The Coming Of The Night Trolls

Everyone knows I have a weakness for monsters of pretty much every kind - trolls in particular - so my monster radar when off the chart when I saw this Night Troll that's on the way from Privateer Press. Even more than before I'm dreaming of a troll army for WFB. If these are the new resin/plastic material and can therefore be posed, I might be tempted to make a unit of these gnarly critters to kick off my very own trollmageddon!  

Slaanesh Chaos Goblins - Realm Of Chaos Warband Retinue

These Night Goblins will be in the retinue of one of the Champions of Slaanesh. They illustrate quite simply the three basic colours that I'm using right across my Slaanesh army. The good thing about working with these colours is that they can easily be blended and over-layered with the use of different glazes. Obviously I won't spend too much time on these guys as they truly are minions - on the tabletop I imagine one of the champions will join this unit and they will throw themselves in front of the enemy to protect him/her.

A Century Of Little Wars: HG Wells Celebrated By BBC News

Most of us might not fire match sticks at our friends' armies these days, but this rather charming piece on the BBC website looks at the origins and continuing devotion to HG Wells' Little Wars. It's good to see war gaming getting a fair-to-positive representation in the mainstream news. I particularly love the photos of games spread across garden lawns and in the shadows of castles - 6' by 4' look piddly in comparison!

Champions Of Slaanesh Take A Vacation

Painting on holiday at the in-laws is a rather hit-and-miss affair. I'm working up the Chaos Champions for my Slaanesh warbands that will travel with me to the Oldhammer event. In the following weeks I'll do their retinues, which I'm simply going to pick for variety and interest as opposed to rolling them up. That way I can work on figures that will slot into the units of my larger Realm of Chaos Slaanesh army.  I'll wait until the end of the week for an up-date, by which time I hope to have written up something for each of their backgrounds.

Decor supplied by 'the folks'

Zombie Week: Day Seven

Day Seven... "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me..."

Time really is the killer when it comes to having this hobby alongside a busy job and a full-on family life (son 4, daughter 20 months, wife beautiful with reasonable levels of maintenance...). It might not look like I've managed to do that much here, but believe me, this took some effort. Being a hobbyist in circumstances like mine, you find you have to steal time with guerilla tactics, or negotiate it like a slippery politician. Every moment counts.

This has been an incredibly worthwhile exercise. Not only have I got a unit up to a basic tabletop standard, I've developed a new painterly technique that I'm still happy with after a few days (this really IS an achievement!), and I've set a new era of productivity in motion. Sure I'll still flip flop between projects but so much more will happen between flips... with minimal flops, I hope.

I'll put the final touches to this lot after the compulsory summer week at the in laws, which begins Friday, and will see me focusing on my warbands for Oldhammer day.

Apologies for the slightly blurred picture, it was raining so I had to be quick

Shock! Some Dwarf Miniatures I Actually Like... Well, They Are From Avatars Of War!

These new Dwarf Pathfinders from Avatars of War look really great. No surprise because they're the next in a long line of amazing looking minis from this company. These guys are really setting the standard for GW to follow, particularly in their more 'neglected' fantasy ranges. Any chance of some Wood Elves?

Zombie Week: Day Six

Nothing at all glamorous today as I completed all the black edges on the bases.

I feel like this is essential at this stage so that the unit looks at least minimally 'complete' come tomorrow.

That also clears the final day of this mini challenge for highlights and shading.

Day seven photos will be accompanied by a few philosophical thoughts on painting targets and techniques.

Gosh, you're excited, I can tell!

Zombie Week: Day Five

Day five... Ah, the grim realities of painting large regiments for WFB. On day four I enjoyed the discovery of a new way of using wet brushing and glazes to achieve a hugely satisfying Blanche-type effect. Oh how the mighty have fallen! Yesterday and, I must admit, a little bit today I slogged through daubing the bases in sepia ink and white wet brushing all the remaining human zombies. What a chore. There truly is no glamour in painting the regiment way. It's easy to see how people who just admit to getting painting 'done' struggle to feel motivated or even bothered sometimes. I do gain some solace though from that fact that my usual WFB play from now on will be in 3rd edition, where smaller units are more common. The undead, however, need to be fairly horde-like in all editions. Maybe in future the trick will be to paint a regiment for 4 or 5 days, then spend a couple on a character? 

The New Lizardmen Bastiladon Will Make A Perfect Feral Ork Squiggoth

I'm really glad I held off on getting too deeply into my new Feral Ork project because the new Lizardmen Bastiladon has arrived and it will make the perfect smaller Squiggoth. I'm not certain exactly how they compare size wise, but with plasticard and Forge World guns I can surely turn this plastic kit into a living Battlewagon. This project just came alive!

Zombie Week: Day Four

Day Four... Last night I brought all the rotters up to the same stage with basic washes and highlights, and added black edges to some of the bases. I must say that while the Titan Forge undead trolls are rather neat, the zomblins are of a much lower standard. It looks as if the casting hasn't work properly, something like that. This is disappointing but I'll focus on them tomorrow and see if I can get them up to a reasonable standard.

With the models in the picture you can see the effect of my white wet brushing, a technique I'm using to give an multi-layered 'John Blanche style' look to my work. This - like so many good things - started as an experiment. I'm now slightly realigning my plans for the overall look of the army and getting an extra burst of excitement!

John Blanche Illustrations From The Sorcery Spell Book

Our regular gaming nights currently involve a romp over the Shamutanti Hills as GM Andy guides his semi-competent players in typical semi-tolerant fashion (we do test his patience...). To aid my sorcerer, Andy handed me a copy of the Sorcery Spell Book during our last session. Not only did it help me sift through all the spells, it also gave me the chance to snap a few photos of the John Blanche illustrations within. Here are a few of my favourites...

Zombie Week: Day Three

Day three... And the undead are looking all shades of putrid thanks to some Dark Tone ink (watered down a little to make it flow better) followed by highlights of Elf Flesh and Sunburst Yellow. More shading tomorrow I think, plus some glazes on the clothing to get a little differentiation started. 

Warhammer 'Satire' Piece In The Telegraph Newspaper

Every now and then, Warhammer makes it into the mainstream press. It's usually a neutral-to-negative angle that's taken, and the writer does anything but develop or provide any insight or analysis whatsoever. Today is no exception, with a really sloppy bit of proto-satire by Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.  The 'satire' is that the British government should ban or block Warhammer blogs/games rather than (instead of? as well as?) pornography, in order to save the souls of this country's young men.

Sadly it's the same lazy self-centred-commentary journalism we're used in the UK press, a sad trend that seems to be taking over real reporting. And that's what this represents: the poor state of contemporary journalism. Perhaps Tim was pressured to deliver a self-think-piece 1000 words in short order. Bless him, it's not his fault that the writing is so inadequate and lame. His employers are asking him to perform in the terrible culture and conditions of today's press.

Of course, he could've said no. But maybe he's one of these attention seeking academics who needs the illusionary boost to self confidence that 'popular writing' brings. If anything, this just illustrates a man who's willing to sell his penmanship as if it were a quick 'favour' delivered behind the bike shed after school.

So in sum, this has little to do with our hobby at all; just one more example of how flaccid and pitiful a large section of the press has become. Move along please... 

Zombie Week: Day Two

Day Two... No true progress today due to long work journeys and it being our regular games night (with a first play test of some 40k skirmish rules I've been playing around with). So here a lovely zombie picture to cheer up a summer evening.

Zombie Week: Day One

Day One... Warm weather through the evening means undercoating couldn't go smoother right now. The zombies were duly bathed in Army Painter Necrotic Flesh last night and came out with a perfect common colour that will allow me to do my ideal necromantic glow. 

It also gave me a chance to experiment a little with a bottle of Amry Painter Dark Tone Ink that I picked up recently out of curiosity. This ink is basically a good quality black wash. As such, it needs to be more carefully controlled than you might've initially thought (given the quick splash solution that Army Painter use for their Dark Tone proper), but it does have a very strong pigment, meaning deep crevasses can be granted truly satisfying darkness. The undead troll here has had some Dark Tone, followed by Athonian Camoshade, and Waywatcher Green glaze.

Zippy work for me with all the zombies now at this stage.