Tuesday 29 September 2015

Medusa - a Reaper Bones model

Here's the Gorgon Medusa.




Quick and dirty paint job.
The lighting has bleached out some of the detail in her face - it's not that sloppy IRL.
There's a couple of bits of soft detail on this and some mold lines are tricky in the Bones material, but I think she looks pretty good.

Monday 28 September 2015

Poseidon God of the Sea

This is a model from the SHQ (formerly Chiltern Miniatures) range of mythical gods. I bought pack EEG3 on spec as it's almost impossible to find any images  - there were some of Zeus on Lead Adventure a few years ago, but that's about it. I do find it quite surprising that this far into the 21st Century some manufacturers don't have images of all their products.
Small boy (for whom it was purchased and painted) loves it - I'm not 100% convinced, but it's a fun figure.





Easy as pie to paint up. He's nice and big and chunky. Here's a comparison shot with a Crusader Greek to show that although he'll be impressive on the tabletop he's not going to totally dominate things.



I've got Hermes (from the same pack) on the painting table to use as my god. He's a lot more "realistic" as a model.
Interestingly the two "mortal" figures (Hercules and Perseus) are the same scale as these - I'd assumed they'd be smaller. As I want my heroes in the game to be of a smaller scale I probably won't end up using them (Perseus is holding Medusa's head and Hercules is draped with bits of the Hydra, so they can't really be used as other Gods - I was thinking one might do for Ares). That said four figures this size for £8 is pretty good value. Even if I only ever use the two I still think £4 each for models this size is OK.

Small boy is of the opinion that as Poseidon is one of "The Big Three" in Percy Jackson (with Hades and Zeus) that his stats of C4 is not powerful enough in OGAM, so he's going to be using a C5 version. *gulp*

Sunday 27 September 2015

Patrick "Fightin' Irish" Flaherty

Republishing after deleting so that thief on TMP couldn't re-post the content. Apologies to everyone who has already seen it.

Flaherty is General Ballroom's loyal batman and bodyguard. "The worst shot but strongest man in the entire British army" Ballroom regularly claims. Ballroom rescued him from being grabbed by the fuzzy-wuzzies and ever since the hulking but loyal Irishman has repaid the debt as his dependably brutal enforcer.





He's actually Pug from a Foundry Old West pack, but makes a suitably loopy addition to the Ballroom expedition

Friday 25 September 2015

No Gods and Mortals

Smallest boy demanded we play Of Gods and Mortals the other week, despite having no gods and not having painted any of the models.

So we did.

Here's a few pictures








It played quite well, like a slightly unnecessarily complicated version of SBH. Clearly the Gods add a huge extra dimension to the game. At least I hope they do, otherwise why not just play SBH...?

Anyway, should be ready for a more painted version this weekend.

Thursday 24 September 2015

The Tower of Tromney - Age of Sigmar Campaign

Nubbinz rubbed his back. It still hurt from where Muncha had landed on top of him when the cannonball knocked him over. He glared down from the bouncing beast's back at the goblins milling around him.
"Look, it's like dis" he grunted " Da ratmens are gunna make a break for it soon enuff. And we needz ta keep an eye open for 'em so we can duff 'em up and nick da treshure back, right"
The goblins shifted and muttered.
"So we's gonna run over dere and turf dem oomans outa dat tower so's we can 'ave it as a lookowt, right!"
There was more grumbling and one of the spear armed goblins pushed himself to the front of the mob.
"Look, boss, me and da lads was talkin' and we reckon  a betterer plan would b..."
There was a red blur and then Muncha let out a satisfied belch and spat out the goblin's hood.
"Right, any furver questions?" queried Nubbinz.
"Thought not"

General Ballroom and I convened a couple of weeks ago for the latest in our series of linked narrative games. In the absence of the ratmen hordes we elected to play the watchtower scenario. Dicing for attacker and defender revealed the good General would start in control of the tower, which we reasoned was an outpost near Tromney that the goblins were keen to take for their own nefarious purposes.

I stuck with the same army list, but Gen B. growing weary of the poor performance of the cannon and mindful of the repeated death of his priest in previous games swapped the former for some outriders and the latter for a wizard of the fiery persuasion.

As the battle was a long time ago by my standards I've forgotten the ins and outs of things, so here's some pictures

 The spearmob sneaks up on the tower

 Nubbinz, Muncha and da squiggly beasts

 The tower garisson waves it's flag

 Here they come

 Muncha leads da way

 But the spearmob are dallying

 The rescue force

 The attack begins

 More goblins are drawn in

 The cavalry to the rescue

 The Tromney swordsmen shuffle past the ruins

 The cavalry bear down on the goblins...

 ...and prepare to unleash lead

Bang, whirrr,bang!

In the end the halbardiers and wizard proved a tough nut to crack in the tower and the arrival of the outriders saw most of the goblins slaughtered. However a few brave spear gobbos did finally manage to sneak into the tower. Despite the empire hurling lead at them they held on and the game finished before the tower could be reclaimed!

A victory for Nubbinz (though I think he'd been removed as a casualty by that point)

So Nubbinz has a foothold on the outskirts of Tromney. General von Tanzsalle has reclaimed one of the Treasures of Tromney. However two Treasures remain in the hands of the nefarious ratmen.
Where will our saga lead next..?

Wednesday 23 September 2015

Tuesday 22 September 2015

Crusader Greeks (3)

Inching toward the finish now.
Highlights of the base colours applied and then some basing.
Still a few bits to tidy up, like the spear points (would these have been iron or bronze?) and the shields need painting and adding, but they're pretty much done.




Lovely models to paint.

Now I need to finish a Minotaur, Medusa, four centaurs and a pair of gods...

Monday 21 September 2015

Reaper Bones Lions

A pair of Reaper Bones lions.
Or, more properly a lion and lioness.






Painted straight over the plastic, no primer needed.
Jolly little models and a bargain at under a fiver for the pair.
Ideal for some African action

Wednesday 16 September 2015

Crusader Greeks (2)

Progress of a sort.
I have tackled these with my version of The Scrivs Method(tm) a single all over coat of a brown wash. The Master's weapon of choice in this matter is Vallejo, but I have no truck with pronouncing js as ys so have instead used Coat D'Arms Medium Brown Super Wash - which I picked up a while ago as replacement for my diminishing supplies of Gryphonne Sepia.
It's like dipping, but without the faff and drying times. I figured over the usual Tallarn flesh it should give me a more Mediterranean skin tone and would nicely make the plain white look more like linen.




I will go back and add some highlights - for that is the Scrivs Way and the models are too nice not to. I'm pretty pleased with how simple and quick this was.

Monday 14 September 2015

Crusader Greeks

Both my boys have a fascination with Greek mythology - inspired by the very jolly Percy Jackson series of books. Small boy in particular has been keen to turn this into tabletop action and earlier this year I purchased Of Gods and Mortals from Osprey when they were selling it cheap. Since when I've been acquiring a selection of Reaper Bones models to use as the Heroes in the game. I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetics of the Bones range  - they're what I would class as an "American High Fantasy" style - very 70s and D&D in my view. However they're very competitively priced, they have a broad range of "classical" monsters and they're surprisingly detailed given the material they come from. This is a side project for the small boy to play really, so I wanted to keep it cheap. The official range from Northstar is very good, but expensive for something I'm lukewarm about and the boy will grow out of in a matter of months.
However for the mortals I knew I did want to get some of the lovely Crusader metals. Chum John fancies playing some Greek stuff one day, so maybe these can do double duty. Eventually.
So down to Northstar I pottered on Friday and said hello to Nice Mr Nick.
Anyway, here they are WIP.
White undercoat and base colours applied.


The spearmen will be in white (possibly with blue - for Poseidon - trimmings) and they'll be the core of the lad's mortals. The archers are split with us each having four.


The brown ones will join the white clad hopilites.


While the red ones will join a unit of 8 Foundry Naked Spartans (no idea) that have sat half painted in my loft for many moons.

Thursday 10 September 2015

Treasures of Tromney II, an Age of Sigmar campaign game

"Wooah dere!" shrieked Nubbinz, hauling on the skin of the huge squig beneath him.
Reluctantly the beast slowed and bounced on the spot. The goblin warchief  strained his ears. He could hear the chittering, squeaking and pattering of ratty feet fading into the distance.
Curse the ratmen. Stealing his treasures from him! Still at least he had one sack of treasures clutched tight. Now all he had to do was gather the lads together and make off.
Just then, shapes appeared out of the darkness, spears held aloft.
"Ladz!" Shreiked the warboss "I'ze over here"
"Ladz....?" he muttered nervously
There was something not quite right about the shape of those spears, they looked more like axes on sticks...
"Muncha!!!!" yelled the diminutive warboss, "get me outa here!" he screamed as the halbardiers rushed towards him...

General Ballroom and I convened for another game. Steve was indisposed, so we decided to see if Nubbinz could make off with the remaining Treasure of Tromney or if von Tanzsalle could reclaim the prize.
Feeling our forces had been scattered by the previous game I came up with a random distribution using playing cards so our forces were scattered and we didn't know who would end up where.
The objective what to get the treasure and as much of your army off the board as possible.

Nubbinz was in the centre of the board, holding the treasure with a variety of goblinz and empire units all around him. I rolled poorly for most troops and the squigs were nowhere near the handlers - things looked dicey.

 Two whole squigs turned up

 Sizeable unit of swordsmen

 The one decent sized unit - archers

 Tiny spearmen unit

In the distance Nubbinz makes a break for it

I started with everything heading for my board edge, apart from the squigs who I sent to deal with the handgunners. However I was faced with the dilemma that if Nubbinz left the board I might keep the treasure but von Tanzsalle would almost certainly wipe out the rest of my army and win the game. In the end I decided that Nubbinz and Muncha should help the spearmen. If I could get them, the archers and Nubbinz plus treasure off the board, the victory would be mine!

 Waaagh!

 Nom, nom, nom!

The spearmen start chasing the shaman around the mushroom patch.

Sadly Nubbinz and Muncha were up against some swordsmen, who proved a tough nut to crack and General von Tanzsalle waded into the fray.

 the General approaches

 The squigs find the handgunners tricky to digest

General v General

Bereft of their handlers the squigs failed to make very fast headway against the handgunners. and the swordsmen, spearmen, general fight turned into a grind.



Meanwhile the Empire spearmen closed in on the goblin shaman, who fled for his life...

 Yikes!

 Ruuuuun!

Oh, too slow

...but not fast enough.
Eventually Nubbinz cut down the swordsmen and his oposite number, but at the cost of the spearmen.
He decided that the time was right to make good his escape.

 Flee!

But the cannon had other ideas.
And the squig and his master where shot down, utterly on the ground.

Nom, nom...oh.

All that remained was for the squigs to discover that state troops were quite tough and with that the game drew to a close.

A great fun game with the random deployment making it quite chaotic. Some of the fights ground on a bit, but with small numbers of relatively small units it played quite well.

So General von Tanzsalle has regained one of the Treasures of Tromney and reclaimed some honour for the Empire. Nubinz has nothing and the skaven still have two in their posession.
Where will the campaign take us next?