Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire painted core set

I have finished painting my Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire core set. I didn't paint any of the bases because I intend to base them on some clear acrylic bases once I get some that are the right size. The base size doesn't matter at all for Shadespire, but I might someday use these in Age of Sigmar so I figured I should use the standard base sizes for the models (though base size doesn't technically matter there either).

This was my first time painting any Stormcast or any Khorne models. Let me know what you think of the results.

Age of Sigmar battle report: Deathrattle vs Stormcast Eternals

I finally managed to get in a game of Age of Sigmar at the local gaming store. We played to 1250 points. I used mostly Deathrattle, though officially it was Grand Alliance Death, since I took a wraith, which can't be taken as allies to Deathrattle. I faced off against Stormcast Eternals, which obviously I know nothing about.The battleplan was Duality of Death from the General's Compendium 2017. There were two objectives on the table between the two armies. Only a leader could capture an objective by moving within 3" of it. As long as that leader stayed within 3", they would hold the objective, and at the end of their turns get a number of victory points equal to the number of turns they had held the objective for (and also heal that number of wounds).

My army was two units of 40 Skeletons each, one unit of 20 Grave Guard, a Necromancer, a Wraith, and a Wight King as my general. I also had a summoning pool of 80 points intended for use summoning a Banshee. The Necromancer and one unit of Skeletons would try to prevent the enemy from holding the objective on my right, while the rest of my army tried to capture and hold the objective on my left.

Warlord Games plastic Soviet Infantry painted for Winter War

Back when I pre-ordered my copy of the 2nd edition Bolt Action rule book, Warlord Games were giving away a free box of infantry with pre-orders. Unfortunately the Winter Soviet Infantry weren't an option, so I went with the regular Soviet Infantry box. I figured, given the supply difficulties the Soviets had at the start of the Winter War, it would be fine to have a couple units in the army without greatcoats. A lot of the options in the box aren't useful for a Winter War force, but I tried to get the most I could out of it, mixing in some extra heads I had from the Baker Company Winter War Kickstarter.

What I ended up with is three units. I made one unit of 12 in padded jackets and helmets, including a light machine gun. I made one unit of twelve in caps, a few with molotov cocktails. This will act as the "free" unit of green infantry with anti-tank grenades allowed in the Soviet army list. I also made one unit of NKVD border guard with three sub-machine guns. Have a look at the results below and let me know what you think.

Kingdom Death Monster - Olympus Year 10

A single King's Man is spotted approaching the outskirts of Olympus. The settlement's inhabitants remember when a group of these monsters came and executed Ares, with no reason or explanation. This time, they would not stand idly by and allow the armored stranger into Olympus. And they would do their best to avenge brave Ares.

Icarus, Helen, Hades, and Hera quickly put on armor and grab weapons. Icarus, the red savior, carries a cat gut bow and claw head arrow, but has only some cloth and a screaming horn helmet to protect him. Helen, the green savoir, carries the powerful counterweighted axe and wears a screaming coat, skirt, and bracers, along with a skull helm. Hades carries the butcher's cleaver and a bone axe, and wears a full suit of rawhide armor and a cat eye circlet. Hera wields the scrap sword and also wears a full suit of rawhide armor. They prepare the best they can to confront the menacing figure of the King's Man.

Kingdom Death Screaming Antelope Armor Survivors

I have now finished magnetizing and painting the Antelope Armor Survivors from the Kingdom Death: Monster core game. This was an easy and straight-forward kit to magnetize. Everything fit together well. There aren't a lot of antelope weapons, so I included some of the White Lion weapons in these pictures. As for the painting, I just painted most of it the same way as I painted the fur on my Screaming Antelope. I suppose there isn't much else to say about them. Have a look at the pictures below and let me know what you think.

Kingdom Death White Lion Armor Survivors

I've finished magnetizing and painting the Lion armor kit from the Kingdom Death: Monster core game. This set presented some interesting challenges when it came to the magnetizing. The first was the inclusion of a bow. I used some of the empty hands to hold the quiver and the two different kinds of arrows for use with the bows, rather than attach the quiver to a body. I think this works pretty well, though not all of the arm positions are really suited for a bow wielder.

Another issue I had is that the big collars make it impossible to fit many of the heads on these bodies. The major issue, however, is those little claws at the wrists of all the arms. They make it very difficult to fit some of the weapons, and this is compounded by some of the weapon hands being awkwardly positioned and difficult to make look natural to begin with (such as the cat fang knife and the katars). In retrospect, I should have just cut those little claws off at least half the models so I would have at least one male and one female who could hold pretty much any weapon without them getting in the way. Honestly, I may eventually go back and cut them off (maybe all of them) and just touch up the paint job. It would probably be worth it.

The painting on these was pretty straight forward. I just tried to paint them pretty much how I painted my White Lion. I tried to make sure there was enough difference between the flesh color of the survivors and the color of the lion skin so that they stood out from each other. I gave the one head orange hair because I thought he looked like Lion-O from Thundercats.

Unlike the other armor kits, this one came with five sets of body/legs. Two of the pairs of female legs were identical, so one of them I posed leaning way forward to make look different from the other one. The problem with that is that her head is facing down and she's not looking where she's running. I wish I had thought of that before hand and put the magnet in at a different angle to have her looking straight ahead.

Kingdom Death Phoenix

I have finally tackled painting the Phoenix for Kingdom Death: Monster. I wanted it to look more colorful than in the official artwork, and more colorful than the other monsters I've painted. I went with a red/orange/yellow look to the feathers, which also goes well with the name of the monster. I did a really simple paint job on the feathers. I base coated the whole thing white, then painted bands of red, orange, and yellow ink, with some overlap in between. It worked pretty well, but in retrospect I should have done some dry-brushing or stippling where the colors meet, especially the orange and yellow, to get it to blend together better. Obviously it could have looked better if I had painted the feathers individually, but I wasn't going to spend that much time on it. For something quick I think this looks decent, and maybe I'll go back and blend it together better sometime in the future.

After I finished the feathers, the rest was pretty straight forward. Most of the rest is painted a fleshy color, with the little sores or whatever they are in a pinker shade. I don't think I've ever painted something this big that wasn't terrain, so it was interesting trying to paint the huge areas of flesh. But I just painted them the same way I would paint any area of skin, including a wash at the end, and it worked fine. I don't know where to get a 100 mm diameter clear acrylic base, so for now it is temporarily on a plain black base. I think the branch he is standing on is supposed to be up in a tree anyway, so I think it would look a little strange no matter what kind of base he was on.

Have a look at the pictures below and let me know what you think.

Leven Miniatures 6mm ACW Buildings

I recently finished painting up a few 6mm resin American Civil War buildings produced by Leven Miniatures. I bought mine from The Wargaming Company booth at the Little Wars Convention.

Since my American Civil War miniatures are 10mm, the 6mm buildings do represent something of a compromise between the figure scale and the ground scale. Because of this they look too small for the figures, but take up a more reasonable amount of space on the table. I thought 10mm buildings would just take up too much space and dominate the rest of the terrain. Even with 6mm buildings, obviously each building needs to represent more than one building given the amount of ground it takes up. For convenience, I intend each building to represent enough buildings to be occupied by one regiment during a game.

I think the end result looks pretty good, given that there is almost always going to be this compromise between figure scale and ground scale for buildings. Even playing games in say 28mm where each figure represents an individual, buildings tend to be in scale when it comes to height, but take up a much smaller footprint than the actual building would.

This was my first time painting small scale buildings, and it was a challenge. I'm sure there are just some different techniques that could be used to make small scale buildings look a lot better than these, but I'm not sure what they are. Below you can see some pictures of the newly painted buildings along with some of my roads, fields, and an infantry regiment. Have a look and let me know what you think of the painting and the scale difference.

Black Powder American Civil War Battle Report: Daybreak at Hangman's Creek

I finally got around to trying out the American Civil War scenario from the Black Powder rulebook. Daybreak at Hangman's Creek sees a small Confederate division advancing on the town of Hangman's Creek at dawn. A small Union division is in the area, but they are not expecting trouble and most of them start off the table. All of the Union officers start in the town, and they will have to scramble to get their brigades moved up and deployed once they realize they are under attack. To the Union left of the town is a large Union camp. To the right, across the river, is a gun foundry. The Confederate objective is to capture the camp, town, or gun foundry, with a greater victory earned by capturing two or all three of them.

At the start of the game, one Union regiment is deployed in skirmish order in the fields north of town. They are allowed one free initiative move each turn until they are given an order, but the Union commanders (in the town) are not allowed to issue any orders or move until the alarm is raised. The alarm is raised at the end of any turn in which any unit fires or fights a round of close combat. The Confederates split their forces to attack all three objectives at once. They will need to advance quickly on their objectives before the Union officers have a chance to organize a proper defense if they are to secure victory.

Kingdom Death Monster - Olympus Year 9

After their last few hunts, the survivors of Olympus are feeling pretty confident in their abilities, but not confident enough to face the totally unknown creature whose feather fell on their settlement. Zeus gathers some experienced hunters and decides to try to hunt an older, more experienced (level 2) screaming antelope, in the hope its larger body will provide greater resources.

Zeus carries his king spear and wears the newly crafted screaming coat and the helm fashioned from the skull of brave Ares (who was executed by armored strangers). Aphrodite wears a full set of rawhide armor and is armed with a the scrap sword. Athena II also wears full rawhide armor and carries both the butcher cleaver and bone axe. Rounding out the hunting party is the relatively inexperienced Artemis, who wears the cat eye circlet and is armed only with a founding stone. The intention is for her to mostly observe the battle and help the others spot weak points and openings in the monster's defense.

Baker Company Winter War Soviets First Wave

My first batch of Baker Company Winter War Soviets (from their long-ago Kickstarter campaign) are finally finished. Below you can see pictures of the finished first wave (consisting of 6 squads of 10 infantry each and an officer with three infantrymen accompanying) plus two commissars and a standard bearer from the second wave of stretch goal extras. If you're interested in how I painted them, you can find all the details in my previous post: Painting Winter War Soviets. I came up with a pretty quick method that allowed me to paint this many infantry relatively (for me) quickly. Since what is pictured only amounts to about 600 some odd points for Bolt Action, I still have quite a lot more painting to do, including all the other Kickstarter extras. Let me know what you think so far.

Kingdom Death Monster - Olympus Year 8

Dionysus and Aphrodite depart with first-time hunters Apollo and Artemis to search for a young (level 1) screaming antelope. Dionysus carries his twilight sword while Aphrodite carries the scrap sword and wears the skull of Ares (skull helm) on her head. They have only cloth for armor, letting the new hunters Apollo and Artemis wear the full suits of rawhide armor. Apollo carries a bone axe, while Artemis has only bone darts to fight with, and wears the cat eye circlet to help direct the attacks of the others to the most vulnerable parts of the monster.

While they travel, Aphrodite's cloth armor is destroyed in a patch of sharp grass. The hunt is otherwise fairly uneventful, and the survivors soon find signs of a young screaming antelope. They also find a fresh monster corpse nearby. They decide to wait near the dead monster hoping the antelope would be drawn to it to investigate.

Warhammer Quest Centaurs (Reaper Miniatures)

I've finished painting six Reaper Miniatures centaurs for use in Warhammer Quest. Games Workshop doesn't have centaur miniatures, so this is what we went with way back when we were first playing Warhammer Quest. I tried out several different horse colors to give some variation to the identical miniatures. I haven't painted many horses so I was experimenting, but I think these turned out pretty well.

Have a look below and let me know what you think of the results.

Kingdom Death Monster - Olympus Year 7

Dionysus, Athena II, Hades, and the newly born green savior Helen head out in search of a (level 1) white lion. Dionysus and Helen each wear a full suit of rawhide armor, while Athena II wears a skull helm. Dionysus carries his twilight sword, Helen is armed with the scrap sword, Athena II carries the butcher's cleaver, and Hades is armed with the king spear and also carries some bandages.

One night while out on the hunt, Dionysus and Athena both experience night terrors, and are affected in different ways. Dionysus becomes traumatized by what he sees (will fall down if adjacent to a monster at the end of his act) while Athena II is henceforth gripped with indecision. Later in their journey, they discover a lion sculpture, the examination of which imparts some additional understanding of the world to them, which results in an increase in their insanity.

Soon after, the group locates the object of their hunt.

HMGS MidWest Little Wars 2017 Convention

I attended the Little Wars 2017 convention in Lombard Illinois on April 28th. Unfortunately I was only able to attend on the convention on Friday. There were a lot of events I was interested in scheduled for Saturday and Sunday as well that I had to miss out on. Even so, was able to play in two games: a Hail Caesar game of Romans vs Britons, and a Black Powder game of Poles vs Russians set during the Polish uprising of 1794. And I found some bargains in the dealer hall and flea market. I also took some pictures of the other games that were set up Friday morning. Have a look below for my general pictures of other games, followed by pictures of the two games I played with details of the how the games went.

Painting Winter War Soviets

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Soviet infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step. The order can be changed around on some of the steps, and they are actually in a slightly different order in the pictures. I primed some of the models white and some grey, and it didn't seem to make much difference, so either is fine.

1. Codex Grey - basecoat greatcoats, equipment, M27 caps, bases
2. Adeptus Battlegrey - basecoat black boots and rifle metal
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush greatcoats, M27 caps, and equipment
4. Fortress Grey - highlight boots, rifle metal
5. Skull White - dry brush greatcoats, M27 caps
6. Mechrite Red - paint collar diamond patches and cap patches
7. Nuln Oil - wash coat, cap, rifle metal, black boots, and bases
8. Calthan Brown - basecoat belt, ammo pouches, rifle wood, blanket roll, gloves, entrenching tool handle, brown ankle boots, khaki pants/puttees/helmets, and NCO fleece cap (this is the hardest step, and I actually broke it up into multiple steps when painting up 30 of these guys at a time)
9. Desert Yellow - edge highlight rifle wood, wet brush gloves, blanket roll, brown ankle boots, khaki
10. Bleached Bone - paint rifle straps, dry brush khaki and cap fur
11. Devlan Mud - wash blanket roll, gloves, rifle wood, belts, ammo pouches, and brown ankle boots
12. Sea green (don't know the actual name of this paint) - wet brush backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, and entrenching tool cover (don't forget the straps around the blanket roll)
13. Athonian Camoshade - wash backpack, gas mask case and straps, bottle cover, entrenching tool cover, and khaki
14. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
15. Elf Flesh - wet brush faces
16. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
17. Chainmail - paint cup, rifle bolts, and belt buckles
18. White - paint eyes
19. Black - dot eyes

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower Episode 2

See the previous episode here.

After their successes in obtaining the fragments of Hysh and Shyish, Byron was persuaded by his Aelf companions (against his better judgement) to attempt the trial of Ghyran. They didn't get far. The party immediately encountered a fleeing skaven deathrunner assassin. Before they could defeat the wily adversary, the acolytes it was apparently fleeing from arrived. The Aelf assassin, already badly wounded, was butchered by an acolyte with two weapons. (Already with four wounds, he was wounded a further four times by the one acolyte.)

Byron and the mistweaver saih (and Byron's skeletons) fought on without their comrade (as they had grown accustomed to doing) and defeated the deathrunner. Before they could finish off the remaining acolytes, another deathruner assassin and more acolytes turned up. The two adventurers fought on heroically, but eventually the mistweaver and finally the necromancer were brought down by the deathrunner and the acolytes.

Baker Company Winter War Finns First Wave

My first batch of Baker Company Winter War Finns (from their long-ago Kickstarter campaign) are finished. The sculpts aren't great, and I think some of the casting on these was rushed and they suffered some issues as a result. However, I did get a lot of Finns and Soviets for my money. Below you can see pictures of my first batch of Finns, consisting mostly of the basic infantry squads with a few extra things thrown in. There's still much more to do. I came up with a painting method that was pretty fast so I could batch paint these to a decent enough standard fairly quickly. If you're interested, you can see all the details of my paint scheme in a previous blog post: Painting Winter War Finns.

Unfortunately, the pictures didn't turn out great. I don't know if it has to do with the lighting, or how much white is on the miniatures, or more likely the glare from the transparent bases. Many of the pictures came out dark and a bit blue-ish. I'm not sure how to fix that, but hopefully these give a decent impression of the results I got with my batch painting method.

Kingdom Death King's Man and The Hand

See below for some pictures of my painted King's Man and The Hand. I tried my best to get something close to the "official" color scheme from some pictures I found through Google. I think they were from art cards that came with the resin versions of The Hand and the King's Man. Currently the images can be found on a Kingdom Death fan wiki here: The Hand and King's Man. Painting the King's Man was pretty straightforward, but the Hand was much more elaborate.

The picture of The Hand has intricate patterns all over his clothing. I wasn't going to try to freehand paint anything like the actual patterns, but I did try to achieve a similar effect. All I really did was put random little squiggly lines all over, without trying to actually make a pattern out of it. Up close it is obvious the lines don't really form any kind of patter, but at a tabletop distance the effect is fairly convincing. So I'm pretty happy with how that turned out. I'm also pretty happy with the metallic cloth effect I was able to achieve on The Hand's cape. I don't think the gold armor pieces turned out very well, but maybe if I give them a gloss varnish coat to make them more shiny that will help.

Painting Winter War Finns

I have finalized my process for painting my Winter War Finnish infantry. There are a lot of steps, but most of them go very quickly and don't require careful painting or much skill, so I was able to get my infantry painted relatively quickly using this process. There are also some steps (like numbers 14 and 20-24) that could be left out without making too much difference from a distance, but I thought they added enough to the overall look to be worth the little time they took. The paints I used are mostly out of print Citadel paint colors, but hopefully by looking at the pictures below for each stage you can figure out an equivalent color to use, if you want to follow a similar process.

Here is the full list of steps. Further down I have close up pictures showing the results of applying each step.

1. Chaos Black - undercoat/basecoat everywhere
2. Adeptus BattleGrey - paint winter camouflage coat/pants and helmets, hats, gloves, black boots, bases, and NCO pants, leaving black in recesses
3. Fortress Grey - wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some Astronomicon Grey at edges (AVOID boots, bases, gloves, hats, and NCO pants)
4. Fortress Grey - edge highlight black boots
5.  Codex Grey - dry brush NCO pants, black gloves, and cloth hats
6. Codex Grey - edge highlight cloth hats
7. Skull White - lightly wet brush winter camouflage coat/pants, leaving some grey at edges
8. Catachan Green - basecoat bread bags and straps
9. Salamander Green - paint helmets, paint wide stripe on NCO pants
10. Tallarn Flesh - basecoat faces
11. Gretchin Green - wet brush bread bags and their straps
12. Badab Black - wash black boots, bases, black gloves, helmets
13. Elf Flesh - highlight/wet brush faces
14. Dwarf Flesh - paint lower lips
15. Calthan Brown - basecoat rifle wood, brown leather boots, belts, mittens, and rifle straps
16. Calthan Brown - wet brush ammo pouches, beards, hair, and cap fur
17. Desert Yellow - wet brush/highlight rifle wood, brown leather boots, leather pouches, mittens
18. Bleached Bone - highlight/dry brush mittens, wet brush rifle straps, beards, and cap fur
19. Ogryn Flesh - wash rifle wood, brown leather boots, ammo pouches
20. Adeptus BattleGrey - highlight gun metal and bayonets, paint helmet straps
21. Chainmail - paint cap buttons, edges of bayonets, rifle bolts
22. Skull White - paint cap badges and eyes
23. Sky Blue - dot center of cap badges
24. Chaos Black - dot eyeballs

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

In a vast and statue lined Chamber did the champions first come together. Whether by the dark designs of the Gaunt Summoner, or the vagaries of fate and destiny, each champion descended the winding stairs to face one another across a sigiletched floor. How each had come to this place was an epic tale in itself. Why each had come remained a secret known only to them. Yet it was Clear that, for now, their paths were intertwined.

It was then that the Gaunt Summoner’s visage loomed above the champions in a blaze of unearthly light. In a booming voice the Summoner revealed that, should the champions wish to win his boon, they would have to best his trials. Only in this way might they gather the fragments of the shattered amulet upon which his truename was inscribed. Do this, the Gaunt Summoner promised, and the Champions would have whatever they desired. Fail, and they would be his prisoners forevermore. With this the Summoner faded from sight, leaving only his echoing laughter, and a glowing portal leading on into the Silver Tower’s labyrinthine depths.

Having arrived at the long-sought Silver Tower of Tzeentch, Byron quickly allied himself with a mistweaver saih and aelf assassin. He didn't have a great deal of choice, really. Even in the face of such peril as awaited them in the silver tower, many adventurers tend to avoid and distrust necromancers. The shadowy elves had no such qualms, however. And they spoke very little, which suited Byron just fine.

Kingdom Death Monster - Olympus Year 6

Hera, Dionysus, Ares, and Hephaestus depart Olympus to hunt for a (level 1) white lion. Hera is armed with a scrap sword and wears a full set of rawhide armor. Dionysus wears some rawhide and carries his twilight sword. Hephaestus brings the king spear, and Ares carries the butcher's cleaver in one hand and a bone ax in the other.

On the way, the survivors find a lion cub, which they slaughter, gaining some precious resources. The rest of their hunt is relatively uneventful, and they eventually track down an adult white lion.