Jaeckel and the Lost Crusade - Month I (212 points)

All right, first month of the OWAC III, I knew that I could use the end of the winter break to paint my most populated unit:15 fools who gave up everything to follow Pieter the Pious.

Illustration by John Blanche

As mentioned in the introduction post, my plan for this challenge is to use a wide range of Citadel models that couldn't join Pfeildorf's troops. No feather or fancy clothes here, more the medieval kind, most of the time without any piece of armour and, when necessary, equiped with wooden shields (bought years ago to Hasslefree Miniatures and unfortunately, out of production now - yep, even the accessories are OOP here!).

In terms of colors, I've made tests on a first model, slightly modified by adding a candle on the helmet, something I had seen earlier on this Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay illustration:

The Watchman - Carrier art for WFRP 4th Edition

This very ordinary "Imperial Foot Soldier" (his official name) was painted using a limited palette composed of VMC Dark Sea Blue (highlighted by VGC Bonewhite), and a few brown, grey and beige tones. I've also tried to spare some time with very simple bases: a single layer of Agrellan Earth, highlighted with VMC Tan Yellow and then Pale Sand. As I was reasonably satisfied with this first trial, I've used again and again the same tones on too many models, giving something too regular for a bunch of zealots lost in Araby.

From left to right: Harwood, Mercenary, Imperial Foot Soldier, Ernst Stoutheart and Adolf

I've tried then to change the overall look by removing the Dark Sea Blue from my palette. And whenever possible, I've added some candles to illustrate their religious inclinations. Below a few pictures of my attempts:

Mercenary and Mercenary swordsman

Altdorf Axeman and Mercenary Captain

Gunther, Albrecht and Bardach

And finally, the command group:

Marauder Citizen CZ19, Sir Monne de la Monte and Harwood

And here are my fools! 

In terms of army points, we have:
- 12 Ersatzolders with shields and light armours: 12 x (5+1+2) = 96 points
- 1 standard bearer = 16 points
- 1 musician = 16 points
- Sir Monne de la Monte, Lvl 15 hero, with heavy armour and shield/holy book: 80 + 3 + 1 = 84 points
- Total for Month I: 212 points

ZeroTwentythree's January Wood Elves (278 pts)

I wrapped up my painting earlier than expected. I started off the month with the basic building block of any wood elf army: archers. I felt this was a solid foundation to build on, and surprised myself in finishing by mid-month.

I'm happy with the painting on these, but I will admit that they are not the most flashy figures I've done. Last year's Sea Elves had brighter colors, for example. The concept behind them drove my decision to paint them in dark colors. Based on my alternate Wahammer setting. My "Althammer". These aren't the frolicking in the bright Spring blossoms sort of wood elves. They're the pragmatic, survivalists, crossing mountains and hunting prey in dark forests type of wood elves. They're practical. But... still bring harps into battle, apparently. ;)

I.C. 2439

Orcs had been all but driven from the Empire & Bretonnia, with no large scale invasions in almost a hundred years. Yet in I.C. 2437 a small band of orcs descended from the Grey Mountains to raid farmsteads and small villages in the plain of Bastonne. The threat was not great, but the Duke of Bastonne was unwilling to let any group of orcs gain a foothold in his lands. They were were driven north to the dark Forest of Arden the following year. The shrinking band of raiders was then driven east into the mountains in by the small Wood Elf community who dwelt there. With the orcs gone, most paid them no heed. But the seeress Oreldis sensed there was something more to the handful of wretched nomads. And although the orcs' numbers dwindled, they were picking up all manner of other misfits along the way. A small scouting mission gathered around her and pursued, but lost track of them in obscure mountain passes. Still sensing some vague but ominous portent surrounding the band, the elven scouts continued across the mountains and have carried on their hunt ever since. Their mission has been hard, and taken them far from home. In broken lands formerly ruled by their ancestors they find themselves pulled into the confusing politics of the Wasteland as they continue to hunt their quarry, the so-called "warlord" Zogmar...

Since I finished early, I prepped next month's figures for painting (15 more archers) and worked on some "stretch goals" as someone else in the challenge referred to such things. First was a wood rider, plus some blank bases. When prepping my Feb. figures I noticed that a couple of them won't rank up easily. Though they'll probably be skirmishing much of the time, I thought some blanks ("invisible elves) will help of they need to form up.

Next up, a beast master & bear from Grenadier, plus a way-to-large bear from Reaper. I was trying to find a bear similar in size to the old Grenadier model and was way off the mark. Too nice of a figure not to paint. So, I'm still on a quest for a second bear to fit on a 25mm base.

Nothing says "I'm in harmony with nature" like wearing the dismembered body parts of the woodland animals and forcing them into battle.

One of my additional goals for the OWAC is to put together some larger trees. The only trees I currently own are tiny, sad looking things. So here's my first test model. I mixed too much putty for the trunk & branches, so used it for a 'shroom rather than letting it go to waste. (Empire gunner only shown for scale.)

Aside from all that, I also re-based an old wood elf I painted long ago, and put on a round base for an abandoned skirmish game.

So there's January:

15 Archers with shields, incl. standard and musician ...... 204 pts.
1 Wood Rider ........ 20 pts
1 Beastmaster w/ shield  and 2 bears ....... 54 pts
Bases & rebasing ....... 0 pts
Tree & 'shroom ....... 0 pts

January Total: 278 pts

JamesG's Nibelung Valesti (200 pts)

The goal for this first month was to come up with a color scheme that can work with a variety of armored and natural figures and maintain the overall feel of the Norse army.  I picked a couple of line infantry, a Yeti, and a hero that was both armored and natural (a Valkyrie and a Pegasus) to try and accomplish this.

First up was the Valkyrie.  I had planned to paint her later in the challenge, but once I got started I stuck with this figure for a while. The Pegasus gave me a chance to try some different  techniques working with white that I spent a lot of time on.  The wings received a few different thin washes with white drybrushing and that worked well.  We were watching a lot of Bob's Burgers at the time, too, so Tina Belcher demanded that attention be paid to all of the horse's body details.

The Valkyrie herself was a little odd in that she has large armor plates along with lighter armor and then areas of skin that are completely...let's say...unprotected.  I altered this style a little by using a Space Wolf greyish color to make it look like there's a second layer of lighter armor.  I ended up liking this a lot and then added brass on the largest armor pieces to make them stand out.  The lance got a spiral because hey, I used to have Bretonnians and it's just muscle memory at this point.

Our friend Umaro the Yeti/Snow Troll was up next.  He's a drybrushing dream and I played around with a few different base colors before settling on this.  Picking out the exposed skin of the face, hands and feet in a different but complimentary color was meant to make him a little more believable as a primate and potential henchman of Gorilla Grodd.
This guy is my first Reaper Bones success, so thanks to all the OWAC members that shared tips and experience working with this wack-a-doo material.  I can't complain about a 40mm base critter for $3.99.

Then we have a couple of line infantry to round out the points for the month.  These little pillagers are vikings from Gripping Beast, a kit that I've wanted to pick up since it was released.  I chose to make them a little less dark-agey for the purposes of being in a fantasy army, so they've got some nice bright blues and yellows to go along with their 4th ed-style goblin green bases.  They may be ready to ransack the Empire, but they still need to observe the vibrant colors of the day, back before we got all angsty and started painting everything black.

All in all there were few models, but this foundation gets me moving forward with a clear plan for everything else; we all know the paint flows faster when you already know which colors to grab!

      January's Roster

• Valkyrie Hero on Pegasus...115 points
• Yeti...65 points
• 2 Spearmen....20 points

• January Total....200 points

Tom's Chaos Dwarfs - Month 1 (235 pts)

Hello! I post this picture first, so I have a nice thumbnail picture :)

Sooo… since I last posted I got round to stripping the last of my models. 

I lightly scraped off the heavier mould lines on them and glued them down on their bases. Then a mighty session of undercoating ensured, using Wraithbone spray from GW. Maaaaan, there's not a lot of paint in them there cans. I used.... A LOT. Of cans. 

I then did a pre-paint photograph of them using my phone, and a timestamp (the paper with the date on). No accusations of jumping the gun here please!

Anyway, the plans of painting rank and file and finishing with a treat model went right out the window as I straight up painted the Army General first. You can see a couple of his buddies there waiting to be painted, who are EXTRAS for another month if I can get round to them. By the way,  the guy on the right with the jaunty hat is my favourite Chaos Dwarf model :)

And here he is all painted up, bless his little cotton socks!

I used contrast paint everywhere. I think the only non contrast paint was a yellow, a cream and a white, and a green for the sides of the base. The base top is GW Mordant Earth, which I brought on a whim and I might as well have brought some regular black paint. Anyhow...  Grass is static grass glued on, rather than the tufts I used for the OWAC2, and the stones are... well, stones. Banners have been printed on regular A4 paper, with a thin bit of card glued in the middle for some extra chonk.

With these zoomed up on pictures it's really horribly apparent where I've mislaid the paint, or not covered the undercoat, or marked the banner. It's unlikely I'll go back and correct these, because I like my sanity. It is completed - not perfect.

By the way, massive thank you to chaosdwarfsonline user Malorndk, who has studiously recreated the Chaos Dwarf banners in photoshop, and uploaded some lovely high res images which printed out incredibly well from my local internet café! His precess and the banners themselves are to be found here: LINK

Next up is this Death Rocket!

Although I did only manage to paint two crew...

The picture above had an 'autocorrect' done by my phone. In contrast, the picture below doesn't...

And here they are, starkly lit, for the group shot!

I'd like to think that there is an easier way of painting these little blighters. I am constantly having to touch up the undercoat to put the next layer of paint on, but to be fair I think they have turned out quite nice and, although I feel they could be brighter, I'm still very pleased with them!

I thought the blue/white split in their hats and clothes would link back in nicely with the OWAC2 regular Imperial dwarfs - they're the same...but...different! It is, however, really not the quickest paint scheme around!

As a bit of an aside, I did paint up a Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team last year - right on the tail end of completing the OWAC2. Mostly so I could try out the colour scheme I had roughly in mind and also to see whether I could stomach painting a whole army of 'em. Here's a picture for your curiosity:

For me, the bases haven't worked here. I think I over did it a bit, but they'll do. So, learning from this, I adjusted the basing a little bit for the army, and just painted on a bit of lava. It's OK, but not AMAZING like the basing on this inspiring army from Ishkur: http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/army3.php

Anyway, this brings me over the 200point quota for this month, so right now I am trying to paint the originally planned rank and file ready for February. Hopefully an EXTRA (or hopefully two) will be painted with the leeway time gained too,
and at some point I'll do a step by step for a Chaos Dwarf Warrior.
I like seeing the picture progressions :)

Until then, may the wings of the Great Taurus carry you safely!

160...Chaos Dwarf General
75... Chaos Dwarf Death Rocket
235...Points Total

Andrea's High Elf General and Repeater Bolt Thrower (213 pts)

Hi folks,
so here is a quick and easy start for OWAC3, like a sort of warm up (still, two miniatures more than my OWAC2 first month!)!

Let me introduce the army General (163 pts) and a Repeater Bolt Thrower (50 pts), for a total of 213 points.

I always found the first month very important for the whole challenge as the choice of colors palette start here and had to be maintined throughout the work. I was considering replicating the colors of the army book, with limited use of metallic paints and many bright pastel(ish) colors, but this is not clearly my coloring style. Therefore, I opted for a more personal coloring style but still recalling the bright tones of the past.

The general is a 6th (or even 7th, perhaps) edition miniature, still in metal. I have a lot of these recent High Elf characters and I had to say that they do not perfectly fit my taste; however, this is one of the my favourite. High Elf heroes are noble, rich kids so I thought to a general clad in a burnished gold and mithril armour full of gems. The fiery colors remind to the phoenix on the helmet, and definitely characterize the general as an emissary of the Phoenix temple sent to lead a Sword Masters-based contingent into a secret mission. And it is such a secret mission that I don't even know what it is!

Though, the presence of Repeater Bolt Throwers makes this secret mission something a little more complex than, for example, a "behind the enemy lines" mission! Here is the first out two Bolt Throwers. Much of the gunners' colouring scheme is inspired by the old army book, although revisited as said before.

While taking photographs for the post, I took the occasion to show you part of a hill I have made for a terrain project I am pursuing since a while. As the challenge goes on, I should be able to add more new terrain features; of course, only old style stuff!

Well, I hope you will enjoy my start!
Ciao, A.

goblinpaladin's Gnomes - a January update [200 points]

This project is being kindly sponsored by Old School Miniatures.

I'll admit that I was very worried a few weeks ago. The smoke was blanketing my city, meaning that I couldn't undercoat.* This put back my timetable by several weeks, or so I thought...

quarrelling gnomes

I sat down, planned out the next five months, and based the first 200 points. This meant that I was at least moving forward a little - and then (glory be to Ringil) the smoke cleared enough for me to hastily get down some undercoats. Heck yeah:

• 10 Armbrust Gnomen. 80 points
• 10 Guarden Gnomen with light armour. 120 points

• Total: 200 points

I put together some resting or rear-ranking crossbowmen and assembled up the block of elite Guarden Gnomen who will be guarding the Cantonal Standard. I then figured out what I wanted to do for a colour scheme and went down to gnome town.

The crossbowmen got the same greens, browns and undyed cloth as the fox riders I had done before the challenge. This fit into these being recruited from the local furrier guilds; they aren't going to be equipped at the city's expense in uniform coats and be-ribboned with finery.

These were painted traditionally, although the brown wash I gave them did dull down most of the variant colours I originally used on their hats and coats. The beards are mostly either washes or the new Snakebite Leather contrast, which is a really nice paint.

The regiment of Guarden Gnomen, as befitting their status as professional soldiers, have been given handsome blue coats and red felt caps. A few of these soldiers are also veterans, judging from their white and grey beards.

The colour scheme is absolutely based on David the Gnome, and please don't let me ever pretend otherwise. The red hats also lets me pretend I'm giving a nod to the redcaps in English folklore, although I am not reinterpreting these gnomes as some kind of grimdark savages on the border of Fairy.**

These guys used a bit more of the new contrast, especially on the basecoats for the red caps, blue coats, and leather belts. I then highlighted as traditional, although I think I could have made the halberds a bit brighter - they look a bit more like wrought iron than the steel of a city's elite soldiers.

the cantonal standard shines bright! (because it's not painted)

Coming up next month: The rest of the Guarden Gnomen and crossbowgnomes. Need to come up with a design for the banner...

= = =

*Or breathe. Or walk to work. Hell, the smoke drifted through the library stacks and the university shut down. So.

**Although that is a cool idea, and someone else should steal it.

Dave's Wood Elf Warriors

The cold grasp of winter is finally loosening over the land. High in the dour Grey Mountains, the old season's ice begins to thaw and give way. Slowly at first, and then with great urgency, freshly melted snow turns into cool streams of bubbling water. Deep in the forests below, new saplings push their way up through the soil and the cycle of rebirth begins anew...

A new year, a new OWAC, and a new beginning! What better army to celebrate the coming spring than with the...

Wood Elves were my very first army and introduction to Games Workshop. I spied a picture of the GW Wood Elf studio army in a flyer after stumbling into a Games Workshop store quite by accident on a family vacation to Ireland. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the vacation with my eyes glued to the crumpled pages of that pamphlet rather than soaking in the scenic vistas of the family trip. My attention was particularly drawn to the large regiments of Wood Elf spearmen, which I would later discover were called Glade Guard. I would also learn that they are a bit of a rubbish unit in an otherwise extremely effective Warhammer army, but that didn't dissuade me... I always had to field them in my basement battles with friends. There was just something about the rows and rows of spears that epitomized Wood Elves to me...

Of course, I was young then, and never played with a single painted model. Well that's not quite right... I made a valiant effort to paint the monopose plastic archers. And I even finished one of them! Yes, as you can imagine, it is far too embarrassing to show. Thankfully I have long since lost the poor old figure, so I cannot be cajoled into shaming myself further with it.

This OWAC is the chance for me to finally make things right with my beloved Wood Elves and give them the proper lick of paint that they've always deserved. My army is shown in the picture below. It should be no surprise that the Glade Guard remain the core of my army, providing a healthy block of Elves to stick the enemy's charge. Supporting the brave spearmen is a small group of Dryads, doughty models which punch well above their weight in battle. And then there are the hammers of the army: a fully-loaded Wood Elf chariot and a mighty Treeman. The Wood Elf chariot is a bit of a rarity... it was offered for only a vanishingly brief time in the late 90's as a Mail Order exclusive. It is made from bitz from a variety of sets that were available at that time: you simply had to call the Trollz and they would ship you the pieces. Finally, leading the army is the brave Wood Elf General on Elven Steed. I am using the Glade Rider Champion model for the General as I plan to give him a swanky shield (the normal General model has a weapon in each hand and thus cannot really be modeled with a shield).

GALADRIN'S GUARDIANS OF THE GROVE (997 pts)

Wood Elf General (Lance, Longbow, Light Armour, Shield on Barded Steed) ~ 175 pts

15 Glade Guard with Command (Light Armour, Spear, Shield) ~ 204 pts

Chariot (Light Armour, Shields, Longbows, Spears, Extra Steeds, Barding, Scythed Wheels) ~ 128 pts

6 Dryads ~ 210 pts

Treeman ~ 280 pts

And would you look at that, a Wood Elf army with no archers! The list may be subject to a little tweaking before the challenge is done, but the basis is a solid close-combat oriented army with decent mobility. Back in the early days of the internet, there were hundreds of homemade websites that hosted endless articles of tactica for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. This particular army is designed around the old "hammer and anvil" strategy, as described on Machiara's Battle Glade, an excellent website of old for Wood Elf players that some of the longbeards may remember. Now, the strategy is in place... we will see you all on the battlefield!