Lord of the Rings

A good Saturday morning spent bashing away at and trying to sort out the Lead Mountain, and temporarily lacking 100mm x 50mm bases to continue with the Warband armies, I've decided to dive into the Lord of the Rings 28mm figures I have.  

These have been knocking about for a good while, and aside from a few boxes, I've also acquired some "pre-owned" figures over the years.  I'm sure I have more buried up there some where but these'll do for a start.

Now I was planning to do these as 28mm Warband armies, using the Lord of the Rings army lists.  But I think instead I'll base and use them as they are intended, as individual figures.  I'll likely look to use Dan Mersey's excellent Dragon Rampant rules if they ever hit my table.

Edit: A little progress.

I started with some (38) of the Rohan figures in the pile, painting them close to the "on the box" colours.

There are about another 20 to go, and then I have a new box of 24 other infantry.

The rest of the box looks like a mix of elves, men of Minas Tirith, a few dwarves and a a small number of orcs and goblins.

Looking at these figures close up while painting them, they are surprisingly poor quality for Games Workshop.  they have very simple shapes and forms, with a lot of poor, flat features, bad mouldlines, flash and other issues.  They look like cheap platic miniatures, rather than the amazing quality I've come to expect Games Workshop's products.



More to follow...

Warband Dragon Men

As my quarantine clear-up continues I came across this army in a box on the south face of the Lead Mountain.

I'm not sure what I was doing at the time, but this is a 10mm scale generic Medieval army that I'd build and based for the DBx system.

I figured that I'm unlikely to use this for anything DBx in the near future and it accurred to me that I could rebase these figures as a Warband Dragon Men army.  So, the project for the next couple of evenings will be to hack these minis off their current bases and use them to create a new fantasy army to join my Warband collection.

These are Pendraken historical figures and generally they are smaller that their fantasy figures, but at this scale I really don't think it matters too much!

Anyway, the rebasing commences...

...and in short order, two bases of crossbowmen and two bases of men-at-arms (spearmen).
  

Obviously I still have the rest of the force to rebase, and i need to do the ground texture, etc.

Anyway, the mess that's left.

Update:  I've made as much progress so far as I can. I've now proper run out of bases, and there are definitely no more in the house, so I'm waiting on the delivery from Minibits.

I'll do a decent army shot when its done, but for now, this is the result of the rebasing. I'll have to sort out a magic user base, and the dragon of course...

More to follow...

Wild West project finished

As part of the Corona virus quarantine "sort out", I've corraled my Wild West figures together and found that I had a few that I'd still left to paint.

The Wild West gathering in its new home!

The five remaining offenders...

So, about an half an hour's work later, I have five more for the posse.  That's all my Wild West figures done, so a nice quick project close off!

A Native American "scalp hunter", three pistoliers, and a curious "mountain man" with eyeglass and flintlock pistol.

I'll be finishing off a lot of these little "just a few left" projects over the next few weeks I think as well as making progress with more substantial "half finished" ones, and probably diving in to the "not yet started" pile.

Death Guard on Parade

Since the publication of 8th Edition Warhammer 40,000, I've been falteringly building up a new army, the Chaos heretic worshippers of the Dark Plague God Nurgle, the Death Guard.

I created the force through an escalation campaign at our club, and obviously units were added for practical game reasons, to try to build a competative army in the campaign.

Narratively, I considered my force part of the 5th Plague Company, "The Poxmongers".

The 5th Plague Company makes great use of diseased Daemon Engines. Its forces carry the Sanguous Flux, which causes endless, half-clotted bleeding and leaves foul red-black trails behind them wherever they go.

My commander is usually a Daemon Prince, and I make a lot of use of the flying daemon engines, the Foetid Bloat Drones.  Here is my Vectorium Tallyband in full.

Daemon Prince

Lord of Contagion

Foul Blightspawn

Biologis Putrifier

Malignant Plaguecaster

Noxious Blightbringer

Lord Felthius (painted as Typhus)

Poxbringer

18 Blightlord Terminators

13 Possessed Plague Marines

6 Nurglings

16 Plague Bearers

20 Poxwalkers

17 Cultists

24 Plague Marines

1 Helbrute

3 Foetid Bloatdrones

2 Plagueburst Crawlers

1 Myphitic Blighthauler

I have a large group of Blightlord Terminators, including an appropriate cadre of blight launchers and plague flails.

A very recent addition to my Tallyband are a group of Possessed Plague Marines.  As yet, these have not seen action on the tabletop.

The daemonic elements of the force include a gaggle of chattering anf infectious Nurglings.

And as an allied force I also have a small unit of Plaguebearer daemons, led by a Poxbringer.  I've not used the Plaguebearers yet, but the Poxbringer is very useful in supporting the daemon engines.

Early on, I used a small horde of Poxwalkers which were very useful in protecting my characters, and also did a lot of work tying up enemy tanks.

The core of my army has for the most part been the redoubtable Plague Marines.  They are tough and surprisingly mobile, with blight launchers and have won me more than one game.

I used them only once, but I have a small unit of cultists, made from a bunch of old Necromunda figures.

The daemon engines are a strong part of my force, and I have two Plagueburst Mortars.  Three is good, but given the games I've played so far, I've never needed to field more than two.  I have another one to paint up which i will at some point soon.

The main strike force of the army, has always been the Foetid Bloatdrones, flying daemon engines that operate in support of my flying Daeon Prince.  They are fast, tough, mobile, and very hard hitting.

A few of my characters on show too.  Firstly my scratch-built flying Daemon Prince.

A Biologis Putrifier, which I've not used a great deal.

A Foul Blightspawn (a real star of a unit, which wile a little unpredictable, can be extremely powerful), a Noxious Blightbringer, and Felthius.

A  Lord of Contagion.

A Lord of Contagion in Terminator armour.

 Finally, I have a single Myphitic Blighthauler.  These daemon engines really need to be used in units of three, and are underwhelming as a lone model.  They are a useful addition if heavy weaponry to the Plague Marines though.

I've really enjoyed collecting, building, painting, and playing battles with these wonderful little models.  

With 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000 just around the corner, I'll have to decide if I'm going to create another army or develop the Death Guard or my venerable Crimson Fist loyalist marines.

EDIT: I'm steadily updating both!  Here's a recent addition to the Death Guard; a cohort of Myphitic Blighthaulers.

Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard Reinforcements

I have a Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard Army, which I built in an escalation tournament at our club recently.  

As with these things though there were a few bits and bobs left to be done (as I didn't use them in the tournament).  

I also occasionally acquire "reclaimed" figures from time to time and have a good few boxes of the stuff.  While a lot simply gets chucked out as too far gone to reclaim, I can usually get some use out of some of it.  

In this lot, I noticed some good old Nurgle figures that with mix in with my Death Guard.  I also noted a dash of Chaos Possessed figures, and as I understand the Chaos Possessed bomb is a current meta-thing, I figured I'd do something with them.

With a bit of effort and some replacement bits from my Bitz Box, I got all the Death Gruad looking stuff together, made up, based, and undercoated ready for painting.

A couple of hours painting and washing and the figures are done.  I still have to put the basing material on, but I like them to dry overnight before i do that.  Shouldn't take more than 15 mins.

I painted these old "vintage" Plaguebearers to match my modern figures.  They're lovely old sculpts and will match very well into my army.

These three Terminators are actually new figures that I had left over fromt he escalation tournament.  I still have 6 to build and paint. 

The Possessed were a lot of fun to paint.

And the marines are older models so smaller than the current Death Guard figures I have, but they'll fit in well ont he tabletop.  Reclaiming these was difficult as they were poorly put together, and had been done with plastic glue.  The thing with plastic glue is that it actually melts the plastic together, making it very difficult to break the bond without destroying the figure.  I managed to get things sorted though.

Its also worth noting that I simply painted over the existing paint rather than stripping the models.

Only a few figures left to go and all the Death Guard minis i have will be painted up and ready for action.

Edit: I finished up the remaining Terminators, so all I think i have left now are 5 more possessed and 3 Plague Drones.