It's ALIVE!!!

No, not my own version of Frankenstein's Monster constructed from the dismembered body parts of friends, family and random passersby - I'm talking about the Doomwheel! And when I say "alive" of course, I mean "painted"...

All that's left to do is finish off the base, and it's all set to start frying my enemies (and minions alike) on the battlefield! Mwahahaha!!

Ahem...

Now that the Doomwheel is more or less out of the way though, it does mean I really should get cracking on those Clanrats. I realised (after undercoating them...) that I've not based the 60+ Clanrats I posted about earlier, which means I'm going to have to go back and glue sand to all their bases first *sigh*

In other news, I finally broke out the dreaded Green Stuff and sculpted the final bits on the two CCUP boyz:

I tell you, those two footprints are the single most fiddly, annoying pieces of GS work I have ever done. I am never doing footprints again!

Still, they're now undercoated and waiting for the first layers of paint. I'll probably start them Monday and Tuesday (because I'll have a bit of free time) and then I've got a couple of weeks holiday the week after so will hopefully get them finished before I go back to work!

That's all for now. Tune in next time for...um....something!

Two Blocks of Skaven and a couple of Orcs...

And that's not all! A fair bit of progress has been made this week...

Da Warpath CCUP

The two Orc models I'm donating to the Crazy Community Unit Project are now assembled and have undergone minor conversion:

All that's left to do is sculpt footprints on their shields - that's the symbol for the CCUP medal (give to all participants) so I thought it would be quite fitting to model it on the figures themselves.

Skaven

Been doing quite a bit of work on the Skaven this week. First up, I've assembled and undercoated 65 Clanrats (there are 15 more in this batch, but I've not finished spraying them yet...).

They've been undercoated using Army Painter "Vermin Fur", which has turned out more orange than brown. Still, it will hopefully do the job. It's taken nearly two whole cans of spray to get these 80 done (probably used too much on them...) and I don't have any more of it right now, so the rest of the Clanrats will probably be undercoated with "Leather Brown" so will be the same colour as the...

 ...Warlord!

 The standard IoB model - nothing special, but I quite like the 'aggressive' pose as is.

I've also assembled the Ratling Gun I got cheap off eBay (can't remember whether I've mentioned this before - if not, I am now!). I'll probably put this aside to paint at the same time as the other weapon teams.

I've also pretty much finished conversion work for the BSB:

Not the best photo, but hopefully you can see the changes. Both arms have been cut at the elbow and repositioned (the left arm to hold the shield down to the left, and the right angled to hold the banner upright balanced on the corner of the rock). The banner itself I've left unattached - it will be a lot easier to paint that way. The shield is one from the old (metal) Marauder Horsemen box. There's still some Green Stuff work to do filling in the elbows but other than that, it's ready to go.

And finally, the Doomwheel is coming along very nicely.

Not sure how much you can see from this photo, but the wheels (and wheel rats) are done, as are the two wheel spike-thingies (for lack of a better term!) and the two pieces in the top right corner of the pic (again, I have no idea what these are called!). The only bits still to complete are the main chassis and the crew rat. Hopefully, I'll be able to get them those done by Sunday!


In other news, it's my birthday tomorrow (in about 6 and a half hours actually!), and there's one present in particular that I'm looking forward to - a copy of the Warhammer: Invasion Core Set from my better half! We're going out for dinner in the evening (after I've got home from work - *grumble grumble*) but I might be able to convince her to play a quick game once we're home and unable to move on the sofa!

Better late than never!

OK, so it's not Sunday. It's not even Monday, but I got distracted by the Superbowl Sunday night and work got in the way yesterday, so it's now Tuesday... Still, better late than never, right?


Anyway, progress has started picking up again after the furore that was last week. The Orc Boyz for Da Warpath's CCUP (Crazy Community Unit Project) arrived over the weekend, so here they are:

I'll be cleaning the boyz up and starting minor conversion work on them later tonight probably. As they're the clip-together models (which I didn't realise), the conversion work won't be extensive but there are a few additions I'll be making that will make the models a bit more characterful. I've not quite decided how many of the Boyz I'll be donating to the project. Originally, I was going to donate all four (because I don't want/need Orcs being as I'm building an all-Goblin army...) but I might hold one or two back to make into Mordheim models perhaps.

Back to the Skaven then, and I've got as far as undercoating the Giant Rats unit

By the by, something I forgot to mention in the last post was the bases here: because I bought just a single sprue off eBay, I didn't get bases with the models. Not really a problem given that I've tonnes of spare bases, but pretty much all my spare bases have slots. Obviously, I didn't want slots for the rats so I went about trying to find a way of filling in the slots. Normally, I just use Green Stuff but I really didn't want to mess around mixing Green Stuff just to fill in gaps (that's why most of my conversion work never gets done, because I just can never be bothered mixing the stuff!). So I did a few internet searches, and eventually came across a method that I really should have thought of myself - wood filler. I've a tube of the stuff sitting in my modelling toolbox (from literally a decade ago I think). Turns out it was still good, so now I've got myself a quick and easy method for filling in bases to save me mixing Green Stuff....

Anyway, the rats shouldn't take too long to paint up. A few select coat colours (browns mostly, with a few blacks, whites and greys probably), followed by a wash and details and they should be good to go. The Packmasters shouldn't take much longer than the rats either. Naturally, I'll update on progress as it goes.


And finally, I've started work on a BSB conversion using the Warlord from the IoB box

Part of the reason I bought the Doomwheel kit (apart from the fact that it's awesome) was so I could get the banner for this conversion! I've still got to plan out exactly how I want the conversion to look, but the potential parts are now all ready. I'm considering two options at the moment; either put the banner on the back-mounted pole (getting rid of the accoutrements), or change the halberd into a banner pole with the banner on top. Not sure which would look better and be least unwieldy when it comes to ranking the lil' guy up, but I'll figure it out.


Until next time!

Just a quick one...

Only a short post for now; hopefully a bigger update will be coming on Sunday.

Anyway, life has been a bit hectic since the last update. My grandmother died suddenly, and so there's been a lot going on and the whole family has been a bit out of sorts, naturally.

Napoleonics

As a sort of pick-me-up, my uncle, cousin and myself organised a Napoleonics game during the week to take our minds off things. Austrians vs. French 15mm, with myself commanding the French and my uncle and cousin splitting the Austrians between them (my cousin still hasn't painted his own Russian army...). The game objective was to "Seize the Pass" by controlling a pair of villages along the centre line of the table, each seperated by a stream running the length of the table. It ended up as a losing draw for me; things started off well, as the Austrians bottlenecked on their way to the far village and their cavalry were slowed by marshland on the way to the near village. My light infantry battalion made it to the near village unmolested and held it against all comers (about three strong Austrian infantry battalions and a medium artillery battery) while the Austrian cavalry tried to circle round to my artillery and were held off (and destroyed) by two infantry squares.

The turning point of the battle came when my heavy cavalry charged the loitering Austrian Hussars guarding the far village. I outnumbered the Hussars and had better quality troops. Naturally, I lost the fight and my cavalry retired. The following turn, they charged again (still outnumbering and still better quality) and lost again. As they were already Unsteady, this time they Routed. It was at this point that my three infantry battalions contesting the far village decided to pack up and retire as well; the weight of Austrian numbers was beginning to tell, and the French were gradually pushed back towards the stream.

When we ended the game (due to time), the Austrians held one village and my light infantry held the other. If we'd have carried on, my light infantry would likely have been overwhelmed (although I did have two infantry battalions rushing to support them; the two battalions that had seen off the Austrian cavalry). Still, ending on a draw (even if it would eventually have turned to a defeat) was a fair result.

Other stuff

I managed to complete the entry for Animosity 5's Conversion Contest; photos will follow as soon as the results of the contest are announced.

Da Warpath are currently running a "Crazy Community Unit Project"; the idea is that members sign up to contribute a painted Orc Boy until we've constructed a whole unit! Definitely crazy...

Anyway, I've volunteered to contribute a boy to the project. The bonus is that each member who contributes a painted boy will be entered into a raffle, and the winner wins the whole unit! I'll be starting work on my Boy on Sunday, so will provide (semi-) regular updates of my progress.

In other news, I've started putting together a unit of Giant Rats for my Skaven. The purchase of a sprue of Giant Rats with Packmasters from eBay (all of about £3) in addition to the numerous rats provided on the Doomwheel kit mean I have enough for a unit of 20. Hopefully, they'll be pretty quick to paint - then I suppose I should get started on the mass of Clanrats.

Finally, I'm still plugging away at the Tilean pikemen. Warhammer-Empire.com are planning on running another campaign, set a few years after Treachery & Greed, so perhaps Alessandro Vinta's son Alessio will make an appearance (if I can get the army ready in time!)

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Well, after all that, it wasn't really quick at all! Still, a "proper" update (with pics!) will arrive on Sunday