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......

Growl, ruff, ggrrrr!!!!!!.

The one upside of all this lockdown oddness is the hobby time. But before I go into all that....

  Just a quick post today to show what I have been tinkering with. Both are bits for my

Project. First up the last bits for my half orcs:

 Some 6mm wolves from irregular miniatures. They should add some flexibility to the force and can also be parachuted into other forces if need be. I painted them with brown/red shades to make them fit with the flora I'm using for the 'blasted wates' board.

 The half orc hunt is on!!.

I have also ordered some individual strips from irregular to see what they are like. Above are the lizard man warriors. I'm thinking about using them for another roll, namely:

Everyone's favourite foggy bastards the Fimir. 

As with the half orcs they are painted in the 'wrong' colours (they are from a version of ancient Briton so grey seemed appropriate!).

 Here's a rear shot to show the detail. Below is a shot of how they should probably appear on the table:

Well that's all so far, I better be getting on with the next force......


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

Bakshi half orcs finished!.

I finally managed to get the half orcs table ready!. But first:

An album about town planning.....perfect!!.

  Those of you that read my last post will know I am working on a new project, namely building some old school Warhammer inspired armies to do battle in the purgatory for cast aside i.p. known as the:

Who said 'cease and desist order?'.

The plan is to build some of the less loved early Warhammer forces that fell away from the official canon early on. I will be using 1st to 3rd edition material for reference for the project but will be putting my own spin on the forces. To populate the 

(Might as well get some milage out of this it took all of...oohhh 10 minutes to make!.)

I am using 6mm miniatures from irregular miniatures, I have spoken about the charm of these minis enough so I won't bore you all with my thoughts again. 

 The force as it stands.

As I mentioned in the title the colour scheme is inspired by the orcs in the 1978 Ralph Bakshi lord of the rings film and is a unified 4 colour scheme which hopefully gives the impression of the film's bad guys.

This lot.

One of the important things I wanted to do was to base the minis to look like a Warhammer army hence the square ranked units on each base.

A close up of the army's infantry core.

 The missile lobbers, skirmishers on round bases.

 The cavalry units, these would also work as chaos thug horse.

('They have a cave troll....or two), both the trolls are old g.w. savage orcs, which seems appropriate given the 'warhammeryness' of the project.

The idea for the project is to use 'wrong' colours for the forces which is why they don't look 'g.w orcy'. I may implement the four colour scheme on each army to tie them together because I have to say I rather like it, I will have to have a play to see what I can do. Next up.....well, I have 3 armies in the house to paint up over the course of the lockdown, which if nothing else will help keep me occupied and the family Sprinks' sane.

Also I have noticed during the lockdown some people are meeting on Skype for a beer and a chat to keep the boredom at bay. Anyone fancy a group 'bloggers meet' while we are all cooped up?, could be a laugh, pop your hand up in the comments if you fancy it and we can arrange something...

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

There is actually.....you know....sort of a....well.....a plan i 'spose....

 So, i have been painting tiny half orcs......but why?. Before i explain....

BLUES EXPLOSION!!!!!!!!!!!

  Right, yes, half orcs.....i have mentioned before that the irregular miniatures 6mm fantasy line reminded me of the feel of the old Citadel pre slotta stuff, which for those of us that are into that sort of thing is pretty great. So i have ordered the 'man orc' army deal (and another one too but that's for another post) and painted them up in a Ralf Bakshi orcish style.

This 'orrible bunch.

But why, to what end have i bothered?. Well, the likeness to the old citadel minis got my tiny brain working, i spent far too much time here looking at all the old sculpts and getting all teary eyed and nostalgic. I then just had to get out my old 1st-3rd edition Warhammer books out for a peruse.

Proper Warhammer!!.

 Now before i continue i have in the past been a tad...err....shall we say critical of Warhammer and i stand by my comments. I do not have and i imagine never will have the desire to spend the time and stress required to work the game. As an experience at the table it is slow, clunky and bloated and there are far simpler ways to do the same thing......however for a fantasy setting the first few editions are in my opinion unsurpassed, the colour, humour and character of the setting makes it feel truly alive and a place that is full of mystery and lurking danger. In short it is FAB and gives loads of room for building scenarios and fluff using it as a backdrop. The first few editions were the best for this as the world itself was coming together, you were actually encouraged to use it as you wish to flavour your own games. It was FUN and  is still loved by gamers of a certain age for just that very fact.

Well hey there 4th edition, what did you do with all the fun?.

  So in a nutshell i have been pondering ways to use the old warhammer setting (pre bloody army book hell) combined with the irregular 6mm line to do some retro flavoured gaming. couple this with the rising need to find a way to game in a smaller space (the Amazing Mrs Sprinks requires the normal table for a painting station for her stuff at the mo). So with these things in the front of my overworked brain i came up with an idea:

 THE PLANE OF INTELLECTUAL PURGATORY (AKA THE MENTAL REALMS)

   Dear reader you are about to go on a journey into the unreal, the unbelievable, the 'a bit dodgy'. Ask yourself a question: 'what is an idea?'. or more to the point where do the ideas thought about and forgotten go?. The popular ideas, those 'made flesh' by the acceptance of the masses are made 'solid', an existing entity within our physical world to live with us, alive as a part of our collective psyche. Those birthed in the mind of an individual then dismissed unshared and unloved float away into the either, never made whole by the acceptance of the masses. But what of the ideas in between?, those once made flesh then dismissed and discarded as they are overlooked, passed over for fresh ideas and concepts?. Well dear reader they are the forgotten, the once alive now conceptually departed. The only place for these sad unfortunates is one of the millions of realms of Intellectual Purgatory, places of the discarded to dwell forever, never thought about or considered. There they stay, hoping to be born unto the world once more by being remembered and re-imagined, maybe re-branded or re-packaged to once again take their place in our world. 

 The above passage of bollocks can be explained in three ways:

1) My idea is to explore the forgotten bits in early Warhammer lore, yer Norse, Slann, Albion, Ind, Nippon, Cathay, Araby, Zoats, Gnomes, Half orcs, Fimir, Sea elves and the rest, those removed from the 'canon' and cast aside early, now residing in an endless struggle to become relevant again and therefore be reborn from one of the many realms of Intellectual Purgatory in which they now reside.

2) I might just fancy taking the piss out of Age of Sigmar.

3) I've been drinking.

  All apply but frankly i am rather taken with the idea, i have even started working on a 3'x 2.5' game board working with a 'blasted 80's wasteland' theme. All red earth and sand with wrong coloured plant life and oddly imagined scenery. This should fit on my coffee table with room for gaming bobbins around the sides. It also works with my planned ruleset for the project, namely:

Which is quick, simple and fun and can be downloaded for a very reasonable price here. It is element based and normally played on a 2'x2' table. So i plan to be working through some small scale armies in the coming months and hopefully play a few games along the way. Also to add to the project i have been painting more stuff for my half orcs, here's a work in progress (poor) picture of some trolls (or g.w. 28mm savage orcs to give them their original title)

 (trolls jealously guard the shortbread!!)

Oh and i done a logo, shhhuuuuusssshhhhh dont tell G.W!!'

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

Hey G.W. are you feeling alright??.

Good old Games workshop, peddlers of fine 32mm (snigger) miniatures at hugely inflated prices who at one point we're a hub of great original ideas and fun games. I think someone at g.w. hq needs to hand round the smelling salts because they have done the impossible, they have released something that could be considered to be...wait for it....a bargain!!!!!.

For the princely sum of £2.99 you get the above bits as an intro to the Age of Smeg...err Sigmar setting. Now I'm no huge fan of the setting, it's high fantasy styling goes a bit too far for my taste, I like my fantasy with a cheek stuffed full of tongue (you may have noticed) for me Age of Doodah goes through parody and into bloated chin stroking bollocks that seems to actually take itself seriously but that's just my personal opinion you understand. So why is this loss leading little bundle of interest on this wee bloggington?. Well the magazine and poster can be filed in the bin, the ruler is surplus to requirements, the dice could be handy I 'spose but it's the minis that caught my limited attention span. I know, I know, above rantings may make this sound a bit odd but £3 for 13 32mm (I don't care what they say they sell 32mm!!) Minis is pretty good and the ghost type bobbins (of which you get 10) are bloody nice and could be quite useful to a fantasy gamer, working in several scales. Expect to see them on these pages soon. Even the Smeg marines could be used for something (status or huge titanic types in 2-10mm?).  You can pick a copy up in newsagents and supermarkets in the uk (god I've been reduced to shilling G.W!) But be quick, they did the same with a 40k set last year leading to the fanboy crowd hoovering them up for cheep space marines (and so did the online traders meaning eBay was rammed full of the same sprue no one wanted!).

Anyway enough of this G.W stuff, normal service will be resumed shortly.......



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

Skellibobs and ponderings

 Hello all, couple of bits to report, nothing major but first.......

Something to listen to unrelated to my bobbins.

Thing to report primus:

   I painted a few Caesar Miniatures Skellies while i had some down time over the weekend:

Filthy Harold and his lawbringers have a bad ol' time of it!.

They were easy to paint and quite fun if you enjoy a spot of drybrushing now and then.

Thing to report secondus:

   I have been pondering what project to plunge into. I have some 20mm skirmishing in the offing which i have been painting the warbands for. I have several ideas where to go with it and it will revolve around a sleepy border town becoming the battle ground for a master criminal and the Law man obsessed with bringing him in (think a west country/cowboy/Magnum Force mash up, but with orcs and necromancers thrown in!). For rules i am even considering using this relic:

Second edition Warhammer, it works for single model skirmish games....honest!.

 Also with all this painting going on i have been wondering what to do regarding mass battles. I dont fancy painting hundreds of 20mm minis to play a decent looking mass battle command and control based game (and i'm up for a decent looking mass battle command and control based game) so i have been looking into other options, namely going into a smaller scale to ease the painting burden and create the type of 'mass effect' i happen to be after. To this end i have received some lovely samples from two very cool manufacturers to see what works, kallistra, who produce some nice 12mm stuff and Pendraken who produce minis in 10mm. The pic below will give you some idea of the actual sizes of their wares:

Yep i know i spelled Pendraken wrong in the picture, that is quite simply because i'm a prize tit!!.

 Both companies sculpts are truly first rate, i have to say i am very impressed with both with next to no mould lines or flash. Have a look at the pics below to see what i'm on about:

 10mm Pendraken

12mm Kallistra

 Both scales offer a great deal in the 'mass effect' department (big multi-based units with a small table top footprint allowing for more 'realistic' battle lines) and follow the 'paint the unit not the mini' style of painting i can get on board with to speed things along.....i mean, the idea of spending years painstakingly painting mini after mini just to actually get a game on is not appealing at all!!.

I am also considering some 6mm bits from baccus6mm but i have no samples to show as they want £7 for them (with postage) and i am one tight bugger so......

  I have also been looking at One Hour Wargames again and may use some of my 1/72 minis for that in units of about 10 bods for foot which may not be too much work...

Thing to report ...er.....three:

Another thing that has been on my mind quite a bit has been the fact that wargaming as a hobby can be quite pricey if you go down the wrong route. Some of the top manufacturers and popular systems charge upwards of £50 to get a small force on the table ( and thats being generous) and i think that yes, its a choice to play these games not a need so you can expect to pay to get on board but the price to switch system or try something new with the official minis can be bloody extortion...

£4 per mini, call me cheep but:

Now, bearing all this in mind i have been spoiled with 1/72 minis prices as they are beyond reasonable compared to several companies out there but (maybe) going into a different scale opens your blinkered blogger up to the horrors of metal miniature pricing. This leaves me rather urked as this gives the companies not charging the earth (like the three named above) a bad rep by proxy for those not prepared to investigate further. I know there are several ways to get the price of collecting an army down. So i wondered, who's up for a challenge?, such as:

Snappy!!.

 The idea being you buy and paint an army with a view to gaming with it for £30 (or the local currency equivalent) or less in a set number of weeks. The aim being to show this hobby is not the financial black hole it is often made out to be but actually quite easy to get into if you are pointed in the right direction (i.e. shopping around and setting reasonable expectations). This could mean thinking outside the box, like playing Kings of War in 6mm or Bolt action in 1/72 for example but very doable with a bit of thought. Who's up for it?.

 Well tats my head emptied for now, all that remains is to give a full blooded WELCOME Peter to the great big mental soup that is this blog!. Thanks for the follow and welcome along sir!. I cant see wether you have a blog or not , if you do please feel free to pop a link in the comments section as it would be great to have a look at what you are up to!!.

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

Mrs Sprinks, Legend.

   So today I turned 40, and my wife decided she would mark the occasion with the perfect birthday prezzie:

RRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

  Good ol' Space Crusade, one of the three games produced by Games workshop and MB games at the turn of the 90s (when i was just the right age for them). This versions not mint (but pretty tidy) but as far as im concerned its a box of mid life crisis the whole family can get into.....in fact me and the Sprinklings sprinted down stairs to get it out and set it up:

 One Space hulk, ready for raiding!.

And i found out what you call a collective of Space Orcs.....

........A conga of Orcs! (who knew?).

If your not sure what im babbling about check this piece of nineties bobbins for an idea:

  

     This may be featuring in future blog posts, i can feel it in me water!.......

......Anyway, till next time.......

Left on the shelf

If  your anything like me as a gamer you own more than one rulebook and have played a few of them. Trying out a new rule set can be a lot of fun and discovering the ins and outs, the innovations that make you wonder why you never thought of them, not to mention the rules that leave you arguing with a book due to lack of clarity and plain old common sense is part of the voyage of discovery of gaming new rules. If like me you like to 'home brew' and mash up rulesets to give you the right 'feel' often reading rule books can inspire you to fill gaps in other rules and solve problems that stoop the experience being everything you feel it needs to be.
......Also it means you have a shelf full of books you have to convince the other half you really do need and have to add to as a matter of priority!. I have 2 rule sets (well 3 really) that i gravitate towards when gaming and they have featured more than once on this blog. If i want to fight out a skirmish i tend go for Lion/Dragon rampant. If its a bigger battle its Mantics Kings of war (which i know i always say can be downloaded free here). I just like the way they play, they feel right to me so i stick with them. But what of the other rule systems i have gathering dust?, why have them, why keep hold of them at all?.
If i'm honest i will probably never play these other games if i have not done so yet. But owning a rule book is not just about playing the rules, its more than that.
  As items i love a nice rule book. I love the backgrounds (the fluff) that are often written into the system. Dont get me wrong i will never buy an army book, i feel they are a bit of rip off if im honest, just my opinion but there you go. but even if i dont like the background for whatever reason i like the fact that one is included and will try to get under the skin of it, i appreciate the act of creating a fantasy setting and the achievement of putting together a whole world in which factions cohabit and argue and....well....stab each other with sharp things!. As someone currently trying to do that exact thing in the mentally terraforming series of posts i am putting together i can appreciate the thought that has gone into the evolution of a setting. I also love interesting systems and mechanics, i love the feeling of a writer thinking in new ways to streamline the gaming experience. I love the presentation and 'feel' of a rule book. They have a charm of their own, from the old school print and paste black and white typed books of the early rule sets to the highly polished full colour stuffed to the gills new fangled sets they each have a charm of their own and give you an appreciation for the blood sweat and tears that went into building the tome you are reading.
  But the fact remains i will only play roughly 20% of the rulesets i buy, i may nick mechanics from the ones i dont from time to time but if im honest i will not actually use them to play a game. And i bet its the same for some of you guys out there!.  Its a shame so i thought i would use this post to ask a question. Which rule books do you own that you love but will never actually use to play a game?. I'll go first:

FANTASY WARLORD

By Gary Chalk and Ian Bailey

This game was from the early 90s and created as an answer to the direction Warhammer was about to go in. Its a very detailed ruleset with rpg elements for character creation and a very interesting order based activation system that almost looks too detailed!. It also has a fantastic background included that was really going somewhere. It is also full of Gary Chalks art work which is worth owning the book for on its own!. Artwork just like this:

By Gary Chalk, legend.

CHRONOPIA

A camp as hell high fantasy system from 1997 by Target games with interesting mechanics letting unit members act as individuals as well as cool fumble and critical rules. In terms of look it has high fantasy well and truly nailed. If you think games workshop did shoulder pads get a load of these puppies!

TACTICA MEDIEVAL

This one always gets my interest, its a medieval mass battle game, very old school in feel but seems very smooth as a system. Add to that detailed siege rules and very cool campaign rules that encourage diplomacy and a large amount of back stabbing. I keep telling myself i will get round to this one some day....... 

RALLY ROUND THE KING

A mass battle game that uses as many or as little minis as you want and that has an inbuilt solo play system that looks pretty tight. It has been said that it is hard to play using the rules as written but that kind of adds something to it for me, call me a masochist but the idea that it will take dedication and not a little home brewing to make it 'go' actually makes me want to try it! (one day!).

and........

Yeah.....i know!

Now dont get me wrong i have a special place in my heart for games workshops behemoth of a fantasy game. I love the early editions that allowed and encouraged you to not only get involved with building the game in your own way ('here's a point system now buy some minis a get on with it!'), i even have a soft spot for 4th and 5th edition even though the game was becoming the wallet draining black hole of army books and 'meta' gaming (uurghh!), breading a generation of list building champions that could beat anyone with just a few loopholes and a calculator ( but oddly not a girlfriend!). It was a brilliant, massive, living, breathing entity that sucked you in and made you part of the world it was building!. So why dont i play it?. Well, its not as much fun as it thinks it is....its clunky, its bloated, its obese and it contradicts itself. There are more fun games out there, not many better settings, its worth buying the rulesets to explore that but on the table it no longer stands up in my opinion.

So its over to you, what rules do you own but will never actually play?.....