Book of War- a Barbarian Battle!

My good matey Mike of Broadswords and Beasts came over to provide alternative entertainment on Saturday. Apparently some geezer in the big smoke was getting a glittery hat but we had our attention caught by two warring Barbarian clans- My earthy, celtic, Slaine-influenced clan of the Horny King vs. Mike's Heavy Metal Marauders.

Mike brought along Book of War Original Edition Delta by Daniel R. Collins (2011). A ruleset designed to handle mass combat in D&D, so very much the flavour of 1st edition Warhammer without the need for tables. It ran fast and smoothly, though we had to make a few 'common sense' calls re. crossing scenery, wheeling, passing through narrow gaps etc. This was probably all covered in the advanced section of the rules but we wanted something simple so just played the basics. The only maths involved was a morale calculation based on losses from combat that turn. Once you had run it a couple of times it was second nature.

Now to the fun part... photos!

Forces arrayed for battle... The Slainians are a bit outnumbered, but they do have a mammoth!

Movement is fast! A 'light' cavalry unit can get halfway across the table in a turn and even ponderous infantry has a 9" move.

Spikes and skulls are clearly the order of the day amongst the Metal Heads. The deliciously fluffy doggies sadly didn't get a chance to chomp on succulent biceps as they lost most of the front rank to arrows from the mammoth howdah and quite literally turned tail. Fast movement doesn't give you much chance to recover from a rout!

An imposing unit of Hecatrons (Hecatri?) advance on the left flank.

Grim banners and heavy chariots advance to the pounding of war drums and scream of distorted guitars...

The Hecatri swarm the hedge to set upon the retinue of the Horny King. 

It would be a drawn-out conflict, but little by little the ranks of Hecatri fell to the gae bolga.

On the right flank the Marauders had the upper hand (bedecked in studs and with two fingers raised no doubt!). Heavy bear cavalry and chariots made short work of the shoggy beasts before turning their attention to the geriatric veterans...

...who soon hobbled off in brisk retreat!

The mammoth stood its ground as hordes swamped it from all sides. A unit fell beneath a sweep of its trunk but it was no match for the mighty giant axeman.

Enraged by the losses to a small group of archers (longbows seem like the most effective weapon on the battlefield) the mighty Metal Warlord and his heavy chariot mows straight over them. No survivors. Meanwhile the remains of the Horny King's retinue are surrounded on three sides and pushed from the table. But they shall return to exact their revenge! And probably bring more bows next time...

Book of War- a Barbarian Battle!

Pax Elfhammer

 

Another month of the Odds and Sods Challenge passes, another army complete! You'll have seen Happhyia Siddance previously, here's the rest of his woody kin. They're the happy little treefolk who suffer no high speed rail or crap estate developers to ruin their haven.

Most of the army is a blend of Jes Goodwin elves that somehow survived my "I'm an adult now" toy cull, ex-Grenadier elves from Forlorn Hope and Battlezone and plastic Fantasy Regiments elves. The Jes elves I repainted a couple of years ago. I had been using them as human tribes for my fimir but I thought they deserved a better paint job so I broke my rule on not repainting for them.

There are also some of my own sculpts in here, Oakbound Faw Walkers- an attempt to complement the Jes and Copplestone elves. Not all that successful but they make up the numbers.

I see the wood elves as a very bow-heavy army. If you can even see them (never mind reach them in close combat) that doesn't feel very elfish to me. With the exception of the wardancers of course, who should appear from nowhere, cause havoc and vanish again into the trees.

The regiments elves I picked up cheaply in a few lots. I love them for doing exactly what they were intended for- filling out the units with loads of low-cost troops that have enough variation not too look too monopose.

I was given enough silvan elves to break up the plastic ranks. They'll likely be mixed together when fielded but here they are in a separate unit.

And some of my own archers too.

Here's this month's actual challenge minis, the glade riders. The Copplestone cavalry are great but the actual mounted models are limited on the bow front and I want to preserve the heavy-archery theme. I really don't see wood elves driving headlong in ranks of lancer cavalry intending to run their foe into the ground... not unless they're clearing up the fleeing remnants of a routed foe.

To give myself more mounted archers I have cut the tabs off ex-Grenadier foot archers and bent their legs to fit on the horses. I don't think they look too bad for such little effort. The horses I wanted to give a kind of native American painted look to introduce a bit more colour to an otherwise pretty drab green force. That's entirely appropriate of course, but doesn't pop on the table as much as I would like.  

The command are also adjusted from foot troops. Rather irritatingly I put the champion and standard on the same horse (a Citadel one I think? I actually don't like it as much as the Grenadier ones) and the musician and general on the same horse so the front rank of the unit is two horse sculpts instead of four. Ah well.

No wood elf army is complete without wardancers! A blend of Jes Goodwin and my own sculpts with some 4th edition ones at the back (with substitute heads as I sculpted Anubis heads onto the originals to use with my Egyptian high elves, then switched their allegiance again) and lead by the WHQ wardancer which is one of my favourite models of all time. I don't think I have done him justice, might need to get another one and try again. 

Of course nature is on the side of the elves against stupid humanity. The Mark Copplestone eagles are amazing. I put the riders into other units (find them somewhere above!) as I just didn't think they could actually ride the eagles in the way they are posed. Anyway, eagles by themselves are cool and more multi-purpose.

The flora of the woods is the hidden might of the wood elves. Taking cover behind a tree from the hail of arrows? Sorry, wrong tree! This big fellow is a 6-soul sluagh from oakbound, formerly Bear's Head Miniatures Oggalump.

I seem to have amassed quite s election of treefolk... here's another Oakbound (only a 4-soul sluagh this one, there's a 2-soul one as well, but not in this selection), a RAFM and a Hinchliffe now Broadsword Miniatures (based on an Alan Lee drawing from Faeries... or is it a Brian Froud illustration? I forget).

And, of course, a mighty Trish Morrison treeman. Definitely a birch this one.

Lastly, these two are Alternative Armies. I think I ordered one and then they were giving them away free so I ended up with two. The metal arms (resin bodies) are nicely posable to make them look sufficiently different.

Pax Elfhammer

The Court of Shah K'han, High Elves of far Araby?

 

Back around the turn of the millennium I decided I was too grown up to play with toy soldiers and gave away (sigh) pretty much all of my Warhammer and related games. GW was switching to plastic kits and a chunkier aesthetic which didn't capture my interests, White Dwarf was becoming less 'creative' and there were other things in the outside world to distract my attention...

2010 rolled around and I realised I was wrong. I was sharing a house with a wargamer, studying theology with wargamers and generally decided life was too short not to play with soldiers. Fortunately this was before the price of 'vintage' (how dare you?) minis sky rocketed so I was able to build up a reasonable selection through eBay purchases whenever my part-time wage allowed. My first step back into the hobby, however, was splitting a copy of the freshly-release Isle of Blood set with a mate. He took the skaven, I got the pesky elvses. Initially I was sucked in by the big griffin model... more on that later. 

I hadn't picked up a brush to paint miniatures in over a decade, though I had been painting set models and full-size props so I wasn't totally out of practice. The local hobby shop sold Vallejo paints so that's what I started using, with an old Citadel Expert (inks) Paint Set I snagged off eBay. The two units above represent the first models my 'adult' self had attempted. As part of the Odds and Sods Challenge this month I finally finished off the army, including rebasing (they were previously on MDF squares) of which more later. Apart from a couple of highlights I touched in and some repairs to chipping these are exactly as the paint fell of my brush sometime 2010-11ish. You might notice the odd addition- a scarab here and there, an ankh or Horus head. These were some of my first sculpting attempts!

 

I didn't want to go class High Elf with these. it seemed to me that with the style of the wings of the griffin and their scale mail and tall helms they had something of an Egyptian look so I wanted to play on that. Plus I wasn't too fond of the plastic figures... more on that later! Searching for bargains on eBay I spotted these, Celtos Sidhe Elves sculpted by the excellent Kev White. They're back in production now through Brigade Models and (if you've seen my undead you'll know) are some of my favourite figures. Back then I had to keep an eye out for listings over a couple of years but managed to score quite a few at very low (even lower than Brigade!) prices. I thought they had a suitably Egyptian look and acquired enough to double the sizes of my Lothern Sea Guard and Swordmasters of Hoeth. Oh, and yes, I know that one above is Foundry. She just came in one of the lots and doesn't look out of place!

I had kept hold of my Lord of Rings miniatures, that game and the scenarios (and scenery mostly) had kept my interest even though I ended up hating the films when they came out. I thought this would be a good use of the plastic elves even though they were obviously a bit smaller, I don't think they look too out of place. To make sure they looked definitely diminutive I gave the units big Celtos champions!

The unit of archers I finished in 2011, but I didn't get around to the swordsmen until last weekend. Pretty quick, trying to keep to the level of my original paint jobs. The big challenge was trying to locate which paints and inks I had access to at the time since they're different from what I use now. I do still have all my Vallejo paints and Citadel inks but some of the Vallejo is a bit dry now. At the least it needed a good shake!

Another Ebay find to add in was the Wargods of Aegyptus range. Chris FitzPatrick sculpts so you know they're going to be good! Still available, but quite pricey. I was lucky to find these in bargain lots. The Basti are my favourite, I can't imagine why.

I quickly decided my general had to be a cat-person warrior. In game his unit is, of course, White Lions of Chrace... though I didn't want to go full white with them, sticking to sandy colours for the most part.

The mage I went white on to mark him out as special. His colouration is based on one of the cats I had growing up.

The leader of the archers is also based on a family cat. A particularly clumsy one I felt was appropriate for the champion of a missile unit! The only recent touch-ups I have given these are to repair paint chips (having moved house three times) and to add a bit of highlighting to the yellow which I felt didn't quite read enough.

I mentioned earlier I had rebased them. Originally I put them on simple squares of MDf with a very light dusting of sand on to look deserty. I do want to be able to use these alongside my other miniatures though so decided to rebase on plastic bases with a more pronounced sand and rock surface inspired by my experiments with Heroquest bases. They don't have the earth and foliage that most of my armies do (obviously!) but the black trim is enough to tie them in. Because I had already cut the tabs off to mount them on the MDF it was pretty simple to bash out enough bases and stick the miniatures on afterwards. Nice not to have to base around feet!

Six of these Basti warriors I got in a more recent lot and hadn't painted so they got done over the last week. Matching in the skin tones was particularly hard. I thought I could remember what colours I used but they didn't quite look right. A few tweaks with approximate colour Foundry paints and Army Painter washes and I don't think you can tell which are the original and which the more recent. I popped a bit of a brighter green on the eyes of all the cats as I felt they weren't obvious enough on my original paint jobs.

The it was the turn of the griffin... I had been saving it until I had done a bit more practice. Now I would attempt it! I hadn't done a large plastic model before... This was not a fun process. It very quickly became an absolute slog. All the things I hate about multipart plastic models- flat surfaces that don't take washes, obvious join lines, pieces that overlap so you can't get a brush in, overly stylised feathers and fur that look like little weird regular triangular spikes... Painting this put me off GW models and the army stalled at this point.

Fast forward to this month. The Odds and Sods theme for March is "Flying". Well I was NOT going back to touch that horrid griffin again! I don't have an awful lot left in my 'army stuff to paint' queue though, and none of it has wings. What I did have was a set of Ellyrian Reavers to finish off this force (and a few odds and ends to add to other units at the same time). Flying hooves, flying manes, flying pennants, flying high-high elves... that'll do.

My love of plastic kits was not rekindled by these guys. They're designed as press-together, easy assemble kits for beginners and that's all fine, but I pity any beginner whose first experience of painting a model is these guys! So hard to get a brush into places on them, so many weird flat areas where the detail fades out because of moulding restrictions. Yes the poses of the 4th/5th box set minis may have been more static but as models designed to ease people into painting and gaming they were definitely superior to these! The manes and tails certainly don't look like those of a horse... Anyhow. They weren't too bad to do and they are now done.

You may notice the champion has a different weapon. I wanted him to have an Egyptian-style sword so swapped his for that of one of the Basti warriors (go on, see if you can find it!). Unfortunately in one move or another it got detached and the closest thing I could find to give him was the sickle from the Fenris skeleton charioteer. Still I think it doesn't look out of place.

A few weeks ago I was given a Dragon Prince body by a mate in a bulk lot with instructions to 'melt it all down' (knowing I had the spin caster set up in the shed). Well most of it has been, but I decided to rescue this guy and use him as a banner bearer. I had run out of moulded banners (another thing I hate about plastic kits!) but since every other unit had one I wanted to be consistent. I managed to find a few bits I could chop in half and mount on the banner to give it a degree of relief.

Lastly, a pallet-cleanser. Some more Juan Diaz Wargods sculpts. Two Sobeki monsters this time, personal bodyguards of the general. These were a lot of fun to paint, mostly with washes and edge highlights. Few! Another army done. Not the most fun this one, but the Wargods and Celtos figures made it a tolerable process!

The Court of Shah K'han, High Elves of far Araby?

Olley's Ogres

 

Strictly speaking these boys aren't newly painted (most of them) but since I finished the last two on Saturday I thought this was a good opportunity to rebase them and take new pics in my lightbox.

I had a free afternoon after packing the car for Overlord this weekend but had a complete painting block, couldn't decide what to start on. Doesn't happen to me very often. I knew I wasn't in the mood for sculpting, a couple of things I thought I could start weren't undercoated and I couldn't be bothered to get the sprays out (it was cold outside)... Ordinarily I would be cracking on with the new month's Odds and Sods challenge but this one is a quandary since the theme is 'flying' and I don't really have anything I want to work on that fits. Possibly my Jabberwock but he's not primed yet and I don't quite know what I am going to do with him. 

Surveying my shelves I noticed I only actually had two Bob Olley ogres unpainted. I ought to be able to get those done in an afternoon. That was decided then, I'd finish something off for March at least! One of those two was the shaman dude to the left above. Most of these ogres are from Ral Partha Europe but these two new ones are from the range Bob Olley sculpted for Fantasy Warlord (not the range held by Alternative Armies, the other one, still available from SHQ Miniatures as 'large ogre urucks'). They fit pretty well size-wise, just a little bigger, and being Bob Olley the style is consistent enough. 

It was actually of this range that launched the little band. The guy on the right here (large ogre hunter) I spotted on another blog, I think it was JB Asslessman's? He looked so great I had to get one. It was appropriate therefore that I started and ended the band by painting this guy since the other unpainted figure I had to complete was the second (to the left). I gave him a different weapon for variation. It was actually pretty tricky painting the new ones as I hadn't written down my colours and had to guess. I couldn't remember if I painted them before I started using Foundry paints, before I started using Quickshades etc... But I think they came out pretty well and don't look out of place.

I also rebased the ones I had painted before. They were on 60mm round, lipped bases which looked great but were really much too big for the figures. If nothing else it was taking up too much room on the shelf! I've now put them on 40mm rounds which are a more warhammer appropriate size. For some reason my base supplier doesn't sell 40mm squares, but hey I like a round base anyhow.

Oh, and I know one of these ogres isn't a Bob Olley sculpt, but I think he fits just fine. Spot the Jes!

Olley's Ogres