Kickstarter - Dark Dwarves

Chris over at Macrocosm has just launched his latest Kickstarter, Dark Dwarves. Being a long time chaos dwarf fan, I'm pretty intrigued by this, especially as they are more in the 'spiky stunty' style. There are a lot of the units you'd hope for, handgunners, crossbowmen, axemen, but also more esoteric units, like the 2 man mortar and weapons teams like the bazooka,  flame thrower and gatling gun.

So if you're looking for some great value evil dwarves, head on over and take a look. The add on section is also offering some deals on the crazy popular Monster Balls from Macrocosm's previous Kickstarter. They're pretty hilarious and have a lot of gaming uses. The ball of steel is something I'll have to pick up myself I think. Who doesn't want a giant floating armoured cyclops ball?

Shadow Empire - Terracotta Warrior Halberdier Unit

My first unit for my mythological Chinese/ undead Cathayan army for Dragon Rampant is done, a unit of terracotta warriors. A four point heavy Infantry unit with the 'Undead - No Feelings' rule. Lo-Pan's rank and file.

I'm really rather delighted with how quickly I was able to get these done. The fact they are mostly one colour helped quite a bit. I managed to pick up a large coffee table book on the tomb of the first emperor recently, which has as much reference photos as I could ever want. It did give me the idea to add some cavalry though, so expect some terracotta warriors riding bronze horses at some point. Hopefully I can source a war chariot too.

I plan on three units of the warriors ultimately, one with halberds, one with sword and shield and one with crossbows. The second unit, the swordsmen, is on the assembly table, I just need to procure some command figures, as sadly, John Jenkins no longer sells the terracotta warrior range. Renegade Miniatures warring states range looks like a likely source of models for replacement officers and such. A little conversion work and slight mutilation with the solder pen (wearing a mask) and they should be good to go.

So that's four points down, twenty to go.

New Gaming Magazine - The Golden D6

The Golden D6 is a new hobby fanzine that has been increasingly popping up around the gaming community grapevine. Curious, I took a look and was impressed at the level of hobby love crammed in there. Battle reports, gaming articles and showcases of lots of delicious miniatures fill the pages. (The evil 40k clown army in issue 4 being a favourite. A jokaero in a top hat is always a good thing.) It gives me the old White Dwarf vibe, it even has stories in. It's always nice to get a magazine looking at a wide variety of miniature lines and gaming systems, and the D6 collects a lot of goodness from around the industry and community so my lazy ass doesn't have to go looking for it. Definitely worth a look.

Issue 5 will have an article on my Frostgrave deadites, which is pretty cool. So if you fancy giving it a look you can click the old link here and away you go. If you use the link and buy an issue or subscription I'll get a tasty cut, which I'll spend on miniatures, which I'll paint, and then post here. The circle of life. Beautiful.

Shadow Empire - Terracotta Warrior Officer

This guy is the test model for a new force, my first army specifically for Dragon Rampant, the Shadow Empire of Lo Pan. He was a "shadow emperor" appointed by the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Lo Pan was put on the throne as an impersonator because the Emperor was afraid of being assassinated. However, Lo Pan tried to take over and was cursed by the Emperor to exist without flesh for 2,000 years until he could marry a girl with green eyes.

Lo Pan, of course, is most well known to me from the film 'Big Trouble in Little China', a magnificent pulp movie where Lo Pan attempts to finally escape his curse, but is thwarted by Jack Burton, truck driver. If you haven't seen this film, you really are missing out, and the rest of this post won't make a lick of sense.

Seen it? Great, read on.

My take on this army is based on Lo Pan not long after he was cursed by the emperor, maybe a few hundred years. He commands a variety of Chinese horrors, first and foremost of which are the terracotta warriors, which he has been able to steal from the emperor's tomb by virtue of the fact that he did sit on the throne himself, if only as an impersonator.These clay warriors are supported by jade mummies, hopping vampires, guardians (the weird ball monster from the movie) and other nasties. I'm hoping to include a Xing Tian, a headless giant. Lo-Pan's unit will have the sorcerer himself as well as his hairy, bestial servant, some demons and a so on. The three storms will operate as a unit on their own. If all goes well I might even try a terracotta warrior war chariot.

The officer here is painted as if he's been in the tomb several hundred years. By pure chance I picked a huge coffee table book published during the warriors exhibition in London a few years ago, which was packed with great photo reference. The bronze sword took a little work, but after conferring with a mate on the level of age to apply to the bronze I think it works, and provides a point of interest on a pretty monotone model. Many of the real warriors are mottled with different colours, so I may try that on some of the unit.

So there you go, the humble beginnings to what I'm hoping will be an interesting 24 point force for Dragon Rampant.

Myeri Tiarna - Alan Lee's Fomorian

For today's post, I've returned to a favourite subject of mine.

This handsome fellow is a Myeri Tiarna by Geoff Sims, from the forthcoming Myeri Clan box for The Woods: Legends of Shandisholm (due out August, it looks like it's going to be a beautiful book). He's armed with a Snaghyrn and based on Alan Lee's Fomorian painting. You can find Oakbound here, and their Facebook page here. Anyone who has any interest in the Fimir or Celtic fantasy should really check it out. The background of the Myeri is fascintating, and anyone who loves the fimir will love this as dearly.

The original Alan Lee painting.

The Alan Lee Fomorian is somewhat chubbier than the Tiarna, and the colour scheme is quite different, as I've painted him to match my own clan. It's very nice to have a model based on this painting, the great grand-daddy of them all.

In my own clan this fellow will be Murdach, a noble of the Fir Domhan. Having a more human size noble gives me someone to lead my fimm, and as they are due to go raiding in about a fortnight, he couldn't arrive at a more opportune time.

I painted his cloak Hawk Turquoise to match the other high ranking fimir in the army, and added some freehand detail along the bottom to increase his bling yet further. His bronze has had some verdigris added. He might be a noble, but he still lives in a bog. 

Painting the Tiarna has given me some mojo for adding to the Fir Domhan. There's a Myeri bagpiper around here somewhere...

Wipsters, Oldhammer and KnaveCon 7

Piers Brand's superb greenskins

The internet is a funny old place. A lot of the internet is like a sneaky bowl of chocolate cereal. Briefly tasty, but then the guilt. The sugary guilt. Still more of it is like walking down an alley in Bangkok at 2am singing 'What shall I do with all this money' at the top of your lungs.

Now and again though it does yield gold.

The gold in this case is the way our hobby has connected the thousands of small metal and plastic man enthusiasts together. We all know how good the interwebs is for gaming, so I'll skip right on past that. What I mean is the friendships that can result from such shared obsessions over the net. The kind where a grown man you've never met before gives you a ten second bearhug, and you're totally reciprocating.

A deathworld never looked so beautiful.

That's what brought about the meet-up at KnaveCon 7.

There's already been some fine, fine reporting on the games of the day. You can catch the Rogue Trader report here, at Scale Creep, where some of the mightiest examples of the gaming elite hold court. Indeed, these, among some excellent others, are the very fellows that made the trip to Ireland to throw some dice and revel in the sumptuous miniatures there on the day. (Bar Captain Crooks, with his whole 'I live in Australia' excuse.)

The Frostgrave portion of the day was reported on here by Cheetor over at Sho3box and here by Asslessman at Leadplague.

The height of Rogue Trader fashion saunters through the jungle.

So my take on the day will be more about the participants than the gaming, as enjoyable as that was. Over the last couple of years the Wipster group has coalesced out of the Oldhammer scene. What started out as trades and comments on forums and posts turned into a gaggle of miniature nuts who constantly rant and ramble at each other about what excites them on any particular day in the hobby. From that Scale Creep was recently born, a pubic outlet for our mutual affliction. Online therapy.

Yes. That's a giant floating ballbag there at the back.

One of the most enjoyable things, hobby-wise has been the group projects. We've had several, and seeing everyone's work moving along has the positive effect of giving painting mojo a serious boost. Added to that the large amount of great work that comes out of the group keeps everyone pretty enthusiastic and churning out even more good stuff. See what I mean about gold in them thar internets?

Sneaking. It's what they do.

After a while, when you're speaking to folks on a daily basis you can't help but get to know them despite your best efforts. That eventually resulted in almost all of the Wipsters/Creeps showed up at KnaveCon 7. Getting nearly everyone together was tremendous in itself , and as expected, the games themselves were casual, friendly and full of laughs. It's always slightly weird meeting someone you know reasonably well for the first time, but a couple of the aforementioned bearhugs sorted that out.

More gorgeous Frostgrave minis.

The day went off super well, bar poor JB who was afflicted with something akin to the black death. The amount of fantastic terrain and models was such that I didn't get around to seeing all I wanted to see, but there's always next time. Again, it's one thing looking at a model on the web, quite another holding it in your hand and being able to turn it about for a good look.

Brewhouse Bash at full tilt.

So there you go. The internet. Not all weirdos and creepy bearded men. Sometimes it's weirdos and creepy bearded men with great paint skills who like to roll dice and have a laugh.

Adeptus Mechanicus - Techpriest Samdai

I recently finished this mini for a Rogue Trader game at KnaveCon 7. Myself and some pals have been running a Rogue Trader roleplaying campaign over Facebook for several months, and the climax of chapter one became the game on the day. It was very cinematic having characters you were very familiar with race through the jungle to get to the landing pad before the giant floating sac of evil escaped.

Samdai here is a tech priest, though is currently on the run from the Adeptus Mechanicus due to some mystery as to his origins. He's from Bob Olley's magnificent set of Adeptus Mechanicus models. While I love that whole set, this guy is hands down my favourite Ad Mech model of all time. This particular mini was in a bad state when I got him. Missing his axe head, scored and flattened in several places, he needed a lot of love to nurse him back to health, before even a drop of paint hit him. I love restoring mistreated minis though, so it was no chore.

As with many models, I was unaware of the detail on the back, so his ornate backpack was a nice surprise. It's a great shape with it's tubes, exhausts and little 'wings' on the sides.

I plan to add to Samdai's retinue in time with some more Olley Ad Mech, some servitors and maybe a skitarii or two.