vulcanologist:
Oooh… I like it! Good idea! That will certainly make the unit stand out!
tjub:
Looks great!
This message was automatically appended because it was too short.
JMR:
Continued work on my Grave Guard. I’ve chosen to use a brighter colour for the weapons. I still need to change the weapon of the first one.
I’m probably making lots of mistakes with this OSL stuff, but it’s fun to do something new! I’m not sure if it translates well on photographs though. I guess I’d need a lightbox.
Pictures!
vulcanologist:
Looking better and better!
JMR:
I’ve played a second 1500p game with my Vampire Counts vs. furrie’s Beastmen. In short:
My army
Level 4 Necromancer
2x 25 Skeletons
31 Zombies with Level 1 Necromancer
9 Black Knights with Vampire Hero
Varghulf
Spirit Host
furrie’s army
30 Gors + Level 2 Shaman
28 Bestigors + Battle Standard and Level 4 Shaman
4x 5 Ungor Raiders
2x Razorgor
I’m not going to write a full battle report, but instead just going to pick out a few things.
1) My Black Knights with Vampire charged his gors. Now the thing is I put that Vampire in there mostly to be able to resurrect my knights. Unfortunatly, on his first cast he got irresistible force and blew up half of his own unit and almost got sucked into the warp himself. The exact same thing happened in my first game. It’s rather unfortunate. The problem is that I still don’t really know how well my Black Knights can perform! I think they can do pretty well, especially vs. Str 3 troops, but not when they get blown up by their own hero!
I still want to experience what it’s like to actually safely reach combat and safely resurrect fallen warriors and see what their durability and killing power is like.
2) I’ve tried zombies for the first time to see how well they can tarpit and also to see how summoning actually works out. I’ve also taken Master of the Black Arts on my Master Necromancer this time, so there was really quite a bit of summoning going on, in theory anyway.
What happened is that in my first two magic phases I didn’t manage to summon anything at all, which was a downer. But when I did manage to cast it, I noticed how things get rather crazy pretty fast. 2D6 + 4 zombies from the Master Necromancer already lead to me not being able to add all of them because there was another unit in the way. (No room to place raised models = wasted models.) Still though, casting Invocation with a level 4 and a level 1 would mean 4D6 + 5 zombies gained. That’s a lot.
I’m not sure I want to paint all that stuff :mask Also, I felt adding those extra models was just a bit of a pain with movement trays and whatnot. On top of that, when I got my zombies in combat with furrie’s fully buffed Bestigor unit, I got to remove 30+ of them in one turn as casualties! All this model switching gives me headaches! I’ve grown up using Chaos Warriors who take maybe 2-3 casualties on a bad day. Much simpler.
3) Varghulf is nice. Nothing amazing, but it’s a very decent unit for a decent price. I just need to remember to use Thunderstomp!
4) My skeleton units didn’t do anything at all. We had a bit of a mexican stand-off. I figured I’d just hang back a bit and expand my units with Invocation while my Varghulf, Spirit Host and Knights picked their targets. After turn 4 or so, my Varghulf had just finished off the remains of his Gor unit, which only left his big bad Bestigor block and some random ungors and a Razorgor to target. The thing is that I couldn’t really see my Skeletons doing anything useful to them, and they didn’t. I’m not really sure what I am supposed to do with my skeletons.
If I want to hold a unit up, I’m better of using zombies or even Spirit Hosts. Charging into a combat to add static resolution while something beefy does the damage is risky, because the static resolution is usually negated by the extra kills the enemy gets by attacking my skeletons. The third possible role would be to make my Skeleton units more killy. That’s something I’ll have to look into. Maybe I need to try Ghouls…
vulcanologist:
Another interesting report… Keep them coming they’re fun and informative to read…cheers!
JMR:
Rise! Rise my thread and serve me once again!
I should have updated this thread more often, because I painted up quite a few undead in the meantime, but never posted pictures. Maybe they’ll come later, but first…
…time for something completely different.
Ancient Greeks! I’ve taken the plunge and started an ancient greek mythology army. I’ve been eyeing the various plastic Hoplite models that are available nowadays for a good while and I just couldn’t resist anymore.
So, here we go! This is what the postman delivered yesterday:
It all starts with a big pile of plastic. What you’re looking at here is enough sprues to built 96 Victrix Hoplites. I’ve gone for 48 Theban and 48 Athenian Hoplites to build two hordes.
For this army I’m going for a mix of quality and speed. Simply put, I want this army painted and painting 96 hoplites to a high standard is just not doable for me, so I’m going for a quick paint scheme using almost only washes. I think this technique is called greyscaling or somesuch.
On the other hand, a fully painted army that looks like poop doesn’t work either, so I’m using shield transfers (for the first time) along with not-too-special-but-coherent basing techniques to (hopefully) create an overall good looking force.
Here’s 9 Theban Hoplites built, primed, washed, drybrushed and ready for further painting.
And I’ve gone ahead and “finished” one Hoplite:
While I was awaiting the delivery of my Hoplites, I rummaged through my old models and found 4 old metal Minotaurs that I bought ~10 years ago and were just wasting away. They’re maybe not the best of models, but they deserve a second life and including them in a Greek Mythology army was a great opportunity.
What do you think?
Bolg:
I love the paint of the Hoplite, looks great, good detail and most defiantly a great table top quality if you field those guys in a horde.
Oh and the same skin tone on the minotaurs is a great detail.
JMR:
Yeah, I chose to go with a human skin-colour to play on the “bull-headed man” idea of a Minotaur instead of a chaos monstrosity.
It’s funny that you mention the skin, Bolg. The Minotaur’s skin is done by highlighting/blending from Tallarn- to Elf Flesh, with washes in between etc. The hoplites on the other hand are simply done with one application of Gryphonne Sepia + Reikland Fleshshade. It’s nice how simplicity matches the complex way of painting 
The first 10 are “finished”. I need to touch up their shields, paint some hair and finish the bases, but I’m going to move on to the next 10 for now.
Admiral:
Those pikemen are gorgeous.
Kera foehunter:
Love the shields
This message was automatically appended because it was too short.
vulcanologist:
Top,top stuff!
This message was automatically appended because it was too short.
Larendard:
It’s aöways nice to see how much can be accomplished by using simple techniques like washig and drybrushing - makes me happy panda smile
JMR:
@Admiral: Thank you! These are actually Hoplites wielding spears, but if I ever want to do a third horde, it’s going to be Macedonian Pikemen.
@Kera: They’re nice, aren’t they? They make my mediocore painting look good. They’re fairly expensive though when you compare them to the price of 1 miniature, but worth it if you’d ask me
@Vulc: Thanks! I haven’t seen you update your log much lately. Is there anything in the pipeline?
@Larendard: Yup, I’m pretty pleased with the results considering the simplicity. (I think) I usually tend to overdo things when it comes to painting and it’s often not worth it for rank-'n-file, especially if overdoing things means a unit doesn’t get finished. Better keep it simple and get things done.
I’ve “completed” 10 more Thebans, totalling 20 now:
Half-way through my first horde. I hope I can keep up the pace…
JMR:
mmm… dusty thread…
I’ve bought an airbrush set a few weeks ago and having great fun with it. Here’s a Phoenix I’ve painted up as a birthday present for a friend.
I wish I had taken a bit more time when taking pictures, because not a single one is fully in focus, but I wanted to share them anyways!
A very fun and rewarding model to paint. It’s just made for airbrushing.
What do you guys think?
JMR:
Ah yeah, I left the base bare on purpose. Since it’s a gift I figured it’d be best to let him do the base himself so it matches the rest of his army. Couldn’t resist giving it a bit of texture and colour though
Blue in VT:
WOW…that Phoenix is fantastic! You may have convinced me to get an airbrush!
Cheers,
Blue
Yodrin:
So much cool and nice things in this BLOG, and the Phoenix is no different, it looks amazing!!! Great job!!
Admiral:
The Theban Hoplites looks good, but the Phoenix is great. It’s the best one I’ve seen so far. You’re skilled with that airbrush!
zobo1942:
Amazing phoenix!!! Well done!