More Mercenaries

 

I accidentally painted a couple of test figures for another mercenary band for Five Parsecs and other sci-fi games. These are from Satyr Art Studio.

Deadcember 2022

 

The last few months have been busy, so no updates and not much painting. But with the holidays came some much needed time off work, and December means Deadcember. So I've finally had some quality time at the painting table. 

Skeletons from Citadel & Marauder. Some of the last that were still unpainted!

Undead lord from Heartbreaker.

Me. Sculpted 20 years ago by me. Recently replaced the axe with a rusty scythe.

Skeleton command, champion from Heartbreaker, standard & musician from Satyr Art Studio. I'm still undecided about that to paint on the standard.

Zombies by Satyr.

Little skeleton familiar (or is it a dwarven liche...!) from Diehard

Goblins in Space

Although mainstream Eldar society disregards it, and most of the the other races know little of or care even less for it, there is a theory that the minor race known as "Goblins" in the Traders's Tongue are actually an offshoot of the Eldar. The basis of this theory is that the Melkor Event on the remote, and some say cursed, moon Thangorodrim. The moon had been settled by a small group of Eldar explorers/entrepreneurs looking for mineral wealth. Although it is certain that *something* was found there, no one knows exactly what. The Event instantaneously transformed the moon into a dark mountainous, crystalline mass and presumably wiped out all life inhabiting it. The final coherent transmission from the last remaining Eldar mining station simply reported that it was, "something wonderful."

In the decades that followed, there was little interest in Thandgorodrim or any of the other planets in the system, as they had been evaluated as economically insignificant or barren. However, seemingly originating from this same abandoned system, the previously unheard of Goblin pirates emerged, already sharing certain technology with both Eldar and Imperial societies.

 

This is my first test paint of a group of figures from Alternative Armies, sculpted by Bob Olley. I had intended to paint the whole squad for Orctober, but got busy and never finished. The above blog entry was going to be finished once I had photos of the completed squad, but since that never happened I thought I would publish what little I had. Hopefully I finish them in the new year...

Belegost Scrap Wagon 2

BELEGOST SCRAP WAGON

 

I finished painting the mercenary wing of the Belegost Scrap Wagon. Difficult to get a decent photo.

Planetary Nomads/Scavengers

I finally finished my planetary nomads / scavengers.  All Mark Copplestone sculpted figures, a mix of old and not-totally-old-but-not-exactly-new. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Belegost Scrap Wagon

 

BELEGOST SCRAP WAGON

 

Although they initially earned their living as a salvage crew, some members of the Belegost eventually turned to mercenary work. Particularly some of the older crew who had fought many battles defending their claims, eventually realized they could cut out the salvage work and render services based on their hard earned battle prowess -- usually at a better wage. So it was that the Belegost Scrap Wagon diversified their operations into a salvage wing and a mercenary wing. The Anvil and the Hammer, as they started calling it, based on the ancient traditions of their people.

As explained above, I am painting up the Skull & Crown "Space Scrappers" and Satyr Art Studio space dwarfs with two sub-factions inspired by two different aesthetics within among the figures. The more heavily armored become the mercenaries, and the less armored figures (also with less military looking weapons in many cases) become the salvage crew. I'll keep the color palettes similar, but with more variety among the salvage crew. I just finished the first half of the mercenaries, above.

Overdue OWACV Summary (Season of the Liche)

I realize that I have not kept up very well with cross-posting my Old World Army Challenge progress (or completion) from the first half of the year. Since I'm at a bit of a lull otherwise, I figure I would share the final photos, with maybe minimal commentary.

 

As shared previously, this year's theme was Season of the Liche, for several reasons. What started as a serious undead "fast attack" faction devolved into semi-psychedelic inspired absurdity. But it was fun! I mean, I've enjoyed each OWAC, but the last two seem like wonderful diversions into nostalgia and not-taking-things-so-seriously. Although I didn't wear the sleeveless T-shirt (because flamingos) I even bought the mullet wig this year, which no one else in the OWAC had the dedication to do! ;)

 

I'm not sure where that leaves me for next year. I'm back to having another serious project lined up. Maybe.

 

You can click to enlarge most of the photos below. To see full commentary and (probably better photos) check out my 2022 entries at the OWAC site!

Plain of Theives - Sellswords & Spellslingers Campaign 2

Plain of Thieves

A Sellswords & Spellslingers Campaign

 

It was unlikely that anyone outside the tribe knew of the Old Days & Nights. Before the coming of men and their change from Tribe to Empire, when the men hunted goblins and killed them in their homes and secret caves. Even before the bitter rivalry of the rat-men and the swamp daemons that broke the land and cut the goblins off from the last of their hunts and harvests. Further still, before the epic battles of elves and dwarves had driven the goblins from the thick forests, to seek hidden mountain vales for survival. Once, many, many lifetimes past, Udag's people had hunted beasts in dark forests, and gathered mushrooms and berries from beneath the shady trees along the riverbank.

 

For most in the tribe, those were just stories told by the evening fires by the old shaman.

 

Tork-An taught the histories that had been handed down through countless generations of wise-goblins. Legends, the typical goblin called them, but not real to any of them. Udag-stuuk, on the other hand, was mesmerized by the history of his people. When he was young, he thought he wanted to be a shaman too. But that was not his path. Udag was driven to action. Not a story teller, a story maker. And when he became the Tribal Champion, he proposed a plan to start reclaiming his ancestors' lost heritage. Maybe not reclaiming & rebuilding their land. But at least starting by recovering ancient treasures taken from them by so-called human, elven, and dwarven "adventurers"  who were little more than thugs and thieves.

So it was that Udag, along with the current shaman's apprentice, Tork-Al, and the chieftain's mischievous young daughter, Noxea, were selected for an ambitious mission to recover the Fire Stones, ancient treasures stolen from one of of the most important shrines of the old Six Tribes of the Riverland.

 

Tagging along, whether they like it or not, is Nox's life-long (as brief as that has been so far) companion, the half-wolf Sasha. Hopefully her keen senses and loyalty to Nox will serve the group well.

This will be my second Sellswords and Spellslingers campaign. I had intended to kick it off not long after the last one wrapped up. But life gets busy, and two years pass in the blink of an eye. I had the general concept of "flipping the perspective" before, but only recently started thinking about the backstory.

Raptors in Space

I painted some Reaper dinosaur figures that I picked up on eBay to fill the role of Carnivore Chasers & Razor Lizards in Five Parsecs. These were speed-painted, using Citadel contrast paints for the color. Dinosaurs in space? "Life, uh, finds a way." ;)

Warhammer -1313

 

 

I've had this idea lingering for years, and it has bubbled back to the surface. Oldhammer. No, not like that. This is Warhammer set in the in-universe past. Sort of like the War of the Beard campaign & lists published in WD long ago. 

 

Based on my interests and collection, my setting would be sometime after the War of the Beard, but before Sigmar, and set in my favorite place in the Old World: The Wasteland/Westerland.

I like the idea of setting it in the time just before and after the cataclysm brought about by the strife between the Fimir and Skaven. Arbitrarily I'll set this around the year of the Imperial Calendar...

 

-1313

 

Two major factions would be the afore mentioned Skaven & Fimir. Two secondary, or maybe more like something between primary and secondary (prime-and-a-half-ary?) factions of humans and dwarfs. Dwarfs would be at a bit of a low point in their history, suffering not only from the toll of the War of the Beard, but supposedly the natural (or Slann and then Skaven/Fimir induced un-natural) disasters that came after, and the goblin incursions the followed that. Humans would be from the early migrations into this region, which (according to what I could tell from Warhammer lore) lagged behind the earlier human settlements in the future neighboring lands of Bretonnia and Tilea to the west and south respectively.

Tertiary forces or supporting characters could include goblins, undead, giants.

I've got a lot of this thought out already. The big, undecided portion for me is the humans. I fluctuate between envisioning them as early Celtic or Germanic tribes, and somewhat later Migration Period Germans (Goths, Vandals, or early Saxons). The depictions in Warhammer art & books seems to favor the former, but I feel that's a bit out of place. Maybe just "modern" in-world source biases of "everyone a few hundred years ago was a primitive barbarian" bias?

For the dwarfs, I definitely want a look that's different from my puff & slash mercenaries. There's quite a few options for dwarfs with an early medieval "dark ages" aesthetic, and that's what I'd probably aim for.  These would all be fairly small army projects.

Distorts

These are some board game figures I bought from eBay and painted with color-shifting paints and ink. They will serve as Distorts for Five Parsecs

Alien Fungi

Ages ago I took a course in small scale resin casting with a local artist We each made a quick, small sculpt then created a mold, and made several castings. 

After recently messing around with resin and jewelry molds with my daughter, I pulled out the old silicone mold and... it has way more life in it than expected! So I've been messing around with clear resin and inks, casting gems with/for my daughter and making more of these little things that I see as the first of several potential "alien fungi" for gaming terrain. I painted one of the original castings up just before I started my casting experiments. Here's where I am at today, the blue/sapphire was my latest color. Regardless of the inks & colors, my plan is to paint them. The inks/colors are for me to experiment with before trying to produce something with that sort of translucent quality in a more refined finial format.

Eyes in the Sky

These little fellas will serve as Void Rippers for Five Parsecs from Home. Possible also giant bats in The Liche's undead army and other roles as well.

Figures from Ral Partha Europe's Das Schwarze Auge range.

Expanded Adventures?

 Not satisfied with just those last two figures, I'm working on ways to expand  on the theme. Reaper Bones Black "Penguin Attack Pack" and "Carnivorous Pudding" mean that Gunther & co. and an evolved Slime Princess (I added her tiara) now join middle aged Finn & Jake.

Time for Adventure!

C'mon grab your friends & go to very distant lands.

I love this pair from Old School Miniatures, originally from Thunder Child Miniatures.

April Fools to Easter Sunday

Happy Easter from the original Oldhammer villain, the eternal malice...

 

"Heinrich? Heinrich who? Oh that young kid with the magic sword? Terrorizing family farms and avenging himself upon half-ruined monasteries. Such low ambitions. Tsk."

Also, couldn't pass up a holiday themed photo of the crew of LAGWAFIS.

More seriously, I painted the remaining figures for a squad of guards, troopers security forces, etc. for Five Parsecs. Figures from Khurasan's 28mm range. 

 

 

(((Addendum))) Artwork that I assume inspired the Drachenfels figures above, from the WFRP Castle Drachenfels.

 

 

 

Crew Complete and Eternal Death

A little bit of progress on the sci-fi project. I completed the final figure I needed for my Five Parsecs crew: G-Roy, the fame seeking special agent. Figure by Satyr Art Studio/Drew Williams.

 

 

Now I need to get enough terrain on the table for a game, and to finish painting a bigger variety of opponents. Working on both, you can see some of the more recent small terrain pieces in the bacground of these latest photos.

I've also decided to follow up on my previously painted pair of "avatars" of Life & Death I decided they are eternal and needed a second set of figures to match the sci-fi basing. Death is finished, Life is partially painted and should be done soon. I photographed death with the Astro Zombies in the background. Seems like a logical pairing. I'll have to figure out what sort of minions/associates Life would have in a sci-fi setting. I was thinking of dryads for fantasy, but that won't necessarily translate well to the sci-fi setting.

Budget Bots

I don't remember what blog or social media group led me to these, but I picked up some super cheap plastic toy robots and speed painted them with GW contrast paint & washes. They will serve as security/war bots for Five Parsecs for now. Maybe I will replace them, maybe they will grow on me and stick around. But for now they are a quick and cheap way to get another squad into the pool of figures available for gaming.

Five Parsecs February

The first half of the month I was mostly working on my OWAC5 figures plus "extras." Those are essentially finishes and that update will be coming soon.

 

So now that I have some breathing room, I've turned back to the sci-fi/Five Parsecs/Alt Trader project.

I forgot to show these previously! Last month I painted two more Wraithguard, so I now have one each of those and the Ghost Warriors.

 

I'm working in finishing figures for my crew, and completed two more. Plus a psi-weasel.

 

Not much is known of the elusive psi-weasel. Their planet of origin is a mystery, and so far no one has even been able to narrow it down to any particular part of the galaxy. They seem to appear and vanish with equal abruptness. Each specimen that has been observed has exhibited unique psychic abilities, and it has been theorized that some sort of psionic teleportation may be responsible for their surprise comings and goings. But that is speculation, almost nothing is known for certain about these creatures among Imperial out Outland researchers. There are rumors, however, that the notorious Spaven naturalist/mutologist David Rattenborough has captured one and utilized it in developing a "rodent psy-bombs" that have recently been spotted in several incidents in the fringe of the galactic north.

 

Here's the crew in-progress. Almost done! I've updated the Crew Page too.

 

I decided that Kev is one of at least three Immortals that will appear in both fantasy games (he previously appeared leading WFB goblin armies in 6th/7th ed.) as well as sci-fi games. The fantasy Kev was painted +/-20 years ago. It's sad how much my painting has declined in the intervening years, at least on this figure. Space Kev looks like a cartoon version of the original. My eyesight isn't what it used to be.

On a personal, non gaming note, we've had a crazy winter, even for typical Cleveland weather. It's not that it's been particularly cold or snowy. In fact, we had a couple of "polar vortex" years where it was far far colder.  It's the fact that within a single week, we will go from 7 degrees (F) to 53 degrees (F) with everything from torrential rainstorms, to the world turning to a solid block of ice, then getting buried in 12" of snow, and then all melting two days later... and the cycle starts again the following week.

But today's break in the weather, warm (compared to 7 degrees) & sunny ON A WEEKEND... Hell yeah, grilling season has started! ;)