Mercenary Ogre Tyrant

Axemaster is in less than a week, and I've been making reasonable progress on my preparations.

I now have a new Ogre Tyrant model, made to try to tie in with the armoured aesthetic of Ricco's Republican Guard and Voland's Venators. This is important, because they will all be in my list, and it's important to focus on capturing the vibe when winning most of my games is probably off the table...

One heavily armoured Ogre with a very large hammer. I struggled to decide on colours for him, and in the end the hammer grip was kind of me not making a decision at all - there was room for both colours!

Ogre Shooters on their way

My Convic preparations continue. I have been fiddling with lists a little bit, but I am rapidly running out of time. If I want to keep the bonus points for being organised, I need to submit my list on Friday. Realistically I am not going to get an enormous amount done between now and then, so I guess I need to base my lists on what I now know I can get done by the end of next week.

One of the things I am sure I want in at least the 2000 point list is a horde of Ogre Shooters. In the absence of any actual artillery, these guys are as close as you get. Kind of half way between artillery and regiments of missile troops. Also it's an excuse to model up Ogres who are wandering around firing actual bolt throwers that they have "borrowed" from some of the smaller races. If Ogres can steal cannons and shoot them from the hip, why not bolt throwers?

The models are gradually coming together. It's harder to pose these guys than most of the other weapons I've worked with, because the weapon doesn't just sit in the user's hands - it needs to be tucked under the arm if it's going to be posed anything close to firing. Not all of them will be like that, but I want some of them to be.

4 Shooters in various states of assembly.

We need more Ogres!

Having committed to taking Ogres to Convic, I have a lot of work to do between now and July 9. I need to work out the specific lists I want to take, and then I need to make all the models I will need. Or I need to look at the models I have, and make lists based on that. Unfortunately these approaches are kind of mutually exclusive. Do we start with the chicken, or the egg?

The natural course of action is to procrastinate. I have not really sat down and made a concerted effort to make lists, largely because I know that I will somehow decide that I want to use things that are simply impossible for me to prepare in the time I have available. I am really silly like that. 

In the meantime, I am cracking on with getting as many models ready as I can. I am trying to go for a sort of compromise between the chicken and the egg. I am looking at the army list with an eye to what I think I will want to use, then trying to use that as a guide for what to work on. Then I can admit defeat at some point and commit to a list based on what I managed to get done. 

Siegebreakers 7, 8 and 9 on their way. I am not even sure if the units look better with 6 models jammed together or 5 slightly more spaced (the models are very big, after all), so I might settle for making 10 and a couple of spacers between now and Convic.

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.

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.

Scratch-built Soul Grinder of Slaanesh and Cancon preparations

Cancon is almost upon us, and I suspect a lot of us are scrambling a bit to make sure we're ready. I delayed writing an army list as long as possible for this event, as the Swedish comp pack, whilst a necessary evil for an event like this (120+ players), completely kills what joy I find in making armies. I considered a few things that I might like to try running, but most of them wouldn't work properly under Swedish, largely due to their hating on unit sizes beyond about 40 infantry.

In the end I tried something a bit different and wrote a Daemons of Chaos list. I have Ben's Daemons kicking around my house, and I figured I might as well look at using them. A few of the sillier people who know me started referring to me as "Greg of Slaanesh" for reasons that aren't really worth explaining (nothing exciting or kinky), so I decided to embrace the tag and take a Slaanesh-heavy army. This has the added benefit that I actually painted all of Ben's Slaaneshi Daemons some years ago, so despite the army not belonging to me, most of it would still be my handiwork.

I didn't think too hard about the composition of the army. I knew what stuff was available, knew I wanted lots of Slaanesh stuff, and went from there. They I checked my Swedish score, decided it was acceptable (despite it being pointed out to me after I submitted it that I had calculated it wrong), and it was a done deal. Here is what I will be using:

• Keeper of Secrets (Level 4, Lore of Shadow) with 2 Greater Gifts
• Herald of Slaanesh with Battle Standard; Greater Locus of Swiftness, Lesser Gift
• 23 Daemonettes of Slaanesh with Full Command
• 18 Bloodletters of Khorne with Full Command, Banner of Swiftness
• 10 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch (Level 1, Lore of Tzeentch)
• 5 Seekers of Slaanesh
• 6 Fiends of Slaanesh
• 2 Beasts of Nurgle (in 1 unit)
• Soul Grinder of Slaanesh with Daemonbone Claw, Phlegm Bombardment

The list is a 14.7 in Swedish, where Cancon is using a range from 10-16. Most people have aimed for high comp, because you look at the difference between the comp scores of the 2 lists and multiple it by 150 for a VP bonus to the higher score. That could add up quickly. I could find myself giving up nearly 200 VPs to a maximum comp list, but that's acceptable.

Anyway, with the list dealt with, I just had to make sure the army was ready to go. This meant rebasing some of the monstrous beasts that were on incorrect base sizes according to the Swedish FAQ, finishing 5 half-painted Horrors, and doing something about the Herald BSB (hopefully making use of an existing painted model). Oh, and Ben doesn't have a Soul Grinder.

This last one promised to be a bit of a hurdle, since I had no intention of going out and buying a Soul Grinder for over $100 for a single tournament. I decided I could make one, and thankfully Pete stepped in with his 3D printer to help out. Using my descriptions, my mock-ups in Sketch Up and some slightly dreadful-sounding software where he draws everything by inputting coordinates and dimensions using code (apparently only noobs need to see the picture they're drawing), he was able to produce all the bits for the lower part of the model for me, include all of the mechanical bits.

That there is totally a Soul Grinder. Or part of one. Or it will be...

I then set about pinning and gluing it all together, making a base out of MDF, and sculpting the upper part of the model using green stuff. It took a couple of sessions, but eventually I came up with something that more or less matched the image I had in my head.

Here is the WIP model, before she got some final attention to try to clean up some details.

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.

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.

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.

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...

Sculpting the human: he has a helmet!

The Halberdier continues to take shape.

I got another chance to make a bit more progress on my Halberdier last night. I bit the bullet and began working on his head. This is all slightly scary stuff for me - completely unknown territory. I am consoling myself with the knowledge that if I really screw it up, I can always abandon my efforts and find him a suitable head from something else. But before going that way, I figured I needed to try making one of my own.

My first human: slightly more progress

Well, it's been over a week since I posted an update. I've been busy (yes, even I am busy sometimes) and haven't had much of a chance to do much of anything hobby-related. However, last night I finally got to sit down and make a little bit more progress on my first attempt at sculpting a human.

My little man now has hands! And a blobby thing where his head will soon be...

I added hands and the halberd pole. I probably shouldn't have tried to do it all at once, however once I had secured the pole onto the arms with greenstuff, I decided it would be easiest just to add detail to the hands at the same time. This resulted in my constantly bending the wrists at funny angles as I worked, but the end result seems to be OK - I doubt I could have done much better even if I had approached things patiently.

A look at the underside of the fingers - sideways (thanks Blogger)

I had been undecided as to whether I was going to go all-out and try to sculpt a head onto the model, or just use an existing GW plastic head and leave it at that. However, last night I actually dug out the head I had in mind, and discovered that (being from a different, newer era of model) it was really too large for the body. So I was left with little choice - I am going to have to try to sculpt the whole thing myself. This will most likely be where the whole thing goes a bit awry - sculpting a human face sounds difficult to me. Oh well, we shall see soon enough.

My first human: the sculpt continues

Painting night was last night, so I had another opportunity to sit down and work on my little man. Progress was not brilliant, but it was adequate.

The development continues. Not one, but two arms!

I started by attacking that over-long left arm. I took to it with a knife and some clippers, and cut a large section out from between the shoulder and the elbow. I then glued the two parts back together, and tried to heal the wound with more greenstuff. It ended up being a bit messy, and I was trying to carve at a combination of hard and soft putty. In the end I left it as being "good enough for now", with the intent of coming back to it later once it's all cured properly. The main thing is that I'm happier with the proportions.

Sculpting a human: my first attempt

A WIP: creating my own 4th edition-style Halberdier

I have spoken in the past of the intimidation I feel when considering sculpting models, or even converting them heavily. Sculpting is an art form, and the skill of some people in this field is truly mind-boggling. I have no particular aspirations in this regard, however I resolved a while ago that I would try to get over my fear of wasting time and resources, and be a bit braver with my converting. Since then, I have indeed been a bit braver. In fact, I have fully converted a couple of ogres, and been hatching plans for mass production and multi-pose models. A search of "converting" shows I have been busy over the last half a year.

These things are all very ambitious, however I have largely limited my efforts to Ogres thus far. This is partly because I will only get Ogres to match my units if I do it myself (whereas I have a very large pile of pretty compatible humans), however it's also because Ogres are bigger and easier to work with than their human counterparts. Given I am still learning, I figured I should stick to the simpler stuff for the moment.

Yesterday I decided that I needed to break this trend. In my Empire army I planned to have an entire regiment based around the old single-pose 4th edition plastic Halberdiers. I like these guys - they're chunky and they remind me of the old days when I first started into the Warhammer hobby. Their being identical didn't really bother me - I just saw it as part of their charm. However, having painted up 24 of the models, I ran out of convenient supply. Having realised that even units of 40 Halberdiers are probably not really big enough, I also started to feel that maybe having 40 or 50 of the same model was going to look pretty dull, even if broken up by Ogre unit fillers. So I needed a new plan. I would make my own version.