MODheim: Undead teaser

Just a quick photo of some undead PiP.

These are unconverted figures; from left to right; Privateer press Mercenary Thrall and the CMoN limited edition Litche (and yes I know I've painted his feet as if they were part of his... skirt...err... I mean robes....).



Undead Wight and Litche

These figures will be part of the unliving faction, lead by the Litche.
The Litche and wight will be 2 of the at least 5 hero options, joined by Revenents and a banshee.
Henchmen will be skellies, cultists (some humans will always follow nutters whomever they are).
And some other stuff I haven't come up with yet...
They will have a Privateer Press Boneswarm as their monster (stock photo below).

MODheim: Southlander update

An update today for the southlanders, I still need to get used to my new camera so again, appologies for the photo quality.

I have painted the 2 pages and finished the 2 marksman & Assassin (apart from bases and the heads could use more work... are you sensing a pattern yet...lol).

The pages are based on Bretonnian men at arms (from the command sprue) with arms from the same sprue as well as one from the Empire greatswords (with the axe).

The hammer is from the old middenheim hairy head sprue.

One head is from a saxon set... can't remember the manufacturer, the other is from Privateer press (circle of orobos, druids unit I think).

I used greenstuff to blend in the heads to the neck area.

Here is the only shot I have pre-paint.

The Marksmen have had quivers added and the assassin just had her head finished.

I wish GW would release more fantasy suitable sized female heads.

For a parts list please see previous Southlander posts (use the search cloud on the right).

More shots of the pages (the reds are very washed out here unfortunately):

WH40K: Touren Pirate

An oldie for you, one of the first conversions that I did for an old project that fell by the way side called "Fringe wars".

Fringe wars was basically Necromunda mashed into WH40k. So instead of gangs you were fighting with units from a 40k race. e.g. Necron cultists (humans worshiping Necrons), Genestealer cults, Tau pathfinders, Eldar corsairs, inquisitor units, etcs.

Much like the MODheim project I started making units for a bunch of warbands, the first of which were the Tauren.

I pictured the Tauren as a noble / Honourable  race of non-spacefairers, their planet was however assimilated into the Tau empire. Once assimilated the Touren were given the choice of joining the Tau empire or moving on (e.g. leave their planet). Most joined the Tau empire, some however chose to go it alone and after being deposited onto a commerce planet, made their way in the world as mercenaries for rogue traders or pirates. I only ever finished one non-Tau touren, but I was very happy with him.

The parts used in this conversion were:
Beastman body, beastman head
Space marine scout shotgun (hand removed and handle re-sculpted)

Space marine torso front & Pouches.

OOP space marine scout bike shotgun holster (handle removed).
Catachan jungle fighter sheathed sword & knife plus pocket shaved off of a leg.

OOP Dwarf hand (pointing)

Wire for shades.

Greensutff.

I started to paint him as well but I didn't get very far.

MODheim: Dwarves PiP

Update on the current status of the dwarves, obviously bases still need doing, the faces didn't come out as well as i'd hoped (I had to repair a couple of them after cutting into them when removing the original helmets). Faces could definitely do with more paint work but ... well I can't paint faces... :(.

Also I took these photos in bright sunlight with a new camera.... probably not the best idea, I need to play with the camera settings as these photos originally all came out blue.... (I mean REALLY dark blue all over, not just the blue bits).

I still need to figure out a shield design

This face had the most corrective sculpting... you can tell :(.

The photos really are quite bad (her hair is red....)

MODheim: Terrortoise (WIP)

Something new today, and not stolen from anyone else either (as far as i'm aware) lol.

The photos below show my work in progress Terrortoise figures (name suggestions welcome).

These conversions are based on the Avatars of War Dwarf Berserker plastics (again - see Gnomes), with a head I sculpted and cast some years ago (which i'm going to have to resculpt bits of). and a fair amount of GS.

If anyone is curious about the colour of the sculpting putty, I am running out of greenstuff so i've been mixing in some pro-create (light green putty) and I thought i'd try some brownstuff to see if it helped at all (dark green putty), there is also a bit of pure pro-create putty on one of them.

Have a good weekend :).

MODheim: Mato

DISCLAIMER: this was not my idea, it was filched over from Tael on ATT:

Link
His blog is over here: link

Another conversion that I saw some years ago and loved the look of.
I immediately went out and got most of the parts for it but was stumped for a few bits.
However just recently I was tidying my plastic pile and I came across the parts I needed to finish the conversion... !! I grabs the bits and took them straight to my desk.

some fiddling, swearing and picking apart my Superglue'd fingers later I had this to show off:

I love this little guy, I have no idea what i'm going to do with him and I only have the parts for one more, but that doesn't change the fact that I love it!

The parts are: Nid Gaunt head, OOP plastic spider (from WH quest or the OOP spider swarm), and 2 each of the 2 gaunt guns, plus one of the little toxin sack thingys (and some plastic card).

One of the most creative / imaginative conversions i've ever seen.

If anyone else has seen any really creative conversions out there on the net, please feel free to share the links!!

Have a good one.

MODheim: Fishmen update

Finished painting my fishmen for MODheim (apart from the bases), I have to do a few more, as there aren't enough (particularly Heroes) to make an entire warband yet but i'm happy with how they came out in the end :).

Bloodcap Gnomes: Conversion Guide

I've been asked a couple of times now how I made my gnomes, so therefore, it's time for a little guide.

Firstly 'd like to point out that the original ideas for putting Night goblin heads on Dwarf bodies, wasn't mine, here, I got the idea from CMON, when I saw this:

Obviously back then the AoW plastics did not exist, but I think Kubasa did an excellent job on those gnomes. I had that image in my mind for years and when I saw the AoW plastics I decided it was finally time to give it a shot.

I don't have any WIP shots unfortunately, but I will try and describe the process as best as I can.

PARTS LIST
Avatars of War plastic dwarf Berserker, legs, arms and torso. - here is a blog page that reviews the kit: LINK
 

 







OOP GW Dwarf warrior head (with beard of choice).






 











OOP GW Night goblin head (with hood).

















Weapons of choice (in my case I cut the ends off of the musicians horn in the Warhammer FB Dwarf Thunderers / warriors unit (can't remember which)).
 
Glue
**I highly reconmend superglue rather than plastic glue as the parts can stil be separated if anything goes wrong.**

GUIDE


**NOTE- anywhere I mention GS I mean greenstuff, and you should always let the GS set before moving onto the next stage in case you put your finger in it.**




Trim off the bottom of the night goblins face, and a tiny bit of the bottom / back of the underside of his nose (a little notch for the beard to go into).

Trim the beard off the dwarf's head and shave off some of the back of the now seperate beard at the top. Dry fit to Night goblin head, shave more off if needed until it looks right / fits snugly, then glue into place and GS any gaps.

Take your chosen legs from the AoW beserker kit (I prefer the ones with trousers) and cut a small wedge of sprue at the angle you want the body at ( I did this to make the model more upright (helps with the head being so big).
 
Glue the sprue to the middle of the legs (I recommend dry fitting to ensure correct angle as it's a pain to trim the sprue piece after gluing).

Glue to torso in place.

Using a blob of greenstuff fill the gap in the torso and sclupt at the back to blend into the legs and torso.

Dry fit the night goblin head (with attached beard) and trim down the neck line and sides of the back of the goblins hood to fit. Then glue the head in place.

Use another blob of GS to extend the back of the Night goblin's hood over the torsos' back blending into the hood.

Create / cut / choose your weapon heads, glue them to the AoW arm weapon shafts and then glue the arms to the torso.

Tidy up with some greenstuff on the shoulders if required (I did on mine (not pictured above).

All in all fairly simple conversions, but getting hold of the OOP parts might not be so easy. 

You should end up with something like this (additional cloaks were converted out of a GW Chaos warrior back half (dremelled to death) and an off cut from the OOP "Hairy head sprue" (originaly from the Mordheim boxed set).

Cheers for reading.

MODheim: City of Legends

So i'm working on the rules, etc for MODheim (my Mordheim conversion) and i've been trying to work out the best way of creating a large bank of scenarios, so far i'm come up with a card based system, as pictured below, I would really like some feedback on this if anyone has any thoughts, or ideas to add.

I'm also trying to work out a simpler way to show what models can work in a warband. To try and explain this a little better, as I come up with more and more warband ideas, I realise that some of the models would / could work for more than one warband.

Although models could have a “fluff” entry in the book with maybe half a page explaining their motivations and loyalties, to try and display this better in a method that will allow users to select their models more easily I’ve come up with the “warband grid” as pictured below. Again I would really love some feedback on this and if you think it is a clear method, or if you have any other suggestions on how to do it.

So, what do you think? I could really use some feedback, positive or otherwise as to the layouts and ideas above.

Much appreciated.

Maxxev.

Malifaux at my "local" club last night

So we took Malifaux (http://www.malifaux.com/) out for a spin at my "local" club up in Crawley (UK) for only the second time.

The First time I tried a demo game of it at the club (we got a Wyrd Henchman down from to show us how to play) I was frankly quite confused with all the little icons for the damage types (man with arms in the air, exploding man with arms in the air, man in brackets) etc. I have a quick play card, but it was all a bit much for me at the time.

Last night I used the Outcast LaCroix boxed set which I think is a little simpler in play style than Soomer tooth and allowed me to get my head around the core mechanics of the game more easily.

I personally think the card mechanic for the game is extremely well thought out, and allows for a more balanced game that is potentially less reliant on luck (or at least you know that if you've already used most of your high cards, you might want to play it safe for a while until you get to a re-shuffle!!, plus being able to cheat fate (swap a card in your hand for the one you just drew) is very handy.

Much like Warmachine, Malifaux runs with simple mechanics and a plethora of special rules (but unlike Warmachine in Malifaux you pretty much will have 5-8 models tops (unless you run gremlin or vermin spam)).

All the models have a 4 faced card, one side is a nice picture of a painted model, then you have one with all the stats on it and 2 others listing all the special rules. On top of that models have triggers that are triggered by some of the suits on the cards, and or the suits that the model has on its stat profile.

We have a couple of the wyrd streets of Malifaux terrain boxes at the club (www.crawleymtg.co.uk). so we had some excellent looking terrain to play on (though the Mordheim buildings on top could have been in better condition lol).

To start with I’ll state that we got armour all wrong, and that kind of ruined the "fun" of the game for me (we didn't realise that 1 damage always happens no matter the armour level) which is a shame, but I believe I now have a pretty good grasp of the core mechanics, which should allow me now to try and get to grips with all of the model's special rules!

I won’t go into much detail on the game itself except to say that armour is a pain in the bottom, especially when your opponent keeps getting the card suit they need to buff it up! (I was playing against hoffman (pictured below)).

The Guardian is a pain in the bottom and the hunter's ability to drag things is also nasty. However, coming out of the game I believe I now understand how to use my Gremlin special forces and I belive I know what I should have done differently to "do a win" in the game last night.

So I've lived and learnt and the Lacroix will be looking for payback next time (hopefully with some paint on them!).

Cheers for reading :), if you have any comments or advice, please drop me a note below

Cheers

WHFB: Dwarves

Another catch-up thread showcasing the latest conversions for my Warhammer Fantasy Dwarves

The below is one of the conversions I'm most proud of, all the plastics are from the OOP Dwarf warrior kit, bar some of the accesories and the "shoulder armour" (dwarf mask).
The face (lower half) was sculpted and I was really happy with the outcome (I have however been unable to replicate it on any other figures :(.

Gatekeeper

The kit below shows the metal BSB and thane kit, originally the model on the left was the thane and the one on the right was the standard, however the BSB was so badly misscast (head) that I decided to chop it off and resculpt bits of him. I liked the resulting helmet conversion so much that I decided to use him as a Thane instead of a BSB, but I still needed a BSB figure....

Standard bearer into Thane, Thane into Standard bearer....

Thane WIP - he will have a hand eventually

The below figures are again converted from OOP Dwarf warriors, using the current plastics helmets and arms / cross bows. Greenstuff was then used to bring the OOP figures waistlines into line with the current dwarf plastics as well as to add cloaks (they will be rangers).

Rangers from OOP plastics

WARMACHINE: Searforge update

Update to show the latest complete models for my Searforge.

I frankly am never likely to use 30 hammerfall, even with 2 unit attachments, however I love the models....
The second unit attachment has been converted from a couple of "spare" hammerfall figures.

The units are distinguished by all having different shields (this includes the corresponding Unit attachments (one advantage of having 60+ Hammerfall models at one point.....).

Units: Hammerfall High Shields (34 (Units 10x3 + Unit attachments 2x2))

The Averlancher may not be the best jack in the game... well it may not even be in the middle area.... ok fine the Averlancher is not he WORST jack in the game.... but at least it brings some long range firepower to the Searforge contract (still need to base this guy).

Heavy Warjack: Averlancher

Durgen Madhammer, I decided to convert my Madhammer figure as he looked a little bit hunched backed and I wanted to try and make him look more like the artwork (on deviant art somewhere). However I didn't take into account that it was going to be impossible to re-pose his head so I had to just deal with what I ended up with below. I still prefer him over the stock version at least, lol. Again, I still need to base him.

Wacaster: Durgen Madhammer

MODheim: Fishmen (PIP)

This is a Catch-up post showing the present state of the MODHeim Fishman warband i'm working on.

The warband undercoated

I decided to try a rather different approach to painting these guys to try and make them more "fish" like. I did this first by undercoating in a light colour (Army painter Bone spray) and then painting them with watered down silver (in this case GW Chainmail). I then proceeded to paint the fleshy areas with GW Azurmen blue ink (which is probably now OOP).

I personally feel that the paint job worked pretty well and left the minis with a nice metallic sheen, which is what I was going for.

Sea trolls with some paint on them (GW River rolls)

Carg with some paint on them (Privateer Press Bog Trogs)

 I also have the following Sea Demon miniatures from Four A miniatures  (http://www.fouraminiatures.com) to add to the warband.

MODheim: Dwarves

Catch up thread to show where the Dwarf warband for MODheim is currently.

So far all miniatures for the dwarf warband are from Reaper miniatures, converted using helmets from the OOP Dwarf warrior kit (6th Edition) and weapon arms and accesories from the present dwarf warrior and Thunderer kits. Sheilds are from the Bretonnian men at arms.

These guys are now all undercoated, I'm still trying to work out the colours to paint them with.....

Waarband Leader

Quareller 1

Quareller 2

 

Quareller 3

DeathSquads: Squat survivors

The below figures were going to be the 2nd warband converted for use in DeathSquads, there are no actual rules for Squats, I was intending to use them as Chaos renegades, however I still only have 2 of them finished lol.

Converted from Privateer Press Hammerfall High Shield figures, with GW plastic heads (Empire militia and Catachan Jungle fighter), a weapon from Heresy Miniatures and the bolter type thing from Inquisitor (54mm). Plus a fair ammount of greenstuff (and even a little greystuff (pro-create putty) on the first guys shoulders)

MODheim: Blood Gnomes

The Blood Gnomes are vicious little creatures, small and yet ferocious and deadly with it.

They have a tradition of soaking thier caps in the blood of their victims, hence their dirty red colour.

The Gnomes are another warband being converted and painted by myself for my MODheim project. The models below are Gnome Blood cap beserkers, there are pictures here showing the models before painting and their current Paint in progress status.

The gnomes in this post were all converted from Avaters of War Dwarf beserker bodies and legs, with OOP Night goblin heads. The Night goblin heads were modified with beards from the OOP Dwarf warrior boxed set (6th edition warhammer). The weapon heads were cut from the end of the current dwarf warriors (I think might be thunderers) musician horn.

Blood Gnome Beserker Prototype

Blood Gnome beserker (cloak is an off cut from my bits box) - sorry about the flash

Picture of all 3 current gomes and shows the Beserker Champion at the bottom - again sorry about the flash

This picture shows al three gnomes in thier current mostly painted state

Paint in progress Beserker

Paint in progress Beserker

Paint in progress Beserker Champion

 I have purchased some bits which I hope I can use to make some less "tribal" looking gnomes for rest of the warband (they wont be all be beserker types).