Tag Archives: Oldhammer

BOYL 2018, and a belated Space Bastard

10 Friday Aug 2018

Posted by in BOYL, OldHammer

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

,

Greetings Terrans, wow, what a week! I had all the fun & mayhem of BOYL last weekend, so three days of solid oldhammer gaming, shooting the breeze with friends, checking out amazing minis & gorgeous terrain, and generally soaking it all in. As always, the Ansell clan were hosts beyond peer, and all those who make the event possible were superb. Also as always, I have a photo dump for you to pick through, so here we go!

Friday: First up, a great game of Rogue Trader (i.e. Warhammer 40k first edition) with my pal Titus (of gameoftravel fame). He pitted his newly painted and stunning Imperial Fists against my also newly painted & very bright Eru-Kin. I used Slaan rules from Rogue Trade, and loaded up on high tech kit, while Titus used a contemporary Space Marine army list. We set out some objectives, and also included some RT psychic powers on both sides. It was a cracking game, with the Marines taking a brutal toll on the Slaan, but the Slaan being more focused on their objectives. Highlights were the Slaan hopping all over the place thanks to their displacer fields, and the pivotal moment where my Slaan mage changed the allegiance of the Marine Dreadnought. Awesome game:

 

Next up I got involved with a classic WFB campaign, and played Terror of the Lichmaster. Wojceich (Frugelhofennews) had been working on collecting and painting all the correct buildings and minis for the campaign, (including some very rare and collectable pieces), but had only recently discovered the UK Oldhammer scene, so made the BOYL event at very short notice. It was a genuine pleasure to see how much he enjoyed his minis used in the campaign, and hopefully we’ll see Wojceich again next year for Revenge of the Lichmaster!

 

Saturday: I spent most of the morning hanging out with the WIPster posse – Axiom, Cheetor, Asslessman, Whisky Priest, AntiPixi and Airbornegrove, plus event-guru Garth and a few folks I am less familiar with. Collin (Whisky Priest) ran a game of ‘What a Tanker’ – kind of World of Tanks for the tabletop. It’s a neat game, and great fun to play – even with the chaos of managing 11 players! It was really good of the guys to fit me in at the last minute, even though it made for an odd number of players and skewed the game… they really are an awesome gang of Orky tankers 😊

 

The afternoon had the Space Bastards game happening on the Helsreach board, expertly handled by Curtis. The basic idea is a small unit of Marines (or a single Marine plus human henchies) warp in to Helsreach, and kick up as much mayhem as they can. Points were available for killing, graffitiing, boozing, and one or two less salubrious activities. The whole idea came off the back of a conversation last year about how awesome Marines used to be when the fluff had them as genetically engineered homicidal maniacs, and how well this would work when said Marines were on shore leave…  Even the goody-goody Ultra Marines were sociopathic bastards back in the day  😉

Here is my Bastard (finished the night before I left), and his henchmen, :

During the game, I ended up having my spree interrupted by Hambry and his gang of Helsreachers, so a right good ding-dong took place between my mob and his. By the time the game finished, I had almost wiped the impudent locals out, and had a hefty kill tally to show for it, (plus some graffiti here and there). And here they are in action:

 

Late afternoon I was lucky to be included in another WIPster game – this time Jon (Axiom) was running a bounty hunting skirmish, which was fast paced and very funny. Jon had thoughtfully created stats for a huge number of eclectic minis from his collection, and it was awesome to see them assembled in one place for a game. I ended the game with a pleasing number of credits:

 

I also managed to jump on another bandwagon on Saturday evening, and took part in a classic Rogue Trader scenario – the battle of Jadeberry Hill. It is designed as a follow-on to the famous Battle at the Farm scenario from Rogue Trader, and pits Crimson Fists against Orks. Aiden had provided the board and the Orks, while Drew provided some gorgeous Crimson Fists. I joined a few turns in, and helped Jesper with the defence effort. We managed to hold out long enough to get the escape signal, enter the tunnel and reset the demo charges before the swarm of Orks overran our position. Several heroic Marines sacrificed themselves in this effort – a flamer guy who held up the Ork advance to allow his brothers time to escape, and a single trooper who intercepted a pair of sneaky greenskins on the verge of slipping through the net, heroically killing both in melee before getting shot to pieces.

 

 

Sunday morning was a very groovy affair – I had the pleasure of setting up and GMing an impromptu game of Rogue Trader, with Jesper controlling my Praetorians, David running the Eru-Kin, Nibbel with his Scavvies, and Hambry with his Inquisitor and retinue. Titus also joined the party late with his Imperial Fists. I set up a small settlement and civilian population, and gave each general a set of goals – most of which clashed with at least one other player. It was my first time running a game this big, and it was certainly a challenge, but I really enjoyed the experience, and I think my players did as well. Trouble is, I was so busy, I forgot to take many photos! It ended closely, with a number of objectives achieved by most players. David nicked it in the end, with his surgical precision, strategic acumen, and cold-blooded xenos focus on his objectives.

 

And that was it for another year! Man, I had such a good time, and can’t wait for 2019. A bunch of us are already planning and scheming, with some great ideas bubbling away… I’m thinking of trying to run Wolftime, and I even hear whispers of a Slaves to Darkness warband challenge! Awesome 🙂

Advertisements

Olivia Neutron-Bomb

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Fembruary Challenge, OldHammer

≈ 38 Comments

Tags

, ,

Greetings Terrans, I hope you’re all well, and that life is being kind. I have a quick post to share with you today – ‘Olivia Neutron Bomb’ is the BOYL 2017 event mini, and is a beautiful sculpt by John Pickford, organised & designed by Old Hammer stalwart Axiom. Most intriguingly, she is closely based on this classic bit of Rogue Trader art:

I actually had Olivia based and primed as part of my Fembruary effort, but I didn’t get around to painting her because she didn’t quite fit the post-apocalypse gang that I had going on. However, she is such a brilliantly strong female mini, so I knew that I wanted to include her somewhere…  Then I remembered these guys from 2016, and I figured that Olivia would be the perfect unit leader for this bunch of reprobates. I broke out my Kantor Blue and started laying down some colour, keeping to the same palette that I used on the older minis but opting to follow the RT artwork rather than freestyling it quite as much as I did on the original guys. Here she is, in all her glory:

The trousers were a real pain – I wanted to keep close to the artwork, but also use the same palette as for the rest of the squad. I think I got there in the end, but her snazzy pants took a few iterations. Otherwise she was a joyful thing to paint – she’s a really lovely mini with such a great story. Here she is leading her team of ultimate bad-asses through the streets of some backwater shithole planet:

So that’s it for now folks, I hope you’ve enjoyed my take on Olivia! I’ll be going dark for a couple of weeks, (a lot of work & life stuff coming up), but I’ll catch you all soon enough. Have a good one 🙂

The last Banshee (for now) – Candy

23 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Fembruary Challenge, Side projects

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

, ,

Hello chaps & chapettes, I have a very quick update to share today – it has been a funny week with not too much painting, but I did wrap up the last of the Ghosts of Gia*. I’m calling this one ‘Candy’:

 

‘…but Alex, why is her skin blue?’ I hear you ask… (you were asking that, right?)   Weeeell… Candy is actually the oddest of ‘odd ones out’ in the range, because she is the only one who isn’t wearing either a helmet or a re-breather! I was mulling ideas about how to deal with this, including toying with the idea of converting her, but decided to keep her ‘as is’. I then I thought to painting her as a mutant – some genetic twist that allowed her to breath the toxic atmosphere of whatever sump/hive/deathworld that the Banshees happen to come from. The idea grew on me – it was fun from a painting perspective, but it also says a lot about the ethos of the Banshees I think… I really like that they would accept a mutant into the gang, and that their shared femininity is more important to them than anti-mutant prejudice. Speaking of the gang, here’s the whole heart-breaking, life-taking, bad-assery of ’em:

 

So, that’s it for this week – told you it was a quickie! That also wraps up the Banshees for the time being*, and I’m really happy to have focused in on painting a bunch of ‘realistic’ sci-fi women that were only ever made thanks to the determination of Annie Norman (of Bad Squiddo fame) to address the paucity of believable female minis in the hobby. Thank you too to Cupcakesandmachetes for including this effort on your ‘Celebrate the Ladies’ event – there’s some great stuff going on over there, and I’m glad that Annie’s work is represented.

Next week I’ll have a cool bit of scenery to finish & share with you all, (trust me, you’ll love it!), plus I have a few half-finished Eru-Kin that might get done as well. Hobby time gets a bit choppy after that with holidays & work travel coming up fast, but we’ll see how it all goes. Have a great weekend & catch you next week 🙂

 

*I’m actually missing one mini from the first run of the Ghosts of Gia, (fuck knows where she’s gone!), plus the second Kickstarter is due to drop through my letterbox any time now… Yey!! 🙂

Decembruary painting challenge completed!

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Happy Friday folks, and I’m happy to report that my super death-dragon monster of deathly death is finished, thus comfortably getting me over the finish line for Azazel’s Decembruary painting challenge. As a reminder, the challenge was to paint a ‘big thing’ that has been put off for a while, and this certainly matches that brief – I’ve had this project in mind for months, but never seemed to have the motivation to roll my sleeves up and get cracking… You can probably see why – this was a complicated and intimidating kit bash to represent Arkhan The Black in an OldHammer stylee, and is based on the venerable Death Dragon from Grenadier, (still available from mirliton.it as ‘Arkor the Eternal’). This is what I ended up with:

So let’s talk a bit about the build… First things first, this old girl is a big lump of lead, and I made it more complicated by deliberately ignored the ‘correct’ pose to make her a bit more dynamic… much pinning and filling was required to make sure she was rock solid! I used an old GW skeleton cavalry mini to represent Arkhan himself, with some minor conversion work to swap the (MASSIVE) head, add a right arm, add a tilting shield, and sculpt a saddle & banner mount. He also got some manly man-chains to steer the bugger. The base got quite a lot of attention as well – Arkhan gets a bunch of spirit host attacks in AoS, so I wanted to represent this on the model. The banshees from the Mortis Engine kit fitted the bill nicely, while some trees & scatter filled in the gaps and added a third point of stability for the dragon. One final thing to note – cleaning the mould lines off such a big model created a lot of lead shavings and off-cuts. I glued all this gash to the base and used it as texture, thus avoiding any thorny issues with responsible disposal. I even managed to sneak the rider’s original massive head in there – waste not, want not!

In terms of painting, this piece (is it pretentious to call it a ‘piece’??) provided ample opportunity to cut loose and have some fun. First up, I wanted the spirits to look like they were really glowing, so I had loads of fun with OSL. I think it came off nicely, though I think I overdid it a bit on the dragon’s eye sockets… I’ll sort that bit out next time I have some skellies on the table, but otherwise I am really chuffed with how the glow effect worked. Another bit that got a lot of attention was the banner and (to a lesser extent) the shield, and I really got to push the boat out with the freehand here. I am delighted with how it came out – that banner ended up being one of my favourite ‘things wot I painted’ ever! The rest of the paint job was pretty standard – I painted the trees to match my woodland bases, and I took my usual approach making things look tatty and old. A smattering of leaves and tufts of grass complete the base, though I do need to just go back and add some OSL to the leaves, (they got glued on last, and I didn’t want to risk painting on to wet superglue).

Here are a bunch of close-ups from various angles & focus points – I’ve tried to capture all the interesting bits for your viewing pleasure:

 

So, that’s it folks, what do you think?! I’m delighted with how it all came together & hope you like it too 🙂   Huge thanks to Azazel for setting the challenge and motivating me to tackle such a big & intimidating project – it is great to have such a mighty hero to lead my legions, and I wouldn’t have got around to it without this challenge, so high-fives to you dude 🙂

Painting Decembruary update, and a little bit of jungle

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in AoS Undead, OldHammer, Side projects

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Hi guys, just a few bits to share with you all today – my main effort has been focussed on progressing my big Deadcember / ‘Painting Decembruary’ project. I also got a little more jungle built as well, but let’s take a look at the big fella first:

As described in my previous post, the main part of the build is the rather lovely Death Dragon from Grenadier Masterpiece Editions. Happily, all the pinning, bracing and filling worked out really well, and the beasty has held together & can successfully bear its own weight. I have jazzed up the base with some scenic bits and bobs, and ghosts from the Mortis Engine kit, (an accompanying host of spirits are ‘a thing’ in the AoS warscroll).

I have also done some work on Arkhan himself – he’s a funny character to capture really, what with him being a Liche King, a powerful sorcerer, and a pretty formidable fighter too. He is based on an old metal skeleton knight, with some newer plastics added to refine the look a little and to get him equipped correctly. The first thing that had to go was the lumpy and outsized head – this got swapped for a suitably warrior-magey one from the skeleton kit. The next thing to get sorted were the weapons… Arkhan is supposed to be armed with a staff & tomb blade, but I decided to be a bit liberal with my interpretation of his gear. The staff looks more like a combat weapon, and is made of various components including a bladed staff head from the tree revenant kit. His sword, (slung over his back), is also of Elven make, so it looks like my version of Arkhan might be an ancient Elven warrior-mage of some sort! I also added a small jousting shield from the Brettonian Knight kit – it’s a smaller item than the one that the model is designed for, so it doesn’t hide the figure in the same way, but still gives me a flat area for some freehand. Here’s a closeup for you:

Terrible photos I know, but hopefully you get the idea. I still have some work to do – he needs a sleeve added to that right arm, and a proper saddle for example. I’ll be breaking out the green-stuff this week, with the aim of getting him primed for the weekend.

In other news, I also managed to crank out some more psychedelic jungle terrain for a bit of fun:

I’ve just realised that it’s hard to judge the scale with this photo, but if you look closely there are some bits and pieces on the base that help… basically I went big here, with a vague idea that these trees are carnivorous, and that their area of effect is shown by the big bases that they sit on… They don’t have to be used this way of course, but it’s nice to have the option to go for a deathworld type narrative if I choose. I’m pretty pleased with how this little side-project is going, and have much more to add further down the road 🙂

Anyhow, that’s it for now folks! I’ll try to get an update out next week, but if not then I’ll catch you dudes on the other side for the traditional retrospective post. Peace & goodwill to you all.

A frog in the throat

15 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Eru-Kin

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

, ,

Hello there! A little bit of painting to share with you all today – some troops for my new Eru-Kin project. The Eru-Kin Kickstarter provided a wealth of cool and unusual sculpts to choose from, including a batch of 4 sculpts that form what I look on as ‘core’ tactical troops, (‘Braves’ in the RT Slann background). I’ve got three of each sculpt, and decided to batch paint them one group at a time, (so the next few posts are going to be broadly similar I’m afraid). In the interests of trying to make them look a bit more individual, I have incorporated some of the old RT fluff regarding skin colour & patterning and exotic animal hides – there is some rather extreme colour experimentation along the way… I’ll be honest, there are some colour combos that don’t exactly rock my world, but hey-ho, it’s an army of space-frog-lizard-men things so who am I to judge! I’ve finished the first batch so let’s take a look:

I repeated the grey-blue armour with the odd red panel here & there, as per my test subject last week, but with different skin colours & patterning for each… I suspect that they would’ve looked much better if I had stuck with yellow flesh, (as per the test mini I did last week), but then they would have been practically identical so it’s pros & cons really. I also picked out the loin cloths in different colours & added some exotic animal print patterns – again, a call-back to the RT Slann fluff, (I suspect that the base colour of the cloth might be used to mark out different units as the army grows).

From a sculpting perspective, these guys look much less ‘Predator-esque’ than last week’s test piece… The similarities are there, but I feel like there is a different design ethic going on here… I originally had my test piece pegged in to be the General, but these latest guys are actually far more typical of the range so I may end up changing my mind on that… I suspect that the Predator dude might end up being a sniper/assassin specialist type in the final army, but we’ll worry about that further down the road. Here they are together:

 

Anyhoo, that’s it for now dudes – short and sweet today, but worry not – there is more to follow 🙂