Warhammer Fantasy Revisited

Brushed on some AP Strong Tone varnish, thinned a little with mineral turpentine, this morning. Varnish has now settled and I will give it until tomorrow morning to properly cure. Slight pooling at the bottom of some shields (which I can live with as I want these guys to look like they have been on campaign) and some tide marks on one of the banners that will need to be touched up, beyond that not much rehighlighting outside weapon blades required from what I could see on my first brief inspection.

So have been wondering what to do once all these armies are tabletop ready. Am flirting with the idea of replaying the Siege of Middenheim from the 2003 Storm of Chaos campaign as a narrative battle. o that end went hunting about for some siege rules. Best official ones I was able to locate were from Appendix 4 of the WHFB 6th edition rules combined with the siege section form the General’s Compendium (circa same edition – possibly 2003ish again? Great book regardless and well worth tracking down if you still like the idea of massed rank and flank fantasy combat games of any flavour). I have a section of barbican from Printable Scenery that I could use for the wall, but the size of the scenario possibly necessitates more than a 4 foot frontage, so not going to commit to anything until I’ve had a chance to think through what might actually be involved…

And calling the paintathon done here 🙂

Today I checked that the varnish had settled, spent a few hours doing a quick base finish on all the minis and hit them with a matt varnish spray. Gallery of the units finished as part of this project follows:

And fitting the new reinforcement units in with the existing forces:

Not sure that these have all been put together in the most ‘optimal’ way – I’ve pretty much been picking up discount 2nd hand minis on Ebay, stripping and repairing and trying to arrange into what appear to be sensible complete units rather than proceeding with any set goals, so my list composition may be rubbish. I don’t really mind 🙂

Tzeentch looks undercooked here but I have 2 more casters and a chariot to repaint and add to the force. Additionally I have a starter force from Wargods of Aegyptus that I picked up 15 years ago and have been meaning to use as  a unit of Tzeentch chosen, so they’ll get added in too.

Still have beastmen to add, plus daemons. And if anybody is wondering why Slaanesh didn’t get any love in this project, it’s because I already have a large Slaanesh army, which at some point I am going to revisit and try and bring back up to a better standard. So no need to add more to it.

All in all, pretty pleased with the results as a month ago these guys were a mess of smashed and broken minis and spares, and a week and a half ago were only primed. Am now at least happy to field on the tabletop.

From here I’ll switch back to the Middenheim force (would be good to at least get the 150 infantry knocked over in the next month or two) and get stuck in to the High elf Sea Patrol. Figured I’d start by painting up the 2 units of Shadow Warriors and let that inform the painting approach for the remainder of the army.

Thanks for following along 🙂

Still making progress on the Middenheim force. Just blocking colours at this stage in advance of a planned AP dark tone varnish, and i’m guessing, a subsequent rehighlighting of the white areas.

And while it’s not quite a pink tank, I did throw some colours on a few Night Goblins form the 7th ed starter set…

Had one of those nice occurrences on the weekend where everything just lined up and hobbying just fell into place without any roadblocks. Moved my half dozen character models to one side and focused on the (152) standard infantry models. Managed to get necessary base colours down on all models and have just finished applying varnish to the second batch (I did 2/3 yesterday and the last 50 this evening).

The recipe so far (mainly so I have a record for later so please do bear with me…):

• Primed in AP Matt White;
• Vallejo Model Colour Prussian Blue added to various uniform sections depending on the troop type;
• Vallejo Model Colour Basic Skin Tone on all flesh areas;
• Vallejo Game Colour Desert Yellow on the weapon hafts for spears and halberds;
• Vallejo Model Colour Natural Steel on all armour, belt buckles barrels and spiky bits;
• Vallejo Model Colour German camo Black Brown on the rifle and crossbow stocks;
• Vallejo Model Colour orange brown for belts, armour straps and assorted leather areas;
• Vallejo Model Colour black for shoes, boots and caps;
• AP Skeleton Bone for some of the leather and cloth armour where metal armour was not worn just to differentiate things a little and break up the white;
• Vallejo Model Colour Japanese Uniform WW2 for the blonde hair (I usually use Desert Yellow but needed something slightly different as I had used the Desert Yellow on the weapon hafts previously…);
• Vallejo Model Colour Panzer Series Flat Earth for the brown hair;
• All brushed down with AP Strong Tone varnish tinned with a little mineral Turpentine, with a good amount then brushed off the models to prevent too much pooling.

And that’s where we are. Once the varnish settles I will retouch the white on the shield details and rims, and anywhere that there is excessive pooling. Based on the results from a quick look at yesterday’s minis there shouldn’t be too much left to do other than base and matt varnish to get them ready for tabletop.

Then it’s characters and standards and we’re good to go 🙂

I have been tinkering away when the opportunity arose over the last couple of weeks making incremental progress on the men of Middenheim. Nothing that was individually a major progression point so didn’t want to update the project until they were tabletop ready. Which is where, for my purposes, they are presently residing. Plenty more I could do to them to bring them up another level, and have actually been struggling not to start, but they pass the three colour rule and the three foot test so will park them at this point.

The above gives me a Warrior Priest to accompany each of the infantry hand to hand units, plus a spare to add to the Teutogen Guard when I get them sorted. Markus Wulfhart will accompany the archers and the Captain will just hang about wherever he is needed.

Next step will be 3 blocks of 10 White Wolf cavalry, each consisting of 6 standard knights, and a command group of three. Each unit will have one character accompanying, either the Grandmaster of the White Wolf or one of two mounted Priests of Ulric.

From here, I’ll look to add a couple of packs of warhounds (Need to do an order to Warlord…), the aforementioned Teutogen Guard (Need to do an order to Norba) add a wizard (couldn’t find one that looked rustic enough so waiting on the Frostgrave Wizards kit to be available locally…) and a battle standard bearer (recent test games have impressed upon me how important these actually are in game – have a spare Greatsword standard bearer so that may end up doing the trick). So everything else is pretty much paused until I have sufficient need to place an order to the relevant companies…

Had originally thought it would be fun to convert up a unit of mercenary ogres to accompany the army but then I remembered I already had an army of converted to fit with the Empire force of ogres in blue and white livery so will maybe seek to upgrade their paint job instead of reinventing the wheel…

Having just completed a large infantry based army the only logical thing to do is to immediately commence work on another large infantry based army. Inspired by the excellent army book by Mathias Eliasson I’m going to give a Norse army a go. A bit of a rummage through my pile of shame yielded the below options, all of which I think I can sneak in scale-wise (The bases on the shieldmaidens are lower so they hide the heroic scale of the mins…).

Rather than batch painting a couple of hundred minis at a go I might just rotate through a few small projects a couple of units at a time and have a go at ‘slow growing’ some forces. Will see if that approach has a different feel to the larger volume batch painting I’ve been doing of late.

Spent today sidetracked from the Knights of the White Wolf I was supposed to be working on and ended up getting some assembly done for the Norse project instead. As mentioned, going for small manageable chunks this time around. Have been a little bit spoilt of late by almost single piece Perry and warlord historicals or picking up Ebay second hands so haven’t done any multipose assembly in a while. had forgotten how long it takes. Gave up on parts cleanup beyond a token effort somewhere after losing my third desprued shield-arm to the great dark void under the hobby bench. Anyhow, I did get a block of 10 Shieldmaidens assembled, and a block of 10 warriors that I will use as Reavers. Also remembered I had a standard bearer from Shield Wolf minis so dug her out of storage too.

While tinkering away I did notice some similarities between the sculpts of the Shield Wolf heads and the GW plastic Slaanesh Daemonettes. So I got curious and did a bit of kitbashing. Seemed to work OK so when I get to my Daemons in earnest (probably shortly…) I think I will convert a few to make the units look like they are shifting between a human and daemonic form.

No further advanced on the Knights of the White Wolf (so many horses…) but I have made some progress on the Norse.

…And I may have accidentally started an Albion themed army too using Warlord Celts. If anybody is thinking of holding an intervention at this stage, I’ll understand…

Appendix 4 of the 6th ed WHFB Main rulebook covered rules on fighting a siege. There were further developed in the excellent General’s Compendium for the same edition. I’ve never actually played a siege game and was curious about the way the rules would interact with the 9th edition core rules so decided to run a test game. OK, I’ll be honest – this is all with a view to perhaps one day playing out a large scale version of the siege of Middenheim, but we won’t go admitting to that one quite yet 😉

I used the basic siege rules for 6th ed without any of the additional content form the General’s Compendium. My main observations follow:

• Having the siege towers move at the base movement value of the unit pushing them (so 4 inches per turn) meant that they fell to shooting before they could get near the wall. The defending cannon in the top of the fortified manor in the centre of the board behind the wall may have been overkill (although mounting cannons in the defensive walls of a city does not appear unreasonable to me). May need to up the defensive stats of the siege towers, increase their movement (an upgrade so they can be hauled more rapidly by a monstrous beast perhaps?) or just add more siege towers to split fire?
• Battering rams had a similar issue with regard to movement. Attackers were languishing under concentrated fire trying to bring the rams forward, which is realistic I suppose. Perhaps need to add mantles or a cover save for troops pushing the ram due to the protection of the ram?
• Having missile units deploying behind infantry units armed with siege weapons meant that it was several rounds before they could get into range with their opposite numbers. These should have been deployed ahead (along with infantry units with ladders and grappling hooks) to engage/annoy defenders and prevent fire being concentrated on the siege towers.
• Using two artillery dice for  the scatter effect of indirect mortars seemed to work OK – next time think I will swap out one of the scatter die for a standard d6 for indirect fire, meaning even a direct hit will scatter somewhat (more realistic). ie, indirect fire mortars roll a scatter, artillery and a standard d6 to determine where the shot lands. on a ‘hit’ it just scatters the value of the d6, on a scatter result add the d6 and result on the artillery die.
• Walls can disappear with one lucky hit form a stone thrower or swing from a giant’s club. Might need to revisit the rules to reduce the chance of  a breach happening on one lucky set of rolls.
• Large monsters will apparently make great living siege weapons.
• If/when attempting the Middenheim siege game will probably need to look at having two sets of walls (ie outer wall and inner wall, or even a fortified keep within that) to maintain the siege element for more than a few turns.
• If attempting the above will also need a bigger tabletop. This game was on an 8×4 and was really compressed (attacking units were blocking one another). If doing the game properly would need to be on an 8×8 or possibly an 8×12 table…
• Having troops sally out to meet the opposing force worked a lot better than anticipated.
• Magic was interesting. Not a game changer but certainly helped to thin out the battlements.
• No use of flyers in this one (Empire had one captain on a Pegasus prepared to counterattack when units made it through the breaches but I stopped before hitting that point). Unsure how dedicated squads of flyers hunting down warmachines would have impacted the game (ie not sure if they would have been successful or outright shot to ribbons).

So interesting to work through a siege scenario. Of course if doing the Middenheim siege then there would be Skaven arriving from under the city at inopportune moments, cultists starting riots near the main gate etc so plenty of other elements to keep things interesting…

Have been busy with work but have made minor headway on a few bits and pieces over the last few weeks. Firstly, knights of the White Wolf done to tabletop standard. Just need to add a paper banner for the main standard bearer and can call them ready to play. I know it just wouldn’t be cricket to field them as such in game, but fielding them as a single block of 30 does look sort of cool…

Additionally  I have assembled a whole bunch of hundred years war Perry minis and some Freforge cavalry into what I’ll probably roll out as a Dogs of War force. Or possibly Estallia…

Have also been revisiting a half-started Kings of War undead army which was done as single based minis so that I can repurpose. Project stalled because I thought it would be a good idea to practice painting blacks and whites and learn NMM’s on a horde army. Pro tip – don’t do this…

And finally some work on a couple of Tzeentch characters which I had parked rather than roll up as part of my earlier Chaos project. has been fun to spend a bit more time on a couple of character minis. Still plenty more to do on them though.

Managed to get in a couple of games of 9th edition WHFB at 500 points. Really good fun. Unfortunately with the more expensive point per model armies it’s difficult to field lists at such a low point count that aren’t particularly unbalanced, so have started looking at low point cost minis again. With the end result being that I broke out, assembled and primed all those Skaven I’ve had kicking around from the 8th ed box set. With those minis plus some accumulated second hand extras think I should be able to field something at least fun, even if not competitive.

So current armies I’m tinkering with:

• Empire Middenheim – Pretty much complete, I’d like to add a BSB and a Wizard (if I can ever get my hands on one of those Frostgrave wizards kit…)
• Cult of Ulric – 40% done. Have the  Knights of the White Wolf and characters done, warhounds should arrive next week from Warlord and then just need to sort some more Teutogen Guard (these will be proxies form Norba minis). Not really a priority as I’ll just be running these guys in tandem with the Middenheim army and swapping in units if needed if not running them as a pure force. So pretty much starting and stopping as I get the bits I need to progress.
• High Elf Sea Patrol – 20% done. Army is assembled and primed, first pass done on the flesh base coats and some work on the dragon. Also need to do rigging and sails for the cutters I’m doing for this force and then organise some appropriate bolt throwers.
• Norse – 10% done. have about 500 points assembled and primed. Going to be using a mix of Fireforge Scandinavians, Shieldwolf Shield Maidens, Frostgrave barbarians and reaper bones frost giants, and possibly bones yhetees as trolls, not sure yet. Will slow-grow this as the mood takes me.
• Albion – 5% done. This one has had a couple of rule updates in the last 2 weeks so will need to revisit. The new take on the rules seems sensible. I’m breaking this project down into 2 components – all the Core units seem to be ably represented by a combination of Warlord or Wargames Foundry Celts. So no problems there, have a bunch of old second hand miis fit for purpose. My main concern is that all the special and rare units seem to strongly correlate with Rackhams Kelts from the Confrontation game, so I may need to actually start painting some of the shiny minis I have been hoarding in an elder great dragon-esque manner…
• Dogs of War – 20% done. Core force is assembled and primed, flesh tones on. Will add in some heavy foot knights that are too out of scale to use directly with the Bretonnian force to give these guys some more punch. And may as well add some hundred years war historical archers to boot. should be a quick turnaround on this force though given the paint scheme I’m planning on using.
• Undaed – 1% – Haven’t even started to look at how a KoW army would translate to 9th ed WHFB…
• Skaven 5% – A bunch of minis from the Mordheim and 8th ed starter box set assembled and primed. A bunch more Ebay 2nd hand casualties very much in need of repair and/or stripping.
• Chaos mortal – 80% done. Working on some Nurgle infantry, Tzeentch characters and then need to seriously revisit my Slaanesh force and modernise it a little (presently badly painted 6th ed models).
• Night Goblins – 60% done. Units are pretty much all at tabletop, just need to add in characters and fanatics.

On a positive note with all the assembly and prepping the pile of shame has taken a severe battering of late 🙂

Also will own up that I’m thinking of doing Pirates of Sartosa – because pirates. Also because of the Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago crew box set. If this fits to scale with Warlord Pike & Shotte plastics then it could be a cheap way to put together a 500 point, or even 1000 point army. And I know I have a lot of pirate minis lying around to add in for characters etc as swashbuckling adventurer types make the coolest D&D characters…

Heading through peak period at work presently (July and August will be a write-off as far as hobby progress goes in all likelihood, but don’t worry I’m lucky in that I genuinely like my job so all good 🙂 ) so haven’t gotten as much achieved as I might have otherwise hoped. Having said that, using the army painter method apparently you can roll out a 100 mini army (okay, 99 mini army… haven’t done a wizard or paymaster yet…) in little to no time (Conservative estimate 25 hours although was probably closer to 20…).

Core of a Dogs of war force. 2x units of 5 cavalry (Fireforge Mounted Sergeants, with standards and musicians), one with spears and the other with bows (taken from the Perry agincourt box), 2x blocks of 20 foot (pike with some hand weapon units mixed in plus command), 2x 12 crossbowmen and 2x 12 handgunners. The foot were predominantly sourced from the excellent Perry ‘Mercenaries’ box with some kitbashing involved. The mounted general was a D&D mini who was too out of scale to sit with the Bretonnian force. As alluded to above, still need to paint a wizard (I now have a box of the Frostgrave Wizards kit so one in progress there, plus another for my Middenheim army) plus a paymaster (I’m sure I have the mini I want to use for it stored somewhere logical…).

Speaking of dogs (Bam! Segue, all professional like…) 2 units of Hunting Hounds with hunt masters (the remaining 2 of the Fireforge mounted Sergeants form the Fireforge box) for my Middenheim/Cult of Ulric force. The dogs were from Warlord and really quick to paint up. Should add a bit of tactical flexibility to the force hopefully. I find fielding fast cavalry helps to create the false illusion of tactical competence as far as my generalship is concerned…

Finally a WIP shot of a test unit of pirates, using a combination of Warlord Pike & Shotte infantry and the Northstar/Frostgrave GA Crewman box set. Quite enjoying these guys so think I will push on with the project.

So, now that I’m through the busy period at work, should be able to get stuck back in to the hobby in earnest. Haven’t had time to do too much painting until the last week or so, but have gotten a bit of assembly done so plenty to get on with when I have capacity.

Currently on my workbench:

High Elf Sea Patrol – most of the colours down, need a second pass on the mahogany colour for the bows, second coat of dark grey on the cloth, red on the gems, a coat of tan for hair colouring, black on to the shields and then ready to dip. Just need to base after that. Then finish the dragon and boats to go with.

Chaos Nurgle – 2 units with great weapons (courtesy Avatars of War minis, with a few GW characters to bulk the units up to a full 20 each). Got the dip on these this weekend so just a final detail pass then good to base and varnish. Same scheme as the earlier Nurgle project so while I haven’t done a compare should sit alongside well enough (feel free, dear reader, to call out the irony of being concerned about an inconsistent/non-uniform paint scheme in an army literally called ‘chaos’…).

Pirates – one block of 15 as a test unit progressed as far as the dip stage. 25 more crew assembled and primed (to bulk up to 2 units of 20 total) plus 2 units of 10 gunners, again assembled and primed. Have another box of Frostgrave GA crew inbound so will split them into 2 groups and make a unit of swashbucklers and a unit of grog lubbers. Have a metal Reaper mini to use as a Captain and will convert a standard bearer for the army too. Still think this will be sitting pretty low on the count points-wise but it’s been good fun and I can add to it later.

And a pair of wizards, one for my Middenheim force and one for the Dogs of War project. Plus minis and monsters for Rangers of Shadow Deep but this project thread is all about Warhammer…

And stuff I have assembles and stashed for later progress:

Norse – From memory I have a unit of marauders, 2 units of reavers, a unit of shield maidens, a unit of berserkers and a unit of hunters assembled and primed. Plus assorted characters. Plenty of scope to add big beasties later courtesy of the Reaper Bones line.

Albion – Had a bunch of old Wargames Foundry and Warlord Celts which fit the mark here, should nicely work with SPQR too so happy synergies. Have assembled primed and done a base airbrush of skin tones on 3 units of foot, a unit of slingers, 2 small cavalry squadrons  and 2 chariot squads. Also have a couple of warhound packs. Still have minis left over on the sprues so might add some javelin armed skirmishers for variety/tactical flexibility.

Chaos – yeah, more… Picked up some preloved minis, stripped restored and re-primed. My bits box is just about running dry but I think once this lot is all painted up I think I’ll be good as I’ll have enough to single-handedly re-create the Storm of Chaos campaign… Well maybe not quite but even I’m prepared to admit that things are starting to get silly… Another 2 units of 15 foot each for the 4 chaos gods, a block of knights for Nurgle (going to do these guys in yellow rather than green just because it will be fun – will run them as a chosen unit to differentiate), 2 Khorne chariots, and a unit of Tzeentch knights, plus some converted characters on foot. All assembled, primed and given an airbrush colouring in their relevant flavour of chaos.

So with 4 months left in the year unsure how far through that lot I’ll get. Really keen to switch back to progressing some historical stuff so might end up genre-hopping a little. Time permitting will try to take some photos next weekend to show proof of progress…

Feeling like I’m spending a lot of time on prep work at the moment. As in somewhere between a D&D 3.5 edition wizard and Batman as far as prep time goes… I’d say that the following shot is what’s presently on my workbench but the truth of the matter is that my work bench is full and the overflow is now invading my gaming table…

On the left of shot are my High Elf Sea Patrol, who should now just need to be based and a final pass to pick out any required highlights or issues with chipping of the base layers.

At the front in white primer is Bretonnian force to go with the purple and white knights I did at the start of the year – a box of Fireforge Deus Vult Foot Sergeants, which will form 2 units of 24 men at arms, one with hand weapon and shields and one with spears and shields (shields to be added later to assist with painting and decalling – hey wow! ‘decalling’ is actually a word according to the OTT spellchecker…) , 2 units of 10 bowmen and a knight to lead the force (an old 5th ed Knight Errant as I don’t have anything more appropriate/imposing and am not planning on doing an order to Gamezone any time in the next couple of months). They’ll all get the same white and purple scheme as the knights, for the full retinue effect.

Behind them are 20 daemonettes, some converted with bits form the Shieldwolf Shield maiden kits to make it look as though some of them have shifted to a more humanoid form. Planning to try airbrushing these ones using the Vallejo Malefic Flesh paint set and see how we go. Beside them in a rather subtle shade of purple are a character and 2 units of foot for my mortal Slaanesh force. Models are ebay rescues, stripped, restored, primed in AP plate mail and then hit with 2 airbrush coats of Vallejo Purple Ink. Will detail up lots of pink and gold on the cloaks and armour respectively, then use an AP dip to tone everything back a little.

To the front right are some night goblins I’ve had kicking around for a while that I just didn’t want to paint black. I’ll do the fanatics in black and the characters in brown or grey maybe, but wanted the rank and file to be more of an eye-sore 🙂

And at the back my Pirates of Sartosa force, which I’m hoping to be able to sneak into Sharp Practice if I can sort a caribbean gaming table and a Spanish fort and garrison. In the meantime, simple colour scheme of Ivory, Cavalry Brown and Black Grey (all Vallejo) with a soft tone wash.

On top of that, I may have given into peer pressure (or more correctly, no pressure…) and committed to an orc force for Orktober. Link Here. Planning on getting everything assembled, based and primed by the end of the month so that I can start painting the first weekend of October. Project will be an old Mantic starter box – 2 units of 20 orcs on foot, 3 chariots, 10 boar boys and a few bases of snotlings/orclings. Will convert a BSB and see what I can do about a few appropriate characters to lead the force. I was thinking about opening a box of my Confrontation Orcs to use but then I took some aspirin and had a lie down. Don’t worry, everything’s OK, the box of Confrontation orcs is still safely in it’s original shrink-wrap 😉

In addition, finished my 2 blocks of 20 Avatars of War Plague Warriors with great weapons. well, I actually had 36 of these but some other Chaos character models who bumped the 2 units up to a more imposing size. They are up to the same standard as the rest of the force (ie ‘tabeltop’) so will park them here. Planning on running them as chosen just for giggles.

Got a package in the mail last week from community member @horati0nosebl0wer (thanks again!!) – much to my delight there was a bunch of classic Empire miniatures, nicely converted and very thematic. While I am slightly tempted to paint them up and disperse them amongst other units to act as characters, the merry warband was composed with Mordheim in mind and I think I’d be doing them a disservice not to put them together as such. With all the gear they have and given the size of the warband it does sort of scream Marienburg… So this might be the kick in the pants I need to actually get the ball rolling on that Mordheim project I’ve been pondering for the last year or twenty…

Finally got around to finishing up the High Elf Sea Patrol project. Just couldn’t get motivated for some reason – colour choice maybe? Anyhow, have the force finished, still want to do a dragon as an add-on, a couple of boats and look at options for bolt throwers, but I think it works as is as a small marine insertion force or an army of Nagarythe.

So with the high elves off the paint bench at last I thought I’d try sone airbrush work on a unit of Daemonettes. I wanted to try the Vallejo ‘Malefic Flesh Set’ and see how they worked. Actually remembered to take progress shots, which is a little unusual for me…

Final result isn’t quite where I was hoping to land, but still coming to grips with the airbrush so happy enough with the result. Thinking I might do a final wash of thinned down Reikland Fleshshade or similar to try and bring back a little more warmth to the mins, or maybe a mix of a flesh and purple wash? One last photo with slightly better light…

Been productively painting this week – did you know that painting time and time spent playing computer games have an inverse correlation? Who knew?… Got a box of the excellent Fireforge Foot Sergeants and used them to form up two units of men at arms for Bretonnia – I wanted a retinue to support the knights I had done earlier in the year. Ended up with one unit of 24 with spears and one unit of 24 with hand weapons, all with shields. Given the absence of command options in the kit I went raiding the bits boxes @llandorlin had loaned me for standards, horns and decals. Additionally added 2 blocks of 10 archers from the old 5th edition starter. Those are 25 year old single piece plastics, but still great fun to paint and turn out OK to tabletop standard. Commander for the cohort is still on my paint bench.

Also finished two wizards put together from the excellent Frostgrave Wizards plastic kit. One for my Middenheim force and one for my Dogs of War army. Both forces are now more or less complete entities, although I would like to add a battle standard for Middenheim and I’m still short a proxy Paymaster for the DoW force. If I can’t find the figure I’m after in my pile of shame somewhere I’ll just stick a treasure chest on the base of a merchant prince looking figure and call it adequate.

Today I managed to finish the bases on the starter cohort for a Pirates of Sartosa army. Two units of 20 Crew and 2 units of 10 Deck Gunners. Figures used were Warlord Pike & Shotte infantry and the Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago Crew set. Character to lead is still on my paint desk. Still to add for this force is a unit of 10 swashbucklers, another 10 Grog Lubbers (pirates drunk on rum who have a penchant for molotov cocktails) and a unit of 10 Powder monkeys (pirates obsessed with pistols and black powder weapons). Will then drop in the standard issue caster and BSB and should have the bones of a force to use. Has been good fun and I think I’ll be a little more relaxed now in my approach to painting up historicals.

Recipe – primed in AP skeleton bone, Vallejo paints basic skin tone, ivory, cavalry brown and black grey used for base colours, leather brown and oily steel added where appropriate, the Game Air colour Mahogany used on musket stocks, Desert Yellow used on wooden weapons, then given a coat of AP Soft Tone Varnish and a matt airbrush varnish.

So had originally planned to put together an old Mantic Orc army box for KoW that I had kicking around for an Orctober project. At some point during the prep work I must have gotten carried away and pulled together and assembled every Orc I could get my hands on from bits boxes, old sprues etc. Plus a few goblins for good measure. So, plan is to now push through the following in a month:

• 4 blocks of 20 foot orcs
• 3 groups of 10 Arrer Boyz
• A unit of 10 Black orcs
• 10 Boar riders
• A few additional boar riders who will fill out an existing unit
• A group of 10 Goblin Wolf Riders
• Four orc chariots
• A shaman, standard bearer and hero type character on foot
• Plus some miscellaneous goblins (6 fanatics, a few shaman, a spear chukka and a hero on foot), if I have time, to add into my existing night Goblin force (which I also need to finish…)

Most of the above will end up being stood up as a new ‘Badlands’ themed orc force, with the rest getting added to my existing greenskin army. Rough maths is about 150 minis in a month (or 230ish if I include the in progress and optional goblins…). Plan is as follows:

Orcs and Goblin Wolf Riders:

• Primed in GW Zandri Dust
• Zenithal Preshade in Desert Yellow from the airbrush
• Second zenithal in white
• GW contrast orc green on the green areas (mainly as I’m looking for an excuse to try it).
• Leg cloth in a buff or canvas looking colour
• Wraps and teeth in Ivory
• All metals in oily steel
• Inks or washes on the leather areas
• Obvious straps and belts will get hit with leather brown.
• Eyes in red?
• Then an AP strong tone ink wash to finish

Miscellaneous goblins I’ll prime in white and work up from there as needed as I’m going for a brighter look.

Black Orcs got a plate mail primer. I’ll airbrush a black ink wash, edge highlight/chip with silver, add in leather brown and a coupe of passes of dark green highlighted up on the cloth and then give them a dark tone varnish.

At least that’s the current thinking. Had been considering incorporating a blue detail colour to tie them together but as I want to try a red soil base sand I’m worried the palette might look a bit busy with red, blue green and yellow…