Imrryrian Mercenaries

 

I recently asked folks on my YouTube channel what my next project should be. There was enthusiasm for the Melnibonean force I had assembled over the last couple of years, so I thought I'd give it a crack. My intention was for this to be a small force of mercenaries, refugees from destroyed Imrryr, travelling the land under the leadership of a noble. Much as Dyvim Tvar was when Elric encountered them in The Stealer of Souls. For the leader I had originally selected a Copplestone dark elf rider (most of this force are Copplestone Fantasy Warriors bought from Battlezone Miniatures), but when I saw this lady rider (also on foot below) I thought it would be more interesting to have her in charge of the band. Moorcock needs some better female characters...

The bulk of the figures are the ex-Grenadier Fantasy Warriors high elves, with a few of the debauched dark elves mixed in for flavour. I wanted to give the impression of fallen grandeur and paint grubby elves rather than shiny white ones. I figure the Melniboneans wouldn't know how to look after their equipment without their servants and slaves around to do stuff for them. The oxide on the bronze is Vallejo verdigris which I've had for a while but not really used much. I originally intended to do some on my undead, but didn't like the look. I'm not sure I like it much more here, it's not as green as I would like and I didn't feel like washing it all again. I think my big mistake here was to start with bronze and try to 'rust' it rather than starting green and adding a few bright spots back in.

Moorcock doesn't describe Melnibonean armour much. He says Cymoril's personal guard wear bright blue and describes other soldiers' armour as 'yellow'. I think they're more supposed to be in plate, but mail coats feel more fitting for an army on the road. I've gone with a colour to denote each small unit and purple as a spot colour to tie them together. They are from the many-coloured city after all. I figured each unit would be the household guard of one noble, with perhaps the yellow and black being the general uniform of the city guard. The waspishness is what I think of when I imagine Rodney Matthews' images of Melniboneans.   

I'd originally intended to just have archers and spearmen, but at Colours last year there was a chap selling Harlequin miniatures (saves me battling with BTD) and so I picked up some swordsmen to expand the force. This might have been a mistake. My intention was a small group of models I could enjoy spending some time on, but the extra troops made it feel more like an army, more pressure, more to get done. I didn't enjoy it very much, so have spent very little time on them and ultimately called them done without putting in a lot of care and attention. I'm not entirely sure why, they just didn't grip me whilst I was painting, despite listening to some Moorcock to get in the mood. They may end up for sale sometime in the future.

I also hadn't inteded to do an Elric as, like with Star Wars, I find the stuff which doesn't involve the 'main character' to be far more interesting. Give me smugglers in the back streets of Mos Eisley over Jedi duels any day. But Mike kindly gifted me one of Drew's Elrics so it felt rude not to paint him up. I don't give much for the band's chances now Stormbringer is in their midst...

Imrryrian Mercenaries

Half-things and beasty elves

 

Here are the last of my palate-cleanser between-project paint jobs. A little unit of halfling militia archers to go with my Stanclud contingent and some elf beastmasters. The halflings are from Macrocosm, but again I can't find them on the website so not sure if they're still available. They scale well with the Wargames Atlantic plastic halflings and are just a bit taller and skinnier than Old Shcool Miniatures. They're a bit larger but spot-on aesthetically with the former-Westfalia armoured halflings,

The beastmasters I was very happy GW had rereleased for Old World... until I saw the price tag! I was kindly given a voucher for GW for my birthday last year and ACTUALLY HAD SOMETHING I WANTED TO SPEND IT ON! so picked them up at a much more reasonable price with that discount. :D I wanted to go fairly colourful and patterned with the animals whilst staying in the 'natural' realm so went for Eurasian lynxes (the metal feeds on the ends of the ears stayed on to make them look tufted), Irish wolfhounds (not so very colourful), patterned wild boar and a spectacled bear.

Either these have been very popular or GW are using old moulds for them as there was quite a lot of flashing and some detail missing due to mould tears. I don't mind too much, but if I'd paid the full whack I'd have been put out by the quality. Whilst on elves I also painted up a wardancer to take my unit up to a nice round 20.

Half-things and beasty elves

Kev White beauties

At Reveille last year there was a chap with a big box of old Celtos blisters. You may know that Celtos is my absolute favourite ever fantasy range and, whilst they're still available from Brigade models and I have most of them, I'm always keen to pick up more. A good rummage even revealed a couple that Brigade don't currently sell. These got painted up to fill out a few units in my barbarian horde and as another palate-cleanser whilst I decide what big project to move on to next.

 I took the opportunity to get all my barbarians off the shelf and reconfigure them a bit. I decided since I have a lot of champion and shaman type models I could shrink the units right down to 8 figures and have a character and shaman accompany each, the close retinues of powerful champions no doubt. I tried to 'theme' each unit either by the manufacturer, style of dress, weapon or wider theme such as the veteran (oldies!) unit. Here's the current breakdown of units, I may have to get some more Celtos to fill a few gaps, oh dear!

Kev White beauties

Refueling the tank, refilling the ranks!

 

Hi everyone. It's been a while. I've been beavering at Oakbound stuff for ages getting a load of new releases ready. Now it's time to take a break and do another project. I haven't chosen what it will be yet, so as a palate-cleanser I dug out some models I wanted to add to my existing armies (told you, nothing is ever finished!). Some Marauder dwarf pikes, the elf beastmasters I bought new from GW recently (with a voucher, I'm not insane!), some Celtos models I found at a tabletop sale last year (some of which not available from Brigade... score!) and some halfling bowmen. I couldn't decide which to paint so I asked on the Oldhammer Community FB group and the response was resoundingly 'dwarves', so that's what I did. I did actually paint everything in the end, more posts to come in the near future! Worth noting I did NOT buy these Marauder spears direct from GW. The new price on them seems pretty ludicrous to me, especially compared to the fairly-reasonable slayers which can't be that much easier to cast. Especially nuts given you want a decent block of these guys!

There are a few ex-White Knight (I think) now The Assault Group dwarves in there, pic for scale reference. The two on the left are from my other spear unit, from Macrocosm/Theoc- though I can't see them on the website at present. A bit less hunched, but similar in physique.

Speaking of slayers (as I was), here are three more to round out my unit. I didn't have a dragon head, so substituted a troll. That will get painted when I get round to doing the rest of my stone trolls so it matches. The fourth guy here is a newbie from Foundry at BOYL last year. There were two variants released. I believe he's a Pickford sculpt from the same time the very-similar-but-different Harrig the Wise was sculpted and not released. We think they were all variants from the same base, a possible range of dwarf wizards to choose from before dwarves and magic parted company? If so, why are they all so similar? So many mysteries...

Refueling the tank, refilling the ranks!