Chapel warband update – Exodite Avengers Assemble!!

29 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by in The Chapel

≈ 33 Comments

Tags

, ,

Hi guys, I have a very happy update for you today – I managed to finish up the fleshy half of my Chapel warband on Sunday, and boy, were they a pain. I really struggled with the hard armour plates on these guys… I don’t paint hard plates often, and even when I do, I tend to go for a more battered look than I have here. I think they eventually came out ok though – I kind of wanted a chitin/bone look about the armour, and that seems to have kinda/sorta worked. I’m less pleased with the glowing green eye lenses, but I can live with them. The rest of the paint job was a straight forward job of blending on the cloth and drybrushing on the fur cloaks. The only colours at play here are browns, gold, greens and greys – it’s pretty weird working with such a restricted palette, but was an interesting challenge and gives quite an unusual look. See what you think:

 1st pair

2nd pair

All four

and the whole unit

 

I may tweak these a little bit more, time depending… I’m thinking of introducing some red ‘warpaint’ around the eyes for all five, and I’m seriously considering ditching the back-banner on the Exarch – the more I think of it, the less the banner makes sense for a woodsy, hunter type… :-/  What do you guys think??

In other news, I used the bank holiday to start tackling trees…. Sooo many trees!!!

 

I’ve got nine trees built over the weekend, so six more to go and then I can get them primed and start the painting process. All pretty boring stuff to be honest, but I thought I’d share these WIP shots with you – ‘The Watchers’, built using some misprints kindly donated by Mark:

 

Anyway, that’s it for now folks! It’s going to be a boring few weeks of posts from here on in, with tree after tree after tree to paint. I’ll fit the rest of my warband in and around the forest, (though they are essentially trees as well).  I had better get a shift on – it is only three more weeks until we are called to the Chapel!

The curse of the Werewolf!!!

21 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by in Side projects

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Hi guys, a really quick post for you today – back in April I ran a small pulp game with my sons, where my eldest played Hraxi Jonas, (the interdimensionally famous xeno-archaeologist), and my youngest played Samwise Shortround, his plucky (and punchy!) sidekick. The game was based around killing off some death cultists and hunting down a werewolf, (more here). During the scrap, Shortround got bitten by the werewolf, (just before he delivered a crushing blow to the creature’s unmentionables), and my youngest asked whether this meant that his character could now turn into a werewolf himself… yeah, he’s a proper gamer in the making! Since then I have been keeping my eyes open for a suitable mini, and I spotted ‘the one’ at BOYL this year, the lovely wolfman by Tony Yates, so my son and I sat down to paint him over the weekend:

Hraxi & Shortround – Shortround starts to feel a bit peculiar…

 

…and transforms into beastform!

 

Here are the two faces of Samwise Shortround…

 

I was so impressed with how well my youngest concentrated during the painting, and he really did quite a lot by himself! He is also looking forward to working out rules for Shortround’s wolf-form, and we can expect a new adventure in a couple of weeks!

In other news, I have also been busily plugging away on my warband for The Chapel – I don’t normally post painting WIPs, but I just wanted to prove to Mark that I am on track :-)

That card in the background is all the painting recipes for this project – you can see why it is taking me so long!! Hopefully I’ll have these guys wrapped up this week, and then I can finish off the remaining tree constructs, (a much quicker job), before tackling the four forest bases I need to get through :-/

Fleshwalkers of Karr-Keel

12 Saturday Aug 2017

Posted by in AoS, AoS Undead

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

Hi guys, more zombies for you today – I powered through this lot over the week, ready for a game tonight. This time it is the gorgeous Karr-Keel set from Upstream Games House. There is a great backstory on the website for these guys, with the whole set being very narrative driven and a self-confessed ‘vanity project’ for Brian Kirkell’s birthday – an inspirational example to anyone with an idea or two up their sleeves! Furthermore, I believe that there is a second wave in the works for Karr-Keel (Kirkell – geddit?) as well, so hopefully we will see the range expanded. It is well worth checking this set out if you like your zombies quirky – the quality is superb and they are packed full of gorgeous little details, with these being sculpted by none other than Kev ‘not just Goblins’ Adams. Here are my versions – as usual, these are mostly painted with wash directly on to the undercoat:

 

Check this out – the ‘reflection’ is freehand… I’m quite proud of it :-)

 

I also picked up the lovely Teamsters Cart from the Karr-Keel as well, with the intention of using it as a corpse cart. I changed the bell-ringer’s right hand for a lash and planted a sword in there just to make it tie in with AoS a little better, and I added some extra skullage to the cart itself. Again, this is a really nice mini, great fun to build and paint, and it adds some nice hitting power and zombie-buffs in game:

 

Now, you can’t very well have a shambling plague of zombies without a mind to direct them, so I also finally got around to doing a proper Necromancer for my army. He’s from Diehard miniatures, with the addition of the hourglass in the left hand. With a nod to the late & great George Romero, (father of the modern concept of what a zombie is), may I introduce Gorgo Romero – master of unlife, and high-noctifer of the broken wheel cabal:

 

Here is Gorgo, driving my entire Fleshwalker horde to glory:

I’ve lost count of the sculptors & manufacturers represented in this group, and of the races/species represented. I’m rather pleased with this wonderfully eclectic mix :-)

 

In other news, I had my first experience of RPG on Thursday night, and had a ton of fun with it. I joined with a local group & ended up playing in a trial run of Star Wars: Force and Destiny. A few of the more experienced RPers on the table were quite scathing about it, and it wasn’t really what I expected to be honest – it was less ‘in your head’ and more map driven. It was also far easier than I expected, (though to be fair, it was the first act in the sequence). That said, I still enjoyed it, and had a good laugh with some very interesting group of people. I think it is fair to say that this is something that I would like to explore further, and I’m hoping to get a more authentic experience next week.

Anyway, that’s it for now folks! I’m going to be knuckling down to my Chapel commitments from here on so this may result in fewer posts overall, but hopefully it all comes together nicely and in time :-)