Games Workshop: Nurgle Plaguebearers

These plaguebearers are part of a Demons of Chaos army that is one of several unfinished projects I have still ongoing. When I returned to wargaming after my long hiatus, I tried getting back into Warhammer, and planned to start a Demons army to give me something new to play with besides my old Empire and Orcs & Goblins horde. So far though I've only really flirted with 8th edition, playing maybe a half dozen or so games. Too many other games have intruded upon my time and attention since then. But I do hope to at least go back and finish painting up the other chaos miniatures I collected, even if I don't end up playing all that much Warhammer again. These plaguebearers were great fun to paint. I used a variety of yellow and green ink washes to give each of the figures a slightly different hue, but still keep within the same overall tone. The basing is admittedly very simple, but when it comes to basing I sometimes think that less is more.

Kallistra undead: Skeleton warriors

I made a start to my 10mm undead army this week. Like my barbarians, all the minis I have so far are from Kallistra, and very nice they are too. First up is this unit of skeleton warriors. Excuse the pun, but these were dead easy to paint. I wanted to avoid using bright colours and instead keep the skeletons looking like they have been lying in the ground for a long time. I'd normally undercoat small miniatures in black, but for these guys I used a white undercoat, which I then washed with GW's Nuln Oil. I then drybrushed the bones using a skeleton bone colour. The shields and weapons are all done in muted browns, which I applied using very thinned down paint. This was followed by some more dark brown ink washes, and finally a quick pass with a dry brush of skeleton bone colour. The blue areas you see were done with a wash of GW's Drakenhof Nightshade and white drybrush.

All in all, the unit took less than 2 hours, which is great going for me, since I'm not a very fast painter by any means. I'm hoping my other undead units will be just as quick and easy to paint :-)

Kallistra Barbarians: Mammoths

I haven't had an awful lot to show for this month so far, but here's another little addition I finished today for my 10mm barbarians. More loveliness from Kallistra. These mammoths will look fantastic riding into battle alongside the rest of the units, and I'm sure I'll add more of them in future. The models actually come with four riders a piece, but I struggled a bit to get them all to fit on. Perhaps the extra riders are included to give you some options of which ones to choose, or maybe I just wasn't squeezing them all in tightly enough. Either way, three riders per mammoth looks plenty to me.

I still have a couple more blisters of barbarians to paint - a command pack and some birdmen, but I've now started on my 10mm skeleton army, so I hope to show some pics of those soon.

Finished: Celtic chariot

Among the other minis I picked up at Claymore was this Celtic chariot from 1st Corps, which I really like. As with my Early Imperial Romans, my Celtic army is still pretty small, but I'm adding models to it as and when I can. No doubt I'll want more chariots before long, but this was a good one to start with.

Before starting, I looked at the well known Celtic chariot illustration by Angus Mcbride, and used the figures in that as reference for the clothes. They're not identical, but the colour scheme is very similar. I'm pretty sure there was an actual miniature made of that painting by Angus McBride, but can't quite remember which company produced it. (Warlord, maybe?)

The only thing I didn't like about this mini was the chunky spear that came with it, so I swapped it for a spare one I had from Foundry, which I think looks more realistic. I'm fairly happy with the paint job, especially the horses, which have never been my strong point. It would be a nice touch to add reins to the the horses and chariot driver, but I'm not sure yet what I'd use. Some thin wire, perhaps? I deliberately kept the base uncluttered for this mini, but I'll probably go back and add one or two small tufts just to break up the ground a bit. All in all, a good bit of painting so far for the week, and the first dent made in the Claymore lead pile.

Claymore 2014

Real life has been a bit busy these past couple of weeks, so not quite as much time to paint and blog, but I did recently finish this unit of horse riders for my 10/12mm barbarian army. I decided to base them with the short edge forwards so that I could also use them more easily for Warmaster if and when I get round to using it.

My hobby highlight of the past fortnight was definitely the trip to Claymore last weekend. I came away with my wallet scarily lighter and my backpack a lot heavier, but more importantly my enthusiasm for all things wargaming and miniature painting was well and truly stoked up. Amongst the various traders whose stands I visited, was Kallistra, where I bought some more of their Hordes & Heroes barbarians, as well as some skeletons for the new army I plan to start soon. I also picked up a couple of boxes of their Hexon terrain, which I really like, and will blog more about in future posts.

I'll show some of the rest of my lead haul from Claymore later, but for now here are a couple more pics of my barbarians for you to enjoy. I've been a bit inconsisten with my choice of basing materials for these, but hopefully the whole army will still visually hang together reasonably well.

Epic armies

As well as showing my latest painting and hobby projects, I'm going to use this blog to share some of my collection of older models. Most of these will be from the early to mid 90s when I played a lot of GW games, including Warhammer, Bloodbowl and Space Marine (Epic). So if you're in the mood for a nostalgic look at brightly painted armies then you should enjoy these.

Staying with Epic for the moment, here's a look at my Ultramarines force from SM2, which I recently lined up for the camera. I'm very excited to say that these fellas will be taking to the battlefield once again next month when they take on an army of Orks using NetEpic rules. NetEpic is something new to me, but is a fan-driven set of rules that evolved out of 2nd ed Space Marine. If you're interested in knowing more about it, head over to the Tactical Command forums at http://www.taccmd.tacticalwargames.net/

Old lead...fresh paint

One of my favourite games from years ago was Games Workshop's 2nd edition Space Marine (aka 'Epic'). I had (and still have) a sizeable force of Ultramarines (bolstered with some Imperial Guard tanks) which would go up against my brother's Chaos army, and we had some absolutely storming games! I never actually managed to beat him, but the games were mostly very close fought affairs, and usually went down to the final turn to be decided. I loved the tactical nature of Space Marine, which seemed more rewarding than Warhammer Fantasy Battle in that sense. It was also refreshing to be able to collect a large army for not too much coinage, and be able to paint it quite quickly.

I recently dusted down my Epic figs - both my own and my brother's - and had an enjoyable couple of games again (albeit only solo ones). My brother had a small number of miniatures that he never got round to painting, including this Nurgle Greater Demon. Since I'm custodian of his figs these days, I couldn't resist the temptation of giving life to this great miniature and painting him up. I hope my brother doesn't mind!!! Next up is Mortarion, the Prince of Decay. Watch this space... :-)

Finished: Roman Scorpion Catapult

I finally finished off the Early Imperial Roman Scorpion yesterday. It took a little longer than anticipated because I decided that a base this size really needed a bit of time and effort put into it.

I used Milliput to model the ground and, while this was still wet, added a few small stones from the garden, together with some smaller scenic gravel. Once that had all dried I undercoated the base black and started drybrushing greys and white for the stony areas and various mixes of green, yellow and brown for the earth. I used some ink washes here and there as well, just to blend everything together. I'd run out of scenic bushes and tufts, so I used an old model tree and cut some pieces from it to use as shrubs. A few daubs of yellow paint gives them the appearance of broom. A final touch was to scatter some of the particles of the tree cuttings around the bases of the shrubs.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how this piece turned out. Hope you like it.

Something old, something new...

Things have been a bit slow on the painting front this past week, so here's a couple of pics from my collection - an oldie and a newbie. Actually, they're both old, but I only got round to painting these crossbowmen last year - about 20 years after buying them!

Note the absence of goblin green on the crossbowmen bases. Ah, how times have changed...

Back in the day, I would usually just try and emulate the amazing talents of the Games Workshop 'Eavy Metal team, so a lot of my miniatures from that time (such as the giant here) pretty much followed the colour schemes and designs of what I saw in the pages of White Dwarf. Not very original I know, but it was a good way to bring on my painting skills.

Kallistra barbarians

After putting in lots of hours recently on 28mm projects, I decided to take a little break and paint up some of my Kallistra barbarians. I'm part way through putting together this army, having already painted units of boar riders, archers, ballistae and chariots earlier in the year. I'm not sure yet if I'll use these guys to play some Warmaster or Kallistra's own Hordes & Heroes rules (neither of which I've ever tried).

These barbarians were good fun to paint up. They're technically 10mm, although I think Kallistra describes them as 'big 10s', so they're more like 12mm really.

In progress: Roman Scorpion catapult

Just a quick post to show a couple of progress pics of the Roman Scorpion catapult I mentioned in the last post. The crew are now done so it's on with the artillery piece and the basing. As a side note, I decided not to paint the eyes on the standing figure since he's shielding his eyes from the sun, and I thought that painting the eyes might spoil the illusion of him squinting.

I'm aiming to finish this model early next week in between other projects, so final photos to follow soon, hopefully.

Finished: Celtic Warriors

I finally got round to finishing off my first batch of Celtic warriors this week. These have been more or less finished for some time now. I just had to add some small details and do the basing. The figs, like the Roman legionnaires in the previous post, were from Warlord Games's Conquest of Gaul boxed set. I think there are about 60 Celts in total, so still plenty to do. Because of the poses, I found that it was difficult to get four miniatures on each 40x40mm stand, so just went with three, but they still look fine at that, especially if a second row was added as per the Hail Caesar! rules for warbands. Once again, the shield transfers are by Little Big Men Studios.

Elsewhere, I'm about half way through the French Old Guard Napoleonic unit from Victrix that I'm painting up, and also working on a Roman Scorpion catapult, which I'll post up tomorrow probably.

Finished: Napoleon's 3rd Swiss Regiment

Delighted to say that I finished up the 3rd Swiss Regiment that I've been working on this past week or so. These were the models I had left over from the Warlord Games boxed set of French line infantry - hence no command figs at present. I do like the black, red and white uniforms of this regiment, and they should look good on the wargaming table, and add a nice bit of variety amongst the French colours. Enjoy the photos :-)

Roman Legionnaires

This was a unit I finished a little while back after I had picked up the Conquest of Gaul boxed set from Warlord Games. The box contains the Hail Caesar! rules plus a load of Roman Legionnaires and Celts. I still haven't played a Hail Caesar game yet, but I did enjoy painting up these figs, especially since they didn't take too long. And the shield transfers by Little Big Men Studios look excellent I think.

I've also finished the first batch of Celtic warriors, and will post photos of those soon, once I've got round to finishing the bases.

Roman Auxiliaries

I'm still fairly new to collecting and painting historical miniatures. Most of what I've painted in the past has been for Warhammer and other GW games, and before that I'd buy miniatures to use in games of D&D. I've always been interested in history though - particularly military history - and when I was considering getting back into the hobby I bought some metal Roman Auxiliaries from Warlord Games on a whim. I did a degree in Classical Civilisation at the University of Glasgow, so perhaps that's why I chose ancients to begin with, but at any rate I was rather discouraged by my initial painting efforts and these minis sat unfinished for some time. It was only when I started collecting and gaming again in earnest last year that I had another go at these guys and quickly got them painted up to a finish that I was pleased with.

Since then I've added a unit of legionnaires to my Roman army (photos of that unit to follow), but here are some pics of the auxiliaries for you to enjoy meantime.

(p.s I'm pretty sure the shield transfers I used for these guys are by Little Big Men Studios.)

Work in progress: Napoleon's Old Guard Grenadiers

Besides the 3rd Swiss Regiment, my other Napoleonic unit that's currently in progress is some Old Guard Grenadiers from Victrix. This was my first purchase from Victrix, and I have to say that I am really impressed with the quality.

As with the Swiss unit, I decided to paint up one figure to completion. The only thing still to add to this figure is the decals for the cartridge box. Really enjoyed painting this miniature, and looking forward to getting on with the rest of the unit.

Work in Progress: Napoleonic Swiss

I have a few different miniatures on the go at the moment. One thing I like to do (unless I have an urgent deadline) is to work on several things at once. Not literally at the same time of course, but I find that being able to work on one project one day, and perhaps a different one the next helps keep me from getting weary of any repetition, especially where large units are concerned. It also means that when I do finish one project, I'm not starting anything from scratch. There will be several other miniatures that are already well under way, so I can quickly begin to look forward to the satisfaction of seeing more painting projects brought to completion.

One project on the go at the moment is a unit of Napoleonic Swiss troops. These are Warlord Games plastics that I had left over from the French line infantry unit I recently finished (see previous post). I've decided to paint them in the colours of the 3rd Swiss Regiment. I have sixteen of these minis to paint, but may decide to make the unit larger, and add a command group.

I took one miniature up to completion (apart from the backpack component) so I could get all the painting decisions made up front before getting to work on all the others. The aim is to have all 16 painted by the end of this week.

More updates to follow, including a look at what other projects are in progress.

Forward, March!

Hello, World!

Welcome to Wee Painted Men, my little home on the internet where I can share with you my miniature painting endeavours - mostly those that are currently on the go, but a few old glories as well.

This will just be a quick first blog post to get things started. I've got plenty to share and to talk about, but the hour is late and I've been sitting at this computer screen for far too long. Besides, I've almost finished reading Adam Zamoyski's excellent 1812, so I want to get some reading time in before bed as well :-)

I recently finished painting up a unit of Napoleonic French line infantry from Warlord Games, so I thought a few photos of that unit would be an appropriate place to start.

Stay tuned for more content...