CopperOracle II. 2. Rank and File 2

'The sound of the fast flowing river could now be heard over the pounding footsteps and marching roars and grunts of the advancing Orcs. In the vanguard Grashak moved behind a sea of dirty brown and black fur,  crested by jet black eyes and the fetid many toothed maws of the hobhounds. 

'Stunties over there. Got there stink 'av you my little bastards?'  Grashak shouted out to them as they increased their pace towards the river and the edge of a stone bridge that was coming into sight.

' I can, so you will 'av um as well. You hungry enought to get them before the rest of the lads!'

The hobhounds pulled on the web of chains wrapped round Grashaks great fist, eager to be released and to hunt out the dwarves ahead, the scent of beer, pipe tabacco and earthy sweat goading them on as they were finally released...'

February is a not a kind month. When the calendar turns over it is already the shortest month, add onto that I am away for a week over half term and with usual life stuff eating up a lot of the rest and there is not a lot of time left. I had made plans this year to try and make some progress on some of my many side projects as well as the OWAC and main army builds, even if it meant one a month but even they have been relegated to assembly and undercoats.  Taking the hobhounds and handler gave me an easy goal with not too complex a paint scheme, the main details for the hobhounds is the mouths and a character I could indulge some time on. 

The plan for this month is a ten Hobhound and Handler set, the first Character figure as a break from batch painting. 

The character is Grashak Kra and the sculpt was originally released as part of the classic C15 Orcs. named as Warlord, he was then added to the Bloodbath set and also features on the Severed Hand Command sheet

The Hobhounds were gathered over a quite a long time, I have seen some people use chaos hounds or even dogs from the elf animal sets but I wanted the collection to be as authentic as possible. The original figures are preslotta and although described as neutral in the 2nd edition they were part of the Hobgoblin faction and placed with a Hobgoblin Handler.  The inclusion of the Hobhounds seemed a bit of an odd choice as the Scenario is set in the New World and Hobgoblins/hobhounds are a more old world faction set in the far East and usually only interacting with other local factions like the Chaos Dwarfs, Northmen Tribes and the Empire of Cathy, thought I think the only faction option as this was a preSquig era.

The full ten

(The bases look a little spartan, I will be adding some tufts and leaves when the whole set are done)

Grashak Kra

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Second Edition (Ravening Horde) Points Value: 52.75

Grand Total so far: 115.25

Next month I plan on returning to the main mob and working on some Orc Archers and a couple more unit trays for the Vile Rune Orcs. 

George's Space Dwarfs Month 2 - Rank & File

 The king rested his elbow on the arm of his throne and tried to look patient. Before him stood his guildmaster, a dwarf as notorious for his familiarity with the brewer’s guild as for his brilliance with a spanner.

Next to the engineer stooped the oldest of Grimshaft’s living ancestors. His beard had grown so long that it swept the floor and he was hunched over an ornate cane.

The fate of the stronghold was in the hands of this unlikely pair and the king was not feeling confident.

An explosion shook the throne room. The orcs were grinding closer.

“The armoury was rammed, sire. Never seen so many motors in one room. Nor anywhere else for that matter. Like a scrapyard of joy it was. All useless mind…” the engineer trailed off with a large belch.

The king sighed.

“There was kit in there that dates way, way back. Must have come here with the first settlers. Lovely bit of tin.” The guildmaster belched again.

“So the armoury is full of tanks. But can we use them? Can you make them work?” The king was growing impatient.

“Work? They’re ancient! Can’t get the parts these days.” The engineer folded his arms and swayed under the king’s furious stare.

“Your majesty,” the living ancestor’s voice croaked just as the king was about to lose his temper, “the guildmaster has enormous skill. If we combine this skill with the spirit of our settler ancestors, those vehicles will work.”

The living ancestor lifted his cane and pointed to the ancient shields that lined the throne room.

“We elders will call upon our ancestors’ spirits and they will once again charge into battle.”

The engineer looked up at the shields on the walls.

“Oh yeah, we can get that sorted for you,” he hiccuped, “won’t be cheap, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

 

I always loved the Epic Space Marine squats with their selection of vehicles and felt that they would have been amazing in 28mm. Sadly they were never produced, but happily some brilliant companies now produce excellent alternatives!

Much as I love the classic Rhino, I wanted the squats of Grimshaft to have something that reflected their ancient history. Step forward Ironclad Miniatures. This amazing indie company produces a cracking range of steam tanks and I absolutely love them.

I used guns from Ramshackle Games to create a truly vintage effect for the twin bolters. The ancestral shield is from my old monopose Dwarf Warriors boxset (which came with a great selection of shields!)

It’s all painted in the core stronghold colours of green, red and yellow. The rivets pushed me close to breaking point, but looking at the finished model, I think the investment was just about worth it!

As with last month’s entry, I would have loved to spend more time on weathering, shading etc. But then I’d probably have never finished!

I’m still loving every moment of this challenge. It’s a total joy to find time for painting and I can wait for March!

 

Points:

1 x Rhino: 370 Points

AdamH’s OWAC VI Feb Post – The Wasteland Wanderers

Month two, and my second “troop” month. I would like to say that unlike last month I planned better and had plenty of time to paint… but that would be a lie. Another two business trips (one of which I will be leaving for 30 mins after writing this post) have sucked away basically half of my month/painting time.

Once again I started painting at about half-way through the month and had less than two weeks to get everything done. Some of you might be saying

“Well Adam, that is OK, two weeks is more than enough time to get 12 models done.”

And to you I would say

“Who are you, how did you get in my house?!”

But seriously I paint slowly and don’t have much time each day to dedicate to painting so it normally takes me much longer to get through things. These models I would consider ‘basic’ but complete (accept for one bit that I noticed when taking the pictures, no prize to the first person who notices my mistake).

I will once again be going back in my wildcard month to tidy up some bits, smooth out highlights and fill in some missing details as I don’t like the thought of leaving such awesome models looking like this.

That said I really like these figures and tried to go with a mostly undivided scheme, maybe leaning slightly towards Khorne, let me know if you think I pulled it off!

March (should) be better for me, no business trips or stupidly small calendar months to trip me up so I am going to try for one of the bigger (in number, not in stature) teams. Wish me luck!

ZeroTwentythree's February Skaven (59 pts)

February Skaven: Clanrats & Wolf-Rats (Rank & File)

After failing to paint all 30 clanrats in January, I switched up plans to finish the last 10 in February and then paint some "bonus figures." As February started winding down, I had just finished the first 5. 

So I went back to some of the figures that were to be in my February entry from the start. I had planned to paint Clan Moulder troops in February, figuring I would paint the easiest figures in the shortest month. I only got to some of them.

Back in my youth, in 3rd edition, we didn't really have good figures for wolf-rats, aka ROUSes. They're still sort of lacking, but some of the more recent metal giant rats aren't exactly large, but in the context of old 3rd ed. scale, I think they're decent enough. Not too far off from the metal giant wolves of the day. Plus, they're not exactly massive combat beasts anyway. So here we are. 6 wolf-rats.

I will be overwhelmed with work/travel for the rest of the month, but managed to squeek (heh heh) in one last figure. The wolf-rats needed a Clan Moulder packmaster.

Actual brand of mints I just discovered at a local grocer. Only slightly altered the flavor when I inserted it into the appropriate ad background. Kudos to the company marketing mints to the underserved Skaven demographic.

Mmmm... love those half points in 3rd ed. 

February Points:

10.5 pts         1 Packmaster with light armour

18 pts            6 Wolf-rats

30.5 pts        5 Clanrats with Spears

59 pts         TOTAL

189 pts       OWAC TOTAL (so far)

Ben's Epic Orks - Rank and File Month 2

The Snakebite Clan is completed this month with the addition of the Boarboyz (original plastics, with a couple of small conversions) and Nobz (from Vanguard).

I decided the Squiggoth I had wasn't great as a Mega-Squiggoth, so I bought some more from Ebay to complete a couple of Squiggoth Mobs in support.

And finally, so the Boyz can keep up with the Boarboyz, I've also painted up some transports (some metal Trukks, some a combination of the older and newer plastic battlewagons).

I made another terrain piece for the background.  This was inspired by an old White Dwarf picture of an Ork Village built on a ruined Warlord Titan, and was a lot of fun to make.

 

I've stuck with a beige/white/metal colour scheme, with pinkish-brown squigs/boars, to try and keep the clan coherent and different to my other clans.  Next month, I plan to introduce some bright red, by painting Nobz Bikes and Buggies for a Kult of Speed.  But for now, this month's total of 14 stands and 16 vehicles painted means I've now got a total of 1,350 points of Orks to add to my army - if you ignore the 5 support cards per company limit...  

COMPANY 

• Snakebite Clan (4 Nobz, 5 Boarboyz, 15 Boyz) 600 pts 

SPECIAL 

• Runtherd (1 stand) 75 points

SUPPORT 

• Gretchin Mob (4 Gretchin) free
• Boarboyz Mob (5 Boarboyz) 100 points
• Wildmob (4 Wildboyz) 75 points
• 2 x Squiggoth Mobs (6 Squiggoths) 300 points
• 2 x Trukk Squadrons (10 Trukks) 200 points

Chris' Chaos Dwarf Army - Various artillery (922 points)

Always a short month and very little time paint (thanks work!).  Most of the artillery is complete this month, including 4 swivel guns, 4 mortars and 2 bazukas.  All upgraded to heavy armour.  I like a grim dark look for the chaos dwarfs but they have come out a little darker than anticipated, although they look better on the table than in the pictures.  Crossbows for next month.

Really enjoyed painted them so far......

Shadespyre's February Post - Rank and File (II) - (Still still unnamed) Dark Elves (662 points)

OWAC VI - Rank and File (II) - And Now For Something Completely Similar...?

February

Here at CAMRA* HQ, we believe painting should be a joyless, shoulder to the wheel, grinding experience, and so for month two I have painted EXACTLY THE SAME MINIATURES AGAIN. Well, not quite - the Mengil in this unit has a different shaped sword blade, because the original was missing. Woo.

And almost the same ten crossbowmen. I'd apologise for the out of focus pictures, but if you want to know what they look like, just nip back to the January post...

Something I WILL apologise for is the continued plain grey bases. This is down to logistical issues - I actually ordered a bunch of supplies from my usual vendor at the end of November, and finally cancelled the still unavailable order towards the end of January... I have since over-compensated by purchasing way too much wintery basing stuff which I shall have a go with next month, begging our munificent (and handsome, wise and kind) Overlord's indulgence.

I also had some thoughts on theme and shield designs and things, but I'm still feeling my way with that. I'm loathe to interrup the painting process by overthinking these things too early!

Now I imagine most of you are bored stiff by now, what with there being no NMM or game board or round-based frippery to look at, so here's a bonus unit - Witch Elves!

20 Witch Elves in a mix of the four different poses. No command group because there aren't any minis for one - I'm sure I'll add a Hero to lead them later on. Sadly neither great swords nor shields are available to them in the 3rd edition list (though crossbows are!?), so this unit will have to be armed with merely poisoned dual hand weapons.

I did consider giving this unit a variety of pink / purple hairdos, but I think the white hair makes the unit stand out more from the rest of the army. And it might look nice with the snowy bases, but who can say right now? 

Army List Additions:

Scores for January:          662 points    50 models

20 x Dark Elf Warriors    (Standard Bearer, Musician)                               242 points

10 x Dark Elf Crossbowmen       (Shields)                                                       140 points

20 x Witch Elves (Poisoned Attacks, Additional Hand Weapon)              280 points

Running Total:                  1044 points    80 models

(Chances are I'll end up adding a champion to each of my close combat units, but that's for another day.)

I've now met (actually, surpassed) the minimum unit requirements for a legal army. Nice. 

Coming Next:

I'll be honest, this month really has been a grind, but Onwards! I said last month I needed to get my originally posted army finished during March if I was to be able to include all the fun stuff I'd like to further down the line. And so I hope this time next month I shall be bringing you 20 painted Cold One riders AND a bonus unit AND some wintery bases.

*CAMRA - The Campaign For Real Armies

Lissanne's Bloodbowl- The Queen's Marauders + Goldigger Star Players (month 2)

Defeated in the first half of their debut game, despite scoring a goal, the Goldiggers decided they needed a new strategy- Cheat!  A couple of nasty bits of equipment snuck onto the pitch, and they would surely do better!  And also recruit some higher level players (aka Star players) who have the smarts to avoid injury and can cause trouble for the opponents!  At least this should get them to the second half!

 So, I took the spare old Dwarf linemen, and modified them into all the star players I could find so that they match the team.  And I modified another Slayer who matched Ironjaw pretty well.

 

So here are:
Grim Ironjaw

 

Barik Farblast

Boomer Ezaisson 

Flint Churnblade

nd Tom Conduit, the last of the linemen, he didn't get finished last month.

And the obligatory butt shot

The Queen's Marauders

The Gnoll Queen also has had a team of gnolls in their traditional horned helmets.  and is now adding some heavy hitting fellows who no one is sure who or what they are unarmored! 

 The Queen has left the area, but the Marauders still play under her name.  This team is done in the colors of Malal, because of their kill everything attitude!

Charon & Revenant- a matched pair, relationship unknown

the Iron Duke and the Claw, a mutated refugee from Black Scourge

and the Beastman Cheerleader!

And that butt shot!

And the Battle Report...

  Alas, no game this month.  I have been sitting about with a bad cold for a week now which hasn't slowed down my painting much, but rules out having my friends over!  So I'm posting now, and I hope to post a game next month.  This sucks, but it could be worse.  The best laid plans....  At least I can give you a shot of the completed Queen's Marauders, old and new.  Another team done!

Next month I am planning a LOT of figures- it's my Leader/Monster month and the Ogre team!  We will see how far I get, but I have a lot of buffer time built up and a good start already! And there are a lot of extras too! 

The rest of the months should be full 16 player teams +, I hope!  At least that's the plan.