Retinue table: D6 Human Runaways

These 6 fine fellows really take me back. I've stated elsewhere that my very first "army" back in 3rd edition times was Orcs and Goblins, but my second army towards the end of 3rd was Brettonian. I bought them from a friend over several Saturday's worth of payments and received a battered plastic tool box full of mostly unpainted, old Brettonian models. Including these guys. So by my estimation there's been a 23 year gap between painting (terribly) the original Citadel ones (Perry Twins sculpts?) and these which are actually Foundry casts from the same moulds I believe.

For me the nostalgia and character of these figures helps me ignore some of the rougher sculpting, especially on some of the faces - far left has a large bulging eye and a very square head for example. Perhaps this adds to their character though:

With regards painting these, I went for a very limited palette, just Codex grey (which has started to dry out in the pot) and Snakebite leather (which is still going strong) with a touch of Dark Flesh (drying out) for a spot colour. This was to make them look rag-tag with no rich colours present; yet at the same time still retain a unified look. The skin was done with my usual Reikland Fleshwash (mixed with a little fairy liquid) over a white undercoat. Several glazes of this and some Baal Red for the ruddier complexions.

The Lost and the Damned states that these 6 Runaways are "looking for a new life serving Chaos", so I imagine them as very lowly militia who have unsuccessfully tried turning their hands to being mercenaries and/or bandits. Poorly equipped and trained, tired of being at the bottom of the hierarchy and thrown into wars by their lords; wars that have little meaning or purpose to them; these six fled their townships and the threat of further militia recruitment and sought out a new life and path, yes the path of a follower of Chaos. 

It's only the character holding the club and the mustachioed veteran that appear to have any clout here, I'm not sure how successful followers they will be for their new Chaos Champion, perhaps a few Chaos Attributes may improve their potential....

Retinue Table: D6 Dark Elves

These 6 Elves have taken an age to complete. I can't even remember how long ago the double axe wielding conversion happened, and the same model has been constantly sitting near the front of the painting queue, but something more interesting always jumped in front. But completed they are (after some 1 hour speed painting) and another option from the Lost and the Damned retinue table is completed; ta-da:

So you may recognise the Jes Goodwin wardancers from my speed painting posts, but there's four new elves to make up the six;  I've added two of the lovely witch elves with their wonderful poses and two High Elves whom I've painted to look dark.

The two witch elves:

I've gone for a blue and pink colour scheme over a grey/purple skin tone, with some black to frame and balance these strong colours. The rust on the blades helps unify the disparate elf models (as does the basing obviously). These were a joy to paint and I am now hankering for more.. and perhaps a Dark Elf Ally contingent :)

The other two elves are a bit more unusual, both in terms of the choice of models and the way in which they were painted:

The model on the left was an experimental paint job. For the cape I used a pearlescent medium to create some glazes which gave it a very metallic sheen. I used mostly purples and blues glazes to exaggerate the pearl effect and I'm quite happy with it, but more experiments to follow. I also experimented with applying some mud to the bottom of the cape.

The character on the right is a High Elf model that has undergone a weapon swap (plastic Chaos Warrior axes). Years ago he was going to be a vampire, but he became more useful as a dark elf for this particular project. In terms of painting I restricted myself to a dark palette, using only black, grey and blue for the entire model (and of course some rust):

 And finally the two Jes Goodwin wardancers that I've blogged about before but are here for completion of the D6 Dark Elves:

Many thanks for reading. Up next I've got a tutorial on my skin painting technique that a few people have asked after..

Retinue Table: D4 Centaurs

The original aim of this blog was to help motivate me to complete a project which I've wanted to do for many years, namely create models to represent every option listed in the Lost and the Damned Retinue table.

I want to be able to create my own Chaos Champions as normal (rolling up attributes etc) and then converting a model to represent him; and then be able to immediately have his rolled up retinue join him in his warband.

Well this project has taken a bit of a backseat recently, although you can see what I have currently finished on the list to the right of this post. So it is with some joy that I can add to the completed to do list with the completion of a final centaur to add to the three that I had finished a while ago:

Here's the four of them together:

And here you can see how I was inspired by Tim Prow's Centaurs which were showcased in a White Dwarf of which I cannot recall the issue :

A Plague Marine (on a square base)

I'm slowly being seduced by Rogue Trader and 40k, having been a fantasy lad ever since I first walked into GW York on a school trip in the 80's. But I can't quite go all round based yet, so I kept with the square 25mm base and even added a shield to keep the fantasy vibe on the model. Of course the Lost and the Damned blends Fantasy and 40k somewhat with the options of technological weapons etc, so for now I'm comfortable in this Plague Marine posing as a Chaos Warrior of Nurgle with a bolter and shield:

So this model was also painted for a painting challenge over at The Warhammer Forum entitled "Dirty and Grimy" and I was the joint winner, woop! Very happy.

The difficulty with the painting for me was to choose a good base colour to show up the dirt and grime that I wanted to add on top, hence the off-white armour. To add some contrast I decided to go for bright pink hands to give a focus and likewise with the choice of the strong blue coloured goggles. 

To create the dirt/grime aspect I applied a range of very thin and pale washes over the fully highlighted armour. This also included small splatters of ink in localised areas. I carefully applied dry red oxide pigment to the areas of rust using a very small detail brush - the trick is to make the dirt/grime look real and not make the model too messy.

The image on the shield is a direct copy of an illustration from a Fighting Fantasy book (can't recall now which one) and I deliberately chose some bright colours again to make it stand out.

The only thing I would have changed in hindsight are all the cables exiting from his chest (which I painted to look like intestines) which I think would have looked better with a greater contrast to the model's armour colour.

Overall I'm really happy with how the Plague Marine turned out and it's given me a few ideas for some round based, Rogue Trader fun....

WIP - Dragon Ogre Shaggoth of Nurgle

Having languished for many months as an almost finished conversion, I've worked a few more hours on this tonight to get to... almost finished! Tonight I added the ballbearing and chain to create the flail and filled a few extra gaps. I now only need to greenstuff some talons onto the carrion crow and to sculpt wood onto the shaft of the flail to realise my intentions..:

So what were my intentions? Well I was heavily inspired by Ivan Bartleets Dragon Ogre Shaggoth of Nurgle which was of course featured in the Lost and the Damned book. You can see his work below. 

I've obviously used the more modern Shaggoth model (which is an incredible sculpt) and made some Nurglification adjustments by adding a bead into the center of the greenstuffed head to make a cyclops like plaguebearer head. Adding a Nurgling playing with the Shaggoth's intestines is an idea I've been wanting to create for a while and I'll just add some extra modelling in there to make it look less empty.

Will finish it this weekend and will make a start on applying some paint too, watch this space....

The Path of the Lost and the Damned (a picture story)

Count von Brockinmeir, wielding his warhammer and riding his trusty steed

 

Fighting against Nurgle's many minions to protect his town

But soon to be felled by a foul plaguebearer of Nurgle!

The Count on his knees and missing a limb. Papa Nurgle shows an interest in our hero and pays a personal visit

"Embrace us" (with your one arm).

And then... ok it's a swift path to Damnation

Out of his stump grows a tentacle and a swift transition to one of the Lost and the Damned is complete

A Chaotic shield face - he's made it

The first member of his retinue is an angry Nurgling

 

A Plague Knight of Nurgle in the bright sunlight

And here are some shots of the conversions I created to make this happen:

The wind blows....



A Great Unclean One (and some gloss varnish)

Papa Nurgle showing benevolence in taking lepers under his care to unleash further contagion amongst humanity.

When I was a nipper, I coveted one of these gorgeous, Nurgly, lumps of lead to paint up but it was a bit too expensive for my pocket money income at the time. They're still not cheap on eBay but certainly more affordable, so I bid and won!

A fair few months later and he jumped to the front of the paint queue, mainly because I had an idea to add some followers to his base, in this case a couple of old Citadel Mummies that I had in my lead pile. I wanted to create a feeling of Papa Nurgle showing his misunderstood benevolence to his followers with leprosy. 

So here's what I came up with:

A bastard to photograph well with two depths of focus.

You can see some of the extra modelling I've added around the neck so that his head is in a more upright position. The boils etc are bits of rice, seed and bead embedded into the still wet greenstuff

So for this fine fellow I tried some experiments. I undercoated white and then applied that old Chestnut Ink to the model (with a touch of washing up liquid). I then highlighted up with some white. So far so good.

When I tried to apply more washes over the Chestnut Ink I had forgotten that the old inks were not designed to be re-wetted and certainly not with a modern wash that has some washing up liquid added. So the yellow in the recesses is actually where the Chestnut Ink was wiped away with the application of the next layer, leaving white and then the yellow wash settled there. Now I was tempted to start again, but realised that with some further details I could make it work and I'm actually quite pleased with the result, the yellow in the recesses and folds of his skin helps add to the putrescent feel of the model. 

A few more glazes of purples, reds, blues and greens followed by some layering work in the wound areas created a model I am pretty happy with, especially as it did not take too long to paint. It was the individual Nurglings that took the most time.

Similar washes of colour were applied to the Mummies, the only difference is that there was some drybrushing with Bleached Bone up to white to pick out the details of the bandages. 

And here's a poor shot of the model pre-painted. You can see some of the dried seeds I also used embedded in the greenstuff to create boils etc. The end of the tongue is a cut up plastic goblin mouth.

The only other problem I had during the painting of this model (which includes the difficulty of painting behind another model already attached to the base) was that the because of the Chestnut Ink base layer, the paint was susceptible to wearing off quite easily when being held during painting, this meant I had to add some gloss varnish to keep it intact. I don't have any matt varnish to dull it down, but I quite like the shiny, sweaty putrescent skin. And the gloss finish reminds me of the painting style of the Realm of Chaos era anyway. 

Thoughts on gloss varnishing in the modern era?

Family Heroquest ("Save your brother")

So my daughters really do seem to enjoy playing Heroquest with their Dad, the game is so simple to play yet is engrossing enough (with some inventive GMing) to keep their interest going for a decent dungeon crawl.

This is the second game (the first is here and I used the same house rules) which I recently played with them, they controlled their own character and one of their parents too (I still can't get the wife to play..) and started with the following scenario:

A glorious spring day and our family were enjoying a long walk, following old trails through the dense heather. The little ones occasionally ran ahead to hide behind a twisted tree and then jump out at their parents. This eventually led to a game of hide and seek, young against old. It was the kids turn and they searched out a small trough in the landscape, hiding behind a fallen tree; the parents keeping a beady eye open behind their hands, just checking yet partly spoiling the game. After some exaggerated pretend searching the kids could no longer contain their silence and the parents made a big play of finding the children. But one was missing! The youngest....

In a very short time the search became serious and frantic, where could he be, why was he not responding to the desperate shouts? Moments later the two daughters discovered a small hole, a hole that he must have fallen down and with some extra digging the family jumped down in search of the young brother....

At the bottom of the hole is a dungeon and this is their adventure...

Upon opening the door, the sorceress discovers a thug and a two-headed mongrel

Not wanting to use her spells, the sorceress went into battle and with her first roll came up with double skulls! Nice hitting. 

The parents wander off leaving their daughters to fend for themselves. Dad quickly dispatches the zebra minotaur with his broadsword and discovers a jewel (jelly bean) on the body of the beast

After slaying the hound and opening the chest, she finds a chain mail and some holy water. Bring on the undead!

The family regroups to take on some Chaos Dwarfs and a lone goblin. Note another jewel ready to be picked up by our adventurers

You sure you want to open that door? Two goblins and a Chaos Warrior protect the hordes of treasures in here.

Mum's here though to help her daughter. No sign of the youngest yet...

A troll in the library! Disturbed from reading his novel in front of the roaring fire place, he is approached by the Daddy Barbarian.

The action hots up as another door is opened in the center room. There are lots of monsters guarding something or someone...

Yep there he is, the young brother. Guarded by an Ogre, two orcs, a plaguebearer and two goblins! Daughter keeps her arms folded and shows real attitude in the face of danger. The dungeon monsters are unsure of how to treat this intruder.

Help is on it's way as all the other adventurers dispatch their foes and charge towards the melee to rescue the little one. (Daughter has a wee sulk that she can't finish off the Orc and rescue her brother before her sister gets there..)

Rescue my brother, kill the orc, or turn my back on the threat and pick up the jewel. Only one choice here....

And the game draws to a close as all the monsters are slain and the family are re-united with their youngest member. Time to escape from the pit...

Why did you have to rescue me Dad, I'd made some new friends down here? The family discuss the days events, not blaming anyone and return to their walk home, holding onto the little one's hand.

The end of this episode, time for tea.