Really Old Plague Monks and an Odd Coincidence

Did someone say Warhammer Fantasy? (Actually, Nick and Anton did)

I painted these skaven miniatures around 1997 when I was starting in WHFB. Back then, there were almost no plastics for Skaven. Needless to say, the difficulty of collecting a horde army of only metal miniatures took it's toll and the army was never completed.

When the multi-part plastic skaven came out a short time later, I hated them. Plus the 6th Edition focused a lot more on Clan Skryre rather than my favorite clan, Clan Pestilens.

I lost interest in WHFB after that. I worked briefly on a Goblin wolf rider army, but have focused mostly on 40K since then.

However, when I saw the new Skaven minis, I knew that I would very likely get drawn back into Fantasy.

Luckily, I kept most of my old skaven. Unfortunately, most of them are still buried deep in storage. I did find these plague monks, so I figured I'd take them out for a photo session.



Pretty much every one of these was a test mini. I couldn't really decide on a paint scheme. These minis will probably now get a bath in Simple Green and a new sickly green paint job.



And this is funny...



Above is the Sorcerer that I built for my Thousand Sons army about two years ago (and no, it's still not painted)

Below, is the brand new Games Day mini for 2010.



I'll leave you to make you own assumptions.

You're kidding me, right? the contest model is a dwarf?

Ok, so I'm racist...

I hate dwarves.

They are dumb, slow, dumpy, and drink too much beer. I never in a million years thought I'd be spending upwards of 10 hours painting one... One of the local GW stores was having a painting contest, and were giving away an undisclosed model, which you then had a week to paint up. Entering the contest gave you a raffle ticket to win a free painted army, and the winner would get free product.

I walked in to get the model, (and picked up some defense lines that I want to use for an arbites precinct that is shaping up) and found out, to my chagrin, that it was a limited edition dwarf champion... for falk's sake... seriously???

I almost said: "thanks, but no thanks", but I figured it was worth a shot, and nothing was going to be more testing of my abilities and focus than trying to paint up something so silly looking as a gigantic beard on legs.

I knew that I would have to do something to make it more fun, so I decided to turn it into a project incorporating something I could relate to... goblins!

Since it was a contest model revolving around a dwarf, I decided that I should probably NOT have the dwarf getting chopped in half, although I will admit, I was very tempted...

I took an older edition herder model, and hacked up the arms, and put a newer night goblin shield and sword on it... There was excessive building up for the arm and blood/entrails/guts... I didn't get a great shot of the goblin from the front when taking the pictures, but I think that for one of my first real sculpts, the arm came out pretty decently... Up until this point, I had only used 2 part modeling epoxy for fixing holes, and smoothing out joints/etc.

I took a couple of in progress pictures, and then a couple of the finished project. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I can say that I have completed something I never thought I would ever work on... a dwarf champion.

Enjoy!

p.s. oh, I won a core box of my choice, but I didn't win the raffle, which was... guess what?

A dwarf army.

Not winning that prize has never felt better!

preliminary work on the gobbo

blood and guts

the finished product

Epic Armageddon: the first 10,000 points

A few years back, I picked up a couple lots of Epic Steel Legion models from various sources for cheap. I found myself the (at the time) not-so-proud owner of a couple of forgeworld models, and a ton of infantry and armor.

The casts were kind of poor, and I had never messed with the scale at all. It seemed to lack details, and ended up sitting on the shelves for months (maybe years, it's hard to remember).

I piddled with them a little, but they mostly sat unused until I was asked to actually play a game (please note that this trend continues with my nearly 1000 point Soviet Flames of War army, that I still haven't played a single game with) by a fellow compatriot of this blog. I think his excitement was contagious, and I ended up getting really amped up about the 6mm scale and tactical aspect of GW's Epic game.

Since then, a lot of things have gotten kicked into high gear for me, but I've tried to make painting models a priority for me lately, and have been quite prolific.

So, I wanted to document my work towards my first 10,000 points of epic, that I plan to have done sometime before the end of the year. I really have grown to quickly like the scale of the models, and the ease in which they paint up.

For this army, I'm not going for ultra-detailed, but rather "completed". I'm doing a very quick 2 color grey drybrush over black primer, and then throwing on some details. I am generally painting up a unit a night on average, with weekends seeing a bit more completed.

The titan is of the War Griffon Legio, and the rest of my army is a standard Steel Legion force.

I'm currently at a little bit above 3000, with another 4000 or so partially or nearly completed... Here are the first glimpses.

In progress shot of warhound for scale comparison. This model was very poorly casted. I turned it into some battle damage

My first completed superheavy company, also from Forgeworld, and also poor casts. Some of the details were completely washed out. I have another Shadowsword company that i'm working on that started out in much better shape.

Two More Red Scorpion Space Hulk Terminators

Click on these photos for the full image. They're huge.

Mike Hughes has sent us pictures of two more Space Hulk Terminators he has painted in the Red Scorpions color scheme. Mike Hughes is originally from Buffalo, NY. He worked under me at Games Workshop Walden Galleria 1999-2001 (I think I have those years right, haha). He was often referred to as "the painting slave" because he could churn out models 5x faster than any of us (and 10x faster than me!) through effectively streamlining the process of any color scheme we discussed and targeted highlighting. Needless to say, he was practically tethered to the painting table at all times. His greatest weakness at home has always been brainstorming an exciting and effective technique to carry out a color scheme and then getting 5-10 models into that army and then scrapping or selling the models. I once remember a group of kids coming into the store all excited about models they found in the garbage in their neighborhood and I was like, "Where'd you get these!? These are Mike's!" He honestly had just thrown them all out. It should be noted that Mike has also placed at the Baltimore Golden Demon - when he isn't trying to speed up and streamline he can totally knock it out of the park. He currently lives in Japan.

...ready at a signal to issue forth like black ants going to war...

I dedicated a small amount of time every night this past week to working on my ever-growing Epic Black Legion (I know, I know...about 3 years too late...although the Epic Armageddon Living Rulebook was finally updated this past October!). At this point I am attempting to finish up a series of test models in hopes of refining my techniques and thus speeding up the overall process.

Black Legion Rhino

Black Legion Land Raider

Daemonettes of Slaanesh

Daemonettes of Slaanesh

Lesser Daemonic Packs

Khorne Berzerkers

7th Edition I Barely Knew You

Three years ago the 7th Edition of Warhammer was released. I remember going in to do a sleep study and bringing my brand new pristine copy of the hard cover book with me. It was a sleep deprivation study so I read quite a bit of it for those 3 horrible days. The problem is, I never did much else with it. Nerd Night gents, Anton and Chad, each started collecting armies at various points. Anton was accumulating Goblins and Chad had some Ogre Kingdoms models. Still, between the two of them I think I only ever got in 5 or 6 games total of Warhammer in the last 3 years.

Our group is pretty obviously immersed in 40K and Scott and Eric have stuck to those guns all along. It just makes sense to get the most out of one system I guess. In fact, even with as many games of 40K as we've played in the current edition, which is countless, we still have only gotten in a couple Apocalypse games and no Planetstrike games. We still have a lot more 40K to play to get the most out of this edition is what I'm saying.

One of the frustrating things about the Games Workshop hobby is getting the timing right. People scream and cry that its been years since their Codex or Army Book has been updated. The Tomb King's Army Book came out in 2002. I've barely touched it. At this exact moment I don't feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of it and I'm in no hurry to replace it. Conversely, my Dark Angels Codex is only a few years old and it was the first of the "stripped down" Codex philosophy that they built back up on over the last 2 years to make a superior product. Ultimately, the end result is that though my Dark Angels Codex still does the job, it kind of sucks compared to similar armies and since I've played it to death I wouldn't mind it getting an update.

What I'm getting at is that for the immersive player, the release schedule often doesn't feel fast enough and for the casual player it feels like it moves way too fast. If they released a new edition of 40K in 2010 or 2011 I wouldn't sweat it too hard - I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this edition already. Warhammer on the other hand, I've only played a couple of games over the last 3 years and I've effectively paid like $10 per game when you think about the cost of the rule book and how much I've used it. Its kind of a shame.

I know its heresy in certain circles, particularly amongst the most rabid players and younger types who think 4 years is a lifetime, but I kind of wish GW would slow down just slightly. We're going to see a new edition of Warhammer next year and my binding still creaks when I crack open my mint condition hardcover rule book. I hear rumor that the impending new edition of Warhammer will have the same sort of Expansion support that this edition of 40K has. I support this line of thinking. I had some fun with Warhammer Skirmish two editions ago and was always excited by the idea of the n--aval rules that appeared in the General's Compendium that I sadly never purchased when it was around. Take your time GW and milk the latest editions for all they are worth. Why not make it a 5 year cycle, two editions a full decade, and keep cranking out cool expansions to keep things fresh?

Regardless, I'm undaunted and still screwing around with updating my Tomb Kings. I have 20 Skeleton Warriors with hand weapons and shields now in the display case that weren't there previously. I'll be adding a front rank and five more basic infantry to make it a unit of 30 over the next week as well as completing an update on a unit of 5 Light Skeleton Horsemen. It only makes sense to end with a pic:

My name is Daemon: for we are many.

I had a classic hobby freak-out the other week. I took stock of the myriad of projects I have laying about the basement and was overcome with a sense of buried dread. Something...anything...must get completed soon or nothing ever will. After years of collecting shiny objects I find myself neck deep in 7-8 major projects, having only made any considerable headway on my Epic Blood Angels (a strong 10,000 points that have no opponents!). With a renewed sense of urgency, I dedicated myself to a few hours of painting each and every day this week. These are the results so far:

Flamers of Tzeentch - Epic: Black Legion

The Black Legion will someday be the complementary army to my Blood Angels and hopefully allow me to run a massive story-driven campaign utilizing a majority of the my Epic models and terrain. The Flamers of Tzeentch join my Bloodletters and Plaguebearers on their crusade to consume to the soul of Lemartes and his followers. Endless amounts of infantry and armor are slated to go under the brush in the months to come...and I desperately need Chaos War Engines and Titans! Get in touch if you have anything you are willing to part with.

Preacher - Legends of the Old West

Gunfighter - Legends of the Old West

I recently purchased a ton of Black Scorpion Tombstone miniatures for use in my Deadlands RPG as well as in Legends of the Old West. These miniatures are fantastic - hands down some of the best sculpts from this genre to date. The scale is really more like 30-32mm which makes them difficult to mix with other ranges like 500 Nations or the Foundry line, but the quality and breadth of the range stand on its own. Technically I completed these a few weeks ago...but I thought I'd post them here to remind me I still have about 35 more gunfighters primed and ready for paint...

Onward to Valhalla!