Painting update for the Oldworld Army Challange.

I just realized I didn't post anything since the January entry for The Old World Army Challenge. If you haven't checked it out lately, lots of great old lead painted on the OWAC site here. 

So lets get caught up.

January


An Assassin, Crossbowmen and a Bolt Thrower.


February


I took a Mulligan. We are allowed one "miss". I was too busy with fixing up Rivoli and my Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago for Cold Wars.

March


Witch Elves

Cauldron of Blood


April


The Black Guard of Naggaroth and a Sorcerer.


And here's a group shot of everything done so far.




I have May and Junes entry to do. Corsairs and Cold One Knights and a General.

Almost done.

Xin

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

Old World Army Challenge, November's work

What a crazy few months. Real life was very busy since me last post. And it's amazing how quickly time flies by without posting.

So to catch up, here is my submission for the month of November.

First up are 2 old Marauder Miniature Chaos Knights. I love the solid lead horses. Heavy Metal.

So here is one of the knights almost done. I couldn't come up with a painting scheme I liked, so he might have 2 or 3 layers of paint on him.

I finally landed on scheme I liked. Basically just dark armor with a green tint.  Here's a couple of shots from different angles. Unfortunately I suck at taking pics, so some of the colors are washed out. Backdrop is a graveyard photo set I did for my Undead Army.

When moving the figures from my painting table to my photo setup, I dropped this guy. Thankfully no breakage, he only came off his horse.

November is done, though I only did a basic job on the shields, I might go back and redo them.

Next is December's submission, 10 Chaos Warriors.


Xin/Jeff

I couldn't wait any longer

There are only a few days left to get in on North Stars Nickstarter for Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago.

I wanted to get painting so I decided to make a warband out of GW's Corsairs of Umbar. I had a few figures lying around including Dalamyr the Fleet Master. I bought the Captain and Bo'sun from a great guy on TMP and I ordered a new box from Games Workshop.

Dalamyr was missing his sword. I used a Frostgrave Cultists blade to replace it. And I had too many archers. So again the Cultist box helped me turn an archer into a spreamen.  The painted figures I bought years ago at convention, they will get repainted so all the figures match. I won't start painting till the rest of the crew arrives, but this gives me a good jump.

Hopefully I should get the rest of the figures today or tomorrow.

Cheers, Xin

My Vampire Counts Army now has Bats!

I continue to push forward with my VC army. The latest edition are 3 Bat Swarms. I didn't have official GW bat Swarms, but I did have some Reaper Bones Swarms.

Very easy paint job. In fact I spent more time on the bases than I did the figures.

That stupid scenic vine didn't want to stay glued.

I also did a small modification. The Swarms are molded stop a gravestone. I didn't want them all the same so I cut off the molded one and glued another one in it's place.

Funny thing is, it's hard to see the difference. Oh Well. Here are some pics.

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