Female Paladin from Cool Mini

I painted this a few years ago for CoolMiniorNot.  I had lots of fun creating the base design!





This will give you a better view of the design I painted on the base:

Reaper death cultist diorama

Here is another blast from the past (circa 2004)

It was made from sculpey.  The floor was created with a press mould that was in the shape of Celtic knotwork.  It is the only time I have used that, I believe.  The walls and floor were baked, and then the pieces were broken up and carved.











The miniature itself is from Reaper.

Ideas for sewer theme bases...

This was a set of bases I did for CMON that was supposed to have a sewer look.  The idea was that they would be modular, with some interchangeable pieces.



The supplies used were pretty basic.  Sculpey, plastic deck plating, polystyrene tubing, and green stuff.



These images show how the flat pieces on top of a few of the bases could be changed out...



They wanted a bases that looked  like a sewer grate, so I mad this one with individual walls and two different top pieces...




Here's a few more "traditional" marble designs that I made for them...

Lord of the Rings... the last days of the King?

Well, here is that second fight from the other day.  We repeated the High Ground scenario, for obvious reasons.  Rich had a second list prepared, this time one that had mass amounts of infantry.  I was outnumbered by at least 16 minis.  Ouch.

My calculation was that there was not much chance for me to win.  The best I could do was a draw.  If we each killed the same amount of troops, he would still be able to get 10-15 of those extra figures tin position to be touching the hill.

He also had a bunch of the ninja guys, who have lots of attacks, poison, high fight skill, and super high courage on the charge.  I knew those would be nasty for me.



That was the setup and initial deployment.  As you can see, once we rolled a few 3's or less, everything went right next to the hill, or on top of it.  I really don't like this scenario at all.

What was not already up front started moving there the next turn:


This turn saw the first failure to cast Nature's Wrath by a stormcaller.  That would prove to be fatal.  It allowed the Harad Fat boys to get into position, and left the Army of the Dead (and King) exposed on the right to the ninja guys.



It didn't take long for things to get ugly, and turn into a giant scrum.  Since the King has no might (and the stormcaller had used up his trying to cast, the ninjas kept whacking the AoD, killing them off one by one.  They didn't have to worry about terror, since they have special rules to boost them on the charge (plus a horn!).



It becomes a grind, as the massed Harad just provide too many attacks that even fight skill 5 cannot compensate for.  With the King dead, a critical 3 victory points would go to Harad.  The second stormcaller managed to cast the Wrath spell a few times, but that only served to delay the inevitable.



My cavalry was doing some serious damage, surviving multiple attacks, and getting kills.  The game would have been a complete blowout without them.  I had put in minimal cav to match my story line for the 2 armies, but it was becoming clear that this concept was not going to work in games.  The Army of the Dead died way too easily, and they could not keep up with the Elves to get that fight 5 boost.  This was the first turn of the Elves being broken, but I did not roll a 1 or 2, so that game continued.  Had it ended here, I would have gotten a draw, since I had a ton of guys on or touching the hill.



Here you see the end of the battle.  The Elves are broken, but do not run away.  They kill a ton of Harad, but not enough to break them.  The battle does end, but Rich gets 3 guys to touch the hill.  He ends up winning by 3 points... the points awarded for killing the King of the Dead.  That is the second game where his death cost me a loss.  With no might and only 1 attack, he just does not stand up to much.  We are still trying to figure out why he has 6 will points.


Since they just don't do what I thought they could, we decided that it was time to dump the Dead.  I had wanted to keep them, since they are so much fun to paint!  I was looking forward to having a whole force of these guys painted in the fluorescent paints, but it is just not to be.

As we discussed this, Babo made a new friend:


We went back and forth on what should take the place of the AoD.  The same amount of points would get me a 3rd stormcaller unit exactly, but I don't have those minis, and no time to paint them.  There were some characters that were interesting, but would not fit the fluff.

So, we came up with the named eagle.  I have a perfect story idea for it, and it should compliment the cavalry very well.  With the extra points, I got one more Galadrhim knight with a crucial banner!  There is one scenario that you give up 2 VP's if you do not have a banner.  We will test this out next week.

Afterwards, I painted some more figures, doing my shaded basecoat..



While people played Malifaux on the new terrain board for the first time!!!

A Converted Zhuphor

This is a somewhat basic conversion I did of a Zhuphor figure a while back.  The positioning of the cloak made is particularly difficult to sculpt the shoulder pads!







The shoulder pads were sculpted mostly using brown stuff, which really holds and edge much better than green stuff.  Here is a WIP image:

Inside a blood bowl stadium

Seeing the pictures of the Shadowforge team made me think of the blood bowl stadium I made for our own league.  This was a very fun project, and we used it for years!

Here are a few overall views:




The primary material was pink foam.  This was back in the day when they used to sell thin sheets of it that were the same thickness as foam core.  The think sheets were great, as you could make very thin, more portable single boards as well.  You could even bend it to make curves!



A slightly bigger image:


The dugouts were my favorite parts!  I had a blast filling them with all sorts of potion bottles, chalkboards, coffins, etc.



The 3D dugouts are still a lot of fun to use to this day.  Way more fun than the cardboard sheets of a typical board!



The Shadowforge orcs made a perfect team for this photo shoot!







Here we have an action shot on the field...

King of the Hill, game ONE

More practice games for the Lord of the Rings tournament!

The first of today's test games was Hold Ground.  We had not tried this one out yet, and it seemed to be the best one on our 4 x 4 terrain board that we made for the Dragon Shoppe!!



Here's a few shots before deployment..



This is the force that I used for today's games.


Rich brought out his Harad, since he wanted to see what would happen if he brought a Mamuk. It would not take all that long to find out!  This is our deployment.  As you can see, everything is piled up pretty close to the central hill, as that is about all that matters.  You could pretty much play this on a 2 x 2 board.  It is probably the lest thought out of the new scenarios.



The Mamuk is trying to get in position for an inevitable stomp of the squishy elves.



Here you can see the stormcaller has been at work.  Lots of Harad on the ground!



I try to position the elves to make the best use of the Nature's wrath spell, moving the elves through the forests to hammer the hapless Harad..


We almost never tied for the priority roll all dy, so there were not many turns with no shooting due to the "high winds".  However, the Stormcallers continued to roll 6's for their spell, and Harad were constantly on the ground.  The Mumak was the one real hope for the Southlanders...


This is a portent of the killing spree to ensue on the downed Harad...


The high fight skill of the elvse was quite lethal in these combats.  Since so many of them were engaged, there was not much for the archers in the howdah to shoot at...


More Nature's Wrath, more Elf charges, more Dead Harad.  And this is just the end of turn two!  It is looking bleak for the Southlanders...


This would be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.  One of my archers was lucky enough to wound the Mumak itself, creating a courage roll.  Rich's newly purchased dice came up double '1's, giving me control of the big beastie!



So, with control of the great beast, I sent it far from the central hill, also preventing any of the archers in the howdah from shooting.  With the Elves beating up on the Harad near the hill, that was about all she wrote.


Of course, when the stormcallers keep rolling 6's, life is pretty easy.  The next match (same scenario, different Harad list) would show what happens when things don't go as well for the Elven mages!

The wound on the Mumak made me question even more the Army of the Dead as a viable choice in the 'new' game.  They had been doing worse with each test game, never attaining the intended purpose as road blocks and combat partners for the sword elves.  Even with that high defense and shielding, they still would die to mere 6's.  The next match would also show how terror is mostly useless against evil as well.

Stay tuned!!