Evilstu’s Fantasy Progress 2020

So was doing pretty well at grinding down my inventory of unpainted minis. And then the gorgeous resin dwarves I had ordered from MOM miniatures arrived. Great, looking forward to doing Dwarves. Everybody likes Dwarves.

This was followed by Raging Heroes running some Black Friday deals which meant I picked up a couple of dark/lust elves to bulk out the GW Dark Elves I had on hand, plus what I had from the Raging Heroes kickstarter, to a point where I could filed a small Cult of Slaanesh army from the Storm of Chaos book. Ok no problems.

And then Wargames Atlantic released plastic Halflings at a rate of 40 short guys to a box…

And then I scored a second-hand Dark Elves army on ebay really cheap, hopefully with enough spare bits to have a go at restoring some of the older second hand models I had accumulated over the years…

And then I went to Cancon and found people selling bags of classic metal minis for $20-$30 a bag. Or current era plastics for half retail price or less in the auction area…

Plus the very reasonably priced Kings of War 3rd ed starter box came bundled with two nicely sized starter forces, and the Nightstalkers look to be crying out for some washes or mixed contrast paints over a zenithal preshade…

As you can see, none of this is my fault, I’m just a victim of circumstance ;-P Also, I’m choosing to ignore the inbound Kickstarter stuff that I may have backed way back in time before I knew about any of the above stuff, and am similarly choosing to ignore how good the impending Mantic Naughty Dwarves look…

So have spent the last couple of days soaking and stripping back metal minis, washing resin and wondering what happened to my workbench and well organised storage space. Broadly speaking, these are the projects I have going on at the moment:

Halflings: Have a box assembled and primed (which gave me 3 whole units 🙂 ) plus a couple of characters. Have more infantry on hand and will look at sourcing some cavalry later on to round out the force (most likely TT Combat’s recent offerings).

Naughty Elves/Dark Elves: Stripped where relevant and awaiting restoration work and re-priming.

The Other Kind of Naughty Elves/Cult of Slaanesh: Not really organised here – the stuff I have procured specifically for this project is still on the sprue. The rest will be pulled in from my Chaos or Dark Elves armies so as long as I am reasonably consistent with the bases should all be good.

Dwarves: Resin has been washed down, no assembly to date. I will need to sort what other dwarves I have on hand. Want to go with a stone textured base effect so plan will be to GSW roller all the bases I need at once prior to assembling the minis.

Beastmen: Have a bunch of really old metals I scored years ago, plus what I consider to be new metals but which are actually now older than the old metals were when I got them… I have some plastic Beasts stuff painted up (to what we will politely call ‘speed tabletop’ by my younger self many years ago) so will play with some lists and see if I can conjure some smaller forces for the investment of adding a few units here and there. Still have more plastic on hand form back in 2003 or so. I’m presently mostly playing small games of WHFB so will just need some solid core options without all the whistles and bells. This one should be my top priority but I’m not particularly energised about this one currently. Will see how we go…

Northern Alliance/Norse: Have a bunch of Norse assembled and primed form a variety of ranges (Fireforge, Reaper, Shieldwolf plus possibly some others?…) so will need to see how the Mantic go scale-wise. The rest aren’t really remotely to scale so if it land’s anywhere reasonably within the 28-32mm range I’ll call it good enough 🙂 KOW stuff is all still in the box on sprues. Not sure about the snow trolls in the starter box, posing seems a little static and homothetic so I may need to look at some conversion options.

Nightstalkers: See above, still in the box. they do look fun though 🙂

And left over from 2019:

• Kings of War Undead: Partly assembled and partly painted. In blacks, whites and NMM. Yep, it was a great idea to learn all three challenging colours/techniques simultaneously on a horde army. Would definitely recommend this approach, no drawbacks whatsoever. Pure coincidence that this project has been ‘parked’ for going on 3 years…
• Albion. May run the core units of these guys out as Britons/Gauls in SPQR (although I’m hoping that Wargames Atlantic’s Persians are released in time for me to smash out a box and run with them instead…). presently assembled, primed and zenithal skin tones done. I have some Confrontation Kelts stashed for the sexier Special/Rare options but this approach would involve taking them out of their packaging…
• Skaven. Mostly 2nd hand 8th ed starter box stuff so not much by way of support options, just a lot of fur to drybrush. Will see if I can get a combination of zenithal pre shading and dip or contrast going to get this one kicking along.
• Chaos: need to touch up the paint jobs on my old Slaanesh force, restore many broken minis and round out the beasts and daemons options.
• Kings of war Abyssals: Nabbed a small starter army box cheap a while back with the intention of using the cavalry in mortal chaos armies and the daemons as WHFB Khorne daemons but I am thinking it might do better as it’s own force. Still need to get to grips with 3rd ed…

In positive news though, I did get through nearly all of my orcs and goblins 🙂

Things I know will be getting released soon which might call me in:

• Oathmark generally…
• Frostgrave 2.0
• North Star Wargames Atlantic Wood Elves
• North Star Goblin Wolf Riders
• Mantic Naughty Dwarves
• Wargames Atlantic, I don’t know what you are presently up to once you have rolled out the Dark Age Irish but I’m suspecting it will probably end up belonging on this list too… (Edit: Never mind, have just worked out the wood elves were from Wargames Atlantic – WA, maybe we could just come to some form of retainer arrangement?…)

And ‘stuff i’d like to get done one day just for fun to get old minis on to the tabletop’:

• A Talabheim or Marienberg Empire army. By using one of the ‘rich’ provinces I can add in all the expensive units that don’t fit the fluff of my current (poorer province) Empire armies.
• Mordheim generally. Because Mordheim. You know that I’m right…
• Getting enough minis together to be able to run most low and some mid-CR level encounters in D&D. Sure, I can filed goblins, orcs and skeletons but I don’t have your standard-issue spiders, rats, oozes etc. And yes, even I should be able to sculpt an ooze from greenstuff 😉 And no, the real-life spiders in my man-cave are generally too big to work at 28mm scale, plus they never wait for their initiative to come up before making a move action…
• Alternate elf factions (Averlorn, Saphery etc). I have a couple of units that fit the fluff – not enough for a full army but would be nice to paint them up and roll them out as a themed add-on to my main pointy elf force.

And the punchline here is I’m supposed to be focusing on Historicals this year 🙂

Spent Thursday pulling out any boxes marked ‘Dwarf’ and totalling up the contents. Turns out I have in my travels collected three of the Dwarf half of the 7th ed starter set. While I’ll get around to painting it all up, a lot of the stuff is not going to be ‘optimal’ from a points perspective. ie, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to need three small groups of miners in a points match. Having said that, I am looking at reworking the siege rules from 6th edition and the miner units would obviously be a nice narrative touch to any sort of siege game.

The handgunners should work nicely and the warriors will probably get rolled up in to a large unit or 2, with any spares acting as ‘rank fillers’ for other units. The little ‘stumpy cannon’ is quite cute, but I might have a go at scratch building or printing something a little more imposing and swapping the crew over. Similarly I might also attempt scratch building/kit bashing an organ gun too. Failing that, there’s always Mantic…

On the GW front I also turned up 5 longbeards and an unopened flame cannon, so some stuff of a bit more interest. Numerous character models from an array of manufacturers too.

So the total count was 228 minis, at which point I lost motivation to do the bases with a textured rolling pin. having had a day to think about it though I am leaning back towards that approach, I’ll just have a look at doing a small list then adding a unit or 2 at a time so that it all stays manageable.

Spent today looking at Beastmen. My original plan had been to do a small force of beastmen for each chaos god and run mixed forces, but that plan stalled after 7th edition when combining mortal daemon and beasts in the one army wasn’t a rulebook/tourney friendly option from memory. I only ever got as far as one unit of Slaanesh beastmen. Additionally, from 7th edition gors and ungors ran in individual herds, rather than mixed ones, so the minis I had weren’t going to be enough to field separate units. The plan I came up with today was to pull everything back into one Beastmen army, paint in a homogenous/neutral colour scheme (except for the Khornegor unit who can keep their red…) and just swap magnetised unit banners if I needed to change the flavour of chaos from vanilla to something else. So that’s where I’m headed. Also means I can do more of a deep wood/forest path base style instead of more snow…

So had stripped the metal bestigors and khornegors I picked up 2nd hand at Cancon, and spent today repairing, re-priming and trying to scrounge together enough older minis to form up complete units. I ended up pulling some old 5th ed Gor blisters and promoting them to Bestigor status. Also opened one of the old beast herd boxes I had and put them together, with the extra sprue contents getting used to convert weapons for the bestigors, of which about 15 appeared to be standard bearers for some reason…. So trimmed down the standard and glued weapons on to make them look more like bills or polearms. The unit looks very ‘rough and ready’ but I guess that’s Ok for a beastmen army. After a few hours of messing about I had 2 blocks of 20 Bestigors with command, a block of 20 Khornegors with command, 2 beast herds both with 12 gors, 8 ungors and command and 5 Centigors.

I got the above primed with the airbrush for the underside (nadir?… Is that a painting thingy yet?…) black coat. Was aiming to get a grey and zenithal white done but it was well over 40 degrees outside and no idea how hot it was in my garage. My airbrush didn’t overheat, but I certainly did, so decided to wait until tomorrow maybe before pushing on.

A couple of hours this morning with the spray gun. Have just started using the Stynylrez brand airbrush primes and they are absolutely great.  Worked fine pumped through a cheap airbrush for an extended session on a low humidity 40 degree day, so should handle ‘regular’ use no worries I’d suggest 🙂

I retouched the black from yesterday as I had missed a couple of spots here and there. Then switched to grey for a zenithal highlight and then finally white for the final zenith hit.

Did some quick mental arithmetic and the 100 infantry and 5 cavalry models I have for the army in total cost less than the local retail price of a ‘start collecting’ box set. Admittedly I did need to invest a few days in stripping, repairing and converting. But if you don’t mind those elements of the hobby and are happy playing with older minis then restoring second hand minis may be an economical way to approach things.

Used GW’s contrasts to get base colours on to the minis quickly while watching TV. Gulliman Flesh on the flesh areas, Gore Grunta Fur on the fur areas (this pain allocation is sort of writing itself really…) and Nazdreg Yellow on all the wood areas. then AP Gun Metal on all steel areas, AP Skeleton Bone on horns and hoofs, VMC 70.801 Brass on all the Khorne iconography on the Khornegor unit, and VMC 70.982 Cavalry brown used as the red colour on the Khornegors.

From here a black wash on the areas covered with regular paint, then hitting the remaining cloth using the white half of the Vallejo ‘Black and White’ paint set as it should provide a good contrast with the fur and base colours (going for dark brown and dark green on the bases for a shadowy ‘forest path’ look, maybe with a few fallen leaves for a hint of colour. A mushroom if I’m feeling fancy…).

So once these are finished just need a Khorne beastman hero with a great weapon (can proxy a Slaanesh one in a pinch) and a chariot and I’ll have a 500 point list tabletop ready.

Not much experience with resin minis, but had picked up a bit here and there of late, including some dwarves from MOM Miniatures. I’d been keen to use the Green Stuff World rollers on bases for an army sized project for a while and this seemed appropriate. So I mixed together a bunch of Milliput and ended up having enough to cover 45 of the 48 bases I had on hand (3 more were added later…). Using the GSW ‘pavement’ rolling pin, pushed texture in and then gave them a day to set and trimmed the excess off the base edges with a hobby knife.

I’d previously soaked and washed all the resin that had arrived, so ended up pulling a block of 20 warriors out of the pile, along with a command frame of 3. Adding a character would make use of 24 bases, and would leave 24 so I could do this a second time once the mood takes me (I have to be in the right frame of mind for prep work as I tend to drop/lose small fiddly parts reasonably often…). I think I got them to mostly rank up even on 20mm bases? Minis went together really well and I think has gotten me over my fear of working on resin.

Also picked up a resin steam tank, this time from Norba. I think they have now discontinued resin in favour of plastic, so not sure if they will be revisiting this particular kit in the future. Regardless, have gotten it mostly assembled, but still a few gaps to address. I’ll paint the tank commander separately and attach him later.

I’ve had some Mage Knight chariots kicking about for close to 20 years from when the game died out locally. Think I ended up picking them up for about $7 knowing they’d be useful later on. I had started converting them slightly to work with a beastman army years ago, so fished one out and decided to progress it to tabletop.

First thing I noted was that it was slightly too long to fit on to a 100mm base. So given it was a cheap plastic kit, I just heated the beasties front leg at the knee with a cigarette lighter and bent it back. Problem solved.

For the base I started off adding some texture with some old premixed Polyfilla which has seen better days (might be about 6 or 7 years old at the time of posting…). Couldn’t get it to stick down to the MDF base so ended up laying it there and coating from the top with PVA. then sprinkled on some reptile sand I’d picked up from a local pet store. This stuff is super-fine as far as granule size is concerned and would probably be ideal for basing at smaller scales, perhaps even down to 2mm.

I then gave a day to dry and then painted over with an umbral brown poster paint. Once that dries I’ll start with painting on a top coat and add static grass  and tufts etc.

Also did a bit of work last night to upgrade the paintjob a little. Still needs more work, including the driver obviously, plus I’ll need to add a warrior to the back.

Have additionally given up looking for a suitable beastmen leader model with a great weapon and instead press-ganged an old Reaper mini in to service as a warleader in the short term. Will probably demote him later on once I find some more suitable character mins…

So with the addition of the chariot and character, I’ll have the core of a 500 point beastmen army ready to go once they are painted to tabletop.

Having knocked out the bases form a sheet of MDF I noticed the remaining frame could be easily chopped up and made into movement trays (or left as is for a 50 strong horde of course…). the slight couple of mm offset between minis does help them rank up better, and every gamer I’ve ever played against has worked out combat on the base size the minis should be rather than how big the movement tray is so that shouldn’t be an issue. Anyhow, I split one down the middle, will just need to glue a backer on to the second half and then affix both to some cardboard, spraypaint and flock and all sorted.

Also got some of the MOM Miniatures Dwarf Warriors assembled, another 18 to go. Plus an engineer character to accompany.

Was looking at my ‘placeholder’ beastman hero (I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the need to do an order to Avatars of War for some of their character models in the coming months so will get a beastmen leader then…) and lamenting his lack of a great weapon. The ‘sword and board’ armaments made him look more sylvan than bestial. So I got the idea of getting a great weapon and slinging it along his shoulder to make him look a little more primal. Couldn’t find anything appropriate in the bits box (this mini is probably 40mm tall…) so thought of using a barbecue skewer chopped down to size and gluing some axe blades on either side of one end to make a double handed axe. naturally I was struggling to find axe blades big enough until I remembered what was always a reliable source of oversized blade weapons and clipped some form some space orks sprues. Trimmed the back of one of the axe heads down so it was flat and then glued the second blade along the flat edge with plastic glue. Then went to glue on a handle. Sized the weapon along the characters back and realised it would just get caught in his antlers (curse my stupid lack of a suspension of disbelief in fantasy gaming…).

…And then I changed my mind.

Thought I would put the great weapon in his left hand instead and have his shield strapped over. Regrettably on investigation the shield was held in the hand and too far down the arm to look believable. Just wasn’t going to happen.

…And then I changed my mind.

If the mini couldn’t have a great weapon, then  ‘Maybe I could just glue skulls to the base to make it look grimdark…’ i smirked to myself. Am quite sure I have a bunch of sprue skulls scattered about the place but wasn’t going to go rummaging (am going to start setting them aside in a jar or ziplock bag from now on though…) so had a look on  my workbench at the big pile of ‘parts that fell on the floor under my workbench when I was assembling a miniature and couldn’t find and then found three weeks later when I was looking for a part I dropped just now for an unrelated miniature’. Plenty of spare heads but no skulls. There were however three of the large monstrous skulls from the 6th ed beastmen kit to use as banner toppers, so I decided to get a couple of those, glue them on barbecue skewers and affix then to the back of the model crossed over one another, as though the character was standing in front of, or defending, some sacred ritual grove. Sorted.

…And then I changed my mind.

Saw I also had a metal Khorne Bestigor banner which was likely not going to get used (at least for the foreseeable future) so determined to glue this one on to a cocktail stick as well and add between the other two markers, which were now no longer going to be crossed over. So mixed up a big block of brownstuff (the excess of which went on filling gaps in the resin steam tank), filled in the base and glued on the parts. The hero could now act as a warband leader until such time as I had obtained a more appropriate mini, at which time he would be moved sideways to become a battle standard bearer.

So a bit of an iterative process but reasonably happy with where I landed.

So I know I said that I wouldn’t be doing an army in a month again this year but here is the army I did this month. Turns out a zenithal preshade plus contrast paints, then a layer paint and black ink wash is just an insanely fast way to get stuff done. Also started using Vallejo textured mud on the bases so can maybe cut out a step or 2 and claw some more time back there.

Force just needs a bit of detail/interest on the bases (leaves and grass) and a matt varnish and should then be good to game with. Banners are all magnetised and I now have enough to be able to swap out for unit affiliations as needed.

Got some extra adds for the force assembled too – a unit of ungors (the old metals are really small compared to the 6th ed plastics but chaos is chaos…) some second hand minotaurs and gors, more centigors and a couple more converted chariots. Added some MDF sheeting to the back of the chariots over the axles as my suspension of disbelief will evidently only extend so far, and converted some chariot riders using banner arms for great weapon hafts. Had aimed to get these airbrush zenithal primed today but spent too long restoring some of the more beaten up Ebay procurements. Will maybe try to get to during the week but realistically it will probably be a next weekend task.

Finally, more dwarves based. Still a few units to prep but have enough for a core force assembled.

Busy season at my place of work is usually Mid-April through to Mid-September with July and August being particularly colorful. Consequently I’ve resolved to try to get a bunch of prep work in over the next couple of months so that I have things on hand to work on if I need to unwind with some therapeutic speed-painting. First up is the core of a Dwarf force – Infantry and ancestral guardians from MOM miniatures, ranged units are form the 7th ed WHFB starter box, characters from various sources. bases were milliput with a GSW textured roller (Pavement I think it was called – I have that one and the cobblestone and they are both very good), 3 part zenithal airbrush preshading using black, grey then white Stynylrez primer.

Next up, more chaos, because more is more. A unit of Avatars of War barbarian marauders (the unprimed ones) mixed in with some GW rank and file models (white primed). Also shown is a metal chaos hero who will probably wind up either as a Khorne champion, or on an Iron Maiden 12′ cover sleeve on reissue…

Next up, assembled a box of Shieldwolf Minis Forest Goblins. 25 to a box. Will need minimum unit sizes of 20 so 5 units form 4 boxes. Plenty of weapon options and command parts included. Good little kit. Bases included were slotta bases hence the blue tape and superglue – i’ll remedy in the basing stage. Planning a yellow basecoat up to a white zenithal preshade and then some GW Orc flesh contrast mixed with Liquitex matt medium in over the skin to do all the hard work for me on this one.

Next up, more beastmen. Decided to re-spray my old minis (except for the 3 Slaanesh themed character models I have painted up to an actually OK standard form years ago- unsure whether to strip and restart or just restore…). Judging by the first half of the project, should actually turn this around pretty quickly once I get stuck in. Again, 3 part zenithal airbrush preshade.

And speaking of beasties, got part 1 of the force based. Still a bit of tinkering to do on the chariot but otherwise from here pretty much just need a matt varnish. Bases were one of the Vallejo premixed mud textures (European)? which is now my new favourite thing. My other new favourite thing is the GSW leaf punch which I finally decided to pick up. Wish I had done this way earlier. Initially struggled with using it as I had read that using glasses cleaning cloths soaked in ink gave the best effect but the punch kept jamming. Have switched to standard office paper and it works just fine. Going to buy some different coloured (stationery) inks to get some autumnal base action happening. Also glued on some woodland scenics ‘Underbrush’ clump foliage. Aiming for a ‘forest path’ style of base. the leaves might be a bit too bright on some of the bases but reasonably happy with the result. If any of it looks too bright I’ll tone down with a drop of ink over the relevant area and try to make some varied hues. Anyhow, pretty much tabletop ready as it stands…

Have stopped tinkering with the three Beastmen chariots for now. The woodgrain on the added chariot platforms needs some serious rework but I will address that later,. For now they are tabletop ready. Which has given me the impetus to kick off the second part of the project, 90+ more infantry, 15 centigors, a block of minotaurs and dragon ogres and a couple of small units of doggies. Once I get through these I have some more Chaos prepped, plus the Dwarves ready to go and some more Forest Goblins I’m still assembling. So everything ready but the coffee…

Pushed on with part 2 of the beastman army, now nearly complete. I just need to paint the base edges and hit with a matt varnish. So a couple more hours work and we’re good. Need to work out what to do next. I have plenty of stuff on the go but as it’s all fairly current I don’t really think it falls in the spirit of the Spring Cleaning challenge. Only army I have that really fits that bill is my KoW undead which I don’t feel like working on presently. I probably should be focusing a little more on historicals anyhow, but fantasy armies are, I find, just so much easier to paint. Possibly due to the slightly larger sculpts? Anyhow…

Also primed and zenithed about 200 Reaper Bones minis that have been sitting doing nothing since years ago. Plan is to do some base layering over the preshading with contrasts and then practice different techniques (NMM, glowy weapons etc) or play with new colours (Just scored some fun metallics from Mig and GSW prior to lockdown…) to bring them up a little thereafter. basically I’m treating all these as practice minis that may one day appear on the tabletop in a future game…

Hope everybody is travelling OK 🙂

Army done to tabletop (for now). Might consider adding a couple more characters for flexibility and I have more minotaurs stashed somewhere. Maybe some trolls as I have some reaper bones ones on hand that would proxy as a mixed unit of chaos trolls quite well but not really looking to go out and add anything like a shaggoth (although Reaper were doing something similar/appropriate for one in their latest kickstarter…). But the bulk of it’s squared away so can draw a line here and move on to the next project.

Did this party up this morning in under an hour watching television. Reaper Bones minis primed black, then with a grey and white zenithal preshade. Just hit with contrast paints. Fastest NMM effect I’m ever likely to get done. I just may get through the backlog of minis yet…

Jumping around between a few bits and pieces. First up, pulling together and restoring a few recent second hand procurements has yielded the following. Can’t make any progress at the moment because I have no space due to a backlog of minor projects I need to clear. Subsequent to this photo being taken I have tidied up the silver primer on the chaos warriors where the earlier red paint coat was showing through too, so all set to go as soon as I have time/space.

May also upscale and print a bigger mammoth 🙂

Barreling on through assorted rubbish when the opportunity presents. Did get the fist part of a halfling army done – well, almost. I just need to glue on a banner and touch up the brown on the base rims – I don’t know why I insist on using craft paint on these rather than model paint, it is always more bother than the saving in cost is worth. the 3 units are from one single box of Wargames Atlantic plastic halflings, caster is from Midlam and no idea where the other character mini is from…

Also been pushing on with the ‘contrast over zenithal preshade’ on Bones minis to get more familiar with the way this paint works. Finished up a batch of orcs (left) gnolls (front) bugbears (right) and some more murder-hobos (rear). I feel these are still a little too dark so hit the remaining batch of uncommenced minis with an additional white zenithal dusting and will progress further thereafter.

Also been trying to get more terrain elements to drop on a table happening. Finally got around to painting up a henge that I got as part of the Bones 3 KS. And further have been working towards a couple of orchards to have as large terrain elements that can be interacted with in fantasy and historical games. Apple trees are from 4ground, orange trees are from EBay…

Picked up some smashed up and partly painted Skaven on Ebay. Following a few hours of restoring I got them onto the paint bench and managed to turn a unit out in about 2 hours, mainly using contrasts. Plenty of overstepping, banner needs some more work and obviously not based at this point, but with the new KOW starter having ratmen in the starter box and given I’ve for a few of the units from the old WHFB starter kicking about in boxes somewhere so this could be a fast way to turn them into a usable force…