Two Armies, but only little progress with the painting

So this week I didn't really have much time to paint. So I only finished one of the Goat Riders before the tournament today...

Pict 144: Goblintown and Allies

Pict 145: Iron Hills Dwarves

So the first two pictures are the armies I took to the tournament. With eight players the tournament was on the smaller side but I still got to meet a few new players. I ended up with one minor vitory, a minor loss and a major loss and thus made fith place. I happy with the result, learned something and will return to the next one with more experience and will strive for more!

Pict 146: Iron Hills Goat Rider

And here is the one miniature I finished this week. As with the one last week the Goat is what really takes time and thus the other four are finished except for the Goats. I will try and finish them during the next week, but the priority is with some more critters and monsters for DnD, because I will host a game on saturday.

Pict 147: Fox (WIP)

And lastly: Here's a work in progress for one of the aforementioned critters. I started work on a fox, a badger, a bat and a frog to give the druid in the party some options to turn into animals. I want to paint some more goblinoids to drop onto the players as they explore an overtaken elven ruin.

The Army of the Iron Hills (and some of their Allies)

So this week I can finally present you the first stage of my Iron Hills army completed. With Dáin, a Ballista and 12 warriors I have about 400 points playable.

Pict 079: The Iron Hills Army (Start of March)

The only miniatures I had to finish this week for the completion of the army were Dáin Ironfoot, both on foot and mounted. This I achieved with the painting time in the evenings this week - the mounted model just in time on the friday because I had more games with the army lined up on saturday.

Pict 080: Dáin Ironfoot

Pict 081: Dáin Ironfoot

Pict 082: Dáin Ironfoot

Pict 083: Dáin Ironfoot

I'm rather happy that I finished Dáin - not only is he the leader of my army and the last miniature to complete the first 400 points. He is also the last miniature I had to paint to finish up all the miniatures I bought with my last order from Forge World - so now I'm ready for the next! It should early next week and I'm looking forward to start work on some Goatriders to build up my army to 500 points, ready to fight in tournaments!

Pict 084: Dáin Ironfoot mounted on Warboar

Pict 085: Dáin Ironfoot mounted on Warboar

Pict 086: Dáin Ironfoot mounted on Warboar

Pict 087: Dáin Ironfoot mounted on Warboar

As I said I played some games on saturday. We agreed on 500 points to get a grip on our armies for a tournament in late april. Since only 400 points of Iron Hills were painted, I had to ally in something. I toyed with the idea of using Thranduil, King of Mirkwood for a Battle of the five Armies theme (more on that later) but settled on Young Balin and Young Dwalin for a Battle of Azanulbizar army. Next up are a picture of my and my opponents army ready for battle.

Pict 088: Iron Hills Army with Young Balin and Young Dwalin

Pict 089: Army of Spiders with the Spiderqueen and Drûzhag

Since I planned to ally in Thranduil, I painted him up on wednesday and thursday evening. I really like the scuplt; my only complaint is the sword - even after several bending attempts under hot water, it still is a little bend away from the miniature. But fortunately that's only noticable when viewed directly from the top.

Pict 090: Thranduil. King of Mirkwood

Pict 091: Thranduil, King of Mirkwood

While tossing around ideas for forces that would ally with the Iron Hills, I not only had the young dwarfs in mind, but also the warriors that were present at the battle of Azanulbizar. Thus I bought a box of Grimhammers on a whim and already started to paint them.

Pict 092: Grimhammers (WIP)

I do like the poses and the fact that they are mostly metal because that means they paint up rather quickly. Everything you see on the picutre above was done on saturday evening and sunday morning. The basecoats are down and everything is washed. What's left to do is highlighting and picking out some details. I can see me do this on monday and tuesday evening, but we'll see what the next week brings (I might get distracted by the order from Forge World).

A little bit of painting and quite a lot of new stuff

So this week was again a slow one for getting painting projects done. Only the three Dwarfs from last week have been finished. The dreadnougght saw the washes and a new big project has been started (Ah! Yes. So begins the flapping of the butterfly.) Anyhow, here is a picture of my Iron Hills Warriors up to this point.

Pict 015: Iron Hills Dwarfs (Mid January)

And now for the pictures I promised of the first purchased miniatures that will get added to my tally. It's quite a nice lot of Citadel Miniatures from the mid to late nineties; mainly Woodelfs and Bretonnians but with some Vampires and other stuff such as swarms and an Archers command group from Harlequin Miniatures sprinkled in.

Pict 016: Orion, King of the Woods (4. ed.)

Pict 017: Wood Elf General on horse (4. ed.)

Pict 018: Skaw the Falconer

Pict 019: Wychwethyl the Wild

Pict 020: Wood Elf War Dancers (4. ed.)

Pict 021: Wood Elf Scouts

Pict 022: Wood Elf Waywatchers (4. ed.)

Pict 023: Dryads (Harlequin Entlings)

Pict 024: Wood Elf Archers (4. ed.)

The Wood Elfs were my first Warhammer Fantasy Army and I always had a liking even for the older miniatures. I esspecially look forward to paint Orion and the War Dancers. But they will have to wait for some time, because I have some of their respective 6th edition versions started in my project box.

Pict 025: The Green Knight

Pict 026: Morgiana le Fey (5. ed.)

Pict 027: Suliman le Saracen

Pict 028: Bertrand le Brigand, Hugo le Petit, Gui le Gros

Pict 029: Knights of the Realm Command (5. ed.)

Pict 030: Knights of the Realm (5. ed.)

Pict 031: Knights of the Realm (6. ed.)

Pict 032: Bretonnian Archers

And that's the Bretonnians. I have started basing Bertrand, Hugo and Gui - I just love the models and hope to get to them soon, but we'll see. The plastic miniatures will all need a bit of fixing up. Some broken and bent bows, lances and headdresses will have to be glued, but I quite enjoy this part of the hobby. I will see what I will do about the missing backbanners that are missing from the Green Knight. I'll either raid my bitsbox or I'll keep a look out on Ebay.

Pict 033: Harlequin Miniatures Archer Command Group

Pict 034: Vampire Skeletons (5. ed.)

Pict 035: Vampire Skeleton Bits (5. ed.)

Pict 036: Manfred van Carstein (6. ed.)

Pict 037: Warhammer Swarms (Snakes, Spiders, Rats)

And that's it: Manfred van Carstein with some sekeletons and some animal swarms. The skeletons and animals will most likely be used in my Dungeons and Dragons Campaign to pepper my player. The skeletons wll have to be fixed as well - but I might leave some as they are now or convert them. I always liked the skeletons that are crawling out of the dirt.

And with that my Hobby Tally stands 7 miniatures painted against 156 miniatures bought (I counted the swarms as one miniature per base).

A First Update to my Iron Hills Army

The first week of the year was quite a good onr for painting. I finished the first few miniatures and started work on some more. The main focus was the Iron Hills army with the ballista and some warriors completed.

So here's what I got done this week:

Pict 003: Iron Hills Ballista

Pict 004: Iron Hills Ballista

Pict 005: Iron Hills Ballista

Pict 006: Iron Hills Ballista

The first completed model of the year was the ballista. The main part was almost completed on new year's day as seen in the WIP picture of the last post. I added highlights to the metals to reduce the rust effect. The wooden parts got a similar treatment - some highlighting - after that I added some more brown wash to deepen the shadows where the wood meets the metal parts. The crew was easy enough to paint since I decided that the gold stripes Forge World put on their Dwarfs where to ostentatios for mine.
With the miniature finished, I appreciate the amount of detail Forge World maged to produce even more. I'm really happy how it came out and am considering buying an other one with my next order. I'd really like to try and convert it so that the Dwarfs are loading the bolt into the machine.

Pict 007: Iron Hills Warrior

Pict 008: Iron Hills Warrior

Pict 009: Iron Hills Warrior

Pict 010: Iron Hills Warrior

Pict 011: Iron Hills Warrior

When I was done with the siege engine I wanted to start on the army to accompany it. This was the first dwarfen warrior I painted for the force. As with the ballista crew the eyes where difficult; here even more so, because the spear and the shield where in the way. Since the completion of the first Dwarf I got two more done, so here's a group shot of my Iron Hills warriors so far.

Pict 12: Iron Hills Warriors