Painting up some old Imperial Guard

I will be doing the Old World Army Challenge again in a few months. I think starting in January. Until then, to keep the kids occupied we did a 2 month Sprint Challenge. One 40k unit with support. An easy to finish goal, and get some old lead painted.

I don't play 40k anymore, well not since 2nd edition. But like all good hoarders....er Wargamers I held onto my old figures. I went digging into the boxes of shame and came up a unit of Imperial Guard, Ice Warriors of Valhalla. Not new in box, but in good condition. I picked them up for a cheap price at a flea market years ago.

Out of the scattering of old 40k figures I have they were the most complete unit. I found a 10 man squad plus a Mortar Team, 2 heavy weapons and a Commander. More figures than I needed to paint for the challenge, but better to paint now than having 3 figures left over. Plus I might be able to use them for Kill Team or Rogue Trader.

 I didn't go with the standard paint job. I tried a couple of different paint schemes before landing on this one. I am very happy with the colors I ended up with. Sometimes picking colors is the hardest part for me.

I also I didn't go with snow covered bases because I have no other snow covered figures to use with them. I tried to "cheat" and just give it a blotchy light grey dry brush. It looks a little snowy. Also not out of place in city ruins. It works well enough for me.

It was a fun little challenge and nice to get paint on old figures. Now the real trick is to get them on the table. Lately I do more painting than playing, and that's not alot.

Cheers,
Xin/ Jeff

Middle-Earth awaits....

My order arrived today. Can't wait to dive in. I'm gonna make an effort to find others in the area to game with.

Unfortunately, just buying the box set doesn't make it magically paint itself. I've been trying that for 25 years. Damn.

Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game

Games Workshop is updating the Strategy Battle Game. The new version is getting renamed to Middle-Earth, Strategy Battle Game. There will be a new rules manual, a new starter box set and new figures. It can be pre-ordered now, and I think shipping next week. This is a major commitment from GW for SBG which has been on life support for years.

The Starter box set comes with 84 models and 2 brand new sculpts, Theoden foot and mounted. The rest of the box contains, Army of the Dead and Rohan vs a Troll, Nazgul and Orcs. You also get the full hard backed rules manual. Not some skimpy mini version. 

There will be 2 books covering the armies. One for the LOTR era models. and One for the Hobbit era models. The LOTR book will be available on launch day, and the Hobbit one will be out later this year. There is a PDF to tide you over till the Hobbit army book.

Even though I have most of the figures in the box set, I have already sent in my pre-order for the set and the army book. Can't wait.

Xin

Old World Army Challenge, April

I finally finished all the painting for the OWAC. The last unit to be painted are the Chaos Knights. I've held off on these guys because I could not find all the bits to complete the unit. I lost the Standard Bearer figure. So I bought a figure off ebay to replace my lost guy.

The figure arrived in early April and I started painting early as opposed to waiting till the last week. I got the bases done, started the riders and started in on the horses. Then I just ran out of steam. I stopped working on them, or I was busy or I was playing Overwatch(my latest video game addiction). Anything but painting.

Finally in the last week, after some encouragement from the other painters in the challenge, I got back to work. I finished on the last day, of course. Got some pics and I was done!!!

Here are the knights. I will do a wrap up post with all the units in a few days.

I didn't paint a design on the plain shields as I can't do that to save my life. I will either buy some transfers or ask a friend to paint them on. What a fun challenge. We have already talked about doing it again, but not too soon. What a great way to motivate  you to paint. I now have a 1000(more like 1300) point chaos army, that I didn't have 6 months ago.

Cheers, Xin

Old World Army Challenge, March

Trying to catch up on posts I meant to make months ago...sigh.

Anyway, here is March's entry to the OWAC.

I finally finished my Chaos Warriors. These guys I started back in December, but had to take my mulligan that month. Then I did my Jan and February submissions I went with Dragon Ogres and Harpies. The OWAC is almost over and so time to get back to these guys.

I held off on them for so long as I was not sure how I wanted to paint them. While I love the look of GW's painted figures from back in the early day, bright, bold and garish, that is not my style. So I wanted a little more subdued paint scheme. In the end I did not get some new inspiration, but painted them to match the Chaos Knights I had already painted. Here we go.

10 Old GW Chaos Warriors

 These guys are big, I had to play a lot of mix and match to get them to fit together base to base in formation.

I didn't paint any specific command figures. These guys are pretty bad ass all on their own. Though I think I see at least one, maybe two champions in there. I can run them as one unit or two.

 Chaos Warriors with Air Support.

Putting the CW's next to the Dragon Ogres really shows how big the DOs are.

Group Shot.

As I'm behind I should have time to get April's figures up soon. A unit of Chaos Knights up soon.

Xin

Old World Army Challenge, February

This is the 3rd installment for the OWAC, submitted in February.

The OWAC started on a Facebook group to motivate members to paint old lead lying around for years and years. You have to paint 1000 points, 200 pts a month for 6 months, and a one month miss(mulligan). I took my mulligan in Decemeber.

November is Here
Decemeber Mulligan
January is Here

For this month I went with Harpies. Now Harpies exist in two armies. Chaos and Dark Elves. I had unpainted figures for both. I picked to paint the Dark Elf version as I like that sculpt better. More harpy looking. The Chaos harpies look like Gargoyles to me. Some of these are Resin, but most are metal.

The last shot is all the units together. I still have to add, Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights.

The Chaos Warriors are March's paint job.

Cheers, Xin

My very first Miniature Conversion

I have been digging through the basement looking for Old Warhammer figures. I've been buying them since 1990 or so. I knew I had a Lich from way back and couldn't find him. Spent most of the morning painting/searching. I finally found him.

This is my first converted figure. I thought I was so clever. LOL. Anyway here is  a 1992 Marauder Miniature Liche and Paladin. Well ex-Paladin.

The Lich is going in the painting queue. It's only been 25 years. I will find another suitable head and reanimate him(see what I did there?)


On a huge nostalgia kick, Xin

WIP Wednesday

I am pushing hard on my Vampire Counts so I started a 2nd unit of Skeletons. What's on your table?

Dire Wolves for Vampire Counts

The next unit in my Vampire Counts Army is Dire Wolves. I don't have any official figures, in fact I really don't like the current version that GW is selling. 

I love the older version, but they are a little hard to find.

 I rummaged around the basement and found some BattleMaster Wolves. The goblin riders long gone these would do just fine.

I used milliput to cover up the saddle. I am a sculpting noob and can only handle the most rudimentary jobs.

 A mix of Medium Gel, sand and rocks for base texture.

 I usually get the bases painted before going on to the figures. I leave flock as the very last step.

 Very quick and easy to paint. Black, grey, bone, red and red. Just 5 colors.

 Add the flock and they are ready for their photo shoot.

The only draw back with these figures is the mono pose. But for virtually free, I can't complain. 

Next up another Skeleton Unit. Zombie unit on deck and Bat Swarm proxy figures on order from ebay.

Xin

Starting a Vampire Counts Army.

A few months ago, I bought a collection of Vampire Counts from someone on TMP. Sadly I forget who. Anyway, it was a nice collection of old figures. I bought it on a whim, because I can't turn down a good deal.

About a month ago I decided to paint up a single unit of the VC. I went through the collection and came up with 20 plastic skeletons. I never really looked at them back then as I was strictly a Empire player. As I sorted through them I really started to like them. They have a lot of character. They were already assembled but needed some minor repaits. I am really gonna like this project.

So here's pics as I go through my painting.

For plastic figures I glue lead fishing weights to the underside of the slotta base. This helps keep the figure stable and gives it some heft. I also glue on sheet metal base stands so I can use magnets in my storage and movement trays.

The top of the base gets Medium gel with sand. I also randomly scatter on rocks and stuff.

I primed them Army Painter Leather Brown, and went right to a dry brush of GW's bone colored paint.

Then I very light white highlight.

Skellies paint up fast.

A few bits of armor. I will stipple brownish red paint on all exposed metal for rust.

Got the bases all painted.

Shields are next.

Just need to flock the bases as my last step.

And we are done, so I thought...

I have some old GW movement trays, lined with sheet magnets. I painted the edges to match the base of the skeletons.

The Movement stand holds 25 figures, but I only painted 20. So there was an empty row at the back of the base. I came up with the idea of filling up the space with gravestones.

So I mounted some gravestones on slotta bases and painted them up like the rest of the unit. Then it occurred to me that I've seen players do this sort of thing to stretch out there units. Unit filler is the term I think. And here I thought I was being all clever.

I put together a quick little diorama. I painted the back ground on some pink board and flocked a base for it. Using GW trees and the Garden of Morr set, it was good to go.


I really really liked the skeletons. So much so that I bought an unopened box off ebay. I'm now painting up my 2nd Warhammer army in 25 years. Yeah I'm slow.