Tag Archives: High Elves

From the Painting Desk #4 – Gorillas, Elves, Zombies and Scenery

by

4

So with the paint enthusiasm seemingly on the go right now – for another couple of days at least – here’s the stuff I’m working on right now. You’ll notice that those bloody Mantic Ogre Shooters have been temporarily put to the side. The lack of pleasure I was getting from painting them certainly affected my enthusiasm, so I figure a short break from them should help me come back to them somewhat refreshed in a little while. Once those six are finished, I’ll be able to start on the FUN Ogre stuff! Or the Chariots. Those are less fun.

Axis Gorillaz (feat. Damon Albarn)

Anyway, finishing the DUST Zombies recently got the next few boxes of DUST stuff opened – Axis Gorillas! That’s another three boxes disposed of (cleaned up!)

Swordmasters of Hoeth WIP on a temporary regiment base.

My recent games of Kings of War (BetRep to follow sometime in the next week, hopefully-maybe, caused me to start on a unit of Swordmasters of Hoeth, which I guess would be Palace Guard in the KoW Elf army, but is standing in for Twilight Kin Darksome Guard right now. Whatever. They’re Elves! The best part of these (so far) is that they were completely unpainted just a week ago. At the glacial pace I paint, getting to this point is pretty amazing. The basing has set me back 2 or 3 days, since it’s slow, unfun and tedious. (Hi, Cash!)

Basing almost complete. Then crests and boots!

I’m painting them up a little different to other High Elf armies I’ve seen. I’ve had a small collection of unpainted WFB High Elves for 15-18 years, but never had the enthusiasm or a reason to paint them. Ever since The Burning Crusade was released for World of Warcraft, I knew how I wanted to (eventually) paint my High Elves – as Blood Elves rather then the typical White/Blue/Silver with Gold & Red accents most HE armies are painted in. So I’m going Red/Yellow/Gold with Silver and Green accents. It’s giving them a nice autumnal feel, as well as regal & rich – though obviously the colours are highly saturated.

Zombies!

Next up we have some zombies from WarZone, circa the early 1990’s. These would have been purchased during the file sale phase after WarZone 2nd Ed managed to kill our local enthusiasm for the game, and Heartbreaker started to crash and burn. I never actually played Dark Legion, but regardless was willing to pick up a couple of blisters (I’m guessing 2 or 3, since I have 10 figures here?) on closeout. I basecoated the flesh on these about 8(?) months ago when I started assembling my Studion Miniatures IGG KS figures, but like so many projects over the years, (Ogre Shooters!) they got shoved to the side. The initial plan was to use Army Painted dip on them (and the others) but since the DUST Zombies went together just fine and quick using the AP washes, I’m going in that direction with these instead. They have more details and individuality than the DUST figures – and lots more exposed skin, bone and viscera, but I’m still hoping to have them finished in a couple of days. Again, these are more likely to see the tabletop in 40k working alongside Typhus then a WarZone game, but painted is painted, and they can work across several games.

Some DUST Campaigns

Also inspired by wanting to clean stuff up, I decided to unbox these two of my DUST campaign box expansions. Seelowe because of the Character-model Gorilla inside (who you can see above in the background of the Gorilla pic), and Icarus for the Quonset huts, which I figured I could paint reasonably quickly. All of the rest of the contents got shovelled into the DUST Core box set.

Quonset Huts from DUST.

Considering that these have only been out of their box for about 14 hours, (including my sleep overnight) they’re not doing too badly. Hoping to finish them today, and varnish overnight/tomorrow. I might even buy some more, since they’re good looking, cheap and effective!

And that’s it for this quick WIP post. I’ll update again when some of it is finished!

Happy Holidays, You Bastard

by

1

So I’ve taken the name of this update from one of Blink-182’s classier little ditties, though it has less to do with the song and more to do with an upcoming project I’ve set myself for my two-week break from work. (Though if you decide to YouTube that song, be advised that it’s very much NSFW!)

The Plan is to paint up a fully functioning army to use in Mantic Games’ Kings of War. I’ve had the makings of a good half-dozen or more fantasy armies for many years now, stashed away inside various boxes and figure cases. All never likely to see the light of day in between not having really properly played Warhammer Fantasy Battle with any regularity since 3rd Edition and my general misanthropy when it comes to going out to clubs or FLGS to look for games.

With the advent of Kings of War, which is apparently fast, elegant and easy to learn, and some online battle reports like this, my interest in Fantasy Battles, with Armies has been reawakened. I have to say, while I’m not usually a fan of Battle Reports (WD has put me off over the years) there was just something about the combination of old-school, DIY, fully painted and a little bit rough around the edges of the pics in this report that really reminded me of WHFB 3rd ed. Not the Mantic rules (which I admit, I still haven’t read), but the feel. Mixed figures, paintjobs other than the stale GW studio armies. Real people’s work (which is one thing I always preferred to see in WD).

So anyway. With the help of my mate, JudgeDoug of DakkaDakka and Mantic Forums fame, I’ve decided to dedicate all of my hobby time during my two and a half weeks off to cleaning off all the random stuff from my painting desk. He’s kindly agreed to write up the army lists based on what I have available, and I’ll take care of the rest.

My Painting Desk. Last week. Also, today.

But it’s not just going to be 2 weeks of solid painting. I’m sure we’ll also go out for meals, play computer, board and console games, have friends over, sleep in, take my mum to the Zoo, watch TV, DVDs and BluRays, fix the back fence, mow the lawn, clean up the garage a little more, and… Maybe I’ll go out until 5am and update my tumblr, too! well, you get the drift! So while I’m hoping to get a lot done, who knows how this will turn out?

With bases, because I’ve always liked them more for aesthetic reasons, I’ll be giving everything 25mm round bases rather than the 20mm squares that are traditional for both Warhammer and Kings of War. This is because:

1)      I’ve always preferred Round bases and have never especially liked square ones.

2)      After more than a decade of not playing WFB, I figure the “just in case I want to use them in Warhammer” excuse to not paint them because I’d rather use rounds has expired.

3)      I do like those games based on books about Rings. You know the ones. They use both round bases and also round-slot movement trays to drop them into.

4)      I’ll use those trays.

5)      If need be, the fantasy figures can do double-duty in those games about Rings. Even if they don’t look exactly like what WETA produced.

Since I’ll most likely be using these figures in friendly games in my own home, everything will be based consistently, and so there’ll be no “advantage” to one side over another based on unit base size. Besides, I be playing for teh funz0rz.

The contestant(s) for this challenge will be a Kings of War “Elf” army, made up of Citadel’s High Elves (and maybe a few Wood and Dark Elves as well).

The Elves. Now.
Well, a lot of them, anyway…

In the unlikely event that the Elves actually get finished, I’ll then be starting phase 2, which will be the second contestant – an Ogre army, made up of my very old-school Citadel models, some Ogre Kingdoms models, and the metric shitload of Mantic’s own Ogres that we have coming as a result of the Kickstarter – which are (hopefully!) due to arrive anytime now, and hopefully before the holidays begin.

The Ogres should have a much smaller (I hope) model count, and with the already finished figures thrown in, as well as how much I enjoy painting the big old brutes, should also be achievable – at least theoretically.

So in short, I’m going to put aside all the random crap on my painting desk, and the painting ADHD that I have in order to focus for a short, specific time, and hopefully have something tangible to show off and even use(!) at the end of it.

While I’m going to wait until next Wednesday night (18th September) before I allow myself to start painting, I figure I’ll allow myself to assemble, base and prime figures before the date.