Saturday 25 June 2016

Grey Knights and Space Wolves for sale!

Yup, like Oliver Twist it's "Boy for Sale" time. Having conducted something of a hobby review recently I've realised that there are a few projects that I'm never, ever going to get around to starting let alone finishing. So I want them to go to someone who will enjoy them. You lovely people. Of course, I also want to liberate some funds in order to buy stuff that I DO want to use. So without further ado I present lot one: Grey Knights These are now sold:


This is a mix of fully painted work (seen here, here and here). And a few unpainted/unfinished squads shown below:

 

Altogether it forms this army which in the old book was a rather tidy 1k allied friendly force:


This army would be £153.50 to buy new off the shelf and I've added painting that I would cost at around £110 (not including the half finished dreadnought). So there's a lot of value there. What I would like is 50% of retail for the unfinished stuff and just straight retail for the fully painted stuff to account for at least some of the time and effort there. That works out at £106.50 but I think that isn't quite enough discount, so I'll let the lot go for £90, I just want people to have nice things and for me to get something for new nice things. You also get some lovely KR foam free to keep them safe on their journey to you.

So to summarise: £153.50 for £90. I'll post anywhere in the world but you pay for tracked postage.

Grey Knights are sold,

Onwards to lot two: Space Wolves: Sold


 

This lot is entirely new on sprue. It consists of a Krom Dragongaze, a Games Day Wolf Priest, a regular devastator squad (5 strong intended to be "wolfed" with spares), one set of wolf guard terminator sprues (5 terminators) and eight sets of space wolf sprues (40 space wolves).

It's a solid core to a new force or a handy upgrade to an army already in progress. I've got bases for all of it but they're the old 25mm ones so let me know if you're planning a base size upgrade to the new size ones and I'll leave them out. Now, retail this would cost £125 (assuming you've been smart and bought the wolves as the 10 strong boxes and not the more expensive 5 man wolf guard box with identical sprues and that the GD wolf priest was about a tenner). I'm willing to let this essentially brand new army go for £75. Yep. That's 60% retail including the unavailable wolf priest. Again, I just want a bit back for re-investment and for someone to get nice things cheap.

So to summarise: £125 for £75. I'll post anywhere in the world but you pay for tracked postage.

All sold now. Thanks to both.

That's all folks, there will be shinies here again very soon but a cocktail of real world nonsense, non-wargaming commissions and trouble with a camera battery charger (replacement en route) has rather dented blog efficiency this month. Will be fixing that very soon. All the best.

TTFN

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Grotz, grotz, luvverly grotz

Greetings one and all, today we're painting something I've not touched in years. It's Orks!


Well, grotz, but there's a Runtherd there so it totally counts! These are a new commission that might mean a few Bad Moons infesting our once puritan Blood Axe pages. Sheesh, these flash gitz, comin' over 'ere, takin' our pages...


We'd best start with the Ork, be just plain wrong if a grot got top billing. Given that the colours have changed since I last painted an Ork I needed to re-discover a scheme I liked. As Orks tend to be darker than the grotz, I figured starting from the prophetically named Waaargh Flesh (much nicer colour once it has a wash of Biel-tan green on there) made sense. Because there should be a spectrum of colour to greenskins rather than two different ones I decided that Warboss Green and Skarsnik Green would join Waargh Flesh as the trio of greenskin colours. The Orks get highlighted with warboss green over the waaargh flesh with a little skarsnik green if needed. The grots start from Warboss green and go up.


Being Bad Moons, the general scheme is a nice strong yellow and black. The yellow is handled by my normal Averland Yellow, black is my "german grey and black wash". The weapons all get the new version of Jeffrust which just replaces my old colours with the fantastic Ammo acrylic rust colours.

I'd forgotten how much fun Ork stuff is. Looking forward to getting my paws on some more.

TTFN folks.

Thursday 2 June 2016

It's Da Deep Road Toads! (Squigs)

Aaaahhhh! Run for your lives! Some maniacs have herded together a bunch of psychopathic space hoppers with teeth and are prodding them our way! Aaaaaaargh!


By which I mean, it's Squig O'Clock baby yeah! As I mentioned in the Bolt Thrower post, the Bitter Moons have been missing a certain something. They had all the core troops in the world (when you count your core miniatures to the nearest hundred you know it's got real) but none of the specialists that help to soften up the enemy. So while they could "tar pit" like a good 'un, they lacked that killer punch to make them really dangerous. The artillery was a start; A few dozen bouncing S5 maniacs will also help considerably...


You might notice something a bit different about my squigs compared to the normal look. They're not eyeball searing red. Squigs are traditionally red for one reason and one reason alone: Dodgy print reprographics. Back in the day (by which I mean the '90's) the photos that GW were taking needed to pop from printed pages made up of much cruder tech than we use today. That meant nice bright contrasting colours and primary tones if possible. Everything was sodding red. The squigs, got it hard and somehow, it became de rigour for squigs to be red. I - not so - humbly disagree. I always think that a monstrous variant of something real is more scary than any hundred neon monstrosities. It's just a personal preference. What animal do the squigs resemble most? Welp, that's toads. So toad-esque the colour scheme became. (This notion had its germination back in a random character model a while ago).


I also decided that as I wasn't keen on the squig hoppers as a unit, I would include some in the main squig unit to increase variety and to add even more character. I see these as ineffectual strap-on idiots making no impact on the fighting ability of the squig whatsoever and a useful imbecile disposal method for the herders. The painting of the squigs is actually fairly straightforward. A basecoat of German Camo Black-Brown is highlighted by adding Beige Brown. Little spots and blobs are added with a darker mix of the base colour to make the upper surface mottled. The belly is Stone Grey feathered out as it meets the upper surface. Then the whole thing is hit with Athonian Camoshade. Lips, gums and tongues are painted Bugman's Glow with a mix of Carroburg Crimson and Athonian Camoshade as a glaze, more Carroburg Crimson got added to the tongues. Grey-black claws glazed brown and teeth picked out and you are basically done. They got a hefty coat of Dullcote as they are metal models in a close packed unit and liable to chip. The mouths got a hit of water effects to make 'em look good and drool-ey. Done.


The riders and the herders just got painted like every other goblin in the army so not much there. Instead I'll wax rhapsodic for a moment about how nicely thought out most of these models are. From a screaming snotling tied to a stick; to the massive cymbals that the player can't figure out will hit his nose - hence bandage; to the wonderfully executed squigpiper (who has the right pleats in his robe that you could paint it as a kilt if you wanted). They are wonderful. Heck the backwards facing idiot and the wooden sword on the riders are equally brilliant notions. I added a couple of netters I had spare from the box of gobbos I bought to make war engine crews as in the old school fluff, the netters and clubbers were who caught the squigs. The herders just pushed them into battle.


And speaking of old school, I couldn't resist these old herder models I found on eBay. They're from the first generation of Squig Herders and from the (I think) Kev Adams school of Goblin design that informed so much of the character and personality of the GW gobbos. They're cracking figures, if a little dated now, but I couldn't have cared less. I figure they're worth one goblin in a fight because the notion that both of them wielding that trident improves matters is beyond laughable.

Finally, lets quickly talk basing. These are chronic pains in the arse to rank up (yes I know you Age of Sigmar chaps don't have to worry about that any more but I say it's a small price for spectacle). In the end I realised I could just skip a rank and move the herders back one sensible pace to the rear. In game they count as a four deep unit, we just ignore the empty space and treat them as a 7x4 unit. Fortunately I've the kind of gaming group that couldn't give less of a damn about such things if they tried. "If it's cool, do it" is kind of a mantra with us.

Well, that's all for today folks, but not all for the goblins, two more projects hove into view on the horizon, large ones, lob-bey ones, rock-ey types... Buah ha ha haaaaa. Ahem.

TTFN