Kruleboyz Gutrippaz and Man-Skewer Boltboyz, I finished the Kruleboyz from the Dominion set

What a month. No updates on the blog, The longform excuses for that'll follow in the next paragraph. Let's just blast off with this group shot. I've finished all the Kruleboyz models from the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Dominion boxed set. The ones already blogged about are now joined by 10 Gutrippaz (Orcs with Spears) and 3 Man-Skewer Boltboyz (Orcs with shoulder fired ballista's). 

Kruleboyz (Kruleboyz) never lose it, Kruleboyz (Kruleboyz) never chose this way, Kruleboyz (Kruleboyz) never close your eyes, Kruleboyz always shine. (sorry, the damn song got stuck in my head while painting this bunch).

Now on to the cheap excuses ;). I'm not one to drop names, so let's say I finally fell in with the hip crowd and got the latest in viral infections (and there I thought I was too old and boring for new things ;). Luckily I ignored grandfather Nurgle's advice and listened to the doctor beforehand. Between my shots and 'I ain't got time to be sick' I got only mild symptoms (I'm willing to admit the shots helped more than boneheaded stuborness). So far so good, but as Nurgle so fondly reminds us: families that get sick together, can follow me onto the chaos wastes together (or something like that). Well at my house, we all travelled Nurgle's stomping grounds. After everyone got out of bed, we had some supporting the kids with e-learning activities to look forward to. On top of that I'm self-employed with a fascinating collection of deadlines. So - long story short - I spent most of the rest of the month trying to get back on schedule. Most of the rest of the month? Yes, to wrap March off I got a classic stomach flue too. I should've been grateful for the Old School vibes, but I was too sick to show proper appreciation ;) Well, I'm back up again and fit enough to talk about these miniatures. Please Nurgle, do not consider this a request for thirds....

I played a test game with two of these units and they were bad. Actually they performed beyond bad (ghastly?). Let's say they fire three arrows with a reasonable chance to kill one or two unarmored humans. As soon as armor comes into play...it was...atrocious. Still had a blast of a game though. Lost, but who cares? 

These are the Kruleboyz Man-Skewer Boltboyz. Everything wielding a ballista sized crossbow in the Kruleboyz army is called a Man-Skewer. The Boltboyz bit is to tell them apart from another model with an even bigger crossbow. To be honest: I like the idea of green halfwits hip-firing siege artillery. No wimpy crossbows for my favorite psychopaths! On the flipside: I would actually rather like it if there were some regular crossbows as well, just to make these stand out more. (same with the Ironjaw Orruks on humongous Boars. It would look so much better if they were surrounded by regular sized boars). But that's may just be me. I've actually written all I could about the paint schemes of these fellows in my previous Kruleboyz posts, so I do not have much to add here. I opted to paint the one pauldron every model has yellow. This ties them in with the rest of the army.

'We were already sporting these cloaks before Mengil Manhide made them cool you know....hey don't look him up on SOLegends! Quick! Ready! Aim!!! Miss!!!!!!'.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention how much I like the helmets on these models. I also wouldn't be me if I did that beneath the best picture to check out said helmets (just scroll up ;). I have to admit I'm very fond of how the bruised human skin color of the cloaks works on these models. Quite sick and frightening indeed. Now imagine these three doing the Silence of the Lambs dance between shots (at the enemy, not from a tequila bottle). Yes there's an image not even bleach will remove. With (only half-sincere) apologies, I've spent too much time indoors in the past month.

I've gone beyond excessive with the ground covering for the bases of this army. At this point I'm actively wondering why I bothered to paint the feet of these Orruks Orcs Kruleboyz at all.

The Kruleboyz Gutrippaz are your basic Orcs with spears. The Dominion box set has snap-fit models with no options, so spears it is. The regular retail box lets you pick and choose between spears and hand weapons. It also has musicians and banners (yeah!). I like the sculpts of the Orcs Orruks Kruleboyz, they have wonderfully soulful faces, slightly reminiscent of one of my favorite Orc Shamans (bottom of the post this link goes to a picture of him). Having said that: the main focus is on the shields of course. A whole army with professionally sculpted John Blanche style 'Ogre Face' shields, my childhood self came knocking to express joy. I took quite a bit of time with washes and highlights to maximize the amount of character each shield oozes. I think it shows. 

I've been looking on and off for this book for over a decade. Now Ratspike is mine...all mine....<insert maniacal laugh track on repeat here>.

Speaking of John Blanche I lucked out in the extreme (between the fever chills and coughs). I had a forlorn alert set on a Dutch second hand site for Ratspike. This artbook was published in 1989 and it is hard to come by (to put it mildly). I set up an alert in case a miracle happened and someone would put it on sale at that website (if it pops up on eBay, I can't afford it). Well I was alerted, it was on sale and after a tense week it turned out I was the only interested party. The true gent of a seller was still willing to let it go, and it arrived a few days later. I'm chuffed enough about this to break my 'don't bore people with crass material possessions you did not have to paint'-rule. With apologies for boring all you people with this crass photograph of a material possession I did not even have to paint, bla bla bla...A few years back GW staff (both active and former) held an Ask us Anything style thread on Facebook (back when it didn't make you feel like you betrayed mankind by visiting). I asked if there would ever be a reissue or print to order of this book. John Blanche himself popped by (quite quickly) to tell me 'no'. What an experience. 'He spoke to me!' Followed by: 'Oh rats, he said no'. As finding a pristine second hand copy (I could afford) was the only (slim) hope I had, it is a real thrill to fulfil it. Having wasted this many words on a picture of the cover of this book, perhaps I should consider a post with some of the other 'old colored paper' in my collection. I do not have either of the Realm of Chaos books (never got the second one and lost the first one years ago), but I have managed to build up a bit of an interesting collection of other obscure books by GW. Well perhaps I should reconsider the crassness of material possessions and all that after all (another surefire sign of getting older (har, har)), and just type a post on that someday soon.

Boo!

Attentive readers may have spotted another model in the picture on top of this post. I looked at the pictures I shot, and decided it should get its own blog post. So I'll just leave you with a quick teaser picture of one of its heads and a very shaky promiss I'll blog about the model soon(ish). In other news, I've been messing around with a video camera and editing software. I've been finding out all kinds of interesting things. Lets say I can talk about 'my hand' in relation to 'the lens', although I intended to talk about what was beneath said hand. I also have a nice semi-TED talk ready called: editing software - what you want vs. how it works. Last but not least: I can write myself the following note: 'write a script before filming you <expletive deleted>. You know this! You've worked with videocrews before! Remember how you complained when people told you that wasn't necessary you <expletive deleted>!' 

In other words Its all one hell of a smooth ride, expect unprofessional grade nonsense somewhere in the future (or the sound neglected projects make as they die a slow death in the Cupboard of Great Intentions). With that, I'll leave off for now, here's to hoping Grandfather Nurgle shows some mercy in the next few months. I'll paint those Blight Lords that are still grey now grandfather, I promise!