Half a man

 As a break from the “English Uniform” monotony of painting the remaining commandos in my pile, I grabbed this diminutive fellow from my fantasy pile - a Redboxgames halfling. I’ve never painted a halfling before and he was done pretty swiftly. 

I’ve named him after my good friend Rob’s famous halfling npc character from roleplay games 15+ years ago Quinn. A pesky little shit who’s hijinks were always making the players jobs harder, but he was damned hilarious for it. 

Hope to have more WW2 Commandos done this week and maybe get a start on my Canadian regulars too.

Stay safe and well out there!

-Dai

The Searchers - Rogues and Royalists (Royalists done and way, way more. For me.)

The Searchers are a team sent out by the local garrison to track down and contain Ma' Tuppence's gang of Rogues, The Red Toothe. Led by Ellista Shorttail, the team hopes to eradicate the bandits with the utmost prejudice. 

Fat Willum is the team's dedicated long ranged specialist. He doesn't care at all about being called fat as e'always claims he's the warmest when it's cold.

The red Fleur de Lis on a black background is the symbol of royalist troops. This symbol carries through on all the team's members. 

Ellista Shorttail, a fearsome mouse warrioress and leader of The Searchers.

Gorman Shorttail is both second to Ellista and her younger brother.  He has quested across the lands for the mythical lost  Grail of Saint Melchior the Squaloured.

This is Manfred Grimm, a massive hound and the muscle of the Searchers. Not very intelligent, but he's a very handy fellow to have in a fight.

The Searchers all together with Friar Fullmouth. 

I also got another Burrows and Badgers mini painted, originally sculpted to be a Starling, I instead felt it'd look better as my favorite bird, a Jackdaw. Originally he was slated to be a member of The Searchers, but I switched out some of the members and now he'll have to fit in elsewhere.

This CORVID-19 business has had us stuck at home so I've had loads of time to keep painting my backlog. I got the second part of the Honoured Imperium terrain set painted, the Fallen Aquila. Simple piantjob, but it'll work fine on the tabletop.

 These three Warlord Games Mastiffs were previewed a while back in PIP form and now are done. They'll work well for a number of settings I think.

My Face-to-Face role-play group are understandably unable to meet for our regular games, so we've started a game on a message board. I decided it would be fun to find and paint minis in my large fantasy figs backlog for each of our characters. Only two finished thus far though.

Gotfried, Paladin of Ragethiel, my character.

Freehanding Ragathiel's emblem on the shield  was a pig and I'm not happy with the result, but it will do .

This is Saucy Jack, a Swashbuckler.  

I also  got a Light Mortar team painted for my WW2 Dieppe Commandos army. I have a Bren Gun team on the desk for this project next.

These two are some RedBoxGames minis that I ordered a long time ago but never painted. These naked musclebound brutes I think were titled as Giantkin. Forgive the nudity.

This chap got a weapon transplant after finding his original axe was missing. This huge club was a bit in my bits box that I think originally belonged to a Marauder Miniatures Beastman.

And lastly an older Forget World Cyber Mastiff. Simple paint job and his master will be posted up next once painted. 

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy out there!

Hunter

Finished up this fellow recently, a barbarian setting hunter/ranger of some sort. In my rpg campaign, he'll be the miniature for the Ranger Character. More of a hunter than a warrior, though no less deadly with that bow pinging off arrows at his enemies in support of his more combat-based pals.

New set up in my room is causing photographing my models to be trickier than before. Pics seem to be very bright for some reason. 

Per usual, Tre Manor @Red Box Games has produced a great sculpt with loads of cool and not over-the-top detail. 

Thought about giving him some tattoo's or some such on his arms, but decided against. I like him being business and simple. Just the Barbarian to go (Who will get some tat's.) and then I'm done painting stuff for my roleplay game!

I finish with a pic of Pickles, who due to an aversion to rain, has taken to peeing indoors. We are not amused.

Scruffy pup is scruffy

De[ad]cember

The end of the year is nigh....

Ominous eh?

Okay, maybe not. Goodbye 2015, hello 2016 - I turn 40 later this new year, now THAT is ominous!

My Kickstarter rewards from the last Red Box Games Kickstarter arrived along with a set of their lovely zombie models and I've been painting furiously during my week off (Which is now at an end, I go back to work once more on the morrow - another ominous moment.). This set of 9 undead are all individual sculpts and great ones too, which was great and all are on the gore-lite side of zombie, which was also somewhat refreshing, but also made for painting to be a quick and simple affair. I'm not really inclined to put amazing amounts of effort into low hitpoint badguys as they'll probably spend little time on the tabletop in my rpg, being so easy to kill! (again)

Group shot - lots of shambliness and minlessness about this lot. Which i like very much.

Really like these sculpts - far more creepy side of zombies captured in contrast with the typical goriness and violence that other manufacturers produce like say, Mantic or GW.

These are all seem best suited to a fantasy environment due to their attire seeming rather poor and peasant-like.

And all bald and incredibly scrawny, which indicates less violent deaths, and probably more virus/disease-based endings for these poor souls.

Now I think about it,  these zombies will also be perfect for use with the recently released Dragon Rampant (Currently on sale, cheap! Click the link to see details.) rules set by Osprey Publishing!!! (Their fantasy version of their awesome Medieval/Dark Ages skirmish rules set, Lion Rampant - also currently on sale, cheap!)

 Also got this crossbow wielding fellow finished for my Frostgrave project. He's a rather old Citadel Miniatures (I think) orc, with exquisite detail sculpted throughout I think. I've painted him up in my Hobgoblins scheme rather than a typical green due tot he fact that orcs in my settings are of the pig-faced variety.

Lovely determined expression on this one.

A pouch of bolts and a nice hand axe hanging from his belt. Thought the red grip on the axe contrasted well with the brown leathers and purple jerkin.

Sheepskin seemed the more believable choice for his furs - sheep are easier to "hunt" than wolves or bears.

Lastly and again for my Frostgrave project, I slapped some paint on this 1983 TSR warhound. A fun and very simple sculpt and I decided he'd be a Doberman. At least that was what I was going for.

Per-dullcote, so the grassy loose pieces are long cleaned.

And a little out of focus on the face in this one, the chainmail also looks more defined in real life.

Not sure I'll get in another post before the New Year comes around proper, though I am working on my final two character miniatures for my rpg campaign, which will allow me to commence running it in the next couple weeks or so! (I'll be sure to leave an account here if there's any interest.)

Happy New Year to you all - I hope hobby-wise, it's a fruitful and fun 366 days! (It being a Leap Year and all.)

- Dai

We go bump in the night

Out of the blue, I got the urge to paint (Been a bit of painting burnout of late.). So I did these lovely sculpts, again, quick and dirty tabletop jobs. The models are by Red Box Games who are fast becoming one of my favourite minis producers; just beautiful, natural looking sculpts in general. These are from their Infernals line, though I think the sculpts are now retired. I’m planning to use them for an rpg campaign that I’ve been putting together in my head.  In game terms, they’ll be probably be my own version of Pathfinder’s Grave Wardens, though with a couple extra class levels added to their stats, a special fear inducing banshee-type scream and custom weapon and armour. I intend for them to be summoned by a Necromancer who’s model is ready for his own licks of paint.

 

Yeah, I really need to take better pictures.... ~_~

So I could differentiate them easily, I chose to paint each one’s skirts a different colour. Their weapons continually drip with blood-coloured acids and boy are these weapons nasty stats-wise. (No negative levels on damage though – I despise level negating effects that D&D/Pathfinder seem to delight in torturing poor adventurers with.) Almost all painting was done with washes – very simple, very quick. Bashing these 6 figs out in two paint sessions was pretty impressive for this ol’ slow-poke painter, if I do say so my self. Pic is a bit rubbish though as it was done right before I left for work this morning so I’ll have to take and post better ones when I have time.

I’ve also been working further on my Tears of Hades, Oracle-Crone and Hecate’s basing and her Lampad torch bearers. The background for these models is still in the works, though as I continue to work on the models, I find I am becoming more confident that this idea might work out to be rather cool to people other than just me afterall! Maybe.

 

These little guys are Lampads.

Lampads light Hecate's path through the Underworld. And yes, these pics are horrendous, but they are all I have man...

I also was lucky enough to get in a couple games of Flames of War:

1. Three small all-armour battles with my good friend Densmol whereby we quickly realized that Brit armour versus German armour is just plain shite and yes, I lost all three painfully.
2. A game with a new player in my area called Joe who has joined the Norcal Flames of War tournament circuit. Joe wanted a practice Mid War game prior to last weekend’s Kublacon tournament in Burlingame in the Bay Area. His Panzer Grenadiers faced off against my British Guard infantry. Sadly his dice failed him at the most inopportune moments and so he lost heavily. It was good to find another player in the local area though and he apparently has two other mates he plays with, so I hope to get some more regular play in for the near future!

Lastly, I put together the remainder of my PlasticSoldierCompany Churchill tanks. These models were a breeze to stick together and look amazing. Their detail blows Battlefront’s own Churchills out of the park and at a fraction of the price. Here’s some pics and comparisons with the Battlefront equivalents. (5 come in a box and I modeled 3 up for my Desert Brit force and the other two as AVRE tanks for an eventual Breaching Group that I hope to run.)

 

These are going to be Churchill tanks from the 2nd Battle of El Alamein from Kingforce. I've started making their dust skirts that they utilised to stop the sand, etc from blasting the drivers in their faces.

I've since added lots more stowage to these.

The two AVRE's. Love these tanks and their "Dustbin Launcher" guns.

Forgot to mention I also got two Churchill Crocodiles. Nasty nasty flame throwing fun.

On the left is also the start of a Churchill IV 75mm. Not sure when I'll get to play this bugger.... On the Right is the second unbuilt Croc.

On to the Comparison pics

No real size differences.

Detail is definitely sharper on the plastic tank.

Post Script - Ever since realising that there's something in Gluten products that has been messing my stomach up, beer has sadly been off the menu. *sniffs* So I have been searching far and wide for a Cider to take it's place. This one was super good. Not sweet and not dry and made with flowers of all things.... strange.

Yum!