Having given Fantastic Battles a go and having come to the conclusion they are pretty darn good I decided to paint up some command bases for my multi-based forces that up until now had none. Commanders are really important in the game, the loss of them can pretty much doom your army to nuckleheaded movement and sad, sad (and kind of funny) defeat. I intend the commanders to be used for my 10mm fantasy forces.
General Welchingtonne, leader and founder of the (in) famous Iron Badgers. The 3rd son of the Earl of Welchingtonne, he is a born soldier and leader with very little patience for anyone he considers below his station.
Brother Glover, the company record keeper, padre and magic user. He never intended to join a military unit of any type, he just woke up one day in a tent belonging to the Iron Badgers after a legendary 5 week bender and has no idea how to get home. He's not even a priest, he was just wearing the cassock when he awoke. His real names Gavin...he thinks.
Captain Spalcher is the Generals right hand man and the company 'beating a man half to death for no particular reason' champion. By a country bloody mile. He is a naturally cold, hard man who has found his true vacation and plans to stick to it.
Sargent Gifford Tappitsworth is best known for his calm, encouraging leadership style and easy manner on the battlefield. Often he can be heard geeing up the troops with phrases like 'oh come on lads, we're only outnumbered 6 to 1, we've had worse', or ' Don't just stand there, the gigantic and very angry fire breathing dragon won't kill itself, get stuck in!'. The rank and file think they like him...
I also painted some commanders for the press ganged troops of the towns on the border of the wastes which have now been taken over by the Badgers.
Mayor Duckett, leader of the town of Wayward-Nowhere, the largest settlement bordering the wastes He is a stickler for detail in all folk he deals with, even if he does often have half his breakfast down his breastplate.
Sargent Digby 'red fury' Dibbleswort, scourge of the wastes, or so he tells everyone. Basically he has a bit of a temper and thinks it's some kind of virtue.
Corporal 'tally ho' Wilkinson, currently in command of the border town of Spillin-Over (population 76). Has a can do attitude and can't get on with those that don't. He tends to lead from the front, normally because most of the lads know they can push him out ahead to attract arrows.
Sheriff 'Sparrow Hawk' Callhoon, Meanest lawman in the wastes. Known for being hard but fair. I.e. he always works hard to prove his targets guilt once he's decapitated them. In fact it was his creative police work that got him transferred to Wayward-Nowhere in the first place.
Ol' Papa Crow is the devious patriarch of the Crows, ruling over his extended brood with an iron fist.
Big Bear Crow, current bearer of the Crows whistling totem known as the 'dinner bell'. He is the largest of the gang, it has been rumoured he ate a whole Ogre in one sitting , making him a legendary figure among his peers.
'Dirty' Ma Crow, witch of the wastes. Ma is not really a member of the Crows, although she is believed to be the mother of more than a few of them. She lives away from the Crows, traveling where ever her gut takes her to sell her various cure all's and potions to travellers and outlaws she encounters. She also serves as Papa Crows eyes and ears in the wastes, settlers that get a visit from Ma can expect the Crows to not be far behind.
The black Weasel, outlaw, outcast and all round git. the man known only as The Black Weasel has been exiled to the wastes for years. He was Chased to Wayward-Nowhere after he pushed his luck too far in proper society and was chased from there by Sheriff Callhoon shortly after. He was found half dead and definitely mad by the Crows and was spared the pot as he convinced Papa he has inside knowledge of the border towns that could prove useful...
Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But first......
Scuzzy!
So, i have, or more accurately am supposed to have a campaign on the go in a new setting i am putting together, i have done a bit of background and this time I EVEN PAINTED 2 FORCES FOR F*CK SAKE!!. So with that in mind have a guess what my brain is doing to me, go on, its likely you have an active interest in gaming if you are reading this so you may well know the answer so go on, have a quick guess.
If you answered 'why Sprinks, your mind is pondering how to get the best out of the project you are focused on, i imagine you have played a few games and has come up with more material to really bring it to life'. You are wrong, hopelessly, hopelessly wrong.
If you answered 'NEW PROJECTS, LOTS OF NEW PROJECTS!!!!!!', you my friend are 100% bang on (sadly!).
My head has been turned by some very silly things, in fact my head has not been turned, its almost done the full 'Linda Blair'!
Now i am aware this is not a new thing among us hobby types, many a blog contain stories of forgotten projects cast aside to make way for the latest new and shiny gubbins to come along. But the things attempting to lure me away with their frankly bloody odd siren song are not new or even very shiny. So to hopefully get them out of my brain i will splurge them on the page to hopefully exercise them for good!.
Odd project the 1st:
I am a fantasy gaming type. You may have noticed this. However i like a 'low' level of fantasy. A bit of magic, maybe dueling tech levels but human centered and defo no bloody elves!. Im more Martin than Tolken if you will.........
But........
.......images like these have been nagging at me to do something in their spirit:
Something a bit more balls out 80s metal style fantasy!, evolutionary impossible monsters, proper evil bastards up to proper evil stuff and furry pant wearing mentalists probably riding mechtigers or some such. And my brain has been telling me i have just about everything i need to do it in my 1/72 collection!. Thanks brain...thanks!.
Odd project the 2nd:
Can you remember another prematurely aborted project i was doing last year?
This one.
Well i have been thinking maybe 1/72 was the wrong scale to tackle it in if i am going to paint upwards of 6 factions for it. So, my brain is telling me maybe 6mm would work best. Which means that my brain is not considering 6mm for this, oh no, its going for this: scale!
Picture taken from the irregular miniatures website.
I think the project is begging for the sort of grand sweep of the smaller scale and the mass effect of a table full of these (plus large monsters, steam tanks and zombie hordes) would bring. A nationwide multiple sided civil war needs to be BIG and the best way to go that style of BIG is to 'zoom out' so the table gives a larger area, villages and towns on the same table, mighty rivers and rolling hills, sieges of whole cities.....er.....etc. The painting would be a challenge but thats o.k. and it could look really different compared to my normal bobbins!.
Right thats my head emptied (my normal state!) so im going to get back to my current project completely distraction free........yeah right!.
I have done a fort and some paintings and other bollocks while i have not been blogging, but first.....
a spot of experimental 'Murder rock' anyone?.
Its been almost 3 weeks since my last episode of bloggery, but rest assured i have not been idle...but to be fair now i review my output its not really much to show for three bloody weeks!. Ho hum an' all that. Anyway first off the latest bunch of paint splattered bits of metal stuck to strips of plastic:
Some 'orse and a unit of crossbows for the second force for my 12mm medieval armies, minis as ever by the fantastic kallistra. The force is coming together nicely, just a unit of knights to go and it will be done. Also i have looked at some of the minis i have painted for the other force, particularly the Ogres that i had completed before i discovered a way to adapt the cheep craft paints i have been using. As stated in a previous post the finish on these minis is grainy and a bit crap (not least because of my slapdash paintwork!) so i decided to redo the forces Ogres with the newly mixed paints. I say redo, its more a case of consolidating the 4 Ogres in to one larger, more 'manageable' Ogre:
Ogre at rest, or a 28mm G.W. lotr orc depending on your perspective.
The new Ogre vs the old ones, you can see the difference in finish.
Ogre vs Giant, i rather like the idea of Ogres being corrupted giants of a sort, also allows for them to be the same scale and for their bases to be uniform.
As well as the painting we have had to replace our fridge here at chez Sprinks (cue 'fridge running' joke), and a good amount of polystyrene was included with it. With said waste material just laying around and a craft knife in hand your 'intrepid' blogger decided it could be more than just rubbish and set to work hacking out pleasing chunks of the stuff (and covering an area of about 2 miles in small static balls). After a coat of paint and a few passes with the dry brush i had the following:
One knackered old fort.
dragons eye view.
Plenty of room for the 12mm troops on the walls.
'Its our turn now, you've 'ad it for ages!!'.
I have gone for an unloved look mainly because polystyrene is a bugger to cut neatly but also because i thought it was funny to have a kingdom where the local lords deny all claims of ownership of these buildings and the heavy taxation and cost of upkeep that come with them during peaceful times but at the slightest hint of trouble send troops to claim them, slap on a gate and say they were there all along!.
An example of the run down look (otherwise known as 'a bit where the knife slipped').
I also made some extra walls and damaged bits from the hacked up ends and leftovers so i can make....
.......BREACHES!!!!!.
The above should be going towards the almost ready to go setting and pastry based campaign taking up too much space in my already ragged noggin that is currently called
Hopefully i will be detailing the ideas and background that will go into this whole silly undertaking next time out, but until then here is something that almost made Radio Wronghammer this time out:
Phew things have been busy about these 'ere parts, mostly due to my annual reviews and competency assessments at work (last one monday thank the holy badgers of congrimmitt!), turns out they regularly check us meter monkeys are doing our jobs right!...good to know!. I have managed some painting in the too few periods of down time, but first:
Therapy? live at Castle Donington '94. A fresh faced 15 year old me was down the front with a massive poo eating grin on my face for the whole set!.
Now on to the latest 'chimp with a brush' style painting:
The 'Filthy Rats' foraging and ambush collective, the light horse of the Black Rats merc co.
They are more 12mm minis from kallistra and were pretty fun to paint once i got my head round how best to tackle them!.
They are also my first go at horses for blinking years (about the same time as i was at the above gig in fact!). In the end i used the minis small size to my advantage and simply undercoated the whole mini dark brown and followed with a dark brown wash. I then picked out the manes and tails with black. I toyed with the idea of painting the tack but in the end chickened out!.
The Black Rats so far . Just a unit of Knights and maybe a foot command stand and i will be calling them done!. I will give a full breakdown of the cost of them for the £30 army thing next time out.
Speaking of which 2 good folk have already finished some rather spiffing forces for the above mentioned challenge, check out The Maudilin ones brilliant Bretonians here and The noble Peters not one but two fantastic forces of Dark age goodness here and over here. Great work fellas!. If anyone else is joining in the challenge let us know how you are getting on in the comments below!.
......and heres a sneek peek at some more bits i have been painting with a view to a 1/72 fantasy project......more to follow.......i hope!......
So the last few weeks have flown past but i have not been (completely) idle. You see, since i have got back into painting i have been 'borrowing' the Amazing Mrs Sprinks craft paints to get the job done. No point in buying miniature paints if i'm not convinced i will keep up with the splodging. Now this has not been a problem so far and has pushed my 'thrifty gaming' buttons but i have been noticing a sort of dry and grainy finish on the minis i have thus far produced. So i thought i would look into getting some mini paints to fix the issue.
The mystical paint brands of Mrs Sprinks.
So i had a delve on line.......and had a ruddy heart attack!!, GAMES WORKSHOP WANT £4 FOR A BLOODY THIMBLE SIZED POT OF THE PISSING STUFF, THE CHEAPEST, ARMY PAINTER, WANT £20 AND CHANGE FOR A STARTER SET!!. WHATS IN THIS STUFF ANYWAY? FAIRY TEARS AND UNICORN FARTS??!!!!....ehum, yes well, you get my point. So i dug further as to why i should use mini paints at all when i had a fairly complete set of paints just lying around the house where i could swipe it any time. I mean, the Amazing Mrs Sprinks is managing to turn out work like this with the cheap stuff:
So it must be good enough for a total pleb like me. Apparently mini paints have a finer pigment or something but many folks on line use the craft stuff for minis with very little problem. This was what i wanted to hear but did not solve the issue of the finish.......then some further digging on the subject turned up these vids:
LOOKS LIKE I'M MAKING A PAINT SET OF MY VERY OWN!!!!!!!!!.
So a few ebay orders later and i had the following:
It took a few attempts to get the mix of paint to medium right but not too much work (and there is a real nack to decanting thick paint into the thin neck of a dropper bottle). In an evening i had a paint set ready to go at a fraction of the price of the manufacturers stuff!!. I know what your thinking: 'Yeah but Sprinks, is it any good?'. Well glad you asked because oddly i have been using the stuff and i have to say it is great. As soon as you have a good viscosity nailed the paint becomes easy to work with and it covers really well. The 'chalky' finish has gone, replaced with a slight gloss sheen which is kind of old school and has a charm i rather like. And dropper bottles are the bloody nuts, so much control over how much paint you use, especially when mixing. Want the proof, here are the latest batch of minis for the £30 challenge thing:
Black Rat Co bows.
The wrong 'uns practicing for their next line up.
I also did a few units of Skirmishers:
Sneeky feckers.
As with the rest of the army these are 12mm troops from the rather fine kallistra miniatures.
So thats the missile lobbers for the army done as well as all the foot, just some mounted troopers to chuck paint on and i should be done. Here's a group shot of the army so far:
The Black Rat Co assemble to conduct some form of prickishness or other (boo!! hiss!!).
So far the cost of the army is: 1.5 packs of Kallistra Scottish pike @ £9.00
1 Pack of Kallistra 100 years war Bowmen @ £6.00
4 Dark alliance army of the dead 1/72 (as 'ogres') @ 80p
1 Kallistra command stand @ nowt, they were free samples!.
The post lady brought goodies, the challenge is on!, but first......
Sublime live at The Hard Rock Cafe '96.
Yep, a couple of days ago i returned home to Chez Sprinks, greeted the Amazing Mrs Sprinks with a chased kiss on the cheek and patted the Sprinklings on the head, hung up my hat on the hatstand and placed the umbrella in the old elephants foot before Millie the wronghammer dog fetched me my pipe and slippers......well, possibly, i may be slightly incorrect on a few details but the crux of this tale to be taken by yourselves dear reader is that my minis for the £30 (or local equivalent) army challenge have arrived!.
The Black Rats mercenary company, bastards to a man (boo, hiss.....etc)
I ordered the the above pile of 12mm goodies from kallistra and very nice they are. They came in at a whopping £27.20 including postage, leaving £2.80 for something else i may be planning to add to the project, but of course that's top secret at the mo!. Now Kallistra do a fantastic 6 blisters for £30 offer, which would have been right up my proverbial under normal conditions but as the postage would have taken it over the £30 limit it was not to be (i did of course buy 6 blisters but am only including 4 in the challenge so not to be a cheating little bugger, the rest will be added at a later date).
Let me introduce you to the lads.....
From the front: Ranger/scouty/skirmisher types, 2 units of bowmen (all taken from one blister of archers!), behind them are the collection of disgraced lords, bastard sons and the like that make up 'the Knights that will not stand up' (working title). Next to them is the Leader of the company, Captain C.C. Bathion, known as the Black Rat of Blithersthorpe and his Bastard Quentin and an as yet un-named second in command Sir something of somewhere.
Two units of company grunts to do the foot sloggin'.
Im still not sure if i will keep to these unit sizes, the kallistra minis are sold in blisters of 32 foot and 16 mounted with 4 bases to make them workable with the companies rules and represent one unit in said rule system. I'm most likely going to be using mine for some fantasy one hour wargaming nonsense or some other homebrew rules so i may use half a blister per unit:
Not sure which would work best?, any ideas?.
So thats me up and running with this whole challenge type thing, how are the rest of you finding it?.
Anyway, looks like i have some painting to do!. All that remains is to welcome Mr John Yorio to this bastion of bollocks that is this blog. Thanks for the follow and welcome aboard Sir!. I cant tell if you have a blog but if you do as ever please stick a link (or just a hello) in the comments so we can have a peek.
