Yearly Archives: 2015

D&D Monster Manual 7: Wrath of Ashardalon Giant Snakes and Cave Bears

by

4

No updates for a little while. New role at work with increased hours has meant less time for painting, blogging, sleeping, gaming and all of the other stuff that I enjoy. Not to mention the weather has been unsuitable for spraying lately as we slide towards winter here.

I’ve added a new category today. Dungeons and Dragons monsters down on the sidebar, and gone back to rename the D&D-centric posts with the “D&D Monster Manual” prefix, as I’ve done above. I did this because when I was outside a little while ago photographing this update’s models, it occurred to me that I do have quite a few D&D-type monster models, from boxed games like Ashardalon and Ravenloft as well as from Reaper’s Bones campaigns. Since I’ve got categories for all the Warhammer-centric subfactions under the sun (with many more to come) I thought it made sense to do the same for the D&D stuff, even though it’s never been a core game for me and I don’t know what a lot of the stuff in it is properly.

I’ve only done this for the most obvious things, specifically the “proper” D&D models, and Not-D&D models by Reaper. More generic stuff like Elves and Goblins and Skeletons from a dozen different manufacturers in a dozen different styles can just go into their own categories and people interested in those can look in there, but as I get more of the “proper” D&D models done, I thought it worthwhile for these.

So, first up (in post 7 of the series – gotta love retcon edits!) we have the Giant Snakes and Cave Bears from Ashardalon. Neither are super-amazing figures, but they’re still quite nice sculpts, especially in PVC, and as Boardgame Miniatures they are really very good. I understand that they are (or were?) also available as pre-paints from the D&D miniatures game. Again something I’m mostly ignorant about.

Dungeons and Dragons – Wrath of Ashardalon “Snake”

First up, we have “Snake” from Wrath of Ashardalon boxed game. I’m assuming that these “properly” come in several different flavours, but I’m happy to just go with “Giant Snake”. These three have been near-painted for.. well, quite some time. At least a year, and probably around 2-3, when I was really into painting the boxed D&D games’ figures. Finally knuckled down and got them finished yesterday after doing a little on them last weekend. They’re a little bright, and much more on the “fantasy artwork” side than the “realistic” side in their colouration, but that’s ok by me. The important thing is that they look good on a table, and more importantly – are finished.

Dungeons & Dragons – Wrath of Ashardalon “Cave Bear”

Next up we have “Cave Bear”. These were actually painted a year (or two?) ago. Aside from the unfortunate PVC mould lines, these are lovely little sculpts and painted up like a dream. I’ve always been pretty happy with how well they came out, as well. Obviously here I went for more of a realistic feel to the colours, though still keeping it bright.

Dungeons and Dragons Ashardalon figures with Scale reference.

Heartbreaker Chronopia Kilt-wearing Celt-Barbarian guy provides human-sized scale reference. What can I do with these figures aside from roleplaying? I’m honestly not sure. Mayhe they can slip into Kings of War as proxies for units in the “Nature” army. I’d need a bunch more to fill out enough to make up a unit, though. Maybe the bears can join in with a unit of Wood Elf Wardancers and the Snakes can do the same for Witch Elves? Actually, that’s not a bad idea…

Oldhammer MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult

by

9

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult Oldhammer

Back in my teens, I used to finance many of my Warhammer purchases by commission painting for other people. I got to paint some cool stuff, and bought a hell of a lot of Space Marines (most of which are still unpainted to this day(!) One of the kits I painted for other people was the stuff from the MD8 Skeleton War Machines box set, which was the eighth in the Machineries of Destruction range. As with my old Dwarves, I only ever had a couple dozen of the old Undead models, and sold off most of them back in the day, excepting a few (exactly as with the Dwarves). Since Marouda’s “building” an Undead Army for KoW (as fast as I can paint it for her) and I’ve been following Subedai’s blog for a couple of years, I’ve gotten inspiration for various bits and pieces. Recently, he showed off his Plague Cart, which triggered something in my pea brain and sent me to eBay looking for some of the cool old Undead kits I painted back in the day. While I haven’t been completely successful so far, I’ve managed to get a few pieces at least. Here’s the first of them: The Skull Chucker (also alternately known as the Screaming Skull Catapult before that new Tomb Kings kit took the name).

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult Oldhammer

MD8 Skull Chucker as it arrived.

Yep, there are some “mistakes” and missing bits there. First and most obviously, the crew are “wrong”, and it’s missing the Skull Ammo Pile. It was sold on eBay with two loaders and a spotter, but not the bonehead who fires the catapult. Still, the price was ok, and shipping from the UK was decent rather than exploitative (both real concerns when you’re here in Australia) so I figured “good enough” and got it anyway. There was a ton of old superglue encrusted on the launcher arm and frame, and the arm was glued slightly up at an odd angle. Also a fair bit of old, old flash and extruded bits of lead to clean up. No big deal though. I used a bit of greenstuff to get a good bond when reassembling, and then noticed that both braces were missing from the kit. D’oh!

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult Oldhammer

MD8 Skull Chucker under repairs.

Now luckily I’d just bought some undead Tomb Kings stuff off a guy locally, and I’d literally just received the bag of bits that he’d “forgotten” (cough) to send out with the other stuff a week earlier. I thought it would be worth checking through to see if there was something appropriate in it that I could use to fix up the Skull Chucker. Now the bits bag was actually filled with cool bits (it was a big reason why I bought his stuff). and it included several of these …banner poles(?) After cutting them down, they turned out to be a great fit, and the socket cutouts with little embossed skulls on the joins worked perfectly as replacement pieces. I should make up a replacement Skull Ammo Pile. It was one of the first things I thought of, but I completely forgot about it until now. Shouldn’t be too difficult, at least.

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult Oldhammer

MD8 Skull Chucker – Repaired!

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult Oldhammer

They look like they’re supposed to be there, so as fas as I’m concerned, Job’s a Good’un.

For the paint, I stuck to Marouda’s chosen Undead palette. Bone/Black/Brass/Iron with deep Red and some Aqua (verdigris) as the spot colours. My style of painting bone might be a bit bright to be properly realistic but it pops nicely on the table.

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult Oldhammer

The crew provided me with some stuff to work on at work last week. I’ll have to prepare some new models to work on for this week’s lunch breaks now. It’s like an extra deadline each weekend. Eurgh.

MD8 Undead Skull Chucker/Screaming Skull Catapult, C22 Orc Bolt Thrower Oldhammer

Uneasy Allies…

Undead and Orcs. Back together for the first time in a long time. Back in 3rd Edition WHFB, I used to regularly summon Skeletons as allies for my Orc and Goblin army. They often just stood in lines breaking up the line of sight between my Orc units so they wouldn’t kick the crap out of each other via failed animosity rolls. Now that’s something I don’t miss in KoW!