The Warband (Part 4 - Centaurs)

Quick return to some Citadel Miniatures inspired fun.

To break up the monotony of painting up oodles of 15mm infantry, I decided to put a little more work into my Chaos Warband project and got on with my centaurs.

First off, thankfully there's only two of them, because thus far they have been rather fiddly, green-stuff-wise. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with their main horse bodies, they are large bare areas of the models and I'm at somewhat of a loss of how to decorate them, if at all. Right now they are just carved up due to removal of their saddles/blankets that had been part of their mold.

Their Dominant Attribute is “Hideous Appearance”, so I dove into my bits box trying to figure out if I had any appropriate ugly/weird looking heads pieces to show this.
The fellow on the left got a metal head from a piece I found in my LGS bits bins, some random scaled thing that had been on a long neck. It’s a little large, but I think that in itself helps to define it’s “hideousness” when compared to the centaur’s more hairier rest of it’s body. (Though I may add scales to it’s torso now I think about it…. Hrm.) (It was 12:30am when I set my tools down ~_~ ) For a weapon, he got the long spear thing from the Corpse Cart driver – I just need to bulk up that wrist a little. I’m not sure what the heck I’m going to do with his left arm…. I think I may well slap a tentacle there for gits and shiggles, even though I didn’t roll one up originally – he’s “hideous” damnit, all of him.

The strapping chap on the right got a plastic head piece that had previously been attached to an armoured fist by it’s hair. I’m guessing some sort of trophy from a Vampire Counts kit? I cut off the fist and green-stuffed some funky Jimmy Neutron hair that I think looks pretty darn cool. With his skeletal features and skin-flap peeling off his forehead, this bloke is pretty damned “hideous” I feel. Another piece from the Bits bin was that lovely flail, again, I don’t know what model it’s from. I added the bell-on-a-chain as a last minute idea, but I think I’ll use something else, as it looks a bit pants now I look at it this morning.

Crappy fuzzy pic taken at bedtime. Note the tiny 15mm mortar platoon currently on the painting table.

There's still lots to do on these two - the spear bloke needs more work done on his "abs" and they both need some sort of tail (Am trying to steer clear of traditional horse-hair looks though). I'm also considering re-attaching the spear arm to be raised up more as the angle it's at now takes away from the whole pose I think.

Comments and/or critiques are welcome.

The Warband (Part 3 - Chaos Goblins)

Best to not stem an urge to create right? :) The Chaos Goblins for my warband are put together and ready for priming. Like I've mentioned previously, I really like the Gnoblar sculpts - very reminiscent of Paul Bonner type images of Gobs in my mind. (My all time fav GW artist.) Two have had things added or changed, the third I left alone as I really felt it has plenty of fun character by itself that didn't need to be altered.



This one had a sack over his shoulder that I shaved down and stuck the bow and quiver piece over and a lizardman turtle-shell shoulderpad to help cover my mangling. I think he looks fun as heck.

Think this one should be called "Flenser" with all those nasty looking hooked knifes on his belt. (I have no idea right now what to call the other two.)

 

The aforementioned untouched sculpt. Love the pie on his back with fingers poking out!

 

And the obligotary family shot.

The Warband (Part 2 - Dirty Muties WIP)

(I know, bad! I should be working on my Brits, but damn..... 15mm uniforms get boring to paint.... Quick!)

Beastmen are funny old buggers. One minute they are eating acorns from low hanging branches of a venerable Oak, the next, they come at you, all four arms swinging a menagerie of brutal hand weapons in an effort to turn you to pulp.

Regular chaps:

These arrived from the Ebay auction preglued, but don't seem that bad pose-wise to me so they stay as is.

Four Arms - felt big shoulder mass was best way to go with non-normal placement of arms due to nasty mutation aspect of the deal:

 

 

And the start of a Centaur.... when you are a mutie half horse, your wierd abs go on for miles........ :

 

 



Family picture!

 

 



Will try to get the Goblins and the troll to a point where they are ready to be shown too soon.

 

*yawns* now, back to those Brits.... ~_~


Interlude 6

 

Quick update on what’s been going on of late.

Progress on the Warband challenge is going okay – so far have sculpted the troll a new foot, which isn’t too bad considering sculpting at this scale isn’t my strong suit. I found an old 3^rd Edition Warhammer skeleton that I plan to take apart and decorate his base with as a prior lunch or some such. For the chaos goblins I pulled out some spare Night Goblins and completely balked at the crapness that is their sculpts - Looney Toons-esque and terrible. Frantically I looked about for an alternative option and came upon some old Gnoblar bits I had gotten for no particular reason and decided they’d be perfect. So now they are cleaned and based and read for primer. The Centaurs - well, centaur right now as I’m still waiting for the other horse to arrive from the UK - are going to be a bit more extensive work. I’m trying to keep the costs to a minimum for this project so aiming to use as much stuff from my bits collection as I can. Their torsos will be made from left over Beastman Gor torsos from my prior Beastman Penitents Guard unit and I have plenty of right arms to use on them…. Just the left arms I’m out of so maybe a tentacle or two?

I have been invited to attend a Late War Flames of War tournament in San Rafael on the 23^rd. This will be my first tournament for any game in five or six years and I am somewhat nervous. My knowledge of the rules is scant at best and I’ve not had good experiences in tournament settings up until now as the typical hyper competitive attitudes I’ve experienced up until now soured me completely on the whole tournament idea. But we will see – number one concern I really should have in all this is that I have SO MANY models to paint before the event!

It’s to be an escalation deal with three rounds of play, first at 1240 points, then a middle value for the 2^nd game that I can’t remember and final round game at 1780 points. You can use different lists though they have to be made from one Company list. I am thinking I’ll go with a Brit list from the new Market Garden book, Irish Guard or Canadian. Cheesy yes (Cos they are the current “it” lists.), but my lack of experience needs a boost, especially with my horrible dice rolls! :)

So thus far I have painted my infantry Company Command and a full 3 section Infantry Platoon and also a 3 carrier Universal Carriers platoon. What’s left to be done before the 23^rd are 4 Sherman V tanks, 4 Sherman Fireflys, 2 M10 Achilles with 17pdrs (I plan to borrow two for the event to have a full tank destroyer platoon.), platoon of Heavy Machinegun infantry, platoon of 3” Mortars, a Hawker Typhoon, platoon of 6pdr Anti-Tank Guns and eventually (When they arrive from Ebay.) a 4.2” Heavy Mortar platoon. I also have two extra Shermans I can run as my IC’s if I want to run a tank company, but I’m not sure if I wan to play that or an Infantry company.

So not much to get on with, eh? So far, I have 2 Shermans and 2 Fireflys near to complete and have started on the MG platoon uniforms and 6pdr guns. I’ve no decals so I think I’ll attempt freehanding some rough unit markings on them. (Wish me luck!) 

Needless to say, progress on anything Chaos Marines related has been paused until after the tourney.

Here’s a rubbish phone-cam pic of the WIP tanks. 

 

Lastly, I got an email from Dreamforge Games that my Eisenkern troopers from their most recent successful Kickstarter campaign have been put in the post! Needless to say, I am rather excited!

The Warband (Part 1 - Another Challenge!)

A forum I frequent almost daily is papanurgle.com. There is currently a small competition amongst the regulars using the original Realm Of Chaos books to roll up random Chaos warbands and see if we all can't finish assembling, painting and basing them before the forum's next birthday in May.

I couldn't help myself and so got out my poor over-used Lost and the Damned hardback and got rolling dice!

First off I decided my warband would be unaligned. I already have lots of Nurgle to be getting on with and a new paint scheme will help keep my hobby energy fresh. We were allowed to roll three time to determine the makeup of our 'band's Champion. I was "blessed" with my usual dicing luck and got fething Human each time. (Was sincerely hoping to get Skaven as I had a cool Jess Goodwin sculpt that would have been perfect for this.)

So my Level 10 Human Hero (Warrior) ended up getting a Bestial Face of a Goat and 3 Chaos Hounds as Rewards. This was cool and at least took him away from being boring stock human. For Attribute, he got Chaos Lord. This is an over powered attribute as it pretty much advances the Champ to superhero status, boosting his stats, giving +1 magic level, Chaos armour and a daemon weapon. On top of that, he gets more free followers (I got a couple Centaurs and one (?) beastman.). Either way tho, he would kick arse in a fight for sure.

I'm planning on using the Helldorado Augustus Raimond fig as the base for him.

I next rolled for followers and got a Troll with eye stalks and flatulence problem, 3 more beastmen (Two of which got a pair of extra arms apiece.) and a trio of Chaos Goblins with bows.

In all it would make for a decent force to field in a warbands versus tourney and I really look forward to putting all of it together and paint.

So far I've rooted through my bits and found three old old old Chaos hounds and a Troll. The beastmen are coming from Ebay and for the gob's I'll convert some spare Night Goblins I have hanging about. The Centaurs will be stuck together using old plastic horse bodies and either Marauder torsos or Catachan Guard plastic ones. (The Centaurs got "Hideous Appearance" too which should prove fun to model.) so I'm excited to Just the aforementioned Champ fig to buy left. :)

The Chaos warrior was my original choice for my Champion, but I couldn't bring myself to hack his head off so he's been safely replaced inside my bits box.