A Wizard and a Halfling Assassin Walk Into a Tavern...

 I... don't have an end to that joke... 

But I did finish painting a few miniatures this weekend... 

Wizard and a Halfling Assassin

The Wizard is from Hasslefree miniautres... and now as I'm preparing to post this, I see some things that I missed... ugh... 

The Halfling (that I am calling an assassin). I'm pretty sure this one is a reeeeeeeally old Ral Partha miniature! 

It is tiny, compared to most other halflings... (as are most of the Ral Partha Halflings I have... I was thinking I'd use most as halfling children or teens!?) 

but they are not compared to their nemesis, other halfling assassin I have (I have no idea WHERE this one came from... I thought maybe it was Heresy minaitures, but when I went to check and confirm, could not find?!) 

Despite their diminutive nature, they are the two most deadly assassins in the realm! 

While working on the Wizard and Halfling, I ended up rebasing and touching up (and partially re-painting) a number of other mediaeval fantasy types for a little plan I have cooking in my brain... 

More on that later, though... 

Maybe... 

It may all come to naught... 

Just another excercise in my brain of creating a narrative that nothing ever comes of... 

Odd and Sundry Bits

Below is a collection of an assortment of odd and sundry bits that have been haunting the periphery of my work area for some time, partially painted, that I’ve recently –  over the last month – finished off… but didn’t feel any one group necessitated a post all of their own… or maybe they all could have, but I was feeling lazy…?

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Two English Civil War cavalrymen. One, on the left, is from Old Glory the other, on the right, is from Perry Miniatures.

The two finish up a unit of heavy cavalry for The Pikeman’s Lament.

An English Civil War musketeer casualty from Perry Miniatures. You can’t see it, because it’s hidden by the grass, but he’s sitting on his musket.

A Teutonic Knight Casualty from Gripping Beast. The beginnings of a Teutonic Knight retinue for Lion Rampant. I have two units of Mounted Men-at-Arms and an assortment of pilgrims and clergymen and a bunch of cavalry to paint up for the force. Well… some of the clergy are already painted… I’m not sure what I was thinking when I decided to pick up the knights… seemed like a good idea at the time…? I’ll probably need to pick up some Mounted Sergeants and some more foot for the force at some point… maybe when I actually get some of the other units finished!!

First two of the Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter, which arrived a couple weeks ago, that I’ve “painted”. There wasn’t much painted involved – other than the base.

The Wizard I actually have a not-so-translucent version of – so I can make him “invisible”.

I’m not sure why I ended up with the invisible/translucent dude with the hammer…?

Three Lead Adventure Miniatures post-apocalyptic survivors.

Two more post-apocalyptic KGB from Lead Adventure Miniatures. I finished the others from this set back in February

One of the figures from the Psi-Paladins and Techno-Barbarians Kickstarter for Mutants and Death Ray Guns.

A Grenadier Guards Officer from Miniature Figurines Winter of ’79 range.

Three female police constables also from from Miniature Figurines Winter of ’79 range.

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath from Reaper Bones 3 Kickstarter. I got all the big mythos creatures out of this set. Painted up this guy as an adventure I’m prepping to kick off a Cthulhu Invictus campaign involves a Dark Young…

With the wizard for scale – he’s pretty damned big! Shub0niggurath herself and Dagon are even HUGER?!

A terribly out of focus shot of three Grymm sniper specialists from Hasslefree Miniatures. Their camouflage was so good the camera could just not recognize what to focus on…

Are the Grymm supposed to be like Space Dwarves…? I think so. But given that hasslefree minis are on the slightish side, I though they might fit in with one of my units of Imperial Guard Ratling snipers.

Unit of Ratling snipers. They’re still on the slight side… maybe female Ratlings are smaller and have tinier heads than the males of their species…? I probably should have converted their boots into big feet to match up with the GW guys a bit better… ah well…

That’s it for me for now. Need to do some planning this week and figure out what I’m going to work on in the coming months…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Game Plan 2017: What’s Next…?

Horse Archers and Crossbowmen

A few more things rolling off the workbench this week…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Turcoman Horse Archers from Gripping Beast.

These will be a unit of “Mounted Yeomen”/Light Riders for my medieval Muslim Lion Rampant/Dragon Rampant Retinue/Warband.

Here they are with other members of the Retinue/Warband so far…  (The foot are actually part of Frostgrave Warbands – but I figure I could press these ones into service as a unit of Fierce/Belicose Foot and Bidowers/Scouts…).

Some Armoured Crossbowmen from Perry Miniatures. I was picking up some other stuff from Perry Miniatures so I thought I’d grab these to use as Marksmen in Frostgrave - as they have Mail, Crossbow, and Sword – the equipment of marksmen… unfortunately these are earlier crusaders and the helmets on the rest of my soldiers are later medieval… ah well…

If you look close, two have been painted with yellowish tunics for the Gold Wizards warband and two have green for the Jade Wizards. The other two in could be for anyone. I haven’t ever taken any Marksmen – I’m not a fan of the slow-loading crossbows – I’d rather have a Ranger that can get twice as many shots down range… but I thought I should get some Marksmen to try out at some point…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I’m pretty excited about the Medieval Muslims at the moment, I may try to push to finish up the remaining two or three units of cavalry so I could have a fieldable force – and then work on the additional infantry options when I get to them. Of course there are a lot other things on my workbench, so who knows…?! 

Wings of Glory and Another Odd Assortment of Miniatures: Medieval, Fantasy, Indian Muntiy!?

The kids have been learning about the Great War this week and a number of movies and documentaries have been watched and I’ve tried to sneak in a game or two.

On Friday we watched Blue Max. I still love that movie - incredible stuff - all pre-CGI. 

Then busted out Wings of Glory (which I actually won in a contest on BoardGameGeek!)

The Boy took a Fokker DR.1 and The Girl the Albatros D.VA. I took the Sopwith Camel and a SPAD.

MRRRRRrrrooooowwwwww-dakka-dakka-dakka-dakka! That’s my Camel finishing off The Boy’s Fokker.

(Yes, sound effects were required. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere in the rules!)

Here are a few other items I’ve been working away at over the last week or so, concurrent with the Mike Bravo Miniatures

Casualty marker for my Medieval Muslims from Perry Miniatures

Another OLD Citadel Miniature recently stripped and repainted. I think the figure was actually an assassin figure for Talisman, but I’m planning to use it as a Thief or Treasure Hunter for my Gold Wizards (since I recently did a Treasure Hunter for the Jade Wizards

Since I’ve put together a Summoner warband, I thought I should have some more figures I could use as Imps. So I dug out these “Bushwoolies” from Thunderbolt Mountain. I don’t recall actually ordering these… I think they may have been sent along as free samples when I ordered some other things from them…?

Three dwarves to finish up a unit of Elite Foot for Dragon Rampant. The one in the middle is from Reaper Miniatures and the two flanking him are from Games Workshop.

Here’s the whole unit. The leader is so badass – he’s worth TWO of the six Strength Points!

Now to get the rest of the Dwarves finished!

(Actually I have my Dwarf DBA army that could easily be pressed into service for Dragon Rampant… but I also happen to have enough individually based Dwarves to field a Dragon Rampant warband! They just need some painting... well some of them… about half).

This is Suliman Le Saracen an old warhammer figure from Games Workshop I picked up in trade from my pal Cory when he was here for the Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargame Campaign Weekend. I had hoped that I might be able to slip him into one of my Lion Rampant units of Medieval Muslim Cavalry…

But as he towers over the others I think he’ll have to be some sort of Heroic Prince in Dragon Rampant and be fielded as a Single Model Unit of Elite Cavalry!

These are some Highlanders for the Indian Mutiny from AW Miniatures. Terry had a sample pack of them and gifted them to me for my birthday and I painted them up because… well… um… No, I don’t have enough for a full unit… er… No, I don’t have any other British troops from the era… I don’t even have anything I could pass off as mutinous Indians to have these guys fight a last stand defensive sort of game against… Really I’m not sure why I did these… It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

I’m pretty happy with how their kilts turned out.

Finally some crusader Religious rabble. A couple of these guys are partial repaints… I can’t remember which now… I thin they’re all from Old Glory…?

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have no idea. I feel like I’m all over the place. I feel more like cleaning and organizing the basement before doing any more gaming or painitng…

We shall see… 

Seljuk Heavy Cavalry

In January I picked up three units of Medieval Muslim foot from Black Tree Design to start a retinue for Lion Rampant (or a warband for Dragon Rampant…) when they had their crazy 50% off sale going on. I managed to get a half dozen camel riders from their fantasy Saracen range and replaced their goofy looking shields to make them look slightly more historical… But I knew I’d need more cavalry so I began looking around for options – thinking I’d pick some up once I got what I had painted… then I found a few packs listed on the Sentry Box’s online catalogue – some Gripping Beast Seljuk cavalry that were clearly old stock that had been sourced when the US dollar and UK pound were in the tank – So instead of waiting I decided to just order them, lest they be snapped up by someone else…

While I’ve been painting a few individual medieval Middle Eastern figures for use with Frostgrave Warbands, I thought I’d try paint up a few of the units for the Lion Rampant Retinue and ultimately decided that I should start with this newly acquired cavalry… (last in, first out, I guess…).

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

As I mentioned these figures are from Gripping Beast.

These will be classed as Mounted Sergeants (@ 4 points) with the Bow upgrade (+1 point = 5 points) in Lion Rampant.

(in Dragon Rampant they’d be “Heavy Riders” with the “Mounted Missiles” upgrade – also 5 points – same stats, different names)

I reallyhad fun painting them – they’re quite colourful! I figured the elite cavalry would be a bit more well off than the common foot soldier and would like to show off their “bling”. I’m really happy with how the shields turned out.

The guy with the upright spear probably could have had a banner… but I got lazy. Perhaps I’ll add one later – when I have other units – to distinguish them from one another and indicate where the leader of the retinue is…

I also just finished up some Treasure Tokens for Frostgrave (but they went in a separate post just before this one)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a few more European foot Men-at-Arms on the work bench that I might paint up next… but they could easily be swept off and replaced with… who-knows-what!?

More stuff for Frostgrave and Dragon Rampant

A few more items for Frostgrave and Dragon Rampant rolling off the workbench this week…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

Two Javelineers for Frostgrave. The figures are from Crusader Miniatures. I think I got them as part of a ready-made army for Lion Rampant - I think they were supposed to be part of a unit of bidowers. They didn’t really look all that much like medieval bidowers to me so I set them aside and wondered what I might do with them. If I’d gotten back to Song of Shadows and Dust I might have painted them up for that…

Two more for the medieval muslim themed warband for Frostgrave – another Thug (with just the sword) and a Man-at-Arms (with sword and shield). The figures are from Black Tree Design.

Four Corssbowmen. These figures are also from Black Tree Design.

Finally… a medieval bombard team. I though I might use them in Dragon Rampant as a reduced model unit of Heavy Missiles… though 12 strength points seems a bit much… It’d make more sense with 6 strength points. I suppose I could make them “Fearful” (at -2 points) which, in effect, would make them a little more brittle…

Oh, and these showed up! They're way snazzier that I'd imagined - they're printed on really nice cardstock - that looks like it could take a lot of erasing! The only downside is that, despite the padded envelope, the posties really hammer on the package and pretty much all of them have some serious dings and dents and bent bits... Originally I thought I'd hoard them all for my self, but I've decided I'll keep four for the family and the other six I'll use for the Frostgrave campaign next weekend. 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Still hoping to get in games of Frostgrave and En Garde! (though I'm starting to feel that En Garde! isn't going to happen until AFTER the Wargaming Birthday Bash/Winter Wargaming Weekend - or maybe we'll play it on the Sunday - after the Frostgrave Campaign...? 

There’s a PILE of Halflings on the workbench along with a bunch more Medieval Muslims.

I’ve also bee working on some new terrain – and took a few process pictures along the way, I’d like to organize them into some sort of post… it may not be a “How To” so much as a “here are a few pictures to give you an idea of how I do things”… We shall see… 

More Medieval Fantasy Figures

A few more items rolling off the workbench after the long weekend…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version):

A unit of Bidowers for Lion Rampant (or scouts for Dragon Rampant). One (the chunkier one on the left) is from Crusader Miniatures, the others are all from Black Tree Design (though one – the slinger – is actually a Dark Age Anglo-Saxon, and the rest are Hundred Years War soldiers).

More Medieval Muslims – thought they’ll more likely see action as members of Frostgrave warbands. The fellow with the book (from Mega Minatures) I figured would be the apprentice to the fellow I painted last week. The Thug (with the swaord) is from the Black Tree Design Crusades/Warriors of Islam line. I’m not sure of the manufacturer of the archer – I got him in a trade with  Bob in Edmonton a few years back.

The wizard and apprentice together – with the beginnings of a warband behind them...

Does the guy in the white beard work as a wizard? Or should I find someone else and use him as a captain? I don’t know…  The more I look at him the more I think “Captain” rather than wizard…

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I did finish up a bunch more over the long weekend, but I’ll be posting them as a separate post in just a few minutes…