Medieval Retinue

Chaos Mutants

Finally been getting around to painting some of the Chaos Army mutants from Eureka miniatures.
These are both really fun and really fast to do!

These guys are destined for a chaos warband for Open Combat, but will of course very likely see use elsewhere too.

Double Dagger Assassin

Another quick post - This time an assassin:

Even necromancers need to watch their back.

The miniature is a female assassin from Ral Partha Europe. Their RPG-miniatures and DSA: The Dark Eye lines are well worth checking out. There's a lot of very characterful miniatures in there. 

This lady is another addition to the mercenary gang. What could they be up to?

In game terms, it's a nice mini that allows me to play around with some poison and stealth traits I don't usually get to use in ASOBH. 

These traits make her a very mobile, hard to pin down, assassin. Agile allows her to run circles around obstacles and enemies, while dashing means that she only need a single action to both move in on and attack someone. Coupled with the free disengage, this should make her very dangerous, able to exploit any crack in the enemy line to go for her target. 

Of course, as a C2 character, she crumbles quickly against any well equipped soldier. 

I also made her a Coward to represent her sellsword nature - I don't imagine any mercenary being willing to stick around too long if things start going wrong. Can't spend your money if you're missing a head after all. 

Mercenaries

Just a quick update, since its been quite a while. Im (of course) back to working on medieval fantasy again. These guys are meant for a scenario, posing as mercenaries/assassins.
More about that later

The miniatures are from Claymore Castings and a frostgrave cultist with a head from a frostgrave soldier.
I really like the Claymore Castings miniatures. Theire very expressive and characterful sculpts, with well-defined details. Makes them a joy to paint, really. It helps, of course, that I am a huge sucker for the look of the period covered.

In anticipation of Rogue Stars

Doggo the Bruise. Quite a notorious mercenary, plying his trade in the colonies. He's small, hard-bitten, and rather shoots people to slag than ask questions. As long as the money is right. 

This is the Smudgester (B) miniature from hfminis.co.uk. What a nice and characterful little chap. I finally got around to painting him up riding out on the enthusiasm of the Rogue Stars nickstarter. I've been looking forward to that game for quite a while, and now that its nearing release I thought I'd better start getting some stuff painted.

He's tiny though, so was pretty hard to get in focus with my shoddy light set-up. And green is ont my strongest colour. Still, I think he turned out pretty nicely.

Ruff dudes lookin' for trouble.

Song of Gods and Glory - Part II: Plaguelings and Retinue tables.

Moving on, the next element of Pestifex' retinue. I managed to roll up a whopping 4 Plaguelings: Small and mischievous demon-children of the Plague-Father.

Song of Gods and Glory - Part I: Pestifex

During a campaign in the buzzing south, a young mercenary had suddenly fallen ill. At first, and for many weeks, it merely manifested as boils in the crevices of the body. Painful if touched but discrete enough to go unnoticed by his comrades. But then came the fever, and the young mercenary spent more and more of his time retired in the wagons or in his tent. Until there came a time when the company had been camping for a week and he had not shown his face but once.
At last, his fellow soldiers grew worried. What they found as they entered the tent was as repulsive as it was horrifying. Sitting, hunched over and draped in ragged cloth, was a pale wretch of the young mercenary, surrounded by the rot and filth of numerous dead beings.
And he turned his head and spread his arms wide:

“I welcome you, my brotherssss.”

From the filth crawled forth numerous demons, cackling and grimacing.

Orcs'n'Goblins

 Preparing for an experiment into a homebrew "big battle" SoBH in a couple of weeks, I've added to my greenskin forces, making this small warband.

They'll form one of 3 subdivisions in the overall force.

As 'ard as dey get, at least according to Torkborg himself. A claim he backs up with a bloody big mace.

Maraudin'

In a barren pass, a warband of chaos fights its way through an orc ambush.

I am slowly working away at a proper chaos retinue, inspired ye' olde Path of Glory. Its a theme I find myself returning to continously. Warbands of crazed followers of dark gods, mutated with barely understood eldritch magic running trough their veins and battling for a faint chance of eternal glory, their ultimate fate most likely being madness... that's some cool imagery, and quite fertile grounds for modelling projects. 

lil' bugger

A goblin with that big of a smile can only be up to mischief. 

The Challenge

So, for the next month, I want to do a challenge.
I took a look at my table, and I saw too much of this:

An Evil Warband and other stuff.

Having gathered a group of followers, a Dark Champion raids the northern villages in the kingdoms of men. Only with great courage, skill at arms and sacrifice can such a warband be defeated.

Fightin' Fungi

So my kickstarter pledge finally arrived. Being a great fan of Song of Baldes and Heroes, I of course just had to back Ganesha Games kickstarter for Fightin' Fungi. And also because the miniatures were such nice oddities.

Anyways - I quickly set about painting them up, and this is what I have got so far:

Bits and bobs

 I needed a break with the Frostgrave stuff, so I broke out som eof my 25mm Fantasy again. It's always nice to paint a knight, especially when its one of the lovely ex-citadel ones from foundry.

More Frostgrave

Got the first 3 models done for my warband. Next up will be the Necromancer and Apprentice, and then I'll be halfway there!

Thug, Treasure Hunter and Crossbowman

A Crossbowman

Another guy finished for my Frostgrave warband. This guy didn't turn out quite as good at the first one, but I am still decently happy with him. This guy is more straigth out of the box, with the only addition being a sword from another kit.

A thug

I've managed to finish painting the first model from the Frostgrave nickstarter:

These minis certainly have a lot of detail - In fact, they are very close to having the level of fiddly bits I normally shy away from. Still - I think the end result is quite nice, and look forward to having some more of these guys painted. It just takes me a lot longer than my usual miniatures.

He'll make a nice bandit in a Open Combat warband when he is not serving in Frostgrave.

Basing - A short tutorial

Today, I thought I'd do a short walk-through/tutorial on how I do my bases.

A zealous crusader knight charges across the blasted earth.

For a long time, I was never quite happy with how my bases turned out. So I did a lot of experimenting with colours and styles, until I hit on this formula, which I basically use for everything now. I am still refining it though, and adding new things to the technique. An example is the rocks and slabs, which are a recent thing I've picked up on.

So in this post, we'll be going from this:

to this: