Fimir - More Basing Shenanigans & Severe Temptations

You join Mr Saturday today as I take refuge from the wondrous sunshine on a day off. I do love me some sun, but only for so long before I can feel my skin begin to smoulder. So, afternoon siesta time.

After my recent foray into water effects on my movement trays, I decided to take a look at Base-X-of-War's resin base range. I had picked up some of these a while ago, but only recently gotten to paint some up. I must say, I do love their stuff, the range is increasing all the time and they are pretty inexpensive.

The swamp bases all have recesses for adding water effects, similar to the movement trays. You can see the latest fimm here on the base-x base waiting for the water to be added. This will be tinted to represent boggy water. I'm quite looking forward to seeing how this turns out, as I was very pleased with the result on the trays, and the meargh base's main feature is the bones of old sacrifice's peeking out from the brackish water at her feet.

And onto the subject of temptation. I'm sure anyone reading this who's ever painted an army knows there are times where the urge to switch to a new project is almost overwhelming. I have been subject to this of late, where the lure of the vampire counts almost turned me away from the swamp-dwellers. IN fairness, this was mostly due to me trying to figure out how I could get an army ready for an upcoming tournament in September, and I imagined it would be easier to round out my vampires with a couple of new units.

Crypt horror goodness. So tempting...

However, after some thought, and splendid advice from my sister, who is herself a gamer and understands the sensitivities of such a decision, I instead decided to use this as stick to make sure I finish enough of the fimir army to make the tournament. So, I now have to finish the fimm unit, the meargh, Crom, a unit of fianna fimm and more if I can to ensure the Fir Domhan make their tournament début this September.

Brushes up to 11...

Fimir - New Plastic Savage Orc Character

Oho! I've seen something very nice over on Elfordminis, a new savage orc character. What's even more wondrous is he's plastic. Now, I've no interest in savage orc bosses per se, but I've been having some success with converting them into fimm warriors, and this boy fits the bill nicely. Dynamic pose, plenty of scope for conversion, yep. I see a unit champion at the very least in this fellow.

One please.

Or possibly more.

Chaos Dwarves - Wolf Trade-in

I had a chance to test an idea today, one I had as soon as I set eyes on the Fenrisian wolves set a while back. All I needed was a hobgoblin wolf rider. Easier said than done though, there's quite the brisk trade in hobgoblins on the old ebay. Being the masochist that I am, I'm slowly building up units of original hobgoblins rather than convert my own. Eventually though, I managed to snap one up for less an insane price, and lo, I could test this idea of mine.

Huzzah, he fits!

Now, he needs a little nip and tuck (after his dettol bath), he's a little far back on the wolf, and perhaps some other doodads added on, blanket, couple of bags maybe, but he fits. I love the old school, but sometimes the new school comes out with something truly groovy. Look at his rather sad looking original mount beside the lean savagery that is the new wolf. No contest, methinks.

Now I just need to snap up another four of these elusive hobgoblin riders and we're go for irritating hobgoblin chaffery.

Review - Ramshackle Games

I'm quite a fan of the proliferation of smaller companies we're all spoiled with these days. Microart studios, Greebo, Puppet War, Gribbly Miniatures, Raging Heroes, Base-X-of-War, Otherworld Miniatures, Avatars of War, Scibor, (sharp intake of breath) and so on, there's a huge amount of choice out there these days. Today I'll shine the beady eye on one such company, Ramshackle Games.

Ramshackle have a fairly huge range of figures, bases and vehicles in both resin and metal. Most of the range is geared toward post apocalyptic models for their game Nuclear Renaissance, which is available free as a download, here. This range is enormous, and has a massive collection of vehicles which would not look out of place in a plethora of other gaming systems. (I'm thinking of some buggies and such for my genestealer coven here, ah, pipe dreams.)


They also have a pretty interesting range of fantasy orcs, including the hilarious dungers. I love these lads, I was tempted to use them as hobgoblin wolf riders. Again, the range is quite big, with war giants right down to orc archers. Other ranges include animals, scenery, heads, vehicle components among others. The other thing about Ramshackle is how good the price is. Everything ranges from very reasonable to very cheap indeed.

I recently ordered some bits and pieces from Ramshackle, namely the Brass Coffin (left) and Gilgamesh (below right). After looking at the prices for an iron daemon for my chaos dwarves, I went looking for an alternative model. Plus, there's something about the iron daemon model...

Anyhow, I was also looking for an interesting model to lead my k'daai fireborn. Gilgamesh here, at just under 75mm tall, fit the bill nicely, especially with the dwarf-like skull. Both will need conversion, but I pressed the add to cart and waited under by the letterbox. The models when they arrived were splendidly large, the brass coffin certainly big enough to make a fine iron daemon. The detail was crisp, but get ready for a bit of clean up. Any resin model needs a fair bit of filing and sanding, with the models I received needing just a tad more than usual. Not enough to put me off though. The brass coffin is only £9! Now, I did order a separate turret for it as well, but £9!?

Looking more closely, there was a bit of deformity on the back of the Gilgamesh model. After some mailing to Ramshackle they sent me out a new model and all was well. I'm a big fan of good customer service, especially from companies I may not have heard of before, so I was glad it was dealt with as I'd be more than inclined to buy from them again.

So, all in all, a big thumbs up for Ramshackle Games, adopt a dunger today!

Ramshackle Website

Fimir - The Súile na Lisaart (so far)

After posting some shots of one and two fimm over the last while, I thought it time for a group shot of how the unit looks so far. There's 13 out of 20 members completed, plus the movement tray. Starting to come together!

Fimir - A Further Fimm

Okay, another fimm for the first unit. I must be speeding up, this lad was done in only a couple of days. I get into a kind of trance painting fimm at this stage. I've loved putting the unit together and painting it, but I'm looking forward to getting them done now, which all of a sudden seems an actual possibility. I think I may tackle the meargh next. It's only a single model, so I can lavish a bit more time on her.

Bloodbowl - Chaos Edition

I like me some Bloodbowl. I've been a fan of Cyanide's computer game version since it was released, and I was more than happy today to see that there's a new expansion planned for September, the Chaos Edition. From the site: 

In Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition, three new races are making their triumphant arrival as well as a new stadium! The malevolent and much-anticipated Chaos Dwarves finally make their entrance, while the outcasts of the Underworld teams surface for the first time to participate in the tournament! This is just the beginning of a new season full of touchdowns and blood, as Blood Bowl also welcomes, for the very first time in its history, the Daemons of Khorne, hailing all the way from the Chaos realms! 

Now, the big excitement for me here is chaos dwarves. I love all things chaos dwarfy, and I've been hoping against hope for the chaos dwarf team to make an appearance, so this news makes me happeh.

Bloodbowl website