Silver Bayonet - Oleg the Enduring

I've circled back around to my Silver Bayonet unit for this latest instalment. My Russians need a few more members before I can call them ready for action. So here we have a former Cossack ready to serve his undying master.

Oleg is another Flintloque sculpt from Alternative Armies. He's a charming wee fella, with his giant cuddly moustache. I looked over a few ideas for Cossack colour schemes for wee Oleg. Boy, they sure liked those vivid outfits. So, I gave him some fairly once-fancy colours, not least of all to contrast with his rather dour looking comrades. 

Oleg will probably be run as an irregular or light cavalryman in the game.

Oleg has served Morozov for some years, long before his current woeful condition befell him. Often sent of errands to far off locales to glean some scrap of information or token carried to him by other agents of the vampire, Oleg is an indefatigable horsemen, who, conveniently enough, rides an equally indefatigable horse. The long leagues he travels mean nothing to the undead Cossack, on the contrary, they still manage to generate a spark of joy and memory in his withered old soul as the wind whips through his still-magnificent moustache.

Stargrave - Loot Tokens

A small addition today. Some wee loot tokens I recently finished for Stargrave. Three physical, three data. These were used at the recent Stargrave weekend when my buddies and I pew-pewed our way across three days of sci-fi action. 

The Necromunda control panels are ideal data tokens, and I used one of Duncan's old GW videos for some tips on painting up the displays. I think it worked out pretty nicely.

The physical loot are a shrine, also from Necromunda, and two bits box builds of machinery doohickeys. Some drybrushing, washes, contrast paints, weathering, a green glaze for the physical, a red for the data, and that's them done!

Dress a Willy Sculpting Challenge

Something a little more unusual today. Back in March I came across the 'Dress a Willy' sculpting challenge on TheStillTower on instagram. Aside from the fact I was in a GorkaMorka adjacent mood, the idea of a naked, scrawny wee human toting gear taken from a dead grot made me chuckle something fierce. I contacted Pablo at TheStillTower and pleaded for a copy of wee Willy to convert and paint up. Pablo was very amiable and sent me on a copy right away.

One thing I liked when the mini arrived was that the resin support block he was attached to was sculpted as orky ruins and glyphs. Solid idea.

First off, one thing I was NOT doing was giving him any pants. It was far too hilarious leaving him flying free. Under the terms of the competition though, he had to be converted. even slightly. Here is the pile of Willie's ready to be posted. Ahem.

So, as you can see from the image at the top of the post, I added some orky shoulder pads and a shin guard. Some other folks went a lot further, such as the master convertor Axiom from Magpie and Old Lead. If you've not checked out Axiom's blog, do yourself a favour and wander on over.

For painting, I wanted wee Willy (giggle) to be a test model for an upcoming Digga mob for GorkaMorka. It's mostly natural materials, but the armour gets a little more zap with some dirty orange. I'm thinking of calling them the Sad Moons, as they want to be like the Bad Moons but can't paint yellow and have no cash.

I bet you weren't ready for that.

Sooo... in case you are a young whipper snapper, the joke is that Willy gets his gear from this guy:

Taken from the magnificent Leadplague, painted by Asslessman. Take a look at his gloriousness at the Leadplague blog. Bring snacks.

But didn't see fit to take his pants. Then again, I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to try on some grot underwear either. Some doors must stay shut.

Incidentally, TheStillTower also make absolutely sublime linocut prints, I have several in my basket. The ork sprue vinyl sticker is very fun. I wish I'd spotted this one in time:

Patriarch linocut print from TheStillTower

So what's next for Willy? I hear from Pablo a new mold is in the works and he's added more hands, another weapon, a squig and the body of a cetain looted grot. Take a look at the pics below. 

So, the story IS, our wee dead grot was playing his gameboy (gameboyz?) instead of watching out for humies and got a rock in the back of the head. 

I love it.

Stargrave 3 - Captain Aesir Vortag

We all have our favourite champions. Tiny metal, plastic or resin protagonists that we've become unreasonably attached to as they've battled in our name down the years. This is one such mini, a venerable warrior that has been leading my renegade hordes since I was a teenager. May I introduce Captain Aesir Vortag, formerly of the XII legion.

Vortag has a much storied history, mostly from some decades ago. Back in the late 80s and early 90s the Captain (though in his hubris he was Lord Vortag back then) led his renegades warbands against all comers. Myself and my buddies at the time gamed A LOT back then. We were all about Rogue Trader and then 2nd Edition 40k, and we played the bejeezus out of them. We built our own rudimentary, but enormous, campaign system. We even recorded many of our games in a large ledger, complete with maps, drawings and army lists. I have it to this day, and I get quite the warm fuzzy feeling when I look back over it. I was very close to posting one of my early doodles of Vortag in action from the ledger, but I will spare you that.

The Captain and his heretics butchered his way though Ork warbands, Tyranid hordes, loyalist Astartes, Imperial Guard detachments and assorted Eldar pirates. He accrued favourite enemies, and they harried one another over many a tabletop. 

Aahh... such days. 

But, eventually, the guns fell silent. Vortag's enemies took ship into the void (or college, as it was known on some worlds), and with no wars left to wage, the Captain and his warband made for the stasis pods. It was to be a long sleep.

Years passed, and other heroes came to the fore. Games came, games went, but I always had a tremendous soft spot for the infamous Captain.

 And so, when a plan for some of my gaming brethren to gather this Spring for a Stargrave weekend, I decided it was time for a new chapter for my slumbering hero.

Vortag is one of the Jes Goodwin Warhammer Fantasy Realm of Chaos champions. One of the curious set that seemed to be blessed with 40k weaponry and technology. Back then, chaos champions could indeed be gifted with rewards from the 40th millennium. They make very fine fallen legionnaires.

At the risk of getting overly maudlin, I found it quite an emotional experience finally getting paint on the old villain. I used mostly contrast paints and medium over metallic base coats. His tail and sword were blended and stippled, before getting a unifying glaze or two. I had been using Flesh Tearers Red mixed with medium for red chaos armour, but I wanted to turn up the vibrancy on Vortag so I added some Blood Angels Red to the mix to make it roughly 1:1:1. It was extremely satisfying finally getting him painted. He's one of four great heroes of my early days of gaming that I wanted to give such treatment to. The other three are still awaiting their turn.

Space rippled and shivered as the space hulk translated back into realspace, or rather, most of it did. Sections of the hulk tapered off into translucent ghost-shapes and tatters of best-forgotten memories. The hulk, the Odyssey of  Devotion, was never truly in one place, and it's labyrinth of ancient passageways could lead a traveller to an infinity of destinations and times, whether they willed it or no.

One such lost soul shivered into existence in the stillness of an abandoned gunnery deck, the dim lumens barely casting enough light to lift the figure out of the darkness. It stood there, in the silence. The darkness seemed to deepen, shifting and reaching out before suddenly recoiling as the warrior heaved a long cackling exhalation. Captain Vortag of the World Eaters Legion addressed his ship:

'Finally. Finally. You see, Malum? I told you. I told you I would find my way back.'

Around the speaker more figures coalesced, similar in aspect. The grim ruin of fallen Astartes, only barely recognisable as once noble space marines, but no less dangerous, and infinitely more wrathful. Some had clearly had to make battlefield repairs. Others seemed no different than moments, years or centuries earlier, when they had been scattered across the void. Others had had to abandon their armour entirely, and wore archaic or primitive replacements. Yet more had simply not returned at all. 

They regarded their leader expectantly. Vortag did not give the expectation time to fester into recrimination.

'My brothers. Let us see what has become of both ship and crew in our absence. Let us see what gifts Inquisitor Balthazar Malum has left us.'

For now, Vortag leads a mob of the Odysseys mortal crew, but I do have some of his legionnaires in the painting pipeline.

Stargrave 2 - Mutants and Murderers

 

Two more for the blood God. My band grows just a teeny bit today with the addition of another pair of absolute bastards. May I introduce Gerhart Voke and Abelard Dake.

Abelard Dake is another Diehard miniature, and a particularly crazy mutant. He's wonderfully nuts, and makes a great companion to Conrad Freig, who is also from Diehard. They both function as Ravaged Troopers in my Stargrave warband.

Abelard lost his life in service to Khorne as Conrad did, and was similarly revived by Khorne (after a fashion) to continue his ravages as a berserker. Life with a knee-face is probably pretty terrible, but that giant chainsword probably makes up for some of the practical setbacks. He keeps his hair looking sharp too. Somehow.

Gerhart Voke. This guy. This guy looks like he is just the WORST. Look at that face. I mean, he must just love his job. Gerhart hails from The Blooded Killteam box, which is just cracker, and contains the long lost and now found again chaos ogryn and corrupted commissar. Some of the new 40k chaos kits are just magic. The Accursed Mutants and new Jakhals kits are delicious. 

Gerhart is, as you'd expect, a heretic Astra Militarum trooper. Many such wretches serve Vortag, though few with the zeal and delight Gerhart displays. A total psychopath, he finds the service of Khorne a kind of murderous paradise, and indulges his brutal impulses with frenzied abandon. His continued existence, given his lack of caution in the face of enemy fire, is statistically almost zero, which has piqued Vortag's interest. Perhaps Khorne has plans for Gerhart.

Next up, the man himself, Aesir Vortag.

Stargrave 1 - Beginnings of the Murderband

A change of direction here at the Mumblings this day. A grand meeting of my compatriots is planned in a few month's time for some Stargrave action. This meeting is a follow up to last year's very enjoyable Ghost Archipelago meet-up where I took the crew of The Kraken on to greater glory and had a very fun time doing it.

This year it's all sci-fi flavoured, and I'm using it as an opportunity to paint up a group I've long wanted to see on the table, namely Vortag's Murderband, Vortag is a character from my very earliest days of gaming, a World Eater Captain fallen far from his glorious origins as a brother of the XII legion. With just a scant few of his brethren left in his company, he has been forced to recruit warriors of lesser provenance in order to bolster his ragged command.

But despite his predicament, his ambitions are lofty indeed. 

One of these lesser warriors is Conrad Freig, beloved of Khorne. A mortal berserker, Conrad's devotion to the creed of gore is total. So pure was his faith that on his death, Khorne, though taking Conrad's skull as his due, breathed new life into his torn corpse. Conrad rose again, altered, but filled with almost unbearable zeal, ecstatic in the knowledge that his own skull had been deemed worthy. He, and others like him now serve as devastating line-breakers for Vortag's warbands.

Conrad is a Diehard mini, and I used a combination of contrast and standard paint techniques on him. Contrast paints are settling into my painting armoury nicely now. I love making glazes with them, and I've taken to using Wraithbone primer as standard now.

Hopefully I'll have another couple of murderous nutters finished shortly.

Sláine 4 - Skull Sword Champions

Today we have MORE skull swords for the Sláine project. This time a pair of champions. One from the new Warlord range, and one far older fellow, an OOP sculpt from Foundry whose time has come at last.

This guy had resided in my box of 2000AD minis for many years, with no project to call his own. With the release of the new Sláine game though, his lonely days were over, and as a little extra I decided to make him a champion, hence the 32mm base. 

Even when you've had a mini in your 'to paint' collection for years, I find it interesting that you only really look at it closely once you decide to paint it. I'd never noticed the little triskele on his sword hilt, or the fact that he actually had eyes. 

I painted him as the rest, and the contrast paint took to him well. His shield was very plain compared to the flamboyant designs of his new peers, so I freehanded a triskele on there to jazz him up some. 

It's rather satisfying having him finally added a wee force of his evil brethren.

Speaking of shields, look at this! This guy was a mini I'd been really keen to paint since the start of the project, with his massive over the top Gwar concert shield. He's a little more fancy than the basic skull swords, he has a fancier helmet, a better weapon, more bangles and that amazing shield. Let's see that barbarian Sláine get through this!

His basing is the same as the rest bar that little pile of bones. I think they belonged to a mouse. It's been in my bits box for about twenty years.

He's manspreading like crazy, but then big skull shields are great for confidence.

 So, a pair of new champions joins the force, giving me three heroes. It's past time I added more mooks, so another three pack of axe-wielding skull swords is up next, and a creepy Drune priest.