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

The 333 3rd Ed painting challenge- Month 1, planning, plotting, scheming!

What to do when you find yourself back at work full time with no daylight hours to hobby in, the pressures of adult life pressing down on your shoulders and busy-ness sweeping the joy from 'free' time?

You take on a new project of course!

Dave, perhaps better known in blogsphere as Snickit, has launched an army building challenge to run up to BOYL 2022 which he has titled The 333 3rd Ed Challenge. The aim is to paint 333 points of troops each month until BOYL, resulting in an (approximately) 3000 point force to put on the table. Armies can be chosen from any 3rd Ed era list. I have a fair whack of Chaos troops unpainted on my shelves so this felt like a good excuse to get some paint on them. 333 points of Chaos Warriors is not many models, that should be doable, and it would mean not having to buy new miniatures... right?

Of all the Chaos powers it is Slaanesh that most draws me. That's something that's probably best not probed too deeply (as the actress said to the bishop). Essential sleaze aside I like the more complex image painted in Realm of Chaos that Slaanesh is about love of comfort, luxury, easy life. That's why it rubs up against Khorne which (despite a love of blood and skulls) feeds off love of unrest, conflict and challenging situations. My idea, then, is to build a more covert Slaanesh force than an out-and-out display of genitalia. Rooted in the history (real and propaganda-motivated) of the Italian City States of the 14th and 15th centuries with houses like the Borgias, Medici, Sforza and Malatesta vying for control the plan is to build a Tilean force representing a corrupted family and their troops. Each member of the family would head up their own warband rolled from Slaves to Darkness then I will fill the remaining points with appropriate troops to make it a semi-viable army.

For the leader of the army I wanted a grotesque caricature of a pontiff representing all the worst features of the medieval papacy, an institution rife with the opulence and degeneracy that Slaanesh would be proud of. Having thought about it I suspect there is also more than a little influence from the Sandman comic series where a particular Psychopomp (conveyer of souls to the next life) is depicted as an obese and pox-scarred villain. There are a few cardinal/bishop miniatures around but none that really play on this grotesque image of a supposedly holy figurehead gone bad. With the release of the new Dune movie imminent I wanted a fantasy Baron Harkonnen to head up the debauched stream of filth. Jamie Loft of Old School Miniatures suggested using a Foundry orc as a basis (they are big fellows and appropriately garbed in renaissance attire) but it seemed daunting cutting off the arms, legs and head to make something that looked overweight but humanly proportioned. HOWEVER, the dwarfs from Foundry have arms about the right size and no legs to speak of... 

At BOYL earlier this month I had a good sift through the Warmonger dwarfs and decided on one that would suit my purposes. I would have liked to have Kev Adams sculpt my head on him as he sometimes does at BOYL, but this year he wasn't sculpting so I will have to do that myself, adding an excessive papal mitre. I wanted him carried by an overburdened donkey or mule so again went diving into the Foundry ranges to look for one. Almost all of their pack animals are sculpted with baggage attached, which wouldn't work for this purpose, but I did find one in a Darkest Africa explorers pack which will suit. It probably needs the legs reposed a bit to indicate the enormous weight of its rider.

Having selected the general it was time to head to StD and roll up his personal contingent. Having selected his initial 'reward' (enormously fat) I decided to roll twice more for his personal attributes giving him rotting flesh and a crown of flesh (tongues) which I guess he hides under his mitre! Or maybe it makes up the mitre itself... Suitably disgusting attributes for the slimy wretch. I rolled him 3 sets of followers- 9 Dark Elves, 8 Chaos Cultists and 10 Beastmen. 

The Dark Elves I have a handful of in my collection, but they look too war-like to fit comfortably in the higher levels of the corrupt court. I would have loved to do a unit of Foundry's Revenant Elves but at £7 each that's not going to happen (I did buy one represent the leader of another band). Instead I have opted to buy some of the former-Grenadier Dark Elves from Forlorn Hope, excellent value and a great company keeping some lovely old miniatures alive. These will work nicely with the theme and have the added advantage they already have crossbows (an arming option from the StD followers list).

The cultists I would like to have as cardinals, but whilst I would love to have Victoria Miniatures' Monty Python Spanish Inquisition featured again the price drives me off. I'm struggling to find alternatives, monks with sculpted hats on still looking too dishevelled. One option I am considering (and will probably go for) is the Warmachine Choir of Menoth miniatures. They look suitably ecclesial, not too sci-fi and like they could easily be given cardinal-type headwear to mix them up a bit. A bit beyond my budget at present still, so might have to back burner this unit for now and see if ebay will throw any bargains my way.

I have a lot of beastmen, including a fair few non-goat beastmen which are my preference. However they all look like an unruly, savage mob far better suited to a warrior warband than an ecclesial one. They will (depending on rolls of course) get use in one of the other warbands later on. For this one I have decided to go with the 4th ed monopose plastic beastmen that seem so universally unpopular. Their regimented look makes them fit nicely for an honour guard and it's my intention to putty clothes and gear onto them to make them look more like a papal guard. I picked up 30 of these from generous people at BOYL who knew I was looking for them. I'll start with the 10 I rolled for now and probably expand them when mopping up points at the end.

Leaving aside the 8 cultists for now then the first month's painting looks like:

Psychopomp Prospera Vitali Bourgeoia

Human 20 Hero (150pts)

9 Dark Elves with crossbows (90pts)

10 Beastmen (100pts)

That's 340pts, which fits just fine. Better get cracking though, there's a fair bit of putty and conversion work in there and we're halfway through October already!

Oh, and as to not buying any new miniatures... none of these were in my collection before the beginning of October! I didn't buy the beastmen, but the rest were purchases especially for the project. Good start there Fimm!

The 333 3rd Ed painting challenge- Month 1, planning, plotting, scheming!

The metalquest continues!

 

Whilst we're on the subject of Heroquest miniatures, here are the substitute heroes I've been working on, plus a gargoyle/bloodthirster. Now having mentioned how rare/unknown the original prototypes are I decided to try and find 'proxy' miniatures instead. You know, to tide me over until they inevitably appear for sale! 

The dwarf is one of a few obviously based on the same John Sibbick art, this one is the 90th anniversary white dwarf. He's quite stocky compared to the prototype and plastic HQ dwarfs but I think of him as the same adventurer grown older, more grizzled and wiser as well as spreading a bit with his years!

The elf is, I think, a Citadel Silvan Elf. Chosen for his similar locks, pose and armament he's rocking the stripy trousers of his dungeon equivalent.

The barbarian, sorry BARBARIAN! with his Broooooaaaawwwwdswwwoooooordddd! is a Mark Copplestone Grenadier miniature with his axe swapped for a Celtos sword. Chosen, again, for similarity of pose, hairstyle and adornments. The Celtos sword is a bit chunkier but a bit shorter than the plastic miniature's and not as pointy as either of the prototype barbarians' but hey it's a broad-sword, right?

And the gargoyle is, of course, the relevant Citadel Bloodthirster. He's too tall, has too fussy details in his armour and face and frankly pales in comparison with the prototype, but failing another Marauder Bloodthirster hitting the open market he's probably as close as it's possible to get. The whip has been reposed and smoothed with some putty to better resemble the one on the prototype miniature.

Of course there's a hero missing here. The wizard seems pretty unique among fantasy miniatures in that he isn't based on Gandalf, with a long beard and floppy hat. There are a couple of preslotta 'young wizards' that look right but are too small to fit nicely with the set. My solution? A 4th/5th ed High Elf mage with sword swapped for staff and pointy ears hidden by further flowing locks. Unfortunately I have yet to acquire him, so you'll have to wait for that update. I've stuck in a dwarf wizard instead to uphold the magical arm of the party. He's probably about as competent as a junior apprentice shoved down a tunnel to face horrors beyond his wildest nightmares...

The metalquest continues!

My Silvanian Family

There's no disputing that lockdown 2020 has been the season of the wood elf. I have lost count of how many inspirational and wonderful paint jobs I have seen on Jes Goodwin classics over the past 4 months. The first two were enough to inspire me to do something I generally avoid- stripping painted miniatures!

When I was a foolish 17 or 18 I decided I was done with toy soldiers and gave them all away. Idiot. Well, I say all, but I did keep some and for whatever reason these Jes Goodwin wood elves were among them. Somehow amazingly preserved unpainted I then gave them an awful coat of paint to use them as tribal human allies for my Fimir. Seeing the beautiful work of talented painters in the Oldhammer Facebook groups shamed me into plunging them into Dettol to have another go. I chose to replace their flat Citadel shields with moulded ones from RAFM.

I had also kept some wardancers. Some from the 80s, others from the 90s, including the wonderful Warhammer Quest wardancer. Unfortunately when I was doing my Egyptian-styled high elves I thought it would be a good idea to remove the heads from the 90s wardancers and replace them with Anubis masks a-la Stargate, My sculpting skills were a bit rough back then and the result was not an improvement! I have therefore had to replace the heads with what I had to hand- three dark elf plastic heads and one of my See Thirty Amazon warrior heads. I've also had to replace a couple of weapons that had been replaced with Ankh staffs. Fortunately the Jes elves and the WHQ wardancer remained in tact! 

A couple of these classics are new additions to the ranks, thank you to Jason Lye for providing the reinforcements and swelling the unit!

The Warhammer Quest wardancer is probably one of my favourite miniatures ever and one I wanted to do a really good job on. For the moment this is what I have been able to achieve, but he may be tweaked or even stripped and repainted again if I ever feel I can improve it! I kinda feel he needs more cream... Oh, worth noting that when glazed I intend to give the gemstones a coat of gloss varnish. I just haven't ventured out with the spray cans yet.

Some non-Citadel miniatures in the mix. A Grenadier (now from Forlorn Hope) champion and Celtos Formorian Siren (from Brigade models) seem to fit in just fine. For now the Grenadier mini is leading the army due to his larger size and lordly bearing.

This was also an opportunity to paint a Trish treeman, thanks to Ross Hubbard for that! The first White Dwarf I ever bought featured a battle report with one of these chaps in a wood elf force so I was considering an homage to that one. Unfortunately it was largely brown and much of the bark on this beautiful sculpt is clearly birch so I decided to go with a green/silver scheme. This is such a good model that it just paints itself. A couple of hours with washes and drybrushing is all it takes.

One thing I was lacking was archers. My original wood elf army had the 5th ed plastic archers but I really can't stand them with their bulky cloaks so I wasn't sad that they had long since disappeared. Instead I opted for picking up a unit of the original plastics and padding it out with some silvan elf archers (for which thank you Harry). Apparently archers are a bit of a must in wood elf armies. Looking at these I am reminded that I happened to be listening to the audiobook of Lord of the Rings and whilst painting these the company were at Lorien. A lovely coincidence and I think I shall call their leader Haldir.

So that's wood elves added to my stock of small forces from across the Old World. There's not a lot I'd want to add to them, happy to keep them small. I'm not a fan of wood elf cavalry but maybe a chariot sometime. It'd be great to pick up some classics too like the Scarloc's wardancer and the Warhammer Quest elf, but other than that I think the woods are suitably guarded.

My Silvanian Family

We are the fighting Uru Lukinnat!

Happy new year settlers of blogsphere! This Christmas was a bit of a first, with no need to travel and the big day falling in the middle of the first week I had 9 clear days which translated (with a cold and impromptu days out and housework) into a solid 5 days of paintingand sculpting. :)

Thus was I able to expand my Orctober efforts to a mighty 2000pts of not-green skins. The mighty, fighting Uru Lukinatt, greatest goblinoid horde of Morrrrrrdooorrrrrrr! To be fair, not all of these were started and finished in the holidays, the crossbow arrer boyz has been creeping towards being finished for most of November and December. 40 odd goblins and 15 orcs, however, are a pretty good turnover for 5 days, even if they are definitely tabletop standard!

Speaking of standard...

I'm not totally sure, but someone fluent in black speech told me the approximate translation is "Oo are yoo lookin' at? Boris is my aunty", whatever that might mean. I figured it was a good moment to revive a truly oldhammer tradition, putting detested leaders on banners! The stone tablet afixed to the pole carries the regiment's official motto "Break shit, done". The reverse of the banner, designed to spur on the following unit, carries the unofficial motto.

I realised I needed to double my number of goblin warriors to make it effective, but was having difficulty finding an economically viable way of doing this. Luckily I had dug out some Moria goblins to paint and had been playing with Prince August home casting moulds that Harry gave me. The worst thing about both these sets of models was the heads, so I experimented replacing them with the very Angus McBride-style orc heads once released by Wargames Factory. They're oversized, as fits a goblin, and really helps lend them a LotR vibe. A short amount of superglue on fingers and broken knife blades later and...

Not too shabby. I had the bow goblins left, so thought I'd get myself a small unit of wolfriders to harass enemy flanks. Because they have a bit of a steppe goblin look I thought I'd put them on the Tibetan mastiffs I sculpted a few years back, with two huge RAFM wolves as mummy and daddy. Really pleased with how how the poses worked out.

This was also a great opportunity to paint up a recent acquisition. I've had my eye on an old Asgard Half Troll Chieftain for some years and last year finally got it together to collect a small group of buyers together and order from Viking Forge who still make them. He's too small to be a proper troll, of course, but makes an excellent Orcish Warboss.

The rest of the orcs are a mish mash of still-available miniatures and a few oldies I had available. I had ordered from SHQ at the start of December, but sadly still no sign of those despite being assured they were on their way. As it turns out I think I have enough orcs, I was just hoping a few of their mountain orcs might go with Alternative Armies one to make a small unit of Black Orcs and allow me to field my warboss as one. I still have some boarboyz to add, and am looking for the savage orc boarboy boss if anyone has one for trade or sale in the UK. He was my first metal Citadel Miniature, painted in Humbrol enamels and car body paints, and I would love to have another crack at him.

The background, in case you are wondering, was the product of the wife and I having our first lesson with Bob Ross to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Still lots to work on (it really isn't as easy as it looks!) before I try to tackle anything specific, but works nicely for a soft-focus backdrop.

The photo at the top shows the whole horde, this shows just the figures completed since Christmas (including 14 arrer boyz started in November).

We are the fighting Uru Lukinnat!

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!