Brigade Models – Celtos: Fir Bolg Skeletons with Spears (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

March 29, 2016 by Azazel

A scary number of Celtos Fir Bolg Skeleton Spearmen

Last June I ordered a bunch of “Fir Bolg” Skeletons from Brigade Models, originally produced and still sold for the “Celtos” skirmish miniatures wargame. By August, I’d managed to paint up a unit of them armed with “Warscythes” to use in Kings of War before my focus in 2015 shifted to finishing off models that had been started months and years before.

Musician and Commander #1

Quartered Heraldry

With the Tale of Gamers challenge I’ve been running over on Dakka this year, I decided to paint up some more skeletons. After all, they’re quite work-friendly, and it’s always rewarding to finish stuff off. I’ve got a nice bunch of Skeletons done for KoW, role-playing or any kind of skirmish from Age of Sigmar to Dragon Rampant to, you know – Celtos!

Musician and Commander #2

Par Chevron Heraldry

Once again, the colour scheme is pretty simple and in keeping with the rest of the army – Red and Black, Iron and Brass, Rust and Verdigris, Cadmium-Red wood – and Bone. The tabards and cloth have either been quartered or feature a par chevron to tie them in with one another or allow a distinction when both units are run side by side. Of course, they can be combined into a “Horde” formation as well.

The original pair with an unmodified “spike” skeleton. Chest painted as bone and not banded mail this time.

There’s quite a lot of these guys. By my standards, anyway. The initial two models from eBay that led me to Brigade’s website have been incorporated into the units, so that just left me with 22 others to paint up to complete the units. As I’ve mostly worked on them during lunch breaks, they took quite awhile to get done. And yes, I need to touch up the bottom of the base rims.

A “unique” pair of Skeleton Spearmen

Skeleton Spearmen

Jaw-less Skeleton Spearmen

Jabby, armoured Skeleton Spearmen

Yes, I need to get more brown Renedra unit trays. Unfortunately the last time I ordered them from Firestorm they sent me sets of green ones, which clash with my model bases. Spray paint time, probably.

Awkward shield placement. Crescent shields to the rescue!

I found their shields to be a little problematic. They came with damaged Celt-ish shields, but these three guys were having none of it. I figured out a workaround, which was to use these really old Citadel shields, and then I followed up with the rest of the models by using selected WHFB4 Starter Goblin shields with skeletal iconography – for what is very much an unrealistic but old-school Warhammer-esque Undead look… (Why are “traditional” RPG and gaming undead covered in skeletal iconography? Who is smithing and painting their gear? – At least the sadly-Squatted Tomb Kings had some rationale behind theirs.) The original shields have gone into my bits boxes, and might come back out when working on Historicals down the line.

Charging Skeletons with repurposed Goblin shields.

“At Guard” Skeletons with repurposed Goblin shields.

I used white for the embossed shield devices shaded with Vallejo’s Pale Grey wash so that the shield iconography would be distinct from the “real” bone of the actual undead.

“Quartered” Skeleton Spear Regiment

“Chevron” Skeleton Spear Regiment

Both regiments combined into a Kings of War “Horde”-style unit. …Skeleton Horde.

I know there’s a ton of photos here, but these guys took a lot of effort and a lot of time – pretty much a full month. As much as I enjoy painting bone, I’m pretty sick of it at this stage. I’m still cleaning up the next unit batch of skeletons (only 12, thankfully), but I’ll get the basics done (clean, prime, base coat spray, basing, first wash of brown) and then leave them for a week or two before getting back to them. I think in April I might try to do more character models for the painting challenge rather than masses of troops.

Imperialrebelork requested a tutorial on painting skeletons/bone in my style recently, so I took some photos as I painted these guys up. In the coming days, I’ll sort them out and do a write-up. It’s actually pretty simple.

RTB09 Blood Angels Terminator Captain – An Oldhammer Blast from the past. (1989)

March 27, 2016 by Azazel

I haven’t been posting much lately. Notsomuch from lack of painting or lack of wanting to – I just haven’t had any new content for awhile. I’m working on a bunch of skeletons for KoW and I’ve been finishing them, but it’s been quite the slog. I’m also working on more Gondor guys, Minotaurs Space Marines – even some Skaven who I finished stripping the other week. But nothing ready to show.

So I’m revisiting a model from the deep past. This guy is the original Terminator Space Marine Captain from the original Terminator Squad boxed set. This one was painted for a relative in the early 1990’s and eventually found its way back to me about a decade ago.

RTB09 Blood Angels Terminator Captain

Clearly, it was painted during that transition period between Rogue Trader and 2nd edition. I can tell by my overly-colourful paint scheme (too much bright blue and yellow) combined with the use of personal heraldry on his shoulder pad. So most likely around ’93-’94. The only thing that’s been done to him since I got him back was a rebasing to my own style as opposed to the green flock that he originally had.

Personal Heraldry on show.

The BA symbol is a decal. The rest is freehand. I believe that there was a full article with B&W illustrations on Marine Personal Heraldry, but I may be misremembering. Either way, the ‘eavy Metal page shown below was a huge influence and remains in the back of my mind even today when painting Marine heroes.

White Dwarf 123: ‘eavy Metal – Space Marine Heraldry. Copyright Games Workshop May 1990

On “Character”. I know the popular thing to say about old, oldhammer and metal models is that they have “character” that new models somehow lack. I do think the old models often have “character” but to imply that newer models somehow lack character across the board is just silly. Now to say that some of the newer models lack a je ne sais quoi is fine and accurate – things like the IoB skaven troopers and Poison Wind Mortars are sloppy sculpts, but it doesn’t mean that everything does – The IoB skaven hero is actually quite nice. This model is a nice one, but it is dated and very static compared to the newer sculpts. I still like it, but I’m as aware as anyone else that the rose-tinted glasses are in effect when dealing with many of the miniatures from my youth. Having said that, I still love metal models and that won’t be changing anytime soon, however nice the newest plastics are (I can love both!)

Auxiliary Grenade Launcher for the win!

Now, putting together a Blood Angels army has been on my list of Armies to Put Together for quite a few years, and I’ve been gathering the kits to do so for years on and off – as well as buying the odd pre-owned collection to use as well (Hi Damo!) I’d certainly like to use this guy when I do get to properly building my BAs. So that leaves me with a few questions to ponder – what to change and what to leave the same?

Now, I’m ashamed to admit that a few years ago, I stripped a whole lot of my original metal beakies in order to have them fresh for my Rogue Trader Crimson Fists project (that I still haven’t started). I didn’t even photograph them. I had several models in particular where I’d managed to paint the finely detailed Rogue Trader-era captain markings, sergeant and veteran sergeant insignia onto their shoulder pads, as well as weapon designations. I later picked up an unpainted copy of the “captain” model from ebay for about ten bucks, rendering the regret in stripping him to even harsher levels. Because of this, I’m hesitant to fuck with my old models too much. But I do like to tone things down that are too garish – as I’ve shown with my Beastmen and other Realm of Chaos-era models.

Rear View of RT-era Blood Angel Terminator Captain.

So the elements I’m considering:

Rebase to a 40mm round.
Repaint most/all of the blue. Mostly to black or brass/bronze, depending on the location (not to Khorne levels!)
Repaint the AGL entirely.
Repaint the cables from a fleshy colour to a dark metallic colour.
Tone down the yellow on the chest eagle.
Tone down the yellow on the bolter – or repaint to a black casing.
Brighten the “bone” colour on the Crux Terminatus & touch up the Captain flash on his shoulder.
General neatening up, but not changing the red or the black. (Or his head).

Any thoughts or feedback?

Azazel's Bitz Box.

Painting, Modelling, Miniatures, 1:6, Games… Whatever else I find interesting.

Brigade Models – Celtos: Fir Bolg Skeletons with Spears (6-Month Tale of Gamers Challenge)

RTB09 Blood Angels Terminator Captain – An Oldhammer Blast from the past. (1989)