Dug up and dusted down

 Rain lashed down on the hunched figures as a flash of lightning crashed across the dark night sky, the ground sodden, now turned into a quagmire of mud and filth. somewhere in the distance a lone wolf howled half heartedly, almost awhere of the horror trope it was playing into. If you listened with great care you would swear you could hear ominous organ music being carried on the wind...

The figures toiled, each man waist deep in an open grave digging with poorly maintained shovels, oblivious to the sheets of rain intent on filling the hole they were standing in. a single lantern stood on the edge of the grave, pathetically attempting to push back the nights darkness. The hunched figures grunted as they worked. Suddenly they heard a dull 'clunk' as spade hit wood, they glanced at each other with trepidation, had they reached what they were looking for?. As water ran down their faces each man scraped away the dirt from the lid of the coffin. The larger of the two moved over to the edge of the hole to fetch a rusted crowbar. With the deliberate movements of a true evil henchman he found the rim of the coffin lid and began to work it loose. Both men stood back and covered their mouths and noses with stained filthy hankercheifs as another crack of lightning split the sky. The lid was thrown back, the putrid stench of death filling the air.  'Shit' exclaimed the larger man in frustration, 'wrong one'.  

 And thus the blog was reborn... well dug up and left to limp about the place banging into stuff while bits of it fall off needing to be stapled back on but still I reckon it counts!.

 As you are no doubt awhere the above is a poor attempt to resurrect this once dead den of gaming related bollocks once more, maybe it never really died, who can tell?. I do know I have regained some kind of  motivation and focus to get back on the (stinking and flogged half to death) scabby horse that is this blog. my last post was a staggering seven months ago (I have been piddling about over here off and on) and it feels like high time I got to doing some other game related stuff.

 So, what have I been up to in all the time I have not been blogging?, well, I have been doing alot of reading, mostly getting stuck into a lot of Osprey historical titles mostly focusing on the late medieval period and Italian wars although I have been also skirting around the Dark ages too. This has been rather good (if not rather too grown up) and has given me a desire to do some more historical based gaming (shock horror!!). Now most of you know I tend to only very loosly touch on history on this blog with most of my previous projects being fantasy based,,,and a bit stupid. So why the change?, Well in a word...dunno. 

 I have been planning and working towards some projects based on my current facination with historical stuff, namely some 'after 1066' Norman and Saxon forces I intend to use for some skirmishy games based just after the conquest focusing on William trying to consoladate his hold on his new lands. I think it would be a good backdrop for some localised rebellions and uprisings and other similar stuff. I have been using some 15mm minis from forged in battle to represent the forces which I have really enjoyed painting.

Normans

Saxons

 I decided to experiment with my painting style by only using base coats (so no highlighting or shading). This was partly to improve my speed and brushwork forcing me to be more tidy as I had no wash to hide my normal slap happy methods!. Also I was attempting to create a sort of 'toy soldier' style, crisp bright colours to make the troops look kind of cartoony and unrealistic just to see what I would get. I have to say I have been a little untidy in places but for the most part  am quite pleased with them. Heres a closer look at the Normans:

Norman Horse

Norman foot

Lowly Norman archers

Norman Leaders

A bunch of saxons loyal (willing or otherwise) to the Norman overlords.

And heres the Saxon forces:

Saxon Huscarles

The Fyrd ready for some fyrding!

The Saxon leadership.

Saxon archers

Extra Huscarles? I had loads in this pose so may use them as the leaders bodyguard depending on the rules im using.

 One reason I decided to base them individually is because I realised I actually dont have any full forces based this way, everything else is multibased so these will let me use a bunch of other rules such as the Rampants and Oathmark and such.

 On top of these I also have a hankering to play some other larger scale games and became quite interested in the Swiss vs Burgundian wars of the 15th century so have decided to put together the opposing forces to do some battles using either

 

or

Whichever way I go the basing will work for both so no problem either way!. To this end I have ordered a metric fu*ktonne of 10mm troops to represent the armies from the always great pendraken which turned up this morning!

A fu*ktonne of yay!!.

I have also painted a few Swiss pike to get a feel for what I want to do with all this, heres what I have so far:

They are pretty tiny but as always with Pendraken they are really nice to paint. I will be using 40 man pike units so still some way to go before i base my first unit!.

  Hopefully I will have more of an update to err... update you all with soon. 

'till next time....

2mm 'Medieval' battle

 Hi all, just a quickie to direct you to a really rather smashing battle over on my new blog. Feel free to pop on over for a squiz. Here are some pictures to wet your whistle:

Wronghammer is dead?

 It is with a heavy heart that i deliver the following post......but first:

Fuddy Muckers.

 So yes, Wronghammer as we know is dead....when i say dead i mean on its last legs, you know life support....when i say life support i mean at least limping a bit.....

 What im trying to say is that i have been taking stock of the way i have 'hobbied' since getting back into this toy bothering thing and i have realised the following:

1: I lack focus, pinballing around projects and abandoning things i have yet to properly even start.

2: I lack focu....err the bits i really enjoy are the world and narrative building and as of last year building and painting armies. I have less and less time to game and only tend to do so if i have a solid situational framework and scenario in mind.

3: When i try to do too much (narrativly speaking) i tend to burn out on an idea quickly. This leads to periods of inactivity where i cant get motivated to do anything at all.

4: I only really have a few limited periods that can hold my interest for any amount of time ( fantasy late medieval, Pike and shot and steam punk, often at the same time!!) and cant be bothered with learning countless sets of rules to support new periods. I tend to gravitate towards the same simple rules.

 So with these things in mind i have decided to follow my muse (the good one, not the one that tries to tempt me with a million new things) and stick to one setting, the only one that i keep coming back to that on review most of my battles seem to be set in:

Olde Albilande

  Now i realise this setting in this form has only been present in my gaming for about 2 years but if you go by the tone and feel of earlier battle reports they could be ( and i would bet subconsciously are) set here, just in a different historical period. So what i have decided to do is......

                                      MOVE HOME!!!!!!!!!

Packed up an' fuckin on!!

  So i will be doing the majority of my blogging on my shiney new blog Ye olde Crivenshire Masticator which you can check out by clicking on the link. This will focus on building a single setting using projects based on different periods in the settings history, allowing me to world build and errr narrative write to my little hearts content while keeping a narrower focus. Also i feel a clean slate is needed as Wronghammer has been fun to document my baby steps back into gaming but i think i now am ready to do something with a more 'mature' outlook (who an i kidding?). I may still pop over here from time to time and will not be deleting this den of garbled bollocks but will be mostly focusing on decorating the new gaff.

 So a huge thank you to everyone that has popped by over the years, given encouragement, had a giggle in the comments and otherwise supported my general twattishness. Please treat the new place as your own and feel free to continue in the same vein over there, your support and input is always greatly appreciated.......

.......'till??........

One down....

Just one of those quick posts to show you what I have been mucking about with. But first (as is customary in these parts):

Is it grunge?, Is it hardcore?, Is it doom?...

First up I finally got my proverbial finger out and finished my 2mm medieval armies for my 

Campaign:

Ridgers and crimpers in perfect harmony (it won't last!)

 Ridgers arrayed to fight for the 'upper crust'!.

Crimpers ready to defend the 'side of crusts everywhere'!.

I have colour coded the armies and units to make them easy to distinguish on the table (they are bloody small). I can tell them apart due to the arrangement of the bases but if I'm doing battle reports I think the coding will help. I will explain all when I write up the first game (soon....honest!).

Also I received a nice new bunch of shiny miniatures for another planned campaign. 

It's a shiny wonderland!!!!

It's a 'small' pile of 10mm Pendracken renaissance miniatures...I may have plans. I decided I could run my pastry based campaign while painting the above so I can seamlessly bounce from the conclusion of one to the start of the next....what could possibly go wrong?. Here's my first attempt at painting some of the above:

The flags are my first attempt at hand painted banners, I think they turned out ok (also you can hide mistakes by rippling them the right way to hide them!). Hopefully I will have some more units done for my next post......

....'till next time.....

6mm Undead army

  I have to start this post by saying i have been a proper lazy git of late. posts have slowed to a trickle and i have hit a wall as far as painting and gaming motivation goes. I needed to find a simple self contained project to jump start my mojo that i could complete in a couple of days....which i did!. But before all that:

Noisy Scottish types!!.

 As i was saying i was looking for a project that would be quick and easy to get painted and as luck would have it the Scholar and gent that is Mr Maudlin Jack Tar had sent me some lovely 6mm undead miniatures, these seemed like just the ticket to get the juices (and paint) flowing and to give me my third force for my

Project.  I decided to take some inspiration from my 6mm Bakshi inspired half orcs and use a very limited pallet of 'wrong' colours, in this case bone, grey, light blue and crimson, my thinking was to tie the two forces together so they can be used as a huge force together but be individual enough to face off if i fancy it. 

   The force is split in two, in the left of the picture is some skeleton based grave fresh undead and to the right is a force of ghostly etherial nasties.

Skeleton spearmen. The spine of the force (sorry!). Im not sure of the manufacturer but they are really nice figures.

Some armoured skellies, again really nice detailed figures that were a pleasure to paint.

The force commanders. A Vampire on the left and Necromancer type on the right.

Ghostly infantry. All the ghost types in the force (with one big exception) are from irregular miniatures. I was planning to paint them in the same way as the skellies but the sculpts were quite hard to make out. Normally with the Irregular 6mm minis a dry brush or ink wash is enough to reveal the detail of the sculpts, however with these they were still a mystery after both!. I decided that the best course of action would be to work with the issue and and use the softer details to make ghosts.

Ghostly horsemen. These should be fun to use (i reckon they should ignore terrain!). Again the soft detail lends itself to the theme.

The giant ghost (on his day off from every 80's thrash album cover) is a G.W. miniature that i think fits right in with the small guys.

 Having the force split in two means i can have the whole force on the table or use them against each other in smaller games. Also to fit in with the old school warhammer theme of the setting i can also use the ghosts as an Etherial hoast for some of the lawful forces i intend to build in the future. The option is also open to combine them with the orcs to form a huge evil army for BIG games.

Death on death action!!.

  So thats the army pretty much done. I could do with making a command stand or two for the ghosts and maybe a skeleton giant would be good for the force too but thats something to work towards. I'm just glad to have broken my painting duck (i may have ordered a laod of 10mm minis for a new project so clearing the decks before they turn up will help justify my purchase!)........

......'till next time......

How to paint 2mm medievals

I have often seen it said on many forums and suchlike that 2mm minis look like they would be hard to paint. This in fact is not the case at all. 2mm armies are pretty easy to get table ready. I thought I would offer my method for painting them to show how easy it can be. But first:

About time for some pistols!.

Before I start there are a few things I need to clear up. I am no expert painter, I have had a bit of experience with several scales of mini but would class my skill level as 'enthusiastic amature'. Also I don't use miniature paints, instead I use craft paints that I adapt for miniatures (you can see the Method here) so I won't be giving the names of paint colours I have used (so no 'giant death badger grey' or 'demon semen purple' or whatever). I have painted a few 2mm forces so feel I have a decent handle on getting reasonable result with them.

Also the miniatures I am using are from Irregular miniatures 2mm range.

Two of my 2mm 'punk n'shotte' forces.

 2mm medieval units.

Also it's worth pointing out that I find one of these helpful.

It's a magnifying daylight lamp, I find it useful but not essential. I picked mine up for less than £20 on line.

Now the elephant in the room: 'Why use 2mm minis?'. The main reason they work so well for me is threefold. One, they allow you to get truly realistic looking armies on the table. You can actually work in a 1:1 scale if you want!. Secondly they are very affordable, you can get a really large army for under £20!. Thirdly they are quick and simple to prep, paint and get on the table. You can put aside a weekend to produce a whole army!.

So to painting the little blighters!. The main things to remember are that you are painting for mass effect. You are not producing this:

(Picture nicked off Google images. If it's yours please make it known in the comments so I can credit you)

You are making this happen!:

Or maybe this:

Also keep in mind you are not painting minis that will look neat up close. This is about the look of massed units on the table at arms length, if you want to hold them close and inspect them you will be disappointed, once they are based and on the table they look pretty good in my opinion anyway.

 Right now that's covered, on to the prep. Most of the minis will need a quick file to smooth off the underside of the bases and may have some flash and mold lines to deal with. These are pretty easy to file down. Then the minis are bluetacked to a lolly stick ready for undercoating.

I tend to use a dark brown undercoat on my medievals, in this scale I also use the same brown on the bases so it works to create shade even at this early stage.

I brush on my undercoat at this scale, you could use a spray can or air brush but as the miniatures are so small I find brushing is fine.

The miniatures I am painting are going to be used to represent dismounted Knights so my next step is to dry brush them silver. This gives an underlayer of plate armour on each figure but preserves the brown undercoat between each figure giving the shading I mentioned above.

If I was painting troops further down the social scale such as leve troops or archers I would go lighter with the silver dry brush, I would also keep the bottom half brown to give them an impression of wearing less armour.

 Next step is to paint the banners white so when painted they stand out.

Once they are dry I then paint the banners. I am using these troops for a fantasy campaign so my banner designs are made up, it is possible to paint reasonably detailed designs with a steady hand and good point. I then start to paint the Knights by adding dots of colour to the chests and backs to represent sir coats and shields. Keep in mind the minis are really small so dots are the best you are going to get.

 Banners and banner coloured sir coats painted.

I then finish the stage by adding dots of contrasting colours sparingly to make the minis 'pop'.

At this stage all the painting is done. The next stage is to shade them. I use a thin coat of army painter soft tone just to emphasize the space between the figures and slightly tone down the brightest colours. It's important to keep the shade light so you don't loose the tones.

And that's the minis ready.

To base the units I use card bases. Cereal boxes work fine, you don't need thick card at this scale as there is very little weight to the finished units. I do back the card with tape (any kind will work) just to add some strength. The bases I am using for this project are 6cm X 3cm.

The bases are first painted with the same shade of brown used to undercoat the miniatures. Once dry the miniatures are stuck to the base using PVA glue.

To finish the bases I make a mix of green paint, builders sand and PVA. This mix needs to be course to allow you to create textured ground on the base. Brush it on where you want and try to create clumps to give the impression of thick foliage in some places. I like to sprinkle some of the sand on the mix where it's thickest to create some contrast.

The completed unit....and proof I get more paint on my hands than the sodding miniatures!!.

The whole process is really quick. The drying time between stages are minimal due to the size of the miniatures meaning you can create a whole army in the time it takes to paint a unit in 28mm scale. It's also not about precision, the miniatures are more detailed than they have any right to be for the size of them but if you slip with the brush or go outside the lines it's not noticeable on the table and most of the time the ink wash corrects any minor issues anyway.

An army ready for battle. The whole force represents about a days worth of work.

Anyway, hopefully this post has been helpful. If you are looking at using 2mm scale for a project please don't listen to the 'they look hard to paint' brigade. Get a few bits and have a go. You will be pleasantly surprised.




........'till next time.....