Blades of Khorne

 Never Too Old to Learn Safety with Tools

Quick post to end the year. Just bought some craft knives from Hobbycraft in the UK for £5. Which seemed a good price except...

They have been called to serve Khorne. 

First time I used them I managed to stab myself with the super sharp blade. Still it proves they are sharp enough for the job. 

Seems innocent enough

Blood for the Blood God

Sauron the Necromancer was one of the Christmas goodies and had to be started immediately. 

Sauron approves of the Sacrifice

Happy new year 

Rob 

2022 - A Year in Miniatures

 All the Figures in One Place

So, I think this is all of the miniatures from 2022 in one place. Not as many as last year but I am happy there are more quality pieces such as Thorin's dwarves and the high elves. 

Top 3 of the Year

The top three are all ones that pushed my painting skills on a bit such as the zenithal highlighting on the terminator on the work on the faces of the high elf captain or Granny Weatherwax. Overall my favourite is the high elf captain, I think the gold armour really pops. Who was my Golden Gobbo entry this year.  But the terminator was definitely the most fun to paint. 

Honourable mention goes to Bofur. I was very pleased how the quilting of the tunic tuned out. It took several goes,  and was one the first of Thorin's dwarves that I liked the finished result.

What Three Hobby Words of the Year: Shire, Thorin & Elf.

The Grenadier barbarians turned
their service to Saruman

All the old Grenadier barbarians used in Sharkey's rogues gone some form of modification. The guy with the whip had some deformation on the face which I turned into a burn mark. Which fits the evil henchmen look. 

Sharkey's rogues ready for mischief

Shire: By a tenuous route* I ended up painting a complete force of ruffians, extra hobbits, and a few accessories. Followed by starting the Scouring of Shire Campaign. I have been more than a bit frustrated by the scenarios in the sourcebook as most of them seem very unbalanced. Which detracts from the fun of playing them. This was also a problem in the 1^st edition of the sourcebook and while they have fixed some of the issues from 1^st edition in the 2^nd edition them seem to have forgotten to playtest the new scenarios. 

But I did enjoy painting up the figures. 

Thorin:    I had expected to finish off the company of Thorin Oakenshield this year and with a last-minute dash. I have finished all of the dwarves with only Gandalf and Bilbo to complete. This has certainly been a test of my (limited) painting skills and I have certainly learnt from painting them.

Elf:          The other hobby tangent this year has been collecting the wood elves and painting the high elves. What started as an odd figure, or two side projects has become one of the main themes of the year.

*I wanted some buildings for my new city scape photo board, and I redid some old ruffian huts which led onto the ruffians etc. 

Other Stuff 

I also have to mention that I spent a bit of time on fun side projects such as 101 ways to use Hexwraith Flame technical paint and troll tidy ups. 

Have a happy new year 

Rob 

Slann Army Ideas

New Army for 2023?

The four Warrior Clans

My first finished Warhammer army was a Slann army. What I loved was the wide variety of units and the Aztec inspired warriors. And since getting back into Oldhammer, I have thought how I could build a Slann army again. But at £10-£20 per figure there is no way I would be able to build an army even if the miniatures were available. Now for the non-Slann units there are plenty of alternatives available (at reasonable prices)  and technically you don't need that many Slann, there is only a 11 model (1 x 10 warriors plus hero) minimum requirement in the army list.  

Coatl - Not technically part of a Slann army.
But definitely fits the theme. 

But my Slann army, funnily enough had plenty of Slann forming the core of the army with the warrior clans  sitting at the centre. So, I need a way of filling up the majority of the force. With the release of sets like the plastic Aztec set  from Wargames Atlantic and Snakemen set from Ghost Archipelago plus the Tenoch range from  Little Soldier company has started me thinking about how I could build a Slann army (or at least a warband) again. So If I can get enough Slann for the core units then the auxiliary units would be relatively easy to fill.  

The Army banner

War altar and +4 Shock Elite Warrior Priests

While in not WFB 3rd Ed. a Slann mage riding a big dinosaur would make a great centrepiece. 

Like many wargamers, my original army  got sold, in part to fund armies that I was building at the time. These are some of the eBay pictures from when I sold them. So, if nothing else this article can be a chance to look at these classic Oldhammer miniatures.  As this was a nineties army, mostly plain green bases  and plenty of gloss varnish were the order of the day!

Slann Warband

Alternates for Army

• Bull Slann Cold One Riders - Cold ones are not a problem with some very nice models from ranges such as the Ex-Grenadier ones by Mark Copplestone.
• Venom Tribes & Scouts - I am thinking I might use some Chameleon skinks from Citadel and I have found nice alternates on Etsy. And sort of fits my thinking in that Slann models fill the primary frontline roles and the non-Slann models are the auxiliaries. 
• Animal Handers  - Wargames Atlantic do some very nice giant spiders and giant scorpion models are available.  Cold one war hounds could be replaced with dinosaurs?
• Lobotomised Humans - Plenty of plastic human models that could be converted.
• Lizardmen - Plenty of Citadel and non-Citadel models available.
• Troglodytes - Plenty of Citadel and non-Citadel models available.

Bull Slann riders 

Animal Hander

Rob

Trollsday Tidy Up

 Another Troll Tidied Up

Balin the troll slayer

This Bob Olley marsh troll by Reaper has been on my redo list for some time as I have never been happy with finished result. But at the time I couldn't work out how I wanted to improve him. In the end it was a mixture of adding detail to key points such as the fish and cloth plus redoing the base in a much more overgrown way. It was also a chance to use the new vallejo water texture. I may add a few more layers later (three layers done in the pictures). 

Bob Olley is a bit of a Marmite sculptor but this is a cracking sculpt with a very nice folklore feel to this troll. Without any of the comic overtones usually found in troll models. 

Before 1

Before 2

After 1

After 2

The white bird mark was an accident but I thought added to the organic feel of the base, so I kept it. 

After 3

Trying Stuff

After reading a bit about taking care of brushes, I decided to buy some brush cleaner. Now I am not sure how much difference it will make but I certainly managed to get a good deal of crap out of even dry brushes. And the brushes seemed to hold their points better after cleaning. So, now we will see how much improvement this brush cleaner makes in keeping the brushes in service. In case you are wondering the vegan brush cleaner was the cheapest one on Amazon UK. 

And on a grumpy old git point, why tell me its a 100% vegan because if it wasn't 100% then it couldn't be vegan anyway!

Dirty, dirty brushes not anymore

Also, some vallejo water texture arrived today, so this major obviously played a part on which troll got tidied up today! As we all like to play with the new stuff. 

My precious

On the Paint Bench

As I started the next group of miniatures, I was struck by the over forty year range of miniatures currently in progress. From the 70's Ral Partha high elf to 2010's Citadel Thorin with a pleasant stop in the 90s for some classic Oldhammer figures. 

Something for all ages

Rob 

Wood Elf Army Themes & Testers

Not Many Wood Elves in a Post About Wood Elves

All six test painted revenants

I am most of the way through collecting the wood elf army. And so far, I have managed to stick to my main aim which was a 90's inspired metal wood elf army. I have managed to get a mixture of 90's and sculpted in the 90's figures.  And I plan on adding another couple of different ranges and probably a few more eBay purchases to finish this first phase off. Pictures to follow when I get round to it. 

The best one!

One of the remaining challenges is the wood elf cavalry.  The Elven Lords are a more heavily armoured and armed cavalry unit than the traditional wood elf cavalry figures (particularly the ex-Grenadier miniatures that I am planning on using). Which look a bit  like scouts or light cavalry at best.? I did think about using either the high elf or dark elf models but not really sold on the idea at the moment. However, I quite like the conversions done by Iron Mitten on his blog. The Elven Lords will need to be armed with lances and could be up-armoured with green stuff.

Finally a wood elf in a wood elf article.

So now on to painting. I am sticking to the pale skin colours I used with the Fae and  have been trying out different colour schemes on these revenants. I did find an interesting tutorial on the Citadel painting website (Some Citadel Pale Skin type). Used for the new Citadel Sea elf types (?!).  

My first attempts were a bit too pale and had to be darkened down with a coat of Nuln oil to try and up the contrast. But when I followed the instructions from the video (swapping out  Apothecary white contrast paint which is a pale grey for Gryph Charger grey contrast paint) it looked a lot better. In my defence I didn't have any Gryph Charger grey so thought I would try the Apothecary white instead. 

Also not Wood Elves!

My initial thoughts were for a winter themed colour palette with greys, dark blues and greens. With some dark reds as a contrast.  So, I painted up a series of the revenants as a test. These would also make suitable alternates for an Army of the Dead and beef up my small undead force. 

I do plan to continue to use bronze colours without any irons. This makes them look a bit more archaic in design which fits the bronze age look of both the ex-Grenadier and Celtos figures. With bright silver and gold for decorative items.

First attempt at a winter base

I am now wondering about if I want to change this winter theme and mod it a bit. This was the first time I have used the Citadel snow paint and winter looking theme. I am quite happy with the winter bases on these revenants but I also wanted to try a couple of different base schemes as this can really set an army off. Not thinking that I will use any of the test bases as the main theme but might take some elements. 

Some of these would look quite
good in the Fae army

Something for the Year End

Just started to look at all of
my painted figures this year

Rob 

Old & New New Citadel Lord of the Rings

Friday Night Round Up

Painting has definitely slowed this week with only two figures finished. But hopefully quality over quantity. Ok maybe not but I did at least paint something this week. 

Newhammer Dwalin

Dwalin, at your service.

Making steady progress with Dwalin finished (No.11), I will not get the whole company finished by year end like I planned at the beginning of the year but shouldn't be to far off. I decided that they also need a display base. So, this will have to be added to list to finish this project.

Ambushed by warg riders

Old (Hammer) Tom

Finally got round to finishing this mounted version of  Tom Bombadil.  Definitely one of the stranger characters from Lord of the Rings. And shows that you can take a few side turns in a book which is difficult to do in a film. 

“Say rather that the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.”

Tom is master

“Ho! Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!

By water, wood and hill, by reed and willow,

By fire, sun and moon, harken now and hear us!

Come, Tom Bombadil, for our need is near us!”

Tom to the rescue

Rob 

Trouble with Trolls

 A Monday Night Monster

Work continues on tidying up my trolls, this time - Grog Stuntycrusher.  Unlike the previous trolls, Grog doesn't have many trophies or snacks. But is a great looking figure in a really dynamic pose.  Ready for a bit of troll diplomacy. 

David the hobbit and a troll called... 

I tried using Carroburg Crimson shade to create a bit of redness around his spots and around the joints to give the impression of a bit of soreness.  Other that that it was a bit of highlighting on the skin and a quick wash on the fur. 

Not surprisingly didn't take long to finish off Saruman's orc. As I only had to sort the base out and paint the shield. This is the only one from the set, I currently have so need to find the other two. Time for a eB*y. 

A nice and simple white hand design. 

Rob