Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Man O'War - Khorne Ironsharks




When I first decided to build a Khorne fleet for Man O War, it was the Ironsharks that sealed the deal. How can a man be expected to resist a ship full of blood-crazed murderers that has a giant articulated metal shark's head at the front? Not this guy.

So I painted six of them, two squadrons. The first consists of The Gorger, Mercy of Iron and The Wrathful Tide. The second squadron is The Coward's Due, The Hateful Word and finally The Harmstead.  (The final ship named in honour of the mighty Captain Crooks who sorted me out with three of the Ironshark models in the first place.)

Khorne, master of tasteful understatement.

As with my death galleys I wrestled with some thirty year old transfers to add icons to the sails. After some initial failures I got the Microsol and Microset working and they smoothed the geriatric old transfers nice and flat. I think my decision to base them on clear bases was probably wise, as not basing would lead to chipping and I wasn't mad about sculpting waves and such, which is odd for me. I'm usually mad for going crazy on the basing.

Okay, here's the plan: we just brave the barrage of cannonfire and then bite them. Cool? Cool.
These fellows were on my painting desk for a very long time, so I'm super happy to have them finished. That's given me the mojo boost to tackle the last two ships in the fleet, two Bloodships, The Worldeater and the as yet un-named final ship. 

As the project has gone on I've decided to tailor my 28mm Khorne warband to work as the captains and crew of various ships from the fleet. It'll be a nice thematic tie-in, don't you think?

Like a floating death metal festival.

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Man O'War - Khorne Bloodship



A Khorne Bloodship is a fearsome vessel to behold. It is a vast, towering war machine that grinds across the surface of the waves, its armoured prow snapping open and shut like some great beast's maw. The massed banks of its beaten bronze oars cut through the water at inhuman speed, and deep within its titanic hull great drums are beaten in incessant rhythms. As its jaw opens, whirling blades and pounding hammers spring forth, and great gouts of flame roar skywards.

The hull of a Bloodship bears the device of Khorne, the Blood God, on its bronze-plated hull. Ranks of Chaos Warriors cram the decks and boarding platforms, eager to rend the flesh of their enemies and bring skulls before their Lord. The coming of a Khorne Bloodship is a time of dread indeed.

The latest addition to my nascent Khorne fleet is my flagship, the HIM (His Infernal Majesty's) Guns of Anarchy. The Khorne is dialed up to eleven on this ship. Articulated skull faced prow for grabbing enemy ships, big flame cannons that fire napalm coated skulls and immense Khorne flags. Subtlety is an alien concept to Khorne.

I painted the bloodship in several sections. After reading up on some old pirate traditions I decided to give the Guns of Anarchy red banners rather than black. A red flag, or Bloody Red, as they were known, when flown by a pirate ship meant that their victims could expect no mercy. Not that you can expect any from a howling Khorne boarding party anyway, but making the right first impression is so important.

The banners are coloured card that I covered with some truly ancient transfers. A note to you all: be careful putting Daler Rowney matt varish on paper. I have noticed it can whiten in places when applied to paper. Such was the case with these flags, but nothing a little touch up couldn't fix.

The small but growing Khorne fleet.
The fleet is still tiny, numbering but four ships, but the chaos shipyards (imagine being the foreman there) are currently beavering away on a squadron of Ironsharks. If there's anything better than a big skull with clamping mandibles and a cannon mouth, it's a big iron shark head with snappy metal jaws.

Friday, August 31, 2018

Kickstarter - Shieldwall Fine Shields


A distinctly oldschool flavour to today's post. Some pals of mine are currently running a kickstarter for shields and shield inserts. You can check it out here. Shields are fun, and for those that like to freehand intricate designs on their shields, more power to you. As I get older, however, I'll take any shortcut I can get. Behold, this is one of those delightful shortcuts. Along with swanky shields you get themed inserts to suit most fantasy factions. Here are a few examples, though there are several shield shapes in addition to the rounds you see here.


Personally, I would probably paint the shield face wooden, then maybe fray or cut down an insert to show damage/weathering, then pop it on with the wood underneath showing through. A little run of ink around the edge maybe to blend the edge of the insert into the shield edge, and done. Swanky shield, minimal effort.

The kickstarter runs for another 24 days at the time of posting.

Monday, July 30, 2018

Man O'War - Khorne Death Galley Squadron


There's a lot of love for Man O'War among my gaming buddies of late, so as is the way with these things I was soon swept up in the tidal wave of enthusiasm for this most excellent of Games Workshop games.

I always looked at Man O'War as a game I missed the boat on. I had none of the sets, no ships, no rules. There were those in my group that kept the faith (TheOttoVonBismark is a Man O'War fanatic) but I had enough going on. That was until the most recent tsunami of boat love coming primarily out of Sho3box. I resisted as long as I could, but it looked too much fun. With that, I threw my lot in with the forces of Khorne, and the HIM (His Infernal Majesty's) navy was born. Cheers for that one Sean.

Getting ships proved to be reasonable enough after I threw out my nets. Getting masts was another matter. I was initially perplexed as to how to approach assembling and painting the sails. I need a 3 beam? what's that? Triangular sails on the Ironsharks? What? This went on for a while and I badgered all around me for advice. I eventually secured enough mast parts to serve the fleet. The flag poles I made from florists' wire and some plastic rod. I managed to get a Khorne sail sheet, and made templates for all the sails I would need. I bought some coloured card to cut down on painting. With this scale I had to consciously pull back on texturing and weathering so as not to overwhelm the models. I did add glowing eyes to the skulls and a smouldering effect to the sails to add a little more visual interest.



I used some very old transfers on the sails. 26 years old. MicroSol and MicroSet saved the day here, softening the ancient transfers so they would sit nicely on the paper. A quick roll around a wooden dowel to curve the sails, some vanish and done. I attached the sails to the beams with Impact Contact adhesive, which worked like a dream.


My gaming pals gave me a ton of solid naming suggestions for the ships. All are crewed by Khornegor. So it was the HIM Bloodhound, Damnation and Brass Retriever were born, collectively the Cogs of War squadron.

Next up my flagship, the bloodship Guns of Anarchy.

Monday, July 16, 2018

Genestealer Cult - Brother Sloth



When Overkill came out I all but curled into a ball of mewling joy. After years on the verge of extinction the cult were back in the heart of 40k lore. The attendant plastic deluge was like something from a beautiful dream. Since then the cult has enjoyed a huge resurgence, and as I write this a new wave of Genestealer cult minis are about to hit. I am target demographic man.

With the new cult list for Necromunda it gave me the ideal opportunity to paint an aberrant. I just love these less than perfect members of the cult. It shows even the hive mind makes a balls of things sometimes. You kind of feel sorry for them.

'Sloth luvz Maguz. Heerez magus, Sloth makez maguz a presend. (presents dripping rat) Ah... thank you Sloth. Now, aren't there more rocks you should be breaking? Off you go now, there's a good man.' 

In any case, the image of one of these charging across a gantry before burying it's power hammer in some gangers skull isn't something I was built to resist.

I loved painting this guy. The miniature is just delightful. I'd have painted another right away if I hadn't a new project awaiting attention. I stuck to my cult scheme, but treated Sloth to a nice new Necromunda base.


Here we have Sloth with my original aberrant from 2014, when if you wanted a cult you had to hunt for bits and out of production metal minis. At the time he was a proxy for a weapons team. His auto-cannon is magnetized in case I fancied another attachment someday. Not entirely sure where he fits in these days. Sloth still luvz him though. 


For my Oldhammer bros here's how he sits next to one of the original metal Jes Goodwin 2nd generation hybrids. I love that the new plastics have kept and expanded on the original aesthetic of the cult with the mining suits and a more industrial than military feel. At this stage I have more cult minis than a man could ever want, and still I await the hybrid gunslinger and ultra-aberrant with bated breath. 

Mr Saturday luvz cult.

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Genestealer Cult - Ancestor Relic



It's been a while since I added anything to my genestealer cult, the Kabeiroi. With the release of the rules for the cult in White Dwarf I decided to paint a few new additions to get the family Necromunda ready. I've wanted to paint up this gnarly gun-toting alien skull for a while. It's a long OOP fan sculpt I've had in the 'must do' box for ages. It'll be a good proxy for a familiar in the game. As my cult are a corrupted Adeptus Mechanicus temple I think he'll fit in just fine.



It's pretty big for a servo skull so it makes sense that it'd be the remains of a revered if unlucky purestrain. I initially just pinned it to the base with steel rod, but it looked a little lacklustre. I bent some more rod into shape and wound pewter cabling around it and pinned it all to a piece of sprue. I added the connector cable to the back to add a little motion.

I've got the cult love now, so I have a big old aberrant on the painting table. After that I might tackle an acolyte. He's a selection of the crew thus far.

Brother Yogoth hangs out with Grandad, brandishing his illegal plasma pistol.
Nothing like a nice family outing. Hierarch Mijur is a wizz with the googlemaps.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Meatwalker - Gitrigga and Blacknose


You know, I've never painted a troll before. Certainly not one like this. The poor guy is being driven around like a bumper car by an overexcited gobbo.

This bizarre and fantastic miniature was sculpted by Johan Tieldow as an entry for the first Oldhammer Sculpting competition on the Oldhammer Sculpting Group Facebook page. Some time after the competition ended the crafty Chris Nicholls of Macrocosm sent me an image of this fellow in resin. He taunted me with it. What could I do? It was too cool not to. You can see his brain!

The Meatwalker comes in several parts as you can imagine. Nine I believe. Mine is resin, but the final version will be metal.I painted him in sub assemblies keeping the arms and pilot separate. As it was my first, I went for an old school troll colour scheme. He's on a 50mm base.



I played about with the skin quite a bit, adding blue and red glazes and working it up with creams in the highlights. He looks a bit more plausible (heh) as a result I think. I keot the metals warm and added the yellow moon on the shield to give him a little more jazz.


Macrocosm will be running a kickstarter to fund production of this guy soon. He'll be a great mini to have in a warband of greenskins, you don't get too many remote control trolls on the gaming tables. 

Monday, May 14, 2018

Circus of Corruption - Jim Carter and Coilin Brown


Finishing my triumvirate of Circus of Corruption sample minis we have two more of the players, Jim Carter and Coilin Brown, a puppeteer and acrobat from Old School Miniatures recent Kickstarter. You can still order the Circus from the website at KS prices here.


Jim Carter is a nicely creepy fellow. He looks like he is having no fun AT ALL. I only noticed when painting him he has a hand on his belt, a right hand. The same hand he's puppeteering with. Eeeeeew.

I quartered his motley to ramp up the circusiness. I do love the contrast (I can't bring myself to say juxtaposition, too much art college.) between the jolly circus theme and the depressed faces, pus-filled sores and ragged gear. To expunge all subtlety I added a rat to the base and gave the puppet a happy sprinkle of glitter on it's little robe. Hooray!


Our next player is Coilin Brown, an acrobat, tumbler and dog breeder. Okay, not a dog breeder. His older brother got the family dog-breeding business while poor Coilin was forced to strike out and make his own way. Seems things could have gone better. If only he'd listened to that nice barkeep in Wurtbad and headed South. Oh well.

He's quite a simple model, so I was tempted to add a little something by giving him badly soiled hose. Like Bridesmaids bad. I resisted though. Not sure if I made the right call, but I think it was the way to go. Gazing at his crusty hoop might have been too much for some gamers.

Again, I added a little rat to the base. This one is not sure about what's going on at all. They are great little guys for bases. From the Hellpit Abomination kit if I recall correctly. Not every rat has to be a skaven spy. These guys are just rodents. It's worth mentioning too that both the players are on 32mm bases. Bigger than usual for this kind of mini, but I thought it suited them better. They still fit on a 25mm base fine though.

I'll switch gears again now after that little trip to the circus. Something bigger next.

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Circus of Corruption - Mungo Silenbritches


This handsome fellow is Mungo Silenbritches from the Circus of Corruption Kickstarter from Old School Miniatures. I was fortunate enough to snag a preview copy of Mungo and get him painted up just in time to not help the Kickstarter in any way at all. (It finished up a couple of days ago.) You CAN still order the Circus from the website at KS prices though, here's the link. My fellow Scale Creeps, those faster and more diligent with the brush than I posted a selection of Circus of Corruption miniatures last week, you can check these delights out here.

Mungo is probably my favourite mini from the set thus far. He's one of a pair of strongmen. There are many circus favourites in the range from acrobats to stilt walkers (if they are stilts).

I had a great old time painting Mungo's pasty rancid flesh, boils and guts. He's so damn fun. I added a couple of wee rats to his base, hoping for a tasty bit to drop off. That's one hell of a hernia he's got. Just goes to show, make sure you know what you're doing with those weights. 


I have another pair of Circus members on the painting table, a tumbler and a puppeteer. It would be very easy to keep going, these are very fun minis. I'll have to wait until the rest of the kickstarter arrives though.

I hear there's even an elephant.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Shadespire - Sepulchral Guard Finished


These lads were supposed to be deep in the heart of battle at this moment, but life sometimes makes plans without consulting us, so instead I found myself with the time to take some photos of my finished Sepulchral Guard. The last three I painted were the Warden, Champion and Prince of Dust.


The Warden is a cool looking skeleton. I love his pose, the armoured boots, the fur, the shield, all suitably epic. That cloak in particular is mightily heroic. I painted him in two parts so I could get at his armour, shield and cloak. There was no way I could have levered my brush into some of those crannies without severe mental damage. As a grognard, I was not raised with all these holes in cloaks and super dynamic poses. My undead had to rank up, by Nagash!

I'm not really a fan of assembly after painting, it's always a risk. This time though, he went together just dandy. Look at that cloak though, what a sculpt.


The second of these final three was the Prince of Dust. Less detailed than the Warden, the Prince is still a great mini. The slightly askew jaswbone is a nice touch, it makes him look like a bit of a madman. I reckon he's the skeleton that charges in with the high pitched scream, Harryhausen style. This guy was also painted in two parts so I could get at his shield and cloak.


The final of the three is the Champion. The goth of the group. He's got that art nouveau thing going on with the pointed helm, tall elegant broadsword and flowing cloth. He was also painted in two parts, and was a true bastard to put together after.


You know, I've been at this miniature painting lark for a long time. Over thirty years. I like to think I'm a bit of a veteran. I know a few things. Like how to dry fit parts, I know how to do that. I shaved the plug on this guy before I started painting so that it would fit nice and easy after I'd finished painting both parts. Did it? No. It did not. It did not.

So, with the plug half way in I think 'I'll pull it out, shave it some more and go again.' Nope. No budging. I did scrape the paintwork trying too. The only thing for it was to push it and hope it moved far enough. By the grace of the Gods, it did. Not perfectly though, it left a gap of two or so millimetres where the hand joins the wrist. Some glue (glue on painted parts, good Christ) and I held that sucker tight for about five minutes. More paint damage. With the parts finally together I repaired the damage to the paint and hit him with a fresh coat of varnish. A close call.


With the Champion defeated that was the warband complete. I'm pretty happy to have a Shadespire warband ready to go, and I fancy doing another in the near future. Skaven perhaps, maybe even Stormcast. They're such great little painting projects. Before that though, I think I'll have a crack at some terrain for blocked hexes. I have lots of ruins and statuary that's crying out for use in something like Shadespire ruins.

Next up though, something from the circus.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

Shadespire - Petitioners and the Harvester


I'm back working on the sepulchral guard for Shadespire now that the Shadow Dragon Tong project is finished. I really like these minis. Most of the Shadespire models are cracking, though the sepulchral guard and the skaven are probably my favourites.

I've finished the petitioners and the harvester. As with a lot of the modern GW sculpts, you really have to consider sub assemblies or buy magic brushes to get at some of the parts. None of the lads above had to be painted that way thankfully, but the other three require sub assemblies for painting.


The harvester is a fairly simple model, though his half cloak makes me a little uneasy. It's like watching someone walk about with a vest on but no underpants. For all his simplicity though, he's a really nice sculpt. Super delicate though, as most of the sepulchral guard are.


This petitioner is half the job, but trying to paint his hips and the underside of his rags is a bit fiddly. 'Nobody will see them!' you say. I know. I know. The wee gravestone is cool though. I added a little ivy to it for the craic.


The second petitioner is a bit more meaty, painting wise. He has furs, leather, cloth, metal and bone. I added a couple more quick steps to my rust technique and it turned out well I think. The fur I painted as wolf pelt. I might do the same on the warden. (I see I've missed the leather strap on his sword. Goddammit. Back to the painting table with you sonny.)


I have the prince, warden and champion on the desk at the moment. They are little more involved than the fellows I've done thus far, but the sub assembly approach should help. I have a little over a week to get these finished before they step into battle for the first time. Some serious painting sessions ahead.


Monday, March 12, 2018

Dracula's America - Review


Last weekend I travelled down to Cheetor's place in Cork. Myself, Cheetor and TheOttoVonBismark had planned a weekend of Dracula's America. In Space. The posses were painted, the terrain was ready, the rules were read and the beer was in the fridge. Off we went.

I'm not going into a blow by blow account of the games we played, more a general overview of how we felt about the system, the posses we used and what we're planning next.



Sean (TheOttoVonBismark) brought a very tasty Slaaneshi chaos cult using the Crossroads Cult rules. This fit very well indeed, with a Keeper of Secrets (Major Entity) appearing in the first turn of the first game. That made me sit up and take notice pretty rapidly, as only a twelve foot four armed one-boobed skull-faced daemon can.


Paul (Cheetor) has a huge gang of Ratskins, which straddle the settings of Dracula's America and the quasi 40k sci-fi setting we chose for it perfectly. In this particulat scenario they are trying to protect a Jokaero from getting murdered by the other posses. The gorgeous terrain is all from Cheetor's collection.


My own posse are The Shadow Empire, Lo Pan's (from Big Trouble in Little China Lo Pan) underground criminal organisation. They match up seamlessly to the Shadow Dragon Tong faction. In this iteration of Lo Pan's existence he has managed to gain access to eldar technology and is retro-engineering it to suit his own foul purposes.

The Doctor will see you now.

We played two games of Dracula's America, Shootout and Escalation. What struck me immediately was how smooth the rules were. As with all reasonably casual rule-sets a modicum of common sense is required, but assuming that we got into the rules nice and quickly. Building posses is easy, especially when starting with a campaign posse. There are three levels of character, Novice, Veteran and Hero, each using a different dice for tests, a D6, D8 and D10 respectively. You buy the posse weapons (only basic weapons for a starting campaign posse) and that't it. The layout of the book jarred a little, flipping between historical and supernatural sections, but that's a minor quibble.

The card-bases initiative system is a lovely mechanic, even more so when you take the hunting grounds into account. The encounter rules for two players using the same card adds another interesting but not obstructive element, though Cheetor might disagree having been robbed of an opportunity to riddle Lo Pan with bullets when a gloom fell and reduced his weapon range.

We didn't use the hunting grounds in these games, but I like the rules for it a lot.


The progression system is very intuitive and pleasant to use. Rolling for injuries, advancements and so on is straightforward and entertaining, including robbing territory from your opponents. Even those who don't advance gain experience which makes it more likely they will advance after subsequent games.

+++THE NEXT MEATBAG TO CALL ME A FLOWERPOT GETS IT IN THE FACE+++

There is one expansion so far, Hunting Grounds, which introduces new rules and factions, including the Shadow Dragon Tong that I was playing, as well as outlaws, mercenaries, new skills, gear and so on. I'm certainly going to be playing more games using these rules, I've already got plans for an addition to the Shadow Empire, an 'undead drifter', or in my case a reanimated eldar that Lo Pan is plying for secrets.

What a jerk he is.

Cheetor is playing with the idea of something vampiric next, but I'll let him loose details on that as he fancies. TheOttoVonBismark is thinking of something orkish. Or genestealery. Or both maybe.


All in all I couldn't recommend Dracula's America highly enough. As you can see, you can play it Weird Wild West style, or go Weird Wild West in Space, or whatever you fancy yourself and it works just dandy.

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Dracula's America - Emperor's Guard


The last three members of the posse for Dracula's America are complete! These three guys are Terror-Cotta warriors from Pulp City. They couldn't have been any more perfect for my Shadow Empire in space posse. Once these guys arrived (barely a week ago) I immediately carved them up to make three variants. Two were given more eldar tech, while one was built straight from the kit. The masks are separate, which was a godsend, as I could make three individual faces. They have quite a lot of cool gubbins at the back too, which you can see here:


The blue gives a nice spot colour to an otherwise quite warm earthy palette. Plus it adds a bit of a mysterious arcane tech vibe, and matches the canisters worn by the cultists. 

These three complete the posse, which is now ten strong. I can only have five starting out, but now I have enough minis to recruit up to a full strength posse. Yuss.



As I mentioned before, the three cultists act as controllers for the three Emperor's guard through stole- I mean recovered alien technology. This won't really have any effect in-game, but is a nice little story hook and goes someway to explaining all the shuriken weapons.


I have a sizable contingent of terracotta warriors painted for my Dragon Rampant army already, so the royal guard will serve as leaders or a unit in their own right.

+++SLAVE UNITS ADVANCE. FOR THE GLORY OF LO-PAN+++

I have some ideas for objective markers for these guys, so I'll be adding a few little accessory bits to them here and there, but for now that's job done for LoPan's Wild West in space crew.

Wayland Games

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