Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

I still haven't recovered from the holidays that is for sure. There was far too many nice homebrewed and craft beers to enjoy never mind the food. I have been relaxing over the last few days and managed to get the finishing touches done on Mortimer for my ressurectionist crew. Again the camera washed the whites out. Eventually I shall upgrade, eventually. I have a game next week and I want to get my Molly crew together. I doubt I will manage that but who knows. I really like Mollys playstyle. She tends to be strong in scenario play or at least the way I play scenarios. Other than painting her I am not sure what else I will do. Maybe some more Dwarves, maybe more Vikings. There is enough of a backlog I have a plethora of choices.

Three Dwarves

I don't often paint Warhammer stuff but I picked out a few Dwarves over the Christmas and decided to finally finish them off. These are three of the four incarnations of plastic GW Dwarves. I have only a few from the original fantasy regiment boxed set. I painted this one, the model on the far left to fit in with the current scheme of my Dwarves. I somehow swapped from a blue/white to a red/green colour scheme without noticing it. The model in the middle was the terrible 3rd edition plastic version. These were one piece models that could have a shield attached. I have added new shields to them all so that they fit in with the rest of the regiment. This version was actually way worse than the previous one. I really wonder why they didn't continue to produce them instead of these hideous things. Maybe due to the fact that the first ones were multi-piece kits and at this point GW had switched to their child centred policy. I still have a few of these Dwarves and I may paint them up eventually to inhabit the rear ranks of the regiments. With the current prices every miniatures is precious even when ugly. The last model on the right is the single piece Dwarf that came out with the seventh edition boxed set. This guy is an impressive improvement on the previous one, especially considering that the shield comes moulded on.

I have heard that the Dwarf book is coming out soon and I am trepidatious.The play style of the Dwarves is stale. While I would often play a more movement orientated force I still had to rely on shooting if I wanted to win. People ended up hating to play against Dwarves and in the end I wasn't having as much fun as I would have liked. I wonder what will come out for these guys? A zeppelin is probably too predictable. Iron Golems I could imagine. Though they start to step into the Warmachine imagery of theey go for steam powered large miniatures. They would of course look very different but comparisons will still be made. The Anvil of Doom will get a large kit thats for sure, I assume it will be able to make two models probably a Throne of Power. I wonder if Warhammer 9th edition will see buyable terrain. I could imagine the Dwarves getting some type of a fortification to buy in their army list. That could be a precursor of the changes coming soon. I am only really interested as Dwarves are probably the only army I will keep up to date for Warhammer Fantasy.

SAGA Slaughter

I got less gaming in over the holidays than anticipated. However I did manage two games against Steve at least. The first was a desparate defence on a hill when raised voices at the parley led to drawn swords. My Anglo-Danes managed to hold the hill till the bitter end but it cost them dearly. Only a handful remained, outnumbered by the angry Normans. The cavalry preformed really well in this battle and I wish I could get some for my forces. As I had no archers there really wasnt't a disadvantage to fielding them and they almost outflanked and surrounded me, as they had in the last two encounters I played against them. The hill did have a large cliff face and their speed just wasn't enough to get them around in time. I really have to check and see if the Vikings can include some. The extra speed can really be useful at times.

In the second game the Jomsvikings were scouting a pass in Yorkshire when they were ambushed. The previous battle had been a Challenge scenario where the Warlords barely fought at all. In this scenario, Clash of Warlords, they both went at it hammer and tongs. It is quite possible that more troops were wiped out to cancel hits on the warlords than in the fighting themselves. They both killed each other in the end and granted the victory to Steve's Anglo-Danes.

It looks like I will be playing a lot of Dark Ages stuff this year. A specific Dark Ages group has been started here in Hamburg and every one seems to be enthusiastic. I even have some urge to play some Warhammer Ancients. I have enough models to put together a decent army for sure and Steve's Normans are expanding at a rapid pace. I need to get some scenery constructed as I don't have much that is appropriate but I enjoy making scenery so it won't be much of a chore.

A Quick Test

Despite the recent flurry of Malifaux activity I have been painting some other stuff. This has mainly been miniatures for SAGA. As I said in my last post I really wanted to get my Viking band together. Well I have painted a test model or I should say finished a test model as this guy has been on the desk for a long while. I have no idea if I have enough models but I think I should have. The box I contained them all in is getting light but I should get by. I can just add loads of Huscarls into the band. What I am eager to get a hold of is some Berserkers that fit scale wise with the rest of the models. There are some terrible old gripping beast sculpts but I really would like something better. These guys don't have a fancy shield to hide behind so the quality of the model needs to be fairly decent.

I copied the shield design from Old Fogey's Saxon Warlord. Aalthough looking now his is much better. I will be doing higher quality shields across the band and so I have been looking everywhere for some inspiration. I have had a lot of problems with the quality of the Little Big Men studio shield transfers over time so I definitely don't want to use them. They may look fine now but give them a few years and they won't. It seems the only way to go is to freehand the designs. I wonder how long it will take before the enthusiasim for that will wear off.

Arise my thralls...

I finally got a Master finished. I had Nicodem put together and half done for a while. I sat down last night and fnished him off. He isn't the recipient of the most awesome paint job ever but he came out fine and I am glad to be able to put him into the cabinet alongside the other Malifaux miniatures. The sculpt is actually different from th one show on the package I bought. That shows a stiched together coat while this one was plain. Maybe the artist managed a convincing paintjob on the stiches. I kept it plain and experimented with a few brown colours. As my favourite Scorched Brown is down to a single pot in my collection and it can't be replaced I need to keep that for one or two future projects to maintain some consistency. I drybrushed the vulture as when it came to painting him I really wasn't up for the careful highlighting of the feathers. Carefully applied drybrushing can be just as good as painstaking blending, especially when viewed from across the table.

I wanted to add something to the base for ach of the Master models I will have. It took a while to come up exactly with what though. I think I shall add some tiny playing cards just like these in the picture. They are an absolute pain to paint and I guess nobody but I will ever notice them. Still for me, it differentiates the masters from the already characterful other miniatures. I will do it for the others I paint. I have picked up Seamus and Molly so I have a decent amount to get through. I seem to always do the same. Once I get enthusiastic about a project I dig into the backlog and make a decent amount of progress. Just as I am clearing them out I always end up ordering a few bits more. As soon as they arrive I end up moving onto something else...

I will be painting some more Dark Ages stuff over the Christmas break. There seems to be another few players for Saga and I want to get the last band I have here together. I have enough still from the Gripping Beast WAB deal I bought nearly ten years ago to make one more Viking Band and to bulk out the Saxons and Anglo Danes. The only thing I am a little short on is archer levy. I will have to pick up a pack or two of them. I have so much stuff painted that I am considering trying out a few games of WAB in the new year. I should have sufficent models painted to field a 2000 point army.