Talk to Frank

Anther quick and dirty paint job and Frank the flesh golem is complete.



I should really dig through the bones pile and see if there are any other quick wins in there.

Team golem

Whilst digging through my large pile of unpainted Bones Kickstarter 1 miniatures I spotted the golems. These chaps feature quite a lot in D&D games so I decided it was time to slap some paint on them. I've not had much painting time recently as my movement disorder has been playing up so three miniatures with very simple paint jobs was about as much as I could manage.



The flesh golem is still on my work bench but should be joining them shortly.

If you go down to the woods today ...

If you go down to the woods today you might see my completed Hunters of the Wild units! Mantic don't yet make models for this unit choice so these are a mixture of Dryads and wood spirits from five different manufacturers brought together and mixed up.The KoW v2 rules describe them thus:-

Like a true force of nature, wild and untamed, the fey creatures of the forest gather in great hunting bands when the Elves march to war, honouring ancient pacts between the Sylvan Kindred and the Green Lady. Gnomes, fauns, will o’ the wisp, dryads and sprites form packs of spiteful warriors, fighting with the full fury of the Great Wild.

This is my first attempt at multibasing in 28mm (other than swarms etc). Usually I base troops individually and magnetise them to their movement trays but in this case I decided to do something different, largely because a load of the models were designed to fit on 25mm bases and the unit footprint for HotW assumes 20mm bases. I think it worked out pretty well but I think I'll stick to my usual methods of basing for now.









In other news this brings me up to 268 painted 28mm miniature equivalents for the year so far. The target of 300 that I set myself in January looks possible so I am cracking on with some more Mantic elves that I assembled and primed ages ago and just left. These will hopefully be a quick win and propel me towards my goal.

October?

My PNKD has been pretty bad this month so it has really cut down on my painting time and I have achieved far less than I had hoped.

I managed to paint up some Mantic Mars attacks scenery for the Random Platypus Barricades PAL.



And I've also completed a handful of old GW and WOTC dryads for my KoE elves.



I have to load more forest spirits to complete but fortunately they are pretty quick to do so I might get this unit finished before too long. Looking at the calendar I will have to get a move on if I want to break the 300 mark this year, best get to it.

Towards a cleaner workbench

The clearing of the decks continues. Yesterday I put the finishing touches to three characters for out D&D campaign. Firstly my wife's new fighter, Brienne. This is from the Otherworld female adventurers set.



Next up a very old citadel dwarf. I've added an extra axe on to his back as the character, Drax, is axe mad.



And lastly a Reaper Bones fighter. The swords won't stay completely straight on this one no matter how hard I try. I think the model was meant to have a cloak of a backpack or something but I couldn't find it so I had to plug the hole in the back of the miniature with green stuff. Not the best of paint jobs but I don't expect the character to last all that long!



There is still more workbench cleaning to go. Hopefully I will get a chance to pick up my paint brushes over the weekend.

Stormin'

And now a 80s Grenadier Storm Giant. This chap has been sitting in a box for years and I decided to dig him out and give him a new paint job due to the Random Platypus "Giant" paint-a-long they did earlier in the summer. The big problem was that I never owned the correct left arm for him - years ago I bodged him together with an arm from a citadel giant but it looked pretty bad.

Fortunately Random Platypus is a very nice place and another board member sold me the correct arm for the miniature. So here he is with the correct arms and a quick paint job.



And another (lead) weight off my mind and my workbench.

The chequered flag

And over the line we go. With one last push I have completed all the miniatures for my Clash of Kings army.

This little chap is a goblin army standard bearer who has been in the works for at least 10 years! The wolf is from a hobgoblin special character and the banner pole is from a space wolves dreadnought. After many years in bits he is finally ready to ride the battlefield.



With the army out of the way I set about tidying up my workbench. Firstly a very quick paint splatter on a Hasslefree Lenore. Lovely miniature, mediocre paint job.



And finally (for now) a Reaper Bones cleric. He's been knocking around my paint station for at least a year so I thought it was high time I finished him and reclaimed the space. Not fantastic but he's done and that's what counts.



I'm working on a few other miniatures I've had hanging around so with a bit of luck I will have more progress to report before too long.

Is that a crossbow or a cross ogre?

Only a few more days let until the clash and that's the last of the ogres I'll be taking with me completed.



Next up the goblin army standard bearer ... hopefully.

I have a few other bits and pieces rattling round my work space as well. It would be good to have a bit of a clear out and finish a few things before launching into anything too big.

Boing!

More results from the concentrated effort to get my army ready for the Clash of Kings. These are two "Orc Crushers" from Raccolor Art, I bought them to use as Mangler Squigs back when I was still interested in WHFB 8th. They have been sitting in one of my army cases for years and might have been there for much longer had I not decided to use an army list including two giants. Now I have a lovely giant that I painted some time ago from Ultraforge but the problem is that he dwarfs most giants on the market and getting another giant to pair with him would have been a problem so I decided to paint the bouncy squigs instead.



I rather like how they've turned out. Long term these will be used in my goblin army and may be used as either Giants or Slashers.

That just leaves me with three more ogres to complete for the event ... or it would have done if I hadn't decided to dig out an old goblin army standard bearer miniature I converted but didn't finish painting many years ago. I'm now trying to get him ready to take with me too.

Painting to a deadline

October is fast approaching and with this year's KoW Clash of Kings final. As usual the extra pressure of an impending deadline has spurred me to get a move on.

I had originally intended to take an all ogre army to the final but for various reasons I haven't painted any more ogres since April which means that I won't have nearly enough painted to take a 2500 point pure ogre force.

I took my goblins to the regional heat back in the summer and that inspired me to paint up some more goblins to expand the force for the new KoW v2 rules. Unfortunately I ran out of steam part way through and ended up with part assembled goblin chariots scattered around my work space for months.

With the Clash of Kings only a few weeks away I started tinkering with army lists using allies to plug the points gap. After a few rejected options i ended up deciding to ally my goblins with the ogres meaning I still had some work to do but utilising some of the items I had already started work on.

First up goblin chariots - lots of them! I've always loved greenskins and their contraptions and I think I bought my first goblin chariot (MD1 Goblin King's Battle Chariot) back in 1986 when it was released. The goblin army list in KoW v1 didn't have chariots but I was one of several people who requested their addition in the v2 revision. This allowed me to dig out my chariots and re-base them for inclusion in my army. One of these (the closest) needed painting from scratch but the others needed less work - some of them still have bits of their original 1980s paint jobs showing.



To go along with the old school lead I have a brand new chariot from Crooked Claw miniatures which I bought last year via their crowd funding campaign. I really like this one and I will be using it as a goblin king in my KoW army (sorry Sourgut - you got demoted).



As well as the chariots I have painted up the remaining trolls I got from the KoW1 Kickstarter campaign.



With the tournament a week away I still have some more miniatures to paint up but unless things go completely pear shaped I think I have this covered.

Fire and flood

June to August, oops! Although it has been a while since I posted I have not been entirely idle I have managed to paint up my city terrain boards - a task which took longer than expected but I am pretty happy with the results.



Anyway back to miniatures - here are a couple of Reaper Bones water elementals I picked up recently for use in the Temple of Elemental Evil. Being already made of clear blue plastic all I needed to do was add some highlights.



And the same with these lesser fire elemental thingies from the same range.



I really need to clear my painting table as I have a ton of half finished models on it. I need the space so I can get cracking on some more ogres for the tournament in October.

Over the hills and far away

And here is the first part of the payback for a slow May. I painted this guy up in a tearing hurry for a D&D session but didn't quite manage to get him completely finished in time (he was however painted enough to use for D&D). I've added a couple of layers of highlights and I can now put him in the painted pile.



Meanwhile I have been doing a lot of work on goblin chariots in preparation for KoW v2.

I'm back!

What happened to May? May seems to have been a month for starting things but not finishing them - hopefully that will mean I can reap the dividends some time later and complete what I have begun.

In the mean time I had the Clash of Kings Northern Regional coming up and I had a flash of empathy for women who say that they have 'nothing' to wear to a particular social occasion. I have several complete KoW armies but I didn't fancy taking any of them to the event as they were. After a bit of list bashing I came up with a reasonable looking goblin list which then had to be revised further when it was pointed out to me that it wasn't legal under the tournament rules pack.


The problem with my new list was I needed to paint up some more miniatures for it - I was short by 10 goblin cavalry. After an extended rummage through my unpainted pile I turned up some goblin spider riders I bought back in 2007. I have tried to paint these up to match the ones I did more than 7 years ago. Its interesting to se them side by side - I think my current techniques look better and are faster to.

Here's the first batch of 5:-



And the second:-



And because I finished up those so quickly I decided to do some more trolls for the army:-



I'm now considering doing a few more upgrade bits for the army whilst I still have the enthusiasm.

Oh and for the record - I came back from the tournament as regional champion. :)

What a load of rubbish

A bit more scenery just to break things up a little. This is a load of Mantic Mars Attacks scenery which I got as part of the kickstarter campaign. Some of the pieces are plastic and the others are resin.





These will provide some welcome cover in our games of Officer Down.

They see me rollin'

And the ogre chariots are finally complete. These chaps have taken longer than expected to finish and have been languishing part completed on my workbench for some time. Its good to see them done - now I can press on with something else.

A regiment of three chariots:-







And an ogre character on chariot.





Not sure what will be next - maybe some more ogre rank and file.

Ogres of character and distinction

Its been a while since I have progressed my ogre army. I had a game the other week using the Ogres with the KoW playtest rules and they were very brutal and fun to play too. The experience rekindled my enthusiasm for getting the army painted up so I got on with the ogre characters who have been sitting on my workbench since January or so. I'm quite pleased with how these turned out.









And a group shot.


 
I'm now working on some charioteers, hopefully I can finish them soon and get cracking on the rest of the army.

One by one

Another day, another miniature.This chap has been clogging up my workbench for a while so I decided it was time to complete the work I had started. This is another Reaper Bones Elf. IIRC I stared painting this one whilst we were still playing our Dragonlance D&D campaign as a miniature for Gilthanas.



What next, more workbench clean-up maybe?

Cloaked in mystery

One more for the painted pile. This is "Aenur the sword of Twilight" a metal GW elf that came free with a White Dwarf 238 to promote Mordheim. In our D&D campaign this will be Rowen, an elven fighter/thief with a very task oriented philosophy.



Hopefully I can finish a few more odds and ends before the month is out.

Slowdown

For various reasons March hasn't seen me add much to the painted pile. Not only has it been a busy month but also my PNKD has been pretty bad which has wiped out any chance of painting in most of the free time I have managed to find.

I have managed to complete some Reaper Bones Drow which are needed for the D&D campaign - in fact this week's session is likely to conclude the Drow adventure so I've only just finished then in time.



March's other finished items are all scenery - three buildings made from Mantic's Mars Attacks scenery.



















Those are the final three buildings planned for the Officer Down table leaving just a few odds and ends to complete on that project.