Christmas - R0-DOLPH1 ACTIVATED

It's Festive mini time on the the Mumblings! Last year I painted the venerable Chaos Santa, and so this year I thought I'd continue the tradition and paint a companion for him. I'm not sure where this little fellow came from, I have a faint recollection he was a gift from some kind soul. In any case, he made for a fine buddy for big crazy Santa.

He painted up ludicrously quickly. With all the nuts, bolts and cables he painted himself really, allowing me to concentrate on making that nose super shiny. 

I had a wee package of Xmas goodies arrive from the Twisted Christmas Kickstarter last week as well as an undead Santa from Foundry, so I have plenty of options for adding some more goons to the gang next year, maybe even the mighty Krampus himself.

Merry Christmas from the Mumblings!

That's it R0-Dolph, lead me to where the children are hiding...

Krakon Games - Conand, Master of Tor Innis

What's this? It's been a while since the one-eyed fellows have stopped into the Mumblings. I have a few on the painting table at the moment, this being the first fellow I've completed. It's nice to be adding a few new models to the army.

This is Conand, a Fomorian from Krakon Games' latest kickstarter, Creatures of the Night: Wrath of Cichol. Ross was kind enough to send me an early copy of Conand to paint, knowing my deep interest in cyclopean bog dwellers. Conand is only one of a range of Celtic-inspired monsters that Krakon plan on releasing off the back of this and subsequent kickstarters. You can check Krakon out here.

He's a multi-part resin model with separate arms and tail. I based him on a 40mm square scenic base as he is of the larger variety of... Fomorians. It felt  little odd using a square base I must admit, but all my fimir are based on squares, so that's that.

He was great fun to paint. I gave Conand my standard fimir colour scheme, adding a little freehand in the form of tattoos and embroidery on the hem of his kilt to match my existing characters. He doesn't have too much intricate detail either, though getting in under his tail took a little bendy brushwork. I gave him a leather shirt and greaves as he looks like he likes to get in there and use that dagger.

I adjusted my skin recipe slightly, adding a little more elf flesh to the highest highlights before glazing with sepia. I'm down to the dregs in my pot of Gryphonne Sepia, so I'll have to upgrade to the new wash shortly.

Now, I'll be using Conand as a dirach in my Fir Domhan army. His story is thus:

Dirach - Fedelmid
Fedelmid is a stoic young dirach. He serves Solkan, the God of Law, with utmost devotion. He is a Brithem, or judge, and is the supreme arbitrator of the law among the Fir Domhan, bar Morgayne herself. It is Fedelmid's duty to enact the will of Solkan without fear or favour, and he has been gifted with absolute impartiality by his patron. 

Morgayne also employs Fedelmid as an assassin of some skill. His magical powers allow him to pass unheard and unseen, no small feat for a dirach of the Fianna. His skills with a blade mean no enemy of the fimir is safe once they have been condemned by the council and thereby by Solkan himself. There have been many and more slights to the Fir Domhan settled through the judicious use of Fedelmid's sacrificial dagger.

Macrocosm - Bonefields!

Over the last while I've been secretly beavering away on a project for Macrocosm, doing things like that there logo above. It's a game with a theme dear to my heart in fact, with both factions being undead. That's right, everyone in the Bonefields box is dead. Well, bar the dwarf necromancer, but necromancers are a hazy one. Alive? Dead? Or just badly in need of a bath?

Anyhow, Macrocosm are bringing Bonefields to kickstarter in early 2018. The set will contain two full warbands, and will be a skirmish style game (with Mr Jake Thornton offering some tips and looking over Chris's rule-set) where undead dwarves and goblins attempt to continue their bitter feuding well after they have all died. That's stubborn for you. There's a goblin vampire too, it's sweet. In fact, there are a load of units for both factions in the works. Skeletal wolf riders? Yep. Bony ponies? Indeed. Dwarf wights? Aye. It goes on kids. Alessio Cisbani and Darren Edwards, the sculptors on the project, have many treats in store. There are over sixty sculpts in the works, including more infantry, cavalry and even artillery. Paul Naylor (former Golden Demon winner) is also working on Bonefields scenery. I do hear that rules for Macrocosm's pretty huge fantasy range will be forthcoming for Bonefields also.

I was fortunate to have been sent some of the miniatures from the starter set for a little brush tickling.

Dwarf hero with wights and warriors.

Goblin hero with great axe, archers and warriors.

The minis are pretty characterful and paint up very easily. Getting a warband together for this game will take most folks very little time, and of course, easily slot into a pile of other games. My favourite minis so far are probably these lads:

Dwarf hero and his bros.

You'd think I'd be all about the gobbos, but I like the idea of dwarven wights. Mind you, when the heavy goblin infantry and wolf riders hit I may change my mind.

I've also been working on some bases for Bonefields, which will be a set of resin bases and look very much like the ones above. It'll be pretty cool to see my bases in production. Now you can all have a little Saturday in your life. There are a lot of other goodies in the works for Bonefields, but right now that's yer lot. I'll dispense more news as it's released from Chris' vault of secrets.

Also, that's Deadcember sorted. Hah.

Battles with the Butterfly

Come at me bro. You can't beat the butterfly.

No miniatures for you guys today. Today it's time for a meandering ramble on the wealth of gaming goodness that can lead to hobby paralysis. Read on for pure hobby navel gazing.

Terrain - Blackberry Keep

It's been a while since I worked on any terrain. I usually travel for gaming, and my gaming pals have way nicer terrain sets then I do. However, having some friends over for games over the last few weeks has made me look at my own set again.

This old Battle Masters tower has been sat in a wardrobe half finished for years. Every time I opened said wardrobe I would see it and resolve to paint it soon. Years pass. Game systems rose and fell and still the tower lay unfinished.

This particular time when I looked up at it I just took at down and put it on my painting desk. Two sessions later, done. I no longer have that particular mind-worm nibbling at me, and I get a new big terrain piece. Decisiveness, that's the ticket!

There is some slightly ropey milliput work I did on it back in the day, but not so much that I felt the need to spend hours fixing it. It adds to the tumbledown charm. YES IT DOES. Typhus Corrosion once again did it's magic on the weathering. Is there nothing that can't be made look better with a dab of this magical sauce?

I'm trying to tart up my gaming mats at the moment too, which suffer a bit from bowling green-itis. You can see my efforts here. I've added watered down washes, more types of flock and some torn up grass matting all bedded down with pva glue. A little basing scatter here and there and it's getting there. The first mat look a while to get to a point where I was happy, and I still need to work the edges a little, but it's looking like I'll then have a process for upgrading the other mats.

Then I'll be happy.

Malakai Roughshod - Unexpected Deadite

Recently I discovered a cache of undead Bob Olley goodness was available from Essex Miniatures. If you are an Olley fan do yourself a favour and take a look. Soon after I saw on the Oldhammer Facebook page that the excellent Stuart Klatcheff was offering some of these fine miniatures to anyone offering to paint and post them within the month. Well, what's a guy to do? I obviously picked the biggest one, the cavalry model. He's as fine an example of Olleyness as I've ever seen, enough folds and textures for a man to get lost in. I present the latest addition to my deadites, Malakai Roughshod.

It's hard to find a golden angle on this fellow, so I've taken a few shots of him. He's pretty dynamic, standing in the saddle with his cloak billowing. I managed to drill right through his saddle TWICE while adding a pinning hole, once after he was painted. I may have said a few bad words.

He's also pretty huge, lording it over even other Skellybobs (Skeletons sculpted by Bob). I'm kind of in love with this guy. I'm now debating adding a few of his mates so I can field a unit of these lads in Dragon Rampant or Age of Sigmar.

Here's Malakai chilling with his new homies. See what I mean about huge? Look at the size of that skull!

Khorne Warband - Bloodletter

It's been about thirty years since I last painted a bloodletter. In fact, THIS bloodletter. He was sent back to the realm of chaos when the shelf he was on collapsed decades ago. Eventually the sad remnants were stripped and sent back to storage. Now though, he rises once more to garner skulls anew. Gorewhelp joins the warband.

I wanted to add a little variation to the red skin on this guy. After using the effect on a couple of models previously, I blended his hands and feet to purple. I used the same effect on the slaughterpriest's claw, and I think I'll use it on any mutations or wiggly bits for the rest of the models in the force. I blackened the horns to draw the eye back from the purple hand and feet to the face. After messing about with the verdigris on the sword I eventually settled on the bronzey green to set it off against the red skin. The claws got a coat of gloss as I'd used this on my Yaoguai and liked it.

With this daemon done I have another four models left to finish the starting warband. (The statue at the back is a possessed statue of Khorne, a walking shrine if you will and will act as a Bloodsecrator) Getting there!

Dungeons & Donuts - GoNuts for Gaming

My local game store, Dungeons & Donuts, have recently started a gaming video blog on all things gaming. Dungeons & Donuts has become a thriving hub of gaming in Galway over the last few years, running tournaments, special events and fundraisers and supporting games of all types. They also do a phenomenal donut. With this new series Ronan, Jerry, Mark and the lads give us the low down on what's new and their latest faves in the big old exciting world of games. The Irish game scene is growing all the time, and it's great to see things like this kicking off. You can take a look at the latest episode here.

As you can see from the image at the top of the post, D&D are also running an event on the 12th November in the Menlo Park hotel. By all accounts it'll be a cracking day, so if you're inclined I'd heartily recommend heading along. Dungeons & Donuts will, as usual, be at KnaveCon this September 2nd, supplying their legendary donuts to the KnaveCon faithful. If you're lucky the D&D lads may also have some tickets for the November event you can get your hands on on the day.

Khorne Warband - More Chaos Thugs

Two more chaos thugs, the musician and champion, join the warband today, bringing the compliment of thugs for the warband to five. That's all I need for now, but I very much doubt I'm done painting Khorne flavoured thugs.

Are here is the champion for the group of thugs. I've had this mini for a while, and I'm glad I found a project for him. I love this model, he's super cool with that massive spear and skull helmet, and incredibly dynamic. His spear is perfect for Age of Sigmar, it's bleedin' huge. It is Ares' dream to run that spear clear through one of those stuck up stormcast, hence his nickname. I look forward to realising Ares' dream on the gaming table.

I painted Ares' cloak similarly to the undercity werewolf I did a couple of years ago. I know the skull isn't a wolf skull, but who cares. Not I sir!

Gorn here is a later release, the only Khorne thug musician I know of. He has a haunted drumstick. What, you thought only axes, swords and armour get possessed by daemons? Gorn used his big skull drum to work up his buddies into a frenzy in a manner similar to a guy hammering out a brutal guitar solo at a death metal concert. That's what daemon drumsticks do for you.

With these lads done the warband is half way there. Next up, a geriatric bloodletter.

KnaveCon 10 - Double Digits!

In a couple of weeks KnaveCon will reach double digits. They grow up so fast, so they do. I can recall when KnaveCon was called BastardCon, before we went all legit and respectable. It's grown from that motley collection of grognards into the shining beacon of gaming it is today.

If you've not been this would be the one to go to. Vic and the lads run a cracking con, and it's always a good time, so if you want a ticket you better get moving. For these tickets you can go to either the KnaveCon Facebook page or victorgannongames.com.

See yez there.

Khorne Warband - Chaos Thugs

I've been perusing Age of Sigmar again lately, especially the skirmish variant. My early reticence gave way to curiousity about how it holds up as a skirmish ruleset, and as supplements like the General's Handbook and Skirmish were released this built up into an idea it might be something worth trying. I still have fond memories of the Realms of Chaos warbands, and the Paths to Glory rules looked good for assembling some cool warbands once again. Added to that others such as Cheetor were going to give it a go, so what the hell, I was in.

Up until last week I hadn't actually played it though.We were somewhat spoiled, playing on Cheetor's wonderful new AoS terrain (more on his blog). We tried a skirmish scenario and then a Triumph and Treachery one. Both offered plenty of action and laughs, which ticks my boxes for a game. After popping my AoS skirmish cherry I've decided it's just the kind of ruleset that I can get behind for these kinds of casual games. Added to this there's a pretty big toolbox for gaming you can draw on.

So, thus committed, I've decided to give my Gorechosen slaughterpriest some mates, and build me a warband for the blood God. I started with some chaos thugs.

Chaos Thugs. I can't tell you how much I love chaos thugs. I collect as many as I can. I rummaged through my tubs and found some semi-naked/insane nutters that might compliment the huge haemo-erotic (not my invention, good though eh?) Khorne boys from the Age of Sigmar range.

This guy above, well. You know how you only REALLY look at the detail on a miniature as you begin painting it? You notice things, especially on chaos models. I shant forget spying the assless plate mail on that Slaanesh warrior in a hurry. Anyway, this guy, he looked, well, old. An old thug. Like a snowflake in death valley. He has a corset and what looks like an adult nappy on. I imagined him at the thug reunion. All his mates are: A:Dead B:Warlords or C:Daemon princes. Awkward. Good enough to stay alive, but not good enough to get granted the extended lifespan the chaos Gods seem to dole out like candy. He also, as was spotted by a mate, looks like the guy from UP. So he got painted as an old bloke. He'll provide much hilarity in games I imagine.

This lad is more straightforward. I picked him for the axe and the gurning madness in his face. He probably pees in that armour. While looking you right in the eyes.

So, I am having fun with these. Models I've had sequestered away for decades are suddenly primed and ready for paint. Bloodletters, flesh hounds, Khornegor (proper dog-faced Khornegor, none of that goat stuff) as well as the fat bloke with the whip from the AoS range. If it pleases Mr Blood, I may expand the warband to a Paths to Glory force. Or I may see what Tzeentch offers. Such is the fun of the tiered rules for Age of Sigmar. Who knew?

Now, hold on. I know what you're thinking. 'Look at that HUGE bastard! Scale creeporama!' Well, (pushes glasses up nose) ACTUALLY the slaughterpriests are meant to be larger than other mortals. So there. The plastic reavers are only about a head taller than the old thugs, which means balls to me. Once they are propped up on a bit of cork there's nothing in it. So I wouldn't be overly worried about scale. Humans come in all sizes etc.

Shadow Empire - Guardians Unit

Close on the heels of  my test guardian come the rest of the unit. From Macrocosm, these are awful fun things to paint. I'll be using these as a unit of scouts for Dragon Rampant. I have a healthy five units for the Shadow Empire now, with another three or four left to do.

I stuck to the same palette as the test model, which worked just dandy across the models. I particularly enjoyed painting the eyes, giving them bright blue eyes to give them some pop and tie them into other units. I added some gloss to each one, which really does the trick. I may come back and add a second scout unit in time, or a dead deflated guardian for an objective or casualty marker.

Now that the guardians are done I'm going to take a break from the Shadow Empire and head over to Khornetown to work on an AoS Skirmish warband. After that though, it'll be either vampires, the three storms or terracotta cavalry for the next addition to the army.

Lo Pan looks right at home with these lads. Right, that's my lot. May Ching Dai have mercy on you until next time.

Shadow Empire - Guardian

Here we have the test model for a unit of guardians for the Shadow Empire. He's from Macrocosm's range of Ball Monsters, which have a huge selection of gribbly balls. Big, small, even deflated, (and at the time of writing are on sale). There will be six, but for now there's just this fella. I'm taking the line that hundreds of years ago Lo Pan had a few more of these guys floating about than just Mr Lonely there below.

I took the scheme partly from the movie version, mostly for the darker extremities, but I changed the skin tone to make him more ruddy. The super-blue eyeball gives him a nice focal point. Painting faces is one of the most satisfying parts of painting a model, so this guy was quite pleasant to paint.

I added some veins and liver spots to break up the skin a little. With the liver spots, I found about a 70/30 water/paint mix was about right. Usually I want to avoid tide marks like crazy, but for this effect that's what I wanted.

Yeah. It's like something you'd be afraid to show the doctor, isn't it?

The rest of the guardians are a mix of Bruegel-like grotesques, one-eyed, two-eyed, pitted skin, boils and so on. More when they whole gang is done, but I'll leave you with a final shot for scale.

'A guardian. What it sees, Lo Pan knows.'

Slaughterpriest - Markus Scissorfist

Another Khorne follower has snuck onto my painting table. This time the Slaughterpriest given away with White Dwarf some time back. I'm quite a fan of Gorechosen and Silver Tower, so I thought this lad would kill two birds with one stone. He needed more Khorne though, so I replaced his head with a Khorne head from the chaos spawn kit. I like my chaos pretty mutated too, so I gave him a big old claw from the Forsaken kit. (I LOVE the Forsaken kit. It was panned pretty badly, but I think it's full of super bits and pieces) With a giant KHORNE symbol on his head and a hand made out of knives, all subtlety was now banished and painting could begin.

I decided to avoid brass, as I'm a contrarian. I still went full red on some armour though, I'm not a total douche. I painted him in three sections with the left leg and big old belt buckle seperate. It was the only way to get at the back of his left leg and underpants and such. What? I'd know, and that's what matters. I gotta say though, gluing painted sections together never fails to make me super nervous. One false move...

I took some painting cues from a Khorne thug I painted a while back, and they served me well enough. The pale cloth lifts the model's palette out of brown town a bit. I decided to paint his flail as if it was some manner of brazier, even though I was almost too scared to paint it it's so delicate. New technology makes super fine models a reality, but they can be fragile. I have 80s plastic orcs you could drive over and they'd be fine, but this guy's flail, yikes.

Markus here will be my champion in both Silver Tower and Gorechosen, as well as possibly heading up a delegation of nutters for Paths to Glory in Age of Sigmar. Utility, that's the ticket.

Anyhow, just for laughs, look at the size of this guy next to a Realm of Chaos thug:

He's HUAGE. That's a 40mm base. Okay, slaughterpriests are meant to be bigger than most dudes anyway, but bloody hell. I'm still going to use them in the same warband though. 'AW, HE'S SO CUTE, LOOKIT HIS ICKLE FLAIL.' Markus will say.

Space Pirates - Captain Saturday and Mister Mumble

Today we have something a little different. I present Captain Saturday and first mate, Mr Mumble. Neither of these dubious gentlemen were painted by me.

For reasons, my excellent compadres Axiom and Asslessman took it upon themselves to convert, paint and post a space pirate version of me. That's right, two takes on space pirate Mr Saturday right here, complete with parrots, tricorns and stripey pants. One couldn't but be humbled by such gestures, though Axiom's version has been at the biscuit tin, or that armour is adding a few pounds.

Both are fine examples of the respective fellow's work. You can see Asslessman's post on Captain Saturday here. Both lads were canny enough to leave the basing to me, so I added my standard sci-fi bases to tie them into my existing collection.

I'm delighted to have a mini from the hands of both hobbists, they'll be yarring into action at the earliest opportunity.

Shadow Empire - Lo Pan

It's been a while, almost 2 months in fact, but I have returned, and I bring with me the darkest magic.

The main man himself, Lo Pan, is now complete. I needed something groovy to drag my out of my hobby mire, and you don't get groovier than this guy. He's one of my all time favourite villains, so adding him to the collection is most gratifying. I've really enjoyed painting the vibrant Chinese robes on him and his Yaoguai, and they contrast very nicely with the terracotta warriors.

Lo Pan lays down a sick rap while his man bangs out heavy percussion. Or concussion.

I trawled the net for reference, and I took a rough palette from some of the images. I reduced down the decoration on the robes to just lining on the hem and sleeves, and boiling the rest down to a few main colour choices. Lo Pan flavoured rather than a direct attempt at his exact outfit. He loves his bling, does Dave Lo Pan.

Gonna magic you good.

I decided to give him glowing eyes, because it's cool. I'm keen to get him on the gaming table, as he's just so damn quotable. I'll be wary of any enemies with decent reflexes and good knives though. I think Lo Pan has spent enough time in the hell of those killed by idiots.

Lo Pan and his bros.

With Lo Pan finished, I'll be moving onto a unit of guardians. I reckon back in ancient times he had a few more in his service than just the one lonely dude floating about his lair. I may in time add some cultists so I can use him in a more modern setting. The three storms are in the queue as well.

Lo Pan and his loyal Yeren.

So, now I am returned from the wilderness I'll be lashing up more painty goodness soon. Rejoice!

Saving Brother Victor - The Last Wolf

What's this? A space marine? A space wolf at that. What's going on here then?

Well, I have almost no interest in space wolves, but brother Victor here, he's special. He was rescued from the edge, this one.

 About a year ago, I was trawling the Wargaming Trading page on Facebook when I see the most forlorn looking minature. He has seen some action in his time. This was the poor fellow as he was then:

Yeesh. The post with it read thus: "Ey up, I just found this thing in the pond at Victoria park. I washed the mud off and it looks like a vintage space marine? I think it has been based with cat litter, and painted with Dulux emulsion. Anyone interested?"

Something stirred in me. I have a terrible need to rescue old broken minis. I instantly sent a PM. It turns out perhaps he may just have been in a box for the last twenty years, but in my mind he had been recovered from the deep, and soon he was on the way to me. This is the image I had in my head for him once he arrived:

So, our fallen brother soon came tumbling through the letterbox. I set to work stripping and carving off the literally centimetres of glue gumming up our brave marines battered armour.

Just look at that. Jeesbus. Any man with sense would have administered the Emperor's mercy and sadly moved on. Not this guy. By the throne, this marine would see action again. Victor's left arm was a loss, so I thought it would be fitting to equip him with a new prosthetic. So, after carving, scrubbing, whittling and sanding, Victor was back on his feet.

And so he remained for many months. Other projects took my attention away from our veteran and he sat on the to-do shelf. Recently though, I was in the market for a 40k hunter, and who better than a forlorn son of Fenris? The final stage began and Victor hit the painting table. Some brush tickling later, and our space wolf was finally ready to return to the grim darkness of the far future.

Wow, Bolt pistols were small back in the day. It's like a derringer.

With Victor back in action and the current events on Fenris, I think it could be fun to have this lone wolf leading a warband of serfs and Fenrisian survivors. A servitor, couple of hairy tribesmen, Fenrisian wolf, maybe a chapter serf. Could be interesting.