OWAC June Entry

My final entry in the Old World Army Challenge, more sea elf spear, and the old Elven Attack Chariot.

More words and photos at the OWAC page:   https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2019/07/zerotwentythrees-june-sea-elves-316-pts.html

OWAC May Entry

My May Entry is up at the Old World Army Challenge!

Start of May Sea Elves and Looking Ahead

I've just finished the first week of what will be about two weeks of a heavy work schedule. There will be much travelling coming up soon, too. May will be the make-or-break month for me in the OWAC. Since there are only two months left, I'm going to do the best to not fail.

My goal for May exceeds the 200 pt requirement quite a bit, but the figure count is still pretty reasonable and I've already started on the higher point value models:

• Sea Elf Witch
• 10 Spear elves
• 1 Champion (lv. 5) (for the spear unit) 
• 1 Standard bearer (also for the spear unit)

That will leave June's goal as:

• 10 Wardancers
• 1 Chariot

Looking further into the future, I also prepped the last few Mirliton half-orcs I need for the unit, now 24 strong. Because I enjoy painting these theme challenges, I may wait until October for them. Between those figures, and the recent Bones KS4 delivery, I've started thinking about how the painting challenges fill out part of the rest of the year, and what other figures I'm looking forward to painting.

• May: OWAC2 Sea Elves
• June: OWAC2 Sea ELves
• July:
• August:
• September:
• October: Half-orcs
• November:
• December: Undead

One of the top candidates for filling in those "empty" months is getting back to the (mostly) hobbits & (some) humans of the JTC, I've also still got more Marienburgers, giants, and assorted fantasy critters to paint. Or more undead. And that then there's that robot project that still hasn't launched. Not really going to plan everything out, I'll just paint whatever I feel like at the time. But the hobbits are on my mind...

Giants to Sea Elves

Richard aka "Orclord" of Stuff of Legends posted an updated photo of some of his giant collection on a few Oldhammer FB groups and it got me thinking about the fact that I've been meaning to do the same thing. End of "Big April" seems like a good time to do it. My own collection is not nearly as large, and I don't have any where good to photograph them all, but for what it's worth...

(click to enlarge)

FWIW, the unpainted giants I still need to work on are: the Mantic giant, the Otherworld giant, and three Reaper Bones giants.



Also, following up on a request for a close-ups of the victim who is about to become lunch for the Heresy giant:

Speaking of giants... not getting any more painted this April, but prepping the next giant(s). I'm debating a head-swap on the Mantic giant -- still undecided.

I've also started prepping minis for the last two months of the Old World Army Challenge. The next two months are going to be horribly busy at work, and I will be doing a bit of travel. So finding time for painting will be challenging.

Since this photo a couple days ago, I've got the separ unit, champion, and the rest of the chariot prepped & primed. Plus I sculpted a new top for the wand on the elf witch, and primed here as well. Just the wardancers to clean & prime now.

Here's the broken wand, with a bit of wire on top to give me something to sculpt on. The idea will be to give it an oyster shell, with the globe in the other hand being a pearl.

OWAC - March

My March entry for the OWAC is up. Read all about it...

https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/2019/03/zerotwentythrees-march-sea-elves-212-pts.html

Old World Army Challenge - February

The February entries are rolling in: https://oldworldarmychallenge.blogspot.com/

I will eventually pull all of my OWAC sea elf entries together in a single page here on my own site. But if you'd like to read about my entries as they come in, what the OWAC is all about, and check out some of the other awesome projects, I encourage you to check out the link above.

A couple of pics:

January Challenge & More Shadow Prep

I've completed my first entry for the Old World Army Challenge! Here's a pic, but go to the OWAC site to read about it!

I've also been doing some more prep work for the first few Rangers of Shadow Deep scenarios. Looking forward to (hopefully) trying the game out soon.

Goodbye Deadcember, Hello OWAC2

Goodbye Deadcember, Hello OWAC.... maybe.

Deadcember

I've painted more for Deadcember than I had planned or expected to. I think that's partially owing to the simplicity of the figures and the rapid speed at which I can paint all of that bone.

The tally:

• Citadel Skeleton War Machines boxed set (mostly):
• 1 Chariotw/ 2 crew
• 3 Skeletal champions
• Screaming Skull catapult w/3 crew
• Additional Screaming Skull catapult w/3 crew
• 3 Grenadier skeleton ballistae, each w/2 crew
• 1 Skeletal Champion (old Citadel mini) for the artillery
• 1 Skeletal hero (Reaper mini)
• 8 plastic Citadel skeletons (for Mo' Death)
• 7 non-human skeletons of mixed manufacture (Citadel, Diehard, and whoever made the 40mm skeletons)

With just a few days left, and plans to continue prepping for the OWAC starting in January, I'm not sure there will be anymore undead forthcoming. But for an additional challenge, I've cleaned up a few more and will prime them as soon as I publish this blog post.

3 skeletons, 1 wight, and Morbius the liche (the last unpainted mini from the Skeleton War Machines box, above.)

Morbius has been a beast to strip the old paint from. This is him after vigorous scubbing and two baths in Simple Green, and two baths in Dawn Power Dissolver, which should be more than enough for most paint! I'm done, nothing came off after the last bath so he's going to get painted and I'll just hope that no detail is obscured.

OWAC2

I've already prepped the first month's worth of miniatures for the Old World Army Challenge, but have wanted to get started on the rest so all I have to do is paint when each round comes up. For the second month I plan on painting some war machines -- a bolter and chariot.

The chariot is one of the primary reasons I chose to paint the Sea Elves for the challenge (wood elves was another contender, but I don't think the chariot fits them as well even if it is in the Armies list.) I inherited the chariot from a friend back when we played 3rd ed. It was assembled but never painted. I'm not sure it was used much. I recall most chariots being a bit crappy in 3rd, and I think he had better options for his wood elf army. So there was a lot of cleaning of old glue, flash, and mould lines to be done. Oh the cleaning...

Is it heretical to use old minis as a writing instrument? Ah, lead... the tastiest of all miniatures casting materials. Between this chariot and the second Screaming Skull catapult painted this month I've been reminded, once again, of how crappy the casting quality could be in the "good ol' days." Some of the horses and chariot parts were horrible, massive mould lines and protruding chunks of lead in inconvenient spots (like the strange growth on a horse muzzle.) I'm not crazy about the mountain of lead filings in the house, either. (Don't worry, I take great care to contain and dispose of it.)

So after a tedious amount of work, the sea elf bolter is ready, and the chariot & horses are cleaned but not assembled/primed yet. I haven't even started on the chariot crew.

Old World Army Challenge 2

I am taking part in the 2018 Old World Army Challenge.

The OWAC involves participants painting 200 points of "Oldhammer" miniatures (3rd/4th ed. WFB) each month for six months, one of which is a mulligan, so we each end up with a 1000 point army at the end.

I've posted my first entry there. I'm not going to repeat it here -- follow the link to check it out. I'll be doing Sea Elves to go with my Marienburgers.