#MESBG Middle Earth Army of the Dead - Big Build and Base TO DONE!

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PaintingWarhammer and this time it's 'off list'. In amongst 39 Goblin Town goblins my gaming crew have been attempting to finish off some of our late-friend Scott's unfinished armies. Some things weren't built, some were part done and others had basic bases that a bit more effort would make them look like a coherent force. I had been volunteered to take on his MSEBG Army of the Dead. Initially it was a box of so many figures I didn't even count them. But when I did I identified:

• 9 cavalry
• 8 infantry practically finished with highlights
• 24 infantry half-done - Aethermatic Blue contrast, no highlights
• 9 infantry stuck to bases, but unprimed and with shields unattached

That's 50 models in total and somehow I was fine batching the lot. I'd had to base a couple of other MESBG figures, so what's 42 more? Having done the bases I added a bit of turquoise glow to make them a little more ethereal and more Aethermatic Blue and then I had to decide on highlights. The 8 almost finished ones had been done by Liam for Scott and he'd added a bit of cream highlights, which I liked the yellow next to the turquoise, but even so Aethermatic Blue on it's own looked great. But I felt a couple more highlights would be the effort Scott's army deserved, no cut corners! 

Some were even missing bits, so spare arms had to be sources and I am kicking myself now that I did not photograph these in their original state. At the very least I'd have a record of what day I started them as it took no more than 2 weeks to get them all done

These were the 9 I did from scratch. It was a bit inconvenient to go back to the beginning stage when the rest had been done through to varnish but I pushed through. Varnishing [and photographing] so many figures was a challenge in itself. However, the results in the next post are worth it.

Another Great Big Wooden 'BIG BUILD' Stamp of Approval and a Great Big Wooden 'BIG BUILD BASE' Stamp of Approval.

#MESBG Middle Earth Goblin Town Goblins - Big Build and Base TO DONE!

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I recently celebrated a birthday which included some gifts from my gaming crew. This included a Goblin Town warband, including the Goblin King himself from Otty. There's even Goblin Town terrain piece from Liam, but I'll get to that further down the line. I built the heroes...

And the 32 goblin warriors. These were a dream as they are not multi-part kits. You just snip them off the sprue and glue them to the base - my kind of build. Even basing this many figures seemed much quicker than I bargained on, ready to prime. 

Another Great Big Wooden 'BIG BUILD' Stamp of Approval.

I realised that I already new how to paint the 'pale and interesting' effect common on these goblins as I'd done the same on my Poxwalkers.

This was a simple division - 16 primed grey, 16 primed Skeleton Bone.

The a quick squirt of white as a zenithal highlight on the face and shoulders.

I then did a quick mask and got the bases with Matt Black (hero of the imperium).

I'm not sure this was the right choice as the overspray caught things I didn't want and even the mask dripped onto models, which would require fixing.

I used burnt umber for the bases, dark wash, burnt umber highlight and then added skeleton bone for two further highlights. Now you can see the front two ranks are paler/cooler looking. This was something I was unhappy with. I decided to risk a VGC Beasty Brown drybrush and you can see the top ranks are much warmer looking, which is what I prefer.

I added the drybrush to all the rest. Then I had a very weird experience trying to work out if I needed more goblins to create a 500pt list. It revealed a box of warriors is 36 figures, not 32. I looked at pictured of the sprue and counted them all up. But I only had 32, what gives. I looked back in the box I had clipped them into and found 3 more figures knocking around, so 1 is still AWOL. That still meant I had 3 to base and prime to bring them up to speed. Luckily I'd also been volunteered to base about 40 undead warriors from Scott's Middle Earth Army of the Undead so I'll add them to that task...

In the mean time, another Great Big Wooden 'BIG BUILD BASE' Stamp of Approval.

Not a Battle report - MESBG Rohirrim Vs a lot of Orc hunters on Wargs

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PlayingWarhammer with another game of new MESBG and despite this being one of the most recent games I have very little recollection of what happened. I can only tell I partnered with Liam and his Orcs because most of the pics are from that side of the table. 

Naturally Otty went with his beloved Rohirrim.

The Orcs had something of an advantage - being able to scale difficult terrain with ease, those cliff edges and ruins offering no impediment.

The initial surge forward.

While a flank is exposed Heroes ride to ruin and the world's ending!

With something of a bun-fight in the middle of the board.

It looks like Otty lost a lot of his army at this point, with Orcs a plenty.

Again the Rohirrim are outnumbered but not necessarily outmatched.

I cannot tell from this what happened. Otty looks stunned, but that could be that despite the pictures he somehow snatched a win. Maybe he, or Liam, can remember what happened. Bottom line I know I had fun, ate some crisps, drank some tea, rolled some dice, laughed and enjoyed the company of these guys.

Aside from a functioning recollection of the actual game we played what more can you ask for?

Battle report - MESBG Rohirrim Vs Wild Men of Dunland

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #PlayingWarhammer with another couple of games of new MESBG. This was one of the new campaign missions based on the War of the Rohirrim film. Again this was a game from January, so my recollection is so bad but I'll try to remember as much as I can. This mission has the Wild Men of Dunland breaking into Edoras with the goal of burning down the village. Meanwhile the loyal followers of Helm Hammerhand are trying to prevent this treachery, by keeping the flaming brands from the buildings. There's a weird setup where you have to split your force and  thanks to some misunderstanding I put a lot of the Rohirrim in immediate danger, getting swamped by Wild Men and General Targg.

After the dust settled Targg remained while 6 Wild Men had perished to my 3 Rohan warriors. 

On the other side a smaller warband faced off against loads of archers and their more violent double-handed weapon wielding colleagues.

Targg and my hero, Theo-someone [no doubt] carried on their scrap with Targg being trapped. With a show of bravery his fodder ran to the nearby building to set it on fire.

Outnumbered but not undaunted my Warriors received the charge of the Wild Men in protecting their homes. 

I'm thinking this was a very poor duel roll that saw the Rohirrim fight back with furious defence.

But it was enough to stop them getting to the barn to try set it alight.

With Targg dead my leader and his retinue caught up with the Wild Men .

With the Wild Men engaged the Leader charged off to give support to the beleaguered flank. 

The Warriors continued to fight the Wild Men and while cutting the last one down were horrified to see his flaming brand catch on Brunnhild's cabin, setting it alight.

On the other side, with the flank decimated the Wild Men surrounded the barn but every attempt to set it alight was thwarted.

The dice were against them. Whether it be damp tinder or the barn had been prepared for such an event it would just not catch fire.

Worse too for the Wild Men, the brave Warriors had managed to put out the flames on the cabin.

My hero continued to try and thwart the attempts to set the barn alight. Without flaming brands higher rolls were needed and none were forthcoming.

More Wild Men fell to the ferocious attacks of the horse lord.

But the numbers were too great and he fell to their clumsy attacks.

But despite their small victory they still could not set the barn alight, leaving the Rohirrim to win the day.

There were a lot of great moments in this game, I may not remember them clearly but they were vivid. We played an extra couple of turns just to see if that barn was set alight but so many dice rolls failed. Even the cabin that got lit and then put out, that initial roll to see if it caught fire I think was just a thematic roll. I don't think there was any legitimate reason for the dead Wild Man to have had a chance to set it on fire but we thought it was fun.

The setup was somewhat traumatic as I think I miscalculated the task at hand. However, the Rohirrim are outnumbered from the start so I'm not sure if there's a more optimum choice on how to divide your force. It worked out in the end, luckily.

Otty's Tyranids WiP for Disillusional

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I recently shared some pics of my friend Otty's Tyranids and one of the comments from Disillusional asked 'how does he do that?' I've a few WiP pictures to share and a recipe from the man himself. It's not comprehensive because I think the paints have changed but this is his Sporocyst [or landed Tyrannocyte].

He starts with a Grey Primer, Halfords, but did you know the recipe has changed recently? I've seen a few people complain it's not as good and I can confirm the Red Oxide is now much glossier than previous cans.

He follows the grey primer up with a 'goblin green' spray - Colour Forge do a Salamander's Green spray that is ideal for this. He then washes this Biel-Tan Green Shade [or equivalent].

Apparently the Chitin plates are basecoated Tallarn Sand.

He then paints 'scorched brown' [Rhinox Hide] lines on the chitin, to make all the patterns.

This is then followed up by Bleached Bone lines inside the darker lines and on any raised areas. 

All the green is highlighted with 'goblin green' [Warboss Green] with some light yellow mixed in.

Finally, all the toxin sacs are picked out with red, Mephiston Red seems about right. Hopefully that helps, if not search for Jes Bickham's Tyranids. His Hive Fleet Eumenides was the inspiration for Otty. The Chitin may be very different but it's an alternative take on it with slightly similar results.

'nids part 376 - Barbgaunt and Von Ryan's Leapers - Big Build - TO DONE!

Afternoon #Warhammer Community I've been #BuildingWarhammer on my additional Barbgaunts and Von Ryan's Leapers. Yes, much like the Tyranids themselves this is an endless swarm of miniatures. Just when you think you've painted the last one you have more. It might be the last thing I want to do, to add more to my Tyranid painting list, but however challenging it can be it's better to get it done altogether.

I'll be doing bits and bobs on my Termagants and Neurogaunts, while bringing these up to the same stage. I've already acknowledged that they may be tedious but they each create variety within that tedium and can help to break it up. In a similar vein I decided to be a little more creative with their basing to help differentiate the VRLs from the first batch I'm finishing. I just added more slate to the Barbgaunts too, they're quite difficult to make look different. Or, at least I spent a lot of time thinking about it, got nowhere and decided to crack on regardless. 

Anyway, another Great Big Wooden 'BIG BUILD' Stamp of Approval.