More Empire standards

My Empire army has accumulated 3 painted Battle Standard Bearer models over time - one mounted, one on foot, and the special character Ludwig Schwartzhelm as a bonus. Normally this would be enough, but there are a couple of factors here. My army now consists of 2 distinct sections - the purple and white of Krakenberg, and a smaller contingent wearing the yellow and green of Stirland. The existing BSBs are painted for the former, with nobody left to fly the flag for the latter (Ludwig looks a little too important for the Stirlanders). I was aware of this shortcoming, but the Stirland group is not overly large, so I figured it was unlikely to be fielded as a force in its own right anyway. 

Of course, that was without planning for the Warhammer World Series, and its habit of splintering my larger armies into numerous smaller forces. This time around my Empire will be used for 4 different armies, and one of those forces is entirely in Stirland colours. In the end this was the prompt I needed to get moving and make them a BSB of their own.

I have a fairly large pile of second-hand Empire models, and I found what appeared to be the exact same BSB character, mounted and on foot. I figured this would work well enough for me. I removed the skeleton-angel-thingy banner that comes in the multi-part plastic character kit from both of them, and gave them both magnetised shoulders instead. Then I made up a new magnetised banner arm for them to share, using a Greatsword standard. I figured I would never need them both to be standard bearers at the same time (go away, World Series. I can see you in the corner, plotting to upset my plans again), so I plan to make them a couple of extra arms so that they can also stand in as regular characters. I don't know what I'll do for that other arm yet, but I didn't really have time to dwell on it at this point - I'll come back to it.

A BSB, and an Empire Captain with a crippling battle injury - loss of a limb at the shoulder.

Warhammer World Series: the final pairings

It's taken a while, but here are the remaining pairings we will need to accommodate our current number of registered players. I have also added these match-ups to the main list I released earlier.

Just a few more days to go, folks...

Another finished Mangler Squig

I think I need a bigger mace...

4 days after I decided to try to sculpt a couple of Mangler Squigs from scratch, the second one is completed. He is very different from the first one, but in the end I am pretty happy with them both. They came together much faster than I feared they would, and with only a rough idea in my head of how I wanted them to look, I'm very satisfied with the final product.

This guy was only half-finished at the start of today. Late last night I had attacked him with a bit of green stuff and a dremel in a few places, before deciding I had done enough and I was starting to handle and have to re-work what I was doing before it had set (the dangers of over-enthusiasm). Then this afternoon I managed to find the time to pull out more green stuff, and get him to a point that I decided was good enough.

This guy is much happier than the first one I made, who was clearly a real sour-puss. The teeth were one of the things I was most worried about on these guys, particularly with the open mouth. In the end I think they turned out fine, which was a relief.

First Mangler Painted

After spending much of Tuesday putting together my first home-made Mangler Squig, I was keen to get some paint on him and see how he turned out. I got my chance last night, and here is how he turned out:

One surly Mangler Squig, ready to spring into action on the tabletop.

Sculpting Mangler Squigs

Or perhaps the title should really read: "mangled sculpted squigs", or something similar...

I have a pretty large Orc and Goblin army, however it lacks any of the new bells and whistles that appeared in the latest army book. I have purchased a few Arachnaroks, but none of them are painted yet. And I don't even own any Mangler Squigs. When you add in the fact that I've never gotten around to painting any Pump Wagons, my army is missing a lot of the tricks to make it fun. It's something I've always been planning to address, but I've been focused on other things.

When planning lists for the World Series however (just over a week away now), I made a list using my Night Goblins, and it just wouldn't have been enough fun without any Mangler Squigs. So I committed to a list that includes 2 of them, which means now I have to do something about it. And being a tight-ass who balks at the cost of one of the Finecast Mangler Squigs Games Workshop are peddling, I figured I would just make my own.

After all, how hard could it be?

Experienced, skilful sculptors and discerning lovers of miniatures may wish to stop reading now...

Warhammer World Series: The armies

Thanks largely to Duelling Paintbrushes, it's taken me a lot longer to get the army lists and match-ups organised for the World Series than I would have liked. Sorry to those who have been waiting to see them. Anyway, it's now 2 weeks from the tournament, and I've finally got almost all the pairings sorted. Here is what we've got, and the final few tables we should need will be announced shortly...

You'll notice that most of the tables look like they're just going to be basic pitched battles. In the end, most scenarios just make games more unpredictable without necessarily adding more interest. As a result, I've generally shied away from them - given people are not using the same army over and over again, there is no real need for the extra random element.

EDIT 12/11/2013: The list now contains 18 pairings, which at the time of writing is the number we need to accommodate the registered players. I will put together a couple of reserve pairings, but these ones will all be used.

Table 1 - The Underground

Scenario - Watchtower (no building - objective will use a marker)

Orcs and Goblins

• Night Goblin Warboss
  • General; Great Weapon
  • Armour of Fortune
• Night Goblin Big Boss
  • Great Weapon; Light Armour; Battle Standard
  • Standard of Discipline
• Night Goblin Shaman
  • Magic Level 2; Little Waagh
• 40 Night Goblins
  • Netters; Shield; Spear; Standard; Musician; Boss
  • 2 Fanatics
• 40 Night Goblins
  • Netters; Shield; Spear; Standard; Musician; Boss
  • 2 Fanatics
• 20 Night Goblins
  • Shortbow; Standard; Musician; Boss
• 10 Squig Hoppers
• 4 Trolls
• 21 Squig Herd
  • 12 Squigs; 9 Night Goblin Herders
• 5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders
  • Spear; Shield; Musician
• 5 Forest Goblin Spider Riders
  • Spear; Shield; Musician
• Mangler Squig
• Mangler Squig

vs

Skaven

• Warlord
  • General; Heavy Armour
  • Warlock-Augmented Weapon
  • Enchanted Shield

• Chieftain
  • Great Weapon; Battle Standard
  • World's Edge Armour
• Warlock Engineer
  • Magic Level 2
  • Warpstone Token
• 4 Rat Ogres
  • 2 Rat Ogre Packmasters
  • Whip; Light Armour
• 8 Gutter Runners
  • 2ndWeapon; Poisoned Attacks; Throwing Stars
• 40 Clanrats
  • Light Armour; Shields; Standard; Musician; Clawleader
  • Warpfire Thrower Weapon Team
• 41 Skavenslaves
  • Slave Musician
• 20 Stormvermin
  • Halberd; Heavy Armour; Standard; Musician; Fangleader
  • Standard of Discipline
  • Ratling Gun Weapon Team
• 17 Giant Rats
  • 3 Packmasters
  • Whip; Light Armour
• Warp-lightning Warp Cannon
• 3 Rat Swarms

Duelling Paintbrushes: Mission failed

Well, it's now November, which means Duelling Paintbrushes is over. And, as predicted in my previous post, I have failed to achieve my original target. It comes as no surprise, but unfortunately I didn't even really get very close. By the end of October, I had painted a Sorceress, 10 Cold One Knights, and 15 Spearmen. I had built commenced painting of the two mounted characters I needed to do, but they were nowhere near finished - and I had only just managed to complete the assembly and undercoat the 12 Crossbowmen. Not exactly covering myself with glory, there. Oh well.

Those mounted characters only got started very late in the process. I didn't really have the right models on hand. I knew I had a Malus Darkblade model kicking about (minus the old goofy cow-like Cold One he came with), so I figured he would do the job of a lord character. But I hadn't really worked out how I was going to make a BSB. When it came to the crunch, I ended up using a Cold One Knight's legs, a Corsair's torso, arms and head, and some extra spiky head-pieces from one of the Knights. The sea dragon cloak took some chopping and green-stuffing to get it to sit OK over the saddle, but it worked fine in the end.

Malus has traded in his ancient (and rather terrible) Cold One for a newer model.

My converted BSB. I was pretty happy with the pose, in the end.

I couldn't find a more exciting weapon for him, so he just stuck with a normal Corsair sword.

Sea dragon cloaks are not made to sit on Cold Ones. A bit of chopping and covering my handiwork with green stuff and the problem was solved.

By the end of the month, these guys had a couple of base colours on them and nothing else to speak of. They were probably about 10% painted. Not really inspiring, and certainly not usable. However, last night (November 1st - otherwise known as the day after the challenge was over) was painting night and I was determined to improve the situation. I was up until after 1 am (trying to multi-task between painting and constructing army lists for Warhammer World Series), but I'm calling these guys finished now.

My Dreadlord and BSB, ready for battle. They both have different coloured mounts from my regular Cold One Knights, to help them stand out.