More Dry Bones... and some Spawn.

As Promised, a mini update (pun intended?) with the finished Tomb kings Archer unit.

As I said in the last update, the regular soldiers are wearing white cloth (as opposed to the black of the raiders). Notice the archers have all been converted to have kilts.
The unit filler (equivalent to 4 models footprint) has a broken obelisk with scarabs crawling on it.

I will post more Tomb Kings as I paint them up.

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I had these Chaos Spawn models lying around that I found. I liked these Spawn so decided to post them for your viewing pleasure.

This one I nicknamed 'The Beast' in our games because he has pulled off a ton of impressive kills and plays and my regular opponents knew to fear him. He has had no conversions on him, I just like the way he is painted; particularly the way his red eye contrasts with the white and blue of the rest of him.

 This one was nicknamed 'Prawn Man' and it is easy to see why. This spawn has been converted; his legs were chopped away and he has been given crab-like legs, with his abdomen built up with modelling putty.
He was useless in our games, doing little of note. But I love him anyway...

 Again, I will see you in the next update.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones!

Greetings and welcome to a WFB update to my painting efforts.

I have been adding to my painted Tomb Kings, probably going to sell them. I already have quite a bit painted and decided to paint the rest and sell them on. I liked the army and spent some time converting them all (as you will see), but I am not really playing Warhammer at the moment. Focusing on SAGA instead (need to finish painting my Welsh and then finish building my Shiney Rus, which I am really looking forward to playing with).

Anyway, on with the miniatures!

First up, we have some Horse Archers. I have added a sort of tattered headscarf to these guys. Basically, in my army I have the regular standing professional soldiers and a contingent of auxiliary desert raiders. Obviously, these are desert raiders.

There are 10 in total. This is the first 5.

And the second lot of 5.

I posed them in (what I believe to be) animated desert raider poses. Both units have a leader type that is signalling his men and urging them forward while others whoop and jeer or hold their bows side-on.

I don't really see the Tomb kings as slow and ponderous like the Vampire Counts, where the skeletons and zombies are just animated bodies driven by the will of the Vampire/Necromancer. The lore for Tomb Kings says that they retain some of their personality in undeath and they are semi-autonomous.

Next, we have a Tomb Scorpion.
I converted this model to be bursting up from the sand (as it has that special rule). I had to chop half the model away, but the massacre is covered by sand.

I quite like the way this model turned out. Its a fairly static model and there is not a lot you can really do with it (without making it something totally different, but I wanted to really avoid massive radical changes - just opting to make each model more dynamic and life-like instead).

Next up is the Casket of Souls.

Whereas the desert raiders wear black cloth, all the regular army undead wear white as here. White, gold and bone are the main colours, which turquoise as a contrasting colour.
Incidentely, the guards' weapons are not original. I only got 1 sword in the box and I could not be bothered dealing with GW mail order to get another so I just used standard TK swords. I think they look fine.
Oh, this is the 'failcast' version of the casket - I prefer the weight and ease of the 'failcast' over the metal, if not for the holes and bubbles I had to fill... But it turned out just fine.

Finally, here is the Warsphinx.

I converted this model to be conducting its special stomp attack, and crushing the ground while it is at it. Again, its another fairly static model and this seemed a good way to bring it to life.
I really like this model and I am pleased how it turned out (its my favourite of the 'howdah-hammer' models, until the release the Wood Elf Tree-man House...).

I have lots more Tomb Kings to paint. I have a large unit of archers done (nearly at the photo-able stage, just finishing off a unit filler) and loads more converted and undercoated. And here they are...

 (A Hierotitan conversion)

 (Necropolis Knights - check out the champion's snake around the pillar!)

 (some Horsemen)

 (Classic chariots - these are desert raiders with headscarfs)

 (Chariots, including a Tomb King/Prince on chariot conversion)

 (Classic Skull Catapults - I actually prefer these models to the 'proper' one)

 (Priests - 1 normal, 1 from another range and 2 imperial wizard conversions)

(another large unit of archers with a unit filler - all my archers have kilts on. No, not Scottish ones...)

Once my other unit of archers is ready to be photographed (probably by tomorrow), I will do that and post it here.

See you in the next update.

I vow it, that hence I will not flee a foot's length!

So claims the Saxon Warrior at the Battle of Maldon.

Yep, Ive been working on an Anglo Danish warband for SAGA and present it to you now in all its shieldwall glory!

(The Anglo Danish Warlord stands in his shieldwall, flanked by his Huscarls).

I used my usual SAGA painting technique on these boys, which I will detail for you henceforth...

DISCLAIMER: this might be a long post; maybe too long. If you cannot be bothered to read it all then just look at the pretty step-by-step pictures.

I started by cleaning up the models, glueing them to their bases and then adding airdry clay to the bases for texture. Make sure you use a polymer clay, so it does not crumble (an artists airdry clay, not a children's one - I used Fimoair with great success, you can get it at Hobbycraft in the UK). The clay gives a great texture to the base and you can even sculpt with it, if you are that way inclined (I don't smooth it down, I rough it up a bit to keep the texture - this way it can be straight painted without adding any sand or anything of its ilk).

As you can see, I have used Gripping Beast figures on Renedra bases. I have also used Gripping beasts wire spears - soooooooo much stronger then the crappy spears you get with them.

I then undercoated the models in grey. I just prefer to paint SAGA models over grey instead of black (and I never use white).

After the undercoat I begin to apply the base colours. In this case, the metal, the flesh and the leather went on first (the metal was watered down so it flowed into all the links in the mail. Actually, as I rule I water all my paints about 4:1, but the metal it was about 2:1). To be honest, I'm not sure why I made the decision to do these first, I would normally apply the tunic colours. Probably it was due to the tunics all being different colours so I did the universal colours first.

After these base colours I then went and applied the tunic colours. When applying colours at this stage it is not important to be neat, to be honest. I dont mean to liberally slap colour on using a wall roller or anything, just dont be concerned if colour looks 'sloppy' - it will all work out fine.

Now, I planned on using 'dip' on these models, as I think it can make dark age models look pretty good (suitably grimy, if you will). I have seen people use dip as a means to get away with doing any actual work on the models, just applying the dip over some base colours (in fact, this is how Army Painter teach you to do it for the sake of speed). This is fine, if that is what you want to do. However, I have been painting models for nigh on 15 years using all sorts of techniques. I have experimented with dip and believe I have a happy medium between speed and quality that i am happy with. To this end, all of my 'dipped' models receive a highlight stage. As presented here.

 This highlight stage brings the models up really nice once the dip has been applied and gives the model a more 'traditional' 3 tones (shade - base - highlight). However, the highlight is applied at least 2 tones above the base colour, as it will be dulled in the dip process and you want it to persist after dipping.

After this I turned to the most important aspect of the model - the shield!
Now, I know you can get some nice transfers for dark age shields, but I really enjoy painting the shields myself - transfers can look a little... hmm... fake? To get the best out of transfers you need to paint over them. In this respect, the transfer acts as a guide only, not an end in itself. In my humble opinion.

I wanted all the shields to be different patterned, to reflect the levy approach to warfare that persisted (no nice Roman uniforms welcome. Thanks).

After the shields were done all I had left was to paint the base of each model and they were ready for 'dipping'.

I don't dip my models. That is to say, I don't dunk the model in the tin of dip, like they suggest. I just don't want that much dip on my model. I apply it with a brush and use it more like a wash; I make sure that the dip does not pool anywhere on the model.

Of course, after dipping the models are all nice and shiny. We don't want that. I use a super-matt spray to dull the model (after the dip has dried over-night, of course) and make it look awesome again. This also brings out the paint job that much more and demonstrates the importance of applying a highlight.

All that was left to do was apply static grass and clumps of a a sponge-type lichen effect material (by Galeforce Nine) to the bases and they were complete.

Here they all are in all the awesomeness:

 (Warlord, front view and base detail - the rock is actual slate from my garden. Its clean.)

 (Rear view of Warlord, showing off his furry cloak. He spent so much on it he could not afford trousers...)

 (Huscarl with spears. They favour their own skin and so dont use a Dane Axe, like a real man).

(Huscarl with Dane Axe. Real men).

 (Rear veiw of Dane Axe Huscarls. Try stabbing them in the back).

 (Warlord with his Huscarls. Look mean, don't they? They are).

 (Warriors advancing with their spears at the ready. Except the guy hiding behind his big shield; he's scared).

 (Warriors standing with spears. They are bored, the battle should have started an hour ago...)

(The shieldwall, bristling with spears! And moustaches....)

 (The shieldwall from a jaunty angle...)

 (And again)

(What the shieldwall might look like from a helicopter...)

So, there you have it; my Anglo-Danish Warband.

Thanks for reading (or just looking at the pictures). See you in the next update.

A roof over our head.

So, I have been knocking up some buildings for our SAGA games, especially because some of the scenarios require buildings to play.

Anyway, I have built a few buildings before, in 15mm, but these were for ancients (ancient Egyptian buildings, to be precise):

I built these from foam board and then covered them in polyfilla.

I hoped to be able to use the skills I had learnt building these to be able to construct 28mm dark age saxon buildings that were constructed in such a way as to allow our models to be placed inside.

And here they are!

They are not yet painted, that will come later.

I made a few mistakes along the way and a few minor things I would do different. But on the whole, I'm quite pleased.

I made them from foam board; first constructing foamboard walls in a rectangle, cutting a join then glueing and inserting wooden matches (cut to a point) for strength:

(This is the only picture I have of the 'naked' walls - I forgot to take one while building it...)

I then constructed a roof in a similar way; cutting a join at about a 45degree angle and gluing the 2 halves together (using matches for strength again) and also cut 2 glable roof ends and glued them (again, matches for strength).

Once the walls and roof was done, the building was glued to a base made from a cheap dinner place mat with a hardboard top and a cork bottom (these are really great for basing your building on!).

(Here, you can clearly see the building's construction)

I then cut some green plastic scouring pads and used them to make the thatch (the pad was too thick, so it was ripped into 2 thinner pads first).

(This is the A-frame building, but you can see how the roof was constructed)

(And here is the long-house/drinking hall roof being constructed. One of the mistakes I made was to have the porch roof attached to this roof, but it was too high, so it was taken off and attached to the wall for the final building).

And here is a finished, pre-painted, building (actually, I added a beige paint to the PVA glue for the thatch - this thatch was another mistake as the top piece was a total pain so I did not include it for the others).

The buildings have all been made with removeable roofs so that you can actually place your models in them while you play (we usually place our models in the building and 1 at the door outside so you can tell it is occupied).

 (The drinking hall)

(The wealthy man's house)

(The poor man's A-frame building just has a footprint modelled into its base)

The buildings are great and serve the purposes of SAGA perfectly (they are even the correct size - 6" and 12").

I will post more pics of them when I paint them, but the next post will be of model soldiers!

See you in the next update.

Anthony