Dragonewt on weirdy beast

I actually finished this little monster mash-up on Sunday, but thought I'd write up my gaming session with Dunc first.

The rider came from the Runequest set of Dragonewts I painted up a few months ago and would ordinarily ride on a terror bird (painted maybe a year or so back). However, I wanted to keep the terror birds as separate adversaries as they are lovely figures and would be too limited if used only with the actual Dragonewt riders. I had a rummage through my unpainted lead drawers and found this strange horsey-chaos thing. I think it is a Citadel mini that had some sort of fish-man or long-necked rider, that I doubt I will ever use, unless I stick it on a horse? Anyway, the Dragonewt fitted onto this mount perfectly, so I thought 'Why not?'

Next up : I have put a little more paint onto some Warriors of Rohan and I also undercoated the freebie Ghouls that I got with one of the wargames mags a month or two back. I aim to put them to use on my magician base for the HotT barbarian army I finished a while back. I have also almost finished the Splintered Lands minis. Decisions, decisions.

Centaur

This is my oldest shop bought figure; a Ral Partha Centaur from 1976. I don't remember why I bought him as I had no use for him at the time. I think it was a case of I saw what I thought at the time was a fantastic figure and made an impulse buy; the first of many, I might add.

I painted him up for use with Runequest, but the lack of detail meant it was hard to make it look any good. He was originally armed with a sword, but that has gone missing through the mists of time, so I added a heavy spear and a shield from my bits box. I painted a very crude Sagitarius symbol on the shield to match his barbaric origins. I will most probably start using him in SoBH along with some human adventurers to go against the Broo I painted earlier this year before trying to resurrect an old Runequest character (created after the fact I bought the figure so I could get some use out of him!).

I am hoping to finish those Kobolds this weekend and make more headway on the last of my Early Imperial Roman command figures (I am finding these very difficult to summon up any enthusiasm to paint at the moment).

Dragonewts

It took a while, but here are the Dragonewts I have had on the paint station for quite a while. I didn't paint up two of them (they are the riders of the terror birds I painted ages back), but the rest make a fearsome pack of foes at all life stages. Here are some early stage Dragonewts - a crested Dragonewt in the centre.

 Next up is a picture of the penultimate stage. I can't remember what he was called and I can't remember how many official life stages they have before becoming dragons. I will have to dig out my Glorantha source book for a read up.

Here's the final stage. He is sculpted as a left hander which is correct according to the canon, but I am not sure if it is just the final stage that is left handed or all stages.

Finally, here is a picture of them all together. The only one I didn't get an individual shot of is the beaked Dragonewt on the right of the picture; I couldn't get any depth on the photo due to him blending in with the trees and going all blurry.



I quite like these minis and they go well with those broo I painted up a little while back. I still have a centaur and those two terror bird riders to paint up and all my remaining Runequest minis are painted. I wish I had not sold off those ducks and baboons back in the day. Still, I am sure there are other manufacturers who sell them somewhere out there.

Next up for me should be those Early Eastern Empire Roman auxiliary spearmen. Alex changed his mind on those Bretonnians and painted up some Space Marines instead. I should be able to get the marines up on the blog tomorrow if all goes well, and the Romans maybe next weekend or just after. Hopefully I can then get those Rohan footmen started as well as some more odds and sods from my old lead pile.

Broo Warband

Here they are at long last - all of my Broo figures have now been completed. I have five from the Citadel Runequest Box Set on a HotT base to use as a mercenary warband for those that can put up with their filthy habits, and the remaining four are the three in the photo below and the one that was finished last week.

I don't know what manufacturer this one is from. It fits in more with the Glorantha explanation that they are very low-tech and scavenge what weapons they can. This one is armed with a fire-hardened stick. My friend Colin originally painted him, but I have freshened the paint job up a little

These two are part of the Citadel range of beastmen or something similar before they became part of the official Warhammer Beastmen canon. I prefer these old school figures - they seem to have more character than the more modern ones.

A final shot of the members of the warband I finished today.

Still to come from my Runequest collection are six Dragonewts and a centaur. I still have a couple more Dragonewts that were the original riders of the terror birds I painted a few months back, but I won't be painting them for a while yet, and I doubt I will mount them on the terror birds. Hopefully, the rest of these Runequest minis should be finished in a week or two. I am tempted to put them up against my Brytenwalda Arthurians for a change of pace; I just need to make up some stats for them, and perhaps some simple magic.

My next step for this particular project will be to get a few more warriors to use as adventurers and some more RQ monsters - Can anyone out there recommend a site that sells either these old school ones or any new manufacturers that stock figures in a similar vein?

Runequest update

I managed to get some spray varnishing done tonight and therefore finished another couple of Runequest miniatures. It was only after I took the photos that I realised I must have dropped/bumped the female warrior during the last few days as some of the paint has rubbed off of her nose. She was originally painted by my friend Colin, but a lot of the paint had rubbed off or faded, so it was an almost complete repaint but with the same colour scheme. Her sword turned out a better bronze than most of the minis so far, and I like the depth of colour I have achieved in the shield. All of the bronze I have painted on these minis is to the same formula (using GW acrylic paints unless stated): Dwarf Bronze, Newton & Windsor Nut Brown ink, heavy dry brush of Shining Gold and light dry brush of Burnished Gold to finish off.

Here is the first Broo warrior that is individually based. He didn't originally have a shield and looked a bit goofy, so I added one from my bits box - a Warlord Games Celt shield. I have painted some iron stuff onto these warriors. I can't remember if Broo are affected by iron, but I decided they wouldn't be in this case and that they had stolen the valuable metal from human adventurers they had killed and eaten (or mated with!).



Next up should be a stack more Runequest stuff and some Romans; hopefully this weekend coming should see a stack of them on the blog as they are so close to completion.

Griselda and Wolfhead

I managed to get my first two Runequest miniatures finished this weekend. They are representative of two characters from a White Dwarf story from the early years. I personally don't think they look anything like the artwork for the stories but they are OK figures none-the-less. I never really used them for gaming back in the day as they were so big compared to other minis of the time. I have painted them with bronzed armour and weaponry as per the Glorantha setting. I always thought most referees got their setting wrong with Runequest and always seemed to make it a quasi-medieval setting as opposed to a Bronze Age style setting. That said, it never detracted from the wonderful RPG games I had down at the local wargames clubs back in the early 80s and 90s.

I had a go at painting faces this time, just for a change but I managed to miss Wolfhead's moustache. It can be clearly seen in the photograph when it is viewed at full size, but my unaided eyesight is getting so bad now I missed it completely! Griselda also looks a little wonky-eyed, but from another angle she looks just fine. I have decided on a red theme for cloth with my heroes as their enemies will have a green theme to set them apart; not that there needs to be much in the way of dress sense to set aside Broo!

Here is a picture I nabbed from t'Internet. Copyright whoever, TM whatever. Used for display purposes only. I think it was from an advert in WD 50 if memory serves me rightly (I still have all of my early WDs from around 6 up to 90 when it started to become a house magazine for GW - I passed on a few after that and started to buy again around 300 when LotR SBG came out). Anyway, I bought this set back in the day (see previous thread on what I did with my Saturday job money) but one or two of the minis have gone missing since. I will get round to painting them all eventually.

I actually did quite a bit of painting this weekend but didn't manage to complete any others than those above. I am almost there with the rest of the Broo, another Runequest adventurer and a large section of Eastern Empire Auxiliary archers for my Roman army. I also started on some Dragonewts and a centaur. I am hoping that most of these can be completed next weekend.

The Seventh Marca

Today I managed to finish the last of the seven Gripping Beast Arthurian cavalrymen I bought a few years back. He wasn't used in our battle this evening, but makes a welcome addition to our forces.

We now have 8 cavalry, 20-odd unarmoured infantry and half a dozen veteran and hero types painted up between us. We still have maybe 20 or so armoured infantry and that pack of 8 archers I bought at Salute to start on. We should have a decent sized Romano-British army when these are completed. We also did a bit of surfing to look for some enemies for them and came across some Pict minis that would go down well. I can't remember the manufacturer, but I am sure we will be able to find them again easily enough.

I was also able to put a bit more paint on the remaining Broo minis, as well as three adventurers, some Dragonewts and my first ever shop-bought figure - a 1976 Ral Partha centaur. He was my first ever Runequest character a few years later.

Broo

Well, here they are at long last, my first set of Runequest minis. They are a warband of Broo for use with HotT. I was also able to base up and put more paint onto some more Runequest stuff ready for skirmish gaming. Anyway, these chaps (billies?) were from a boxed set of 9 Runequest Broo I bought way back in the eighties out of my Saturday morning job money. I used to get £5 per morning and I usually popped straight over the road after work to the hobby shop and bought either the latest vinyl LP of whoever was my fave band at the time or a bunch of gaming minis. These cost me a week's wages back then!

They will be used as a mercenary warband for one of my armies I am building; most likely the orcs/goblins army or the barbarians.

Runequest

I got my order through for the dip the other day and got to work on my Runequest miniatures. Here's a picture of what I buy to do the job. It is quite expensive at £16 a tin, but it saves me a lot of time considering I paint quite slowly and need full daylight to allow me to focus properly on what I am doing.

I had a good sort through my Runequest miniatures yesterday. I don't have as many as I used to as I sold off a massive bunch of them several years ago, which I am now regretting, but that's life.

At a quick count up I have 3 human adventurers, 12 Broo, 8 Dragnonewts and a Centaur. These will all be making an appearance on the blog over the next couple of weeks. I have put 5 of the Broo onto a HotT base to use as a Warband of mercenaries for either my barbarian or orc/goblin armies. The rest I have mounted on 2p coins to set them apart from my other RPG minis which are on 1p coins. I used to have a big stack of ducks and baboons, but these were amongst the minis I sold off - shame really as they would have worked well as more HotT units and some Runequest RPG characters/monsters. I may see if they are still available on the net somewhere and pick up a few.

I also dug out my Avalon Hill Runequest rules box set - we have just rearranged all of our books on the new shelves bought a few weeks back and all the rule books were separated out. I may see about knocking up a couple of characters just for fun.