The progress of the Glorious Birdies

So toward the end of last week I was making all kinds of threats about painting 3 Griffons for my Empire army in time for Little Wars this coming weekend. I would be lying if I said that it was not an ambitious plan, and I think I am on the brink of revising my plans. However, the first of them is now completed.

I was most keen to paint the Griffon converted from the High Elf one from the Island of Blood boxed set. Things you've converted are always more interesting to paint than stock models. Unfortunately I got bogged down soon after I started, trying to work out how I wanted to paint the feathers. There are so many feathers, and so many potential colours. Anyway, I sort of fumbled around with things for a while before deciding I just had to go with it if I ever wanted to make progress with the other models. Hence this particular birdie has a rather strange plumage. Ah well, he's a mythical beast - he can be whatever colour he wants!

My converted Empire IOB Griffon, ready for the table!

Dwarfs vs Ogre Pirates

A few weeks ago Drew from Back in Drew's Day and I arranged to play a game at the club. He has his sights set upon Rockhammer (a local 2999pt tournament coming up soon - presumably easier than saying 3000 points with no Grand Army rules), and so that was the point level that we agreed upon. Unfortunately I ended up arriving late and he had to leave early, so we didn't get to play through the game in full. But I did take the camera and try to get a few photos, so here is my list and the pick of the shots that I took:

• Lord on Shieldbearers with Great Weapon, Gromril Armour, Rune of Stone, 2 Runes of Iron
• Daemon Slayer with 3 Runes of Fury
• Thane (BSB*) with Great Weapon, Gromril Armour, Master Rune of Gromril, 2 Runes of Iron
• Master Engineer with Gromril Armour
• Runesmith with Gromril Armour, Shield, Rune of Stone, Rune of Spellbreaking
• 30 Longbeards with Great Weapons; Heavy Armour; Full Command
• 10 Thunderers with Dwarf Handgun, Heavy Armour, Shield
• 12 Quarrellers with Dwarf Crossbow, Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Full Command
• 19 Hammerers with Full Command, Shields
• 24 Ironbreakers with Full Command
• 20 Slayers with Standard, Musician, 1 Giantslayer
• Gyrocopter 
• Gyrocopter 
• Cannon
• Organ Gun with Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Forging

*Actually, I see now that I never paid for the Battle Standard. So my list was about 20 points over, and I am the worst kind of filthy cheat. Boo yeah! 

Drew's main unit of Pirate Ogre Ironguts, including his Tyrant (the slightly excessively large guy in the coat), the Slaughtermaster (nearest the camera) and the BSB (who is hiding behind the unit banner).

Return of the Liebsters

It is apparently that time of the year again when bloggers all point fingers at each other and ask lots of questions. The Liebster Awards are a way for people to acknowledge blogs that they enjoy reading and highlight them for others to go and take a look. It's meant to help people find new blogs, hence there is meant to be a cap of 200 followers on nominations. Of course, 200 followers is actually quite a lot in our little world of wargaming, so that really only excludes some of the most popular wargaming blogs...

There are a few rules. I have added a badge on my sidebar linking back to the blog from which I was nominated (Wargames Obsession - ironically I don't actually follow this blog, but I do follow Herman's Warhammer blog instead, Trouble in the Border Princes). I also have to answer the 11 questions and nominate 11 other blogs for people to go and investigate. So, here we go...

Duelling Gamers - Month 2 target complete

Over the last couple of evenings I've had some more chances to paint, and I've now completed the Slayers, and with them my overall target for May.

5 Troll Slayers to add to my growing unit. I think I'm up to about 30 in total now.

Duelling Gamers - Month 2 Update 2. And the odd Griffon

May continues to tick by, and happily I have continued to make some progress in terms of painting. Nothing dramatic, but I'm now most of my way through my quota for the month after finishing the second wave of Quarrellers. 16 models down, just 5 Slayers to go. Seems very achievable.

The full complement of 16 painted Quarrellers

Taking care of something ugly

The original hunchbacked multi-part plastic Chaos Warriors

The old, unfashionable plastic Chaos Warriors were the first multi-part Warhammer regiment box that Games Workshop released, back during the 5th edition. They heralded a new era of relatively affordable units around which players could build their armies. Previously the only choice had been expensive all-metal regiments, or (where the option existed) single-pose plastics where every model in the unit looked identical. 

I'm beautiful on the inside.

As ground-breaking as these old Warrior models were, they are ugly. Like, seriously deformed. Sure, they look human enough. Or maybe humanoid. If you were to remove a person's neck and instead plant the head squarely in the centre of the torso instead, that person would look a lot like one of these old models.

Anyway, these guys were around for a while, and there are now a lot of them kicking around in people's collections and on the second-hand markets online. They don't fetch great amounts of money because they're really not very desirable. The newer Chaos Warrior kit that replaced them has far more impressive-looking models, even if their poses are all the same. So what is one to do with these poor old Warriors?

Some people, like my friend Benji, have a lot of these guys kicking around.

A few years ago I set myself a challenge to try to update some of these guys, and make them a little more pleasing to the eye. It's long enough ago that I don't have any WIP photos to show you, but I can explain what I ended up doing and show you the results. 

On the right we have an unmodified specimen. The guy on the left has been given "the procedure".

Duelling Gamers - Month 2 Update

We're nearly halfway through the month, and my progress has still been fairly limited. Having said that, I have now completed 8 models and there are only 13 more to go, so it still feels more or less under control.

As I say, I have 8 models done now. The first half of my Dwarf Quarrellers are finished, and I can now move on to the other batch. I am not overly excited by these guys or how they turned out, but they'll be fine and I'm certainly not unhappy enough with them to go back and change anything. And to be honest they look a whole lot better now I have painted the edges of the bases and added some static grass. Funny how that can make a difference. Maybe it's just because I know they're not finished without that.

8 completed Dwarf Quarrellers, in the unfashionable combination of green and orange

Duelling Gamers - Month 2 Commences

We are already 9 days into the second month of the Tale of Duelling Gamers, but my progress has been modest thus far. This is not great news, given I've actually had 2 of our regular Painting Nights to work with, and I don't have a ton to show for it.

I considered revising my target for the month when I realised I had planned to paint 5 more Troll Slayers after painting 15 last month, but in the end it was easiest just to stick with my original goal. So here are some shots of my current progress, and my monthly target as a whole.

Proof that I have been doing some painting. Also proof that sometimes I decide to use some questionable colour schemes. Too many units across too many different armies...

Warhammer Wood Elves: 8th Edition Review

I never used to make a point of reviewing new army books, however I did it for the new Dwarf book and that post is now one of the most-read on the blog. Wood Elves are another of my armies that has been waiting for an update for an extremely long time, so I might as well repeat the process.

A word of warning: I've noticed that plenty of other people have been offering reviews of the new book (unlike the Dwarf book, where nobody seemed to want to look at it). I have not read any of these other reviews, as I'm not really looking for the opinions of others on something that I can assess for myself. So if you've been looking at other reviews, you may find me covering similar ground. Or my take on things could be completely different – I can't really say.