.



All of the finer details around the slightly unknown release dates and such of the figures in this series are in the previous post that showed the Slaanesh Champion. Like the Slaanesh model, I rebased this guy to a 32mm round, which he actually fits on as he had some pretty bad overhang on the 25mm square that he used to reside on. I added the simple freehand Skull Rune of Khorne to his right shoulder. While I do like the newer models and even like the AoS models, but there's something to be said for models that leave a nice amount of flat space that allow some freehand work.



While fixing this guy up and handling him, I started to notice just how much his armour reminded me of the "feel" of samurai armour. Not an exact copy by any means, but the pose and overall shape. I'm sure the mask appearance helps as well. It's a subtler influence, but I think it works well for this figure from the days before Khorne was only about bloodlusting berserkers - the "warrior code" was also a big thing for Khorne back then. As much about blood and marital honour as blood and berserk rage. Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of adding blood and gore to models. Used sparingly, they can be quite effective, but too often a model just ends up spattered with the stuff, or way too many models are covered in it. As can be seen here, I've added some to his axe, and also to the pair of skulls at his feet. Hopefully it looks effective without being over the top.

It turns out I never started painting the Tzeentch or Nurgle models in this series of Warrior-Champions, or the other Khorne guy I found while looking through my figure boxes. I'll hopefully get those painted up as palette cleansers in the next couple of months and then finally be able to show them all off together. Wish me luck!

Good luck! :-) and the warrior looks great, I've been going back through your recent posts of classic models for inspiration, I've got some to paint for LittleH and they're old metal mini's so a similar vein to what you're working on and I love the transition of the bold colours through the ages of the models it's such a bloody fun journey!

I keep thinking to myself that these older models are just a goblin green base away from being lifted straight from the pages of older issues of White Dwarf.

Certainly looking forward to the other two champions.

I thought I knew all the old Chaos figures, but I have no memory of either of these. Very nice classic paintjobs though, well done!

The Khorne warrior looks awesome. I think the blood splatter really adds to the model. Good addition.

Good stuff lately! I badly need to clean up my hobby space. Don't get a lot of time so I've been letting the 'paint something around the mess' mentality win for a long while. Shoudla done it in the winter when I had more time But being able to find stuff and have a large clear space in which to array finished units... appealing.

I keep thinking of other armies/themes I would be likely to enter if we end up doing a round two for the second half of the year. Are there any plans of a round two or is it becoming a lot of work keeping it all updated? Appreciate the hard work btw

Yeah, my hobby space got destroyed a few months ago with unseasonable storms getting water into our basement, then tearing apart some shelving to organize the storage part of the basement better.

It'll be really cool to see all those classics painted up.

Thanks guys, I think I need to keep painting or at least restoring the old Realm of Chaos models while doing the army challenge, because all the Gondor and Skeletons are doing my bloody head in at this point. I need the variety!

The plan is to have a part two in July-December. My biggest difficulty is going to be choosing what to paint myself since Gondor will have a fair bit left to paint and I've barely put a dent into the undead.

Are you able to waterproof your basement at all, Theo? I do remember your thread when it was all happening and it seems to have been a real disaster when the water got in. They're not really a thing here so I don't really understand the finer details of what's needed to waterpoof and insulate them.

Ahh excellent. I've got a number of ideas.

Probably just as well that you guys dont' have basements over there as "insert stereotypical crack about deadly Australian wildlife", eh?

We did have a huntsman spider at the ensuite window the other day, though the screen kept it outside. I had to use a hairdryer to heat up the window frame the next day to get rid of it, though.


(not the spider from the other day, but it was about three and a half inches big. These are the "good guys", too!

I've just finished writing up a "Warm Bone" Skeleton tutorial since it was requested recently, so I've also posted it here in the P&M Tutorial section.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/686793.page#8575602

Gah . you can keep your giant spiders.

Bone looks good, may have to give it a look.

Nothing like a good 80s chaos champion/warrior. The slaneesh one has a fantastic classic paintjob from the 80s, I love it. Get painting those other ones!

Excellent work on that Chaos warrior.

EDC

Awesome stuff, Azazel . Keeping it old school!

Great stuff as ever Az. You have an unending cache of the classics. Love that Chaos Warrior. That whole style takes me right back to painting days long since past!

Thanks for the bone tutorial. I plan to do a second Tomb Kings army at some point (even have been lucky enough to score the models I needed) so will have a close look at your bone work.

Ah I have a bird aviary that has a resident huntsman that keeps the bugs down and scares the hell out of me as I never know where he is when I am checking the nest boxes.

Thanks guys. I picked out the other Chaos Warriors from the same series of models, but with the turnover of the month, It'd back to the undead-gondor grind for the next week or so. I'd have gotten some other stuff done but I ended up spending most of that week cleaning. I just put back an almost-unit of almost-finished night goblin netters & clubbers that I had hoped to finish, along with some Skaven Plague Censer bearers that got part-painted. Now they're back to "reward after I finish my monthly pledge" status.

Welcome on the skellytute as well. I'd planned to take a break from skeletons this month, but I found an annoying set of 10 assembled Mantic Skeletons from Dwarf Kings Hold (the original one) that I'd assembled but not done anything else with. I've added another pair and they'll make up my first unit of Mantic Skellymans. Later on, I'll split them and finish enough to turn them into a unit each of spears and hand weapons - but that's for a later month!

Way to chase off that huntsman with a hair dryer, Azazelx, manliest of men!

Heh. I didn't want to kill it by closing the window on it (since it was on the other side of the security mesh) so I wanted to make it uncomfortable enough to move on. I decided to try some hot mesh action, and it worked.

Definitely one of the advantages of the UK we hunted down all our native dangerous critters before it stopped being PC and the really nasty things can't take on the British Weather.

How big is one of those Huntsman...I am not a big fan of any arachnid let alone the ones that can kill you.

Looking forward to seeing the Plague Censer Bearers, some of the older sculpts are classics.

^ Don't stress, Huntsman spiders won't kill you, theyre just damn fast little runners and will give you the shivers when they really stretch out and fly at you!

I think of them as being the spider equivalent of a lost dog. They're big and hairy, don't seem to know where they're supposed to be, just randomly show up, cause some chaos, and then vanish leaving you wondering where they went.

My wife would freak out .

The water damage we received was due to record rainfall in Missouri history. It wasn't much damage, and the floor was only wet in a few areas, but it was under the carpet so had to move the furniture and rip up carpet that was just thrown on the floor for warmth.

Another unit completed for the Gondor army as part of the Jan-June painting challenge. I'm finding these guys pretty tedious at this point, so I'll certainly be doing something to mix it all up a bit for the July-December challenge.



These guys are another unit that had models shuffled around when KoW went to a second edition. I only noticed the other day when playing SAGA that a unit of spearmen had a couple of holes in their front rank, just waiting for a command pair. So I pulled out an appropriate pair of models and got them painted up pretty quickly.



And the rear view. Shading these banners so they look decent is never fun. I find it amusing that the needs of wargaming result in the Captains of Gondor having armour with more bling than Faramir did in the films. Then again, the other option is either to not have them stand out at all, or have them all standing on big piles of rubble.



Result: Another completed unit of Minas Tirith/Gondor/Kingdoms of Men Spearmen. I should have something more interesting for the next update!

Love the freehand on these guys. The banner is awesome! You must have a pretty large force of Gondor by now. Would be great to see an army shot

That banner is sweet.

How many men of Gondor do you have now?

I now have 192 painted and finished, including war machine crew, plus three finished war machines.

I've got another 12 on my desk (Osgilliath Veterans) plus 12 Cavalry, Denethor, Armoured Boromir foot and Mounted, a second Trebuchet, and 12 Tower Guard Archers.

Then it's back into the boxes of them. I'll get an army shot done soon. I just want to get a few more of the almost-done models finished first...

gorgeous work Az. That is one hell of a lot of figs there. Love to see the war machines too

So about a company's worth so far lol. Holy gak on a stick that's a lot of Gondor troops.

I take it you play War of the Ring then?

I've got the rulebook but have never played it. The Gondor drive is to finish all of the Gondor models that I own and have a finished, finished army. Not just being able to field a fully-painted force, but having every (Gondor) model I've accumulated painted and table-ready. This will include a few units from the Feifdoms, as well as a sub-force from Dol Amroth, and a small force from Arnor (or wearing traditional Arnorian outfits as a tribute to their sister kingdom, depending on the context of a given game.)

One of my small-scale scenic updates today - some things that have been in my "quick and easy to-do" pile for an embarrassingly long time - years in fact.



First up we have the Siege Ladders that came with Citadel's Lord of the Rings Uruk-Hai Siege Troops set. I've never actually purchased one of these sets off the shelf, but I've picked up a fair few random bits of it from eBay and other secondhand sources over the years in excess of a full box. Simple as they are, they've long been in my "yeah, I should knock those out" pile, but as they're pretty unimportant unless you happen to be playing a siege scenario, they're pretty easy to forget about as well.



This grave has been in my collection for more than 20 years now, acquired with some random bunch of things from somewhere, probably from Dave M. Until last year it had the same rough brown basecoat over the "dirt" and black over the headstone and other bits. I'm not who the manufacturer is? Ral Partha or RAFM or Grenadier? Something like that, no doubt, and probably part of a set, long broken up.



Last year I finally glued it down to a Renedra cavalry base and added some PVA around the edges, but it got put away when I cleared the decks for the December Paint Challenge. The other day, while looking for simple undead things to complete I spied it in one of my tubs of half-painted models from the clear-up, and grabbed it out, and then gave it the little bit of work it needed for completion. I chose to paint the bits with a subtle nod to the undead army I've been painting. Metal and rust and brass and verdigris and reddish browns.

Nice

Cool grave. Potentially a great objective marker.

EDC

Cool grave marker and if you don't know who made it then claiming as a scratch build and no one will know

How's your dad doing?

Absolutely love the grave. Something really special about that piece.

Thanks guys. I was thinking this morning about just how easy it would be to scratchbuild more of these, or use things like the Renedra plastic gravestone sprue or those 4Ground MDF headstones and add a mound and decorations from the many plastic kits we have access to. Which I might do when I get around to working on the Garden of Morr and related kits down the line.

Theo - he went home yesterday. More tests and such to come as the cause of his issues is still inconclusive, but he's feeling a lot better and has some medication for the pain he's still got. So more waiting, really. But at least he'll be a lot more comfortable at home.

Another one of the Dungeons and Dragons Boardgame models today. The "Howling Hag" from the Castle Ravenloft boxed boardgame was probably my least favourite model to paint from the entire set, which is why she's taken this long to complete. At first she looked an easy model, and I attempted to knock it out quickly, but the soft detail and general ...I dunno, unlikability? of the model led it to sit in half-painted limbo for literally years, including one (failed) attempt to try and get it out and just get it done.



Ironically, it's been the "Tale of Gamers Painting Challenge" that led me to fish the model out of one of the tubs it had been banished to in order to complete it. When I saw it, I thought "yeah, that's undead" and with April being a very difficult month for me to to various personal reasons, I felt that it might be a way to achieve my self-imposed monthly target on the undead side. After all, I painted two units from scratch last month... Initially, my thought was to potentially use her as a character of some kind, as it's essentially a boss character in the D&D boardgame, but the model just doesn't deserve to be a character in a wargame. Not with so many other, better models at my disposal.



As you can see, I've really just tried to get a "good enough" tabletop level on the model. Looking at it in these photos, I can see how I've completely skipped higher level highlights on the edges of the robes and clothing. But meh. I dislike this model with it's muddy, soft "detail" and so I'm calling it good enough. the reddish and black shawl is an attempt to add a little bit of colour to the model, and is also "good enough" should it ever be used as ...something in the KoW army. Perhaps she could be stuck in amongst the Zombies. It'd work well enough with that giant gob. Perhaps as an (extra?) Necromancer in Zombicide: Black Plague.



Next up, a model started back in the early 1990's, "finished" to a standard I was unhappy with for a long time, buried in a figure case, and recently exhumed and finished to what is again, a "good enough" tabletop standard. I've gone for what has become the more or less default "ethereal" paint style ever since the LotR Army of the Dead became a thing back in the early 2000's.

This guy is the "Haunter" from the 1992 board game, "Dark World". I managed to either save up my money or get gifted this HeroQuest-alike boardgame in my youth. It had to be awesome, right? Look at the cover art!



The miniatures had a definite Games Workshop stylistic thing happening there, which was very exciting back in '92. The Mummies and, well, one of the Skeletons I still have, painted and set up with the undead army. No idea what became of much of the rest of the set, including the large temple that came as scenery in the set, which I started converting way back decades ago but never finished. If I ever do find it, I'll finish it and show it here. Sadly, I never actually played the game. So, um.. yeah.


Dark World Haunter - Original "Official" paintjob (not my paint!)
The Haunter is a relatively simple figure. Even back in the day I didn't like the goofy face that they gave it, so I promptly threw it away, filled in the gap and left what I thought was a much more evil looking ringwraith-style empty hood.



My version of the Dark World "Haunter". The base made it a little awkward when renovating the old model recently but instead of cutting it off and mounting it on a normal GW style base, I just put the whole thing onto a Warmachine-style "rolled edge" base and built up around the rim with acrylic paste. Like the Howling Hag, I'm seeing this as more of a boardgame model, or perhaps role-playing or skirmish gaming than something that will go into a Kings of War army. In this case mostly because I have no idea what profile to use...



So these models might end up being April's Undead entry into the Tale of Gamers challenge unless I can finish off something else. I guess I still have a week, but I need a break from painting skeletons, so we'll see what transpires. In any case, I've got another couple of monsters for D&D/Pathfinder/WFRP/etc.

Look alright to me! Quirky models. Always a good thing.

I'm seriously tempted to dig out my set of DarkWorld minis and paint Korak the Kobran

I'm pretty sure I still have Korak, somewhere...



I needed to paint something different to plastic WoMT this month, so I looked through the Gondor figure box, and pulled out something both similar but different to the usual grind. My small collection of Osgiliath Veterans. Originally, when they were released, I didn't much like the models and got just a few to use as alternative sword captains, but more recently, I managed to pick up a few more so that I could make a small but functional unit.



I know they're pretty good in SBG when led by Faramir, but I don't want to purchase more of them, as they're not cheap in metal from GW or eBay - nor do I especially want to convert a bunch of the plastic WoMT into additional OVs. I figure this single unit will do me for general gaming, and if I ever need more to use in scenario, I can use regular WoMT as proxies.



Since these Veterans have been in the field for some time, I approached painting them in a slightly different way to how I typically paint WoMT, while keeping to a similar palette. Instead of starting with black and highlighting with AP Wolf Grey, which is a blue-grey; I started with VMC Dark Grey and added a small amount of AP uniform grey for the highlights, which is much more of a neutral grey. The leather straps were done in the usual WoMT way, but all of the extra cloth parts, such as cloaks, bedrolls, satchels and shoulder bags and extra belt pouch bags were painted in a mixture of colours taken from the palette that I used for my Rangers of Gondor, since those guys will at times be used for Faramir's rangers (along with those of Blackroot Vale and of course, the Grey Company!)



The metal of their armour was painted differently as well. I started with VGA 72.754 Gunmetal, highlighted with VMA 71.072 Gun and a very subtle highlight of Citadel Ironbreaker. After I completed my highlighting and shading of the entire model, I gave them a wash of 1:1:2 AP Dark Tone (black), AP Strong Tone (dark brown) and Windex as my thinning medium. This added a touch of grime to the models, to represent them having been out in the field for some time. The final touch (aside from flesh and hair) was a very subtle highlight of the wings embossed on the helm with Ironbreaker, to help reinforce the faces of the models as their focal point.



This shows the different tonal qualities of the various Gondor models. Dol Amroth (blue tint, brighter metal), Minas Tirith (black tint, mid-tone metal), Osgiliath Veterans (brown tint, darker metal), Ranger (natural tones)



It turned out that I only had 10 Osgiliath Veterans, so when I spent some time late last year trying to sort out my unpainted Gondor models, I decided to give them a couple of models to act as command, rather than buy more models. I threw a Gondor standard bearer and a spare Faramir into a baggie, and job done! I've got another of the same Faramir model, which I'd painted several years ago, after I'd started this blog but before I started really updating it with any frequency. He was of course painted to fit in as a commander of the Gondor army, and occasionally managed to take the field. It can be seen here. This time, I wanted the Faramir model to be very much part of the Veteran unit, and so he was painted with the same palette of greys, with just a touch of AP Wolf Grey mixed into the top highlights. I also added some gold trim on his armour and the white trim to his skirts to help distinguish him as the unit commander on the tabletop. While the Faramir is a nicely understated model, it's not really a stand-out model for someone as important as Faramir.



I found the Standard much more interesting as a model. Once again, greys are the base, and browns the additive colour rather than blue-grey. I added a bread bag from a Warlord German to his hip to help him fit in with the troops, and also took his metal head off and replaced it with a Warlord Roman Veteran head, to which I added a touch of bloodstain on his bandanna. I also painted him with blonde hair and attempted to create a stark, greasy look with a dark wash. (As we know, greasy, dirty blonde hair just ends up looking brown, but this is miniature painting.) And yeah, I know Osgiliath Veterans can't technically have a standard bearer, but he can easily be used as a Spearman, given the pointy end on that banner pole!



The "Kings of War" style unit photos this time show off one the different configurations that these guys can be set up in, in order to bring one type of weapon or another to the fore, should I decide to vary the unit profile. Just swap the spears or swords or bows to the front!

That's a pretty sweet unit. I like the subtle ways you are making all of these essentially identical twins units look different. Also, seeing them ranked up on the tray sort of resolves an issue I have with the way so many KoW players deal with MMC. I aim for 100% (10 for troops, 20 for regiments, etc.) but there are so many players showing off legions consisting of maybe ten models, with all sorts of terrain and crap covering the rest of the tray. Your units look like units, and I would much rather face them on the tabletop rather than a bunch of trees or wedding cake toppers.

Thanks! - The basing works for me since I get to use round 25mm bases - which I prefer aesthetically - and figures doing double-duty from other games, such as LotR, 40k, Confrontation, D&D, SAGA, etc can just be popped off and carry on just fine.

I've been moving some of my larger models like Chaos Champions towards the 32mm bases, since they "fit" the models much more nicely. I haven't worked out how to resolve that with the standard KoW regiment footprint yet. Though I figure I'll worry about it later.

Nice crop of stuff lately! That's a lot of gondorfolk done and to do.

You're really nailing these banners, mate. Good stuff! Quite liking the Osgiliath vets too! Look suitably battered and bloodied. Looking forward to the army shot!

I never get how you can crank out these units at such a fast rate and maintain your excellent quality, brilliant stuff Az. The bloodied banner bearer is especially evocative.

I agree with you about the aesthetic benefits of round bases, and although they caused some grumbling upon release the 32mm bases are extremely useful for all sorts of miniatures, not just Marines.

Awesome work, the pic showing your various Gondor styles is very cool.

Thanks guys - the two keys to my output this year has been a combination of forcing myself to get stuff completed via the painting challenge and doing some of the really tedious stuff at work. The two units of Gondor Cavalry that I can't seem to get finished would have been long done by now if they were small and sturdy enough to take to work - but a double-no on that front. And now, this week's stuff!



In much the same way as I've grown sick of painting plastic Gondor dudes over the past few months, I've grown equally sick of painting Skeletons. As the time counted down for April, I happened to spot a pair of Zombies sitting randomly amongst the painted undead out in the War room. I'd painted the pair one weekend last year after seeing them randomly sitting on my painting desk, partly-done. So with absolutely no randomness this time, I grabbed out a couple of Mantic's Zombie (and one Ghoul) sprues, clipped a few off, cleaned up the bits, and then assembled them, attempting to build as many unique figures as possible while bringing the total to 12. Not all that easy, as the Mantic Zombie sprue is pretty limited. The parts from the ghouls aren't a terribly hard kitbash, but I did find that the kits weren't designed with inter-compatibility in mind when they were originally tooled and sculpted. Mantic weren't all that forward-thinking at the time, I guess.



Now, we all know that a mere dozen Zombies isn't all that many, even when reprsenting "20" on a regmient base. I reckon I'll slowly build up a tarpit unit of Zombies, a dozen at a time over the course of whenever I feel like painting more zombies. I know I could churn out a ton of decent looking ones very quickly via "the dip", but somehow I managed to really quite enjoy painting that first pair last year, so I decided to paint them via brush instead.



Having said all of that, the Army Painter Washes did most of the heavy lifting. After basecoating the flesh in various mixtures of Vallejo Model Air: Sand, Aged White, Duck Egg Green and AP Camo Green and VGC Off White for flavour. Then AP Purple Wash, Green Wash and some Lahmian Medium. For the rags I continued with the "army palette" of dirty dark grey to stand in for black, rather than a more realistic various shades of brown. Once again, I mixed up some greys, this time adding Sand for the hightlight mix colour, so as to avoid a monochomatic grey. Dark Tone AP wash to finish off.



Next up was painting in the exposed bone and various bits of exposed muscle and offal, then lightening or blackening the edges of some of the torn flesh as I felt appropriate. Did the "lunch" portions of those who have been dismembered by the zombies in slightly "fresher" skin tones, and then did a little work picking out teeth and eyes and hair. I added a bit of bruised skin via additional brown-purple washes on many of the models, though it's a bit hard to see in these particular images.



Finally, I matt varnished them, and once dry, went in for a bit of fun with the Blood Effect paint. In this case, Citadel's Blood for the Blood God. I think the most surprising thing about these guys was just how easy and more importantly - fun they were to do. So much that I'm tempted to start another unit of 12, which I'll them be able to combine with these guys into a horde.



Here's the traditional regiment shots. Another use for these models is to use them for Zombicide Black Plague. I'm tempted, but the fingers on them are pretty fine and fragile. When I was clipping and assembling them I've already managed to break a few off - so I just painted the stumps bloody - fits zombies, anyway - but with the amount of rough handling the Zombicide models get, it might not be such a good idea to use these guys in the game...



Yep, this unit was very much an enjoyable time.

Nice work on the zombies, gotta love that 2 part torso and legs, great idea!

EDC

I second the love for the legs and the torso. geat way to bulk out a unit!

very subtle work on the osgiliath vets btw

Mantic zombies/ghouls are a blast to paint. I really like the variety of skin tones. It seems like a lot of work, but the result was worth it.

Lovely job on the zombies Azazel Excellent stuff!

I still have about 40 Mantic plastic sci-fi zombies to assemble *sigh*

The zombies are looking really good .

Thanks again for setting up the challenge, I wouldn't have nearly as many models painted without it going on. I can challenge myself all day, but having a group of people there to also see focused on a goal helps to motivate us.

I'd love a job where I could paint at work, what is it that you do again? I already know i'm not in the field I should be, but it might give me an idea over here.

Really cool zombies. I am feeling vaguely inspired to strip my 80s metal zombies and re-do in this style. After I've painted all the grey plastic that is still in boxes...

12 is a good number for Dragon Rampant gaming, incidentally. You could potentially make 2 Ravening Horde units, even (since they're only 6 strength points each).

Spine guy! :-) my favorite!

That spine.. ugh. grisly stuff. Good job.

Thanks everyone! These guys were actually a really fun and easy unit to paint.

@EDC - it's a nice touch the way Mantic added those parts to the sprue. Very much gives the opportunity to add some extra character and humour to the models.

@weety - thanks. I wanted the OVs to be clearly the same as the normal WoMT but a bit different, and add some visual ties to the rangers as well. And yeah, the dismembered parts add a nice "bulking out" ability to the sprue.

@Josh - I'm happy with the way they came out, and it was surprisingly easy to do. A lack of complex clothing - skin, loincloths and viscera is a pretty easy combination. I'm trying to work on some Mantic Skeletons and finding it to be a real chore/ordeal since the detail is both really fine and really shallow. The Zombies are much, much nicer to work on.

@AOV - I'm assembling another dozen of them now, and the plan is to use a couple of different base skin tones to this next batch (and I guess later batches as well) so they're varied without being too unrealistic. I haven't even looked at my sci-fi ones since boxing them up when they arrived. I suppose I should keep some sprues of these ones clear so I can combine them with the sci-fi ones.

@Theo - no problem mate, my own productivity is doing well - the drawback I'm finding is that I run out of time to work on anything but Gondor or Undead models, due to the personal goals I set up for myself. Round 2 (July-December) will be a bit looser for me, I think. 1x Gondor to get me to finish all of those models, and 1x "a unit from anywhere else." So I can complete other things and keep myself interested. As for painting at work, I don't paint "while working" - I get 2 breaks during the day - a tea break for 15mins which works out to be about 7 mins once I've gone potty and got to the break room, so it's a fast coffee and sitting down for about 3-4 minutes; and a 30min lunch break, which once again works out to about 25mins if I'm lucky, so I just go to a quiet room that's unused during lunchtimes and paint for about 20mins (if I'm lucky.)

@Ian - That's always the problem - so much to do so it's a real balance issue to go back and redo the old stuff. I've got DR, though I haven't played it yet, I've read through some of the rules. We've started trying to work out SAGA lately - that's the biggest obstacle - being the guy who has to read the rules, understand them and then teach everyone else in the group....

@nerdy and ckig - it's a great little touch, isn't it? Full credit to Mantic/Naismith for that one!

The Zombie/Ghoul ickiness looks spectacular. Will look fantastic shambling around the battelfield.

On the Blood for the Blood God effect paint; how is it to work with? I have an idea for the Khorne Aligned 40k army I want to do and was wondering how it would look if I painted 60-80% of a model that had already been painted with it? You know to try and give the effect that they had been coated in a film of blood? Or would it be too much?

Excellent stuff Az, gruesome and cool at once. Having painted some 160 odd Mantic Zombies in my time I never thought that I would be happy to see them again but these look great.

The BFTBG is a bit thicker than regular paint. I feel like it would probably be a bit much, though a test model would always see if it gives the effect you're after. You can always add quite a lot to certain areas, and then go heavy on the old toothbrush flick, though...

160 Zombies? Holy crap, no wonder you never want to see one ever again!

I think there are other, more difficult, methods that would be superior for head-to-toe gore Archer. I feel bftbg really shines (literally, its quite glossy) on bloody accents such as claws and teeth, obvious wounds, and extremely fresh blood. It's quite thick but its interesting. It's not 'exactly' like thick normal paint, the consistency let's you pool it up for deep gloppy shiney chunky gore, and spread it thin and streaky for a different look all in the same application.

Azazelx, great stuff! Awesome zombies even if you did give 'the dip' some cheek. . Very pale and ghastly, I like that especially after doing so many of my own 'brown for some reason ' dudes.

I gets out the same downtime at work too. I just thought you might be some type of cubical worker where the bosses never come around to see what your up to .

Theophony wrote: Fellow DakkaDakka users,

Azazelx has asked me to stop in here to speak for him as he has been dealing with an unexpected family tragedy over the last week. For those who have been following for the past few months you may have read in his blog, or here about the ongoing health concerns of his father, but this event is not related to those occurrences and was a severe shock to him and his loved ones. He has returned back to work and has begun browsing the threads again, but is not ready to participate in discussions right now so it may be a short time until we see or hear from him. He will elaborate when he can but currently he just needs to get back to normal so he will not be updating his thread or the tale of 35 gamers thread for a short time.

He does not want to tie up his blog with well wishes or condolences from everyone, though he know that we as fellow DakkaDakka members are right behind him 100%. He also does not feel like elaborating at the moment as to what has transpired, or even to answer well meaning questions as he is trying to make sense of it himself currently.

Thank You everyone for your thoughts and prayers at this time. I'm sure Azazelx appreciates them. In his absence lets fill some pages of DakkaDakka threads with some great eye candy for him to view when he needs to take his mind off of his current situation.

Theophony