Latest Daubings

Hi!

Well it's been a busy few weeks with work once again taking up nearly all my free time and the joys of Real Life using much of what I had left!

Still I have managed to paint a few bits and bobs!

First up, there's a test piece for my 2nd edition 40k warband that I've been swithering about:

 Snakebite Ork

He's had quite a bit of conversion work done to him but the addition of a top lip, hair squig and tongue gives him a decently 2nd edition vibe to him.

I'm still somewhat unsure about adding more to the mix but I am warming to the project somewhat!

Next up, here's a couple of Bloodbound thuggish types for Age of Sigmar:

Angry men with axes 

I've worked on them over the course of a couple of days and will be adding one or two more over the course of the week. I quite like them once painted and the 32mm bases are actually quite handy too. I've also been playing around with a darker basing technique with them and plan on adding some static grass tufts once I get the chance too.

Next up, there's a Grenadier Berzerker:

 Angry MacSmashface

I really like this guy as he's just so furious and has tons of character. I gave him quite a few scratches and cuts to represent him having actually been in a bit of a scrap.

I spent ages working on his skin tones to try out a more realistic style of painting and quite like how he's looking too. I may add a few chums to make a barbarian warband as I rather enjoyed painting him!

Next up, there's the Bat from Batman:

Attack VTOL

I really enjoyed painting a rather worn and battered vehicle and I will be adding it to my Lao force for Battletech and speaking of Battletech, I went back to the first of the Mechs I painted for said force and added a few more bits and bobs to give him more character:

Lao Raider

I seem to slowly be getting my painting mojo back again for the first time in absolutely ages and I hope to be able to add lots more gubbins in the coming month so watch this space!

In the meantime, Pirate Captain Easter Chick demands you have a fantastic Easter!

(thanks to my wife for painting chicks on me!)

Age of Sigmar - A Mini Review - Initial Thoughts

Hi!

Well I was out in sunny Dundee this morning and decided to head into my local GW (or Warhammer) store as I had been following some of the recent shenanigans with interest and picked up a copy of the intro set to Age of Sigmar on a bit of a whim and having perused it's contents, thought I'd post a bit of a review of my initial thoughts!

As I'm on a bit of a budget at the mo, I picked up the smaller intro set called Storm of Sigmar which retails at £20 and must say that I liked what I found!

The box itself reminds me of the classic GW plastic boxes of years gone by and it's a similar size to the old paint sets from the same period to give a bit of a scale reference. Included in the box are 13 miniatures plus bases, dice, transfers and a mini rulebook, not to mention some rather snazzy warscrolls for the miniatures contained in the set.

As with all GW products, the production quality is top notch with well printed and laid out rules and some rather nice miniatures too.

The mini rulebook runs to a grand total of 20 pages which includes scenarios and an introduction to the world of Age of Sigmar so the rulebook also covers a smattering of background and a bit of info on the forces that are included in the game.

While a lot of folks have poured scorn on the blowing up of the Warhammer world and simplification of the rules, I must admit it's quite refreshing just having a tiny amount of rules to look up and all the special rules a unit has included on its own warscroll (extra kudos to GW for having some nice illustrations on the back of them too!)

What I've found rather fascinating is the difference in tone between Age of Sigmar and 40k/Warhammer. Yes things are a bit grimdark in places but the narrative abounds with hope for good to beat the tar out of evil for a change and the full colour artwork that AOS seems to abound with really lightens things up a bit from the classic black and white of days gone by.

It really looks like GW are trying to do something to attract the computer game generations as well as breathing some life into the franchise which is rather good too!

The miniatures themselves are big and chunky but amazingly detailed for a plastic release too and I will be posting another review in the coming week to take a closer look at them but in the meantime, I'd recommend taking a peek at Storm of Sigmar, if for no other reason than to get a decent amount of figures and a small skirmish game that looks quite good fun!

All the best!

40k Musings

Hi!

Well I'm busily working away at sculpting a host of bits and bobs but I've been keeping a weather eye on some of the stuff that GW has been doing over the last couple of months as well as reading some Horus Heresy goodies too.

I must admit that GW's GrimDark approach of the last decade or so has left me utterly indifferent to all things 40k, especially as the required number of figures seems to almost double with each edition but almost in spite of myself, I am finding the goings on in the Imperium interesting.

Dakka Dakka et Blastem!

Better yet, they are kind of inspiring me to re-explore my reimagined Imperium and flesh out the setting a bit and possibly even paint some plastic tat!

Shocking I know but I'm finding the siren call of Space Marines rather tempting. Now I doubt that I am going to invest in anything resembling a massive army but I am pondering persevering with the new style Orks I have kicking around as well as keeping an eye out for some Marines to mix it up with!

I think I will use a small scale 500 point warband as a target and see how things go as that's not too big a challenge to aim for and will try to continue posting articles about how my version of the Imperium develops!

In the meantime apologies for the rambling and all the best!

A Slight Spanner in the Works

Hi!

Well I'm back from my holiday and have been trying to start up my Orky project but have hit a slight snag. I've rummaged out some of the new style GW plastic Orks to try out some painting tests but am not loving the miniatures at all.

Maybe I'm being ridiculous but I just can't warm to the style that GW have developed.

Blood Axe Kommando

A couple of years ago I painted up this Kommando which was great fun but the over muscled and mindlessly angry greenskin apes that are currently available just don't have that slightly comedic whimsy that the first and second edition sculpts had. 

Initially this seemed to be a major problem that would stump my hopes of an Orky force but I went back to the drawing board. Literally.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and sculpt my own gubbins! I've sculpted Orks in 15mm and SD scale before but wanted to go for something in between with a rather cartoony style but a bit chunkier than my previous efforts.

I'm quite pleased with the results and have just about finished my test sculpt which I am going to have a bash at casting in resin so I can actually put a decent sized force together.

 Goff Nobz, Painboy and Mekaniak 

I must admit that it's been really great fun to get back into drawing and sculpting and not to stress about work or indeed disliking someone else's sculpting style when it comes to painting the final figure and it's proving to be a very successful way of dealing with the stresses of the dreaded Real Life too!

 Ork Nobz and Mega Armour 

I'm hoping to have some progress to show on the sculpting front in the coming week but the temptation to start playing around with concepts has been rather strong so I suspect I may get slightly distracted by developing concepts for my own take on some of the other forces...

Marine Captain and Dreadnaught

With a bit of work, the Ork concept piece will be finished by the weekend and I'll try and get some pics taken then but in the meantime, All the best!

WAARGH! The Orks!

Hi!

Well I've settled on the Orks as my target for a bit of classic 2nd edition 40k goodness.

I'm planning on going for the classic 2nd edition Ork look, all bright colours and back banners and will by taking my inspiration from some of the images I've culled from various White Dwarf and Codexes:

 The Mighty Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka and Makari, his faithful grot banner bearer

Sadly getting the bits and bobs for the classic range is getting a bit pricy so I will be using plastic proxies in the form of the newer GW plastic range. Yes it lacks some of the goofy charm of the older stuff but I plan on giving it a bash anyway!

I figure with a suitably bright paint job and little bit of conversion, not to mention the ubiquitous back banners, I should be onto a winner!

Sadly Ebay is proving to be pretty useless for getting hold of bargain basement priced plastic gubbins at the moment so I will be keeping my eye out and building a force a little at a time. The plan is to start with 100-150 points of Orks to form the core of my force and slowly build it up.

I plan on spending as little as possible to collect my force and if I can introduce one or two older sculpts, all the better but it will have to fit in with my meagre funds so we shall see what we can find!

I've settled on the Orks as they are one of the iconic forces from 40k and I have always liked their rather anarchic style and Ghazghkull is one of the most memorable characters from the game so I do want to represent a small warband and slowly build it up to a somewhat mighty WAARGH! 

It's been interesting to peruse some of these old pictures as the Grim Dark future of the 40th millennium looks surprisingly green and rather rich in vegetation so I figure I should probably go the whole hog and see if I can't replicate it somewhat in my own small way.

But where to start? I've already mentioned that I will try and build up the force 100-150 points at a time and I think I'll be starting with one of Ghazghull's underlings so I will be aiming to get a nob and a mob of Goff boyz to pillage, loot and generally shoot stuff up!

I'm actually away on my hols next week but whilst I'm out and about, I'll be heading into any gaming shops I can find to see if I can find some bargains to get my project up and running!

I must admit that I am quite excited to get a start on the project and hope to get some bits and bobs sorted out over the coming week or two and we shall see what I can put together...

In the meantime, All the best!

Oh The Perils of Real Life!

Hi!

Well just when things seemed to be going so well, the intrusion of Real Life has reared its dreaded and most unwelcome head.

I've had some stuff going on over the last month that has really blown my hobby mojo and soured all attempts at doing anything hobby related which has been a real downer, not to mention kick in the teeth.

Instead of wailing, gnashing my teeth and beating my chest in dismay, I have decided to go a bit old school and go back to something that will remind me of everything that I used to love in wargaming in the first place. With that in mind, I've decided to shelf my mythological project and gun for something a bit more fun.

Warhammer 40,000 2nd Edition

Yes! 2nd edition 40k was my first real entry into the wonderful world of wargaming and I want to relive some of that fun.

I could be all traditional and just limit myself to 2nd edition figures but I will be working to a budget for the foreseeable future so am going to set myself the challenge of collecting a 500 point force using whatever figures I can get hold of super cheap. I am yet to decide on what force I want to go for but I find myself rather excited by the prospect of just collecting and painting some miniatures.

With that in mind, I'm off to peruse my old codexes and loose myself in some classic 90s goodies!

Hopefully I'll have some sort of update in the next week or so!

Hello 2017!

Hi!

Well 2017 has arrived and I've set myself a bit of a challenge to get the year going.

I've always been fascinated by British mythology and as mentioned in my last post, I've been hankering after some 28mm gubbins for a while so figured I'd set the challenge around that, hence the change of blog title to Tales From Lost Albion!

Magic has returned to the British Isles with a vengeance. The Fae have reclaimed their ancestral lands and the once civilised country has reverted to a mysterious land of forests, mist and magic.

Humanity, once the undisputed rulers of the world have been thrust back into the dark ages, their great cities reduced to rubble and their population decimated. But all is not lost, as magic returned to the land, humans have adapted and now small communities thrive amongst the brooding wilderness.

So I've settled on another post apocalyptic setting. Yes, I know I tend to get a bit obsessed but I like the idea!

Next I need to settle on the rules I am giving myself for the project.

First I have allowed myself £15 a month budget for the project which should keep my painting queue manageable. I've also settled on using 28mm scale figures and a somewhat bodged version of Song of Blades for rules which is going to keep things relatively simple.

The plan is to build a warband in January and another in February as well as create some scenic terrain for them to fight over and spend March playing a campaign and possibly adding another warband or random characters.

I also plan on posting up some assorted background articles to give the project flavour as well as some ideas for later on in the year but don't want to get ahead of myself and get bored of the project before I get chance to finish it.

In other news, I have also managed to finish another model for my Aeroth project in the form of a Dwarven Boar Company Outrider:

 Outrider

Further info can be found HERE on my Aeroth project (which seems to be slowly coming together in my head and on paper but still needs lots more work before it's ready!)

In the meantime, I hope you all have a lovely start to 2017 and All the Best!