Bill's Leader Month: Burgomeister Livorno Nebelhorn & Entourage

 February is a short month, and for me at least it tends to be punctuated by two events: first, the annual Running GAGG gaming convention, hosted by the Geneseo Area Gaming Group at the State University of New York at Geneseo. I've only missed the convention two or three times since 2005, and it is the social event of the year for me. Second, my wife has a terrible tendency to get horribly ill in February; gallbladder attack one year, horrible infection following wisdom tooth extraction another year, etc. Because of the shortness of the month and planning around these two events, I decided to make February my Leader Month this year and give myself a break from rank and file painting.

Running GAGG has come and gone for this year now (and I used miniatures I'd painted to one of the RPG sessions I ran there), and my wife got hit with a terrible case of food poisoning on Valentine's Day that she's still, as of this writing (February 18) recovering from. So it's a very good thing I budgeted my painting accordingly!

For this month I have my general, wizard, and battle standard bearer.

Burgomeister Livorno Nebelhorn (Level 15 Hero, Light Armor and Shield) is the leader of the town of Vogelburgh, a position he inherited from his father (he is named for his Tilean grandfather on his mother's side). A stout and stern man, he takes his responsibilities as burgomeister seriously, and takes his place on the front lines in battle to defend the town and its people. 

The figure is from Satyr Art Studio's "Oldhammer Personalities" pack, sculpted by Drew Williams (I told you we'd see his name again in my OWAC entries this year). I went with a predominantly black and red scheme for him punctuated by pops of yellow, instead of focusing on yellow and black; once I glued the shield in place I really felt confident that that was the right call, as the yellow of the shield helps balance the black. Decal on the shield is from "Carthage Must Be Destroyed," and was a breeze to apply. I went into this challenge expecting the decals to fight me every step of the way, and so far that has not been the case. Knock on wood.

Master Harlund Sandorsz (Level 10 Wizard), of the school of Amber Wizardry, is the man responsible for Vogelburgh's famed giant chickens. His eccentric husbandry and chicken feed enriched with 11 secret herbs and alchemical reagents has caused prodigious growth without sacrificing flavor. 

Figure is from Old School Miniatures, and they don't have a sculptor listed on the website for this figure but I half suspect he's a Drew Williams sculpt as well; the details of the face and the way the drapery of the robes is sculpted makes me think of Drew's style. I could very well be wrong. Either way, he was a pain to paint; I don't know what it was but the slightest touch caused paint to rub off the folds of the robe. I think a couple times I just looked at the figure wrong and paint just disintegrated. 

Karl Hendl (Level 10 Hero, Army Standard Bearer, Light Armor, Shield) is the promising young man tasked with carrying Vogelburgh's standard into battle and displaying the town's pride. 

This is an F2-series Fighter from Citadel Miniatures, originally armed with an axe; when he arrived from eBay, the axe was badly bent and the metal stressed enough that I simply trimmed it away, drilled out the hand and inserted a 4" steel pin for a banner pole. The banner topper was original from Games Workshop's Dogs of War mercenary regiment, "Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks." I had originally intended to make a press mold of the standard top, make green stuff copies and use them across all the units of the army but I just couldn't get the castings to come out nicely. Ultimately I drilled into the standard top and inserted the steel pin into it. 

This banner isn't freehanded the way last month's was; I designed this banner is MSPaint using a clip art scroll and rooster design, printed on regular computer paper and then painted over the flag. The lettering on the scroll is hand written using a Micron Pigma Pen with a .5mm tip. 

Points-wise, these three are:

• Level 15 Hero, Light Armor and Shield - 83 points
• Level 10 Wizard - 85 points
• Level 10 Hero, Army Standard Bearer, Light Armor and Shield - 108 points

For a grand total for this month of 276 points, and 522 points for the Challenge so far. 

 For added fun, can you name all the chicken references I've made in this post?