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.

Pimpin' Yo Chariot

 As I've been building my elfin army during my extended plague lockdown, I've been wondering about cavalry. Cheap alternatives are non-existent. I've found some very nice metal figures but the Australian Dollar and the cost of getting them here is exorbitant. I can afford it but I just can't justify $100+ for six figures. It goes totally against my wargaming sensibilities. So I needed to look for alternatives.

I decided to make some chariots. I looked around for a while but couldn't really find what I wanted. I saw a nice Warlord Games, Egyptian Chariot Regiment. But I would have to get them from the UK and the cost would be huge again and I might have to wait months at the moment due to the post.

Anyway, I found these 4ground Egyptian Chariots. Each pack had two chariots for $9 AUD. So I ordered two packs. 

I had six horses still on their sprues from a Perry plastic War of the Roses or Hundred Years War kit and I decided to use these. They had saddles and reigns but they'd work okay after trimming the saddles a bit.

I used Oathmark Elves for the crews. I decided these would be light chariots and I'd make them into missile platforms. So I made up some figures to fit. I had to make the archers using all the same pose because fitting them into the chariot was going to be a real squeeze. At least the driver/shield bearers are all slightly different.

So I then came the painting. I decided to give all of the actual chariots the same colour scheme. However, I gave each set of horses individual panoply with matching quivers for the arrows.

Putting the things together was pain in the arse. I made the reigns out of wire by twisting two strands together. I then had to thread them though the hand of the driver and fit them to the yolk. Then I had to maneuver and set the crew so that both both figures fitted into the back.

After a lot of super-gluing, swearing and a few touch ups they were done. As far as I'm concerned they came out pretty nice and I'm really happy with them. So I now have a mobile element for my elves. 

As Above, So Below

I got some more of my birthday box finished as well as another monster that's been waiting around for a month or two. I'm currently waiting for some mdf Egyptian chariots to arrive. I have plans for them and I'm keen to get started but, alas, the Australian Post are letting me down yet again (10 day wait so far on something that usually takes 3 days).

Anyway, during these past couple of days I've painted up some flyers and a burrowing D&D beast. 

As Above:

"The Eagles are coming. The Eagles are coming..." Hopefully, when one of my little figures cries this out aloud on the wargames table it'll mean that I'm going to win ( after all, it always happens in Tolkien!). These figures are from WizKids. I've seen better eagles but the other figures currently available are way beyond my ability to justify paying for them. These came in at $10 each and they're okay for that price.

Their bases come with a little clear plastic thing that fits up their bum holes. I had some aluminium tubing that worked better and got them off the ground. So I gave them a drill up their bottoms and shoved the tubes up their clackers. They came out okay.

So Below:

This in an Umber Hulk and it's another Reaper Black Bones figure (I don't recall what it's official name is). I got it just because I like the look of it. For those who don't know, Umber Hulks are one of those D&D monsters that, as far as I know, don't exist anywhere else in the world other than The Monster Manual. It's one of those creatures created by Mr Gygax and friends to to fill up space in the MM and to burrow its way through campaign modules and crush your player's favorite characters. It's a fairly large figure and is big enough to intimidate.

This figure has a decent base and i didn't need to re-base or do anything fancy. Just a bit of paint, a wash and a bit of dry rushing. It came out okay and I'm happy with it.

Darts and a Bulls Eye

I received my birthday present a couple of days after my birthday (because in Australia we can't trust the mail to be on time anymore) this came in the form of a box full of goodness ~ i.e: Another box of Oathmark elves, some paints, a trio of WizKids giant eagles and the things you see below.

These are a couple of ballistae / bolt throwers from WizKids. I was expecting one but they came as a pack of two. I kit bashed the elves from both Oathmark elf kits. I removed the skull from the front of the ballisa and used a couple of the standards from the elf kits to fill the gap. They came out okay.

The Brass Bull is from Reaper and is the Black Bones version. It's not as large as I was hoping but it's big enough to be a monster and look intimidating. It's to go with my Granbretanian's. In the book, The Mad God's Amulet, there's a big metal beast that goes on the rampage and kills lots of people. It's not a bull and it's not made of brass but I do have bull-masked troops and brass is a continuing theme throughout the books due to the character of Count Brass and Castle Brass. So the Brass Bull sort of fits in thematically.

The Spirit of October

October seems to be the month for all the creepy haunted things to come out to terrorize goodly folk, so it seems only fitting to add a few more spooks to my legion of the restless dead.

In a previous post I mentioned how I managed to acquire a bunch of those recent GW magazine things (You know... that game sold at new agents each fortnight with sprues and paints and dice and stuff included)... You know what I mean. Anyway I got six of the first release and two of the second. The second magazine had these ghostly models. I don't know what they're supposed to be but they look really nice. 

I made them a few weeks back and decided to paint them a couple of days ago. There are four figures on each sprue for a total of 8 figures, which is more than enough to make up a unit for most games. Here they are:

Another Blast From The Past

I was going through some old pics the other day from the years before I started this blog. I remembered that I posted some older pics earlier this year but I couldn't remember what I posted. So I looked back and saw that I posted a bunch pics of my Games Workshop fantasy armies. However, the pics I was looking at the other day were my 40K armies. So, as before, I'll post some pics of them.

One major difference between 40K and Warhammer Fantasy is that I actually played some games of 40K. I played maybe a dozen or more games and decided I really didn't like the people who were playing the game in my area. So I stopped playing it and sold all my stuff. That was a shame really because I really liked the stuff that I did at the time. I had 2 armies - A big bunch of Eldar and a Sisters of Battle. 

Eldar ~ These were the first GW figures I bought and, just so you know, I didn't start wargaming through GW. I started back in the 1970's with Airfix WWII models and figures, moved on to Napoleonic's and many, many board games. Then came D&D!

But, I started 40K with Eldar because I loved the models. I pretty much made two 2000 point armies: The first one was a foot-slogger army and the second was mobile. I did a lot of conversions and things with these troops but I can't really remember many details.

This was my Flying Circus Seer Council. The colours don't mean anything, I just wanted to do them in different colours. Each one was scratch build using a regular jet-bike.

I made this guy after watching Easy Rider again. I based him on the Peter Fonder "Captain America" character. I got ripped off with these figures. I had them in a store on a commission sale. But the store sold them and never gave me the money. They closed down shortly after.

My Farseer on a hover-board. I sculpted this guy and he came out looking okay. I was happy with him.

I converted the Avatar to make him bigger and more intimidating. I cut him in half, cut his limbs and other bits and sort of stretched him out a bit. I did the same with his arms to change their position and lengthen them. I pinned him back together again and then added a bunch of greenstuff. It made him about half an inch taller.

This one was a favorite - An Autarch on a jet-bike. He came out looking really nice.

Here's a bunch of terrible looking photos. The camera I had at the time was pretty basic. I think I took most of these when I was selling them.

Sisters of Battle ~ I chose this army because it seemed a bit strange. It had the actual Sisters', Sisters Repentia, Archoflagellants, Witch hunters with flamethrowers etc... Bizarre stuff. I don't have many photo's, which is a shame. I actually painted the armour on the sisters with layers and layers of red ink on top of a red base, so it had a really nice glassy quality. I put a lot of detail into these including mascara and eye shadow on most of the little ladies.

I didn't want to spend $90 on an Exorcist so I made my own by using a cheap Rhino, bits and pieces and some plastic piping. It came out okay.

Assassins - I scratch built some of these because they were hard to get. I can't remember if they were any good but they fitted in well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well that's it. I've painted many figures in the past and I have no pictures of them. It's a real shame because I put a lot of effort into each one of them. But, as I mentioned before, if I kept all of them I'd need a storeroom just to keep them all. Next time I'll have to post some of my old historical armies.