Frostgrave Barbarians

I picked up a box of the plastic Frostgrave Barbarians in the middle of the year. I put some together and undercoated them. They then sat on my desk until now. Last week I decided to get stuck into painting them. I was a bit daunted at having to paint a dozen at a time so I did them in groups of 3 or 4 and gave them a bit more attention that I've given to most of my other Frostgrave plastic figures.

They're a pretty good set and they came out pretty nice. The only thing I would have liked is some more head options and another bow arm option. I trimmed and changed some of the beards to get a couple more different heads. I also added a couple of alternate shields and did a little bit of converting here and there.

The first lot: I like the spear guy and the shield. The hammer looks pretty dumb and I think I only made one figure carrying it (I still have more figures on the painting table). The archer is a good looking figure.

Lot #2: A bit more work on this lot. Most notable is the standard bearer. The draco comes from the Goth Cavalry set I used to make my elfin cavalry. The head he's holding is from an old box of Warlord Celts. It's been in my bits-box for a few years and was quite brittle. His sword is from the Fireforge Undead Cavalry box.

The figure with the axe reminds me very much of Conan from the Schwarzenegger movie. 

The last batch: Nothing special here. Once again I like the spear guy. The spear arms fit really well with the torso and just look really good. Overall, they came out pretty nice and I'm really happy with them.

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Once again: I don't enjoy using Blogger any more. Just trying to post the 7 images in this post proved to be a hassle. I'd like to do more battle reports but I don't think it will work. The images will post out of sequence and then it will be impossible to change their position. Because I usually use a few dozen pics when doing battle reports it will take a day or two to do them all individually and align them with the text and I just don't have the will or commitment to put that much effort into a single post. I do this for fun and it's not much fun any more.

Thanks Blogger.

Bright Elves

 It's been a while since I last posted anything. I was painting 15mm ancient Iberians but I lost a bit of interest. I'm not surprised considering how long they took to get from the UK to Australia. The amount of time sapped my enthusiasm considerably. 

Instead I've been doing more Oathmark Elves ~ Again ~ I also did a fair bit of re-basing.

This time I wanted to avoid the "standard" blue, white, green, grey elfin colour schemes. I wanted something brighter with a bit more visual impact. So I opted to give them darker mail topped with shining polished armour. This included turning the chest-symbol thing on the figures into a solid metal breastplate. I just used a bit of greenstuff and smoothed it over.

I also wanted to give them bright panoply to offset the darker overall colouring. In this case I decided on a sun motif with bright yellow and orange. This ties in well with the yellow and red colours of their uniforms.

Re-basing

I had a think about what I wanted to do with all the elves and goblins I've been painting throughout the year and I decided I want to play big battles with them. So I decided that having them based individually was a bit awkward and made large formations difficult. So I re-based them all. It took a while. Here are some pics of the converted cavalry figures I did last month. I made 4 more figures to bring them up to 12 and re-based them onto 50x50mm bases.

No More Love for Blogger

Another reason for not posting for a while is because I really dislike the modifications (upgrade?) that were made to the Blogger interface. It's now awkward to use and it's not as intuitive as it was. I don't really like working on Blogger anymore and I'm considering ending this blog. I would prefer to keep it going but I don't enjoy doing it any more because of the changes.

I would like to migrate the blog elsewhere but I'm not sure what to do. Any advice would be welcome.

More Iberians ~ Alternative Basing

I've painted up a few more Iberians during the week. After doing the initial batch of scutarii I found I wasn't happy with the basing. They looked far too neat and tidy with three to a base in nice neat ranks. As tribal warriors, I felt that they needed to look a bit less regimented. 

After asking some questions on forums and deciding what rules I would be using them with, I decided to put them onto IMPETVS style bases (80 x 40mm) single bases. I did the same with the new figures I painted too.

I prefer this basing. I think it looks better and it will make moving individual units easier too. I expect to be playing To The Strongest and Sword & Spear with them and both sets of rules work well with 4xDBA base size as a standard unit. I will never play DBA/M so it's really quite pointless for me to base my units in such a manner.

I like them and I now have the nucleus of an army done. Next up, I think I'll paint some cavalry before getting back to more infantry.  

Scutarii - Another benefit is that I've only put 11 figures on the base which saves me a painting a few extra figures and makes them look a bit irregular.

Caestrati ~ (light infantry) I only used 6 figures instead of 8 which means I will probably be able to make an extra 2 units with the figures I've purchased. Another bonus is that I can paint a 6 figure unit quicker than an 8 figure unit.

And here is all that I've done so far, including a command base.

Elfish Knights ~ A Little Conversion Project

In my previous post started on my new 15mm Iberian army. However, while I was still undergoing the long wait for their delivery I ordered some Gripping Beast ~ Gothic Elite Cavalry with the intention of converting them into elfish heavy horse. The plastic cav arrived whilst I was painting my first batch of Iberian's and I decided to get them made and painted instead of putting them aside for later and then losing interest in the project (which is what I normally do!). 

Before I go on I have to say that this conversion idea was not mine. I stole it directly from Lead Adventure Forum member BZ. So, Thanks BZ for the inspiration.

When I saw the LAF post with these models I thought it looked sort of archaic, unusual and a bit off kilter. And that, for me was just what I wanted. The basic model is the Goth Elite Cav figure with bits added from the Oathmark elven warrior sets. I had lots of left over elf bits so that part was easy. The spear and shield arms are from the elf heavy infantry set and the heads and shields are from the light elf infantry. Their capes are left overs from Fireforge Teutonic Knights.

Originally I was going to make 6 of them (see pic) but I found that I had 8 capes so I made two more. I ended up with 6 knights, a commander and a standard bearer. I did something a bit different for their bases. I wanted oval bases and I didn't have any so I cut them out of balsa wood and added a magnetic sheet on the base. 

Shields: I designed the shields on photoshop. I did what I've recently done for the infantry and the chariots:  Create the design. Print it on paper as high quality. Cut it out accurately and glue the paper onto the plastic shield using pva glue. I then paint the edges to match the shield, add a coat of matte varnish, a coat of GW 'Ard Coat and then a second matte coat.

I'm really happy with them and the photo's don't really do them justice. They came out really nice (especially the shields).

And now it's back to the Iberian's!

It's an Iberian Thing

I bought myself a birthday present (from my wife). I ordered it in August so that it would have plenty of time to get to me by early October because it had to travel from Xyston Miniatures in Scotland all the way to Melbourne in Australia. I hadn't realized the extent of just how awful our Autralian Post had become. Couple that with my suspicion that the UK Mail sent it by sea (apparently COVID 19 affects arimail) and it didn't arrive. 

Until Now!

On Saturday, we came home from a shopping trip and there, sitting on the door step, was a package that looked suspiciously like the same packaging used by Xyston Miniatures. Oh Lordy! My birthday present had arrived - a month late and three months in the mail - But there it was!

So what was this bountiful cornucopia that arrived on my doorstep? It's a bunch of ancient Spanish ~ Iberians to be exact. I took time to decide on my next ancient army and settled on Iberians because they fought for and against just about everyone for a few hundred years. Against Rome they fought with Hannibal, by themselves or along with other Spanish peoples. They fought with Sertorius, they fought in the earlier Sicilian wars, they fought everywhere. And they were good.

So in the end, versatility won the day. I bought enough in one order to make a pretty decent sized army with plenty of infantry, skirmishers, heavy and light infantry as well as command.

I got to painting them straight away and since Saturday I've managed to paint up 8 bases of scucatri (their basic medium infantry). The first few bases were a bit difficult because I wasn't sure what to do with the shields. In the end I looked up some pictures and pretty much just did what I want. They're nothing special but they look okay.

They'll look nice and colourful on the table when I get the lot done. They're 15mm so I can paint them pretty fast and expect I'll have the army finished by the end of the year. I'm looking forward to painting the cavalry but I want to get some light infantry done first.

Some Svertlings

In my previous post I added a couple of photos of some Oathmark Dwarves. I then decided to order a box of the plastic figures and I painted up a unit. I really like the metal "character" figures but I'm not so keen on the plastics. They look okay but I'm not 100% happy with them.

I don't like my shield design and I think they look a bit boring. I'm not very keen on the weapon options and I would have preferred more striking weapons (warhammers, mattocks, flails, etc...) instead of the very boring looking spears. I mean, spears are practical but these spears are boring as well and being as thick as telegraph poles. If they were thinner and designed to stick out forward they might have looked better. A couple of two handed options would be nice too.

In making these I decided to re-base the the metal figures that I posted week. I replaced the grassy bases with a stony effect which I'm happy with. I also made a proper command base for the king too. The carnyx (the big Celtic horn) was left over from some Warlord's Gaul/Celt infantry. It works well here and gives the base some height and a bit of character.

So I doubt that I'll add any more Oathmark dwarves to my collection. I'll finish the box I have but that's it. They may be affordable where numbers are concerned but I'm not impressed enough to purchase more and take the time to paint them.

2020 ~ Three Armies and a New One?

I've been wondering how many figures I've painted so far this year, but I have no idea. I've painted a lot but I only have a rough idea. I've mainly worked on 28mm fantasy but I've also done a bunch of ancient 15mm too. Really I don't know how may I've painted but I do know that I've painted - at least - three fantasy armies. I started getting back into fantasy late in 2019 with my Army of the Earlking but that's not included here.

#1 - Elves

Lots of Spearmen (spearelves?), plenty of archers, swordsmen in a warband, skirmish bows, light chariots, eagles, bolt throwers and heavy cavalry (not too sure if these guys fit in with the rest). They have plenty of commanders and heroes. I'm not sure if the spears should be organised as a phalanx or a shieldwall. I'm also currently painting another dozen spearmen which should be finished in the next couple of days.

#2 - Evil Doers

Lots of mixed weapon orc infantry, lots of skirmish archers, a pack of wolves, a gang of ogres, heavy cavalry (orcs on wild boars), giant spiders (as light cavalry). I could add a unit of werewolves if I want but I'm not sure. I have a lack of heroes and commanders for this lot.

#3 - Undead

At this stage this isn't a huge army but I have another 50 or 60 of the ghostly/phantom/basic undead troops (or whatever they're called) that will be added some time soon.. It's a perfect 8 point force for SAGA, Age of Magic. There's a bunch of basic ghost dudes, heavy cavalry, bigger ghostly things, wraiths, behold... a Pale Rider!, and a bone dragon. As with the evil doers above, I could add a unit of werewolves if I want.

#4 - A New Begining

I bought a pack of Oathmark dwarf characters. They're very nice figures and this lead me into buying a box of plastic dwarves. Now it looks like I'm going to build a dwarf army. Why am I doing this? I've talked myself into it.

Am I demented?

Here's some pics of the three characters.

Bonus Army

Now that I think of it, I could also add my Grandbretan troops but I haven't really done enough of them to constitute an army at this stage. I have posted them previously and I did paint them this year. I intend to do a whole lot more of them some time soon so here they are just to give some context. 

There's a few more things that go with these guys like the piggy archers below but these are the basic bones that I've done so far. Like may other things that I've been painting this year... I don't really know what to do with them.

So that's 3.5 armies so far this year and the beginning of another. When it comes down to it I'll soon have 6 Fantasy armies. I can also add a few fantasy elements to my Dark Age Anglo-Saxons and medieval armies to create another two armies for a total of 8 possible fantasy armies. 

See what you can do when you're locked up with the plague!

P.S. I wish I could find a good set of Big Fantasy Battle rules to use all these figures.