Ever wonder were all the undead Orcs are? Wonder no more: they're right here and ready to Wuuurgh!

Overposting week continues (it's like shark week, but with less sharks). I had one hell of a joyful moment whilst perusing 3D-printable models when I discovered that Avatars of War makes STLs. I have quite a few of their models in my collection  and now I can enjoy more of their work. To make things even better: they have non-human undead models. With great joy I printed (and painted) my first ten Undead Orcs. 

Wuuurgh (It's like Waaargh, but for undead).

Tom Meier's Zombie Dragon and an Undead Lord join the host of the unliving (and a cheeky bonus Nurgle Spawn/Daemon Prince jumps after them)

A few weeks back I discovered a small bookmarks folder named 'RP Wishlist'. Yes I still use bookmarks, I'm old :). Apparently a few years back I decided to buy these models by Ral Partha Europe 'some day'. 'Well,' I thought, 'lets not Aragorn this, and make it this day'. Long story short: a package arrived and these are two of the Ral Partha Europe's models I really wanted to own: Tom Meier's Zombie Dragon (a Citadel classic) and an Undead Lord by Chaz Elliot.(one of the early sculptors at GW, now part of the Die Hard Miniatures team). 

The lichlord and his hound scoured the abandoned keep, searching for fresh recruits to join the undead host...

Honi soit qui mal y pense! My noble Bretonnian army is finally finished ;)

February last year I made serious headway painting my noble force of Bretonnians. Then Adeptus Titanicus popped up on my paint station and other distractions followed. This army almost ended (as a lot of Warhammer projects end) with twenty ghouls peasant bowmen and a noble lady half painted on the table, windowsill and finally in a cupboard somewhere. As I recently finished two proud beasts for the menagerie that accompanies this army I decided to sit down and force myself to finish my Bretonnian army once and for all. Starting with the true inspiration for all chivalric acts: the lady astride her unicorn.

For honor! For Chivalry! For the lady!

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #3 Linden Way redux

During the lockdown I turned Bloodbath at Orc's Drift into an Age of Sigmar campaign aptly named Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift. On Saturday the ninth I will be hosting the full campaign with a small group of friends, before that time I wanted to retest the third skirmish in the campaign: Linden Way. Here's the battlefield for the scenario's redux. A synopsis of the original tryout is here. 

The re-imagined Linden Way table. I forgot to bring a lake and a few copses of trees. We solved it by improvising.

Holy terror batman! You've let yourself go! (Terrorgheist and Zombie Dragon join the horde)

Last year I started painting a proud band of noble Bretonnians to add to my collection of armies. For those of you scratching their heads, these Bretonnians are actually known as Flesh Eater Court ghouls, they just don't know it. As part of their menagerie I wanted a noble pegasus with rider and a unicorn. To this end I got started building a Zombie Dragon and a Terrorgheist. After the build I even airbrushed a few basic colors on them. At that point I felt uninspired and set them aside. These monster are quite big, so they got demoted from the Window Sill of Shame to Doorstops in under a week. This is no way to treat dragons; not even dead ones. So recently I decided to follow two distinct paths towards getting these monsters painted. This is the result.

Getting a Zombie Dragon and a Terrorgheist in frame together is even harder then painting them.

Warhammer Townscape challenge part 2: actually building something (35. Tower)

Oh dear I seem to be stuck in one of those 'tear-off calendar losing it's pages' time-passes shots. This Sunday I realized August is almost over and I had yet to get to building my Townscape Challenge. Missing the deadline is unacceptable of course. Long story short: I powered on the hot-wire cutter and went to work on a bit of high density polystyrene. Here is the (almost) end result. 

The outline of my interpretation of building 35 of the Townscape set.

Classic Nagash shuffles into my collection

Earlier this year (actually Christmas last year) I finally assembled and painted the new Nagash model. As I mentioned in the previous post the classic model was high on my wish list. Apparently I have a genie stuck in a lamp somewhere around my paint station as classic Nagash made its way to me through a second hand site at a reasonable price rather sooner than expected. Now I had a real challenge: giving a model named 'the ugliest model ever made' a paint job that would make him look like a proper villain. Well there's no accounting for good taste, but I think I succeeded, and (as usual when I paint a model I don't really like) I like him now (as a model, not as a monstrous necromantic deity). 

Classic Nagash is out about the town...

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #3 Linden Way

With another lockdown lifted, I got a chance to test scenario number three from my reimagining of the classic Blood Bath at Orc's Drift campaign. This time the villagers of Linden Way had to escape while a small visiting army tried to hold the little town against yet another invading horde. As with the previous scenario's I first had to reinvent the table layout as wargaming tables have shrunk (while quite ironically the models keep on growing  #scalecreep). Here's the Linden Way table for the Blood Bath at Orruk's Drift campaign.

Linden Way reimagined for a smaller table. I made an improvised lake by cutting a plastic tab divider to shape and covering the edges with moss.  

A Die Hard liche, some Chaos Sorcerers, an Orc and a gladiator walk into a bar...

Sorry for the awful headline. I did not get around to a lot of painting over the weekend as my brother convinced me to give Elite: Dangerous a few more hours of my life. This game balances utter boredom with the anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen (I did glob a few extra jots of paint on some Lumineth that have been standing around on the desk since forever). Anyway, I'll use this as a chance to show a few models I painted earlier this year but never shared on my blog. Lets start with more Die Hard Miniatures awesomeness: Melcor the Liche. 

I originally painted his eyes red, switching to glowing green was a very good decision. 

I resurrected three ancient Skeleton Army chariots (bonus oil washing tutorial at the end of this post)

As you sink deeper into the madness some of us call the 'wargaming hobby', you start accruing more unpainted miniatures, second hand models and random bits than you can keep track of. By now I'm far enough removed from the shores of sanity to occasionally find a box or zip-lock bag that I can't even remember storing. Recently a pair of bags turned out to contain skeletons, skeletal horsemen and chariots from the venerable Skeleton Army boxed set. I couldn't resist restoring three chariots. 

When they said 'ride eternal, shiny and chrome' this was not what I expected.

Nagash arrives (and he is gigantic)

Last Christmas I gave you my heart and the very next day Nagash arrived. Oh dear its February and I'm still stuck with that horrible Christmas earworm. On the plus side, I did actually build and paint Nagash over the Holidays. I just never got around to properly photographing him. The model is absolutely massive. Lets put him at the Flugelhöfen gatehouse and put Krell en Kemmler in frame with him for scale.

Ha! Two maniacal undead monsters in one summoning Kemmler cackled...seconds later Nagash relieved him of command.

Die Hard skeleton unit and refreshing an existing paint job on Morghast Harbingers

I love (almost) every model made by Die Hard Miniatures. I previously painted the best Necromancer miniature in the world (in my humble opinion) and their wonderful old school Chaos Lord and Witch. Their best line of models (once again, my opinion) is their line of undead (both Fantasy and Sci-Fi). One day I hope to own at least two buckets of these models. A while back I took a small step towards that magical day and ordered a full unit of twenty skeletons to paint up as a unit. I recently put the finishing touches to them. 

"I can't believe we survived our run in with the Red Count", Alex the Accordionist tried to say. But somehow all that came out was a dry rustling moan.

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #2 Ashak Rise

This week I had time to test out scenario number two for my re-imagining of the classic Bloodbath at Orc's Drift campaign. The original scenario featured a small band of greedy dwarf deserters trying to save their gold from a chance encounter with an invading orc warband. This new version sees a small Order/Death army defending the same old shack from an invading Chaos/Destruction host. Slightly bigger scale, same principle. 

The game opened with a unit of skeletons and a lone Tomb Banshee standing close to the bridge on the road leading past Ahsak's Rise mining cottage.

Nighthaunt's Lady Olyder arrives to complete the court

This weekend I divided my attention between painting a full unit of Die Hard skeletons (not finished yet) and random models around my painting station. One of these was Lady Olynder, the queen of the Nighthaunt. I am rather happy to say that I've completed her paint job.

Lady Olynder, Mortarch of Grief, wobbles in to join my Nighthaunt Army.

Die Hard Chaos General, Witch & some friends

With the Townscape complete, I finally have room on my desk to get back to painting miniatures. As a starting of point I decided to give a few special models extra attention before getting back to my usual army painting shtick. Front and center where two models from an order I placed with Die Hard Miniatures. Lets get started with my brand new Chaos General. 

A wonderful sculpt by Die Hard and, thanks to the latest General's Handbook, I can make an appropriate AoS warscroll for him.

Battle for the Comet

This Sunday Goblin Grot Spider Riders, Skaven and the Oger Ogor Mawtribes fought against Dark Elves, Fyreslayers, Dwarves and Bretonnians (*cough* Flesheater Courts *cough*). Seers foretold three precious comets would land in the (wisely) abandoned village of Schweifsternheim. Whoever could claim the precious rocks would gain untold power and riches. Reason enough for a good scrap.

 

With a deranged roar the packed Ghouls stormed a horde of Skaven Clanrats.

Expanding my horde of cannibal Bretonnians

Recently I got started on a new army of Bretonnians painting a small band of five serfs and their lord Vicomte Pascal D'ascii. Sharp eyed readers may have noticed my army does not quite match the usual expectations when it comes to these feudal fighters of the Old World. That's true. I'm actually painting a Flesh Eater Court army. Deranged cannibals living in a shared delusion of noble grandeur. Recently I added a fresh batch of monsters to this army.

Have no fear, the noble knights of the realm are here!

Freshly painted Fir Bolg skeletons

Last year I painted the Nightmare Legion. This classic skeleton 'regiment of renown' has seen quite a number of (very modern AoS) battles since. Aside from bringing me waves of happy nostalgia, it also brought an advantage of metal skeletons to light: they don't fall apart when subjected to my rather cavalier approach to transport. With that in mind I tried hunting down more members for the Nightmare Legion. Unfortunately people tend to seriously overprice old miniatures, especially when they know you're searching for them Maybe I'll get lucky and find affordable extra Nightmare Legion troopers, or one of these two units someday. As that day may never come, I decided to find different suppliers for metal skeletons. My fist interesting find was this unit produced by Brigade Models for their Celtos Fir Bolg line.

A group of 22 Fir Bolg skeletons reporting for duty to Nagash.

For the lady!

I love to kick off a new year with a new army. Last year I broke some personal records painting a newfangled Nighhaunt army in a rather insanely short time. This year I decided to add a Bretonnian army to my collection. First though I had to settle on proper heraldry. As a test I painted Vicomte Pascal d'Ascii and his noble serfs.

Any man who would be a knight and follow a king, follow me!

Necromancer, Balewind Vortex, Plague Drones, Festus and Waywatcher

Its been way too hot to paint recently. Add a few busy weeks and a brief 'discussion' with grandfather Nurgle to that and the blog fell silent. No longer I say! Okay enough with the dramatics, time to play catch-up. Here are some models I finished over the past month. Lets start with (in my very humble opinion) one of the coolest models ever.

Rise my minion, rise!