a worthwhile diversion

I came across a small monthly competition for Empire armies, and March's category was state troops. It seemed like a neat idea, and I wanted to do a test of my planned color scheme for my swordsmen anyway, so I put the wizards on hold for 2 days and whipped up these Foundry rodoleros. I'm really glad I decided on these figures; now that I have some painted up I'm even more convinced that this unit will look super awesome when its done. They may end up being the next big project after some singles. . . only time will tell.



These are also the first time I've tried pre-tufted grass. I've always thought the Silfor tufts looked pretty nice, but wasn't sure they'd be worth the money. Antenociti's Workshop picked up a new brand, Fredericus Rex, and I thought I'd give them a whirl. The colors are nice, and they go down fairly well, but I'm still not sure if the convenience is worth the money. A lot of the tufts are too big for a 20mm base though, so if I cut them down into 1/2s and 1/3rds, they may go a lot further, and possibly be worth the convenience of not having to flock by hand. The flowers were another one from A.W., that I'd been eyeing for a while, and they are definitely an excellent product if you want to add some decently realistic color to your bases. Not exactly cheap, but you get what you pay for.

do you believe in magic?

I don't normally say that things look better in real life, but in this instance the color boundaries really are accentuated by the digital CCD. One's eye blends them together a lot more than the computer does. I still like this classic gandalf-y type mage and his owl friend a lot, but I have to say, he'd look better if you were holding himin your hand. :)

I Master, Five Magics

Its time to update my wizards. Some for my Empire collection, some to use for the dungeon crawl adventure. To this end I have 5 magic users all primed and ready. Actually the flesh is done on them all as well.

Tonight I finished this Earth magic user / shaman type. I think he's probably my favorite figure of the group.

won't you blow your horn

NOW the dwarf unit is officially done. Thanks to this blog I was reminded of the Vendel fantasy dwarf range, and it turns out they have a nice musician figure, /and/ they nearly fit in with Hasslefree figures size-wise.


After removing the integral base and filing the feet down a ways, I managed to get him so his helmet is about the same height as the HF norman dwarves. Fits right in!



Hurrah! I definitely recommend checking out I Mostly Paint at Night . . . Mostly as he's doing some excellent work on these capable old Vendel sculpts.

Well he's certainly dead now, would anyone like to kill him twice?

Dr. David Black, your esteemed host during your stay at Tudor Close.

Yeah, but 'Mr Brown', thats a little too close to 'Mr Shit'

Captain Robert Brown (Ret.) at your service:

Légion étrangère

The French foreign legion team is done.

The role/names are per the armament and the designations in the Battlefield:Badcompany video game, on which the tabletop game is based.

Assault (FAMAS+M203):


Engineer (Panzerfaust+assault rifle (( should be a FAMAS, please ignore the fact that its a Beretta ;) )))


Medic (FN MiniMi )


Recon (sniper rifle)

Say hello to my little friends

And here they are, my new Empire dwarf unit. The majority are hand weapons+shield, but I converted 4 of them to spears so I can fill the front rank at least if I want to field them as a spear unit. Hopefully the musician gets here soon so I can finish them off for real.

Spear troops:



A few backsides



They look pretty good defending my new standing stone:


All 17 of them:



And the neat little stone:

Progress!

Well the dwarf unit is so close to being done, that I'll wait to post a final picture of it rather than a 99% WIP. I'm working on the ground cover today (home sick from work), and I've found a new musician figure for it, which is on order. So I'll still need to do him to actually finish the unit, but I'll probably take pictures tonight of the rest of the crew.

My FFL are coming along, but it was hard going to get them to this point. I really can't justify painting camofluage (sp?). Maybe it would be different if I had a better rhythm, or a more formulaic system for doing it, but as it is, it was pretty infuriating, and hard to get into the process. I still think these fellows look okay, but I can't imagine a project with more than four figures.



I'm down to final details on these- goggle lenses, guns, faces, insignia... and that should be about it.

Another Fenris standing stone is getting ground work this afternoon with the dwarves, and I've started preliminary assembly of the ruined GW tower I bought a few months ago, so the terrain collection continues to expand.

I've also taken delivery of my remaining Clue figures from Artizan, which are cleaned and based, and will be primed today.

Progress on all fronts! Its a lovely thing.

where the banshees dwell

There is nothing quite like being able to knock out a project in a day. Much less after a full day of work. I've had this standing stone for several months and my enthusiasm carried over from yesterday's ruins to get this done too. I think it'll be a great piece of scenery and objective marker.





Full disclosure: I cut the base and primed it over the weekend. Everything after that was done today after I got home from work. :)

a clean well lighted place

The last of the Osgiliath ruins is complete, just in time to meet my deadline of finishing my mordheim ruins by the end of February.

I still have two more pieces to do but one of them is not a ruined building per se, and the other I actually bought after I'd set my self this deadline. When I made the declaration to myself it was specifically that I'd get the bulk of my outstanding ruins at the time (all 6 of the Osgiliath pieces) done before March. So, I'll call it a success.

The last two pieces were chopped a bit to become a single piece with a third story rather than a pair of ruins with 2 stories each.




I also finally got around to making some movable ladders for use with the various ruins in our Mordheim games. They are a little chunky, but I'm fine with them being a bit more game-piece like than actual scenic details. I'll make more once I have more kebab skewers on hand.