I is for…

 …Intellect Devourers!

I forget why I painted these, as I don’t think I have a pressing need for them in the family D&D campaign, but it may well be because the scene in the D&D movies where the NPC warns the party that intellect devourers will attack whoever is smartest, only for them to then completely ignore the party, is classic D&D humour (and yet another reason it’s such a shame that we’re unlikely to see a sequel to that film).

You might not be able to tell from the picture, but these are absolutely tiny - that’s a 20mm base they’re on! Add some prominent mould lines, and me having to repaint the brain after I went too heavy handed highlighting it and it ended up far too light, to give a paint job that was surprisingly taxing considering it’s so small, but done is better than perfect, as I think the saying goes…

This brings the Monstrous Alphabet project up to:

A is for
B is for Bullywug
C is for Carrion Crawler
D is for
E is for Elemental (More than one)
F is for Flameskull
G is for Goblin
H is for
I is for Intellect Devourer
J is for
K is for
L is for Lich
M is for Mind Flayer, Myconid, Mummy, Manticore
N is for
O is for Owlbear, Ooze
P is for Purple Worm
Q is for
R is for Rust Monster
S is for Shambling Mound, Scarecrow, Skeleton
T is for Thri-Kreen
U is for
V is for
W is for Wraith
X is for
Y is for
Z is for Zombie

Although they’ve released a new Monster Manual since I started this project, which may affect some of the letters (I’m fairly certain I have twice as many options for ‘Q’ if I update it to the new MM, for example).

Speaking of the family D&D game, we’ve managed to continue playing intermittently. Highlights include learning that encounter balance is tricky, like thinking siccing a second Shambling Mound on three level fours sounds like a good idea only for my wife (and main damage dealer in the party) to then suddenly fail to hit anything, ever, leading to some scary times:

Luckily their new friend that is a manticore was there to take some of the heat, otherwise we’d have been starting fb a whole new campaign…

Unpainted Dreamblade minis stood in for Ankhegs in the next session, where the party found out getting grappled and covered in acid sucks, but they were much better equipped to visit murder on these bugs than the Shambling Mounds:

Given the amount of time that has passed since my last blogpost, despite the fact that it’s almost Salute and I usually save my spending money for that, I’ve had a couple of deliveries. First of all, a package from Northstar:

While I may not have been painting much, I’ve been thinking about projects a lot, and I’m keen to make some headway on my Alamo miniatures. As I got a nice Mexican Command Group sent over from the States by my brother in law for Christmas, I thought I’d prep them and paint the alongside the conversions I’d made from Perry plastics. The banner bearer needed a pole, so I dutifully ordered some brass spears (and I’m looking forward to trying out making a flag from tomato purse packaging), and while I was there also treated myself to a discounted Wargames Illustrated (because it came with a free sprite of greatcoat wearing French, which will get converted into Mexicans most likely), and also an ACW miniature from the Giants in Miniature range that was also on sale, because logically seeing as the Alamo led into the Mexican American War and then the American Civil War it’s surely only a matter of time before I start a project like that too.

The other parcel that turned up is nothing to do with any current projects:

As occasionally happens, I was reminiscing on how good the Warmachine lore is, and trying to work out how far I’d got on reading my way through it. I dug out some books, and had an idle search on eBay looking for the Retribution book (which I should have bought when it was £3 on eBay rather than putting it off!), and ended up stumbling on this lot - the pics were blurry (and occasionally of the seller’s floor) but I saw some gun mages (which I already have, but are always cool) and a storm tower type thing that I didn’t own, so figured I’d stick a couple of quid on just on the off chance, and ended up winning. I was even more pleased when they turned up, as it looks like the Warjack in the lot is actually the Character Jack Thorn, owned by Lieutenant Haley, who has been in my painting queue for quite some time!

All in all, the Tally now stands at:

3 vs 23 = -20

So already slipping further into the red, and with Salute just around the corner! I suspect it’s going to get worse before it gets better, as the Perrys have previewed two boxes of plastic Napoleonic Spanish, and between currently reading Sharpe’s Eagle and the Alamo project I can see myself getting a couple of boxes…

A mercenary life…

As the end of the year draws closer, so begins the desperate rush to try and drag the Tally back into positive figures. So, in that light, here is a miniature that has been basically finished since the end of September, when he was put aside for Zomtober, and I kept looking at unable to decide what else I wanted to do to finish him off:

Adding that little tuft of grass was the final touch I settled on, as I figured ‘done’ is a quality all of its own, and after spending a couple of months on my painting palette it was time to let him move on.

Unfortunately the harsh lighting of my dining room has washed out the cloak entirely, but in hand he’s actually very dark grey, fading to black in the recesses.

I think I originally bought him back in the day (an embarrassing number of years ago) purely on the strength of that impressive hat, and because apparently he worked well with Asphyxious’ pet Jack. Two editions of the game have passed since that point though, so who knows if he’s a smart choice to take anymore. Cool hats, though, are eternal.

Finishing him brings the Tally to:

74 vs 81 = -7

and also is another mercenary Warmachine model, still nothing completed from any of the factions…

So, what next? My next mini is already finished, but saved to post on a certain day (which I’m sure you can guess), but after that, I’m torn between the huddle of half-painted ratmen on my palette (which would drag the Tally up to 0, as well as being a step closer to being able to play a game of Warhammer), or the three minis that recently got undercoated, for next year’s soon to be announced ongoing project…

Bang bang bang

Goes the beat of the drum:

Inorexibly, my small Skaven army grows! Batch painting the block of slaves before took ages, so I thought I’d break the Clanrats down into smaller chunks so I’d get the satisfaction of finishing things more regularly. Don’t worry though, I’m not planning on painting them all individually, it’s just that I liked the look of this mini so fancied painting him on his lonesome as something of a colour test:

I’ve gone with a blue as my main ‘uniform’ colour for the army, although I think I may have gone too bright on this particular figure for what is supposed to be a grubby tunnel dweller. I’ve decided to use red as a spot colour for leaders and elites, to make them stand out a little, which I know doesn’t really make sense in reality given that Skaven leaders should really be hiding at the back rather than standing out with fancy red neckerchiefs, but allow me this foible!

Painting this lovely lad (one of the Island of Blood sculpts - I chose him rather than a bell ringing chap as I’d already painted one of those for my unit of Skavenslaves) takes the army to

161/500 points (I was half a point out in my previous Skaven post, as I forgot that the Clawleader technically has a shield even though the mini I painted doesn’t).

No mention of the Tally yet, as the postman has brought more bits and bobs:

I know, I haven’t even painted the last lot of Warmachine nostalgia purchase, but funny story the one of the minis I’d bought previously was actually damaged that I hadn’t been able to make out in the pictures, and the seller was kind enough to offer to swap it for another one, but to make postage worth it I bought some more things - Arcane Tempest gun mages, because they’re cool; a Skarlock Thrall, because, erm… I thought it was cool; and Narn, because I think the Mage Hunters of Ios are oh you get the idea…

Annoyingly, the Sorscha mini in the previous batch of purchases turned out to have been liberally doused in superglue over her hand when I stripped her, and trying to clean her up her weapon just disintegrated, leaving me ever more frustrated trying (and faking) to drill into her tiny hand to take a pin to try and rebuild it, which killed the momentum on my planned Khador painting stone dead sadly.

Tally:

66 vs 63 = +3

In other news, having finished painting the ghouls, I figured that as I now had everything except a vampire painted up I’d go ahead and play the ‘Lost in the Crypt’ scenario from Spellcaster magazine, since the chances of even rolling up a vampire or a wraith were very slim (I obviously encountered a vampire and two wraiths, as it seems in Frostgrave I can actually roll high, but only while rolling on an encounter table).

After failing to print out dungeon tiles in the right scale, I decided to go DIY and make myself a bespoke dungeon board using a large piece of old cardboard:

Complete with some additional declaration from my daughter:

So my new Captain, on their way to meet up with their new employer, manages to fall into a hole in the undercity and fights their way out, finding a magic bow, sword, boots along the way. Things started fairly well, as she plinked every monster she came across from a distance before sprinting from door to treasure to door, even managing to nuke a vampire (played by a lich mini, as I haven’t painted s vampire for Frostgrave yet) with a magic arrow and a lucky roll. Eventually she found the exit door, and decided to try and take down the two wraiths that were closing in on her to bank that sweet XP, but in the end decided discretion was the better part of valour and fled…

So, joining up with the rest of my warband, what next for my Necromancer and his merry band of chums? I’m tempted by the Hunt the Golem mini campaign, as my Necromancer has picked up a couple of constrict based spells so it makes sense that he’d follow up on related rumours, but I think first I might run through all of Perilous Dark to teach myself the key things for making solo Frostgrave scenarios, so it looks like I need to make some vapour snakes and a couple of constructs…

Grotty goblins

Or ghouls, more specifically:

Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep use Gnolls extensively as their proprietary monster type, but in my games I’m using goblins (I blame the manga/anime Goblin Slayer, primarily), using the LoTR Moria goblins I painted ages ago. Needing some ghouls, I figured that the Hobbit Goblin town minis would fit in my world, as goblins that have become diseased cannibals and look a bit gnarly and gribbly. 

I converted a couple to have shoulder armour to make them stand out of the crowd for RoSD scenarios requiring a ghoul champion:

Or is it chieftain? I can’t remember off the top of my head, and my book is in the other room, but you know what I mean.

I also fished this lovely Heresy Miniatures sculpt out of the painting queue where it had languished undercoated for many (many!) years, swapped it into a non-lipped base, and painted him up with the rest to use as a ghoul king (there’s a Frostgrave scenario somewhere with one of those right?)

Such a beautifully detailed sculpt, although I did paint his sculpted testicles as though they were part of his loincloth (which I’m not entirely sure how it stays affixed, it looks like it’s pierced onto his waist…)

And here’s the rest:

Lots of fun painting such a sickly unhealthy skin tone, and then going over with crimson and green washes to make their books and sores look really unpleasant.

I probably didn’t need to paint so many, as I’m likely to encounter somewhere between two and four in my games, but this was the number that came in the lot I bought on eBay so I figured I’d do them all at the same time just in case, and all else failing that’s a ready to go warband for another game.

As ever, here’s a terribly out of focus posed shot of my Frostgrave Knight having a very bad day:

And some behind the scenes shots showing that I’ve largely sub-contracted set dressing and posing for these things:

Painting these beings the Tally to:

65 vs 47 = +18

Or at least it would have, if not for the postman…

I forget how I found myself thinking about Warmachine, but several weeks before they announced MKIV, I decided to go back and continue my read through of all the books and issues of No Quarter that I had stalled on somewhere around 2019, as I think the fluff and lore of that game is simply outstanding. 

Idly browsing the internet, I realised that I was only one rule book short of a complete collection (not counting the campaign pack that is apparently silly money), so I had a nose on eBay. ‘I’ll put on a lowball bid which won’t win, get it out of my system’ I thought to myself. And then I won it, of course:

As is often the case, I found myself thinking ‘ah, I could just do a small scale project, paint up the equivalent of a battle box, that’s what four minis at most? I’ll squeeze that in between Skaven units, just like they were a somewhat chunkier than usual palette cleanser’.

And while I do have two battle groups sat in various stages of painting in the painting queue, I had a hankering for the original Sorscha sculpt, as when the game was first launched I played a demo game where I had Sorscha, which is what first got me interested in the game (brief aside - this was either in Westgate Games in Canterbury or… Fantasy Workshop in Ashford?)

And since she’d have been lonely on her own, I grabbed her a couple of jacks too. 

And some Cryx bits, because they’re cool, and I’ve got Asphyxious and Cankerworm sat undercoated too.

Which leaves the Tally at:

65 vs 55 = +10

There are more bits on the way, of course - the Withershadow Combine I bought had unfortunately had the little skeleton puppet filed off which I couldn’t see in the listing’s pictures, but the seller kindly offered to swap the set I had for another, but to make the postage worth it I bought some more things, including a model for a faction that I have no other miniatures for, but he was cheap and looked cool so…

Better late than never...

Originally planned as a big finish for Zomtober, I was going to slyly work on these between my main offerings, but somehow managed to only really finish the bones across the four week period!
Once I’d missed that window, I thought maybe I could speedily finish them off in time to post for Halloween, and while the Risen were soon brought to a finished state, I ended up really enjoying painting Alexia, and taking my time on her (well, as much time as a few minutes a night every other day can be, having two children is eating into my painting time!). A few minutes here and there all add up though, so now I have my first finished Warmachine unit:

‘First unit?’ I hear you cry? ‘I thought you got into Warmachine in the Mk 1 era?’ 

Yes I did, but to my shame what little has paint on is at best half painted, so this is the first thing for the game that I’d actually be willing to post on the internet for other people to see. They’d been in their box for ... I don’t know, but it’s probably something like a decade...

Onto some slightly closer shots!

First up is the Cygnar contingent:

I bent their arms gently to try and create some variety in their poses. Minimal effort, minimal result, but that’s fine by me!

I’d originally planned to give the Risen a base coat and a wash and call them done, but inevitably I got carried away giving them some highlights, weathering, and a little battle damage to make them more visually interesting.

The Menoth posse:

Not a lot I could do with these to add variety, given the sculpt. One of them you’ll notice is also mid-cast, as he has additional material in the space between his arm and torso, but I figured it was probably too late to get in touch with Privateer Press about getting a replacement!

I went with purple for the Menoth Risen to make them stand out from the Khadorans, rather than any specific army colours (although I could have claimed I spent hours of gruelling research poring over old magazine articles coming up with it)

Speaking of Khadorans, here they are:

I think that it’s supposed to be a fur trim/collar around their neck, but to me it will always look a bit like they’re wearing a fake beard!

Next, is the Thrall Warrior, which is an absolutely lovely miniature - I went with a fairly simple paint scheme in the interest of speed, but couldn’t help but go back and add little details and areas of interest, like making different areas of the armour look like different materials, or giving the blade a green hue to make it look sickly and evil...

I painted the back too, as is traditional:

I went for a fairly subdued cloth for his cape, to make Alexia stand out more...

Speaking of Alexia, onto the main event:

Having not read or played the Witchfire Trilogy, I had no preexisting nostalgia or love for Alexia before I bought her - I think I saw a goth girl with a magic sword raising zombies and thought ‘cool, that’s entirely the sort of thing I like, I’ll pay with cash please’. Now, ten or so years later, I’ve finally painted her!

She’s a beautiful sculpt, as is to be expected of anything sculpted by Kev White (and when I googled to confirm this, I was reminded that Paul Muller sculpted the Thrall Warrior and Risen, making this officially the greatest collaboration of all time), and was a real pleasure to paint. I even tried out some techniques I’d never tried before, like OSL on her sword and glowing eyes (although I think the eyes came out best on the skulls on her base, and are somewhat hit or miss on the rest of the unit). I also experimented with mixing metallic and non-metallic paints to get an unusual colour for her armour (it’s a dark grey with just a hint of metallic as a base, with metallic highlights and weathering). 

I spent some time carefully layering her black cloak with dark greys, an effect that is absolutely unnoticeable after I went a bit gung -ho weathering it (as I imagine on the run from churchy types that aren’t keen on her raising the dead she’d probably get fairly dusty). 

Side note: painting the gold on the Witchblade was a pain entirely due to Liberator Gold - my pot had separated so completely that it was entirely orange (the shade you can see on the edge in the picture below) - weeks of shaking had done nothing to recombine it, so I grabbed a cocktail stick and started dredging up the actual colour from the bottom of the pot. As you can see, it’s not quite the colour it should be (the colour at the bottom) but I’m getting there! 

So, finishing these brings the Tally to:

28 vs 27 = +1

And also lets me cross something off of the 2019 Challenge!

• Finish something  old
• Finish a piece of terrain
• Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
• Build a wargames board
• Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
• Play a game of Blackstone Fortress with fully painted miniatures
• Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
• Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted)
• Convert a miniature and show WIP pics
• Finish a member of the Nextwave team
• Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
• End the year with the Tally in the positive!

Everything else is looking a bit shaken though, as I’m rapidly running out f year!

So yeah, when I said I'd returned...

...that might have been a little premature.

Son came, and all productivity went out of the window.

(this is the day he was born, he's bigger now)

One of his middle names is Cassian (at my wife's suggestion, to my surprise), so we have an action figure ready for when he's older:

As alluded to in my previous post, I'd been trying to convert some additional Traitor Guard to make the squads in Blackstone Fortress up to ten man units, but after some fun kitbashing I just couldn't seem to get the heads to a point I was happy with them...

I struggled to find any donor heads that I liked, so tried to cast some, but results were... mixed. I think maybe since I had already built the miniatures it was a little tricky to make an easily useable mould...

Enthusiasm faltered somewhat after this. If anyone has any ideas for suitable heads (or spare heads from the BSF traitor guard left over from a conversion) let me know so I can rescue this project from limbo...

After this, I had a hankering for some 40k (a friend of mine had recently rekindled his own enthusiasm for 40k, and I'm easily swept along by enthusiasm), and dug out my abandoned paused Chaos Space Marine project. I mulled over what to do with them, and had a weird epiphany where suddenly the Black Legion made sense to me. Previously, they'd seemed like the Chaotic Ultramarines, the vanilla option, but as I was sifting through my bits box thinking what colour scheme would work for an army with Noise Marines, Plague Marines and some weird Dark Mechanicus stuff, something clicked in my head and I realized that the Black Legion are the best of all worlds - slap a snazzy black and gold paint job on any chaos mini and you've got a great looking veteran of the Long War ready to roll poorly shooting at less pointy Space Marines.

I built and undercoated a small force, but apparently I only managed to take a single picture of a chap that I converted to be wielding a melta gun before my attention wandered again:

(I also added a couple of bits to the Tally buying some Plague Marines, mostly because it was one of these minis that I saw a very nice Black Legion paintjob on that started the ball rolling in my mind...)

Taking a break from miniatures (because why focus on one hobby when you can spread yourself over three or four - see also videogames, binge-watching Parks and Rec with my wife as she's on Maternity Leave) I built some Gunpla:

Build Burning Gundam, beautiful and delightfully poseable, and also a valuable learning experience - don't use Tamiya panel liner accent colour like it's an ink wash, as it will eat through plastic:

(they were fixed with judicious application of glue, then sanding it back down and painting them to look like they had never been carelessly ruined).

Also - Wing Gundam Fenice, which is built, but still needs going back over to fix any seam lines, then painting and posing:

It's been a couple of months since reaching this point though...

Then, inspiration struck for a long back-burnered project:

Had a hankering to re-watch the film while my wife was out at a hen do, and set to digging out a selection of gribbly bits (and then watching the 2011 prequel, which honestly I enjoyed)

Ah, horrific aberrations in miniature form presented without comment. Inspiration burned fiercely and I finished building half a dozen or so miniatures, but ground to a halt somewhat when I couldn't find a suitably sized dog head that I liked. To see someone that actually finished their Thing project (and also that is good), click here for inspiration. If I make one more man-sized Thing, two more Spawn sized Things, and one boss sized Thing that should be enough to knock up some rules...

Then, running into a friend of mine, the conversation ran over a selection of RPG topics, touching on the Iron Kingdoms RPG, and I was reminded of how good the fluff is for Warmachine, with a complex, mulit-layered plot that actually advances. I had every MK1 book, and decided to go back and get caught up with everything I'd missed in the last decade (seriously, if you've never read any Warmachine lore, give it a go - I think they set up a company to generate steampunk war fiction and the wargame was just a happy accident that spun out of it). As these things tend to, this gave me a hankering to paint some miniatures. Handily, I already had a selection of miniatures in the Lead Mountain, and thus was able to dig out some bits and bobs without spending any money.

Well, that was the plan anyway.

What can I say, I was minding my own business trawling eBay and I'm a sucker for a bargain. Also for classic sculpts like this Haley. 

Side note: reading old issues of No Quarter, Kev White sculpted way more Warmachine and Hordes miniatures than I had previously realised. 

So yeah, Haley (because I love her in the lore. Not because she's an epic time controlling protagonist, but because she spends an amount of time going 'oh bugger it' which amuses me) and some Stormsmiths, because I like their triangulate ability, it appeals to the maths side of me.

Also, since I got Haley, I got her character Jack Thorn too so she'd have a friend. And a Squire, because I've wanted a little robot battery for a while.

So into the stripping pot they go:

(with a few chums)

Not everything I wanted to strip would fit in the pot though... There's a lunchbox full of leftovers I've got my eye on though as soon as I can slip it past my wife...

While we're on the subject of hits to the Tally, I found myself with an hour to kill between visits at work (darn trains) so nipped into a games shop that I'd never been into, and as you should always support local businesses that you enjoy or else they will disappear treated myself to some Thri-Keen from the Nolzur's miniatures line:

Probably not something I'd ever use, but I've got a soft spot for those wacky bug men. Anyway, there were no beholders.

So, four months of purchases brings the Tally to:

2 vs 27 = -25

Honestly, could have been way worse. 

I looked over the 2019 Challenge just in case I'd accidentally knocked something off, but no such luck. If I finish a miniature every other day until the end of the year, I should be able to cross off at least one thing...

While it may seem that I've mostly been building and accruing miniatures, some painting has occurred, it's just that I've generally got someone with me:

So, expect to see some finished miniatures in the near future...

(check out those liver spots - thanks to the Midwinter Minis painting videos for inspiring that)