Orc War Drum and Axemaster

I haven't really been able to focus upon any particular hobby thing recently. I've been largely crippled at home, recovering from knee surgery a couple of weeks ago. This gave me some time to paint, but even when I was trying to queue up models to work on, they ended up coming from 3 different armies. And then I hardly got to any of the things in the queue anyway. I guess I was just being optimistic.

My main achievement during my convalescence was padding out my horde of Handgunners with the unit filler, but since then I have also managed to plug a gap in my Orc army for Kings of War. One of the units that has no direct Warhammer equivalent is the War Drum. I decided it was useful, so I slapped together a couple of them and painted them up.

A couple of Orc War Drums, ready for action.

Each base has a current multi-part plastic drummer and an older metal one. Both the plastic guys had been assembled by whoever their previous owners were (there is some questionable arrangement in there, and some wonky shoulders). I just pulled all 4 of them off their bases and re-undercoated them. I'm lazy like that.

This is Joe. Joe goes through a lot of drums, on account of forgetting which hand is holding the drumstick.

Proof that the guy behind Joe does indeed have a face, despite his atrocious hunch-backed posture.

Both of the models are pretty simple, with nothing extra on the base. I colour-coded them in case I needed to tell them apart. This one is the blue base.

The red base. The guy at the back is an old metal Big'Un musician. I like him, he has character.

They do appear to love their work. Enthusiasm is more important then rhythm in this job.

The green skin looks a bit messy up close like this, but at least it's nice and bright on the table.

I don't know when I will get to the other things I had lined up in the queue. There was another old dragon to add to the Elf Drake unit and various Dwarfs with missile weapons to increase the size of their relevant units. None of them were pleased to note the arrival of 2 boxes of Mantic Dwarf Brock Riders in the mail. Another unit that I have no existing Warhammer equivalent for. Suspicions of imminent queue-jumping by these battle badgers are rife amongst the Great Unpainted.

In other news, I had to submit a list for Axemaster on Sunday. Which is fair enough, really - the tournament is this coming weekend. Anyway, I really didn't give my list too much thought. Without any particular inspiration, I decided it was time to use my 2 painted Arachnaroks (I've never used them). My timing is not ideal - the tournament uses the SCGT pack, which heavily favours units with banners. It also encourages you to protect your general. Mine is on a Wyvern. I submitted the list knowing these things, so I have nobody to blame but myself. Below is what I am taking, however I won't list magic items yet as the tournament is played with closed lists. How novel. I haven't played with closed lists for about 15 years...

2400 points and very little common sense went into the making of this list.

• Orc Warboss on Wyvern with Great Weapon; Shield, maybe nothing else...
• Orc Warboss on Wyvern with Great Weapon; Shield, mysterious magical things that may or may not exist
• Orc Great Shaman (Level 4, Big Waagh). Might have magical stuff. Might not.
• Black Orc Big Boss BSB on Boar with Heavy Armour and something something magical (maybe)
• Arachnarok
• Arachnarok
• 40 Orc Boyz with Shields, Full Command
• 25 Orc Boyz with Shields, Full Command
• 25 Orc Boyz with Shields, Full Command
• 6 Goblin Wolf Riders with Spears, Shields, Standard and Musician

The list lacks flexibility, scoring units, and in a few cases it's pretty light on common sense. I have no idea how well it will do, but given how poorly it aligns with the player pack, don't expect to see me on the top tables.

And finally, just in case you thought I only ever played Warhammer (and now maybe Kings of War), this is what is currently sitting on my dining room table, waiting to be resumed next weekend:

Battletech! Davion and Marik forces wandering about, blowing pieces off each other. I should probably do something about the black bases...