The Exiled Dead

 It's been a little way since I got paint on any miniatures but as luck would have it I had a box of miniatures that I have stats for in 3 different games (and they also feel like they'll fit great in RPGs as well).  Say hello to The Exiled Dead!

These figures are a Warhammer Underworlds release, but I had forgotten that I had gotten a White Dwarf awhile back that also had their stat cards for Warcry, and like most (all?) Underworlds releases their rules for Age Of Sigmar are available for free online.  In addition to their intended Games Workshop uses I feel like these would be a great as constructs in the Ravenloft domain of Lamordia.

I got The Exiled Dead from my friendly local game store, please remember to support your FLGS as well.

Thanks for checking in.

-Jay

Goodbye Shadespire.....Hello Nightvault!

I think I just had one of those feel good/bad moments.  I feel great because I finally got my Shadespire stuff done, but on the other hand given that the whole thing probably only took me three hours from start to finish I feel a bit crappy about these guys having sat on my painting desk primed and ready for a year without getting touched.

My full force of seven models is now done for the Sepulchral Guard.

I really like these as some characterful undead models and I hope that in addition to Warhammer Underworlds Games Workshop continues on with the practise of providing some more of their models with textured bases.  They saved me tons of time and hassle and in my opinion really look good on the finished pieces.

Having painted my three petitioners yesterday my additions today were three of the 'named' heroes for the Sepulchral Guard.

First up, The Harvester

Next we have The Prince Of Dust

And finally The Champion

As much as I painted these for the purpose of playing Warhammer Underworlds I'm sure they'll show up in some other games as well.  How could they not?  They're probably the nicest skeleton models that I own.

-Jay

The Ghouls that no one loved...

Yesterday I mentioned that I was participating in Black Knight Games Call To Arms event.  The goal is to get 2000 points painted by the end date (which I really should check into in).  The night I was invited to join I hadn't really seen the hot new Malignant models so I planned to just do a vanilla flavoured Death army.  I headed down to the store with a clutch of 20 Ghouls to paint thinking that would be a good start.  I managed to finish them the other day and then just decided to accept the fact that they're going to sit in a figure case and probably not be part of of my current/new Age Of Sigmar army.

Having said that I'm still happy to have painted 20 more.  I can always use more ghouls for lots of different games I play.

I painted these the same way I painted the ghouls I painted for my advent calendar over Christmas which is coincidentally the same way I painted my last 2 batches of Escape From Goblintown goblins. 

Depending on how things go these may turn up as allies in my Malignant force.  I'm actually also seriously considering some Dryads as allies and going with a haunted forest vibe.  We'll have to see if I ever actually make a firm decision.

-Jay

Crypt Ghast Courtiers

The release of Age Of Sigmar skirmish has me re-energised for painting my Vampire Counts miniatures for Age Of Sigmar.  The truth is I've been trying to get worked up about painting a force since the General's Compendium came out but after years of painting skirmish sized forces I was finding the prospect of 50-100 models really daunting.  Skirmish on the other hand invites me back in with a much smaller investment of painting and time to prep.

I decided on a "Death" force but then realised if I wanted to play through the Shadespire campaign (and I do) that I didn't really have any heroes cheap enough to lead my force.  I had been planning on doing some ghouls for a while so I decided to do a couple of Crypt Ghast Courtiers.

I really like the idea of a hero level ghoul, but I have to admit when Games Workshop re-released the ghouls as a 20 figure box as opposed to the old 10 figure box I wish they could have re-tooled the sprue to include 1 more generic ghoul upper body.  As it stands each sprue makes 9 ghouls plus either a Crypt Ghast (unit champion) or Crypt Ghast Courtier (hero).  This would be fine except by the General's compendium ghoul units are bought in increments of 10 and most boxes will result in a unit of 19 unless players ignore the inclusion of the extra fancy-style body once every 10 models.  Having said that I love the figures and definitely think there are more in my future.

I'm off to consider my next 9 points/reknown for my Death warband!

-Jay

The horrors....the horrors.....

For the first time in over a week I got to sit down today at my desk and make a concerted effort to get some painting done.  Today I consciously decided to go a bit off task for reasons that in hindsight I feel either shows my evolution as a hobbyist or my lack-thereof (it's a question of perspective).

The running joke with most miniature gamers is that they buy WAY more than they paint.  A few years ago I made a conscious decision that I was going to get away from that stereotype and not only work through my backlog but also stop buying miniatures at a faster rate than I know I can get them done.  For the most part I think I've been pretty successful at this with a few small exceptions.  However this past weekend something happened that challenged both my willpower to stick with that plan and my general interpretation of how I stick to it.

When it was released last year I got a copy of Warhammer Quest Silver Tower from my FLGS Lords Of War here in Oakville.  The game looks brilliant and the models are great but I haven't actually played it, or even planned to play it yet so I wasn't really in any great rush to start painting models for it.  Fast forward to last weekend and Warhammer Quest Shadows Over Hammerhal was released.  I want to buy it (I REALLY want to buy it) but it's hard to justify given that I had another huge Warhammer Quest box set just sitting in my office collecting dust.  So a smart person might have thought 'I don't need that new game, I've got something perfectly adequate right here' but that seemed like quitter talk to me.  So instead my inner-monologue convinced me that if I can power through most or all of the Silver Tower set in a week or two then I can justify the new game box.

Fast-forward to today and I got my first 10 models from Silver Tower done and my next 16 models 50-75% done.  At the rate I'm going I should be able to  have most of the antagonist side done by Monday.

Today's project was Horrors.  The concept behind the horrors is neat as the idea is that you start off with a Pink Horrors and if you "kill" it it actually splits into 2 Blue Horrors...and then if you "kill" those they split into 2 Brimstone Horrors.  So basically its one of those nightmare scenarios where the more you kill, the more you have to fight.

I really enjoyed painting these models.  They're right in my wheelhouse in that they are heavily textured without being overly busy on the detail side so a single wash and highlight can do 90% of the work for you.  Given how much I enjoyed painting these and how cool the Tzangors and Kharic Acolytes look I may have to consider doing a Tzeentch army at some point in the not too distant future.

I'm really looking forward to trying the game out, hopefully in April as March is a stupidly busy month for me already.

-Jay

First 2 Ravenloft Player Character models

As we close in on the early release date for Ravenloft (is it March 4th yet?) I'm working behind the scenes on the monsters and NPCs that we'll need.

Having said that I have 2 players that may or may not have models for their characters.  In any event I decided to get 2 figures done for them so we have them if we need them.  The real trick is that I needed two figures wearing scalemail, luckily Warhammer High Elves are multi-piece models (so  they're fairly easy to work with) and most of them dress in scalemail.

First up is Therien.  Therien is a wood elf cleric hailing from the Ravenloft domain of Sithicus.  For those of you unfamiliar with the setting; Sithicus is a twisted mirror slice of Ansalon from the Dragonlance campaign setting.  Therien is armed with a mace (which I couldn't find a bit for) and a crossbow.

Next up is Mark.  Mark is a human ranger from Ansalon from the Dragonlance campaign setting.  Mark uses two hand weapons and a longbow and is built entirely out of parts from the Shadow Warriors sprues.

I intentionally chose to do Therien and Mark up to look very similar for a few reasons:
1.  (practical)  I was using the Shadow Warriors as a base for both characters so whether I wanted to or not they were always going to look similar anyway.
2.  One of them is from the Dragonlance campaign setting and one of them is from a shadow version of that same setting and they are both from a woodland background so they should be somewhat similar stylistically.
3.  Everyone and everything in Ravenloft has some sort of dark secret, there are no coincidences, and this visual similarity may/will tease a later connection.

-Jay

Dual purpose/Dual Wield

I'm playing in a Dungeon Crawl Classics game once more, this time as a thief with a short sword and an assortment of daggers.
I don't have a lot of figures that are armoured but lightly armoured in my backlog so I built something out a Bretonian man-at-arms and added some appropriate weapon arms from the Frostgrave soldier sprue.

Thus was born Jaqar; 4th level thief and member of the guild of The Grasping Hand.

The other thing that worked out about this is that I also needed a Treasure Hunter for Frostgrave and Jaqar will be doing double duty.  In Frostgrave most of the basic soldier types have 2 or 3 tiers of skill and value.  A Treasure Hunter is basic an upgraded thief,  So they're quick and lightly armoured but slightly more survivable than a starting thief and they also pack a stronger punch.

Painting one figure and getting 2 separate immediate uses out of it feels extra productive.

-Jay

These ARE the skeletons you're looking for

When I put up my project list last week I knew I was tempting fate, historically as soon as I declare I'm painting something I get distracted and don't get it done.  This time out I took a side-step for a slightly different reason.

I had planned on painting 6 Mantic Revenants as my armoured skeletons for Frostgrave however once I started painting them something hit me right away....these models are freakishly two-dimensional.  So I tossed them (literally threw them out) and started on some GW Skeletons I had hanging around.

Ultimately I want to replace these with Wights as they are more heavily armoured but I didn't have those on-hand so I worked with what I had.

Once again painting for Frostgrave seems to be moving me closer to getting my revised Vampire Counts for Age Of Sigmar done as well (that's actually why I painted 7 of them, I'm holding back 3 to do a command group later).

Hoping to get a couple more small things done this week, I've definitely fallen behind a bit in the last few days.

-Jay

Project Plans For The Next 3 Weeks

Honestly I should probably stop stating my plans because every time I do I end up not entirely following through.  Having said that I have an event coming up that I want to use as a deadline to get some more stuff done so here's my plan for what that looks like.

FROSTGRAVE
I should be able to play Frostgrave one more time before I have to hit the road for work.  For the next scenario from Thaw Of The Lich Lord I will need 4 pillars/columns which will be some cake pillars I'll be painting up and then adding to my scatter terrain as well.  In addition I need 6 Armoured Skeletons which will be represented by Mantic Undead Revenants.   Once I get a few more of those done they will also be joining my Age Of Sigmar Vampire Counts.  That's all I need but I suspect I will try to do a few odds and ends to add to my wandering monsters as well.

Also at the end of the month Lords Of War here in Oakville is hosting a Wizard & Apprentice painting contest.  Speaking honestly I never expect to do that well in painting contests but they are a great way to push yourself to get some stuff done by a fixed date.  The plan is to get the Soothsayer and Apprentice done before the end of the month.

BATMAN
On February 6th my local FLGS will be hosting their 1 year anniversary and is running some mini-games for people to participate in.  For the Batman event each participant is invited to bring in a single character up to 150 points.  I just picked up The Wonderland Gang so even though he's only 75 points I'm going to get the Mad Hatter done up to play with.

MALIFAUX
As part of the same celebration at Lord Of War on February 6th they will also be hosting an Enforcer Brawl.  This is basically a free-for-all where everyone fields a single Enforcer model.  I've got a bunch of Enforcers done but again this is a great push to get something new done.  I'm planning on painting up a Mature Nephilim that I will be needing for a Through The Breach campaign this year.

Well that's the plan.  Will I get it all done (for a change)?  I hope so.

-Jay

Age Of Frost-mar?

The work on models for Thaw Of The Lich Lord continues!

I had originally purchased a box of GW Ghouls in preparation for a Mordheim game that never actually happened.  As I was starting  to collect models to do a Mordheim force GW announced Age Of Sigmar so I basically put the whole thing on hold.  I base-coated the skin thinking I would use them for Age Of Sigmar but never got around to finishing them (until last night).  For Thaw of Lich Lord Scenarios 3 and 7 as well as the wandering monster chart I need  some Ghouls and now when I circle back to Age Of Sigmar I will have a small unit for that as well.

The other day I ended up working from home while my daughter was feeling ill.  When I work from home I usually try to get a little work done on figs on my breaks and with this figure being heavily textured and monochromatic I was able to get it done in about 30 minutes total.  This guy is a Stone Construct for Frostgrave so he's adding on to my growing collection of random wandering monsters.

I'm now planning on playing Scenario 3 tomorrow so I need to get a move on and paint my warband's Apothecary!

-Jay

Closing out 2015.....can we pretend it's still 2015?

I've been hobbying steadily but I've been super-slack about posting stuff on line lately.

I wanted to wrap up (and show) the last of the stuff I painted the last week or so with the goal of setting a clean slate for 2016.  My hobby focus has been on Frostgrave since I got back from B.C. and I'm starting to look at what I'm painting as possibly supplementing a D&D or Pathfinder game in the near future.

My friend Stan and I are trying to get all the scenery and models done that we need to play through Thaw Of The Lich Lord.  The next scenario on the schedule (we've already played through the first two) involves four cultists defending a broken down cart filled with their loot.  Sticking with my traditional lack of attention to detail I picked up a scenery pack for Malifaux with a broken down cart....not realising I had already bought one, so now I have two for when I need some extra scatter terrain for Malifaux.

One of the elements that is different with Frostgrave from a traditional fantasy skirmish game is that as warbands snatch treasure it can attract wandering monsters which function independently of the players' forces.  I have a fairly extensive collection of 'classic' fantasy gaming monsters however there are some uniquely Frostgrave critters I wanted to add to my collection.  To that end I got some Constructs (basically magic powered robots) which I thought were great because they broke with the traditional steam-punk look of most fantasy robots as well as a Snow Leopard and Ice Toad which basically call out that we're not playing in Middle Earth or The Forgotten Realms.

I finally got around to replacing my Bretonian Men-At-Arms figures with some proper Frostgrave soldier models.

In addition I've rounded out my force with a wizard (Malbeth The Seer from  GWs Lord Of The Rings line) and apprentice (Bretonian plastic from Warhammer).  Eventually those figs will also be replaced but for now they are my Thaumaturge and Apprentice.

Last but not least I touched up and rebased Boromir (again GWs Lord Of The Rings) to use as my knight.

For the first time in a few years I also got some models for Christmas so 2016 starts now!

-Jay

Frostgrave - The adventure begins!

I'm going to be talking about two new games and a new D&D campaign this week so I'll be diverging a bit from "look what I finished" and spending most of the week on "look what I'm working on".

Today's new game is Frostgrave by Osprey Games.  Frostgrave is a game I had recently heard a lot of buzz about and to be quite honest at first I really didn't care.  Historically one of the problems I have had with jumping on board in the early days of a new game system is that I hear a lot of enthusiasm from people and then six months later none of my gaming friends have painted their models and I've spent time and money on a bunch of stuff collecting dust in a corner.
That being my issue going in there were two things about Frostgrave that dispelled that concern instantly.  First up the game is set in a classic medieval fantasy setting with characters who fit generic fantasy tropes.  What this means in practical terms is that anyone who has a collection of; D&D or Warhammer or Mordheim or whatever game make a force out of figures they already own.  My second issue is that typically skirmish games that feature a campaign or warband experience mechanic get old very quickly for me, in Frostgrave every campaign is meant to end, so it doesn't go on forever.

The book itself is fantastic.  Hardcover, 128 pages with terrific art and miniature photography throughout and a simple intuitive game system that seems to offer reasonable depth without becoming bogged down in endless rules.  All this for a price between $25 (US) and $32 (Canadian).

The only requirement for a starting warband in Frostgrave is that it must have a wizard.  There are 10 different schools of magic to theme your wizard around but me being me I'm starting off with a Necromancer.  You also have the option (which the rules directly and highly recommend) to hire an apprentice for your wizard.  There are a lot of neat mechanics around the apprentice, he is statistically similar but slightly inferior to your actual wizard and knows all the same spells but at a slightly lower level of proficiency.   One of the mechanics that should strike an immediate chord with campaign players is that after a certain amount of levelling up your apprentice can take over the warband (becoming a wizard themselves) if the actual wizard is ever killed.  For my wizard and necromancer I build them from the Games Workshop Empire Wizard two-pack, the only extra piece is that the apprentice has a head lifted from a Bretonian archer.  The Empire Wizard pack is GREAT for Frostgrave because a number of the pieces in the package work towards the schools of magic in the game.

The next classification of models in the game are soldiers.  Soldiers refer to any figures hired into the warband that are not the wizard or his apprentice.  For my first three soldiers I assembled some characters from the Games Workshop Bretonian Men-At-Arms box (more of these figures will be featuring in a different game next month!).  They are from left to right; an Infantry Man, a Man-At-Arms and an Apothecary.  There are 15 types of soldiers in the basic game book and they represent most of the character options for D&D and other classic fantasy RPGs so you have quite a lot of options for customisation and modelling.

Last but not least I have a Warhound.  The warhound is from a dwarf sprue from Mantic Miniatures, I'm actually not sure what unit box it comes in because I got this particular sprue from a Dwarf Kings Hold game box.  The warhound is just another type of soldier, but I had the model and was trying as much as possible to keep my warband all plastic so I thought I'd give him a go.

So that's where I'm at so far.  The plan is to start painting this stuff (I'll still need to add another model or two) this week and hopefully get done in time to play a game by next Friday (8 days from now).

That's it for Frostgrave until something gets done, up next Batman!

-Jay

Vampire Counts.....I'm going to say.....progress?

Two weeks ago I had grand plans to have an ENTIRELY new Vampire Counts/Death force done to play Age Of Sigmar with in mid-August.  The real world keeps interfering with that plan so I've made some headway on one new unit and I've done some re-basing and touch-ups to re-use one of my oldest Vampire Counts unit.

First up I have re-based my Armoured Skeletons.  These were some of the newest figs for the (then) Undead army for Warhammer when I first started the army roughly 18 years ago.  I did these up and they were effectively both the centre-piece and core of my army for a decade.  I'm not going to have time to get all my new skeletons done in time for August 17th but I have made a decision; at the end of August this unit is retiring permanently.  It's not that I don't still love the figures but continuing to haul them back out continues to be the main reason why I don't "need" to paint a new unit.  They've served me well over the years but they've got a few games left and then they're done.

I also made some decent progress on my Vargheists.  The Vargheists are very cool an uniquely Warhammer-y.  They are flying-ogre-sized-vampire-mutants.  Basically when a vampire gives in fully to their inner beast they become one of these guys.  This is the one unit I had always meant to add to my Warhammer army when the last army book came out but never got around to it, now they can make their debut in the Age Of Sigmar.

That's it for tonight.  If all goes well there will be another cool new (new for me anyway) unit done tomorrow and if not you'll at least see a WIP picture.

-Jay

Age Of Sigmar - "Gently used" character models

Tonight I re-based a few character models for use in my Vampire/Death force for Age Of Sigmar.

It felt funny to already be re-basing these figures because the one thing all  three of them have in common is that they have never actually been used in a game.  In the case of my Jester (who I'm fairly certain I'm going to use as a necromancer) this is because I painted him recently for a game that I never actually got around to playing, no big deal really.  But in the case of the two Von Carstein models this is slightly odder or more embarrassing.  I actually got both of those models and had them painted prior to their initial release in metal, this means I've had them painted for about 8 years now.  In spite of that I haven't played a single game of Warhammer Fantasy since they were released to they've been sitting along on their 20mm square bases waiting for some attention for a while.

Stan told me based on his goofy rules I had to field Konrad Von Carstein in a game at some point and if you've read his rules (I have to talk to him and he has to talk back to me during games) and/or ever played a game against me you probably realise that kind of stuff is right in my wheelhouse.

Hopefully the Ghouls will be done tomorrow and then it's on to the Vargheists!

-Jay

Age Of Sigmar - Ghouls (WIP)

Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in!

I shared my thoughts last week on the new Age Of Sigmar rules for Warhammer and one of the things I walked away thinking was; hey great I can use my existing models...but...you know....

So being a hobbyist I've decided to start up a semi-new Vampire/Death force in earnest.  I had originally been planning on playing Mordheim so I had picked up a few models but now I'm really exploring what I can do with Age Of Sigmar.  I've got to say the warscrolls have really gotten me away from thinking in terms of what a unit should look like (numbers, options, add-ons, etc) and have really sold me on looking at Warhammer box sets the same way I would look at Warmachine or Malifaux box sets, if it comes in a box it's a unit and I can use it that way.

So back to my Mordheim story; I had bought a box of ghouls with the intention of using 5 for Mordheim and keeping the rest aside for conversions, at one point I considered doing all 10 of them and starting a Warhammer Fantasy Battle unit but then I would need another box or two that I honestly wasn't sure I would ever field in a game.  Fast forward to Age Of Sigmar and my 10 Ghouls are a proper unit and can jump to the table once they're painted.

So far I've gotten the skin done and not much else, I'm planning an hour or two on them tonight and again tomorrow and then they should be done.

It's funny sometimes how the circle of your hobby life goes.  18 years ago when I had just started working for Games Workshop I was an avid 40K player who had never played Warhammer Fantasy.  I decided for my first staff tournament to play fantasy to force myself to collect an army and really learn the game.  The first unit I ever painted for my first fantasy army; Ghouls.  Now I've been gone from Games Workshop for 6-7 years and here I am looking at teaching myself a new version of Warhammer Fantasy and I'm painting Ghouls, sometimes it feels like you CAN go home again.

-Jay

Iron Painter 'Fool's Gold' DONE!

I just finished up my entry for the first round of this year's Iron Painter competition.

I'm fairly happy with how he turned out but the vision in my head of dark and light working well together didn't quite yield the result I was looking for.

At any rate I'm happy with my effort and if I can figure out how to upload my pic to Wyrd's website my entry will be in tonight or tomorrow!

-Jay

Hobby Grab Bag - The hobby A.D.D. is strong with this one....

Many different irons in the fire this week.  I've got a figure I need to finish for a painting contest by Friday, 2 figs that I need for a game on the same Friday, 1 figure that I had started for my D&D game and never finished, and at long last the start of my Robotech forces!

First up I got a bit (not much at all) more work done on my Jester for the Iron Painter.  The Jester will also being doing double duty in Mordheim.  At this point I have all of his brighter colours done, now it's time to go back and add the darker bits.

Next up I'm FINALLY circling back to Dr McMourning's nurses.  When I played in the Malifaux league I ended up playing Outcasts so the Nurses have been gathering dust for about a month.  Walking away from the league with a new box of Zombie Hounds got my excited about my Resurrectionists again, so more on that shortly.....

When I was bouncing back and forth on what my big bad monster for the snowy mountain would be in my D&D game the first idea I abandoned was a sasquatch.  I started painting him and I'd like to finish him just so he's not another half-painted figure on my desk.

And last but definitely not least, the figures that came out last year that I've been waiting for for almost 30 years....Robotech.  I'm starting my Robotech models off with the Destroids for 2 reasons; first up I haven't decided yet what I'm going to replace the ugly flight stands the veritechs came with, and second because I can use them as old school (3025 era) Battletech models!

That's it for now, if you don't at least see the Nurses and Jester done by the end of the week it means I screwed up.

-Jay

Progress on "Fool's Gold" Iron Painter entry

Whoever said slow but steady wins the race has clearly never run an actual race.

I've been trying really hard to pace myself and let everything happen in it's due time but I'm starting to feel deadline crunch.  I've gotten some of my brighter colours blocked in and I'm hoping to finish the Jester's clothing tomorrow night.

I'm definitely starting to really like this guy and I'm starting to give serious consideration to actually using him as the Necromancer for my Mordheim gang.  I'm pretty sure my Vampire is going to be a cousin of the Von Carstein's from Mousillon.

-Jay