VonBlogBath

Gaming & stuff...

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Like a boss

So I'm painting my final unit from the battalion now, my orc boyz. I had a lot of fun sticking them together; there are lots of little extra details - skulls, spikes and whatnot - so when it came to making the boss (unit champion) I decided to go a little over the top. What the hell, they're Orcs!

Boss.

I've given the orcs the same shield design, which features a red skull glyph, which will give the unit some colour. I decided to give the boss a red helmet too, to make him stand out. I think the other Boyz will have metal helms.

Boss from other side (don't ask me for
imaginative captions, I'm tired!)
I like how he's turned out. The ridiculous spikes and skulls look OK actually, and I like the helmet. The photos don't show that the eyes are painted, because they're the same colour as the helmet.

But I'm chuffed. Just 14 more of the buggers to paint and the battalion is done!

Sunday 19 August 2012

Arachnophobes, beware!

Unit #4: done!

I painted my Spider Riders a little brighter, to make the army as a whole more colourful. I'm not 100% happy with the effect, but it definitely fits the army colour scheme. I may, when I do another batch, opt for a different spider-effect.

Not as professionally photographed as Andy's!
One of the things I'm not sold on is the eyes. Red on red is a bit weird, but I couldn't think of another colour I wanted to do them. I could do green, I suppose? I may go back and do that later. Another thing is that they don't photograph well: the standard in particular is leaning forward at a weird angle.

So that takes me up to over 600 points.

That's all for now, first practice games tomorrow... (or later today, I should say!)

Wednesday 15 August 2012

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Oink!

Unit of Boar Boyz...done.

Iron 'Eadz - Orc Boar Boy Cavalry

Still suffering from excessively bright flash (only sometimes, though - most frustrating), but then I am just using my phone camera because I'm lazy. Nonetheless - here are my Orc Boar Boyz, the Iron 'Eadz. I'm quite pleased with them - again, if I look too closely, I see poorly highlighted musculature etc. But together, they look quite effective. 

Here's a side view, similarly overexposed, of the standard bearer. The use of an iron head as an icon is a lucky coincidence! (and born out of me not wanting to freehand a design on a banner)

Orc Boar Boy Standard Bearer
So, lets look at the points total:

Previous Total: 325 points

Boar Boyz: 135 points
5 x Boar Boyz: (80)
Shields (10)
Spears (10)
Boss, Musician & Standard (35)

TOTAL: 460


Waaagh - 500 points
Which means, add in a magic item or two, or turn one of the Orc units to Big 'Uns, and I'm playing a 500 point game, hopefully Sunday afternoon, with the Lawhammers.

Now, while I'm very pleased with the progress I've made (I've been pushing myself during the school holidays, as from next week I'll have a lot less free time) the army is a little bit...brown. It's most notable in the Boar Boyz: brown boars, brown leather, rusty metal...

It's no bad thing - the limited palette will make them look cohesive, and I always prefer naturalistic to day-glo, cartoony, but it is still a bit dull. The splashes of red do really stand out though. So I'm going to do my Spider Riders next, and I think I'll do the spiders themselves a very dark red colour. That ought to brighten everything up, but maintain the Waaaghsthetics. ;)

Monday 13 August 2012

Iron 'Eadz

Well, a swifter update than I had imagined, as I've painted the first of my Boar Boyz. Behold!

Iron 'Ead: Boar Boy Boss
 The boars I've painted quickly: wetbrush brown over black, brown wash, then drybrush brown, sand, bone, then white. A little painted on wash over any patches that are too heavily drybrushed.

Then it's detail time: pick out flesh in green, green wash, highlight dark green, then light green (NB: I'm hand highlighting, not drybrushing, as there's not much flesh on show). Then paint metal leadbelcher, leather bits brown. Brown wash over those, then drybrush metal, then paint highlight leather and wood up to sand.

Ta da!

I'm quite pleased with the effect.

As I mentioned last time, I'm envisaging this as something of a rag-tag army of scavengers and remnants. Rather than some great Waaagh massing in the Bad Lands, this is a reconstituted Waaagh reassembling from the detritus of previous conflicts. Hence, Savage Orcs relying on a Goblin Shaman.

I always wanted my Boar Boyz to have shields and spears for that extra cavalry oomph. When I was assembling them, I elected to use all the helmeted heads (much as I avoided them for the Gobbos). It struck me that this made them look like Orc-knights, which amused me, so I tried to get them posed like that too.

And thus, the Iron 'Eadz were born.

Officer: Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!
Soldier: Their eyes are red, sir!
I see this unit of Boar Boyz as consciously aping the heavy knights of the Empire, the Elves, and Bretonnia. I ensured my musician has a spear on his back, and when I increase the size of the unit, I'm going to stick with the metal, helmets, shields, spears look. They look pretty ferocious. And I thought, for the Boss, having him with the most enclosing helmet, and giving his boar the same look, was a must.

So one down, the other 4 boars are drybrushed up, and just need the fiddly bits done. Goal is to get them done by the end of next weekend, at which point I'll be pushing 500 points painted.

Sunday 12 August 2012

Mord's Ladz

Waaagh!

Second unit: done.

As I mentioned last post, I elected to make a unit of Goblins my second unit choice. Mostly because I like the sneaky devious beggars, but also because I wanted to try out some proper army painting.

While I wouldn't describe my Savage Orcs as masterpieces, I did spend some time on them. But a Greenskin horde is, well, as horde, and if I'm going to get it painted, I'm going to need to relearn the skills I honed working for GW: production line painting.

And behold, the slightly blurry results...

Goblin Archers. Fear us.
I'm pleased with how they look en mass. Taken individually, they're a bit scrappy, but as a unit they look good. The bows and skin tones are fairly consistent. The clothes are mostly brown, of various shades, with a little grey in there too. Most of the top knots are grey too, with a little red here and there for a splash of colour. The shields are all different too, with different coloured skulls on them etc.

I didn't want any sense of uniformity: this lot are the scavengers of the Old World, stickin' folks with arrers, then lootin' their corpses. Indeed, I may ask Andy & Lindsay Lawhammer if they have any spare shields or helmets etc. that I can mix in with my next gobbo unit for a bit more variety.

Another reason for the more basic paint job, and production line painting, is that they're much smaller than the Orcs. Less than half the size!

So, with 2 units and a hero choice painted, I've got myself a legal, albeit tiny, army.

So, what's the damage, points-wise? As I track the running total, I'll assume full command groups, but no magic items. When it comes to playing, there will be shinies, and I may not always need bosses in units, but for now, they're in.

No magic items, precious?

Here's my list so far:

Mord: 90 points
Goblin Shaman (55)
Level 2 upgrade (35)

Savage Orcs: 125 points
10 x SOs (80)
Additional Hand Weapon (10)
Boss - Skargutz (15)
Musician & Standard Bearer (20)

Goblins: 110 points
20 x Goblins (60)
Shields (10)
Short Bows (10)
Boss, Musician & Standard (30)

TOTAL: 325
Mord's Ladz: Waaagh!
325 points, eh? That's... not a lot. And both units are only MINIMUM sized. Wow. 

Still, onwards and upwards. I reckon I'll probably invest in another battalion box later, not to mention the converted wolf riders. And I'm definitely getting some nasty skulkers. And maybe a Wyvern. Or an Arachnorok Spider. Or both. But that's all later, when Uncle Visa is feeling less stressed. 

For my next unit, I've opted for Boar Boyz. Orc heavy cavalry. I'd love to say I picked them because they're high points value, but the truth is I picked them a: because the models are wicked, and b: because I knew I was going to give them spears and shields. I'm not sure yet how I'm going to arm my orc boyz or spider-riders, so this option allowed me to delay deciding for a while. 

Until then, Waaagh, and all that.

Monday 6 August 2012

What a difference a base makes...

Oh yes, I went there.
Today's post is about basing: it's incredible the difference it makes to how "finished" the model looks.

There's far more variety available, nay expected, these days. Back when I worked for GW, it was either green flock with goblin green on the side, or sand, painted goblin green, drybrushed sunburst yellow, with goblin green round the side. Nowadays though...

There's a bewildering array of choices: I opted in the end for grey "on top", drybrushed to white, with clumps of brown bracken to break it up, and brown on the side.

My Waaagh, so far.

I like the rocky scree effect. I tried painting the sides grey, but it looked too much like concrete. Then I tried green, but it was too bright. Brown looked good though. :)

You may also notice that in the forefront there are some new models: my first 5 goblin archers (there's another 5 half-done already). The little blighters are pretty fast to paint, and I'll talk more about them next time. (I'll also try to get some better photos: the flash is playing silly buggers just now for some reason).

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Gobbos

So having painted up everything I owned, by completing my shaman, yesterday I picked up my battalion and began putting them together.

Mord
My choices were Orc Boyz (infantry), Orc Boar Boyz (heavy cavalry), Forest Goblin Spider Riders (fast cavalry) and Goblin Boyz (infantry).

While I love fast cav, and spider riders in particular, they're going to need a little conversion work to make them look less static, so I opted for my Goblin Boyz.

Goblin archers
I gave them short bows - Gobbos have a WS of only 2, but a BS of 3. While ranks of Gobbo spearmen look cool, they're not much cop, unless you're using the unit as a meat shield to deliver characters into combat. As that's not my style, I wanted a unit that would look good, and would make sense, character wise.

Gobbos are sneaky gitz, so short bows it was. A musician is a must, to reform to maximise shooting / combat, and they're so cheap I gave them a standard too. I also opted to give them shields (1/2 a point each!). I put a boss model in there, but truth be told I'm likely not to bother with a boss.

They were tricky as hell to get to rank up, but they look awesome.

There were also loads of bitz left over, which got me to thinking...I mentioned before, that I'm not a fan of the wolves that come with the Goblin Wolfriders. And honestly, can you blame me?

Wolf Riders are awesome: these wolves are not.

GW did recently release some outstanding wolf models, for 40K, in the form of the Space Wolves' Fenrisian Wolves.

Fenrisian Wolves from GW: raaaawr!
Baz mentioned he'd seen them converted to carry Gobbos, but the cost of converting Wolf Riders onto those is prohibitive, if I need to buy boxes of wolf-riders, throw away (or try to resell on ebay) the rubbish wolves and buy the cool Fenrisian Wolves. If, on the other hand, I had the bits for wolf-riders left over...

So I checked my sprues. I have tons of Goblin heads left over, as well as some bow arms, lots of spear arms, command arms and shield arms. I have shields. I have heads. I have cavalry legs - this is looking promising... I have everything I need. Except torsos. Dammit! No torsos.

Luckily, I found a bits seller on ebay, and for just over a tenner, I've got 20 goblin torsos winging their way to me. They'll still be expensive wolf-riders, but not nearly as expensive, or as wasteful. But I won't be converting those until next month at the earliest. This month's budget is well and truly spent!