Incoming Part III

Well, orders arrived this morning from 15mm.co.uk, Tin Soldier UK and Renedra.

Haul is as follows -

15mm.co.uk - lots of Grey Aliens and Octopods, as well as some 20mm round bases.

Tin Soldier UK - variety of fantasy monsters (dragon, giant, giant spider and crocodile) random fantasy packs of Orcs and Humans, a bunch more Aztecs and a couple of terrain pieces.

Renedra - lots of 50x50mm bases and lots of 25mm round bases.

What I'm thinking is to use the Renedra bases for all my Fantasy and Historical stuff, and the 20mm round bases for Sci-Fi, because, then I can always add extra bases from GW which I have loads of anyway.

I reckon I have enough Aztecs now to do a full 40 point Mighty Armies force, probably mostly Light Infantry with Swords/Spears and Archers and Slingers.  The Eagle Knights seem to be carrying bows, so they might be Heavy Infantry with a Shooting I attack. 

As for the Northlander Barbarians, I managed to get a few bases built up over the weekend, and currently have 7 bases of Barbarians, 3 bases of Werewolves, 3 bases of Yetis and the Giant to texture and paste.

Barbarian Army so far...

Here is a 'standard' unit in my thinking, minus the command base, which is yet to be released.

A Mountain Giant from Splintered Light, he is absolutely huge, would probably do as a Giant for most 28mm models.  He will be a great centrepiece model for the army, looking forwards to tackling him.

The Giant Werewolf.  I'm going to go back and re-do the face and ears grey, as he looks far too much like a giant rat at the moment.

Close up of the Giant Wolves and Werewolves.

The Yetis - Some Monstrous Infantry to support the horde.

  

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.

There will be blood...

...but only a wee bit.

Finished up my two test Barbarians (CC) this morning after work, got them varnished and did some small scale blood effects.

First one, done over a black undercoat.

Second over a grey undercoat.

And the pair of them together for a better comparison.

There really isn't much in it, other than the colour of the rocks on the base, which I didn't bother painting after having done the snow.  They are so small that it isn't particularly noticeable anyway.  For the curious, the reasoning behind the yellow shields is to create a reference to the lycanthropic culture, and represents the full moon.  The blue loincloth, well, for some reason, I seem to use blue on a lot of my stuff, so, partly that, and partly to tie in with the snow bases and create a sense of coldness.  It should work well when combined with the Frost Wyrm and Frost Giant I plan on adding to the force.

Both of them are pretty much done as basecoat, Devlan Mud wash, highlight with basecoat.  The blonde one had some yellow mixed into the brown for the highlight on his hair, but that was it.

I'm really happy with how the bases turned out, I get a bit of a shiver just looking at them, although, that might just be sleep deprivation.

Now, I want to forge ahead with the rest of the army, but, a small part of me thinks I should wait until I get a hold of the command packs, and then tackle them one unit at a time, probably 6 bases worth.  I could always spend the time building up more of what I have, seeing as it takes a while to let the bases dry and so on.

Deflowered.

Well, being that my blog has now been deflowered by Dunc, I guess that means I can't be quite so lax in updating it, or putting up pictures as promised...

The shaved Barbarians turned up from Copplestone yesterday, so that is something else to get started on too.

So, here they are, after much promising, my Barbarian army, which has yet to get a cool name.

First up, 8 bases of Copplestone Casting's Northlanders, a mix of axe and sword models.  I think for Mighty Armies, I had planned to use them as Heavy Infantry with the Horde and Fearless skills.  For my own ruleset, they will be both a mainstay and horde unit, and make up the general line infantry for the Barbarian list.

Next up are some Copplestone Giant Wolves from the 10mm Fantasy line, but they scale in well, as you'll see further down.  Again, for Mighty Armies they will be standard Light Cavalry, and for my own rules, probably a support unit.  The reason there isn't eight bases, is because I used a couple of them to flank my General stand.

Some Splintered Light Minis Werewolves, count as Heavy Cavalry with the Horde and Relentless rules for Mighty Armies, and probably another mainstay unit for my own rules.  I might have to get someone else to write the Werewolf rules, or, personal preference will make them unstoppable.  Interesting fact - every order I've made from Splintered Light has had a pack of Werewolves in it.

The General stand - Copplestone 15mm Barbarian Character, plus a couple of individually based ones to use as testers.  Here you can see that the Wolves scale in pretty well, although, knowing that there are 15mm ones in the works, he might be relegated to a basic hero in my own ruleset.

Finally, the Behemoth.  A gargantuan Giant Werewolf, which is actually a 28mm scale werewolf model from Heresy.  He is a Monster for Mighty Armies, I think I had him down with Horde, Relentless and Fearless, but I'm not 100% on that.  For my own rules, I will have to fudge him in somewhere, or he can just count as a Frost Giant or something similar.

All the bases are from Renedra, and have broken cork (from an Ikea placemat) to represent rocks, this is covered with filler, which I think was actually meant to be for fixing a crack in the wall, but my need was greater, as it makes great snow.

And I need to see the stuff she ordered from RPE, so that I can work out how well it scales with what I already have.

Incoming Part II.

Well, the one highlight of spending almost the entire day yesterday awake, was that my Splintered Light order arrived!

There was much rejoicing, opening of little jiffy bags, and drooling over gorgeous little miniatures.  And a couple of huge ones too...


So, my goodie pile looked a bit like this -

A mountain giant, greater wyvern, (both are massive models, they dwarf the fire dragon I already have) a bunch of undead stuff like zombies, ghouls, wraiths, ghosts, vampires, bolt throwers, werewolves, the Orc & Goblin and Wolf Clan armies, the Druids Children Faithful and Rebel warbands, some Splintered Lands Satyrs and Minotaurs, as well as a bunch of stuff David had kindly thrown in, in return for some DDM models I'd sent him.  The haul for them was - samples of the Dark and Wood Elf lines, which will definitely be a future purchase, a host of Splintered Lands foxes, some Goblin werewolves, a bunch of models from the Archer collection, a giant wolf, and a few other various things.

Overall, I'm ever so slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to make a start.  I really love the Satyrs, so they are a distinct possibility as a starting point, although, I don't know whether to base them up as units, or do them individually for skirmish purposes and pick up a copy of the Splintered Lands rulebook.  I feel a rewatch of the Chronicles of Narnia coming on...

I will definitely pick more of them up, probably in the New Year, so I guess it doesn't really matter too much at the moment, and I am also planning on getting those additions to my Cave Imp force (which I really need to finish the Lizards for...) and yeah, so much stuff...  Dark Elves, Wood Elves (love the new Centaur greens) some more Undead stuff - cavalry, chariots, more infantry...


Maybe it might be easier to just pull out a bag at random and start there...