Oathmark Assembly pt. 1

I experimentally put together some more Oathmark humans. Ten total so far. I mixed in some Citadel bits on half of them (mostly heads). I tried out the advice in the replies from the last entry. I ended up cutting the bases completely off because it was fairly clean & easy. I went with the Citadel beveled bases because they then fit pretty cleanly on those, and also I'm out of my home-made bases and don't have the patience to wait to cut them. ;) But the Citadel bases also help give a little extra height to the minis.

At any rate, the bits mostly mixed well (just a little neck trimming) and they rank up better than I had thought they would! I'm thinking if I pick up a second box, I can field two regiments of 25 melee troops, plus 10 archers. A good core for a small bandit/rebel/militia/whatever force.

Oathmark vs. GW Comparison

I assembled one of the Oathmark humans to see how it scaled up next to the GW/Citadel Empire soldiers & militia kits. They won't be mixed in regiments, so close enough for me!

Still not sure they will fit on 20mm bases. I can trim the integral base down (or completely off) to make individual figures fit, but I'm not certain they'll rank up in a regiment. Especially once their shields are glued on.

Anyone have any basing experience with these guys? 

Hobbit Scouts

Stole away some bits of time the past few weeks to paint nine hobbity scouts. Just finished the bases tonight. The leader (who has a wonderful Brotherhood of the Wolf look to him) and the Reaper hobbit on the far right were painted previously. Also painted a tiny hawk from Reaper as well.

I need a new photo setup...

What's New? (July)

July's been a slow hobby month. Work continues to be busy, and we had a death in the family that's hit me pretty hard. Plus trying to fit in some summertime fun/events.

I'm currently blocking out colors on three command figures to supplement the recent OWAC Sea Elves as well as some hobbit scouts. Also starting on two hobbit characters -- one will represent a somewhat upper class mage, the other a wild nature based mage/shaman. 

As a reward to myself for finishing the OWAC, I added back to the "unpainted" side of the equation and bought a box of Oathmark humans. I've been wanting some more rough/irregular types to use as bandits or rural Wasteland militia or rebels, or even just  medium mercenary troops. They look good. The figures appear a little shorter than the older Citadel Empire plastics (a few shown for comparison). But they are still pretty bulky and it looks like the Citadel Soldiers of the Empire and Militia heads will look good on the bodies (and vise-versa). The Perry WotR plastics (not in pic) look thinner all around and I think the heads may, unfortunately, not be as good a mix.

One potential problem, I'm not sure these will fit well on 20mm square bases. So I'm considering two options -- either multi-basing, as I did with the plastic Skeletons, or just switching to 25mm square bases for these. The latter works in the context of one of the conventions among WAB (and other games) players, in which lighter troops are considered as fighter in less dense formations, thus wider bases. Depending on the rules system this could impact their fighting capabilities due to the "footprint" of the figures. Other games it may not make a difference.

I'm thinking some of the Perry Agincourt mounted knights, with some minor conversion work, may make good heavy cavalry counterparts for these infantry. Maybe a bit more like restless "younger sons" from Bretonnia, or mercenaries.

I'm also making a (very small) start on organizing my Althammer setting/campaign ideas. More on that later....

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

Dragon?

After painting rank & file, trolls and giants for so long, I feel like a change of pace.

Paint a dragon?

Here's most of my options....

I've also got an old RP frost dragon somewhere, as well as the RP shadow dragon who, unfortunately, could not support the weight of his own wings and sagged until it finally broke from metal fatigue. I keep thinking about making it into land-dragons...

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.

GoTaW

Looking forward to tonight's episode of GoTaW (Game of Tits and Wine). I'll be disappointed if it's not a bloodbath.