Ba ba ba, barbarians

 Ba ba ba, bar-bar-ia-a-ans, painted by ha-a-and, barbari-a-a-ans, they got me rockin' and a reelin', rockin' and a reelin' barbarians.... ba ba....

A host of barbarians has been slowly amassing on my to-paint shelf for some time now. The past couple of months has given me a bit of space to get them battle-ready. After all, we don't want a critical mass of butch fighters hanging around with nothing to do now!

My initial foray into barbarianism was a few years ago when Foundry stopped their 2000AD license and re-released some ex-Citadel fighters at Bring Out Your Lead. I'm pretty sure I documented it on the blog but can't find it... maybe they went off marauding? Anyhow my intention was to create a small Slaine-influenced raiding party to accompany the Horned God. This was made up of the ex-Citadels and a handful of ex-Grenadier Mark Copplestone barbarians (Copplestone is the epitome of barbarianism to me, if it ain't a Copplestone it's an imitation!). It stayed a small force for about 18 months...

The next muscle-bound, fur-clad raiders to join the ranks were miniatures from the RPE barbarian kingdoms range. I had been carrying these around game shows (Oakbound represents RPE on the show front in the South of England) for a few months and fancied picking some up for myself. Several of them remained on foot but others...

...others ended up in a Scotia Grendel howdah on the back of a Heroes of the Dark Age mammoth. Harry got one of these at Salute a couple of years back and I regretted not joining him so when I was there trading last year I sent him to find me one. It's so much more animated than most mammoths out there and I think definitely suitably Slaine-influenced. Although the original chieftain's throne is much closer to the Slaine art I wanted more of a horde on top to rain spears down upon their foes.

On the subject of Scotia Grendel, the other beasties in the force are these wonderful giant warthoggy things from SG. I'm calling them the Shoggy Beasts. The small ones come with integral resin riders which are much bigger in scale than the rest of the barbarians and, I'm afraid to say, pretty crude, lumpy sculpts. Cutting and grinding them off was not a pleasant task, but the beasts look much better with their new riders. The bigger one had kilted legs attached but a separate rider from the torso up so swapping him out for the Copplestone banner bearer was simple enough.

Last year at BOYL Kev Adams was once again doing his "heads for charity" sculpting session. It's been a few years since I had one done so fancied having another for the collection and decided on a barbarian hero as it's so completely not what my fantasy type would be! For the job I picked up these from Foundry but unfortunately (or fortunately) Kev was inundated and I had a game to run so didn't manage to sneak into the queue. Nevertheless they still got added to the horde. They remind me of other characters from Slaine...

I said I love Copplestone barbarians, right? So I picked up a few more... It's so great these are still available from Moonraker/Forlorn Hope (and, I think, Mirliton?). Very cheap too! There are some identifiable Slaine figures in here. The knife-toting shaman is straight out of The Horned God.

To further reinforce the horniness (ooer) of the horde I picked up these Celtos miniatures by Kev White (now with Brigade Models and also very good value). The good, evil, male and female aspects along with a more 'normal' human-sized but definitely still Slaine figure. I love the Celtos range and now have pretty much every figure in one army or another. They're satisfyingly 'chunky' figures and nicely dynamic without being in poses that look ridiculous on the table. Might have to get some duplicates though...

Mike (of Broadswords and Beasts) and Jon Boyce very kindly sent me some original Citadel miniatures to 'legitimise' the force, plus a couple I don't recognise. The guy in front with the axe- looks like a Bryan Ansell sculpt? I also got a few of the former Asgard barbarians, available from Alternative Armies though I actually ordered these from The Viking Forge along with some other former-Asgard miniatures. Funny how you don't always spot things until you photograph them, I missed a shield! 

Lastest and greatest is a figure I wanted/needed to have at the forefront of the horde. Microarts' Discworld characters are every bit of 35mm tall and far too big to fit with most 'standard' sized wargames miniatures, sadly. I do have a Nobby Nobbs in my Empire force, but he's "shorter than mist dwarfs" so fits in fine. I managed to make Cohen not stand out too much by bending his legs a little (not too much, thin and a very brittle metal) so he's stooped to the level of the others. Beats me why they picked such an odd size. A pricey addition but one I just had to have,

Ba ba ba, barbarians

The Reign of the Lichemaster has commenced!

It's been a while since I last posted but I have not been idle, oh no! On the contrary I have been allocating myself a nice lot of hobby time and am working on getting all my skelly army to a basic tabletop level so that I can make good use of my time off over Christmas adding nice little details.

I've got four units to that point now, so time to do a bit of a round-up and look at how some of the miniatures choices turned out. Bear in mind these guys are not finished, but they're not too far away.

First up, the monks and masters of La Maisontaal. Resurrected by Kemler to do his bidding, the inhabitants of this large abbey still wear the robes of their order. The unit distribution above represents kinds what I'm thinking in terms of split between the masters and the monks. WFRP Lichemaster says there are 14 stone sarcophagi of previous masters of La Maisontaal under the abbey, and Dintrans himself joins them after his failed attempt to kill Kemler. In the original Revenge of the Lichemaster scenario it is Bagrian who assumes control of the defences of the abbey and is himself slain. This unit therefore consists of 16 masters including Bagrian. The rest of the robed figures are the monks and novices. I haven't settled yet on just which are which, I keep finding new models I like to add to the masters unit, so some of the previous masters are now lowly initiates! When I eventually settle the masters will have more ornate robes like in Blanche's ROTL painting, the other monks will have a few ornaments but generally more plain robes. The idea is that as they progress on the journey with Taal they add more symbols to their habits to denote their standing. The monks are joined by a small group of retainers, those employed to do odd jobs around the abbey, tend to the animals etc. Many of them now wear the skulls and other bones of creatures they once looked after.

 

The retainers will be familiar as largely C17 series skeletons. There are some nice models in amongst the monks and masters though, many of which are currently in production and very reasonable value:

These are Alternative Armies Wraiths (most of the units are wraiths, robes and all that!). They're pretty fun, I've not picked out all the armoured bits yet but the robe details are nice. Very soft metal though, their weapons bend really easily and the axe guy is going to need some weighting in his base to keep his balance.

Zealot Miniatures had this skeleton in their Twisting Catacombs Kickstarter, I'm sure he'll be available in their shop soon. He is resin... but we'll forgive him because the details are really nice, the pose is great and the skull is very finely sculpted.

These Wraiths are from Ral Partha Europe, and they're a bit disappointing. After all the other great undead I picked up from RPE these guys are quite primitive, very small and not wonderfully posed. The middle guy isn't actually from these units, he's from the Blue-Blooded Bandits (see below) and is the better of the three with all his scale armour. Still on the small side though.

 

From my least to my most favourite. These are Black Tree (formerly Harlequin) and are wonderful sculpts. The skulls are well-defined and the robes hang convincingly off the skeletal frames. They are pretty chunky, but that means they match the Citadel skeletons very nicely. I love the poses of the Wraiths especially. Suitably Grim Reapers!

 



Lastly, three that are very definitely masters. On the left is a RAFM undead bishop from the Death Command blister. In the middle is RPE's Bishop of Doom and on the right a Chronopia Necromancer. The RAFM model is a little smaller than the others, but that makes him seem suitably frail. He's doing a fun Pope wave as well. I'm looking forward to doing glowing eyes, censers etc. on them. You might also spot some of the LOTR Ringwraiths hiding amongst the Wraiths which work pretty nicely. The only figures I don't recognise are these which I got in a bulk lot. If anyone knows what they are let me know:

The next unit are former Men At Arms from the Duc de Quenelles' doomed legion which attempted to halt the Lichemaster's ransacking of La Maisontaal. Tancred's knights are still to come (they may be my main Deadcember project) but I thought I'd try a few things out on this unit of spearmen. Principally I wanted to see whether a few blue rags were enough to give a sense of previous uniform whist still keeping the aesthetic of the army and to try out the effect of painting all the metal with a rust effect paint. The rust effect I am very happy with, although it dries very opaque and the semi-translucency of when it is about half dry would be optimal. I may try a couple of glazes (orange or sepia) to 'wet' it down a bit. It also dries fast, so it's essential to shake the pot and rinse the brush every three or four miniatures. Also pleased with the blue. The more 'fully clothed' Mantic skeletons help with the idea of uniform, whilst the more 'naked' skeletons display the bone technique which is holding the look of the army together. I don't think it would be so effective with all Mantic or no Mantic skeletons, but this balance seems fine to me. There are also shields to come.

The bulk of this unit are Celtos Fir Bolg skeletons, still available from Brigade Models. Their spear unit is very good value and I just added the axe champion as the champion from the set isn't very distinctive from the rank and file. These are good, solid sculpts. Nicely posed and flexible enough to be bent slightly to create the impression of more poses than there are. The bones are well-defined and the bits of armour nicely conceived.

These are more Black Tree miniatures. Just look at their happy, grinning faces. They're obviously rank and file and were a little over a pound each. They scale well with the Celtos and Citadel miniatures.

Then there's Mantic. Now I will admit to not being a fan of Mantic generally. The skeletons do ok to add a splash of colour (not much fabric on the others) and indicate their previous life as soldiers of Bretonnia. Their skulls are nice and granny but they're much smaller than the others and don't have that Jason and the Argonauts look that I want in a skeleton warrior. I've dotted some of the bits from the box about (at least they're cheap and flexible) for variation but I wouldn't want a whole unit of them.

There are also a few skeleton spearmen from Northstar's skeleton horde. I took a gamble on these because they're cheap. You get 10 randomly assorted models, and honestly I was hoping for some more scythes. Never mind, good to bulk out the spears anyhow. They're hit and miss, the sculpting isn't very sharp and the skulls are all a bit deformed, but as rank and file on the tabletop you can't fault the price.

And then there are the Blue-Blooded Bandits, Zwemmer's cronies from the bad old days on the Frugelhorn. I imagine them as disenfranchised nobles booted from the family seat for unsavoury practices. Zwemmer was also a champion of Nurgle (although secretly) so I wanted a heavily and finely armoured look with a nod to decay, hence the small patches of rust and the green tinge to their weapons. Although they died long before the unfortunate Men at Arms in the previous unit their equipment began as significantly higher quality and perhaps their ice-burial has helped preserve the shine of their blades. The red cloaks, plumes and accents help to tie them in with the monk units. See if you can spot the interloper into their ranks...

 

The majority of this unit are from Ral Partha Europe, collected together from across their various ranges. I'm sure RPE need no introduction so I will just say that their skeletons are excellent.

There are also a couple of Chronopia miniatures in this unit which I mentioned in a previous blog post. They aren't strictly undead miniatures but I had them in my first undead army (long gone now) so I was excited to buy them again for this one. I think my second attempt at painting them is better.

The Lich Lord from Grenadier was my reason for placing an order with them in the first place. Shipping was too expensive for just one miniature, so I had a look round and just about gathered enough I liked to pick up this chap. He's a nice model, shame the rest of the Grenadier range is a bit inconsistent. There are a few nice ones (I think ex-Ral Partha actually) but I'm not a big fan of most of their undead. Did you spot the interloper? Here he is, on the left. He's actually a Goblin Knight, but I thought his armour and concealed face would allow him to blend in just fine.

Ok, that's it for now. Another three units got primed at the weekend so I'll try and get at least another one done this week then it'll be into deadcember!

The Reign of the Lichemaster has commenced!

The dead begin to rise... Essex and Celtos skeleton reviews

Yesterday the first of my purchases for my Undead force arrived. As they trickle in I'll do a quick review about the figures and how they'll fit into the army as there's quite a lot of skeleton miniatures around to choose from and plenty of variation in style and size.

First up, the Essex Mounted Skeletons (Q86, 87, 88 and 89) by Bob Olley. The Essex website is not particularly helpful, with no photos of these miniatures, but fortunately they are on the lost minis wiki... well, some idea of what they look like is anyway. Since the Bob Olley Liche Master is my starting point this seemed like a good place to begin building the army, at least ensuring the skeleton horses matched. There appear to be just two horse variants, the afro horse and the spiky horse, but I'm a big fan of the style of these and I reckon a bit of careful cutting and bending will produce a lot more variation in pose. The metal is quite soft and should bend well (lots of lead in there I reckon).

The figures are what you'd probably expect from Olley skeletons. The bodies don't look overly chunky (especially compared to GW plastics) but the skulls are massive. The Liche Master has a big head, and these skulls are probably in scale with that, but they look pretty goofy. As I'm only having one 'fleshy' (the Liche Master) in the army his big head will be fine but pretty much all the other skeletons will have smaller heads so I'll probably end up chopping off these guys' heads and replacing them with the Ral Partha skulls. The Q88 skeleton (helmet, axe and shield, shown far right) is particularly horrible to my eyes, looking like an undead Genghis Khan with an ineffectual, stubby axe. I might replace the whole figure with a spare from somewhere else. On the plus side there's a good sense of movement in most of the sculpts and the detail on the bodies is nice and textural, just how I like my fantasy minis! With postage these guys worked out at just over £18 for the 4, cheaper than any other skeleton cavalry I've seen, but I would say you're mainly paying for the horses here and might want to look elsewhere for the riders.

The other package which arrived was from Brigade Models which stock the Celtos range I believed was OOP. Thanks to Dan/Xero_Fuchs for the tip off. At £12 for a pack of 12 spearmen with command you can't fault the value. In the pic above the command is top row, troopers below. You get one of each of the command models and three of each of the troopers, plus metal shields and round bases. I should say that you don't get the axe guy thrown in, he's an extra £3.50, but was so appropriate to the army theme I had to stick him on the order. All in they also cost me just over £18 with shipping, probably as good as you're going to get with metal skeletons. There's a bit of flash to scrape and trim, but they're pretty clean casts and very shiny models. I'm used to Celtos Sidhe and Humans being on the chunky side so was prepared for big bones, but they're actually slim and well proportioned. Well, about as slim as you'd want in metal anyway, comparable to the c-series Citadel skeletons. Poses are good, a bit of gentle bending should produce variation across the unit, and the detail is basic but ok. Painting them should be fast, which is something else you want for large blocks of skeletons!

Spent so far: £36.39
Price per model so far (cavalry counts as 2 models): £1.73

Ok, that's it for now. Waiting for my Mantic order to arrive. Still looking for trades/second hand purchases of RAFM skeletons, Iron Claw horses and the Dark Knight/mounted Wight from the Circle of Blood campaign (in metal) if anyone has them.

Cheers all.

The dead begin to rise... Essex and Celtos skeleton reviews

More ladies with banners

A couple more banners to furnish the Fimir, this time the Fianna and Bansidheia are getting standards. The Fianna a 'dark crystal of Chulaine' symbol over crossed Haakskarl, a knot design and Froudian creature. The Bansidheia a Fimm symbol knotted with a heart and a small 'eye of Balor' motif.

 

The willing and not-so-willing bearers of the Fimm iconography.

More ladies with banners

Those painted ladies....

I had that rarest of things yesterday, a genuine day off! As a result four of my Bansidheia got painted to a reasonable degree. I have 24 to do in total so a long way off finished yet, and I'm basing each individual model on a separate picture from the 'Sword Song' and 'Dragon Song' so-called-art-books. Since the Bansidheia are collected from many different tribes that have had contact with the Fimir it doesn't bother me that the unit is going to look somewhat mismatched, with an assortment of figures from different manufacturers and painted to different schemes. In fact I think the ladies will add a nice touch of variation to an otherwise pretty uniform force. I've tried to pick models which suit the mood or attire of the subjects in the paintings, I think I've managed to fit all 24 quite well. Apologies for the poor quality photos of the pages from the book, couldn't find digital images online.

 The first four Bansidheia

                                                                              
The unit standard gave me the opportunity to work the dragon's colours into the model. Plenty of gold which doesn't show up very well here. The hadow around the eyes helps make the model look more mature, it looked a bit too 'teeny' before.

Only had head and shoulders to work  from for this lady, but her hair was done perfectly!

More subdued colours here. Tried to go for a design on the sword which gave some impression of the one in the painting but it hasn't really worked very well.

A frightening sight to be sure!

Those painted ladies....

A retreat somewhere dry... part 2!

Here's part of what has been distracting me from finishing the Fimir over the last few months, apart from all the 40k stuff, of which more later.

My egyptian elves are rocking along nicely. Mainly the plastic elves from the Island of Blood, alongside Celtos Sidhe and the lovely Wargods of Aegyptus models.

20 Swordmasters, a combination of the IoB figures and Sidhe greatswords:

20 Seaguard, a combination of IoB and Sidhe spears/archers:

Mage number 1, a Basti master of words, and 5 Shadow warriors, converted old wardancers:

10 archers, Wargods Basti archers:

10 archers, LotR elves and Sidhe archers. The LotR elves are a bit slimmer than the others in the army, but not too much so as to look wierd mixed in:

The still unpainted units. IoB griffin (it's a great eagle, does anyone use it as a griffin? Shame, such a pretty model completely rendered useless by bad rules!), 5 Reavers and the beginnings of a spearmen unit made up of LotR elves and Sidhe:

And the IoB mage, along with 20 Wargods Basti. The intention is to paint them cream and use them as White Lions (ba-dum tish), but since I'm mainly facing Skaven I'm using them as Phoenix Guard for now. I'd like to get some Wargods Heru to be the Phoenix Guard in the long run.

My general with his harem:

The 'camp followers':

The warriors, Basti skirmishers and harem guard:

A retreat somewhere dry... part 2!