Author Archives: Alex

Ghost Archipelago: Dire Straits part 1

07 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by in Ghost Archipelago

≈ 27 Comments

Greetings Terrans, how goes it? A while back I posted this & described a Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago invitational I was getting involved with. As most of you will probably know, Ghost Archipelago is a pirate/lost-world themed skirmish game written by the excellent Joseph McCollough, and set in the same world as Frostgrave world. It uses the same ruleset with some tweaks here & there to make it more combat oriented & less magic-based. It’ a great looking game, but hasn’t seen the same commercial success as Frostgrave – most likely because the terrain bar is quite high for GA (jungles, pirates, dinosaurs, rivers, pools, etc) whereas FG was very forgiving from a terrain perspective. I’ve also put off getting heavily into GA for that exact reason, so I am really pleased that the invitation arrived & gave me the kick up the arse I needed to get into this. Since my initial model, I have refined the concepts that I’m applying to this project & thought I’d share my thinking with you all:

1: Island of Dr. Moreu inspired warband – use long-neglected beastman-esque figures but de-chaos them and make them more anthropomorphic – they are the once-human victims of cruel scientific experimentation rather than ‘because magic’ capital-C Chaos types. I’m using up a load of minis from the lead pile & oversculpting them to suit, so no splashing the cash. I’m also going to cover as many specialists as I can & have spares, so that I can adjust the warband as it gains in wealth & power.

2: Lost-world bestiary – a mix of mythological creatures, dinosaurs, pulp monsters, etc. Inspiration includes anything by Harryhausen, classic dinosaur films, Tarzan, Indiana Jones, King Kong, etc.  (all firm favourites from my childhood!). I’m permitting myself some purchases here, but again, mostly this is going to be using up what I already have.

3: Jungle terrain… this has been on my wishlist for a long time now, but I’m going to make it happen… I’ve got all the bits I need for the jungle itself so no purchases necessary, but I might splash out on some jungle ruins & maybe some water features too.

4: Other items needed to play GA (boats for example, or specific terrain items), and maybe a big-assed pirate ship to use for a home base.

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So far, I have worked through about half of the minis I have earmarked for the warband itself:

Heritor Edward Prendick (centre) and two crewmen – these guys had clothing sculpted over them & in the case of the crewmen, had their swords re-sculpted to move away from the fantasy genre.

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Stormwarden Niamh (centre) and two more crewmen – same here, although I kept Niamh’s trident-dagger (looks suitably magical) and pig-man’s axe.

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A trio of Mercenaries – two-handed weapons & heavy armour – I sculpted the Conquistador helmets on to Lion-Man & Turkey-Man, and Lion-Man got shoulder armour too. The tall fella is unmodified – he’s probably a bit weird for this warband, but I think he’s pretty ace.

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Freebooter – heavy armour, hand weapon & shield (left) and Crackshot – Heavy armour & counts-as crossbow (right) – the Freebooter got a Conquistador helmet & re-sculpted sword, while the Crackshot had his pike turned into a musket.

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The crew so far.

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I’ve taken a leaf from The Imperfect Modeller’s book & made the bases a real feature of the minis – I really wanted them to feel different from anything else I’m doing, so put is a bit more effort in this regard.

Aaand that’s it for this week – I hope you’ve enjoyed the pics & me sharing my thoughts on the project. Plenty more fun stuff to follow 😊

A poignant fan-sculpt

29 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer

≈ 24 Comments

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Greetings Terrans, a bit of a strange post today – a sombre affair in many ways. As you probably know, I’ve been working my way through my existing mountain of minis over the last year or so, trying (and mostly succeeding) in not buying anything new… (or more importantly, in not buying any oldhammer goodies from ebay). Instead I have been picking things out to suit projects that have had me excited, or occasionally painting something I just fancied painting!

Last month, I found a gorgeous fan-sculpt of an undead version of Jes Goodwin’s famous Hrothyogg Ogre Captain from 1986, (itself inspired by a Blanche piece I think). Now I don’t recall the exact circumstances of me getting the undead version – I suspect it came up in the OldHammer group, but I confess, I don’t remember for sure… What I do know is that it screamed out to be painted & here’s the result:

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Now for the poignant bit. I went looking back through the story behind this mini, knowing that I would want to do a good job in this post. I learned that the guy who sculpted it was called Justin Coutange, and sadly, that he passed away back in 2019. It sounds like he was a similar age to me, and while I didn’t know him personally, he sounds like my kind of guy. It made painting this mini much more of a reflective experience than it usually is for me – enjoyable as a painting project, but more melancholic perhaps… it was an absolute privilege to paint.

There are some very nice words on Justin here if anyone wants to check it out.

A kick in the Ghoulies

22 Monday Mar 2021

Posted by in AoS, AoS Undead

≈ 22 Comments

Greetings Terrans, I have another short post for you today – again, this is showing off some minis that were finished incidentally to my Fembruary efforts… Remember this lil’ lady?

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She’s from the Grymwatch warband for Warhammer Underworlds, and I couldn’t very well leave the rest of them in the box, so they got the same treatment:

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I’m not a fan of all the daft bits that AoS Ghouls seem to be obsessed with these days, so I trimmed all the guff off & sculpted on some rudimentary clothes. There’s a bit of subtle reposing in places, and the dude with the massive bone-club had his weapon replaced for something a bit more reasonably proportioned. The only mini that had no work done was the stupid pair of bats… I mean really, there ain’t much you can do with them is there? Here they are in smaller groups:

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I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out – I didn’t have anything in mind other than to have that female mini for my RPG campaign, so to end up with the whole lot done is a bonus. I doubt I’ll ever get to play Underworlds, but if I do, I have a warband ready to roll.