No Cows Here!

Hi everyone,

I am quite sure I will not get everything done by the time the campaign starts, but I will certainly have more than enough to play.  This gives me about a week to try to finish 3 bases of cavalry, 3 bases of artillery, 3 bases of Eagles, 6 more bases of spear infantry, 2 bases of White Lions and 2 bases of dragon rider cavalry.

I can tell you with the utmost confidence that I will not manage it! This reminds me of a quote by Homer Simpson to his son Bart: “You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

That is all.  Next week when the club opens officially, I will be spending most of my free time over the weekend playing Fantastic Battles and Zona Alfa, so the hobby side of things will slow down a bit.

So until the next post, don’t let the monkey pox get you!

Regards,

NR

Double Post

Hi everyone,

I back to painting 10mm elves again.  This time I went straight for the jugular of what I hate painting the most – cavalry – and drove into the Silver Helms.

I had six bases to paint up, but I gave up – temporarily – after three.  So I started to paint up the first three of six Elven Bolt throwers that I have.

This mix up help me immensely get through the drudgery of painting cavalry.

Next week it will be more of the same or some great eagles.  Time is getting short before the gaming begins. I have about 3 weeks left to get everything finished.  I’ll see how it goes.

Till next week,

NR

Hi everyone,

During the previous week I worked my ass off on painting up the eight chariot bases within the time restrictions I contend with.  The first four are how the chariots come out of the box. These will be my light chariots.

The second four are my heavy chariots. For these I just added an extra rider in the carriage and two extra horses.  The horses come from the spare horses from my Lion Chariots I built up several weeks ago.  There are no alterations or modifications involved.  Just place the horses next to each other and …. voila – you get heavy chariotry!

A ONE WEEK HIATUS!

This week I will be taking a small break from the High Elves.  Yes, one reason is to retain my sanity – but the true reason is that I have taken 5 days off work to help a friend with his private business.  This will include 2 to 3 hours a day in the morning sorting out his paper work.

Then in the afternoons and evenings, I will be focusing my energies on a mini-project for Zona Alpha!  My gaming club has finally opened up again without any restrictions, and to celebrate, I will be donating and speed-painting up a bunch of hostiles for Zona Alfa from my collection.

I will be using Speed Paints and Contrast paints for the first time in my life! So I am eager to see how that goes.

So you should see a new project go up shortly sometime Monday evening.

Until then stay safe and have fun (this is he last time I write this – I need to find a new closing slogan!).

NR

Hi everyone,

After painting those light cavalry, it was a pleasure to paint these swordmasters up – relatively speaking!

I went with silver armour with a bluish tint.  it seemed very elvish to me.  It is also very easy to paint.  A base of silver and three diluted washes of blue…and viola.

Next week I hope to finish the chariots, if time allows me enough leeway.  I have build them to represent heavy and light chariots, but that is for next week.

Until then, stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

If there is one thing I hate about painting armies, besides the quantities to paint, is painting cavalry.  I find painting cavalry tedious, nerve-racking and stressful.

Nonetheless, you cannot field a proper elven army without cavalry.  So I have to soldier on and get the cavalry troops I have planned painted up.

This brings me to the topic of this post – my light cavalry for the elves. I have painted up six companies of these awesome little miniatures, and I have four more planned with 3 models per base to use as skirmishers.

Next week I should have another elite unit painted up.  These will be the Blademasters of Hoeth.  I need a break before painting up the Silver Helms!

Until then stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

I have painted my last three characters.  These are two ‘character passengers’ and a ‘character company’.

In Fantastic Battles, besides normal characters like generals, heroes and magic users, you can also have ‘character passengers’ and a ‘character companies’. This is a testament to the flexibility of these rules.

Character Passengers are basically generals, heroes or magic users that ride monsters and dragons.  The monster or dragon are not characters themselves but the character riding still retains his command abilities.

Character Companies are companies that are themselves characters and companies at the same time.  So you can have a dragon as a general of your army (without a rider) or an elite company – like the Fellowship of the Ring – act like a hero character.

Just another reason to play Fantastic Battles.  Next week I will be posting some cavalry.  I have already started painting them up…and I don’t like painting cavalry at all, but that is the cross a gamer must bear if he wants his army painted up.  That or build dwarves instead!

Until next week, stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

I spent the whole week basing and painting up these dragons.  They are D&D plastic models, and if memory serves they are Purple dragons.  Two are the same, but the middle one is from an earlier or later production wave. I bought them off Ebay at least 8 years ago for sure.

The scale is spot on for mighty elven dragons and the middle dragon could easily be made into a ‘character company‘ leader.  This is the flexibility of Fantastic Battles.

For next week I hope to finish up some more characters – the last three in fact.

Until then, stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

During the week I was working on the archers and another unit type for the army, so I bit off a bit more  than I could chew, but I managed nonetheless to finish these archer companies.

These elves come in sprues of two – usually attached – but I found that two on a 40mm x 40mm base seemed a bit empty (even though they are representational).

Therefore, like the Shadow Warriors in the previous post, I cut up some more, patched them up and added another rank.  I later found out that you can buy 3d print elven archer in singles off Ebay!  Just my luck!

That is all for today, next week there be dragons a flight!

Until then stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

Two weeks ago I started on a mini-quest to convert 30 10mm elf archers into Shadow Warriors. I nearly went mad, but by pure grace, I managed to finish them with my sanity intact.  The results are below.

Several years ago, before GW’s Specialist Game section closed down, I had bought several lots of Warmaster Elves, Orcs and Dwarves from Ebay.  They were cheap back then. Among them there were a lot of archers.

So I took thirty of them and separated them, then added ropes, cloaks and blankets to them.  The ropes were made from thin wire turned around a small rod.  The cloaks and blankets were all sculpted from green stuff.

I also took the time to angle some of the bows and add some small walls to represent defensible positions as well.

Next week I will try and finish up my archers.  I have six companies on the table to paint up.

Until then, stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

I managed to finish six more companies of elven spears to form the core of my army.  This brings it up to 12 companies of spears. The sad thing is I have six more to do in order to paint everything up – but I will leave the last six till last.

In order to break the mind boggling monotony of painting strips of Elven spears (ad nauseam), I painted up some more characters.  Specifically Elven Mages.

Altogether I had three.

The elemental I sculpted out of MagicSculp, over a period of three days.

While I was painting the spear companies, I also started to work on some conversions on the 10mm scale (what a nightmare) in order to create some Shadow Warrrior skirmishers! The problem is I have to replicate the the conversions for 30 little minis!, but I think and hope it will be worth it.

Until then stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

This week was murder at work, but I made good time with my hobby.  I managed to finish 3 companies of elite Phoenix Guard and two rogue characters.  I also started several more companies of spear elves, but I will post those next week.

The great thing about Fantastic Battles is that you can tinker with units and make them elites or militia.  When I played Warmaster, back in the day, there was no possibility to upgrade to elite unites.  These models would just be considered alternate spear units.

The next miniatures I bought last month off Ebay.  I needed some characters to use as rogues and I thought these would be perfect.  A lone swordsman and archer striding through the battlefield searching for enemy characters to duel to the death. Perfect!

Next week I will post up more spears as I said above.  I might have one or two magic user characters as well if everything goes as planned.

Until then stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

It took a week but my lion chariots are ready.  I will probably be using them as chariots with the ‘heavy weapon’ rule to reflect their feline impact, but there are other options within the rules.  I will have to think about it.

The lions are HO scale figures from Preiser’s circus range.  I added some armour and manes to them since they are actually lionesses. I also added lion cloaks to the riders with putty.  The lion heads on the cloaks were cut off Preiser lions in N scale.

I also found the time to paint up two more leaders.  The original plan was to make four chariots but I only had seven lions.  Therefore I opted to use one on a character base.

Next week I should finish up some elite Phoenix Warriors and maybe a couple more characters. At the same time I will start work on more spear elves.

Until then stay safe and have fun.

NR

Hi everyone,

Today I am posting the first units I have painted up for my High Elf army at 10mm for Fantastic Battles (FB from now on).

I am basing everything on the recommended base size of 40mm x 40mm for 10mm scaled figures. Also I am using 3 strips per base.  So one blister pack of Warmaster minis will make two companies in FB.

I find this basing option optimal, because I can use it for other gaming systems like Sword & Spear Fantasy, Impetvs Fantasy and Warbands too name a few.

First up are the Elven spears.  I have painted up 3 blister packs – 6 companies – and I can tell you that the spears are a nightmare – they snap very, very easily.

Next up are my Commander-in-Chief and two other generals.  I decided to put my leaders on round bases to distinguish them from characters that are acting as ‘passengers’ or ‘company character’.

Next week I will post up some chariots and one or two more characters.

Until then, stay safe and have fun.

NR