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Not seen any of the Descent models before - I think you've made the best of them, agree they probably aren't worth more than a "tabletop" job, but with the basing and the movement tray they look decent

Love those battle report pics Az and very much looking forward to more. Can't say I'm a fan of those hellhound models but you at least improved them with that paint job.

Thanks guys, and yeah, those Descent models are simply tabletop quality paintjobs, which is all those models are worth - but at least they'll look better than bare plastic when I do play the game.

Those of you who are regular readers may have noticed I've not been posting for a bit. The short version why is that after several months of lining up a post every two days, I burnt out on blogging for awhile and needed a break. So anyway, I've still been painting, I'm back again, and I'll attempt to get a post up at least once and ideally twice a week again. During my "time off" I haven't really been following others' blogs, either here on Dakka or over on Wordpress, excepting the odd WP one that pops in my inbox. I've been reading through the 8th edition 40k threads, which has quickly added at least 5 more people to my ignore list. feth there are some dumb and entitled fethers in those threads. I'll catch up on the blogs here where it's nicer, but I have been finding that just keeping up to date on other people's work takes a good few hours each week, and when you're tired anyway it can become quite draining. I'll catch up guys, just give me some time.

Anyway, enough of my bitching and on to why people actually visit this plog. Models!

Well, one model.



What we have here is the Ninja model from Talisman: Adventure, circa 1986. I picked this model up in the deep dark mists of time alongside several others that never got painted (or finished at least), including the TL9 Talisman Troll, who has also been showcased here a couple of years ago. Let's face it, I probably got them all off Dave (who I still haven't managed to track down!)



Nothing especially exciting about the paint scheme here. I've gone for black highlighted with blue instead of grey because that's how blending in at night works, and painted his blade with a couple of dark metal tones from Vallejo. I've avoided the "highlight to white" look, because as awesome as it can be on other people's figures, it's generally not my own chosen look outside of hard armour edges on Marines, Eldar and such. There's a sort-of zenithal thing going with more highlighting on his shoulders and hood than his lower half, but unfortunately for these photos, the satin varnish I chose to use on this model - which gives the model a really nice, subtle, look in hand - makes him look like he's been swimming in gloss varnish in these photos, so these things are much harder to see here.



There's not much else to add about this guy. He's a Ninja model from an old edition of a game I'm not likely to spend much time with, because (despite owning almost all of the GW2e and most of the FFG stuff) Talisman is bloody tedious - and more a way to burn away an afternoon talking and such before deciding to pack it away unfinished than a good game, especially by today's board game standards. With that in mind, it's pretty much a figure that might be pulled out for the odd RPG or custom miniatures scenario, like that Scooby-Doo 7TV one I've had in my head for the past several years. Or... Imperial Assassin, anyone? Still, done is done!

Yet another model I have never seen. I have fond memories of Talisman as the game we played to kill time waiting for the enemy player to finish his turns in a game of WHFBv2. I suspect most of that fondness is nostalgia.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of color (or place to feasibly put color) on ninjas. I think he looks good. I found Talisman made an okay Steam game and a once ever only as a board game. There's easily a hundred games out there that do the same thing better.

Oooh I do love it when you get snarky! :-) but at any rate I'm glad you are still doing hobby stuff, burn out is a thing that effects all of us and it's the edge where some claw back into it while some jump off and never return! you I think just needed a break.

Thanks guys. I agree that the Steam/PC/Mobile version of Talisman is probably a better actual game in many respects, simply by virtue of the boardgame bar on those platforms being so much lower (and solo). One reason for my burnout was having such a backlog of stuff to show that I pretty much needed to post really frequently to get it all out there. I didn't even get all of that done. Of course, in my month off, I've increased that backlog even more, so...

Today we have the next couple of figures from my Viking project.



I'm not sure of the origin of three of these models, as once again I got them from Cannon at work. They're smaller than the Foundry models, so I know that much. As per usual, painting the shields was one of the more enjoyable parts of these models, despite being a slow process of researching appropriate designs that look good and are achievable. The guy on the left is my first attempt at painting knotwork at this scale, within the arms of the cross. I also figured I probably needed at least one more Raven shield in the mix, so there's that as well.



The figure with the knotted cross on his shield is actually a conversion. Cannon had replaced the original head with the one with braids and domed helm, and also sculpted the fur cloak over his shoulders. He'd also changed the weapon to the (plastic) axe. If you can't tell it's a conversion, it speaks to what a good job he did with it. It looks pretty seamless to me!



Clothing colours are always hard for me with these Viking figures. Wanting to strike a balance between clean, colourful clothes (as we believe they favoured) with not getting too bright and "90's Games Workshop" and being aware of the limitations of the natural dyes of the day, and the fact that they (naturally) faded over time, while wanting to retain some earthy tones in there, which would have presumably been the colours of majority of the easily-produced cloth... We know that for much of history, reds and purples were signs of wealth - especially strong tones. Blondie here obviously spent most of his money on his luxurious crimson cloak!



The lad looking a little mode berserker-ish here than the others, with the honking great axe is from Eureka Miniatures' Beowulf line. I mentioned the fur that was sculpted on the guy with the knotwork shield above; I think he'd also sculpted the fur on baldy here as well. I honestly can't remember since he's been undercoated and WIP for so long now, but I remember a couple of them had sculpted fur on them, and without knowing their origin to look them up to check, I really cannot tell. Update! - It turns out not, as "baldy" is actually Gripping Beast's own Jarl Sigvaldi, Jomsviking Hero. Are any of the other models I have here amongst the three hearthguard that he comes with? I have no way of knowing since, uselessly, Gripping Beast's website doesn't show them at all.



Obviously one of these guys is well suited to the Berserker role, while the other is set up more nicely to be a Hearthguard. I was in two minds on going so bright with the blue cloak, but decided that he looked like a veteran of many battles who would in turn have earned enough wealth for a nice looking cloak.



Finally, the group shot of this small cohort of axemen. More vikings to come, soon!

I was outside yesterday evening taking some photos of models I've finished recently. When I came inside and started moving photos off the camera to crop, I noticed quite a few photos that I'd taken for posts before my little break. So I'm going to share a couple of these first. As it happens, there's so much stuff between the stuff I still hadn't shown, game mats to review, and the models I've painted in my month off from blogging I'll have to go back to posting every two days again just to have a chance to get through them! I guess I could post up models 10 at a time or something, but I much prefer to show them in smaller numbers, which is closer to how I actually get things painted - in groups of 1-4 at a time - outside of the occasional whole-unit batch like the BFSP Dwarves or the Spartans from last January.



More stripey trousers and[/url] swirly tattoos. On one hand, it's just what I do with Slayers. On the other hand it does get a bit boring after awhile, so I'm tending to try and figure out ways to make them a little different in each pair. Here we have slightly wider and slightly narrower blue stripes than usual. CREATIVITY!



As far as the Marauder Slayers go, this pair is pretty good. Not overblown, and enough individuality that each of them is a unique enough character. Once again this pair's tattoos look a little faded in spots, but they still look nice enough in person.



This guy seems a little more aware of his station in life than most of our miniatures...

Having displayed this pair, I'm left with one final Marauder MM16 Slayer to show off. Expect to see it very soon!

Nice pose on the guy with the club.

All these dwarves look great, the old school models were so much more characterful. You've done a superb job bringing them to life, and I love the striped pants

Thanks guys. I appreciate the comments. Really helps to keep me motivated.

Just as with the dwarves I’ve slowly been cranking out, I’ve been trying to keep a few old-school goblinoids on my painting plate. I’ve tended to choose them based on the criteria of how easy they look like they would be to get painted, so simple clothing and/or lots of armour drives them to the top of the list when I browse my box of metal greenskins.



The orc on our left is one from that crossover period between WHFB2nd and 3rd editions. A Kev Adams sculpt with the fetching identifier of “Orcs with Dual Weapons 05”. Despite his rather awkward posing, it’s a decent model. I used some ochre brown in the skin mix of the two orcs here in an attempt to start varying the skin tones of these guys a bit. While it (obviously) adds more yellow to the overall look, I’m hopeful that it’s not too garish. I’ve opted to use a metal Foundry Viking shield instead of a plastic, though I’ve kept the design to simply block colour.



Speaking of garish… the Goblin is from the C12 range circa the mid-late 1980’s, though I’m not sure of the exact year as the catalogues are spotty from that era.the cast I have here is pretty rough, so it was a matter of doing the best I could within a reasonable amount of effort for a tiny model. It’s a Kev sculpt, but predates his “signature” goblin look, with smaller, tighter facial features and an integral shield rather than a boss for plastic ones. He actually sat in a case half-painted for many years before I noticed him recently and decided to get him done. Which also took awhile…



The central model on the 32mm base is the newest of this trio – a 4th Edition Orc listed in the Black Catalogue 4 (1994 filled with 1993 models) as “Orc with Sword 3”, though he’s a bit bigger in stature than his fellow, “Orc with Sword 3” painted awhile ago which is what led to me mounting him onto the larger base. He’s not as big as the actual Big’Uns, but he’s not far off.

…which kind of leads to my question for you, dear reader. While I’ve been working casually on these Fantasy Orcs, With the promise of 8th Edition looming, I’ve also been eyeing off my old-school RT Orks and the more recent 40k Brian Nelson Orcs that I started working on in 2005. (OK, recent is relative). The 40k plastics I mentioned, being larger certainly overhang their 32mm bases, though the “official” size remains 25mm. I feel that they’ll look better on the 32mm bases, just as their classic counterparts, Space Marines do. I’m not yet convinced either way on which way to go – the better aesthetic choice? The “official” choice? Wait and see what conventions on basing that 8th brings on release? At this stage it would not involve a terribly large amount of rebasing. Any thoughts?

Lots of great models, coming along faster than I am able to comment. The vikings, in particular, are fantastic.

I can only speak for myself, but I tend to use the smallest base I can, as long as the models feet to hang over the edge. I'm not a tournament player, so variation in base size doesn't bother me at all.

Love the Old School Kev stuff - nicely painted here too!

Nice looking greenskins there mate.

Some of my favorite models were done by Kev, and now painted by Az.

Orc with sword 3 is my prototypical mental image of how a fantasy Orc should look and, as ever, your paint work has more than done him justice.

I say put the minis on whatever base you want, your collection, your rules. I tend to agree that the 32mm bases look great for so many models, makes you wonder why we did not see them sooner.

I never thought i'do say this about an Ork, but those Orks are beautiful.

EDC

Thank you, guys!

@Josh - Not so much that I'm suddenly churning them out, but trying to get past the backlog from the times when I am productive, or get a lot of stuff finally finished. Having said that, I'm going to try and get a batch of 20 (mostly ex-Citadel) Vikings done from start to finished this weekend. Wish me luck! I'm leaning towards the 32mm bases for the Orks, but I think I'll go for a test model first.

@Alpharius - thanks! I've got some figures that should be right up your alley on my desk that I'm hoping to start soon*. I just need to finish enough other figures to make space to start on them. (yes, seriously, it's a bloody mess!) *"soon" is a relative term.

@JamesY - thank you mate!

@Theophone - high praise indeed, Theo. Thank you.

@ListenToMeWarriors - I agree with you on that particular orc. He's got the right balance of stance, balance, brutal confidence and a gnarly enough face. As for the bases, I’m with you there. I’m not worried about tournaments or opponents. I just have a touch of OCD that makes me (generally) like to have the right base size, so it’s that versus aesthetics (I think I prefer the larger ones). I'll have to get right onto that test model...

@evildrcheese - thank you sir. I'll endeavour to get more finished before too long.


Now, today's model!



This guy is the final one of my Marauder Slayers. *As far as I know, at least. Clearly, the reason he’s lagging behind by himself isn’t because I forgot to photograph him at the same time as the previous pair of slayers and only had one left to do… Oh no! It’s because of other reasons. Clearly, someone stole his moustache and he had to investigate!



Since he’s wearing not only a kilt but a fly plaid over his shoulder, I went for a simple tartan using a dark, muted green. Since that’s all he appears to be wearing, aside from some jewelry, the rest is simply tattoos, skin and tattoos. I’m happy with the look of the tattoos here for a change, and that’s something that I can at least say I’ve improved on to a point of satisfaction as I’ve worked my way through these slayers. Tattoo colour and stubble. Tattoos. I certainly used that word a lot here.

Tattoos.



In the past, I never liked this particular figure, probably because of his lack of moustache to go with the beard, but having painted him I now quite like him, and the chin curtain he sports is one of the main reasons why. He’s one of the more sensible of the Marauder Slayers, and could easily be used as a Roleplaying figure or a character of some sort. Yes, he absolutely has an oversized head, even by the standards of Citadel’s macrocephalic dwarves, but he does at least have a lot of character in that noggin and face.

While this guy marks the end of my Marauder Slayers, he’s far from the last of my overall Slayer contingent. Just for starters, there’s a bunch more of those Citadel ones, plus the ones I found in a pile, bathing in Simple Green, waiting to be stripped. Then there are the Avatars of War models…

Glorious oldhammer you have there.

Thank you, mate!



In the last couple of years under the direction of new CEO, Kevin Rountree, Games Workshop has seemingly remembered that it’s a games company. The results of that has been a flood of new boxed games, most of which have been for the dual purpose of bundling models – i.e: Discounting their overpriced models without actually, officially discounting and also to produce games, which are giving their rules writers some chops and experience in, you know, rules writing. Happily, many of these products are actually good games by all reports.



One of these games I’ve picked up is Gorechosen. The game where Khorne’s champions beat one another to death in an arena setting in a very-much-beer-and-pretzels style game that’s reminiscent of a WWE Royal Rumble kind of thing. Well, more like a Fatal Four-Way Elimination match to nitpick, but I digress. It’s quite a good, light, fast game. So for me it was a no-brainer to pick up since I only had one of the models included (via an eBay secondhand thing) and their individual prices are, frankly, horrific (remember, I’m an Aussie – so take your local prices and make them even worse!)



What sucks is that in several regions (including my own), the game appears to not only be sold out, but hit with the dreaded dual “No Longer Available” and “Sold Out Online” stamp, which is a real shame, but speaks as to the way GW is pumping out these games with a very limited and defined shelf life. It also means we’re up a certain creek if we need to replace any components due to loss or damage. Bah. If the game sounds interesting, I’d get thee to a demo game or pick it up while you can. I’m sure there should be copies of it for cheap on eBay with the models stripped out, and as you can see, those are easy to proxy in – so as I said – a worthwhile fun, simple game to add to the collection for a varied session.



Anyway, the models are (too) sweet, and not having painted any Khorne in quite some time, I decided instead of getting right into them, I’d choose a few other models as proxies, that while still looking impressive, aren’t quite as expensive or involved as the official models. That way I’d have some things to play the game with while getting my Khorne Mojo going again – and then I can paint the proper models. In the meantime, this guy in WIP form, the Champion of Khorne, Champion of Nurgle, and Khorngor Champion (and a couple of others) have been getting some playtime in.



Colour scheme is pretty close to the “official” one, whicn in turn is pretty much Khorne-standard as established over the last 30 years. When I paint more of these guys and turn them into units for AoS/KoW/etc I’ll probably start to vary them more into something approaching different “uniform” schemes and effects (lacquered armour, etc) for every 8 or 16 of them. Without being too uniform of course, because chaos. I’ve added the little skull to the base not only as an aesthetic choice, but as a “front” marker. Miniatures (and GW’s ones in particular) often seem to have their bodies facing one direction while their heads face another – which is fine – but Gorechosen is a game where facing is a thing, so I’m using skulls to mark the “front” of the models that will be used in the game. The rest of the base is painted in keeping with the arena floor used in the game.

Looks great there buddy! Skin tones are coming up nicely and I like the bloodstained axe on that guy. :-)

Those Khorne dudes are very cool. I think you're right about Gorechosen too -- plays fast, needs some skill, good fun. I've been thinking about making an arena terrain piece to go with mine but fear it might not get much use outside of that game.

Dammit - don't you hate it when you type half a reply, then forget it's there and do something else with that tab?

So rewriting it... thanks guys, More Bloodgorechosenreavers to come in the future as well, though probably piecemeal for the time being - they can fit into my "bare-chested humans" slot - and Ian - I think that's a great idea! I say go for it on the terrain piece. You could use it as a building with a detailed interior for any number of other games like WHF/AoS/40k, and it's such a good idea that when I (eventually) get myself some Hirst Arts moulds, I may well do the same. I'd love to see what you can come up with for inspiration!

And now for something completely different, with no relation to pro wrestling at all....

Welcome to another “final models in the set” post, following up from completing my Marauder Slayers recently. This is the final post in the saga that has chronicled me working my way through the Vikings given to me by Cannon last year. I feel like if he hadn’t applied friendly pressure on me to take them, I wouldn’t have then felt so obliged to paint them, and they’d have instead ended up in my Lead Pile, with the best of intentions – alongside all of these 1980’s and 1990’s Warhammer/Oldhammer models I keep pulling out to paint. As it happens, painting them 2 or 3 at a time has been an enjoyable palette cleanser as I work my way through my many other projects, and now I have quite a nice looking little warband of Vikings all painted up (which I’ll sort out a group shot of, soon!)



The first pair are from Wargames Foundry. I even managed to identify them. The swordman is “Bue the Pious“, who received a shield featuring a second knotted cross.

The second of these two, armed with an axe is officially “Valdemar Snorreson“, Viking Berserker Character – but when I saw the sculpt, I decided that the sculpt bore a striking (to me) resemblance to crazy-eyed WWE wrestler Luke Harper.


Luke Harper, Viking Berserker.

Given that his ring attire at the time was comprised of blue jeans and a (dirty) white singlet, I echoed these choices in his clothing. Marouda also pointed out to me that his girdle-belt looked like a wrestling championship belt, so I painted it in the colours of the WWE Smackdown Tag belt, which he sort-of held around that time under the Freebird rule with Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton…


Luke Harper as part of the Wyatt Family, holding aloft the Smackdown Tag Team Titles. The miniature is wearing his instead.

What’s that?

Why yes, I have gotten back into Professional Wrestling in the last year or so. Thanks for asking. I know it’s not a mature, grown-up hobby like the SRS BZNSS of painting and playing with toy soldiers or video gaming, but I manage to make do…
And let's face it, if we rewound a thousand years (or any number more or fewer) there's a very good chance that most of these big blokes would be wielding axes and swords on a battlefield somewhere...



I’m not sure of the origin(s?) of the second pair here. The mustachioed model has a age and authority to the sculpt that I felt needed to be complimented by appropriate hair and gear. Hence he’s greying, and his equipment features richer, brighter colours than I’ve tended to use with my vikings, especially for multiple pieces of gear. His left hand was a “lego” hand, and since he already has both a shortsword and dagger sheathed, I felt that giving him a daneaxe filled him out nicely, adding to both his authority and menace – as does his harsh, intent stare.

The blond of the pair has a sculpt that made me think the figure might originally be a Gaulish Celt or similar. While the sculpt could easily be another warchief, not every model can be the boss, so I painted him in much more muted colours so that he can fulfill the role of a veteran warrior.





One thing I have attempted to do through this Viking project is to challenge myself to improve my freehand. I’ve been confident for a long time in doing things like script, tattoos, and “paintings” like skulls and whatnot, but patterns that often need to be more uniform, or repeated is something I’ve let fall by the wayside, especially since I want real uniformity in things like Space Marine and Imperial Guard insignia, and so it’s been many, many years since I freehanded Ultramarines’ inverted omegas on models on a regular basis. Obviously, not every viking features something like this, since I still want to have a lot of variety and individuality in the warband, but I’ve been pushing myself to try different designs on them. Sometimes it works out a little wonky, such as the knotwork on the cross above, and other times it works out quite pleasingly, as on the dragon above.



Here’s the group shot of this batch. I’d planned to also include the full group shot of all my vikings here and took some photos, but I then saw another pair of models that I’d missed for some reason, so I added them into the group and took some more photos and then packed up. When I got back inside the house, I found another one on my desk. At that point I gave up and decided the group shot could be its own post since it was cold, wet and dark by that point.



As a little bonus, I added some freehand knotwork to one of the viking axemen I painted awhile ago. I know bisected shields are fine, but it bothered me every time I looked at him, especially as my plan has always been to predominantly have nicer, freehand shields on my metals, while the plastics that I haven’t started get either transfers or more plain shields.

So this draws us to the conclusion of Cannon’s Vikings. No fear! Just as I have many more Dwarf Slayers lined up, I’ve got my own Wargames Foundry purchases to paint, including the ex-Citadel Perry miniatures, and of course, way too many plastics. The warband shall one day become an army…

Awesome WWE homage.

The shields are great, even better than your first set of Vikings, I reckon!

Very "seksy" (sorry ).

You certainly have managed to improve your freehand, those Viking shields are lovely! So are the rest of the minis for that matter. Looking forward to the group shot

Love your freehanding on the shields. Really great stuff!

The Vikings and the Khorne guys are fantastic. interesting that GW has managed to snare you recently. They seem to be doing things a fair bit differently of late and I am interested to see if it will continue.

Thanks guys!

@Brook - Suffering through the replay of Extreme Rules right now that I'm home from work. Not entirely sure why I'm even watching this as it's pretty terrible so far.
@Slinky - the "preferred" spelling for Six in the particular Old Norse dictionary I've been using would have it as "Sex". I thought better of calling the post "Vikings Sex", though...
@Mymearan & AOV - thanks gents. I'll have some other cool freehand up inside the next couple of weeks. On some 40k-themed stuff in particular...
@Archer - thanks mate. I've been on board for a couple of years now, since Rountree's changes like Start Collecting started rolling in. I've just been painting a lot of half-painted old stuff, and not motivated for much 40k given the state of 6th and 7th. Hopefully that'll be changing now.





Those readers who have been following this blog for awhile might recall the Painting December project (which still lives in my sig for some reason), where in December 2015 I attempted to put aside the normal-scale models I usually work on in favour of getting some larger, more centrepiece models done. I managed to complete the Mierce’s Talos, before moving onto both the Marauder Giant and Be’Lakor. – Neither of whom I managed to finish, and both of whom still lay on my desk, sadly buried under other projects…



Ashoka, from the now-discontinued Hell Dorado game’s “The Lost” range was a figure I picked up several years ago. I got a pile of figures in their Kickstarter, and another pile via retail, though I never got around to reading the rules or playing it. Still, as you can see – it’s a bloody nice figure, and one I decided was going to be a “bonus, secret stretch goal” for the Painting December project. Like the other two, he sat forgotten and unfinished for a couple of years (despite a couple of false starts that kept ending when his arms broke off) until recently, when I just had one of those “just finish that fething thing” moments, and so that weekend, I did. As it happens, it worked out nicely, since his dual-wielded axes helped him get proxied into our first games of Gorechosen as one of the champions. Despite not being an obvious champion of Khorne, I think his aesthetic fits into a game of gladiatorial combat just fine. So he came back inside to get his base-skull added. I based Ashoka on a rolled-lip 50mm base because a 40mm GW base was too small, and 60mm was too large. 50mm just seems to be the right balanced size for some figures, and mounting him on some cork allowed enough clearance for his tail to not be scraping the base edge. It also makes an already-imposing model even moreso, so there’s that as well.



I dunno if I’ll ever actually play Hell Dorado. I’ve certainly got enough models, and I’m not too fussed about the lore, but it’s yet another ruleset to learn, and it’s one of those games that comes with printed cards for the miniatures. Anyone reading this have any idea where I left Ashoka’s card? Yeah. That’s my problem with card-based unit stat systems. Give me a codex-style book-based system any day of the week.



So aside from Gorechosen, what does the future hold for Ashoka? Well, I figure he’ll find a home alongside either or both of my eventual Chaos Beastmen and Lizardmen forces, as he fits both aesthetics nicely enough. Especially now that GW are starting to recognise beastman sub-races other than Gors again.

Nicely done colors of blue and green on this monster . I looked at hell dorado, but ultimately decided against it, too many option s out there and this one didn't strike me enough, though there were lots of really cool models in the range.