Big Update.

So, yeah, I have been pretty busy between work and the kids being off for Easter...

...but I've still managed to get a bit done.

Orders arrived in from Copplestone and Veni Vidi Vici so I have all the resin terrain pieces, some Archers and some handy 15mm scale Viking transfers and basing paste.  As well as a free tape measure.

Ok, so, on the painting front, I've finished 3 bases of Beastmen, one each of Additional Hand Weapons, Spears and Armoured with Great Weapons.  I didn't go with the snow style bases, as I wanted to have them rampaging through the undergrowth, and when I add the Chariot conversions, well, they will have wheels, not runners, so they wouldn't work too well in snow...

Pig Stickers

Pig Sick

Pig Headed

 I really like the various shades of blue, with each model being sprayed, inked, and then drybrushed 3 different shades.  I have some purple ones started as well, I'll mix these in to further bases, and I have some based up to act as high ranking Beastmen on the Command stands.

"They call me MR. PIG!"

 And I've done a conversion of one of the Beastmen with a Chariot Miniatures Wielder of Magic to make a Beastman Shaman.

Hogwart's School.  Class of '12.

Apologies.  I'm out of puns at the moment.

Nothing too complex for starters, just a headswap and a little putty work to cover up the saw marks.

I think I'll follow the general build of my Cave Imp army for these guys, but as there are no missile troops, it'll be -

• General
• Shaman
• 2 x Additional Hand Weapon (rather than Clubbers)
• 2 x Spears
• 2 x Armoured Beastmen (rather than Slingers)
• 2 x Monstrous Beastmen Berserkers (rather than Cave Lizards)

I still need to pick up the  Beastmen Berserkers, although I have started painting up the Champion from the Beastmen heroes pack.

He'll either get mixed in with one of the bases, or I'll base him up on a 50x50 base with a few smaller Beastmen around him, and use him as a unit filler model that counts as two stands.

I also grabbed one of the Flames of War small barns from Warbases to paint up as a test piece, rather than tiling the roof, I used some fake fur to give it a thatched look, as it ties in better for Fantasy/Dark Age style games.  The wood panelling was hand painted (whilst tipsy), because I figured the lines didn't need to be too straight...

A house, a house, my kingdom for a house.

Infantry for scale.

So, yeah, that's about it for the update.  I did get my PSC Panthers in, and have built one of them up, absolutely cracking kits.  I also might have to get some more after reading this...

Finally, I ordered the Wolven from Rebel minis, as well as a few other bits and bobs, I'll list them when they arrive.

Cheers.

The Icelords of Isthak

Well, I guess I'd better catalogue my order for the Demonworld stuff eh?

I managed to snag a couple of blisters (including postage) of Empire Mammoth Hunters on ebay for less than the price of a unit, as I figured they might work with the Copplestone ones.

And then I went a bit mental and ordered a bunch of stuff -

Beastmen with Hand Weapons (40)
Beastmen with Spears (40)
Armoured Beastmen (32)
Beastmen Polar Bear Riders (8)
Ice Witch Furies (40)
Snow Barbarians (40)
Snow Cannon
Ice Witch Battlesled
Ice Witch Personalities (5)
Isthak Human Commanders (4)
Warlocks & Necromancers (6)
Zombies (40)
Demons (6)


oh, and some Thain Wolf Spirits for my Barbarian Shaman bases.

I do really want to play Demonworld, although, it seems to be mainly a German thing, and I even went as far as getting a bunch of bases cut by Martin at Warbases (support your local business, right?).  I dug out the Battlelore board, and the hex bases fit on it, but I might just stick them on 50x25mm bases, so that they work for Mighty Armies and my own rules, which are still unnacounted for...

I did get around to cleaning up the full unit of Spearmen and Armoured Beastmen, had them primed and inked, and then figured that I would base them in 3's rather than 4's.  Being that there are generally 3 sculpts per unit, it looks a bit better IMO.

I'm going to try and get a few bases done over the next couple of days, as a Mighty Armies force, probably based the same as my Barbarians.  I'm not sure that I'll use the Polar Bear Riders as is, I think there might be a few purchases made from the Thain range to outfit them with Giant Boars and Boar Chariots.

 Speaking of which, as I said earlier I've ordered a couple of packs of the Barbarian Archers, as well as the 3 terrain pieces from Copplestone, which should be here soon.  I'll probably pick up the Picts too at some point, but I'll wait for a few more packs to be released first.  Is it just me, or would they make fine 15mm Orcs?

 And these Wolven models from Rebel Minis are just screaming (howling?) out to be bought and added to the Barbarian horde.

Bugger.

Yes, I'm still alive. No, I'm not zombie Jesus...

Been a while eh?  I blame that Dunc fellow for jinxing me...

Well, it's been an eventful start to the year, though sadly, not on the gaming front.  The festive period is always a bit mental in retail, right through to Easter, so I've been pretty busy at work, and to top it off, Mrs. G fell down the stairs and dislocated/broke her coccyx...  Fast forward about 5 weeks, to the night before she was due back at work, and she walked into a radiator and dislocated/broke her toe.


Ditz.

On the hobby front, I've assembled a couple of boxes of PSC's Panzer VI H's.  I'm taking the time to make them all unique with battle damage and stowage.  I'll do a more detailed explanation when I get some pictures up.

My homebrew rules that I was working on have, over the rearranging of everything that is Christmas, gone AWOL.  Luckily I have some bits typed up, but I am missing a lot of the scribbled notes, which is a bit of a bummer.


I have picked up the Demonworld rules and Army Books, and have a chunk of Isthak models to be getting on with.  Part of me wants to base them up as a Demonworld force, although, I imagine opponents would be few and far between (always an excuse to do a 2nd army...) and part of me thinks I should base them up for my homebrew rules.  Still undecided.

Oh, and I ordered some of the new Copplestone Barbarian Archers, and the resin terrain pieces.

I think what really prompted me to post though, and this is probably brought on by a real sense of unfulfilment at work, is a recurring dream of boxed sets of 15mm plastic fantasy figures.


Yeah, start small eh?  I know it is unlikely to ever be realised (by me anyway) barring any sort of lottery win or unbeknown relation suddenly shuffling of the mortal coil, but it keeps coming back to me.

Obviously, there are numerous questions to be asked, like, why has nobody done it before, or, if they have, how come I can't find any mention of it?  Is there even a market for it?  And all sorts of technical issues to be dealt with, like, how much does a sprue mould (mold?) cost exactly?  Going rates for sculptors, 3 ups, undercuts, marketing etc etc.

Still, we live in hope.

Incoming V

Ok, well with the Christmas rush and whatnot, I've neglected this a bit, however, in my defence, I did have a Forgeworld Toad Dragon to finish off, and just picked up a commission for a Grey Knights army.

Got my package in from Rebel Minis on Christmas Eve, a few packs of Demonworld minis from the missus on Christmas Day, and my Khurasan order arrived a few days later.

Haul as follows -

Rebel Minis

Wolfen Army
22 x Titan Marines Infantry
6 x Titan Marines Command
6 x Titan Marine Heavy Weapons
2 x Titan Marine Mortar Teams
MATV Apache
21 x The Scourge (Aliens)

Demonworld

10 Beastmen with Hand Weapons
10 Beastmen with Spears
3 Beastmen Command

8 Armoured Beastmen
4 Beastmen Commanders
10 Brothers of the Icelord

Probably enough for a full Mighty Armies force, but they will certainly need reinforced for larger games.  Really impressed with the sculpts, especially considering some are over 15 years old, and am keen to add more to the collection in future.



Khurasan Miniatures

 INITIATE CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL
6 x Timonid Black Tigers
26 x Chewk tribesmen
Chewk weapons teams (two chewkgun (MG) teams with guns, two chewkbomber (mortar) teams with guns, two chewkzooka (bazooka)
4 x Octopus God Cultist High Priest and Inner Sanctum Bodyguard
4 x Octopus God Cultists with Rifles



And so with that, I bid you all farewell to 2011, and, very soon, welcome to 2012.  I've been doing a bit of discussing gaming with a mate, and we have come up with some rough plans for a year of gaming, but I'll talk about them next time.


See you all next year!

Caved (bear) in...

Ok, so I caved in and ordered some of the Barbarian Command packs, some of the Shapechangers and Cave Bears, more Snow Trolls, and a pack of the 28mm Yeti's to use as Snow Troll Heroes.

I've also added a new page, which has a listing of my entire 15mm backlog, as a motivator for myself to get working on stuff.  It's a big list, so I expect progress will be slow between the various things I have to do.

Dunc, over at Dunc's Persistent Tangent has been looking over his past year in gaming, and looking to the future, and has asked for readers to share their plans for 2012.

So, here goes -

• Stop Smoking.  Not strictly speaking gaming related, but, tennuosly, it means I will have more funds for toy soldiers...
• Stop Spending so much on Toy Soldiers.  Kinda at an impasse with the above.  I plan on taking advantage of the Splintered Light sale before the end of the year, and, once a few more things I'm after are released, I'm going to treat myself to a huge Demonworld order, and I want to keep up to date with the Copplestone 15mm releases, but that is pretty much it, until I clear a large chunk of the backlog.  Honest.  (This doesn't apply to hobby supplies such as brushes, paints, glue, basing materials however.)
• Pay off the Credit Card/Overdraft.  Ah, now we are getting somewhere, should be a bit easier if I can stick to the first two.
• Clear out some of the stuff I'm never going to use, or haven't looked at for years.  Which would also help with the above.
• Paint lots.  And lots.  Barring my commission work, I'm really going to make 15mm the focus of 2012.  It might be overly optimistic to say I want to do an army a month, so I think 6 40AP Mighty Armies forces as a minimum over the course of the year is an attainable goal. 
• Sort out a decent lighting set-up and learn how to use the digital camera better.
• Get my 15mm Fantasy rules to a stage where they can be put into pdf form.  

So, that's my plans for 2012.  Some easier than others, but, all attainable with the right amount of willpower and support.

I'll echo Dunc's question, and ask "What are your hobby plans for 2012?"

New 15mm Northlanders and Similar

From Copplestone -

Just released a 4 new 15mm packs:

http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/range.php?range=FM

FM7 Barbarian Command. 

3 chieftains in mail shirts, 3 hornblowers and 4 standard-bearers - one army totem (the Giant Elk skull) and 3 clan totems (the Aurochs Clan, the Bear Clan and the Wolf Clan), all marked with runes of power.

Image copyright of Copplestone Castings.  Used with permission.

FM8 Shapechangers and Bears

3 mighty, heavily-bearded men with the huge bears into which they can transform themselves.

Image copyright of Copplestone Castings.  Used with permission.

 FM9 Cave Bears

The 3 bears from FM8 without the shapechangers.

Image copyright of Copplestone Castings.  Used with permission.

FM10 Wolf Pack

16 wolves in 4 different poses. Please note that these wolves are the same as TM8 10mm Giant Wolves with the addition of an extra pose.

Image copyright of Copplestone Castings.  Used with permission.

Next 15mm packs: Barbarian Archers and a Mammoth.

And to go with them -

Image copyright of Ral Partha Europe.

22 different packs for the Warlords of Thain, including the much anticipated (on my behalf) Wolf Spirits.



Good stuff indeed, will be putting in an order very soon.

Apparently, it's not babysitting

if they are your own children...


Still, babysitting duties aside, between shipping the Punk Princess out to Granny's for the night, putting the Baby Princess to bed, and letting the Fairy Princess watch her 'animal programs', I've managed to clean up and assemble 3 bases of CC Yeti's and 2 bases of Northlanders.

I've started re-arranging things, so that, where possible, I'm sitting with units of 6 bases, or 3 for the bigger ones.  Firstly, because I have a feeling this is roughly what I want to work into my own rules as being the 'standard' unit formation, and secondly, more importantly, because once you add the command models into the middle of the front rank, it looks cool, like a proper unit, and that is kinda the whole point of things.

Saying that, I'm now sitting with 2 units of Northlanders that are 5 bases strong.  The 6th base in each unit will be the command base (leader, banner, musician - pretty standard fare) once the models are released, with another set of 5 bases to clean up and assemble, 3 bases of Werewolves, with another 3 bases to clean up and assemble, 3 bases of Yetis, 6 bases of Giant Wolves, well, 7, but that extra base will be a test piece, a Giant Werewolf, and a hero type base.  Then there is the SLM Mountain Giant, who will be squeezed in as a Frost Giant, and the Greater Wyvern, who will make a fine, if rather imposing, Ice Drake.  Oh, and the beardless Northlanders, who will be drafted as Young Barbarians.

I still have a whole bunch of hero type models to do, but I'm waiting on some Demonworld releases to sort out my Shaman bases, and maybe tart up the General's base a bit.

I somehow managed to put another order into Tin Soldier UK...  Not quite sure how that happened, but it should provide a nice selection of random fantasy type stuff to muck about with.

Heading out for the nightshift now, but, Princess permitting (I can't wait until they are old enough to want a long lie on a Saturday morning), I'm hoping to get the next 5 bases of Northlanders cleaned up and assembled.  Purely because I promised the Fairy Princess she could do all the breaking up of the cork placemat for the rocks on the bases.

Been a good day.

Well, perhaps good isn't the right word...  Productive perhaps.


Package arrived from Copplestone Castings early this morning (ordered yesterday) and it should have meant I had all the 15mm Northlander packs to date.  Sadly, there was a mis-pick, and the beardless Northlanders were AWOl, with a pack of Barbarian Heroes in their stead.

So I emailed CC, and took the opportunity to ask about future releases whilst I was at it.

Picked up a bunch of storage trays when I was out, and spent the remainder of the afternoon sorting out all the 15mm stuff I've amassed so far, which is a fair bit, it seems to accumulate a lot quicker than 28mm does.  I also sorted out some of the files on the laptop, and organised the rules and stuff I've downloaded.  I picked up the Song of bundle and the Splintered Lands rules yesterday from Wargames Vault.

Also, got a reply from Mark saying the missing pack was going in the post today, and, regarding the next few packs, here I quote -

The Barbarian Command (3 leaders, 3 hornblowers and 4 standard bearers) and Shapechangers with Bears should be available by the end of next week, or at worst the following Monday.   There will also be a pack of wolves (a modified version of my 10mm Giant Wolves).

Which is good news indeed as it turns my ragtag horde of Barbarians into a fighting force to be reckoned with.  It also means I am going to have to come up with some command model rules too...  The extra Heroes pack might just find itself turned into a Splintered Lands warband as I'd already based the two tester models on round bases anyway.


In other news, I managed to persuade the missus to make a small Demonworld order from RPE, just so that I can gauge the scale of the minis and see how compatible they are with the Splintered Light and Copplestone stuff, basically got all of the smaller packs of Beastmen, which, should they prove too small, still be enough for a full Mighty Armies force.

Oh yeah, and Splintered Light is running a 20% off sale until the end of the year.  Roll on payday, I feel the need to amass a few more Cave Imps, Satyrs and Dark Elves.  And no doubt a bunch of other stuff too...

On a roll.

Well, this morning I managed to texture the bases for 4 stands of Northlander Barbarians, 1 stand of Werewolves (SLM), 6 stands of Giant Wolves and 2 Heroes.

I emailed the guys at Ral Partha asking for a timeline for the remaining beastmen figures for Demonworld, and when they were planning on adding the Thain spirit wolf things, and got a speedy reply saying they would bump them up the schedule and, fingers crossed, they should all be available by mid-December.   Roll on Christmas!

So, it looks like I may just have to give in to temptation and pick up those remaining Copplestone packs, although, I was trying to hold out for the new ones that were promised in the newsletter.  Command models, beyond general and wizard aren't required for Mighty Armies, but I plan on adding in some rules for them to my own ruleset, which continues to remain nameless.

Nothing to see here.

Well, still no pictures...  I'm going to try and get up the town on Wednesday to see about getting a custom backdrop printed out for my light-box, so, in the meantime I've been building up more stuff.  So far, I've added another 4 bases of Northlanders and 6 bases of Giant Wolves to my Copplestone Barbarian army, as well as two individually round based Hero models to use as test pieces for a paint scheme, and the General stand, Magician stand, and a base of Gnogres to my Splintered Light Gnomes.

In other news, the payday gaming splurge hasn't happened yet...  Although it is getting hard to resist.  Ral Partha have just added more codes to the Demonworld line, the most interesting (to me at least) being the Beastmen with Great Weapons.  Resolve slowly crumbling.  If only the Thain wolf spirit head type things and Isthak Giant Beastmen were out, they'd be ordered already.  Still waiting on the Splintered Light order showing up, so it's kinda pointless ordering anything else from them until I know what I've got, and, by way of the Mighty Armies forum, I was drawn into looking at Rebel Minis, and quite like the Scourge models from their 15mm Sci-Fi line.  And the Martian Walker...

And RPE have just released a bunch of new Elves as well.  Good stuff, keep busy boys, and get those Wolves out soon.


Willpower.  Fading.  Fast.

More goodies.

Well the order from Tin Soldier got sorted out quickly, and the stuff from Magister Militum turned up too.  I've been a bit lax with this as I had a bunch of stuff on the 'to-do' list for other things...

The Demons from MM are pretty sweet, and don't suffer from the monopose problem I'm beginning to suspect is the norm for 10/15mm stuff.  The large Fire Elemental should work as a good giant type model should I choose to use the Balrog as my General.

I've been building a light box to try and get better/more consistent quality pictures, so, once I've sorted out the  backdrop, I really am hoping to get some more images up.

• The Werewolf/Barbarian list is fully assembled and bases textured, want some shots of that pre-primer.  
• I've started cleaning up my Splintered Light Gnomes and sanding the bases, so they will probably be next in line.  Still waiting on my order showing up (it has been shipped, but International postage times are a PITA), so Orcs & Goblins, Undead or Wolf Clan Humans might overtake them.  I suspect the Undead will get priority, as I reckon I can get them done pretty quickly based on the same colour scheme as my 28mm stuff.
• Still managing to hold out on that big Demonworld order from Ral Partha Europe.  Partly because I don't want to waste the 10% discount on a tiny order, partly because I'm waiting for them to release the Ogre-sized Beastmen (4204) and the Wolf Heads (4521) from the Thain line.
• I might just bite the bullet and order the 3 newest packs of Copplestone 15mm Fantasy - beardless Northlanders, Trolls and Heroes.  The Shaman type figure will look good flanked by a pair of spirit wolf heads and should be a quick and easy addition to the army.  Actually, I could probably do with more sword and axe weilding guys too...

So, that is pretty much where I am in relation to figures.  I've started going through some of the notes I made about rules, and I've started typing some of the mess up, basically because it is easier to amend, and read.

Once again, pictures soon.  I hope.

And just to make things harder...

Ral Partha Europe has just sneaked up some Dwarf sculpts for Demonworld.

I swear that they are doing this intentionally, and just hope my resolve (and credit card) can hold out until late November when the Thain are supposed to be released.

Even more lycanthropic goodness makes me a happy Werewolf.

Spoilt for choice...

Right, well, the whole obsessive compulsion to amass huge quantities of pretty much everything is taking over.  I spend far too long looking at websites drooling over some cracking 15mm figures, and probably just as long researching more suppliers.

Ral Partha Europe has recently started reproducing the Demonworld line, which are gorgeous, and, on signing up to the site I noticed there was 10% off your first order.  I was so tempted to drop a bunch of money on a load of stuff, especially the Beastmen, but, I'm holding off to make a really big order.  I may have to speak nicely to a mate to sign up too and do a little sample order...

In my quest for 15mm goodness I found this site which has proven invaluable, if not costly to my endeavours.  So today, I cracked and put in a couple of orders to both Magister Militum and Tin Soldier UK to sample a few different things, and see some of the stuff in the flesh.  One of the things I've found is that there seems to be a large amount of suppliers that don't have any images of the minis on their site, and I'm a bit hesitant of ordering blindly.

So, the Magister Militum order consisted mainly of Blood Dawn fantasy stuff, some of the armoured Orcs and a few demony type models, plus a couple of packs of Vikings, and the Tin Soldier order was for some Aztecs, an Orc Triceratops (go figure) and a Balrog, which will hopefully fit in with the demons.

I'm still waiting for a package I shipped out to reach David at Splintered Light Miniatures before he ships out my order (Orcs, Wolf Clan, lots of Undead) so, I reckon I have a good amount of stuff to be getting on with at the moment.  She has taken the terrible trio to a birthday party, so the good camera is awol, but I'll try and get a picture of the Barbarians up soonish, before I prime them.