Samuel's Empire: Grand Army of Nuln - Rank & File I: Captain Gruber's Guard

Okay so month one was a real slog. Caught a cold halfway through the month and then just managed to recover when my son brough home a stomach bug which took the whole family out for a week.

On top of that the Perry twin sculpts whilst incredibly beautiful miniatures are busy as all hell. It makes painting them very meticulous especially at the initial base coat colouring stages of the process. Probably the longest it’s ever taken me to basecoat a unit.

Anyhow that said I think that these are the finest paintjobs I’ve ever managed to achieve, and I’m really very pleased with them. During last years OWAC I really defined my painting style and the results are paying dividends. So, I couldn’t be happier and look forwards to painting up the rest of the army over the coming months.

The Black Guard, commissioned from the Nuln city guard with a lucrative offer. Of course lucrative normally means suicidal mission, so made up of those in crippling gambling debt, on offers to defer jail time or young and under the impression that they are invincible.

Captain Marcus Gruber, retired professional soldier and recent widower who has taken on the lucrative if doomed double commission to give himself something to do rather than drink himself into a stupor. 

For my not so secret Santa I have rat king himself AdamH, the 13th member of the council. Some years ago in order to rope me back into oldhammer after a beer fueled discussion on the matter he purchased me some Pink Horrors, just incase I decided to back out or the like (little did he know I'd already dropped a couple of hundred on evilBay). Until now I've not managed to find a fitting army for them even though I do like me some Tzeentch. However given the circumstances I thought it fitting that I paint one in tribute to his kindness:

Next month will either be the Nuln Ironsides (Handgunners) or the artillery batteries.

Peace Out

Samuel

 

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:

Jaeckel's Castle Wittgenstein - Leader month - Shif Doppler and more

Well well well... can't say ending this OWAC is easy. I'm still struggling to find a model for Lady Margritte von Wittgenstein, and I am less and less confident to succeed by the end of the challenge. All I could do this month was the lieutenant of the guards, Shif Doppler, one ogre, and... more guards! At least, I can pretend the "Leader" month is done 😜

Shif Doppler has been heavily tainted by Chaos: he can turn his head and arms by 360 degrees, and his face is so corrupted that he's hiding it under a silver mask depicting a handsome youngman. 

In terms of miniature, I have used the model proposed in the original scenario pack to depict this character, but carved the helmet to replace the head by an AOS Stormcast face, and equipped it with a Warcry miniature flail (part of his equipment in the scenario).

Another character of interest, Slagdarg is the official torturer of Castle Wittgenstein: not particularly bright, this mutant ogre is fully dedicated to his job, and keeps questioning his guests... without listening to their answers.

To build this one, I have modified the Gutlagg Executioner model designed by Jes Goodwin by separating the head from the body, trimming down the shoulders, then lenghtening the torso by adding the upper armour piece of a Kruleboyz boss. I thought the chains, locks and keys would fit nicely with the honorable profession of Mr. Slagdarg.

Besides his final odd proportions (cough cough), Slagdarg's mutations consist in a bright green skin with orange hairs on his arms. Not exactly my comfort zone... In the end, way too much time spent on this model.

 

As for the guards, they are based on the imperial halberdiers designed by the Perry brothers in the 90s: I have either swapped the heads, or trimmed down the fancy feathers to give the original helmets a more severe look. I have also replaced two halberds by man catchers, very useful to capture new subjects for Lady Margritte's experiments 💀

The whole rank:

And the whole month:

See you in June with what's left to paint 😜

Jaeckel's Castle Wittgenstein - The Guards II

Second month, and second batch of guards of Castle Wittgenstein, this time equipped with halberds. Again, simple conversions with head swaps and minor additions.

'Death on the Reik' illlustration by Martin McKenna

 

As you can see, I have mostly used the halberdiers designed by the Perrys at the end of the 3rd edition era. 

The standard bearer is a slight conversion of Sergeant Kratz model sold in the original scenario pack. Regarding the coat of arms of Wittgenstein's family, I have given up the idea of painting a quartered flag with the falling star and the wheat sheaf (can't afford more than one failure per month!).

 

Instead, I have used classic imperial patterns, adding a "W" on the two skulls:

In the end, the bare minimum (again!) for February, with 10 additional guards:

So far we have:

• 10 guards armed with crossbows: 100 points
  
• 10 guards armed with halberds, with standard bearer and musician: 108 points
  

See you in March with even cheaper models: the Wittgendorfers!

"Honk Honk! We are here!" Byron's Helblitzen of Gusseldorf - Rank and File Month (235 pts)

This month's entry is the start to my regiment of halberdiers: the Helblitzen of Güsseldorf. So far they are only 12 strong, but I plan to expand them a bit as the competition goes on. I painted them in the Güsseldorf colors of Blue and Yellow. Their feathers are painted whitish grey to look like goose feathers. 

This regiment's standard bears the Goose of Güsseldorf vigilant, gripping a halberd, and on a blue field. On the reverse the banner has the regimental motto/battlecry "Gack Gack! Wir sind hier!" Translated to English it means "Honk honk! We are here!" embodying the vociferous, aggressive, and sudden presence of Geese on the attack. I had to look up what sounds geese make in German. As we all know animals sound different in each language. Apparently, Bretonnian geese say "Ca car."

This regiment stands out from the other infantry I have sculpted in terms of their poses. The spearmen and bowmen I sculpted have very timid poses. These halberdiers are meant to represent more enthusiastic troops - perhaps mercenaries or a standing army - so they have armor and all have aggressive poses to suggest the unit has an air of élan. Like the other fairytale German models their aesthetic borrows (by which I mean it is an anachronistic mess) primarily from historical illustrations and 19th century children's books.

Finally, there is the wizard, Olbrecht the wanderer. I wanted him to have a sort of Gandalf vibe while also matching the material culture of the other Germans. I painted him in shadowy colors so perhaps he uses some sort of shadow magic? I have a handful of this model from the casters perhaps I should paint up a few in case I want to represent wizards from different disciplines. 

Point totals for February

Halberdiers x12 (9 points each + standard)         117 pts

Wizard Champion                                                 118 pts

Total                                                                      235 pts

Ratwig's OWAC IV Rank & File #4 (286 points)

My last regular submission for OWAC IV consists of a unit of Dark Elf warriors equipped with halberds and led by Varlok, a level 10 hero who is not equipped with a halberd as that is not an option for Dark Elf characters in 3rd Edition Warhammer Armies. All figures are Marauder except the standard bearer and Varlok, which are older Citadel figs. Varlok was converted by replacing his head with a plastic one from the old DE crossbow figs. The standard bearer had been modified by a previous owner who cut down his spear so it looked like he had a sword. I cut off the spear head and added a section of brass rod with copper wire wrapped around it to make the standard pole. The flag is paper. The shields are by Gripping Beast. 

1 x Level 10 DE Hero: hand weapon, light armor (+2), shield (+1) = 91 points

14 x Dark Elf Warriors: hand weapon, light armor, shield, halberd (+2), standard (+13) = 195

Total points = 286 

Varlok:

The rest of his anti social band of miscreants:

I didn't get to finish as many figs this time as I had originally planned to. They will have to roll over to another OWAC to complete my Dark Elf army. I hit a burn out wall around half way through and struggled to paint anything so I'm lucky I didn't end up in the field of bones, whew! I may take a break from Dark Elves next OWAC and paint something completely different, we shall see how I feel about the DE hordes I still have remaining next time.

Have a good day! It's Jack time here!

Ratwig out.