Evil On The March ~ Army of the Black Crag

I decided to muster my army of evil doers ~ Orcs and wolves, and ogres and spiders ~ just to see what I have because I've lost count. It's quite a decent sized army with orcs making up the main bodies of foot soldiers along with a variety of support elements. So, without further ado, here' is: The Army of the Black Crag.

Click on the images for larger, more detailed pics.

The army is reasonably large and easily takes up the 6' edge of my table. The main body of infantry are Oathmark Goblins. I made up an Orc Legion (that's what I call it). Forty bases divided into 10 cohorts (4 bases). Each base has 3 figures because I found it really difficult to put 4 figures on one base.

The heavy cavalry are Mantic armoured orcs riding ill tempered looking boars. I don't recall what they're actually called but they are great looking figures. They make up a  regiment that looks pretty intimidating. The GW Spiders are the old Goblin spider riders with a bit of greenstuff modification because I lost the actual riders. These make up a light cavalry element.

I also have Wargams Atlantic orcs. I have these mounted on round bases for games where I need single figures. I put them onto sabot bases to act as mountain Orc light infantry. I have a fair few more of these figures that need painting. I'll get around to it soon. They are easy to paint.

My new commander and his subordinates. This is a Mantic orc/ogre thing that came in a Dungeon Terrain Box. I recently remounted him to make a command base. He looks suitably big and intimidating. Just the sort of fellow that could keep the orcs of the Black Crag in check. The drummer came from EM4 figures, if I remember rightly and I think it's an old Copplestone sculpt. The subordinate commanders come from a variety of sources.

You can't have an evil army without a lupine element. These are made of various figures. The basic wolves at the forefront are Reaper metal figures, the big dire/werewolf and the half-orc rider are both Wizkids D&D figures. The werewolves at the rear on the left, are all Reaper Bones and the warg riders are Oathmark. So they are an eclectic bunch of evil wolfishness .

A recent addition are my mountain orc giant scorpion riders. These look really great in the flesh but I've been finding it hard to get decent photo's of them. I haven't quite figured out how they will fit in with the army but they must have a role somewhere. They look far too nice to be left off the roster. I detailed them in a recent post. They are Wargames Atlantic figures on Reaper Bones giant scorpions.

For magic support I have a few shamans. The lady in red is a Reaper Bones figure as is the chap in the centre. The one on the right is a metal Oathmark figure from one of their command sets.

The ballista battery is from Wizkids. These are a great set. If I recall correctly they come as a pair. I used the same ones to make a pair of elfish ballista (painted a nice green and sans skulls). They're on a sabot base so that I can use them for other games. The artillerists are very simple conversions from Othmark Goblins.

Ogres. A few big smelly lads with massive clubs to give the army a bit of a punch. In the rules I wrote for myself single figures can be added to individual cohorts to give them some big hitting power: Line-breakers in current wargaming parlance. I do have more ogre type creatures but I'm not sure whether to add them to my Woodland army or to go with these fellows.

Skirmishers. I think there are 36 of them. That's pretty much a whole box of Oathmark Goblins dedicated to a skirmish element. To differentiate this army from the other armies in my collection I have only given them skirmishers as missile troops. No formed archers. The army's main strength relies on a heavy infantry charge instead of archery.

And there we have it. The Army of the Black Crag as is stands today. I think it need more heavy infantry just to make it look more intimidating. Then again, I do have some Northern Barbarians that I can add to their ranks to make up some numbers.

However, there is something missing here: A centrepiece creature/monster. I have something in mind that I'm working on and I'll post it as soon as I get it painted and based.

Æthelflæd ~ Lady of Mercia or Elf Queen?

Just a quick one...

This is a Footsore figure of Æthelflæd the Lady of the Mercians.

It's a very nice figure but it is very slight. It's based on a statue of her and I took the colour scheme from a medieval illuminated image.

However, what do I use her for? I do have an Anglo Saxon army that she could lead but I think the mounted version of her would be better suited for that role (the figure comes with a mounted armoured Æthelflæd too). I think I'm going to use the figure as a new Elf Queen. I already have an elf queen figure but this one is more of a warrior version. 

My other Elf Queen from Northstar/Oathmark.

A Few Trees More...

In my last post you saw my temporary detour into the realms of Fantasy. However, as I was setting up the photos I came across a couple of figures that I'd forgotten about (it's more likely, I deliberately tried to forget about them). These figures are a some tree-man things. They are made by Mantic but I'm not sure what they're called. I'm calling them: Tree-kin.

What happened with these is that I saw them online and I though they looked great. So I ordered them and when they arrived they were a pain in the butt to put together because they needed pinning and stuff. So I thought: Bugger them! And I put them back in their box and forgot about them. But I found them again last week and after having another look at them they started to make sense, so I put them together and, as you can see, I got to painting them.

They really are great figures and once I started doing them I really got into it and tried to make them look as nice as they really deserved. They are pretty hefty lumps of metal and they'll look great with the rest of my woodland Faerie Army. I'm even beginning to think that with these, my big ent/treeman and the dryads, I could almost make an all tree based army. I do have a few other things I could add to them such as giant worms, giant beetles etc... 

Also, here's a photo with a regular 28mm gentleman to give you an idea of their size. This little chap is the Spanish Governor; Don h'Emmingo, my pirate gaming alter ego from several years back. 

Don h'Emmingo at one of our Pirate Mega Games (sans moustache!)

The Spanish Port to my left and the Kraken emerging from the depths to my right.

An Unexpected Fantasy Detour

I've had a long stretch of painting historical stuff and after recently painting the first battalion for a new Napoleonic Prussian regiment I decided to give myself a break and paint something that was less demanding. I had a bunch of Eureka Miniatures centaurs, satyrs/fauns based and undercoated so I chose to give them a coat of paint and get them off the painting table. This lead me to reviewing my Army of Faerie to see just what I had stashed away.

This little army, which I started a few years back has quietly grown and become a reasonable sized force. It is very colourful and has a fair few unusual models and figures that don't really fit anywhere else in my collection. This army isn't build for any particular set of rules. They just exist.

These are about half of the fauns that I painted. The other lot are armed with spears (but I didn't take any pics of them). I also added the unicorn. I only bought this figure a two days back but it was such an easy thing to paint that I pretty much did it in one night. After all... What self respecting faerie army doesn't have a unicorn. It's a reaper bones figure.

I also painted this figure. It is a Vulture Legion rider that I sculpted for Eureka Miniatures a few years back for their Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon range. I don't think this figure has ever been released and, as far as I know, this is the only one that has ever been painted.

In the Moorcock books the Vulture Legion are Muscovite mercenaries from the Russian Steppe. When I sculpted them I envisioned them as sort of fantasy/Sci-fi landsknecht. When it came time to make some cavalry I decided to make them a weird mix of Cossacks and Polish winged lancers (with vulture wings).

Here he is with a few hounds from the Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish box.

Anyway, all this fantasy painting and I decided to put my Army of Faerie on parade.

As you can see what started as a little army has grown to a pretty decent size with plenty of weird and unusual models. They come from a variety of manufacturers which, I'm sure you'll recognize. The largest contingents come from Eureka - That's all of the fauns/satyrs, centaurs, sprites as well as some of the other weird critters.

Below are the Firvulag. If you've ever read The Many Coloured Land by Julian May, you'll have heard of these folk. In fact, it was after reading the series again that prompted my to start making this army. The sword sprites at the front are from Eureka as are some of the figures mixed in with the Northstar goblins. The big blue moon faced ogress and the big head guy on the barrel are also from Eureka.

These are the main infantry and cavalry elements. Faun spears, clubbers and skirmisher archers. Centaur spears and archers. The ogre below is a Reaper Bones figure.

The dryads are pretty recognisable from GW. In my opinion these are some of GW's best figures. They look truly nasty and formidable. I painted them up in a cherry blossom paint scheme (see below for an older photo). The treeman; I made him myself when I was operation my own miniatures company. I was casting him in resin but I still had the original pieces in a box so I decided to put him together when I started this army.

These are my generals. Thefigure in the center is called King of the Forest (I think) and is Reaper Bones. The fairy... I don't know. I had the figure for years before painting it. The goat headed champion is Reaper Bones. The faun with the big horns is Eureka.

Another shot of the Furvulag regiment. After taking these pics I realised that I left some of them in their box (it's a shame but I'm not going take any more pics for now).

The big guys in the centre are all Reaper Bones. A swamp troll, a hill troll and the jabberwock. The jabberwock is a great looking miniature but it was a real pain to make it stand up. It has long skinny legs that need to hold up a fair bit of torso, tail, head and wings. I had to do a fair bit of drilling and bracing to make it capable of standing on its own two feet.

And here's a few older photos to show some of the detail of some of the figures: