Blood Bowl - Human Team Original Middenheim Marauders - Ogre - facecoats

Afternoon #warmongers and I'm continuing #paintingwarhammer #bloodbowl Ogre. Having finished the white quartered highlights, silver buckles, black leather and Warplock Bronze gut plate it was time to go at the skin. I wanted him to echo the brown skin tones of the 2nd edition Oldheim Ogres team [shown further down]. So I highlighted all the previously shaded skin with Valejo Game Color Leather brown.

I had thought I'd add some tattoos/face-paint similar to these guys but ultimately didn't.

All the leather straps are black, but the actual gut plate harness was Rhinox Hide, washed with Army Painter Dark Tone [black]. Various stippling took place on the highlights to add more texture/hide mistakes.

I added some extremely minimal highlights to the red [first stage highlights from my Red Planet Basing mix] just to add that definition between armour plates.

I also decided to paint his chest 'rosette' - white as it's still in that quarter and I'd already sacrificed some white with the black armour plate. But I added red edging for a bit more contrast.

And boom - the face. I used Valejo Game Color Bronzed flesh for this but added a small amount of heavy red for the sides of the face, nose and temples.

The grooves in the lips were a little clumsy and the pupils on his eyes slightly off centre, but the right as we look at it took 5 or 6 goes, because my hands were shaking so much, to get this and when tabletop viewing it's not as prominent.

Adding that red texture took this to a whole new level for me. Of course the brush strokes are pronounced and it's far from perfect but it's a level of detail I would not have used int he past and yet it's made such a huge difference.

I tried a bit of stippling on his head for more texture, I could have gone with stubble but happy with this so I'll leave it be. You can see some of the red highlights more clearly in this pic.

Nothing extra, just pics using my camera magnifying app to get macro-shots.

I may well try and fix that eye, get the rosette and all the leather and metallics done... oh and the base 😲 yes, usually the base is done first but this has still got to happen...

Blood Bowl - Human Team Original Middenheim Marauders - Ogre Basecoats

Afternoon #warmongers and I'm continuing #paintingwarhammer #bloodbowl Ogre. After a matt black prime and red oxide zenithal highlight I had some pretty decent coverage. Given the cold weather I did the full 2 minutes of shaking both spray cans and even kept them warm [by holding them in front of the tumble dryer vent as I shook them]. I then quartered the uniform with Valejo Game Color Stonewall Grey. It amazes me that I've used this paint as a base for almost every white I've ever done and teeth too. It's spurted out of the dropper bottle numerous times but still feels like there's half a bottle left, and after a decade too!

I'm still a little undecided on some elements. I had envisaged a roughly painted belly plate in team colours but it might be silver or bronze... Army Painter Strong Tone washes over everything - I have noticed a glossy finish to this batch, maybe it's because I can never be bothered to shake the bottles. I also think I should be thinning them a bit more. They work much better with water to break down the surface tension and bleed into the crevices more.

A couple of nights on and I've done all the first Stonewall Grey highlights and all the Valejo Game Color Heavy Red [or Khorne Red] highlights. I then did Vermilion art acrylics for the next red highlights.

Now I think the other Marauders were done with VGC Bloody Red but I wanted to play around and I felt this colour might give me some more interesting results and I think it was justified in the end.

It's such an odd paint, very thick but has quite an opaqueness when watered down, but that can easily become a glaze depending how you work the paint with the brush. But then a quick stipple and you get the signature hammered texture finish.

White highlights next and I may even add in some additional edge highlighting on the red, not to make it 'pop' you understand, but to add definition ;)

Blackstone Fortress - The Empyrean Strikes Back

The planets aligned and we managed to arrange a suitable night for my gaming buddies and fellow #warmongers to have another crack at #BlackstoneFortress. Unfortunately time did not help us in remembering the rules, it also meant we spent a considerable time discussing Star Wars - the Rise of Skywalker and various merits [and demerits] of the entire Star Wars franchise. So it was like an hour and a half before we rolled any dice in anger!

Most of us met our painting requirements, but Ben couldn't quite finish the Ratlings and his Negavolt Cultitsts are just basecoated, but they weren't needed and a lot of his paints have dried up so it was an uphill challenge. However, worth mentioning we were at his house and there was a particularly generous spread laid on so - 'swings and roundabouts'.

Liam brought some Poxwalkers and Typhus to stand in for Cultists and Obsidius, unfortunately he'd planned to bring some of his other Cultists so unit weaponry would have been more accurate but he mixed up his figure case. Regardless the game looked significantly better, if a little too dark now! 😎

On to the game and before we entered the maglev we had a pre-game encounter where we had to bash down the doors of another maglev and we would gain a discovery each. All we had to do was 12 damage on 3 attacks each. Because I was 'inspired', thanks to Liam trading my 'hidden co-ordinates' hidden agenda I managed to 8 damage on my own - not bad for a feeble sanctioned mutant. Liam finished it off and Otty and Ben gave us hearty encouragement. Liam discovered his hidden agenda item in the loot and was immediately inspired!

Having entered the Fortress everyone else got to move before me. There were 8 cultists in the middle, 6 in the top and Obsidius Mallex and another 6 Cultists on the left.

All of them were in cover and we wasted a lot of actions trying to kill them but the cover prevented any damage -we had not remembered you could 'aim' for an activation to ignore cover. The Cultists themselves knew how to aim and certainly some damage was done to us.

But for the most part because they were in cover they didn't really seem keen to leave it. I used my Mind Control power to force the Cultist leader out of cover and blasted him to pieces with my 3rd Eye. I killed another of his mob and raised my force field around Janus and I for protection. Meanhwile our Kroot friend had set a booby trap in the choke point in front of the warband at the top.

Janus managed to sprint across the board and activate all sorts of duelling skills.

Taking out half of the cultists set before him.

Dahyak Grekh also got in on the action.

And managed to wipe out the remaining foes. Meanwhile I was able to Mind Control the leader of the second band of cultists and moved him two space directly into the Kroot's previously laid booby trap. He was killed in the resulting explosion

Dahyak Grekh advanced on the remaining cultists. However, we began to see some movement on the other cultists and they swiftly followed up to support their brethren.

Dahyak, took all four wounds [and we subsequently struggled to understand how to play this part of the game]. Janus stepped forth to take revenge on the cultists...

and with the support of the Ratlings and my 3rd eye we removed them from the board.

And then we realised we'd not been giving Obsidius his two goes on the activation table, doh - well vagaries of the warp and whatnot - we'll get this game eventually. Most of the damage was put on me [randomly] and I took 4 wounds.

In return Janus did everything he could with his extra attacks and managed to take all 12 wounds of the Chaos Lord, just! Liam was mightily impressed with his feat of duelling prowess - the final double crit being particularly impressive!

With their leader gone it was nought but to clean up the remaining cultists and we would return to our respective ships for re-supply and trading.

OK, so we're still learning the rules and given the 2-3 rulebooks you keep having to flick through, granted thin ones but even so it's easy to miss something. Or, you get referred to another book which then refers you back. Not to mention it's our second game and over 6 weeks since we last played. We definitely remembered some of the rules and new things weren't quite right, it took a few turns to get on track but maybe next time it'll be error-free.

Anyway, great laugh, really enjoyed it. Bring on our next adventure.

'nids part 273 - Tyranid Warrior and Warrior to Hive Guard Conversion - basecoats

Built and based for a while now it felt about time to add some paint to my Warrior to Hive Guard conversions. Even if it was just a basecoat it's one step further, one less thing to do.

It's a tedius job, something I used to make so much easier by undercoating them bonewhite and filling in the reds. Now I seem to start with the red - the least representative colour on the model and try to be neat with everything else, not to mention I cover up most of the red primer anyway!

As you can see the bonewhite basecoat is pretty ropey but I'm fine with that, it;s getting two coats of wash so doesn't need #2thincoats In fact any paint showing through the base just adds more texture ultimately.

The Tyranid Warrior was up next. No doubt I'll try and treat these as a unit for painting purposes. I've actually fished out my existing Warriors and Hive Guard and will look at any potential fixes. 

Certainly some base edges have become a little chipped but I'm also painfully aware that they're still afflicted with Citadel Purity Seal frosting. Maybe not now but I will definitely one day re-paint the red fleshy bits that are are damaged and I know I can do the chitin much better now so I'll probably repaint that.

The bone colour only needs additional highlights but there's no urgency just now. I've lined up the five Devgaunts to 'bone up on' next and then the Rippers. All of these are just inbetween things - tasks that need doing but in themselves are tedious so if I fit them in among other projects when I finally focus my attention it'll just be the fun bits that actually feels like painting, not necessarily like putting paint on, if you follow. Otherwise I'll be tackling my Blood Bowl Ogre next...

Blood Bowl - Human Team Original Middenheim Marauders - TO DONE!

The #Bloodbowl Middenheim Marauders are complete [#paintingwarhammer], nearly exactly 2 years since I finished building them! For those up on their Blood Bowl teams you will see I have gone old skool, not the black and white pattern of the current Marauders.

 Sport is littered with team or sporting code fractures, maybe these guys split off when the Marauders went more corporate?

I went with the traditional quartered red and white, this is in honour of one of my oldest friends who had Blood Bowl and it was the first GW game I ever played, despite owning miniatures for years before that.

He had 2nd edition and had his team painted in Middenheim colours, so it was only right to tip them the nod.

Additionally, the very miniatures I had at the time, mainly dwarves had shields quartered in red and white so this legacy really runs deep. 

I even used it as heraldry on my Assault on Black Reach Deathwing Terminators.

I tried to play around with their running shoes - clearly some of the players have their own branded footwear. They look a little incongruous, too bright for 'fantasy' football but it was for fun and although it looks odd I can live with it.

They'd have all been TOOO samey if they'd all been kitted out in black boots. I have one further thing to consider - adding static grass. I've never done it before and think it might work out nicely but I'm hesitant to do it given the bases look OK as they are.

I really struggled with the numbers. I tried the black numbers but the number shield halved in red and white just made it difficult to read.

So I filled it in yellow, taking the colour from the cutlasses of the Middenheim Marauders badge. I had thought the shoulder pads would remain black - the numbers were much smaller and much clearer contrasting solely against the white. The yellow might have undermined that but it's consistent across the model.

My three simple conversions to add more variety - I particularly like Joe Mauler in the middle, named after England rugby player Joe Marler and One Eyed Jim [because there's only one 'i' in Jim].

And here's my Big Galactic Stamp of Approval for being a good boy!