Countdown to Convic

There are now 2 days left until Convic. In practical hobby terms, that means there are 2 evenings left. Needless to say, time is running out. Given I am being asked by a few people each day for progress updates, I figured I should just post a proper update here.

As of now, this is how my works in progress look:

This is the most complete of my WIP stuff - my Hunter regiment. I wanted to turn my Warhammer Hunter into the basis for a unit, but given he is on a 50x50mm base (with no hope of fitting on anything smaller), I had to improvise a bit to fill out the unit to the correct width (and mostly the correct depth, if you ignore the fat guy in the middle). That wolf on the right is on a 30x40mm base, chopped out of perspex (it was what I had lying around). All these guys need now is some static grass.

Metal Ogres march forth

On the weekend some of my home-made Ogre Siegebreakers got their first outing in the campaign. I still have not really "finished" any of them, however they are about as done as they need to be for my current purposes. I figured I should probably show where they are currently at.

6 Ogre Shieldbreakers with basically no colour on them at all. Very dark, very metal.

Distractions abound

So I really should be writing up more of the battles that have occurred in the Albion campaign, but a combination of factors have stalled my progress. My work situation has been (and still is) changing. I have continued to focus a fair bit of attention on my Ogre Siegebreaker project. And now Warhammer Total War has come out...

Ogre Siegebreaker prototype done

My previous post showed that I was back into the habit of sculpting and converting Ogre bits in order to make some new models. Specifically I want Ogres in very heavy armour with huge shields and large, two-handed weapons. I have a few uses in mind for these guys, but one of the main goals is to have some Ogre Siegebreakers for Kings of War.

Production has been a confused mix of creating copies of components using existing moulds, and creating new master components and moulds for those. Given I never plan these things very carefully, it's taken me a while to get to the point where I can actually assemble a complete model. I would find myself with a dozen legs and no left arm, or something equally useful. Anyway, I am there now. I have assembled my first new Ogre!

One very heavily armoured Ogre at the ready. The axe is double-handed, although he is obviously carrying it in only one hand because of the shield.

I'm going to have to be careful with these models or they will never ever rank up. The shields are really very big.

Still very plain on the back of the breastplate. I have no immediate plans to address this.

Having a completed model feels like a milestone. At the very least, this means I have the means to create more of this same sort of thing, given I have moulds for every bit of him. But there are more things either ready to go, or still in the pipeline...

Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor. Actually no, it's just a very large hammer, made from a Lego brick. Don't worry, I won't carve up any more Lego. This is just the master, and it's obviously still a WIP. 

The master for the axe you see the prototype carrying, and a new left arm (I only had a single pose in full armour for that arm).

Even though I have multiple poses of things, I still find myself cutting and twisting things to give me more poses. If it's an important change I might re-make a new mould of it, but often it's just to tweak an individual model.

Such tidiness. Hard to believe I ever get anything done, really.

Anyway, between all this stuff and being a bit busier with work recently, I have fallen behind in terms of my campaign reporting. I'll try to address this without slacking off on the modelling front. Never enough hours in the day...

Regaining my hobby mojo

The Ogres are breeding again. It's been a number of months since I last did any work on my home-made Ogres, but I have a particular purpose in mind for some of them in our Albion campaign. Things are moving along in the campaign, which means if I want to actually have the Ogres ready in time, I need to get a move on.

The Ogrepocalypse begins again.

Painting Heavy Pike Ogres

Well in my last post My Republican Guard Ogres were assembled. Now they are painted! Hooray for progress! 

3 very heavily armoured Ogres, ready to go poke something with their long, pointy sticks.

As is always the case for things that I've sculpted myself, these guys didn't take long to paint. There is a certain lack of detail that helps speed things up. If they all had hourglasses and fish and dead cats hanging from their belts, it would take a lot longer (even if they might look fancier at the end). Simple is good. Simple is fast.

This guy was the first I constructed, and probably still my favourite.

Making Heavy Pike Ogres

In my previous post I showed 21 completed Ricco's Republican Guard models and stated my intentions to fill the unit out to a horde of 40 including 3 Ogre fillers. I've been quiet for a while on the blog, but I've actually been working on these silly Ogre pikemen every chance I could find. Progress has been slow.

My main problem is that I seem to be getting a bit pickier as I go with these Ogres. I already had moulds for the arms, legs and torso of an Ogre in heavy armour. The detailing didn't really match the Republican Guard, but I don't think that would have bothered me in the past. Apparently it bothered me this time though, because I set about modifying various components to get them to tie in better with their little friends. Here are some photos showing my efforts.

Making new heads and feathers.

Painted Empire Ogre Characters

Well this post may be a little late, but in the end my painting was not - I managed to undercoat and paint these 3 guys on Friday night, and was finally able to head to bed a little after 1am. I was tired all weekend, but at least I achieved my goal of having the army ready for Rumble.

Anyway, here is how the group of them came out...

3 painted Ogre characters - Tyrant on flying carpet, BSB and Hunter. Not bad for a night's work.

All in a night's work...

Let us sculpt and paint, for tomorrow we Rumble!

Rumble in the Bronx does indeed start tomorrow, and I do have a lot of work still to do. Just in case you hadn't worked it out yet, I bit off more than I could chew (again). The last couple of nights have been late ones, trying to get my army in order. Here is what I did last night...

Yeah, I had to do pretty much all of this last night. The flying carpet itself was nearly finished, at least.

Steam Tank Ironblaster and Ogre Bright Wizard Done

The clock is ticking. I really only have 2 available evenings left before Rumble in the Bronx. I'm beginning to think I won't get every model ready in time. Fortunately all of the remaining characters have back-ups, but if I have to fall back on them it might break my theme a bit, so I'm still hoping to avoid that.

Anyway, I spent a fair bit of time at the painting table last night, and my Ironblaster and Firebelly are all done!

My Steam Tank Ironblaster, ready for battle. Behold the scratchy highlighting on the cannons and splotchy washes on the hull (both are more obvious in the photos than in real life). A true masterpiece.

Converted Ogre Firebelly WIP

We're now into the week leading up to Rumble in the Bronx, and I am still not close to ready. I have not been idle, however. I have started painting my converted Steam Tank/Ironblaster thingy, and I even have the first of my character models ready for paint!

The only magic in my list for the weekend is a level 1 Firebelly with the Ruby Ring. I quite like the proper Firebelly model, but never bought one and don't intend to. Instead I figured I would make an Ogre-sized Bright Wizard, based on one of the old 4th edition Empire models. It fits my theme better. Anyway, I put him together last week and he is now undercoated and ready to go, if a little rough...

My concept model on the left, and the very early WIP Ogre on the right. I started with some cloned legs and a torso I already had in a bag, and ended up using real plastic Ogre arms and a head.

Doggies and Rumble Lists

Rumble in the Bronx is now less than 2 weeks away, and I still have a fair bit of work to do in order to get my army ready. I've been a bit slack over the last week or so, but last night I sat down for a couple of hours and knocked out some more "Sabretusks" (I'm using Fenrisian Wolf models from 40K, because they fit the theme of my army better).

These guys are pretty rough, partly because I'm lazy and in a hurry (a dire combination), but also partly because I find these white furry models difficult to paint cleanly. They'll look OK on the table, but the camera is rather unforgiving. It was only when I was uploading these photos that I noticed how pronounced some of the joins are, even after painting. I will have to go back and address this. It's pretty unsightly, even by my lowly standards. Fortunately I bought some more liquid green stuff recently (my previous pot dried up after almost no use, much to my disgust).

5 painted Subretusks, using Fenrisian Wolves. Try to ignore the nasty join lines on the models. I'll address that.

Empire Ogre Leadbelchers Done

I continue to make progress toward having my Empire-themed Ogres ready for Rumble in the Bronx. I showed the Leadbelchers when they were being constructed, and now they're painted.

3 painted Leadbelchers, ready for battle.

Rumbling along

I've spent a fair bit of time working on my Empire-themed Ogres over the last week or more, and I'm making steady progress. I've constructed 3 Leadbelchers, and I've now built and painted an additional 4 Swordsmen (regular Ogres), which pushes the unit up to 7. My rough planning suggested I was around 15 models short at the start of this effort, so assuming that I end up using all these models, I'm almost halfway there.

My workbench as it currently stands. Some Ogres painted, and some in the early stages.

Beefing up the Ogres

I'm all paid up for Rumble in the Bronx at the end of August, and I have started work on getting an army together. Lacking any other specific inspiration and given that the tournament uses relatively small forces at 2000 points, I have decided that this is the right time to upgrade my Empire Ogres from unit fillers to an entire army in their own right.

Having firmed up my rough plan, I then started alternating between not coming up with a real army list, and making only marginal progress with all the modelling work that needs to happen. And believe me, there is a lot of work that needs to happen. I plan to be slightly sensible about this, and I will try to make maximum use out of the Empire Ogres I have already finished. Realistically that means 7 Ironguts, 3 regular Ogres, 1 Leadbelcher, 3 Mournfangs and a Sabretusk. It's not an army, but it's 15 models that don't need to be built from scratch and painted. That is good, because the only list I have properly made by now has 30 models in total, which means I still need to build and paint 15 more guys (4 Ogres, 5 Leadbelchers, 2 Sabretusks, 3 characters and an Ironblaster).

At this point I am going with the assumption that I am going to use something at least similar to this list, and am trying to pump out a lot of constructed models in preparation for painting. Even if I then decide to tweak the list a bit, I'll still be closer to ready when the time for list submission (and locking my plan in properly) comes around. I've been getting my press moulds into some semblance of order, producing the odd new master component, and squeezing lots and lots of putty into Empirey Ogrey shapes. Here is what I have thus far...

The workbench at the moment. 4 built Ogres, hiding a small pile of partially constructed body parts.

Adding a little more DOOOM!!

Convic is fast approaching (5 days away now), and as I mentioned earlier, I still have work to do. I don't have enough Flagellants to field both my list and that being used by a friend at the event. It was clever planning. As it currently stands I'm some 19 models short, and I'm running out of time. The end is coming! The END!! 

Sorry, just getting into the whole apocalyptic vibe. Anyway, I planned a long time ago to make a unit filler for my Flagellants to add some interest to the unit. I decided that I wanted to give them a little bell carriage to push around. It should aid them in their efforts to make a lot of noise and generally get people's attention. At the time (some 2 years ago now), I went on a quest to find a suitable bell. I had some difficulty, but eventually I located a little wedding bell. I say little, but it was still pretty big by 28mm standards (or 30mm, or whatever scale GW claim to be using these days). Nevertheless I figured I could make it work, but I followed this resolution up with absolutely nothing. The bell sat on the painting table and waited patiently whilst piles of modelling crap accumulated on top of it.

Well, my sudden need for more Flagellants brought things to a head, and coupled with my friend Pete's ability to print things in the third dimension, it seemed a good time to finally make use of the bell. I fired up Sketchup and started planning my bell carriage. After a bit of fiddling and scientific guesstimation, I came up with the following:

The bell carriage concept. The bell itself is just a place-holder to help me get the dimensions right - we didn't need to print a bell, after all. I already had one of those.

I decided I was happy enough with this layout, so I saved the various components and sent them off to Pete for conversion into the physical realm. In a dazzling display of efficiency, he was able to hand me the finished product the following day when he arrived at painting night.

The components of the bell carriage, along with the long-neglected bell itself.

More Ogre Halberdiers Finished

Last night I was able to sit down and finish painting my second wave of Empire Ogre Halberdiers/unit fillers. As expected they came together reasonably quickly, thanks largely to the lack of detail I put on my models. The benefits of laziness, I guess. Anyway, here they are...

This guy sits in a slightly strange place on his resin base, but that was where his feet sat nicely. Shouldn't be a problem for ranking up.

More Ogre Halberdiers

Last night I sat down at the painting table and decided to make use of some of those Empire Ogre bits I've started producing en masse. A bit of gluing, filing and cutting later, I found myself with 2 more Ogre Halberdiers!

2 Ogre Halberdiers, ready for some paint.

A production line with an unknown destination

Over the weekend I managed to sit down a couple of times and make some progress on the various Empire Ogres I've been working on. My efforts have been very unfocused recently, and this has seen me creating moulds for all the components I had on hand, as well as the creation of a few more. Unfortunately I have done a far better job of creating moulds than I have of using them, which means I have plenty of production capability without having a lot of Ogre bits to show for it. Hopefully I can be a bit more disciplined and actually make some Ogres in the near future.

Mess? What mess? All I see is progress! Or the ability to make progress. Or progress toward making progress. OK, maybe it is just a mess...

I did manage to complete one guy last night. He has been on the work bench (and off the work bench, in plastic bags, in drawers, on a shelf, and just about everywhere except where he needed to be to get attention) for the last 18 months or so. Actually, it's almost 2 years. But talking about things in months (and underestimating them) makes me sound less neglectful, right? Anyway, when I started work on this model, it was before I had the idea of using Instant Mold to duplicate components and actually produce a real number of Empire Ogres. He was built up from scratch over a wire armature, and stalled a number of times along the way. You can see how he started out here. Anyway, this is what he looks like now:

An Empire-themed Ogre Halberdier, teaching an Orc some manners (no easy task).

This guy was going nowhere fast and had largely been forgotten, but I had a sudden productive urge and decided it was time to finish him. I ended up hacking through the half-formed torso he was sporting (cutting down to the thick wire in the middle, then twisting and breaking him in half), then using a cloned torso and head. The arms were made just for him, but have of course now been cloned. He also sports a new halberd head, as to this point I only had a single version to work with. I made it with plasticard and a little bit of putty. That's been copied now too...

Not sure if I will feel obliged to alter the Orc's hand. Doesn't really look natural like this.

Originally I wanted the guy to be stabbing the Orc with the weapon, but in the end I settled for this pose as the new torso wasn't really leaning over far enough to make it happen. The Orc is a bit of a mess, as when I gave him a head it was so long ago that I still found green stuff terrifying and so I made it as simple as possible (I only did it at all after grudgingly admitting to myself that I couldn't really cut down a proper plastic Orc head). I think with the addition of sand and stuff, I can make him work without too much modification. His hand also sticks well out over the front of the base, which will mean the Ogre doesn't rank up perfectly. But I think it will be OK.

You can see the Orc's hand really overhangs the edge of the base.

It feels good to know I'm knocking over something that has been sitting on or around the workbench for the last couple of years. This guy also offers more obvious variation than those who use purely cloned components, so I think he'll be a good inclusion. 

These moulds all have Ogre bits in them. I was busy last night.

But what next? I've been trying to set myself up as well as possible to mass produce Ogres, but I am slightly uncertain about where I want to take things next. I have multiple sets of legs that I have not yet used in a completed model, and one of them is wearing full plate armour. All the torsos are armoured, but most of the arms are not. It means I am halfway to making some Ogres to match the more heavily armoured models in my army, such as Ricco's Republican Guard (not that they're painted yet anyway), Teutogen Guard and Greatswords. I also need some arms with chainmail and another head or two, and that would position me to match my Spearmen (Leopold's Leopard Company).

The legs and torsos I've currently got on the bench.

The other thing that holds me back at the moment was the realisation a while ago that the torsos I had been working with (and to some extent the legs as well) were simply too massive. They made for imposing Ogres, but they didn't really match the proper models and were a bit clumsy. I have tried to reshape things a bit on some of them, but I suspect I'll have to take a step back at some point and effectively replace some of my master components and moulds to ensure I'm using bits I'm happy with. Still, there is plenty of room for variety in the army. I have bits, and I am (mostly) not afraid to use them!

I think what we will see next is 2 more Halberdier Ogres, giving me 6 in total. I may hold off painting this latest guy until those 2 are done as well, and paint the 3 together. Technically this will be enough filler for 2 regiments of human Halberdiers, so I may end up having to paint more of those to justify the extra Ogres (having the Ogres done might help with my motivation to make that happen). But it will also mean that with the addition of a couple of command models, I will have a decent-sized unit of themed Ogre Ironguts. Whether the command models will be next, or whether I will move onto something else (more Ogre Swordsmen, or maybe some Ogre Leadbelchers/Empire Cannons) remains to be seen. I don't have any tournament commitments driving my efforts at the moment, so my lack of real focus seems likely to continue. This means I'm free to go wherever my enthusiasm takes me, I guess. There are worse situations to be in...

Empire in Flames 2013 Report, Part 2

This is a continuation of my account of Empire in Flames 2013. If you want to read about the first day, you can find it here.

My army ended up having a reasonable day on the first day of the tournament, so I was now poised to play some of the contenders for the top places. We will see how that went.

On to Day 2. Also known as Day of the Elves. You will see why...

Game 4: Battleline

James Milner: High Elves with Wood Elves 

James claimed to have left his normal glasses at home, but mentioned something about the previous night being a big one, so his real motive for wearing sunglasses remained open to interpretation.

James' High Elf and Wood Elf army. The Maiden Guard are actually just more Archers in the list. Because an Elf army can never have too many bows, apparently.

 High Elves

• Archmage (Level 4, High Magic) with Dispel Scroll
• Noble (Battle Standard Bearer) with Great Weapon, Dragon Armour, Charmed Shield, Radiant Gem of Hoeth (Level 1, Lore of Metal)
• 15 Archers with Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flame
• 15 Archers with Standard, Musician
• 19 White Lions with Standard, Musician, Banner of Sorcery
• 7 Swordmasters with Blademaster, Talisman of Loec
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• Great Eagle
• Great Eagle

Wood Elves

• Noble on Elf Steed with Dragonbane Gem, Hail of Doom Arrow
• 11 Gladeguard with Standard, Musician, Gleaming Pennant
• 10 Gladeguard with Musician
• 8 Dryads

Comp: 6/10?

Having moved across from New Zealand recently, James has been a regular at the club for the last few months. However, I was yet to play him. He was a member of the Shirts off Warhammer team that beat Hampton at the VICCs a few weeks back too, so clearly some sort of redemption was in order.

I'm afraid I forgot to take a photo of deployment, so you'll have to make do with a shot from my first turn. I think James actually got the first turn, however not a lot happened then. His magic was basically all out of range (as he was sitting well back with an army of bowmen facing off against a fairly quick combat army), and the range and cover minimised the damage from his shooting. I did take a wound on the Mournfang, courtesy of my usual failure of armour saves. 

Partway through my first turn. As you can see, I wasn't wasting too much time advancing with the monstrous cavalry. I think the White Wolves moved after the photo. They're no good back there. Note the single tree in James' deployment zone. We figured an army composed of 25% Wood Elves should get a bonus forest 1/4 the normal permitted size...