Ni!

Knights.

You've gotta love 'em, right?

Ni!

I know it's something of a cliché, but like a lot of little boys (and I don't doubt a lot of little girls) I've always been fascinated by stories of knights. When I was a kid, I had lots of knight related toys. I had heaps of toy knights, ranging from Lego to Britains model knights (remember those?). I had a cool scratch built wooden castle (that I think was made by a local dollhouse maker) and I had a wooden sword my dad made for me (which I may have used to terrorise my sisters...).

I remember these being much, much better

When I was getting into this hobby, I was instantly drawn to the Bretonnians, being the Medieval Knight heavy army. I can remember well, when I was still very knew to the whole thing - I'd played Heroquest and D&D, and bought one issue of White Dwarf the year before - I got ill. Chest infection. I was off school for ages, and en route to the doctor, my mum said I could buy a magazine. I was going to get a comic, but then I saw White Dwarf and thought...why not? I spent the wait in the doctor's flicking through the magazine, and what should be inside? Why, a whole heap of Bretonnian models. (I think it was issue 136, but it was hard to find a decent index of issues)

I was hooked.

It so happened I was also reading TH White's "Once and Future King", as well as a Robin Hood novel, so all those Knights were well seared on my juvenile imagination.

It's been a while...wonder if it'll hold up to a reread?

As it happened though, I was also mad-keen on sci-fi, and my burgeoning group of gamers were more drawn to 40K, so I never took up Warhammer until years later, when working at GW. And despite having had several armies, I never went for Bretonnia: mainly because of the job. See, one of the things about working in a Games Workshop store is that you have to paint a lot of minis. I mean A LOT. Especially when a new boxed game comes out. And while I was at GW, Warhammer 5th Edition came out. And it had a lot of knights.

That's a lot of knights!

Strangely, painting all those sets never put me off Lizardmen, but it sure put me off Bretonnians (an issue still afflicting Baz, I know!).

But I think I'm finally past all that. When I started this blog I mentioned that Bretonnian's "could wait" as they were "fiddly to paint". 

True enough, but the time I feel, is now.

See, Andy Lawhammer is in the process of sprucing up Mighty Empires to function as a Warhammer campaign system, and I'm very excited at the prospect. What's more, I've hit that army painting slump with my orcs. I like the models, I want to paint them, but I've painted so many it's getting tedious. Plus, I'm at the stage of bulking out extant units...doubly tedious.

What's more, as well as keeping up with Game of Thrones (a rewatch before Season 3 was needed in order to convert my wife to the show...), I also watched the 90s BBC Ivanhoe series. A whole lot of jousting fun!

Brian De Bois-Gilbert from the Ivanhoe series (an almost unrecognisable Ciaran Hinds!)

The Knight of the Flowers. He's so pretty, oh so pretty...

So I've decided to get a wee Bretonnian army on the side. They'll be fun to paint, to break the monotony of the Orcs. They'll also be very different to play. And if the worst comes to the worst, and I never actually get to play with them? No biggy, I'm sure I'll find them a home on eBay. ;) So, that being the case, I picked up a Battalion today.

Bretonnian Battalion - good value for £60 I'd say!

I was briefly tempted by the very good Fireforge Teutonic/Templar Knights (you can see them here on their very hard to navigate and overall pretty poor website). They look pretty ace, and they're cheaper than GW. And they're plastic. They're also a bit smaller than GW, so I'd need to commit to 100% Fire Forge, and also to my army looking weeny on the table. So I popped into town, caught up with Baz, and bought the battalion.

I plan to paint them up in small batches, and I intend to make them as characterful as I can. That doesn't necessarily mean masses of conversions, but each Knight is a lord, and I intend to name them all, and try to make up their complex genealogy. 

But of course I need to think about my general. They always say in the Warhammer rulebook that your general represents you on the battlefield, so I've decided to take that (almost) literally. Step forward Andre De Lisque, Bretonnian Knight! 

This is the Leask coat of arms. I may not use it on my Men at Arms' shields! 

I'll use the Leask coat of arms for my general and his family. I may chicken out of doing my men at arms' shields with that heraldry though, as I don't have transfers for stars/diamonds, unless anyone knows any good places? 

I decided to do the general first, on a horse initially (though I may do him on a Royal Pegasus, or even a Hippogriff in the future - all my enemies seem to have DRAGONS!). I fiddled with the horse's base to make him rearing slightly, and put on a knight without a helmet, so you could see his face. I clipped the hilt away from the scabbarded sword, as he had a drawn sword in his other hand and also put a helmet on a chain hanging from his belt. I considered adding a lance to his back, but it looked naff so I took it off. 

But it was missing something. This is supposed to be the general, the leader. It's supposed to be me! What's it missing? Well I couldn't give it glasses or a big belly, but I could give him a beard. To the greenstuff!

Andre De Lisque

I'm pleased with the beard, especially the moustache. When I'd done the beard, I realised I needed to bulk out the hair a bit too, so I did. 

Close up of the beard. That'll do pig!

Looks a bit wonky straight on, but the angle's not helping.

And from the other side, with more detail of the hair extensions. 

Now I'm no sculptor, nor do I possess Andy Lawhammer's artistic gifts, but I'm really pleased with how he's turned out. Now I just need to paint them damn thing!

VBB

The Marienburg Stealers

As I sit here, sipping a homemade cappucino, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. While days spent lolling on the couch or playing on the PS3 for 8 hours straight are all well and good, there is an undeniable satisfaction in achieving something on holiday.

OK, all I achieved was to make my mind up and paint some models, but still. Baby steps.

So, my chum Andy Lawhammer's been making a top-ten of GW games (speaking of which +Andrew, where's number 4?...) and at number 5, he placed Blood Bowl. Cue much reminiscing, a brief encounter with Google, and he's bought a copy. And given how much I love the game, it's no surprise I  wanted in on the action.

But what team to pick? Initially I planned to buy my own copy of the game and convert the plastic humans to become a Bretonnian team (like this chap on Warseer), and indeed I may well do that in time (as if nothing else it'll give me an excuse to buy and paint some Knights. And I do like knights.)

But for now I plumped for those nefarious ratmen, the Skaven. Now, the GW Skaven Team are fine (you can see them here), but they're 30 quid, there's only 12 of them, and they're in metal. No thanks. Instead, I picked up a plastic box of clan rats from +Baz Morrison's shop and set to converting. They're all converted now, and I'll paint them up over the next week or two. Some I'm pleased with. Some, like the throwers, are not brilliant, but they're OK for now.

So, without further gilding the lily and with no more ado, I give you the first two players of the Marienburg Stealers.

Blitzer 1 - Krikt

Blitzer 2 - Vurk

On the whole, I'm quite pleased with them.

I picked more armoured heads/torsos, to fit the blitzer look, and I added a couple of spare savage orc "plumes" (hairsquigs?) to make them stand out from the linemen. A couple of other random orky bitz went on too, to give them shoulder pads (which the linemen will be lacking...).

They're not well painted, nor are they thoughtfully converted, but you know what? They'll do.

I haven't put numbers on yet, and I'll probably flock the bases eventually. The name, Marienburg Stealers, is obviously derived from Pittsburgh Steelers. I was going to do them in black, but it didn't look right and I have a lot of green paint. :)

Speaking of green, I also had time to finish off the first of my new Orc units for WFB (a bigger post on my Waaagh in a week or two): my sister in law +Gillian Bruce got me some Savage Orc Boar Boyz for my birthday (ta!) and here's the first of them: the standard bearer.

Oink!

I was relieved that my ability to speed-paint orcs hasn't diminished in the 6 months or so since I last had time to wield a brush. The boar I'm especially pleased with. The photo doesn't do them justice (I really do need to work on my photography, I know: an iPhone camera in a softly-lit living room is not a photogenic environment!).

Ride the Pig...bash some skulls...

 I was really pleased with the boar's face. This time, I highlighted it all the same: skin, tusks, et al. Gorthor Brown, Tallarn Sand, Ushabti Bone, touch of White Scar on the tips of the tusks. Then I applied an Agrax Earthshade wash, but only to  the skin, not the tusks, and the effect is great.

Yeah, I'm wielding this huge banner like a sword, what of it?

It worked so well, I did the same thing on the rider's leather/wood/bone bits. It's not quite as effective there, but it's so very, very quick I'm going to stick with it.

So there you go. A productive day, by the standards of school holidays, any way.

Isn't it? Wasn't it? Standard.

The other day I posted about a couple of conversions I did for my army; given I'm playing Andrew B's shambling hordes on Monday, I figured I'd best pull my finger out and get on with the painting.

So I did.

LEADBELLY: Orc Battle Standard Bearer

Converted from the Avatar of War shaman model, with weapons and standards from the Orc sprues and armour and skulls from the undead sprue. I wanted him to stand out, and since red was the detail colour for my army, it made sense to do his cloak and standard in that colour. 

Given his rag-tag, mismatched armour, I decided to paint the banner as if it had been looted. So I painted it up with a black chevron, intentionally aping the design on the shield of my wolf rider musician. The idea being that Morthang's Waaagh have tangled with a Bretonnian army before, squishing some Knights Errant in the process. Then I slapped some orcy glyphs on top. The skull design has been repeated across my army, but I added a crude, stylised flaming sword, as he is Morthang Da Burna's standard bearer. 

I'm super-chuffed with how he turned out. He's virtually unrecognisable as the same model as my shaman Drogrot Gorkeye. 

I was concerned he'd look more similar from the rear, as the cloak has a lot of detail. It is amazing, though, the difference a paintjob makes. A shield slapped on, and a banner to draw the eye, combined with a lick of red paint and Gork's your uncle. 

Leadbelly from behind

I decided to "dirty up" the banner and his tattered red cloak. Initially I was going to use a brown wash (Agrax Earth Shade to the rescue) but it turned the glyphs a funny pink colour. Once that dried, and I redid the white glyphs, I opted for a drybrush of bown/black instead, and it worked really well. 

Once I put him in the unit, he looks even better, nicely offsetting the red of the shields. Here he is with the Orc Boyz unit "Da Red Skullz" and their boss Grak Skulltaker.

Leadbelly in situ with Da Red Skullz

 Finally, before I sign off, here's a shot of Leadbelly and Big Toof, my savage orc big boss. I did take a shot of Big Toof in Skargutz' Boyz, along with Drogrot the shaman, but Big Toof's sword is blocking Drogrot from the camera, so I'll try that again later.

Da Big Boss Men. Or rather orcs. 

Here's hoping the Ld boost and battle standard (which allows a reroll on all Ld tests, as well as an extra +1 combat resolution) will prove handy. I know Big Toof's attacks will...

Adapt. Improvise. Overcome.

As I mentioned last post, I'm doing some converting just now: to whit, one Battle Standard Bearer (as well as some more wolf riders). I'm using the Shaman model from Avatar of War, as I ended up with 2 by accident, and I knew I had lots of spare Orcy bits. Behold: Orc Big Boss and Morthang's Battle Standard Bearer.

Leadbelly

 Flash has killed the detail on the metal bits, but hopefully you can see well enough that it's hardly recognisable as a shaman. The head and sword-hand, as well as spear/banner are basic Orc Boy bitz, while his armour is from the skelly warrior bits, donated by Andrew B. One breastplate looked too small, but I had the idea to put two on him, as if he was too big and fat to get armour that fit him. A green stuff belly and a dab of glue, and he has a name: Leadbelly. Some more undead bits and bobs finish him off, hiding the handle of the staff, and a pile o'skulls on the base. Trophies and what not.

Leadbelly from the rear

He looked pretty different from behind, too, but I popped a shield on his back to hide some of the detail, to make him look different, and to keep him in line with the Orc Boyz he'll be accompanying to battle.

`Remarkably fast to do, and I think he'll look great once he's painted.

So, on to the wolf-riders.

I wasn't planning on posting anything about these guys. I've already blogged about GW's awesome Fenrisian Wolf models, and how good they look as wolf-rider mounts. However, when I went to make my next five, I encountered a problem. Maths.

I had miscounted when I checked I had enough bitz left over for 10 riders. Specifically, I was shy right arms with bows and, more worryingly, left arms. Not just left arms with the right pose or weapon, but left arms. Period.

D'oh!

Time to adapt, improvise and overcome! To deal with the bow issue, I mostly used spears. I made a few in a throwing pose, and ensured they all had quivers and bows on their backs. This will mean I can split the spears up and say the units just have bows or, if I ever want a unit with spears, I can put them together and hey-presto! Spear unit.

The other arms were trickier though. In my first Frankenstein's monster, I used two bits of different right arms chopped up and put together to make something that looked roughly arm and elbow-like. The hand was a round stump, but that was easily hidden behind a shield. Turned out OK, in the end.

From the rear: messy

From the front: OK

So, buoyed by my pleasant surprise, I turned to the musician. I am sick to bits of the Goblin musician. There is just one instrument - a horn, gripped in the right hand - and so far I've done one for my archers and my first wolf-rider unit. I couldn't face yet another, but luckily I didn't have to as Andrew B's undead sprues contained an enormous horn, which was just too comical not to use. 

Problem was, it had a skelly arm in it. So some snipping, and finagling, and I had a goblin arm in there. The hand is a touch too small - being a skelly hand, but once the shield's whacked on, it looks grand. 

My, that's a big horn. Fnar fnar etc.

The rest of the wolf riders look pretty good. The spears are dynamic and I like this rearing (slightly out of control?) gobbo. If I ever need a boss for the unit, he'll do!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

So all converted up. Now I just need to paint the buggers!

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!