Sunday 26 November 2017

Goblintown - Progress with the gaming board

This week(end) I continued building and paiting my new Goblintown board. Other than that, I also finished the crates I first showed in april!

Goblintown Scenery
Pict 291: Goblintown Scenery
The Goblin King's Throne
Pict 292: The Goblin King's Throne
Goblintown Baseboard
Pict 293: Goblintown Baseboard
As I wrote in the opening sentences, I did make progress with the Goblintown. For the staps fixing the throne to the rock, I used elastic bands and strengthend them with superglue. After they set I smoothed out the transitions with some greenstuff (more on that later!). Once I finished the building part of all the pieces, I started the painting - right now the rockfaces are mostly black, I only put down some brown streaks. As you can see, the ground is a splotchy brown tone. I quite enjoy the variety but I think it needs some darker tones.
Other than the moveable pieces, I also decided to build a baseboard for the pieces. For storage purposes I'll be using two 2'x4' boards and the picture you see above is one of them. It's got a thin layer of  plaster and the same brown treatment as the moveable

Pict 294: Crates
And here are the crates I originally bought for the game Schicksalspfade, but now they are going to populate the Goblintown. After a base of Steel Legion Drab and a light drybrush, I only used differently coloured washes to achive some variation with the wood.

Narzug (mounted) WIP
Pict 295: Narzug (mounted) WIP

Narzug (mounted) WIP
Pict 296: Narzug (mounted) WIP

And lastly here's a WIP of a conventional miniature: I chopped up a Narzug and stuck him on a Fellwarg. After some filling and resculpting fur with greenstuf, I already started blocking in the colours and putting on a wash.

Sunday 19 November 2017

Goblintown - A big terrain project and continuing with the Noldorim

Following the progress I was able to achive last week, I managed to sit down and concentrate on two projects in particular: A Goblintown gaming board and the continuation with the Noldorim from a few weeks back.
The Goblin King's Throne
Pict 283: The Goblin King's Throne
The Goblin King's Throne
Pict 284: The Goblin King's Throne
The Goblin King's Throne
Pict 285: The Goblin King's Throne
Goblintown Scenery
Pict 286: Goblintown Scenery
Goblintown Scenery
Pict 287: Goblintown Scenery
Goblintown Scenery
Pict 288: Goblintown Scenery
During the last two months I started to think about a 4' by 4' Goblintown board. I already built a 3' by 2' Goblintown board in 2015 but with this new one I want to be more flexible. The experience with building rockfaces did come in handy this time around and I think I was able to improve my technique. The pictures show how far I've gotten during the weekend: the building process is almost done. I might smooth out some of the filler and I'll have to sculpt the staps attaching the throne on the rock.
The one question I'm facing right now is wether I'll build a flat board for the pieces to sit on or simply use a mat. The problem with the former is the space it takes op in my storage. The problem with the latter is that I haven't found one that I really like.

High Elf Warriors
Pict 289: High Elf Warriors
High Elf Warriors
Pict 290: High Elf Warriors
Continuing on with my Rivendell force from a few weeks back, I added ten more High Elf warriors - four with bow and six with spear and shield. Of these I converted one from a captain and four more from warriors with elven blades. I used spare arms with lances from the Rivendell Knights kit for the spears. The conversion is not my best one - the arm's position looks somewhat uncomfortable - but it does the job and adds some variety to the force. Adding in Elrond and his two counsellors Lindir and Erestor, I got myself a 600 point army to use in an upcoming tournament in early december.

Sunday 12 November 2017

To the defence of Helm's Deep!

"What can men do against such reckless hate?"

This week I finished the Rohan Warriors from the last weeks and I got to use them in a doubles tournament. (And I got to rewatch The Two Towers!)

Rohan Army (Helm's Deep)
Pict 277: Rohan Army (Helm's Deep)
Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)
Pict 278: Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)
Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)
Pict 279: Rohan Warriors (Throwing Spears)
Rohan Warriors (Bows)
Pict 280: Rohan Warriors (Bows)
Rohan Warriors (Bows)
Pict 281: Rohan Warriors (Bows)
The Rohan Warriors comlete a Rohan Army on foot, that I had planned for quite some time - Rohan was my first fraction with the Middle Earth range and thus I have huge backlog of Warriors both on foot and mounted because I concentrated on painting the heroes first. To round out my 400 point army for this doubles event, I used Theoden, Gamling and a Rohan Captain as well as two more Rohan Warriors with thowing spears to get a Helm's Deep themed force. You can see the army in the first picture of this blog entry.
With 24 warriors this batch of miniatures was quite a big but I managed to plough on and prevailed. They all use the same colours but I mixed them up especially with the areas of cloth. The Warriors with bow got a decorative trim on their cloaks to be able to play them as Outriders if necessary

My doubles partner used a fitting (well, with the film canon) force of Galadhrim and in all our preparation games, the army won quite decidetly. During the tournament we got to play this army in two games and while we lost one and drew the other, the games were alway close and fun till the end.


The White Warg (Conversion)
Pict 282: The White Warg (Conversion)

Our evil army for this tournament was an Azog's Legion force with Azog, Bolg, two Ogres and some Gundabad Orcs supported by my Goblin Mercenaries. Since I was also tasked to bring Azog mounted, you saw me convert the White Warg as a dismount in case the two got separated.
The Warg painted up rather quickly in one evening so that I had enough time to finish the Rohirrim.

Sunday 5 November 2017

Progress with the Wood Elves and the Rohirrim

This week I finished the Nymphe and the Giant Eagle I showed last week. Other than that I made some headway with the Rohirrim foot troops and I busted out the Green Stuff to convert myself a White Warg in case Azog gets dismounted.

Nymphe
Pict 271: Nymphe

Nymphe
Pict 272: Nymphe
As ever: first up is the aforementioned Nymphe. I very much enjoyed painting this miniatrue, trying to use a birch as reference. I live near some trees of the sourcematerial and took the time to look at them for a bit. The Nymphe will not match any of my units of Dryads but they will have be redone anyway. 
Giant Eagle
Pict 273: Giant Eagle
Giant Eagle
Pict 274: Giant Eagle
Next up is another Ally for my Asrai: a Giant Eagle. I used pictures of verraux's eagles as reference for this miniature because I wanted it to be darker than the ones you usually see. The pattern on the white parts of the wings looks rather striking but it doesn't really resemble the verraux's eagle. I like it nevertheless and I learned quite a bit since I hadn't painted feathers for quite some time.

Rohan Warriors (WIP)
Pict 275: Rohan Warriors (WIP)
Here is the next picture of the Rohan Warriors I showed last week. I finished the basic colours and gave everything a wash of Agrax Earthshade so that I will be able to get to the highlighting within the next days.

The White Warg (WIP)
Pict 276: The White Warg (WIP)
Lastly here's a conversion for the White Warg I started during this week. I simply used a Wild Warg Chieftain and gave it the head of a Fell Warg. I elongated the throat a bit with piece of wire and filled the resulting gap with Green Stuff. I surprised myself with the structrue of the fur I managed and I do look forward to painting this one in the coming week as well!