Old World Army Challenge: Wood Elves II: Beasts!

 Over at the Old World Army Challenge, the March issue is out!

grr. argh.

I really enjoyed painting these beasts! We're past the halfway point, and some great miniatures are still to come...

morten tyrannis: officer

 Good to get things ticked off the list.

hail mortarion! hail the death-of-kings!

Okay, I don't have a list. I do enough project management stuff in my work that I don't want to start doing Trello cards for my miniature hobby. But with the current weather systems across eastern Australia, I can't get any undercoating done. This guy has been on my desk in his undercoat for something like a year now, so I painted him!

Part of the reason I was so hesitant was his cloak. With the red-right-arms on some of my XIV Legionnaires, I didn't want to go the obvious route of an officer's red. Likewise, a muddy green would be too obvious for a captain of Nurgle. I decided to pick up a pot of Hobgrot Hide to see what that looked like, and then.... figured I might as well try it on this guy.

Pretty pleased with it.

I'm not sure I really nailed this, and my gradually failing phone means that the photos aren't the strongest - but he is done and that is the very main thing.

Those Who Work: Prospector

 A civilian painted a little while ago!

make sure your helmet is polarised against radiation, kids

This guy had been sitting on my desk for a long time, but I managed to finish him over Christmas. He then sat in my photos account! I was hoping to get more civilians painted to post him with, but the Old World Army Challenge started up, and that's that.

Not really much to say - he's from the Genestealer Cult range, which have a great unified aesthetic for mining and industrial workers, while being grounded in Warhammer 40,000's setting. I demilitarized him a little, giving him a mining laser and the wrench arm, but there is no conversion work.

..so, yes, he still has grenades and a pistol holster. Hellsreach-style planets are dangerous places!

There are still loads more civilians in my pile of inspiration or whatever we're calling them these days, but I really need to get cracking on their terrain.

Old World Army Challenge: Wood Elves II: Swordsmen

 My work continues on Wood Elf II over at the Old World Army Challenge V.

Warrior Kithband

Head over to see the February results! Don't forget to check out the other challengers.

Old World Army Challenge: Wood Elves II: The Wood Elf-ening

 Been a little quiet here, as I work on wood elves for Old World Army Challenge V.

elves, falcons, and harps! oh my!

I've finished the January challenge already; to see more go here. Hard at work on February, if I don't get distracted by someth

Those Scouts: Riders

Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse / to the old town road

Slann trading contingent, feat. Ometeotl the Outrider

wastelander horseman

Once again, these are hardly civilians, despite the fact that I continue to group these miniatures together under that tag. I suppose I will eventually call this setting something else - maybe if I finally paint any of the terrain I'm accumulating.

These two are mounted scouts; the one a baseline human, riding his actual horse across the desert sands. The other is as far as we can get from that, being a space frog riding a space velociraptor. 

Those Animals: Wild things

 A handful more critters for the desert.

small local fauna

I've painted a handful of small creatures to sprinkle around the gaming table. The lava dog thing comes from Northstar, the rest from an indie company the name of which I've misplaced. They sure are cute, though.

armadillo analogues

lizard analogues

thingies

some kind of heated-rock monster?

Those Mercenaries

 A collection of local guns.

not exactly civilians

Today we have a handful of armed figures for the civilian project. At this rate, I'm basically recreating Gorkamorka (and yes, that is a spoiler for something planned soon), albeit with fewer orks.

scout

A classic Rogue Trader adventurer sculpt and as such as been done by many many others, which is part of why I wanted to buy him. He's been on my table for ages, as I wasn't sure how I wanted him to come out. Some of the off-whites came off a bit too close, so I'm not totally happy with him, but still - he looks pretty good to me.

I like to think of him as the best of the scouts for hire, preferring to keep to himself in the deep desert. His use of a shuriken pistol and apparently uncanny insight into the trackless wastes gives him a reputation as half-Eldar, despite the genetics making that impossible. Right?

old bandit

Another RT adventurer! Jason has also painted him up, but I've gone for a weather-beaten old raider style for him and his weird pistol.

I think of him as old friends with the scout - not as good at guiding clients through the wastes, but way more vicious in a melee with the mutie raiders and slaver tribes that might waylay a caravan winding through the cacti-spheres.

Madeline and Maximillian

"Mad" Madeline and "Max" Maximillian are a couple of local gunslingers. Sometimes raiders, sometimes caravan guards, sometimes just mean bastards. Always hired as a pair.

These sculpts were from a Facebook group and I was able to get some of the initial run a little while back - but thankfully they're now available at Crooked Dice as the Mannix Twins. Real joys to paint, and a lovely classic vibe.

Lastly, and finished only a few minutes ago, we have Ms Lovely Day.

Ms Lovely Day

No need to point out her inspiration! You can also get her via Crooked Dice (can you tell I did an order recently?). I've painted her up as roughly inspired by her origin, but she fits in with the rest of these gunslingers although slimmer, possibly teenaged.

It's a beautiful sculpt and fun to paint.

I undercoated some more civilians today, but also go back to work tomorrow, so we'll see if my painting time shrinks substantially. Stay tuned, desert wanderers!

Those Renegades

 Just a couple of perfectly ordinary civilians...

Magos Biologis, Mechanicus

This is a medic from North Star Military Figures's Stargrave releases. I'm going to be putting together a different team to play the game, but this saturnine fellow is perfect for my civilian project, even if he's a little more armed than usual.

His weird tech greeble fits into the Rogue Trader aesthetic, and while the blue gloves hint at a different science fiction setting, marking him as an unpleasant sort of fellow. I see him as a low-ranking Adept Mechanicus who screens the citizens for genetic deviance, hence the red collar. He also works perfectly as a Rogue Doc in Necromunda. Multi-use!

Heretek, poss. former Mechanicus

Also from Stargrave, this I gave this hacker a goth aesthetic. I was tempted to freehand a cool skull on her jacket, but her cyberpunk tech greeble makes that too hard, and I'm very lazy.

I see her as a heretek,* running local hacking jobs for a reasonable price. They aren't all towering monstrosities of cybernetic cables and whirring gears, blaspheming with cogentities as scrapcode gods. Some of them are just folks who break open the cases and tinker without the proper rites.

I'm not sure if Necromunda18 has a specific role like this, but it would be easy to design scenarios around her! I wonder if her deck would let her hack Spyrer-style suits, or maybe even servitors.

That's it for this entry! I'm working on some more civilians and am very close to finishing an army for a different skirmish game...

Those Who Herd

 Another set of miniatures done a few months ago (August!) but which I've not posted here.

grim ol' One-Eye and his rot sheep

I love this sculpt so much, available from Old School Miniatures. Unlike most of the civilians I paint, this herdsman and his nightmarish rot sheep are intended for wetter fantasy or science fantasy settings - I can see them lurking on the outskirts of Mordheim, on the muddy fields of #turnip28, or even being warded against the Emperor's lackeys by my 40K Death Guard.

More photos under the cut.

Match Recap: Uzkulak Udugs frozen out of victory on a frosty afternoon

  UZKULAK, ZU. -- A brutal offence is the best defence - but sometimes even iron and steak isn't enough.

The exhibition match between the freshly minted Saphery Strikers and home-mine heroes the Uzkulak Udugs ended in a crisp 2-2 draw on Sunday 08 August. 

part-way through setting up

We take you to our commentators, Jim and Bob...