Attack of the blue space mayans

Got the Kukulkani done!
 

I've gotten my camera set up, so I've indulged myself a bit with the pictures. I'm quite happy with them too, part of the reason I started them was to see what I could do paint-wise without spending too much time on them. Trying to find the optimum balance between quality and speed for a given unit size, sorta.
I think I did ok, especially with the NMM. The gold could easily do with more work, but it's pretty good considering the time I spent on it, even if I do say so myself. I realise I haven't written much about the background, so here's a wall of text before the rest of the pics:

Background-wise they're Mayans, who got picked up from earth when a passing alien civilisation realised they worshipped beings much like them. Hence the name Kukulkani, Kukulkan being the Mayan name of the feathered snake-god Quezalcoatl. These aliens apparently saw some use in having a slave-warrior race that considered them to be actual gods (I imagine there's some hefty benefits to morale from that) so they picked these guys up and since then they've been given some pretty insane modifications.

The planet the game takes place on has a race of robots using a power source that is looted/copied from the one their masters use, and thus is considered holy.
Of course, they react to this with all the grace and diplomatic ability that one would expect, and descend on the planet to brutally sacrifice absolutely everyone they find. The gods aren't picky, after all. 

Model-wise, I'm very impressed with the sculpts - they're finely detailed and have a lot of character, IMHO. I'm NOT very impressed with the fit and organisation of the parts, however. When putting them together, I would have appreciated some sort of assembly guide or even just a set of pictures of the actual models showing both front and rear to work from. Instead, it was just bits in bags and the picture of the models on the front of the box was all I had to go on. The models aren't even entirely the same - the leader's cape (which is 4 pieces - cape, 2 pieces of fur and the clasp) aren't the same that's modelled on the box, and it took a while to figure it out.

I mean, none of this is impossible, but it'd be a small thing to pack each model in its own little bag and it'd have save a fair amount of time.
Sour grapes over - they're nice models, it's just a shame with a minor but annoying mistake like that.

A few closeups:

These guys are called harvesters. From what I understand, they're meant to run around, be difficult to hit thanks to some sort of evasion-rule, and use a non-lethal attack to take down the enemy. Then the big guy can get a permanent stat boost when he scoots in and kills them while they're lying down.

These chaps are warriors. They have the same non-lethal attack the guys above have, and some other stuff that I think makes them better in CC.

Finally, the big lad. Supreme War-captain, he's called. Whenever he kills someone, he gains a stat boost, so by the end of the game he should be very, very unpleasant to be near I think.

I've got my first game tomorrow, so there might be a post then with some thoughts on the game.

And, as always, comments and thoughts are much appreciated.

Back to Infinity, plus some space mayans

Alright, I got the Domaru done just in time for the monthly paint challenge over on the infinity forums. Well pleased with him too:

This leaves me just 8 models short of completing the JSA I've got. 5 Keisotsu Butai in a link team, a Kempeitai, an Oniwaban and Oniwaban Shinobu Kitsune.
I'm getting better with loaded brush blending too, I think the rest of the JSA is going to be easier to do with this technique. White is heaps easier, I find.

I've been pulled into a small Dark Age force as well, as I said last time, and the first one's gotten a basic paintjob now:

Still got 2 warriors and the captain to go, but they should be done soonish.
They're fun to paint, I'll give them that, but ye gods the assembly... Probably the fiddliest models I've worked with so far.

Lastly, the club I go to is running a frostgrave campaign, so I've gotten on board with that too, with this being the start of a little warband:

And a few guys in WiP:

And that's what I've gotten done lately. Comments and criticism welcome as always!

A finished project? Surely not...

Yes, the title is correct - I have actually finished a project!
I think the last time I could say that was in.. 2010 or something, when I managed to complete a bunch of Russians for SOTR.
It is, of course, the Lion Rampant army, and completed is a bit of a misnomer as they still need some varnish and some grass on the bases, but that's going to have to wait until I find my spray varnish. I can't be bothered brush-varnishing these, there's far too many of them.

List-wise, it's 6 foot knights, 6 mounted serjeants, 12 foot serjeants with polearms, 12 foot serjeants with pikes, 12 crossbowmen and a unit of 6 bidowers, skirmishing archers. They represent the forces of Graf Wihelm, a minor noble of a German family, trying to stop the nefarious Danes under my friend Mikkel from burning and looting everything in the Brandenburg region. It's a bit much for my little photo-tent to handle, so this is going to be a bit of a photo-dump. 

These guys have been my command group for the first few battles we've had, as the chap on the left waving his sword about seemed like a good commander. I've since realised that it'd be more realistic if they more or less had the same colours throughout the unit, as a group of this size would apparently be from the same house, or the retinue of a knight or noble wearing his colours. My opponent, Mikkel, is a historian, and I'm inclined to believe more or less anything he says on the matter.
Of course, the logical solution is to expand the army with more units.

The mounted serjeants got split up, they were too big for a single pic. In-game, they function as the personal guard of my commander, Graf Wilhelm. He's the fellow in the knightly armour with the blue lance, and the other blue lance is his squire. Neither are keen to be mistaken for the commoners they lead, that simply wouldn't do. 

 
These are the foot serjeants with polearms. I'm actually on the fence about them, as they've been quite ineffective in game. Their polearms give them 4+ in attack value instead of 5+, but they lose schiltron which is very useful for static defense, and it costs 2 points. Maybe I need to use them differently.
In-game, they're the household troops of graf Wilhelm, hence the more regimented colours and better equipment.

These are also foot serjeants, but I'm thinking I'll field them as foot yeomen instead - they're visibly poorer equipped compared to the guys above and are posed statically, so it'd make sense for them to be town militia I think.

I'd been looking forward to fielding these when I got them done! They're meant to be Italian mercenaries, lead by the disgraced nobleman Luigi, and sadly they've been very mercenary-ish on the field - very reluctant to fight, and they spent most of the last game we had in a discussion about their pay before they finally passed an activation towards the end of the game. 

Lastly, the bidowers. Obviously, they're the old, old Perry Warhammer sculpts, but they actually fit in nicely I think, since the rest of the army is Perry sculpts too barring some of the crossbowmen. They're superfluous in the list too, so they're simply there for a bit of variety. 

But yeah, that's an army completed. Feels strange... 

Not to worry, there's plenty to do still. I've started a Domaru for the JSA, I think my white is improving a bit:

Aaaaand I've been nagged by a friend to start a Dark Age warband, so here's some Kukulkani:

They're getting a quick and dirty paintjob tho. Nothing fancy.

Comments and your thoughts are most welcome as always!

Plodding along

Things are moving slowly here, but they're moving at least.

The Lion Rampant army is slowly getting there, but I'm afraid it's quite difficult to grab pics of large units so that the models are actually visible. You'll have to make do with some rather smaller pics until I get a hold of Mikkel soonish and get everything set up for a battle.

I've almost got the crossbowmen painted as well, meaning that I've only got a single 12-man unit of foot sergeants with polearms left!
This means I'm close to being actually done with an army, which is pretty unusual for me. I'm still trying to come to terms with it really, but at least there's plenty more to work on.

The skaven is slowly coming along too, I've got 3 in the alcohol to get rid of some paint on them, and I'm playing about with a warlord for them. Recently, I saw the Painting Budda painting videos they did with the AoS starter, and the loaded brush technique they've used looked very interesting. Luckily I had a Skaven warlord lying about that I was going to paint anyway, and he makes a decent testing model.

Results aren't perfect and while I think he's looking decent there's a lot of work in mastering that technique. Nonetheless, I think there's a lot of promise in it, when I get it to work it works beautifully and gives a nice smooth blend with very little effort.

Next update should include a lot of crossbowmen and hopefully an infinity model or two. I miss working on sci-fi. 

Slow and steady

Getting closer to that complete-some-projects goal!
Lately, I've gotten the mounted serjeants for the Lion Rampant force completed. They couldn't fit in my lightbox all 6 at a time, so 2 pictures it is:

In-game, these are going to be a group of young sons of well-off families from a hansestadt, who nonetheless aren't noble. As far as I can tell, it was fairly usual for rich families to do this. I assume it's been good networking, the LinkedIn of the medieval era. That's why the obviously noble commander is riding with them: Clearly, they aren't as bad as the usual rabble (they have money, after all), but they might still need some stiffening from a proper, noble, commander. He's taken his squire with him, they're the ones with blue lances.

I usually loathe painting cavalry models, so it's a testament to the Perry brothers sculpting that these were actually decently fun to paint. Not something I'm looking forward to doing again, but not as bad as cavalry usually is. Dunno what it is about cav, but it's not my thing.

Also gotten started on the tiny skaven warband. It's basically going to be 10 stormvermin and a character in the lead, unless I fall into the trap of scope-creep.

I might tweak the red a bit, it's slightly flat I think.

And finally, I got some infinity done - the female wildcat. The guy with the spitfire snuck into the shot as well:

Sadly, I can't get the link team completed with the last Wildcat. The model I got might have a mismatched arm, and I'm going to wait until I get hold of the Corregidor box to see if there's something I can do about it.

Thanks for reading!

Reverend Healer and a quick WiP

Last time I visited my FLGS, I was massively flattered to have them ask to display my starter minis in their cabinet for a while. I couldn't really refuse of course, so I had to toss some paint at the much-neglected Reverend Healer. She's never really gotten done since I don't seem to be able to fit her into my lists.

I'm well pleased with the result, especially since I did it in a relatively (for me) short time.

The model seemed to grow on me while painting, and I think I might actually try fielding her once or twice.
I've also managed to get a photo setup that I think works. As I think I've mentioned, when I graduated my GF gave me a nice new painting lamp as a graduation gift. It's also handy for photos, it seems, so I might well start putting some older minis up once in a while, as I dig them out in the normal course of things.

Next model, most likely a Wildcat since I'm in the mood for shiny red and white right now:

And after her, we'll be right back to the historicals - I've got some more mounted serjeants that need paint.

As always, thanks for looking and feel free to leave a comment.

More Lion Rampant and a touch of Infinity

Well, more Lion Rampant tonight!

I've had my first game, last friday actually, and it's a heap of fun. Activations keep the game a bit unpredictable, but no more than you would expect from a chaotic situation with an angry nobleman screaming at unruly peasants from across a muddy field, combat is quick and fun, and the terrain my friend set up is gorgeous. He wrote up a battle report here showing what went on better than I can write up here, so go check it out: http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=80214.0

The end result was my forces beaten on points, barely, but with most of the villainous Danes either killed or sent running from the field, and his commander being bested in personal combat with my own leader and sent packing on his panicked horse.

It gave me a fair bit of impetus painting-wise, so I've been working almost solely on Lion Rampant units since.

First off, I completed the unit of Bidowers I've been working on. These are skirmishing archers, moving faster than other units and unhindered by terrain, but with terrible armour. They're good for picking off a few models off other units before engaging them in hand-to-hand, especially since units get 12 combat dice until they're half strength, then they get 6. This makes picking off that crucial 7th or 4th model vitally important once there's been a bit of attrition, and also good for forcing unpleasant morale tests, since they're modified by the total number of models lost so far.

 The models, of course, are the old Perry Brettonnian plastics from the old, old WHFB starter. I think the fact that I'm using Perry sculpts is part of the reason I'm enjoying this project so much - something about the style and models, also on the newer metals, are very reminiscent of back when I started the hobby. It's a nice trip down memory lane, even with better models.

These pikemen are going to be foot serjeants in-game. Serjeants were typically citizenry with decent equipement but reservists rather than professional soldiers. Still, with the minor conflicts endemic in 14th century German, it's not unlikely that a fair number of these were fairly hard-bitten vets even without being professional soldiers, at least as I see it.

The unit will number 12 models when it's done, and I'm having a ball painting them. I've even gotten 2 painted in the time between taking these pics and posting them... Although I won't be painting more infantry than that right now since I've run out of bases.

The last Lion Rampant for tonight is the Mounted Serjeants. The army will include a unit of 6 of these, and the chap in the middle on the black horse is going to be my leader. Background-wise he's going to be a minor lord from the Welf family who's taken charge of a combined force of his own / Welf family troops and reinforcements from Brunswick-Lüneburg. Their lances will be done later, when I can do the entire unit at a time.

This puts the completed tally for the Lion Rampant project, with the two foot serjeants not shown, at 19 models painted, out of 49. (Unless it grows, which it probably will to be honest. It's a fun game.)

It wouldn't be a proper update without a bit of infinity, and I've gotten the first Knight of Santiago done:

The pictures haven't turned out that well - it's a difficult model to photograph - but I'm really pleased with this one. It shows that I've changed the way I paint blue from the legs to the torso, but it's still one of my favorite infinity models I've painted, right after the Mobile Brigada, Father Knight and Crusader.
Tally for the PanO: 1 model, the other KoS missing, then that's a wrap!

As always, comments and such is most welcome, and thank you for reading.