Pointy sticks

And as hoped some of the orc upgrades have been completed .. just in time for a tournament at the weekend.

These are Renegade Miniatures orcs (not currently available sadly). In the latest Kings of War rules pack (Clash of Kings 2018) Orcs have a unit called Longax which are basically spears. Filled with renewed enthusiasm I decided to bolster my unit and paint up enough miniatures to be able to field an entire horde of the (that's 40 miniatures!).

Here are the 12 newly painted additions.

And here is the whole unit

The unit is ridiculously heavy and including movement tray, magnets etc clocks in at just under a whopping 1.25kg!

But that's not all. I also have the first regiment of orclings complete.

Unsurprisingly they weigh in at a whole lot less. I've managed to combine miniatures from 4 different manufacturers in there - GW, Foundry, Pendraken and Mantic. I have several more bases of these little chaps to paint too.


The plan is to carry on working on my orcs for now but I do have some more Wild in the Streets miniatures inbound which should be arriving any time now. We shall see if they fight their way to the front of the painting queue.

Updates are like busses

Two updates in a day - who could have predicted that?

This is a War Drum I have built for Kings of War using GW orc bits that I had lying around. I have several more on the work bench including one of the official Mantic models. This one had the honour of being painted first purely for practical reasons as it required less work to complete (the guard at the back was already part painted from the early 2000s).

I made a big push to get it ready for tonight as I have been using the unpainted model in games for for the past couple of weeks and I didn't want to go three games on the trot with unfinished models on the table.

Next up should be more orcs. I'm planning to use them at at least one upcoming tournament and want to have as many painted options available as I can.

This corrosion

As promised I have started shifting miniatures from my workbench and on to the painted pile. Here we have two gangs for Wild in the Streets from Slow Death Games, a "fun, fast and easy to play skirmish game of youth subcultures fighting in the streets".

I had fun helping to run games of WitS at Salute with the folks from Random Platypus but these are the first two of my own gangs.

Here we have the Murder Cult Girls. A vicious and fast gang who really can dish out the pain.

Also lurking in the back alleys we have the Goth Gang. At least they won't have to worry about washing out those pesky blood stains as I'm sure they won't be showing through.

And I couldn't resist a posed shot of the two gangs facing off.

I should have some more WitS gangs arriving in the mail any day now. Once I have had a chance to throw some paint at them I will be running a few games of WitS at the club.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the workbench much work is progressing on my orcs. Hopefully I will have some to show off very soon.

Is it June already?

Wow, that's probably my longest time between updates in all the years I have been running this blog.

So what's been happening since I posted last? Well as you may have guessed - there haven't been any completed miniatures since January but that doesn't mean I have been completely idle. In that time I have painted up a quantity of modern scenery, some of which which I took with me to Salute for the Wild in  the Streets game that Random Platypus was helping out with.

Miniatures wise I have prepped a whole load of stuff and part painted a whole load of stuff. Hopefully over the coming weeks and months I will be able to reap the rewards of the work I have done and be able to show off some of the painted results.

First to escape the workbench are these chaps. More cheap plastic Tehnolog miniatures, this time 54mm undead Knights based up as KoW wights. They work out at around $1 a miniature including postage which makes up for the soft detail and general bendyness. You can get an idea of their size from the mantic zombie I have included in the photo.

The rest of the workbench is currently covered in Orcs although they might get leapfrogged by soem Wild in the Streets miniatures I also have on the go. The Orcs have been waiting for their KoW2 upgrades for years and I finally decided that it was time to get them back on to the table top once again. I have loads of little additions and unit upgrades for this army and I will see how many of them I can complete before something else piques my interest.

2018 is underway

Late 2017 saw my Kickstarted copy of DreadBall 2 arrive in the post. I opted just for the rulebook pledge this time as I still have plenty of unpainted miniatures from first time around. The new system converts a good chunk of the MVPs into team captains and makes both classes much more likely to hit the field. This spurred me on to paint up some of the characters who had been languishing in a box for years.

 I also got cracking on some of the alternate poses for the Judwan team. The chaps in red will be available as transfers for other teams.

I've also made a start on some of my other Dreadball miniatures. I have alternate poses left to do for the Veermyn, Marauders and Forge Fathers and entire expanded teams for Nameless, Zees, Tetratons and Astereans ... and a load of MVPs and giants too. I'm hopeful that the game will take off at the local club giving me more incentice to get painting.

The Scale of the Problem (2018 edition)

As is tradition, here is a glimpse of what still remains in the lead/plastic pile

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs
System: KoW
Status: Lots of figures painted, many more in the lead pile
Comments: No painting progress during 2017 but I did at least organise some stuff for the painting queue. Some extra purchases.

Goblins
System: KoW
Status: Lots of figures painted, the lead pile is now considerably diminished
Comments: 2017 saw a very minor expansion to my goblin army. The lead pile remains at about 60-80 miniatures strong
 
Kingdoms of Men/Basileans
System: KoW
Status: 18 knights started, about 100+ more models unpainted.
Comments: No painting progress during 2017. All set for whenever I feel up to taking this project on.

Dwarfs
System: KoW
Status: 80% unpainted, about 150-250 models in total.
Comments: No progress during 2017.

High Elves
System: KoW
Status: Mostly painted
Comments: Three more units complete in 2017 only about 4 more to go.

Undead
System: KoW
Status: Mostly painted
Comments: Most of my 2017 progress was additions to my undead army. Those January 2017 purchases have set me back a bit on the road to completion though.

Ogres
System: KoW
Status: 40% done
Comments: No progress or purchases during 2017.

Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Mostly finished.
Comments: Over 2500 points + options available for use. Gathering dust.

DreadBall Teams
System: DreadBall
Status: 8 teams painted out of 12
Comments: Late 2017 saw renewed interest in the game and work re-commenced but too late to score any painted models for 2017.

Dead Zone
System: Dead Zone
Status: 1 faction starter done
Comments: No progress during 2017 but a handful of models bought to flesh out factions.

SWAT teams and Criminals
System: Officer Down!
Status: Completed (well almost).
Comments: 4 more miniatures painted but a dozen or so bought at salute.
 




The Walking Dead
System: All Out War
Status: New project for 2017 - about 50% painted.
Comments: A surprise addition to the list - with a bit of concentration I could get them all completed fairly quickly.
 
RPG miniatures
System: D&D etc
Status: Lots painted - lots still to do.
Comments: No progress during 2017.

10/15mm Scale Projects

High Elves, Undead, Dark Elves, Mongols, Later Muslim Indian, Later Achmeneid Persian
Systems: DBA, HOTT etc
Status: No progress during 2017.

2017 and all that

As another January rolls around it is time to take stock and look back over the previous year's painting progress.

So how was 2017 for me? Well for personal reasons it was a year I would not care to repeat. One day I will look back at 2017, laugh nervously and then change the subject.

This had an inevitable effect on my painting and my output was way down on where I had hoped it would be. I also completely shelved my planned human KoW army as I was in no state to undertake a project of that scale. In spite of all this I did still manage to complete 149 miniatures (using my patented 28mmEQ method) which wasn't bad but was way less than the number of miniatures I bought.

2017 was a FAIL - good riddance to 2017.

This year will be better ... if only because belt tightening will mean that I won't be spending much on miniatures this year.