They came from the North.

   Aware that Zomtober is just around the corner, I thought I would do a quick post on the most recent (smaller) batches of Vikings for my ongoing project, then allow time to focus on getting a zombie ready for Sunday's first deadline.

   This is two quick batches using a grey and cream scheme and a green and cream scheme, which was aimed to tone down the primary colours in the units a tad. I am down to my last 10 or so models for this project now, so I am enjoying painting smaller groups.

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These were the first ships of the Danish men that sought the land of the English nation.

   Keeping to the same project and using another quote from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles as my title (the next sentence from last time), this time I present the next two batches of Vikings for the same army, namely, a red batch and a yellow batch for want of a better way to describe them.* Again, I have mixed up models from different units to stop any single troop type looking like there might be a uniform in play and the photos are more proof of my love of the 2 foot rule of painting.

*The last few batches were blue, 

cream and green heavy.

 The Bondi are all from Gripping Beast or Bad Squiddo Games - shieldmaidens were too cool not to include even if the historical truth to them is very much in debate at the moment.

 The Hurscarls are from Gripping Beast or Crusader Miniatures (although it has to be said the GB models are far superior to the Crusader in this case).

Lastly, more archers, again from Crusader Miniatures.

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Came the first three ships from the land of the robbers

   I have been planning a new Viking force for the last couple of years, buying the odd model when ever I saw one I liked, but not daring to start it as this is a project that I want to be able to give the time it deserves. However, travelling around Oslo after seeing the Viking ship museum reminded me of something I read on a blog, somewhere, about batch painting non-uniformed models in groups of the same colour as though they are in a uniform, as long as you vary which units the models come from you shouldn't be able to tell.
   After going through my reference books*, I started to book mark each page with a full length picture and picking 5 or 6 models from my backlog I started painting each batch to match a picture. Three batches in and I have a decent amount of figures ready to go, blue, cream and green seem to have been my go to colours so far, so my next couple of batches will be from very different looking images to keep the variety going, because, unlike what the tv wants us to think, Vikings wore some seriously bright colours.

*And spending money in Osprey's sale on more

Hurscarls - a mix of Shield Wall and Crusader Miniatures

Archers - all Crusader Miniatures

Bondi - all from Gripping Beast, Shield Wall or Bad Squiddo at this point

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No one expects the . . . wait, there are two of you?

   The Inquisition in the 40K universe has fascinated me since the Daemon Hunter codex came out back in 2003 and I have built and converted a new inquisitor every few years since but never really been happy with the result. Then last year I had some inspiration and after joining a couple of groups on facebook, I had even more inspiration to look through.
    The two models below are the result of all of that;

   First is Inquisitor Von Haas of the Ordo Hereticus. Von Haas is about as puritanical as you can be and is not afraid to throw his weight around to get the manpower, materials and equipment he needs, so everything his warband will have will be top spec and expensive. This is the sort of Inquisitor that will appropriate an Imperial fleet to exterminate a planet he has found a cult on, where others of his kind might just eliminate it's members.
   Weirdly, I finished this model about this time last year and I am not sure how he avoided the pages of this blog, although, in a year I still haven't got that far on the rest his warband. The model is based on GW's Inquisitor Coteaz with parts from space marine kits to give him some character.

   Inquisitor Piers Rowe, however, is a very different kettle of fish, of the Ordo Xenos, he has been keeping a low profile for the last few years. He is researching whether it is possible to reverse engineer the Ork psychic power to disrupt the Waaagh and has had to go to some places and do some things that his peers might take a dim view to. As a result his equipment is practical and built to last, his warband will be small and comprise of misfits and he will make for some much more interesting story lines when I get him to the table.
    The model is based on Heresy Miniatures' 'not the' War Doctor with hands replaced and extra equipment strapped on (inc a backpack). The model just looks as tired and worn out as I needed the character to look after some time avoiding the notice of the authorities.

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Getting to the point

   When I first got carried away building 4ground Wild West buildings, and then playing Dead Man's Hand to justify them, I bought a pack of Great Escape Games' Cacti, painted them up and had them on the edges of all my games - as seen in my first Dead Man's Hand blog - but I knew I needed a few more, 5 cacti just weren't going to cut it.
   So I duly went onto North Star and, as part of another order, I added a pack of the same Cacti to my basket and checked out. When the order arrived it came with a note saying they were out of stock but were expecting a restock soon, so unless I got in contact to cancel it they would post them as soon as they arrived, which I was fine with and promptly carried on with my life forgetting I was waiting on some cacti. A couple of months later I placed an order with Great Escape Games themselves for a tank from their Company B range and remembering I needed some Cacti, I added them to the basket. Within the space of a week or so, two packs of cacti had turned up at my door and they went onto the to-do pile for some space on my desk to free up. That was a good couple of years ago.

   As part of my clearout this zip lock bag of cacti turned up and I knew that I couldn't just paint them up as they were, I needed to do something a tad more special, as another 10 based separately would be really dull scenery. Recently I noticed that Great Escape Games had produced a wildlife pack so that was added to my order with the SU-76i from last post, with a mind to add them to the bases of this project.

   The skeleton was too good not to add to a base and a snake somewhere was a must. I am looking forward to organising, at least a scene in, a game of Dead Man's Hand, which is normally all set inside the town.

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Odds and Sods 3

   It has been a while since I did an Odds and Sods post - this time last year almost to the day weirdly* - but my painting desk is so full of bits of projects that this was unavoidable to someone like me. This post has Dinosaurs, a WW2 Soviet tank, Star Wars droid and Frostgrave, so lets begin.

*Must be something about the first week of September

   First up are the Oviraptors that I picked up from North Star. I was in the market for more of their wire spears as mine have gone walkabouts, but they have some of the most dangerous emails in the hobby and I am afraid I was one such casualty. I did my customary research into this dinosaur and basically came back with the knowledge that it is another 'do what you want' as the scientists don't know, so I picked my favourite scheme and went for it. I really do need a ruleset to play with these figures now, as this collection is getting a bit out of hand.

   After nearly a year of break from Bolt Action, I have picked it up again and started organising games and a couple of tournaments. The army I enjoy playing the most are my Soviets and my favourite tank to use is the SU-76 but I have always wanted to try it's up-armoured brother, the SU-76i**, so when I found out that Company B sold one (via Great Escape Games in the UK) it was a must buy.

**Actually based on captured Pz3 and stugs

   Carrying on from last time, I still have a fair few Frostgrave figures on my desk, of which these 3 made it through the painting process; another man at arms, a white gorilla and a medium construct. The man at arms is from Ladies in Sensible shoes***, the white gorilla is North Star and the medium construct is from Black Hat Miniatures and was bought without a plan, but with my Frostgrave resurgence I knew exactly what to use it as.

***Like the unknown templar from last time.

   Last up is a test model I bought from Tritex Games. I was after a better Owlbear model for D&D**** and spotted they had a Star Wars Miniatures category, so I bought a couple of bits as test items for size comparrisons with Imperial Assault.

****My character now has a magic item

that summons an Owlbear on command.

   The one I bought to actually use in games - probably as scenery - was the astromech droid ' Red' which was the one that malfunctioned when Luke bought it instead of R2-D2 in the 4th film. A quick ink wash and basing brought it up to gaming standard but size was the big issue, but as you can see below, while the model is smaller than R2, it isn't massively smaller, so I wouldn't be upset using it in the same game.

   The only other thing to test was the human sized characters, so I picked up a Sith Nobel with plans to use him as NPC in D&D, but he does seem to fit Imperial Assault's scale, so there is a risk I might bulk some units out with figures from this range, especially if some of the worst priced units work out scale wise (thinking Jawa's here).

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Back from the [Frost]grave

   Over the last couple of months I have been sorting out my man-cave to create a home office and this has lead to a few changes in the way I treat my hobby, but the important ones for this post are the figures I have uncovered* and the rulesets I have decided to either drop** or start playing again.

   One of the projects that has been brought back to life is Frostgrave. I last played this in 2015 when I got 3 mates together and ran a mini day campaign using my own figures, but for some reason we never did it again and so, with no deadline looming, no more figures were painted even though I had to strictly enforce what soldiers the players could buy as I didn't have enough figures to allow multiples of pretty much anything.

*My lead pile isn't bad enough that these figures are a shock, more

that they have been pushed up the queue by having been found.

**I now have more non-GW rules and supplements than I 

own of GW's, for the first time in my gaming life, after

clearing off two shelves of old rulebooks and codexes.

   So focusing on the base rulebook (my Gnolls and Cultists are an issue for another day) I went through my lead pile and picked out anything interesting looking figures. First up were two knights, from Crusader Miniatures who were a by product of another project, and a templar who is either a nickstarter exclusive model or a Wargames Illustrated show model, I forget which.
   I went for 2 different tactics with my painting, the knights I decided to go early medieval with basic heraldry, while I went to town with transfers on the templar. For me this is the biggest joy of a warband style game like this, you can just pick up a figure and paint it how you want as long as you keep the basing standardised.

   Last up are a bunch of the North Star plastics. I literally just went through my last couple of sprues and built figures to fill in gaps, so I bulked up my men at arms so every player can now have at least one and added more crossbows although I still have more to paint up.

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