The Curse Of The Wulfen

Yesterday I ended up in hospital as a result of a viral infection that was exacerbated, I think, by heat exhaustion. So I didn't do any painting - these poor Space Wolves must be cursed!

Today I've been wiped out, sleeping more than anything else, but I did manage to pick up some old Ral Partha wolves that I got many many years ago and give them some TLC to bring them up to scratch. I first painted them around the turn of the Millenium, probably in 1999 or 2000, which is now - distressingly - a quarter of a century ago. I also finished off the random Space Marine Scout, turning him into a Flesh Eater because why not.

Ral Partha wolves, originally for a 5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Undead army I think

These were originally painted at a friend's house - I remember sitting at the table in their kitchen drybrushing them - so it must have been 1999. I was 12 or 13 at the time

All I did today was touch up the faces and give them shiny new bases

This was a Scout from Miniature of the Month a while back that my friend C sent me

Flesh Eaters! Because subtlety is for losers

A nice simple paintjob - washes and some basic layer highlights

It had originally been painted with a speed paint by C, and it has caused the paint I put on top to act very strangely - you can see this in what looks like chipped paint on the base of the right pauldron! I ended up trying to seal it all with a matt varnish

Assuming I feel well enough, tomorrow I really really want to make headway on at least one (1) Space Wolf and some of the commission stuff.  

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 15
2025: 341 

Dabbling In Oddities

A while ago C sent me a load of sprues and some random unpainted figures, two of which - a Votan ranger type and a Primaris Scout - I thought I'd have a little play around with. I did some basecoats and gave them a coat of Agrax Earthshade to prep them for some highlighting and details, and then (at last!) restarted work on the commission spaceships. Nothing huge - I just put the main basecoat block of orange onto one of the ISS Vanguard landers, the Faust. 

 Tomorrow I think I'll finish off the two random miniatures, and try and finish off the Faust and make more progress on the other landers. I'd really like to get the commission stuff done in the next few days, but that might not happen.

Hobbits In Space

Ages ago (perhaps not all that long ago really, but it seems it) I got a sprue of four Wargames Atlantic not-Ratlings off the front of, I think, Miniature Wargames. I didn't really know what to do with them but they will go nicely in the group of stuff I'm painting for C. I decided to do them in browns, and make them look like some kind of corporate security team. Farmer Maggot Foods PLC or something. I also cranked out an old 3rd Edition Obliterator, which I did up as an Iron Warrior sort. Hopefully it'll make a scary antagonist in Five Parsecs From Home or similar.

A little group of ummm hobbit security? Local shirrifs in a space colony, perhaps

Such a simple scheme - browns and khakis! These are absolutely just a very basic tabletop finish but they look good regardless

Obliterator! The left arm is from a very old late 1990s plastic Chaos Warrior, as the original was long since lost - I got the original figure and its one arm from a school friend back in about 2001!

Arm o' missiles!

I don't mind doing hazard stripes on the odd mini, but doing them on a whole army - absolutely not

They do look good though, I won't deny that

With them done I really should get back to that commission and the Space Wolves...!

Painting Points: 
Today: 5
This Week: 12
2025: 338

More Silly Things

A change of plans meant that I managed to get some extra stuff done for my friend C, who P and I are now seeing tomorrow. Most importantly I managed to dig out the remaining spider-drone from the pack of three, and get that painted up too. I also repainted a couple of Mark Copplestone's Neo-Sovs that I got given a long time ago, and a spare Crooked Dice Alien Invader. My hope is this eclectic mix will get some action in Five Parsecs From Home or similar - or at the very least sit on a mantlepiece somewhere!

That little bit of freehanding was quite hard!

But it was worth it. I really like the look of this little unit

Copplestone Neo-Sovs and Crooked Dice Alien Invader 2A, in random colours, to be allies or enemies in 5PFH

You can really see the difference in style and scale here - the Copplestone figures are nice and chunky, very heroic scale; the Crooked Dice one much slimmer and more realistically proportioned

'Scuse the fingers. I painted the face in purple to emphasise that despite being humanoid in shape, this is not a human being but something from another world...

If I can manage to, I have some Wargames Atlantic not-Ratlings and a very old 3rd Edition 40K Chaos Obliterator which I want to paint up for C too, so my plan for tomorrow is to get those done before we head over in the evening. After that, it's commission work and Space Wolves. I promise!

Painting Points:
Today: 4
This Week: 7
2025: 333

A Weekend Off And A New Start

I had a surprisingly busy weekend, given that I spent essentially all of Saturday asleep due to a side-effect from some medication. On Sunday P and I travelled to London for a protest in favour of trans rights that went from Marble Arch to Downing Street - important to have done, and the more pressure that can be brought to bear on the government to reverse its bigoted course the better. Anyway all of that meant that I didn't do any painting at all, which has been quite helpful actually.

Today, refreshed, I picked up some Ground Zero Games models I've had for a very long time - since I was a very young teenager in one case - and painted them up as part of a deal with my friend C. He paid me to paint him some random figures for him, so I've collected some stuff that I think will work well in Five Parsecs From Home, which C plays.

The two little spider-drones are from GZG's 15mm range; the bigger robot/battlesuit is, I think, no longer in production. I bought it in the late 1990s!

The idea is that the two little spider-drones are controlled by the main suit

A very simple scheme of drybrushing and black washing with details, and it looks great!

The canopy looks really nice with a coat of gloss varnish over the gem-style finish

The firepower is quite intense - three tribarrel machine guns, some kind of rotary cannon, and a 14-shot rocket pod

 As I checked them off on my Pile of Opportunity spreadsheet, I noticed there should actually be another spider-drone! I'll have to go rummaging for that. Anyway, it's been a nice little thing to do to fire me back up and ready me to get stuck back into the commission work and my Space Wolves.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 3
2025: 329

The Grand Tradition Of Losing

Today my old opponent S and I travelled to Warhammer World and played two games of Warhammer Fantasy 6th Edition. We each brought two 2,250 point armies, I wrote (well, adapted) two scenarios, and we randomised things by rolling to see which army we chose first, and what scenario we'd be fighting. The first game was my Skaven versus S's Wood Elves, and the scenario was a slightly adapted Breakthrough - the Wood Elves having to get units into my deployment zone and I had to stop them:

Deployment from my side. The terrain was placed then its position scattered 2d6 using the "Storch Method" named after a fellow on one of the 6th Edition Facebook groups

Wood Elf deployment! The Skaven line looked quite formidable...

End of Turn 1 from the Skaven point of view - you can see where the Stormvermin had run away for a bit after taking a bunch of casualties to shooting. I remembered after the game that they had a 4+ ward save against shooting that wasn't S5 or greater. You can also see that the right-hand Clanrat unit is missing two ranks... that's because the Ratling Gun that's pointing at them misfired (of course) and instead of obliterating the Scouts that are behind the grey woods in the middle, pumped a spray of lead into their comrades instead. Yes-good! All as the Horned Rat wills-demands!

End Turn 1 from the Wood Elf perspective. Those Scouts were very lucky that I got greedy with the Ratling Gun...

End Turn 2, Skaven view: the poison wind globadiers were initially charged by an Alter Kindred Noble, but a Stand and Shoot with poison gas killed him outright! So they then got pasted by arrows, and the Warlock Engineer decided discretion was the best part of valour and ran away errr performed tactical repositioning. The Stormvermin had regained their position in the line and were now Frenzied thanks to the Grey Seer. The Tunnel Team hadn't bothered showing up this turn sadly.

End Turn 2, Wood Elf view: the rat swarms did a great job of stopping the Wardancers, but the Wild Riders and Warhawks were posed to be a serious pain. The Glade Guard has killed the Ratling Gun, and one of the Spellsingers had used a spell to turn one of the Warpfire Throwers into mush.

End Turn 3, Skaven View: at this point I conceded. My Clanrats were dead or fleeing, my Rat Ogres wildly out of position, my Jezzails unable to do anything as the Eternal Guard were hiding in the wood, the Tunnel Team having arrived late were unable to get a charge off and were now sitting ducks (rats?), and S still had almost every unit entirely intact.

End Turn 3, Wood Elf view: The Gutter Runners, late and unable to catch the elves. The Treeman standing victorious where the Stormvermin had once been - Frenzied they may have been, but they whiffed! Only the Jezzails and Rat Ogres remain to oppose the Asrai.

A very funny game which really did hinge on the Ratling Gun misfiring in Turn 1 and blasting my own unit - if it had killed the Scouts instead, then I would have taken far less casualties and maybe even managed to get my Assassin out! As it was, the failure of the Weapons Teams and the running away of the rats spelled doom. The Horned Rat was not smiling on me today.

Lessons Learned: Remember your rules! I forgot to give my Stormvermin their 4+ Ward save against magic and mundane missiles of S4 or less thanks to the Umbranner, and the miserable Leadership 5 of most of the Skaven should have been boosted by their rank bonus, making most of the tests I took should have been on at least an 8 - but, again, I simply didn't remember. I think the Tunnel Team would have performed a little better if I'd given them slings to shoot with, but there we go.

After a spot of lunch outside from a little food van - as Bugmans' is being renovated - we returned to play the second game. This was an adapted Ambush scenario, with the Ogres defending and the Night Goblins attacking. As before we placed the scenery then scattered it 2d6 inches:

 

Deployment - the Night Goblin left, with the mercenary ogres and various comedy units

Deployment - the Night Goblin right and main force, with all the actual gobbos and the trolls. You can see the Ogre force clumped around the farmhouse ready to take them on

End Turn 1: A little animosity over on the right had staggered the advance, but the first fanatic to be released killed one of the Hunter's hounds. The Trolls had actually been able to move despite my risky positioning of them!

End Turn 3 - I didn't take a photo at the end of turn 2 I think! The slave giant had charged my Ogres in the rear and lost, running away, my own giant had charged some Bulls in the rear and they just didn't go anywhere either. The Trolls got wrecked by the Yhetees, various Fanatics had killed a few Bulls here and there, and the Leadbelchers had been eating Snotlings quite happily... but they were now open for a charge from my own Ogres! Meanwhile the Gorger had arrived and was poised to do some really quite nasty stuff to my poor gobbos

End Turn 4. The Leadbelchers had been wiped out by the Ogres, the Squig Herd had finally got into combat with Stanley the Slave Giant, Bert had been done in by the Tyrant, my Warboss' block of gobbos had fought off the hunter and two units of Bulls... and then the Yhetees and Gorger wiped out a block of spear goblins in a single round of combat, while one of the Butchers panicked my other block of spears with a dastardly spell!

End Turn 5, endgame state: The squigs had eaten the giant then been panicked by magic, while all my big blocks of Night Goblins had been destroyed by breaking and being run down (or just being run down). The Fanatics had managed to kill a couple more Bulls though, and put some wounds on a Butcher, so it wasn't all bad news.

Another fantastic game (even if I did lose again), and one that - with a couple of better dispel rolls (or extra scrolls!) would have seen my Night Goblins hold on a bit longer. The Trolls probably should have stayed back as a flank guard like they were supposed to be, but the Gorger in the rear was a bad time for all concerned. A great laugh and a fantastic introduction to the lunacy and chaos of greenskin armies. 

Lessons Learned: More Fanatics. Risky, but both funny and dangerous. Also while the Trolls were a threat, they didn't like the magic weapons of the Yhetees and were too isolated - they need to be closer to my main line. Other than that, a pretty decently bad performance as expected, and I enjoyed it very much, which is the most important thing.

Overall a good fun day out with lots of dice rolled and two armies that I've never played with before seeing the table for the first time. Jolly good stuff all round.

All Quiet On The Painting Front

I'm sure I've used that title before. Anyway. Today I had hoped to get some painting done while dog-sitting but in the end it didn't pan out like that. What I have done however is prepare two scenarios for the games of 6th Edition WFB that I'm having with S tomorrow - essentially a slightly modified Breakthrough and Ambush from the main rulebook. I've also finalised the armies I'm taking, and packed them and all the assorted extras I'll need.

So I suppose that has been some sort of wargaming hobby done today, even if it wasn't painting! Tomorrow I'll take lots of photos and update the blog with some little battle reports. Who knows, I might even win a game (ha)!

A Bit Of Downtime

So yesterday I didn't do anything, and today I just didn't feel particularly like painting very much at all. I did however slap some basic colours onto one of the drop pods:

These are definitely going to need two things: a masking tape job to ensure a nice straight line between the bone and green, and another coat of bone and olive green before the Nuln Oil wash!

I'm going to Warhammer World on Friday with my long-time friend and opponent S to play a couple of games of 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy, so tomorrow I'm hoping to make some more headway on the commission ships and maybe some of the Space Wolves too. But we'll see.

A Little Here, A Little There

I've not been in a particularly painterish mood today, but I did make a start on the commission work I have, which involved looking up the artwork for the boardgame ISS Vanguard and trying to identify how to paint the funny little spacecraft models. I've got the base coats down on three of them, and started to do the basecoat orange on a fourth:

Once I put in a solid few hours' work I reckon I can get these looking nice and slick and ready for play. I think for durability I'll put a coat of gloss and then a coat of matt varnish on at the end, because they're going to be handled a fair bit I should expect. 

So not a lot to report back on today, but a start's a start and once I get properly going they'll be sorted in no time.

Undercoating, Base Coating...

... my goodness, a lot of coating has been going on today. I undercoated most of the commission pieces, except for one ship which I need to mask before doing so, and both (now assembled) drop pods. Then I went through all the Space Wolves and gave them their base coats of metal and blue-grey, before whacking a Nuln Oil wash over them all. While I was doing that I also slapped on some Ironbreaker to one of the drop pods, trying to identify which bits need to be metal and which need to be painted green and bone.

The next step with the Space Wolves will be to give them their highlight layer of The Fang, before starting to work on the details (and there's a lot of details). Once I get to the detail section I'll probably work on no more than four or five at a time, and I may well focus on them one at a time too - it depends how I'm feeling on any given day, and how much progress I make on the commission too.

Dreadnought for scale

 The drop pods are big, and I suspect will greedily eat up all my remaining Ironbreaker and at least a pot of Nuln Oil, but they should be relatively quick to paint (I hope). The internal sections that aren't metal will be a standard olive drab, the external sections will be green, bone, and heat-resistant black. Then I'm going to dirty the bejeezus out of them because these things are fired from orbiting space craft like a shell and then scream into the atmosphere of a planet to slam into the ground at the sort of speed that would kill a normal person and disgorge, in their case, Dreadnoughts. They're not going to look very pristine after all that, frankly.

Drop Pod Assault

Tonight I only had time for a little bit of hobbying, so I cleaned up one of the two 3D-printed Dreadnought Drop Pods I picked up last weekend and built it. It's a really simple little kit and it went together very nicely indeed. Then I slapped on some more blue-grey, finishing the main base coat for the Long Fangs and starting on the Grey Hunters:

The doors go down...

...and up!

In the foreground you can see a commission that I got today

 On top of the Space Wolves I'm going to be working on some miniatures from the board game ISS Vanguard that I have been commissioned to do. So things will progress slowly for the next little while, but slowly wins the race and all that.

Tomorrow I'm going to wash and assemble the next drop pod, and undercoat those and the commission pieces as well as do more basecoating on the Space Wolves.

Surprise! Another Marienburger

And you thought I'd finished them! Well, so did I, but I was rummaging in the tray as I put them away and realised that there was, actually, another Swordsman nearly finished that I'd started a long time ago. So I picked him up and finished him off tonight. After that, I applied Nuln Oil to the Space Wolf Venerable Dreadnought, and a coat of The Fang to the Long Fangs... and a highlight layer of it to the Iron Priest. So I have, at last, started to make headway on the Space Wolves. 

I really like the expression I managed to give him - he looks a bit apprehensive, a bit nervous, like he's less of a veteran than the others

A redhead!

Because he was part painted a while ago, his yellow stockings look different to the rest of the warband's yellow clothes, which I'm quite glad about honestly - a little less uniformity

The text on the shield is meant to say 'Marienburg' but of course I can't paint that small!

With the Marienburgers now finished (for the time being), let us turn to the 41st Millenium:

 As you can see I didn't quite manage to get the base grey down on all the Long Fangs, but it's a start! I'm torn between tackling a unit at a time, or going through the whole lot at once as a big batch. I think I might start with the "big batch" option and then, when I start losing the plot, break them down into smaller groups. I still need to work out how I'm going to sort out the howling wolf that's supposed to be painted onto their left shoulder pad on top of the white sun, or if I have useable transfers. I'll have to have a rummage.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 7
2025: 326