Bill's Rank & File Month 1: Totleger's Carvers

 "Vogelburgh is a small village, up in the foothills of the mountains, forgettable aside from its monstrous poultry (and largely forgotten by the Empire at large except during tax season). It musters and supports only a single small regiment of state troops - a regiment of Helblitzen, zealously trained and drilled by Captain Totleger. Though they be few in number, their training is comparable to any regiment raised in more cosmopolitan regions of the Empire, and their strength is bolstered by that of the ogre known as 'Big Frug.' Frug is considered something of a mascot to the regiment, dressed in a fine uniform and assigned the all-important task of guarding the regiment's lager ration."

 

Here we are, month one of OWAC VII is in the bag! I'm not going to lie, I struggled a little bit this month; I'm really out of practice painting figures that have been primed white, and I'm definitely still getting the hang of using Contrast paints effectively. A big chunk of the month was spent dreading the possibility that I'd made a horrible mistake - either in choosing this army instead of my comfort Waaagh, or in not priming black and doing 'slap-chop' style painting with the Contrast paints. 

Once I started applying highlights (and in the case of the yellow, painting Vallejo Golden Yellow over the Iyanden Yellow Contrast), I started to feel a lot more positive about what I was doing. As always, it's important to trust the process; I think the end result is pretty good all things considered.

The Halberdiers are Wars of the Roses billmen, originally released by Front Rank Miniatures (and now manufactured and sold under the Front Rank name by Gripping Beast). They're pleasingly solid sculpts, comparable to 5th and 6th edition Empire figures in size and dimensions. Definitely took some work to clean up the mold lines and excess material, so the molds might be ready for a remaster in the near future. 

 

Big Frug is an Imperial Ogre from Knightmare Miniatures, sculpted by Drew Williams. He's a charming sculpt as well, which comes as no surprise given Drew's talent. I've got a rather substantial number of trolls he's sculpted and they're wonderful, and we'll see more figures from his studio in this army before this OWAC is done. The barrel he's standing guard over is part of a set from Dunkeldorf Miniatures, based out of Denmark. A lot of them have skulls, wine bottles or candles atop them, but I definitely think this one, unadorned save the iron cross design, fits better with him. 

Dunkeldorf's figures are ideal for player characters and NPCs in games of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play, though they are closer to 32mm scale, making them tower over standard 28mm figures. I've got a couple that I've incorporated into this army, but it was a bit of a surprise to realize these figures are head and shoulders taller than almost everyone else in the army. And speaking of Dunkeldorf, their "pets" accessories yielded this charming rooster for my purposes:

So here we've got what we'll call 19 Helblitzen (that rooster's a fighter!) and Captain Totleger, a Level 10 Hero. So points-wise, that looks like:

• 19 Helblitzen, plus standard and musician = 189 pts
• Level 10 Hero with hand weapon and light armor = 57

For a points total this month of 246 points.  

And again, here's my "price of entry/secret santa" figure before it goes out: