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Ogre is cool.

I realized I made a rather heinous adding up error with my Ogre Kingdoms list, so I have updated the original list in a previous post to bring it in line. I was well under the 2,000 point goal so I made the wargear make more sense and squeezed in a Gorger who I think is a deliciously gross model and hopefully will be good for war machining hunting....

I didn't play with OK much, but I do somewhat remember being worried about gorgers.

Been doing some more hobby (strangely enough) and have finished off the Ogre Bull unit from the army. I am waiting for the paint to dry to do the next couple of steps on the movement tray but it isn't needed for the pretty pictures. I have decided that since I am not sure how I want to run the characters in this army (unlike the Empire Knights) I am making the movement trays to fit the unit itself and I will just tack the characters on the side during games. I feel this gives me a little more flexibility, especially as I feel the Tyrant in particular could be particularly effective on his own in certain circumstances. So that means a total of 6 movement trays I believe for this army.

But enough chat and on to my latest offering:


I am really happy with how these guys have turned out. They are very uniform, which isn't all that bad since how divergent the Maneaters are going to be. Also really happy with how the bases have turned out. First time I have painted the bases for any of the armies thus far.


With such large areas of bare skin I added some simple tattoo work on as a very last step as I wasn't planning on doing it at all. But feel it adds a useful point of interest.


I felt by making the unit really uniform and "disciplined" (same colors, weapons etc.) it would be a nice counterpoint to the chaos of the Maneaters. I also loaded them up with extra bits and pieces to make it look like they have loaded up with gear to make a start on their own world wandering.


Being larger models they were a real pleasure to paint as any detail was really easy to get a brush at and I am keenly looking forward to getting on to the rest of the Ogres. Although I am dreading when I need to front up to the 70 or so Gnoblars. I am thinking of making a unit filler for each unit (especially as I am going to be 5 Gnoblars a unit short of the required 35). Could also be a good way of making the sea of green more interesting to look at. Any ideas?

Thanks for reading.

Could have the gnoblars pulling an ogre on a divan/dias/palanquin around? That could take between 4-9 spaces depending on the majesty involved.

I really like the tatts!

What's that bowl in front of the standard guy? Afraid to hear the answer lol.

Not sure what it's meant to be, but it is one of the many, many extras that are included with the Ogres, I figured since their culture is all about food a little bubbling cooking pot of some unmentionable contents fitted quite well. Maybe stewed Seagull or if you are Australian an idiotic, screeching, beach chicken.

The tattoos look fantastic!

I have had a fairly productive time since the last update (which is only a few days old) but I have finished off the first of my Maneater units. This one will count as armed with additional close combat weapons (which is good because it is pretty much what the models are armed with since Maneaters can't have iron fists).

I am finding the Ogre Models really easy to paint and am very happy with the results so far. Just dreading when I need to turn my attention to the Gnoblars....although I figure that since I have taken the Trapper upgrade I should use the planned unit filler to represent them somehow, so maybe a few Gnoblars standing amongst a heap of traps and the like? Maybe two groups taking up 4 spaces each? Know idea how I will do it, but I am liking the idea more and more.

But onto some pictures:


This is the "Araby" GW Maneater and I think his turban/head scarf turned out very well.


The rear view of him, you can thank my Wife for the color scheme. I think she is actually pretty good at choosing color. She also decided on the coat of the next model too.


Here is the GW Paymaster model and I think he is the best of the Maneater sculpts, or at least of the 3 I have currently painted.


Better shot of the coat. Initially I was going to do it a dark and dirty red. My Wife thought it would be better like this. It is growing on me and I think it looks a tiny bit like a flayed skin.


So together with the Ninja here is the first unit of Maneaters on their movement tray. I am pretty happy with how they have turned out and they are all quite different from each other.


The required back shot as there is just too much detail to fit into one photo.

So I am now two units down and it isn't even the end of January, well on track to try for 3, maybe 4 armies in a year. I still hold out hope......

Thanks for reading.

Fantastic, those are really nice, and neat models to boot!

....and I'm finally caught up over here as well!

Some great work you've been showing off, and so prolific as well. Sorry to hear about the job situation, but it's good to hear that you're making the most of it, and it's a nice time of year to have time off at least.

Orks are bloody impressive, and I especially like the Dreads, Kans and the "Trukks". And now you've started Ogres. The Bulls look outstanding, and I'm especially a fan of the tattoos/warpaint on them. I love that stuff. The paymaster guy also looks particularly cool in his Pimp Coat.

 Archer wrote:
Just a quick question to anyone still out there.....what is a good brand of spray varnish and where do I get it? I have tried a few paint on versions and it is a ridiculous waste of time hand varnishing when I could just be spraying.
Any thoughts are most welcome.

For most things I use Wattyl Estapol Matt. I've used it for about 20 years. It's about $15/can. Bunnings used to sell it but it's a little harder to get these days, so I order it in from a Paint store that's local. I think Bunnings sell a very similar stuff by British Paints (Matt Polyurethane), but since the paint place is close, I just stick with my tried and true. As noted earlier, Testor's Dullcote is also quite excellent as well. I keep a can of that handy as well.

Archer, those tattoos on your Ogres are great. I can't free hand well enough to pull that off.

Fantastic work here, I can't believe you've managed to even get this far.

I'm amazed/glad your wife is allowing you to do this!

Keep up the great work.

It's update time yet again. But this one also includes a special twist. I have had my first game of 40k for the year and it was a win for the Orks. Which is great as it was my first outing with the Greenskins (ever!). It was a tightly run thing but in the end my opponent conceded at the end of the 5th turn with essentially only a Rhino and Drop Pod left alive. Man of the match certainly goes to the Warboss, what a monster he is. He led his Nob bodyguard to the demise of Tigirius and Sternguard escort as well as the Ultramarine Terminator Captain and his Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Bodyguard (with a timely intervention of the Mega Nobz). Had a great time and I really feel the blunt tactics of the Orks suits me. Don't think charge. We had a good discussion after the event about where we could have done better and hopefully I get the opportunity to give the Ultramarines a good kicking again later.

But now some pictures:


Here is the first of my Great Weapon wielding Maneaters. The "Imperial" Maneater with his warhammer stolen from a statue somewhere. I think I got a pretty good stone effect going on it. Otherwise he is a little shiny as I used a fair number of the old GW inks so I feel he probably needs a good coat of matt varnish to solve that.


He has a really simple scheme, but I tried to copy what I would do for an Empire halberdier or similar. Not sure I am as big a fan as the previous Maneater models. I am happy with his weapon though.


A couple of action shots from the game. The lonely walk under the stern gaze of an Imperial statue. This Mob of Orks took a serious mauling from a Thunderfire Cannon (my opponent had 2!), but they busted some heads (thanks Mob Rules) and proceeded to sit on one of the 4 objectives for the rest of the game whilst taking Big Shoota pot shots at passing Ultramarines.


One of the highlights of the game, watching Tigirius disappear under an avalanche of Green bodies led by the Warboss. I must admit I never realized how tough he could be with Iron Arm and other psychic shenanigans going on. But my Warboss (or was it one of the other Nobz) eventually saw him eating dust.


A couple of turns into the battle. This central corridor was a lot less defended than I thought it should have been allowing me to quickly close the gap as well as get a Shoota mob well dug into an objective. Next time I feel the Ultramarines won't allow the Orks such free rain to move around.

Well I have had a game and painted some models, tomorrow is Australia day so I won't be managing much hobbying probably but I could probably use a break.

Thanks for reading.

Battle looks like great fun, and played on really nice scenery too!

Looks like you're having fun with them, excellent

The stone for the borrowed hammer is also nice!

Congrats on your win with the orks!

I'm really liking how the Ogre Kingdoms guys are coming along. I believe the Paymaster is my favorite so far.

Thanks guys, the Ogres are definitely rolling along quite well. They were the right army (at least so far) to follow the horde of the Orks. So easy and quick to get through the large areas on the models.

Was great to blood the Orks. Have been invited to join an Apocalypse game in the near future. I don't have any special big models, but I figure my trusty Astra Militarum and Iron Hands could take to the field together and try to swarm a Titan or too....

You could always bring your Orks and take a couple of trashcans and quickly attach arms for s00perd00per stompas?

Hmmm trash can Stompas? Intriguing idea, but no, I must stay motivated on the Ogres otherwise my 3-4 armies this year is doomed.

Bwahaha fair enough and good luck to you!

The update for this week (yeah, yeah I know that my updates are so random I shouldn't say for this week.....but I needed a snappy opening) has two sections, firstly is a little bit of terrain I have been playing with for a while and the second is more Ogre Kingdoms.

I also took possession of the first of two Scrap Launchers yesterday and spent the morning putting it together. I am blown away by the detail and how much craziness is contained within one model (as well as all the tasty extra pieces that would have gone into the Ironblaster had I built it) but at the same time a little disappointed by the size. I had convinced myself that it was going to be huge, I mean it is a chariot drawn by a Woolly Rhino with a catapult on the back for crying out loud. But alas it didn't live up to my wild imagination. But on the bright side it will be easier to maneuver on the battlefield.

I will enjoy painting it, but I have left it in pieces as trying to access some of the detail will be impossible once fully assembled, although I did put more of it together than the instructions suggested, but I am stubborn and impatient like that. Although I won't be painting it anytime soon. Want to get rid of all the other Ogres in the queue first. I am firmly decided on unit fillers for the Gnoblars that show the myriad of traps and pitfalls the "Trappers" in the unit have set up, I plan to do 2 40x40 bases (taking the space of 8 Gnoblars) for each unit. I believe that with all the extra pieces from the Scrap Launcher kits and other pieces it should be pretty easy to do. I hope.

Enough talk though and on to some pictures:


This is a Forgeworld BUilding that I have had for absolutely ages, not sure what it used to be called, but I have finally gotten around to painting it. Kept it very simple, but the building is really able to speak for itself.


I threw the Eldar Guardians in for scale purposes. But you may see them make an appearance in a future Eldar army update (I do plan on doing 7 Eldar armies to go with all the other ones.....I really need to update my first post to include ALL of the armies that I want to do.....)


I wanted the internal wall a diffferent color to the outside so I tried a bit of stipling with what I thought was a suitable boring beige that I imagine many Imperial buildings would have been plastered in. I did try a little harder on the interior consoles as they are a good focal point and probably serve as a nifty Objective in games.


Another console? These Guardians are really lucky, now if one of them could read High Gothic.....

I am pretty happy with how the building turned out. It was done VERY quickly, all completed in about half a day. I didn't want to spend too much time on it as I am too easily distracted at the best of times and I wanted to get back to the Ogres. Which is a nice introduction to......


The next Maneater in the Army and this Ogre is a she! Hands down my wife likes this model the most of any I have done and under her instructions I pushed a little more than I have in the past with free hand hearts on her top, a little blush on her cheeks and pink nail polish on her hands. I really like how she turned out and will fit into the other Maneaters really well.


I have to admit the fishnets may have been a step too far, but it is a huge Ogre female armed with an oversized rolling pin so what was I supposed to do?


This is the first character for the army I have done, which is hard to really say as I feel with the low model count and outlandish Maneaters almost every model in this army is a character unto themself. But the Firebelly here actually fills a Hero slot so he is officially a character. I tried a little more wet blending on the flames and I am happy to say I think I am getting the hang of it. I continued with a stone theme (which I did on the Imperial Maneater with warhammer) and attempted to make his mask look like it was carved from stone. I personally think it works well especially as I chose such a dark skin tone for the rest of him.


In the end he is a pretty simple color scheme and apart from the flames I kept the attempted techniques to a minimum. Not entirely sure why, but I wasn't as enthused by him as the previous Ogres. A side note though I picked this guy up from eBay dirt, dirt cheap although he had an appalling and thick layer of paint and was glued together with a silicone adhesive to boot. I had a lot of success using undiluted Dettol to strip the paint off, although I didn't soak it, just dipped and scrubbed. I didn't seem to lose any detail or suffer any softening of the resin (yes he is Finecast).

So after these updates it leaves me to paint 4 Maneaters, 1 Tyrant, 1 Standard Bearer, 1 Gorger, 2 Scrap Launchers and 70 Gnobalrs (shudder....). So not quite at the end of January and I feel well on track to get the Ogre Kingdoms finished in good order. I may even need to start discussing with you guys what army to do next.......thoughts?

Thanks for reading.

Oh and on the job front I have an interview tomorrow, so wish me luck.....

Looking great!
Next up you should write up a Kings of War army list for the Ogres - since they're both low-model count armies, it should be easy to do any small rejigging or any extra couple of models so it becomes a dual-purpose army.

Then, Beastmen!

Terrain piece is great, I like the different interior/exterior colors and the panels look good.

Both the maneater and firebelly look great! I think you may have stepped it up a notch and things were already looking fantastic. Excellent work!

Looking forward to hearing about another army muahaha.

That terrain piece is sweet. I've never seen that before.

I also like the maneater, and I think the fishnets look appropriate on her.

The blending on the fire is good. Blending is something I haven't tried yet, but at some point am gonna have to take the leap. Looks like you have gotten the hang of it.

Thanks all. I really do feel my painting skills have come along leaps and bounds. Especially when I go back near the beginning of the blog......

If I knew more about Kings of War (and knew someone that played) I would definitely make a list for each of the fantasy armies I do to make them all more useful.

I would really, really love to do beastmen, but like Bretonnia I don't want to do an army with an older book because updating from old to new can be a pain. I have been lucky so far, but don't want to push my luck too much.

Good luck on your interview!

The Maneater lady is pretty great.

I really like the Firebelly. I think you did a fantastic job with the flames.

Huh. Somehow I missed the terrain piece and went straight to the newer ogres. It looks outstanding, and you've chosen well to have the interior a nice realistic beige to the grey of the exterior. That's one thing that kinda annoys me about so much of our terrain - and especially premade stuff - looking identical on the inside to the outside. Just like almost nowhere in real life! You've made this one look great!

It's that time again, another update......this one will be a little longer than the last few as I have not had time to put any photos up so have managed to get 3 more models done. Two of the Models are conversions, one by me and another who I will speak about when I show the photos.

I have also decided since it seems to be the thing to do to keep track of how many models that I paint this year. Not a bad goal several others are doing (you know who you are), so never one to shy away from peer pressure I counted up the models I have counted thus far and including the three I am about to post I am up to 24 models (yes I am including the building...). I think this is a pretty good number, especially as I only just considered looking at this target, but I expect it to sky rocket once I hit the little people ie. the Gnoblars as I have 70 odd of these little blighters to paint.

But enough of my useless ravings and ramblings and of course distractions and on to some pictures:


Here is my Gorger. A late addition to the army (after an adding up error) and I am glad I included him. After he arrived from eBay I assembled and painted him in a couple of days I liked the model that much. He is a definite departure from the appearance of the rest of the army so was a welcome change. I tried to make him as pale as possible to highlight his unfortunate subterranean early life. However, story line wise he is going to be the runt brother of my Tyrant, so to tie the two closer together I am going to use the same skin tone on my Tyrant to tie the two creatures closer together.


He is a fairly lopsided model and even though the rest of the parts fitted together really well trying to get him attached to his base was a real pain in the proverbial.


From the back you can see the myriad bones tied and rammed into his flesh. I took a gamble and tried to highlight that the areas where the bone was stabbed through his skin would be bleeding and painful.


This is the Standard Bearer for my army and alas I cannot claim responsibility for the very nice conversion. I stumbled across him on eBay and secured him for an absolute steal not realizing the vendor does conversions professionally. He trades under the name Thistledoo Miniatures here in Australia and having seen this model up close his work is spectacular. I did inquire about getting some other models done, but lets say the price I got this guy for was an absolute bargain.


There are so many little details all over him that I am not even sure which bits are scratchbuilt and which are simply taken from other kits. (He did turn up undercoated).


As is often the case with me I went for a fairly simple paint scheme to let such a good model to speak for itself. Again with the large flat areas he painted up fairly quickly.


This model is the first conversion I did for the Maneaters (the other two will be up when I have finished painting them). Since there are only 6 official models and I want 9 there was no choice but to do my own. I went for a kind of Asian look with skin tone and the rice fields style hat. I also envision he is a bit of an Ogre slaying specialist as shown by the fact he wears several Gut plates as armor, probably taken as prizes from opponents.


I probably made a poor color choice of the yellowed skin and then bronze armor, it tended to almost blend together. But he is a pretty good contrast to the other Maneaters from his unit.


So here is the second of my three Maneater units, this one will be used as monster slayers as they are all armed with Great Weapons so should be able to deal with high toughness targets.

So there you have it, a Gorger, Standard Bearer and number 6 of my 9 Maneaters. I feel they all have a good character of their own and actually do a reaasonable job of fitting together.

Thanks for reading.

Amazing stuff. I love that Army Standard bearer, and the Maneater looks great as well - how much of it is a conversion and how much is stock? Is it a plastic model?

The standard bearer I have no idea what is what as I didn't make him and he arrived under coated. The man eater on the other hand is made entirely from the plastic ogre bull kit.

Yeah, the Maneater is the one I was asking after - you've done a great job on him!