Bank Holiday wash out

The Bank Holiday we just had in the UK was a bit of a wash out in more ways than one. It rained for a fair bit of it (not that that bothers me, but it does limit what we can do with the kids) and family commitments meant I didn't get to the paint station as much as I wanted to.

That said, I managed to matt varnish Alex's Bretonnian archer unit but he put them away before I got a chance to photograph them. I will see if I can get him to dig them out ready for the blog sooner rather than later. I also managed to paint all the flesh tones on those Romans, but time constraints meant I couldn't achieve my goal of getting the weapons and armour sorted too. Alex started on his three Pegasus Knights for his Bretonnian force.

I'm a little disappointed with my painting output recently, but real life has taken over the leading role. Hopefully things will calm down a bit at work after this week and I can settle down to a little more hobby time, and get at least a few small units completed. My painting tally has been dropping since the first year's massive output, but I think as I near the bottom of my Old School lead pile it becomes more difficult to choose and get the motivation for what to do next as many are already painted and based up and need some industrial strength clean-up before I can get round to them; especially my old Ctiadel Hobgoblins that I really want to get sorted.

During the evenings, when the light had faded too much for me to paint, I was able to catch up on the blogs I normally read as these had been neglected too. I also took a look at the Splintered Light minis and Songs of Blades and Heroes websites to see what I may pick up in future. I am a little skint at the moment, so this will probably still have to wait a month or two.

Unlucky for some?

I have been really busy with work and everyday life recently, so have not been able to put brush to mini for the last couple of weeks. To keep the blog ticking over though, here is the map for Turn 13 of Doggerland.

There seems to be a couple of theatres of war at the moment, in an almost East v West confrontation. Elrich the Alwise of Bergen seems to be at loggerheads with Bjarni Glittertind of Borre in the north and Bran mak Morn of Cantwara and Anker Banksidhe of Thuringia are at each others' throats in the south. The fly in the ointment is the non-player Carloman of Dogger. We have had a couple of warlord deaths recently though: Ugh the Thug of Boinne and Strom Sealegs of Mitgard.

There is still a very long way to go in the game, as it plays one turn every week, but each full turn is made up of two sub-phases, and there are still a good 17 turns left. That said, the players have now conquered most of the non-player territories and are now vying for power against each other. Lots of shenanigans should start going on now.

Elsewhere, I sorted out those western Roman Empire auxiliary spearmen that I will be painting up to match in with the eastern archers I finished painting a couple of weeks ago. I also put by the dragonewts to be finished and I dug out a set of five fighter minis that are all based on the same dolly but with different heads and weapons. They fit in nicely as warriors to defend the five elemental schools (Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Void), so that is how I will paint them. I am hoping I won't be so busy this coming weekend, so will be able to get a few more minis painted and up on the blog. Alex was the only one who managed to do any painting; he finished, varnished and based a unit of Bretonnian archers. These should be up on the blog as soon as I can matt varnish and photograph them.

I have also been having a rather one-way (apologies Colin) e-mail conversation recently about Tavern Knights of Legend part deux. He has simplified the rules ready to begin play as soon as Doggerland comes to a close. This might seem like a long time off, but these things soon come round and we occasionally find ourselves having to put something together at short notice. Also, Colin is working on another pbm we used to play in our Sci-Fi universe. I personally cannot wait to get started on that again, but it means a lot of work for the referee to run as well as he does.

I like pbms as they mean I am still able to game even if it is not on the tabletop. As our gaming group live so far apart now, this is generally the only way we get to play any more. I personally would love to get involved in an old school (read AD&D) face-to-face campaign - I do miss the early days of dungeon delving.

Anyway, enough chat - until next time.

Eastern Roman Empire Auxiliary Archers

As well as the fantasy figures, I was also able to complete the next phase of my ever expanding Early Imperial Roman army. I already have a full century of legionaries plus command, Western Auxiliary spearmen plus command and Western Auxiliary archers completed. I have now a couple of contubernia of Eastern Auxiliary archers completed. Here are various shots of the archers - they are all from Warlord Games range of auxiliaries.

Still to be completed for my full Century plus support are:

Eastern Auxiliary Spearmen (well, they are WAS but painted in the same colour scheme as the archers)
Balearic slingers
Numidian cavalry support
Celtic cavalry support
War machines
Top brass (Legate, Primus Pilus, Aquilifer, metal legionary command and a few optios)

And I will also purchase some camel riders, elephants, some marines and some waggon train stuff to round out the collection.

Next up should be the Eastern Auxiliary spearmen in a few weeks' time.

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?

Stylish Blogger Award

A short while back I had the honour of being presented with a Stylish Blogger Award by mikemonaco. I was completely unaware of what this was all about, so I decided to do a little digging and Big Lee's blog helped me out no end (and thanks for the logo, which I stole - I hope you don't mind!).



Anyway, with great honour comes great responsibility, so here is my input to the blogosphere awards...

Seven things you never knew about Little Odo...

1. My online name is based (very loosely) on a translation of my original Anglo-Norman surname
2. I am married with 4 kids, a cat and an ever changing number of tropical fish
3. I represented my country at Judo at the European Budo Federation Games in 1983
4. I used to be a club DJ
5. I work in IT but try not to let it get me down
6. I am an amateur archaeologist
7. I dislike pineapple

Other blogs that deserve this award (some have already been nominated by others), in no particular order...

• Swords and Dorkery
• Big Lee's Miniature Adventures
• An Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields
• Phil's Wargaming Website
• Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog
• Men in Boxes
• movealongnownothingtoseehere
• Hesperiana
• Too Much Lead
• The Nothelm Chronicle
• Brytenwalda
• Mike's Wargaming and Modelling Blog
• Dunc's Persistent Tangent

The above blogs are those I read most frequently. They all offer me something different, and that is what drew me in and made me a frequent reader - thanks chaps.

Thanks again to mikemonaco for the honour and to all others who drop by and read my ramblings every now and again. 

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.