Warhammer Fantasy Revisited

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…