Infamous dwarfs!

You know how my dwarf army was finished? I lied.

To be fair I had always intended to add a unit of Longbeards. The Marauder Longbeards have a special place in my heart since a mate bought a blister of them when we were kids. They seem like the ultimate depiction of dwarfs  and are very much what was in my mind when sculpting my own Cavern Guard (of which more to come). Just before Christmas Harry and I met with the most excellent Mr Matthew Streety in Reading Wetherspoons for a day of sheltering from the storm and playing board games. Both fine gentlemen had little lead gifts... Longbeards! Christmas painting coming up. But how to get a decent unit of the little guys? They're not exactly easy to pick up, people are understandably holding onto such treasures.

Fortunately another packet arrived before the holidays... the Infamous JT dwarf Kickstarter! Long awaited this one, not that the fulfilment was slow- one of the fastest turnarounds I have had the pleasure to witness. No, these guys were a long time getting to KS due to a few issues, but I have kept my eye on the project as they're absolutely beautiful models. They'd do nicely as the rest of the Longbeard unit.

You may notice the old Marauder gentlemen have wildlife perched on their heads. Well, much as I like the flat helmets, I wanted them to match the heraldry of these swanky gentlemen. Fortunately I was able to find enough small critters to squat on their bonces. Meant to do a hare on one but somehow couldn't find a spare, oh well, a couple of duplicate beasts no terrible thing.

I'm keeping these photos smaller than usual. Back at the end of November my DSLR has some issues and it's currently off being (hopefully) fixed. However, around the same time my phone also started having problems so I got a new one with a fancy camera. I've been using that instead for these pictures. Not bad, but the autofocus, autoshutter, autoaperture etc. meant I didn't have an awful lot of control. Plus I had to get the camera really close so haven't been able to take a unit or comparison shots that I would like. Maybe when my real camera comes back. 

There were a few characters in the Kickstarter which I wasn't really bothered about since I was looking for troops, but I enjoyed painting them anyways. A festive fool which I decorated in the same colours as the Longbeard heraldry to keep it bright but complementary. He'll be called Merrylion.

A female dwarf without a beard... maybe she shaves. In the army she's going to be the cousin of the general, King Grimmson.. so she's Lady Grimmsniece and the other dwarfs call her Mortissue. Apparently she likes her cosmetics.

Then there's this elegant gentleman. The second wizard in the force now, let nobody say the dwarfs don't know how to magick. Merlin would be an appropriate name.

As well as the Longbeards I picked up the dwarfs with bows as a small ranger/scout party. All the models are great, with just the right level of detail/kit to give interest without being too busy. They scale really nicely with the Marauder, Macrocosm and Assault Group models. One day I'll be able to do a side-by side shot.

Infamous dwarfs!

Rounding out the armies

With the night goblins done and back on the shelf I have had a couple of weeks to paint up some oddments that had accumulated around my previous armies. First up were the ex-Citadel barbarians released by Foundry at BOYL last year, along with three Copplestone archers just to top up the unit to a nice round number.

 

Some of my Foundry purchases from BOYL this year- pack animals for my dwarves (and any other situation which occurs that needs baggage).

A trio of mounted vampires for my undead host. These are Crusader Miniatures Teutonic Knights on Citadel Red Duke steeds. One of the benefits of a skeletal horse- even if they're much more massive than a historical mount their boniness means slim-legged riders will fit fine! 

Upgrades for my Wood Elf Wardancers. I had the opportunity to pick up seven Jes Goodwin and one later sculpt to replace my own sculpts in the Wardancers unit. Could do with two more at some point just to finish to a round 20...

I believe the 5th edition Wardancer is a Gary Morley sculpt, along with the WHQ one. Look at the fine features (actually a lot more 'natural' and 'real' looking than Jes') and tell me that's not the work of a top-notch sculptor!

Here's the unit with all but two of my own guys supplanted.

Lastly some more goblins... but not green ones or night ones! These are for my Angus McBride type orc army. Bringing a unit up to 30 strength for better battlefield presence (and because I happened to have acquired them!).

A mix of Giaks, C series Goblin Raiding Party and Grom's Goblin Guard. All complimenting one another nicely in look and equipment.

And a big guy who was part of the Osmotic Meld Kickstarter, was it last year? I lose track. Based on the Ian Miller illustration from the Tolkien Bestiary and so very appropriate for this army. He'd be the army standard if we didn't already have the Boris Banner... but maybe that's outdated now? We can hope.

And here's the rabble together with their previous colleagues. Excellent, that ties up loose ends on all of those army projects.

Rounding out the armies

Cult of the Leering Lune month 5(a)

Owing to not having a pay rise in a decade and consequently going on strike I have finished this month's batch of greenies early. With about a week off after Christmas I expect to get some 'bonus' goblins painted this month but if not then this is plenty for my #T4G (Tale of Fourth Gamers) submission. Back to actual Night Goblins, this time with 2-handed weapons.

The back ranks of the unit are one kind of Harlequin/Black Tree Nightlings. One kind of Nightling is sculpted by Kev Adams and lovely (if a little big as standard), this is the other kind. There are maybe two or three nice sculpts among these, the rest have the look of conversions by a less competent hand. Not my favourite models but they pad out the unit and are at least almost the right size.

This clubber goblin, on the other end of the spectrum, is another of my favourite Night Gobbos. He's super-easy to swap the weapon on, hence my three simple conversions to provide variation. The original club was a bit small for a 2-handed weapon so I tried to give them some beefier options.

These guys definitely have 2-handed clubs, look at them carrying them with two hands! I wanted to keep these guys really muted, no yellows and reds on the robes, to try and make the green skin pop. These are good general-purpose goblins so I want to be able to use them as additional troops for any of the other units I want to make bigger for particular games.

A bit of a different champion and musician but I think they blend in ok. This is actually the second time I have painted this musician as I did him for my Goblinoids Combat Cards set, but he's so great I wanted a 'playable' version too. The banner is taken from a design in Warhammer Armies (3rd) and just required the silly short banner pole to be swapped out for a length of brass rod.

I felt like one Nightling fanatic was insufficient so double-based them. Of course I then didn't have enough for the full complement of three fanatics so I drafted in a regular Night Goblin. 
 

So, to the numbers game. This is 29 Night Goblins with 2-handed weapons, including a standard and musician, lead by a regular goblin big boss with shield and light armour and containing three fanatics. 232.5pts (36 Heroes, 196.5 Mobs). 24.45 Gold Coins leaving me with 6.7 Gold Coins leftover in total. This brings the army so far to 2019.5pts (1266.5 Mobs, 667 Heroes, 86 War Machines).

Cult of the Leering Lune month 5(a)

Exiles of the Green Casket

This army started some while back (5 or 6 years ago actually) when I had the chance to pick up a bulk lot of skaven at a good price and thought they'd complement the horde of AHQ plastics I was then painting. Unfortunately most of the lot was the Colin Dixon sculpts, not the best skaven which are, as everyone knows, the Mordheim plasti.... only joking, the Jes Goodwin originals. Nevertheless they're nice models if chunkier and less gribbly ratty than their elder cousins. I painted most of the force for a Tale of Four Gamers challenge and finished it last weekend as the final month of the Odds and Sods challenge, another army in the bag!

Like many I expect, my interest in a skaven army came from seeing the pictures of Andy Chambers' grand host. I remember giving myself eye strain staring at those WD pics and trying to make out what individual models were there and how they were actually painted. The whole was a glorious mass of texture and desaturated colour totally suited to the ratman swarm, but impossible to tell where one model ended and the next began. A while back the man himself posted new pictures of the army against clean backgrounds so you could see better what was going on and I will confess to being a bit disappointed. They didn't seem to have the character I remembered. I guess studio lighting and the limits of early 90s photography and print technology did a lot to contribute to my overall impression of the army. Nevertheless I have tried to incorporate a lot of Andy's elements into this force- the body markings, muted palette, emphasis on overall army appearance rather than individual models etc.

Clanrats ought to be the core of any skaven army. Mine are the AHQ plastics (which also make up a lot of Andy Chambers' units, mixed in with the metals). Great models in my opinion but they have one flaw- ranking up! I have just about managed it on 20mm bases by careful staggering, making putty rocks to raise up the front foot of many of them and having the back feet of the back ranks overhanging the bases a little. At some point I'd quite like to add another unit of the 4th ed plastics which I also have a fondness for, but I'll wait until the prices drop again for that! There's a sneaky assassin here too, a Heartbreaker model I believe. Painted in dark green, he's obviously been listening to Lord Vetinari's advice.

More plastics for the obligatory Skavenslaves regiment. This time the smaller, finer-featured Fantasy Regiments skaven. Another set of models I remember fondly from my youth. Mixed amongst them are some of my own Gnawlochs from The Woods line which were intended to fit alongside the Jes Goodwin ones for size. Oh, and an actual Jes Goodwin Skavenslave, one of not nearly enough produced!

Gnawdoom leading the Plague Monks. He's one of my favourite ever skaven models and a central character in the army since the vague fluff I have for them has them exiled from polite skaven society for failing to retrieve the Black Ark from Kemler at the battle of La Maisontaal. My banner images and quotes (though they're hard to read in the photos) are taken from the Deptford Mice series by Robin Jarvis. Some of the most disturbing childrens' books available, they, alongside Redwall, were particular favourites of mine in my early teens and have left a lasting impression. I recently found out that Jarvis was also a modelmaker, I wonder if he'd be up for a range of Deptford miniatures... 

Globardiers with what I believe the cool kids these days are calling OSL. Pretty quick paint jobs, essentially just a zenithal highlight (another cool kid term for something we've been doing for decades) with some colour washing and a few highlights. Don't get me started on 'Slap Chop', it's a dodgy American meat restaurant as far as I am concerned.

The chunky Jezzails. Sniping is such a skaven thing to do.

The smaller unit of Strom Vermin (I prefer the German Sturmratten!) mixes in some Grenadier ratmen and a couple of Jes Goodwin sculpts. They're lead by another White Seer. Apparently in the official fluff the White Seer is less powerful than the Grey Seer but ever since I read of them in the Marvel Heroquest Special the albino rats have been the ultimate skaven wizards in my mind.

Warpfire Throwers can be attached to units of Storm Vermin to provide support so I have one for each. The original (and still best) models before they got ridiculously oversized. These feel more like support weapons.

A second, larger unit of Storm Vermin, this time lead by an albino warlord.

These more modern Warpfire Throwers I am fielding by themselves as a self contained war machine. With guns that big I don't imagine they want to be moving around much! Now I think about it perhaps I ought to make them some little stands to save their backs... 

Packmasters from a variety of sources with their little pets. Some Citadel giant rats but mostly the excellent Ral Partha Europe giant rats. There are also a handful of Chariot Miniatures 15mm giant wolves in there, which look like weasels to me, including a sneaky snotling along for the ride! 

The best rat ogres. Unfortunately both the same sculpt, but one had a damaged hand so the addition of a nasty modern ork fist and axe makes a nice variation.

Lastly, this is the piece I was waiting to finish- the Screaming Bell. Several years back Mike from Broadswords and Beasts gifted me this lovely Valley of the Four Winds Great Bell as I mentioned I was thinking that would make a nice old school alternative to the 90s model. I wanted a Screaming Bell in the force as the Andy Chambers scratch-built prototype I have loved since I saw it in WD. That one was pulled by the 2nd edition Blood Bowl skaven and I wanted to do the same thing, but the prices are silly so when I was asked to sculpt some Blood Bowl type figures for Macrocosm I said could I do a ratman team and have some of the castings. They arrived last week and I was able to finish up the project. 

Whilst I was sculpting them I was thinking about where I could put chains. The length attached to the bell end at the base and are aligned to the ends of the ones on the model so they can be removed and replaced without disturbing the delicate links. Apart from the Plague Monk, the rest of the crew are Heartbreaker (except the musician which I am told is Harlequin) and came in another eBay lot. You can't see easily but the pennants read 'Peel', a dual reference to the bell itself but also to the word as extensively used in the Deptford Mice series meaning 'Flay'. Yup, skinned (alive) rodents are an offering to several dark gods in this quaint kids' series!

 The only thing missing I'd still like to add to this model are the wheels on either end of the bell shaft, the means by which it can be swung. On Andy Chambers' model these are plastic wheels from the skeleton chariot, sadly I have none spare and can't bare to deprive a complete chariot of some essential components but if you have any surplus to requirements do let me know!

Exiles of the Green Casket

Grinning Loon Clan- Night Goblins month1

 

I'm taking part in another army painting challenge! Yep, the Odds and Sods challenge is finished and, even better, I am within a gnat's whisker of completing all the 'started' armies on my shelves. That means I can reward myself by starting on the Night Goblin horde I have been slowly amassing over the last couple of years. Really looking forward to getting going on these!

This year's challenge is the 'Tale of 4th Gamers' organised by Dave/Snickit on the 4th Ed Warhammer Facebook group. The idea is to spend a certain amount of 'gold coins' (imaginary ones) per month, making sure after the first month that the army is a 'legal' 4th edition one. I'm going to be playing the legality a bit fast and loose I think as Night Goblins themselves are extremely cheap... but it's a good basis to use to paint the army. The first month is the general so I thought I would go all out early and stick Skarsnik (not actually Skarsnik in the list) on the best wyvern ever.

A Night Goblin warboss isn't a terribly terrifying prospect, not even Skarsnik himself. I wanted him to be a big centrepiece for the army (and eat up a bunch of points since goblins are dirt cheap and I do want this army to rival my undead one in size), enter the mighty wyvern! I think I'm right in saying this is a Nick Bibby sculpt? It has that smack of real-life animal to it which is a sign of the master's work.

My wyvern was short of his horns so I had to make some new ones. Not too bad, but I may swap them out for some actual ones if I can find them. The re-use of components in these kits is such that they are the same horns as the Bibby Khazad Dum Balrog. I have that Balrog... also missing his horns! On that note though, the wings have also been used in at least three other places I know of, can you name them all? I decided his fangs weren't horrifying enough so I puttied some new, bigger ones for him.

I figured the whole 'drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword' thing applied equally to this model and swapped out Skarsnik's sword for a mighty bow. He might not ever hit anything with it but at least he can have a go! I removed his trident prongs to give him more of a lance, probably unnecessarily but I wanted to make it clear he isn't actually Skarsnik.

The prevalent imagery of the force I wanted to be the classic, grinning face. I have therefore taken every opportunity to putty faces on his bow and saddle and paint one on his shield. In various forms this leering countenance will be present across every unit and character model in the army.

From the second month of the challenge onwards the force is expected to be 'legal' in 4th edition list terms. That means painting a whole lotta gobbos to balance out a boss on a wyvern! Yes, I do have trolls, war machines, doom divers etc. to make up points as well, but there's nothing quite like seeing a sea of goblins going to war! To get ahead of the game a bit I thought I would go for the first unit of 30 in the first month. 

For the banners I am trying a tip from Ryan (ManicMan on the forum) about printing onto fabric using freezer paper. I have printed out a bunch of the banner and shield designs from Forces of Fantasy which are going to form the basis of the banners. This one isn't quite finished here, it needs a bunch more distressing adding to it, but you get the idea. 

Part of the appeal of a goblin army is having enough random elements in there that any battlefield successes or failures can't be laid at the door of my bad generalship. If you're going to play a game that's fundamentally tied to throwing buckets of dice why not go all out? That means Squig Hoppers, Pump Wagons, Trolls, Doom Divers... and, of course, as many Fanatics as I can put in! Three per unit of Night Goblins is the limit in 4th so here are the three for this unit.

As I expect the goblins to be removed from the battlefield in large numbers (routing if nothing else!) I figured it made sense to mount them on unit bases. Thanks to Bil Curd for the big bag of unit bases! It also gives me the opportunity to stick toadstools on them... I might have to go all out on some later on and do Kev Adams style putty plants etc.

I have deliberated over the painting of these goblins for a long time, all whilst painting up my odds and sods last year. I wanted something that would be quite quick given how many of them I would need, but that would allow me to show appreciation for the quality of sculpts and not rush them. I settled early on light coloured robes as black feels either too stark/cartoonish or would take too long to shade and highlight appropriately. These dirty cream robes have the benefit of only needing a base coat (I sprayed them with Montana Elm spray paint, giving and undercoat and base coat in one) and wash with Army Painter Soft Tone to look suitably detailed and grimy. I did a second wash in the darkest recesses and a few spot highlights on important (front rank) models. As that's most of the model done I could then spend more time getting the skin as I wanted it. Hopefully the pale robes aren't so pale they look like Klan...

This unit all have the metal leering face shields GW produced. I don't have enough of them for the full army but have been slowly acquiring them alongside the goblins themselves to have enough to do the monopose unit of spear gobbos I wanted to see most of all. I did consider mixing in the second sculpt in this pose (head variant) but in the end decided that a uniform unit of the same model was what I wanted to see. The other units will be more mixed.

29 Night Goblins with spears and shields, including command and 3 Fanatics is 198.5pts. Their boss is 17pts. The Night Goblin Warboss with lance, bow and shield on wyvern is 234pts. That means so far 251pts of characters and 198.5pts of troops (without magic items). Hopefully my September submission can comprise of another unit of 30 goblins with shields (93pts) and fanatics (90pts) and that should give me a force that is legal and has room for another boss (16pts) and shaman champion (83pts)- 350pts characters, 381.5pts troops, 731.5pts total... almost a quarter of the way to a full 3000pt force! I think I may be going slightly over 3000pts somehow!

Grinning Loon Clan- Night Goblins month1