Dragon Rampant: Orc Shaman

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Had a little momentum, so painted up the next Orc Warband unit, The Orc Shaman. I’m thinking this is going to be a Light Foot Unit with the Wizardlings fantasy option added, so a 5 point unit. This gives the unit three spells, which’ll probably be Power Bolt!, Befuddle Thee! and Heal Thee!. A range attack, a spell that batters a unit, and a healing spell. Pretty generic but probably the most flexible.

I’ve modeled this Light Foot unit with only two models. The Orc Shaman and a “summoned’ Bog Beast. The summoned part is just for Rule of Cool, I’m not going with the Summoner ability. This unit of 2 models will be 6 ST points each. Clearly, that Bog Beast can soak some damage, and the shaman has…”magicks”.

I painted up the Bog Beast with the same technique I do terrain. I recently acquired a pot of Dirty Down’s Moss Effect which is great, but I wonder if that sort of technical paint makes it visually too different from the orc models. Well, it’s also a Meirce Miniature that I had kicking around the bits box for awhile and the sculpts on those are a bit more detailed than my preferred style which lies closer to the Oathmark Orc Shaman from Northstar. I hope the duo fit together though.

Dragon Rampant: Orc Scouts

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Been awhile. Life has been a bit wild lately, and I’d be lying if I said the geopolitical landscape hasn’t effected me. Anyway, whether I’m fiddlin’ while Rome burns or I’m an echo-chamber victim and things aren’t so bad, I’ve decide to finally push forward on a project that’s been on the burner for years… Dragon Rampant proper.

As a big fan of the Northstar Oathmark line, the original idea was to just use one box of plastic warriors (30), a blister or two of metal characters and the occasional cheap Reaper creature to supplement. It’s a pretty low cost option for a DR warband. The decision always came down to either Orcs or Dwarves and it looks like Orcs won out. Northstar recently added some fantastic wolves to their catalaog, so I expanded the original idea here and ordered a set for goblin wolf riders.

In order to get any sort of momentum on this, I’ve decided to go with my fastest paint technique which is basically just grey prime, then paint inside-out, no mistake touch-ups, and wash the skin one color and everything else Agrax Earthshade. I was never a great painter, but I would try to clean up errors and wash and highlight with appropriate shades. But now… to get though 30+ models… I’m just doing everything in Agrax and applying a little more in spots where I painted outside the lines. I don’t know how often the mood to paint will strike in these dark, modern times, but when it does I want to get through the models ASAP.

Originally, I was looking to do an old-school blue-grey shade of orc. It was suggested to me to use Vallejo Luftwaffe, but I found that to be too dark. I ended up going with that on the unit leader model above. I’ll probably use it for all the unit leader and character type models. Sorta like the black orcs of Warhammer lore being the stronger and wiser. I had a pot of Fernesian Grey that I thought looked good, but it turned out a bit more blue than I thought. Maybe because I used Citadel Nightshade? Either way, they have a Rogue Trooper-like appearance, which to be honest, is a bit of a happy accident. I’ve always wanted to do a blue Rogue Trooper like warband, but never really had a game to do that with. I guess these Dragon Rampant orcs are gonna be that.

Anyway, thoughts on these shades of blue?

Silver Bayonet: Bandits and Deserters

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One of the big three blocks of units I need for Silver Bayonet are bandits.  According to the worst-case scenario I need a total of 13 of these scallywags to handle any of the scenarios in the core rule book. With the addition of Silver Bayonet: Canada and Egypt, I decided to go outside of the box and select some banditos that would work in multiple theaters of conflicts. Continue reading →

Better Off Lead

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Turning 50 this year, I decided to run a little event with some of my gamer buddies from over the years. In a nod to the Oldhammer movement and the “Bring Out Your Lead!” event, I went with a Dark Future inspired logo and similar call-back to oldschool lead models…. Better Off Lead!!!

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Blood Bowl: Skaven Team and The End

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Over 30 years ago, my Blood Bowl journey started with the second edition metal Skaven models and the above rat ogre that I converted from an old school metal BoneRipper model. That team has long passed on and the rat ogre as given to WS&TZ’s very own James (@dkok) and he’s owned it for a few decades. This fall, I’m hosting a Gutter Bowl event with an old school flair….pre-2016 edition of BB models only. For this, James had sent me the rat ogre back, and with this model I’ve decided that as he was part of the Alpha Team…he’ll also be part of the Omega.

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Nuffle Amorical Football: Zhufbar Gromriliers Part 1

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Next team up on the painting block is my dwarf team. Continuing my trend of NFL themed teams, it’s on to the Games Workshop dwarf team. Pittsburg’s historic history of the steel industry is a great fit for a dwarven team, as is their history of punishing defenses and a strong running game. Thanks to Casey for whipping up the team logo for me!  In case you don’t know, Gromril is the Warhammer metal that is prized by all for making of armor and weapons.  I went with the city of Zhufbar as it was renowned for its metal working, and it fit perfectly with the theme. The first major question was to determine the paint scheme. Continue reading →

Roswell ’98: Roadway

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For awhile the lack of road on my table has kind of bothered me. Not that any of the rulesets that I have for my Roswell ’98 Post Apocalyptic games require roads, but it just seemed odd to me to have buildings out in the desert with no road to get to them. Even for something like Gaslands, it seems weird that cars would just drive around randomly in the unpaved desert without broken axels and flat tires everywhere. I mean, even the Mad Max movies pretty much have the vehicles on roads of some sort for the most part.

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Roswell ’98: Trees

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I was looking for a set of bare trees for 28mm models for a medieval project I want to work on later and came across a set from Mantic called “Gothic Grounds”. The set includes four trees and a pair of stumps. In hand, they appeared a bit too small for what I wanted for 28mm, but as seen in the picture above, they look just about right for 1/72. So….more terrain for my post apocalyptic table!

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The Silver Bayonet: Vampires and Demon

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Continuing my ongoing project for The Silver Bayonet, I have again turned to AD 1666 to fill in some of the missing creatures I need for the game.  Keeping the single player scenarios in mind, it is essential that I get zombies, wolves, and vampires knocked out.  The numbers of zombies and wolves is pretty high, so instead of starting with a large group I decided to knock out the smaller group of vampires first.  Continue reading →

Terrain: Painting Realistic Stone

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I’ve been sitting on a lot of terrain. In the past I never did much in building or painting terrain, usually relying on others to put up the scenery. Being a naturally slow painter and being burdened with long hours at work, taking the time to paint terrain seemed a luxury. Recently though I have started buying terrain pieces. Mostly components to fit in with Dark Age to Napoleonic eras. Most of these buildings are stone so I wanted to find a system that could easily paint up stone while making it look realistic. Following my usual modus operandi, I scoured the internet to find someone who had the solution. 

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