Demonsub goes all in with Sláine

Today I received my preorder from Warlord Games for the phase 2 release.

These miniatures covers everything else mentioned in the main rulebook. As far a that book is concerned I now have everything. Any future releases will be brand new and unexpected.

Here’s some photos of the miniatures from the boxes.

As you can see the details on these miniatures are amazing, especially the fine work on the cauldron of blood. They’re going to be superb to paint.

These look great. The bear and boar will be really useful for Frostgrave as well as I don’t have any of those type of miniatures. I probably won’t paint the wolf as I have around eight already painted from Otherworld Miniatures and this one is a little too small to fit with the others. I’m at odds with why they included a porcupine. Of all of the animals to include they could have given us something that is at least native to either the UK, Ireland or Northern Europe. It’s certainly an odd choice and I’ll be adding it to my bits box as I currently have no use for it. I’ll use other miniatures for the beasts of the forest.

Just for fun here are all of the packing slips from the boxes I received. Clearly Judit and Alicja did more work than the others, but I think Laura deserves a mention due to her smiley face.

While reading through Sláine The King graphic novel two pages gave me an idea…

…and after looking on the Scotia Grendel site I put an order in for eight of their stone arches. I could have gone for twelve but I reasoned that eight was a good minimum number to adequately represent a stone circle like Stonehenge on the battlefield while doing less work and cutting down on the expense.

The arches come in three sections and the resin used was very hard and dense, almost like real stone. The carving and detail is very nice. I quickly realised that I needed some mdf square bases which I didn’t have so one trip to ebay later and I got my bases.

Because the resin was so hard it took ages to smooth the stones down and I eventually pinned most of the top stones down onto their supports. 

With fine resin dust everywhere wearing a mask was vital. Cleaning up afterwards felt like disposing of radioactive material.

Here’s the final result and I’m pretty pleased with what I have. I’m excited to play some games with this, either with the stones close together near the centre of the table or with the stones further apart forming a ring around the whole table.

Here are some more shots.

Last night I had a few friends over and we played a battle. One wanted to play the fomorians so based on that, I calculated an equal notoriety value for the Earth tribes for my other friend. Notoriety is Sláine’s name for points. I wasn’t playing in this battle, I was to be rules jockey as I was teaching the game and I was still rusty on a few things.

The scenario was simple, just kill the enemy. Here’s the table.

The Earth tribes could set up along the table edge to the left and the fomorians along the right.

As the forces arrived for the battle it was customary among the Earth tribes for the last to arrive for the battle to be executed in honour of the Earth Goddess (it also encouraged punctuality). A spearman was thus removed from the table (in the game this is optional for the Earth tribe player granting him a blood point).

Both sides advanced with the fomorians taking full advantage of the river moving up it towards the lake. (Fomorians have the aquatic skill which allows them to move through water without any movement penalty and to receive +1 to their evade stat). Balor of the evil eye lead the advance on his huge war elk heading around the trees next to the lake to charge Morgan Axehead and injuring him.

Sláine on the far flank seeing the danger ran across the lines but winded himself as a result. As the tribes advanced Ukko crept forward slowly, yelling encouragement.

The two remaining spearmen ran in to support Morgan Axehead in the fight against Balor while the rest of the tribesmen approached the shore of the lake. The fomorian netters and harpoonists stood off in the lake as various weapons were thrown with little effect, while the fomorian axemen advanced behind their fellows heading to support Balor.

Sláine, having taken a breather, charged Balor. Even Ukko, running around the behind, tried to help by stabbing Balor in the back (but to no effect). With fighting to and fro, Balor was pushed back almost to the river. Sláine pushed home the charge, killing Balor and his elk. A great loss to the fomorians indeed.

In response the fomorian axemen charged Sláine, slightly wounding him. The other fomorians and the tribesmen charged each other, with fighting both on the shore and in the lake. 

The site of the massed carnage brought on Sláine’s warp spasm and then the killing really started.

Morgan Axehead charged in but was cut down, as well as the remaining spearmen. Sláine charged back into the fray.

The battle ended with the bodies of both friend and enemy littered around and floating in the lake. The water ran red with blood. All of the fomorians were dead, while only Sláine, Ukko and a single tribesmen had survived, the rest of the tribesmen, including Sláine’s foster father Morgan Axehead were dead. 

Sláine thought it too many.

I started with this in early March…

…to this roughly two months later.

We have:

The Tribes of the Earth Goddess

The Drunes

and the Fomorians.

I didn’t think it too many.

I saved the largest miniature unit last, the only one to be mounted.

While painting I leaned closer and closer to Simon Bisley’s iconic full page image, particularly the redness of the blood soaked armour and the heads on the trophy rack. My go to gore formula is a 1:1 mix of Army Painter Flesh tone with Army Painter Red Ink. Left to dry for a little until the ink has thickened up a little makes it look all the more disgusting.

It also took me two attempts at the blood splatter on the sword. I went a little too much on the first attempt and my efforts to fix it made it worse, so I just painted over and started again.

So with this miniature painted that’s all of the Sláine miniatures completed, for now.
Later this week I plan on taking a few photos of the whole collection, then this weekend I’ll hopefully have a battle report.
I’ve had great fun with this project and will certainly continue on. It’s been good to concentrate solely on just one game.

I was at first unsure what colour to paint these. I thought the smooth green that the Warlord Studio miniatures were painted didn’t seem right or really very accurate to how they appear in the Horned God graphic novel. I imagine they were painted like that to make them stand out from the other factions and to differentiate them on the box.
Looking at a few panels from the Horned God was confusing as sometimes they appeared green while other times almost flesh colour.

I decided to go for a blend of both, adding green and then brown to the colours while getting lighter. While the eventual look of the models are quite different in colour to either way they appear in the comics I’m quite happy with them.

Fomorians with nets.

Fomorians with axes.

Fomorians with spears.

I just have one more model to paint from the initial release of Sláine miniatures as well as a few more pieces of terrain then I’ll be all done for now.

Also I’ll be playing another game this coming weekend, so I’ll try to take a few photos and maybe do another battle report.

I’ve finished the rest of the heroes from the two boxes, the Drune Heroes and the Earth Tribe Heroes.

First up is the rest of the Drune miniatures.

There’s actually only two characters here, Medb and Robym the dwarf. The lady in black is also Medb, but in disguise as Megrim.

I gave Medb a blue cloak as this is how she is depicted in this panel from the Horned God.

Obviously the designers at Warlord decided to give her more clothes.

Here are the Earth Tribe Heroes.

We have from left to right Mongan Axehead (Sláine’s foster father), King Gann with the spear of the sun), Niamh (Mother to Sláine’s son) and her husband King Rudrage with the Silver Sword of the Moon.

Rather than paint the Spear of the Sun aflame, I thought I’d depict it as dribbling blood. 

Similar to how it appears in this pane, which I quite like and makes it look more dangerous and possibly possessed.

I haven’t done much painting this week as I’ve been back at work after a week off. As well as building some rock terrain and painting it I did paint one miniature, the Lord Weird Slough Feg.

Apart from the weapon he carries this miniature is clearly inspired by a particular panel from the comic The Horned God, where Feg is depicted as standing in a similar pose surrounded by skulls, so raiding my box of Citadel Skulls I piled them up onto the base.

I did add a slight purple/red glaze to the skulls as a homage to the art, but decided against painting the red lighting on Feg’s body.

While the detail on these models are fantastic and the Siocast material is really good at replicating that, it’s a pain to clean up and it’s pretty weak. I had one sword that needed to be glued back onto its miniature and a few spears which were bent. The hot water treatment works but not as good as with resin and sometimes the straightening doesn’t take and after a while the parts start to bend back. I think the material starts to soften at a much higher temperature than resin. 

The thin long spears were particularly problematic as I had to add some superglue to some splits that appeared after using hot water. They look much better but I’m not a hundred percent happy with their straightness.

Earth Tribesmen with Sword and Shield

Earth Tribesmen of the Sessair Red Branch

Earth Tribesmen with Spears

I was in two minds about adding wode tattoos. My freehand skill is nowhere near good enough for the intricate swirls, but I could add a few lines here and there. In the end I decided against it for now. I can always go back and add some later.

Just a small update to show off my two new weird stones I got from Scotia Grendel (I stole this idea from Zoidpinhead’s Sláine project).

These are solid, hefty pieces of resin that feel like rock in the hand. It’s a much harder resin than I’m used to and I’ve not seen it used anywhere else. It’s top quality stuff from Scotia Grendel, not to mention the speed of their very fast dispatch and delivery, which I’ve just done.

The details on these pieces are great. Loads of animal carvings and examples of ogham writing, a great fit for Sláine.

I used a green wash over the finished model to try to make these stones more weathered, as if the earth is trying to reclaim the rocks that were stolen from her. I also used 2mm moss tufts from Gamer Grass which I think work quite well.

I’m about halfway through painting the Earth Tribe box, so they’ll be my next post when they are done, hopefully not too long.

I wanted to quickly bulk up the numbers of models that I have available to play games with so I thought it would be a good idea to start the unit boxes, so first up was the Skull Swords box, nine miniature, each one different.

Skull Sword champions

Skull Swords with Axe & Shield

Skull Swords with crossbows

I was really surprised to receive one of these, particularly as my Five Leagues From The Borderlands project won one the previous week. I’m very grateful for the feature and have a look at the other projects that were also shown, they are fantastic. 

The Sláine starter set comes with an mdf kit from Sarissa Precision for two small roundhouses and some wattle fences. Earlier this year I built one of their larger roundhouse kits so I wasn’t going in completely blind.

The kit comes with instructions and building them isn’t too difficult but the result can be quite basic. As the roof of a roundhouse is quite prominent I used a green scouring pad for the roofing material. I like the look of this when painted as rather than looking like straw thatch it looks more like sod or coarser material that just looks more Iron Age to me. The kit comes with instructions for doing this and I used some of the tips from these but did some things my own way.

The first picture shows the cardboard roof before it’s folded and glued onto the mdf frame. It just about fits a standard sized Tesco own brand scouring pad.

The only cut I used here was to cut out a wedge so the pad could be folded into a cone to fit the roof. I would trim the overhanging parts later when glued. I found scissors to be the best for cutting the pad.

With plenty of thick pva glue onto the cardboard (and the cardboard already glued to the mdf frame and dried) I used spring clamps to hold the pad in place overnight. I did get a few impressions in the pad afterwards once the clamps were removed but these can be hidden later. There’s also the join where the pad was folded together running down the roof. This will be hidden and disguised later.

While the roof was drying I used all purpose filler to plaster the walls of the roundhouses both inside and out. Just a thin coating to add texture and hide a few seams.

I used a mix of cheap brown artists acrylic paint mixed with sand and pva glue to add a little extra texture to the roofs but also do add the sand mix down the seam lines to help disguise them. I also painted this same mix onto the floor of the roundhouses.

The first picture shows the roofs after one coat of brown paint mixed with pva glue and a little water. I used the artist’s paint rather than expensive miniature paint. The scouring pad absorbs a lot of paint so this is the first coat. I also left plenty of time for it to dry.

I painted the walls using pale yellow. You’ll notice that once dried, the roofs start to look green again as the paint is absorbed into the scouring pad.

The walls were given a wash of diluted agrax and then drybrushed with a light bone colour, along with the doors and the mdf fencing.

After their initial coat of paint the roofs were painted in a dark brown then drybrushed in the same light bone colour as the walls.

I added static grass to finish off the terrain. This is the final disguise for any remaining marks on the roof that all of the sand and painting failed to hide.

Here is the new terrain from the starter set along with the large roundhouse and the granary that I previously built earlier this year. I’m quite happy with the finished results and I think I’ve got a great looking village for Sláine to defend against the Druins.

Slough Throt

Drune Priest

Skull Swords

After playing my first game I went back to the miniatures I’d started and finished them off, mainly adding and working on the highlights but sometimes reworking some of the colours until I was happy with the model. I then added the base grass effects.

The preorder model, Sláine The King.

Nest.

Ukko, the dwarf.

So last night a few friends came over and we played Scenario B – A God’s Curse from the starter set booklet. As there weren’t many miniatures in the game, both of my friends decided to team up against me and play the Drunes, Slough Throt and three Skull Swords vs myself with Sláine and Ukko the dwarf.

The photos aren’t up to my normal lighting quality as I didn’t want to disturb the game  too much by fiddling with lamps, since my friends were there.

The goal of the scenario was for Slough Throt to visit each of the three runestones on the table while I had to stop him by way of a very large axe.

After a brief explanation of the rules to my friends we started drawing counters from the bag, the game was on.

Ukko immediately ran forward towards the drunes with a winded Sláine trying to keep up. Meanwhile the Skull Swords advanced, shields locked together while Slough Throt visited the first rune stone and made a sacrifice.

Ukko decided to wait for Sláine to catch up (you can ready a model and having him spend an action later in the game, interrupting another model’s action if necessary). While the Skull Swords did the same guarding the edge of a small wood.

Having finally caught up, Sláine spotted the Skull Swords and charged in wounding one of them.

Seeing Sláine occupied in battle Slough Throt dodged around the wood, heading for the second stone. Ukko, feeling particularly sneaky and a little brave, ran behind Throt planning on stabbing him in the back and saving the day. It didn’t go so well as Throt spun around giving Ukko a light slash, but turns out the blade was poisoned. Ukko’s face went green as he watched Throt reach the second runestone.

Sláine was still fighting the Skull Sword wounding another he didn’t think it too many, or perhaps not enough as he never got his warp spasm, probably due to the effects of the nearby rune stones corrupting the Earth.

With Sláine stuck in combat and Ukko feeling ill, Slough Throt at last made it to the final rune stone and victory was his.

Sláine wielding his axe.

Sláine in warp spasm.

I’m looking forward to my first game tomorrow evening with some friends who expressed an interest and suggested we try a game. At first I was unsure. I wanted at least all of the models from the starter set painted before I thought about playing, and maybe a few games solo to learn the rules before I tried to teach others how to play. 

But then I realised I should be able to get a good start on the miniatures, maybe not finish them entirely but make them somewhat table ready. I could always go back to them later and finish them off, and besides, painting to a deadline, even if I wasn’t going to finish the models, is always inspiring.

I’m pretty happy with what I have so far. I’m impressed with how easy it is to show the detail of the sculpts. 

For each of the models the colours were blocked in, then the whole model was given a drybrush of a light bone colour (I used Vallejo Game Colour bone white). 

After that the skin was washed with Army Painter flesh wash, the silver metals washed with Citadel nuln oil, and everything else washed with Citadel agrax earthshade.

I’ve then started picking out the details, highlighting some of the metals, and bones.

I did fully paint the weirdstone.

I decided to put this on a spare 60mm mdf base. It’s a chunky piece of resin and has a nice weight.

I also based two other pieces of terrain I already had, from Frostgrave.

The two stones were from the North Star resin set for the Ulterior Motives cards for Frostgrave and I think work quite well for Sláine.

I’ve got a few more standing stones on their way from Scotia Grendel which I discovered thanks to this project here by @zoidpinhead.

I did a quick solo run through of the first scenario Treasures of Crom from the starter set booklet. I don’t think I’ll use that scenario with my friends but go on to the next one, A God’s Favour as I think it’s a little too easy for Sláine to win the first scenario.

When this game was announced and preorders went live I jumped in and ordered the lot. The miniatures looked great and I’d heard good things about the Strontium Dogs and Judge Dredd miniatures games both developed by Andy Chambers and Gav Thorpe. Sláine was to follow in those games footsteps with similar rules and developed by the same people. I also figured that the miniatures would come in useful for other games like Frostgrave and Five Leagues From The Borderlands. I could also use them to add to my celts in SPQR (the miniatures are a little too big to fit in with my Celt force, I later found out but oh well).

Recently I took delivery and can finally get to work reading the rules and assembling and painting the miniatures.

The miniatures are slightly larger than 28mm, more 32mm to eye level so stand quite tall. Most are single piece but one or two need their weapons and hands glued in place. Being Warlord resin or Siocast there are a few bendy weapons but it’s not a big deal.

To start off I’m going to work on the miniatures from the starter box first. Then from there I’ll paint each of the add on boxes. I already have a few ideas for terrain as there is a list of blessed and spoiled terrain in the rulebook but that will be a while off yet. I will however build the two mdf roundhouses that come in the starter set once I’ve painted the first lot of miniatures, this will act as a nice pallet cleanser.

Between waiting for stuff to dry with the miniatures I sleeved all of the cards, and bagged up the variety of tokens from the starter set. I’d also got some extra 2000AD dice which the game uses and a pouch which tokens can be drawn from to determine who activates next (Similar to Bolt Action). I like to keep things organised.

Next time I hope to show off some of my painted miniatures.