Mournwolves finished!

Well it's just after midnight before Empire in Flames, and the Mournwolves are finished! Not only them, but the Ogre Halberdiers and Sabretusk are done as well.

My Mournwolves, ready for action.

The standard kind of gets in the face of the bearer. This angle works better.

As I suspected, painting these guys was really the least of my problems. Getting them put together was far more difficult, and in the end once they're ready for paint, my conversions tend to have a lot less detail on them than proper GW models, which eases the painting process. This lack of fiddly features was very welcome this time around, when time was a real issue.

This guy's axe was a bit of an issue. The green stuff extension to the blade drooped as it was curing, which has left it a bit bent, despite my efforts to correct it with file, knife and glue. Ah well.

The extra beards on these guys work pretty well.

The doggy is thinking evil thoughts. You can tell.

They've all ended up rather enormous around the shoulders thanks to the armour, pelts, and the general lack of a neck that all Ogres seem to have in common.

From the side. I actually made a real mess of painting the armour on these guys. I made the mistake of using a Vallejo black wash, and it turned them all dusty and dirty looking. I had to go back and repaint a lot of it with Boltgun Metal and try to emphasise the details and clean up the lines on my pretty dodgy home-made plate armour.

I gave this guy hair in a bit of an experiment. It looks OK, but I think I've come to expect bald Ogres now, so it feels strange.

I think this one ate something that doesn't agree with him. Maybe a nasty Nurgle Chaos Warrior. Some of those guys are a bit off, and best not swallowed.

And finally we have the standard bearer, who managed to get a banner top at the last minute.

This wolf's head is the least impressive. It's actually got a bit of a mess of unformed green stuff on the other side (must have missed it earlier), but I didn't have time to fix it now. Maybe later.

The banner was thrown together and is a bit rough. It's a Black Orc standard with the Beastman head removed and the wolf's head put in its place. Not my finest effort, but it does the job and managed to fit my schedule.

As I mentioned, the Ogre Halberdiers managed to find some paint as well, so my unit of 3 Ironguts is good to go. And my Empire Halberdiers have a couple more unit fillers at their disposal.

2 more Empire Ogre unit fillers. Grumpy, but well dressed.

Lined up with their elderly comrade.

They fit in well enough. Man they felt easy compared to the Mournfangs...

I mentioned at the start of this mad rush that it was all Nick's idea to talk me into committing to this fool's errand on such a short time-frame. Well the last laugh is on him, as he's still madly painting Tomb KIngs at the painting table as I take the time to write this post. I think he's still pleased with himself (I did suffer thanks to his tricksiness, Father of Lies that he is), but his enjoyment of my suffering is tempered somewhat by being caught in his own web of deceit. 

A couple of people have asked why I didn't just use Thunderwolves, rather than the far more painful process of converting Mournfang models. The fact that I've already used Thunderwolves for my Demigryph cavalry really ruled this approach out, but there would have been some size problems too. Have a gander at these comparisons.

White Wolf Knight, Demigryph Knight, Ogre Mournfang cavalry and a token wolfy "Sabretusk".

The doggy conga-line. I had to put them in that order so the big ones didn't eat the littler ones...

And finally, the reason I originally thought of Ogres on wolves (ages ago now - well over a year ago) was as potential unit fillers for my Empire knights. Now I can do it. They kind of tower over their little mates. Ah well, if I ever want to field a unit of 52 White Wolf Knights, this is how it will happen (although there are only 40 in the shot below)...

Unit fillers for Empire White Wolf Knights.

Who knows if they'll ever get used this way? I guess they might...

So I'm all set for the tournament tomorrow. Maybe now I can get some sleep...