Sunday 30 May 2010

Trolls and Amazons

Today, I managed to complete a couple more stands for Hordes of the Things. These Amazons are some early Citadel minis. I also have a mounted version and some priestess types to be completed. However, this stand will become part of the barbarian army I am putting together. I think I have enough for a 24AP army if I include all of those Prince August minis, these below, the rest of the Amazons, the giant stand and a few stands of cavalry that I still have yet to paint. I think I will just need to get some sort of hero/general stand to complete the army.

Here are the heavies for the orc/goblin army. A couple of early Ral partha Trolls. I have based them up as a behemoth stand. A worthy adversary for the barbarians' giants stand.

Here are both stands in action against each other.
I have still got a bunch of wizards that should be completed by next week. These will be for RPG gaming. The final Prince August stand of barbarians should also be finished fairly soon too.
It looks like I will probably get the barbarian army finished before either the orc/goblin or dwarf armies. So, when I order up some extra dwarfs and goblins, then I should be almost there with both of those armies too. I can't wait to get a game played with them and the write up onto this blog.
I haven't kept a quota of minis bought so far this year. Last year I bought quite a few GW LotR minis, along with many Warlord Romans and Celts. I also picked up some Crusader, Gripping Beast and Perry Normans. This year I have kept my buying to a minimum so far...
Box set of Knights of Dol Amroth
Duinhir
Blackroot Vale archers Command
and that's it!
Next month when I get paid, though, I will be picking up the rest of the dwarfs and orcs/goblins to complete my armies - most probably from Vendel. I also need some Ranger types for RPG - Vendel do some good ones of these too. My final character class that is ill-represented is clerics. Does anyone out there have any suggestions for a decent range of 25mm adventurers that I could use? Reaper Minis are great but a tad too large to fit in with the rest of my collection.

Sunday 23 May 2010

The barbarian hordes keep coming

Here is another stand of barbarian mercenaries for Hordes of the Things. These are the penultimate set of spearmen. The chap in the middle is a converted swordsmen with a wire spear.

Next up is the last stand of blades with the same swordsman figure as above but in his normal pose with normal weapon.

The final picture below is of the last three stands of barbarians. This brings my painted total to 5 stands (with one more to go) that can be used with the giant I based up for HotT as a small mercenary band. I may try to find some more barbarians just to get a Hero stand to lead them all. This little unit looks quite handy together and will be good as a bunch of sell-swords for either my orc/goblin or dwarf armies.


As you can see from the posts today and yesterday, Alex and I have been fairly busy over the last few weeks to get to this stage. We still have stacks more in half-completed mode that will make their way onto the blog over the next few weeks. I think Alex's skills have come on a heck of a lot in the last year. He paints a lot better than most adults I know and I keep forgetting he is still only 10 years old. I will teach him a few more tricks in the coming months so he can improve his technique further.
Alex has Elladan, 3 heavy spearmen, 3 heroes on foot and HotT Elf general stand to complete over the next couple of weeks.
I have 5 classic barbarians, 2 more wizards, a giant, 2 demons, about 25 or so Roman auxilia, 15 Celt warriors and one final stand of HotT barbarians.
My aim is to get all of these finished by the Solstice so I can then start on my Rohan army. These are still in their drawer ready to be cut from the sprues, glued and undercoated etc in readiness for a summer assault. I will progressively improve the painting style on them so I can push myself with each type of warrior. Basic plastic warriors will be my usual style of block colours and wash, elite troops will have a basic 3-colour shading technique, captains and minor heroes will have a little more blending done on them and finally, I will try to paint faces etc on the major heroes. I'm not sure whether my skills are up for the latter two stages, but hopefully I can achieve more than I have done in the past.

Saturday 22 May 2010

Alex's LotR Elven army

Alex has been very busy these last couple of weeks trying to finish off his Games Workshop Lord of the Rings Elf army. Here's one of his named heroes, Elrohir. Elladan is still to come.


Next up is the Elf Command.

Here is the main stay of the army - the swordsmen.

Next up are the archers - deliverers of death from a distance, pretty much the best archers in the game.

And finally the entire unit in all its glory. This picture also includes Glorfindel as part of the Grey Company that Alex had previously painted.

He is currently trying to finish off Elladan on horseback, the three heroes (Elladan, Elrohir and Glorfindel) on foot, 3 heavy spearmen and a box set of 6 Galadhrim knights. We will look into adding up the points values of these and then adding the odd mini to make up a tournament worthy army.

Sunday 16 May 2010

More Barbarian Hordes

I managed to complete another stand of blades for HotT today. These ar eanother stand of Prince August axemen with another mini I have had lying around for many a year. I think it is a Citadel mini, but I am not sure at all. It is on the small side, so fitted in really well with the Prince August stuff that are true 25mm.

There should be a couple more stands of these barbarians completed next weekend, bringing the total to 5 stands in all, but I do still have a handful more left that may make up one further stand. I'll have to get to work on a few more dwarf and orc/goblin stands as soon as possible so I can build up those armies further.

Saturday 15 May 2010

Sector House 29

I have finally finished the 2000AD stuff on my work bench. It took a while but I think they have been worth the wait. You have already seen the Judges and Lawmasters but when collecting the minis together I wanted to add a vehicle for support purposes. Most of my childhood toys have bitten the dust but I did manage to find a few Matchbox die-cast sci-fi vehicles from their Adventure 2000 range hidden away in a box in the loft. I have the Land Raider (as per the vehicle from Judge Dredd's Cursed Earth adventure) and a couple of others, including the one below. This is designated as the Crusader K2003.

It was originally painted in a sickly lime green, so I decided to paint it in a blue to match in with the Judges' uniforms. I also painted over the windows to make it appear as if it had blast shields down.

Here's the entire Sector House so far. I will try to add to it over time with some more Citadel Judges from EBay and maybe some Foundry ones. As mentioned previously I also have about 9 or 10 very early Space Marines who I will be painting up as 'heavies'. I also have that collection of Heresy enforcers to man the desks and a couple more of those Matchbox vehicles (the Land Raider and some kind of missile launcher).

Next up should be more Prince August Barbarians for Hordes of the Things. I have tons of other stuff on the workbench at the moment, so after the barbarians there could be almost anything appearing on the blog.
Tavern Knights of Legend is due to end soon, and I have been tasked with running the next play be email game. It will be a strategy game based in an imaginary country where the players take on the parts of warlords with their minds set on conquest to become overlord of the land. More details on this in a later post.

Sunday 9 May 2010

Wheeled Justice

Dredd and Anderson out on patrol on their Lawmasters. Instead of just sticking the bikes directly to their cavalry bases, I decided to buy a few sculpted bases to make them look a little better. I also noticed that the bikes are different marks of Lawmaster.

Here's a frontal view of the pair of bikers, headlights glaring, sirens wailing about to accost the vile perps of Mega City 1.

Next up will be an old Matchbox vehicle painted up to look like a Sector House vehicle.
I have also made good progress on some more DA barbarians from Prince August. I should be able to get those completed and on show just after I finish these 2000AD minis. Alex is putting the finishing touches to his Lotr Elven army. It is looking very good so far.

Monday 3 May 2010

Psi Division

A couple of Judge Anderson minis and another female Judge. Once again, early 1980s Citadel miniatures. This brings the patrol to 7 Judges.


I have a couple of Judges (Dredd and Anderson again) on bikes still to come as well as a Matchbox die cast vehicle that I painted up to represent a Justice Department battle wagon (not like any in the comics, but it fits in well). Foundry do a few Judge minis that I may buy to add to these, depending on how they rank up size wise. I also bought some Heresy Miniatures' Enforcers to act as Space Port security bods recently, so will add those into the mix for sci-fi gaming.

I had a really busy day today, setting up several more minis ready for completion over the next few weeks. These include...
3 more trolls
3 more stands of Prince August barbarians
1 stand of Amazon warriors
2 more Fifth Element/'Void' wizards
2 really old (I think some of the first released) Space Marines to be used as Justice Dept heavies

I also stripped and cleaned up...
15 Warlord Celt warriors
6 more wizards
5 barbarians (the RPG adventurer type rather than for use on HotT stands)

Alex was also busy. He finished painting about half-a-dozen LotR elves and a few leader types for a HotT stand. I will photograph these later on in the week.

Gaming wise, we are getting close to a half-sized HotT battle between dwarfs and goblins. I will set up a game between the kids in a few weeks time and see how they do.

Sunday 2 May 2010

I am the Law

They were a long time coming, but at last they are here. Hooray for Bank Holidays, that's what I say!

Anyway, these are some very early 80's Citadel 2000AD Judges. I can't remember all of their names, but there is a Judge Dredd and a Judge Giant.


Due to the Bank Holiday here in the UK I have been able to plan to do a lot more painting than on a normal weekend. I have very nearly finished the next batch of Judges too, so hopefully, I'll have another post up for them tomorrow.