A New Elf Regiment

I'm still binging on fantasy and this time it's more elves. I painted a unit of archers a few weeks back so and I decided to do some spears to go with them. Most of my elves are grouped into a units of heavy spears and archers like these. I also have some as a phalanx, some sword and shield as well as some peltasts. So these new guys will make up a new, colourful regiment. They're purple so maybe they are a royal house.

The shields are made using my tried and true method. I make a design - In this case I used a banner that I made a while back and re-coloured it in photoshop to match the painted figures. Then I lifted the swan and stars from a jpeg image and blended them into the purple of the banner. I then printed them onto regular printer paper, cut them out and glued them onto the figure with pva. I then gave each shield several coats of varnish.

Overall, I like the banner but I'm not so keen on the shields. I think they look a bit dorky but I'm not going to change them. They look okay.

Here they are matched up with their archer company. I see them as a sort of sparabarra or a bill and bow type unit. With these guys I now I have 6 of these regiments. All up I think I have about eighteen companies of 12 figures as well as light infantry, skirmishers, cavalry and chariots. I'm not really sure but I do I have quite  a lot. But I have more goblins and orcs.

I think they look very nice as a single unit. They add a nice splash of extra colour to an already colourful army.

That's it for now. I'm not sure what I'll be doing next. I have a couple of boxes of dwarves but I have a hankerin' to make more orcs because it's easy to get them done with a quick and dirty paint job.

Edit: I forgot to mention that these figures are Oathmark Light Elf Infantry bodies with Heavy Elf Infantry arms and heads. I also filed down the spears heads to make them look like lighter weapons. The shields are from Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish with the boss removed.

Orcs of The Red Hand - A Small Conversion Project

For a while now I've been back on the fantasy bandwagon. Well, not a real fantasy bandwagon because I'm going my own way and not following any game trends whatsoever. I'm never very good at jumping on to "The New Big Thing." And I think that because that's just the way I am. No matter...

So I'm on a fantasy binge and I decided to get a box of Oathmark Orcs. These are nice figures and pretty much match up with their Goblins, although these figures are a little bit larger. The figures are okay but, to be honest, I am a bit disappointed in the weapons available in the set. They are pretty much the same selection as the Gonlins. An array of twohanded weapons would have better suited their larger stature in my opinion.

Not to worry,: Those Perry Brothers came to my rescue! I had a lot of leftovers from their Wars of the Roses plastic sets so I put them to good use.

From the Oathmark box I made two heavy companies of 12 orcs. One with various pole arms from the WotR infantry box and a unit of crossbows using bits from the European Mercenaries box. The Perry pieces needed a bit of trimming an cutting here and there but I got the bits to fit.

The figures came up looking nice and fierce. I like that these figures fit better onto a 40mm x 45mm base. The goblins don't fit well because of their stances (I had to base them 3 to a base instead of 4). But these guys fit well together.

Thinking along the WotR theme I decided to paint them in a pseudo livery of black and murrey. They looked very nice until I applied varnish. I initially used War Painter Dull Coat which came out about as glossy as it possibly could. It also ruined some of the texture (look at the shield). I applied a couple of coats of mat varnish (GW and Vallejo) but they coldn't quite remove the gloss so now they have a satin finish.

Not. Happy. Jan!

I've had too many disappointments using War Painter stuff. I think I'll just avoid it in the future.

I made the banner using my tried and true method of cutting out a piece of thin plasti-card which I glue onto the pole. It's cheap and easy but the end result looks okay. The cross piece on the standard is from the Oathmark Revenants set. The cross piece in the orc box is pretty crappy and looks like it came straight from a GW skullz and spikes set.

My goblin army has very little in the way of missile units - Just a couple of ballista and a mass of skirmishers. They needed something that would differentiate them from my elves so I decided to give them some crossbows. I'm of the opinion that crossbows are an indelicate, brutish weapon that fits the bill for orcses.

The crossbow arms needed a bit more trimming to get them to fit but I think the effort was worth it. To my eye they look mean, thuggish and slightly bemused by this new-fangled weaponry. Just what I wanted!

There are 30 figures in the Orc box so I have 6 figures left over. I still have an awful lot of Perry bits left over so I figure if I get another box of orcs I will have 36 figures. That's enough for three more companies: two of polearm infantry and one more of crossbows. I already have metal command figures that I haven't yet painted. Altogether, five of these units would make a nice "elite / assault" division for my goblin army.

New Characters for My Dragon Slayer Scenario

I'm still working on my Dragon Slayer scenario for Dragon Rampant. The rules are now firm and work really well but I wanted a few more characters for a dungeon setting so I've been working towards that end. In the main I already have several figures that I can use in a dungeon. In reality it all comes down to the base. They will look better with a stony base and I already have plenty based for Frostgrave.

The chief figure I need is a paladin on foot. I found this heroic looking chap from Reaper Miniatures. He's pretty dynamic, large and suitably heroic.

I also wanted a dedicated sorceress for the basic scenario. This one is also from Reaper but is a Black Bones figure. I like her dragon headed staff. I think it fits well with the scenario but I'm not keen on the gauntlet she's wearing. I didn't notice it when I bought the figure and I had to go online and look at painted versions of the miniature in order to work out what was what. In the end she came out looking nice (even if she does look a bit like a superhero).

And I also did this old fella. Again he is from Reaper and the original figure has an owl sitting on his shoulder. I didn't want the owl so I cut it off. I've been wanting a Gandalf type figure and this one really fit the bill. He's unimposing and he came out looking pretty nice. In the scenario he can always stand in for the magic user. The character identities are not set in stone.

That's it. Just a quick update. I'm taking some more photo's of the scenario in the dungeon setting this afternoon. I've had interest in getting the scenario published and these photo's will be directed towards that end.

So long for now.

Durins' Folk ~ Should I Build a New Army?

A couple of years back I bought a box of Oathmark Dwarf Infantry. I made all of them and painted most and even bought a command set and a set of heroes. But I still had a few that sat on my paint desk for a long time. These were half a dozen archers. I started painting them but then I lost interest and couldn't be bothered finishing them. 

However, last week I decided to finish the job and get them off the table. And I'm glad I did because they look pretty nice and they compliment my little band of dwarves perfectly.

I don't have much in the way of dwarves and I'm debating whether I should increase their numbers. If I do decide to build them up I think I'd have to rebase them onto multi figure bases. I've started rewriting a set of fantasy "big battle" rules that I created during our extended lockdowns, here in Melbourne. If I take this project further I think I'm going to need a good sized dwarven army to put on the table...

So maybe it's time to bring Durin's Folk up to par with my other fantasy armies. 

Sounds like I'm trying to talk myself in to buying a few boxes of dwarves.