Celtic Warriors

I managed to finish off 15 shirted Celts today, to go with the bare-chested chaps I painted up last year. Not enough to go against the Century of Roman legionaries I painted but enough for some skirmish gaming at long last. I just need some leader types now.

Not sure what will be up next miniatures wise, but I should have a few more trees ready tomorrow.

I am finding myself drawn more and more into the Cthulhu mythos at the moment. I think it may have been because of a random bit of surfing I did a few months ago that brought me across the following site ... http://home.kpn.nl/gesbe000/

I have since bought The Necronomicon, a collection of Lovecraft's tales, and I am contemplating the Dark Age Cthulhu rules. I used to play Call of Cthulhu many moons ago and had read all of Lovecraft's works back in my teens, but it looks like the works of my youth are now making a come back.

Fighters II

Here's a picture of my five latest fighter minis that I painted up today. They had been hanging around on my paint station for several weeks before I finally got round to finishing them.

I am hoping that my painters block is now firmly behind me. I have plenty more on the work bench that are nearly there, so you should be seeing lots of new entries on the blog over the next few weeks.

Fighters

Whilst finishing off the palm trees, see entry below, I managed to complete a handful of fighters. First up is a really early Ral Partha Heavy Fighter. This was actually one of my first ever figures and has been through several repaints, almost always on a red/black theme. I decided to brighten him up a bit with the addition of a green cloak and a bright yellow/red shield.

I'm not sure what this mini is. I think it is a Citadel fighter, but I really cannot remember. I have painted him up as a kind of Elf ranger as it is actually a fairly small miniature.

Next up is a Chaos Fighter by Citadel. I like the way half his face has peeled away revealing the skull beneath. I am really pleased with the way the shield has turned out though. It was painted using about ten different layers of slowly lightening metal paints.

Next up is a Ral Partha female fighter. Many early minis were made with acres of flesh on display. I am not too keen on this if the mini is depicting an adventurer, so I tend to paint leggings and sleeves onto them if I feel it appropriate. I painted leggings onto this lady fighter, which I think sets off the shield and scabbard quite nicely.

Finally, here is a bandit mini, I think by Citadel. Initially he was armed with a sword, but this had snapped off some years back. I drilled out the sword hand and put a spear into his grip instead. I think it goes rather well with his chunky shield.

I managed to also do quite a bit more work on some Warlord Celts, some trees and a few figures to make up the General stand for my HotT barbarian army. Hopefully there will be more photos of these next week.

Palm Trees

I have only made up a few pieces of scenery (LotR statues) this year so far, so here is something I made up for desert and coastal scenarios - a base of palm trees. They are from my son's dinosaur set, but I think re-painted they do quite nicely for an oasis situation...

I have another couple of these bases to make up, so I can then run some desert ambush scenarios - Haradrim versus Gondor comes to mind, for when I have those particular minis painted up, or fantasy RPG or even HotT. Its never wrong to be prepared!

SELWG and other stuff

Yet another long gap between posts, but I was able to do some gaming related stuff in the hiatus.

I attended SELWG at Crystal Palace sports centre, South London last weekend. It was a bit quiter than it usually is and chatting to a few traders they said it did not seem as well attended as it usually is. Could this be a sign of the credit crunch hitting us gamers? I have always thought of gaming as quite an inexpensive hobby, especially compared to what I used to spend in my younger days out drinking with my mates. I didn't pick up much at SELWG, just a few paints, bases and a carry-case/box from Figures in Comfort to store some of my better painted minis in. Alex picked up some Immortal Miniatures plastic Greek Hoplites.

I actually picked up the paint brush again today and managed to almost complete several more minis. If I can get out to spray varnish them tomorrow, I'll try to photograph them and get them up on the blog.

I have been thinking a lot about what period I'd like to game in, or at least catch up on and have been busy reading up on The Anarchy, or the reign of King Stephen. I have dug out my old Cadfael books, Sharon Penman's 'When Christ and his Saints Slept' and Ken Follett's 'Pillars'. I think this all down to the new series of 'Pillars' being shown on TV currently and the repeats of Cadfael I keep catching on the satellite channels. I have also been reading up on Benedictine monks. I feel a Dark Age Cthulhu RPG set in this period coming on, or at least some skirmish gaming.

Doggerland is a few moves in now and is developing slowly. When we get the first character vs character battles, I'll try to get some pictures up.

That's about it for now, but it is actually a lot more than it sounds.

Here comes the cavalry III

Well, not cavalry exactly, but the heavy mob when all else has failed. These are the troopers that are called in when the going gets tough. Armed with heavy-duty plasma weapons and state of the art power-armour these guys are the 'cleaners'. They are some of the first of Citadel's Space Marines released way back in the early 80s - I still have about another half-dozen or so to clean-up and paint. I have painted them to fit in with my vision of a futuristic Justice Department that encompasses the law and war.

Here's another view of the same troopers - the view you never want to see when they are angry!

I had a good sort out and tidy up of my paint station today, so got a lot of those little hang-over things finished up. There are still quite a few minis in a half painted state that should hit the site in the next few weeks: Celts, Riders of Rohan, RPG Fighters, HotT barbarians and many more.

Here comes the cavalry II

Here's a few more cavalry for the collection. These are Warlord Games' Numidian cavalry. I have painted these as Numidians but for use as barbarians in my HotT barbarian army.

Here's a shot of both the stands of riders that I have created.

These riders have now almost completed my HotT Barbarian army. The army so far consists of the following...

Warriors (Blades @2AP) x3 = 6AP

Warriors (Spears @2AP) x3 = 6AP

Amazons (Blades @2AP) x1 = 2AP

Numidians (Riders @2AP) x2 = 4AP

Giant (Behemoth @4AP) x1 = 4AP

Total = 22AP

I still have a couple of stands left to go that need painting an basing...

Druidess (Magician @4AP) x1 = 4AP

General (Blades @2AP) x1 = 2AP

This will give me a complete army total of 28AP, so I can possibly mix and match when the army goes into action. I will add to it over time; I was thinking of some stands of beasts and perhaps some warbands or hordes to add some colour. I'll see. Once these are finished I will get to work again on my Dwarf and Orc/Goblin armies. Alex is slowly pulling together his Elf army, so hopefully we should have 4 complete armies in the near future. I am also thinking of creating a Roman army from the remnants of the plastic Warlord Games Early Imperial Romans that I have lying around. This gives me something to do over the winter months at least!

Here comes the cavalry!

It has been a while since I last updated the blog. The reasons being various, but mostly down to lack of time due to last weekend's annual trip to the Oktoberfest in Munich and the long wait for my spray varnish to come through, and, oh yes, a dash of laziness too. I hit a bit of a painter's block over the last couple of weeks and haven't touched paintbrush to mini. I don't know why, I just lacked enthusiasm for a few weeks. Anyway, yesterday I was able to get the spray can and camera out to photograph a few female adventurers.

First up is a Citadel princess, priestess, adventuress? I cannot remember what her designation was but I will assume she is some form of priestess/magician.

Next up is a mounted Amazon warrior from the same range as the foot versions I used for a stand of Hordes of the Things. I couldn't find her original horse, so I used a spare Warlord Pike and Shotte plastic horse I had lying around. It is a little large, but did the trick.

Here's a picture of the two lovely ladies out on an adventure together. I think it shows quite nicely the degree of scale creep we have had in the last 20-30 years. What were 25mm are now pretty much 28mm.

I am hoping to get a couple of Space Marines completed this afternoon and a little more work done on a few other things I have lying around on the workbench.