Undead: Werewolves (Kings of War)

Overall I like the look of them but they were annoying to build (though a quick look at some of the other KoW stuff tells me not the worst....)

 So my kings of war 2nd round turned up yesterday and I collected it this morning, I have to say some of the items surprised me, I had seen some of the previews on line and thought that the sculpts looked very questionable for quite a few of the models (mummies and Brock riders in particular) but, some are better than suggested (Brock riders for instance are a lot better than the looked on line (I guess the huge badger photo really showed it off in the worst light...)).

Anyway I decided to assemble some of my werewolves as they will probably be the most useful in skirmish games (which I don't actually play by the way, I don't really play any wargames at the moment lol).

Assembly on these guys was.... well the tails and heads went on easily (4 heads included in the bag (all unique I think), 3 bodies, (2 unique), the tails are separate but they only fit with one body (e.g. there is one sculpt per body sculpt). Then there are 2 separate arm sculpts.... this is where things got a bit dodgy.

2 of the arms literally WOULD NOT fit on the shoulder, the recess in the arm was no where near big enough, I chopped off the shoulder ball type join and still had to trim the arms to get them looking half decent, and they'll require a whole load of greenstuff work to finish off, the rest of the arms were better... but only just, in the end I clipped off 5/6 of the shoulder ball sockets in order to get the arms fitted nicely. Personally I think because of that fact alone I would never recommend these sculpts to anyone unless they have greenstuff skills and a decent pair of clippers to remove the shoulders.

I don't think the arms would fit either body sculpt well either, i'll try that maybe on another set (I got 4 :)).
You can see the results of my labour below (As well as the remaining gaps that need filling.
In case anyone is curious they are on 40mm bases (for a rough idea of scale).

I removed a lot of the arm here to get the recess to fit what was left of the shoulder, yes I removed too much but I coulden't get to the "cup" without removing some bicep first. GS will hide the damage.

This one turned out quite well in the end, though there is a lot of GS needed on the back of the right arm.

This is the body . arm set you only get one of, the arms seem to fit this body far more easily than the other bodies (you could get away without removing the shoulders on this one).

As you can just about see here, the arm fits much better once the whole of the shoulder is gone...

Southlanders Update

So I decided to do a couple of "champion" types for the southlander warband to finish it off, it presently has 4 Swordsmen, 2 young blood types, the captain and 2 marksmen, so to be a full Mordheim merc warband it just needed the 2 champion models. Generally the champs get some slightly heavier gear, to this end I chose a Halberd and a great weapon.

With the middenheim "hairy head" being the source of the arms used in the rest of the warband I decided to go simple and use the great hammer from that sprue for the great weapon. Unlike the ostermark halberdier (Gerhardt Lowenherz) I have already put together I decided not to use the state troops arms but the Militia halberd arm, I will use another militia arm and either greenstuff or transplant a hand to hold the other end of the halberd.

The parts are: Catachan jungle fighter legs with the pockets shaved off, push molded armour (from the OOP state troops set (read further for my opinion on Instant putty if you like), Empire pistollier torsos (extended with sprue and then green-stuffed over), Bretonnian helmets and neck armour. The guy who has a face, the head used was one of the empire huntsmen / archers.

On Instant putty, the brown/dark grey putty used on two of the knee pads is instant putty, the product sold to be used with instant mold. I had lots of fun with this... trying to clear the damned stuff from my fingers after it dried in about 4 mins and crumbled everywhere and stuck to my hands...
I managed to get 3 molds filled, one un-successfully, the rest of the putty set on my desk (I was hoping for 10 mins out of it I guess). It dried incredibly crumbly, with little flexibility in it, the guy on the right for instance had to have some repair work after the knee pad cracked, and it's not exactly bent a great deal!.

I'm going to try mixing the instant putty with greenstuff at some point to see what happens (obviously not on anything important as it'll probably just create a mess of dry with lumps in it or something lol). I'm hoping to get more flexibility, but a shorter working life, I know greenstuff can be put in a "putty oven" but the instant mold goes soft when hot, so I want to give this a shot to speed up the molding of some items.

Mordheim Vampire Hunters: Campaign Master forces

Just a minor update with my finished Grave guard conversion, added a cloak and a barrel to finish him off (the cloak is from the Middenheim "hairy head" sprue (OOP) with the wolfy thing's head removed, turned around and bent the other way (used to be fury side out) then some greenstuff was used to blend it all in and add fur where the wolfy thing's head was.

The barrel is a hirst arts barrel I bought cast up already, that one was a freebie as it was damaged in casting, so I cut it in half to use here :).

If you are wondering about the general crusty appearance of the guys armour, the missing bolts, wonky casted lines and air bubbles around the collar.... that is why I will never voluntarily buy "Finecast" figures.... but for the sake of the undead, i'm not really bothered as I don't see them polishing their armour every night lol.

Mordheim Vampire Hunters: Campaign Master forces

And the last of the Grave guard is on the way, i'm adding a cloak onto this one, and some terrain or something for him to stand on obviously lol, this one will likely get usd as a leader too should one be rolled up in the game . Just like the last two grave guard conversions posted yesterday, he's a combination of Blood knight torso, Hew Wraith head, Tomb snake thingy rider and skelle arm.

Mordheim Vampire Hunters: Campaign Master forces

So i've given up on the elves for now, now back to finishing off the undead forces for the Vampire hunters campaign. I still needed 3 Grave guard for the elite undead so I set about making some.

Raiding my bits box I found three torsos from the vampire knights set picked up in a bundle of bits, a couple of cool heads (from the hex knight kit I think, picked up in the same bundle. Add in a couple of tomb king legs I pick up ages ago from a bits shop sale (coz they were cheap basically) and a few arms from the skelle kit and I had 2 miniatures (and a third I should finish tomorrow) that just need a little greenstuff to finish them off, rounding out my Grave guard to 8 :).

 

Wood elves: Tree seer and tracker (PiP)

GW Wood elf spell weaver

I'm actually finding these wood elves to be a bit of a chore,i'm putting in what feels like a lot of effort here but the results... well they just aren't as good as I'd hope, I know i'm a mediocre painter at best but i'm feeling quite disheartened by this lot :(. With my limited painting time as it is i'm going to slap dash finish these 6 wood elves and move onto something more enjoyable (hopefully lol), perhaps i'll even finish the two Faun I had half done to go with them.... depends which way the wind is blowing I guess.

Actually the most painting work I have done recently is the wall behind the elves (well the entire kitchen wall) lol, you may possibly have noticed the test patches of colour and possibly a bit of masking tape in previous photos... been like that a long time, finally did something about it lol.

Privateer Press Circle Tharn Blood Tracker

Inspiration: Rhulic Adventurers

Not my work, just a few excellent conversion I had to share. These have all been converted for Privateer Press's Iron Kingdoms RPG game using mostly Pribateer press parts, and a couple of Reaper miniature parts.

The below conversions are from "PsycoLaughs" over on the Privateer press forums, the picture is a link to the thread with some other photos.

This guy is from Rob Hawkins and can be seen on his blog here his blog also has some human, trollkin, elf and gobber adventurers.

This one IS my own, done a few years back for the fun of it (I have never played in a game of IKRPG), a Rhulic sniper converted from  GW Ratling sniper (basically I extended the knee areas to give the model Rhulic sized legs).

Moving away from miniatures, there is this lovely bit of art showing a Rhulic Light Labour Jack (upright) by nfeyma over on DeviantArt here I woulden't have gone with the Khador fists myself but then I can't draw a stick man so... nevermind lol.

Fire elemental (PiP)

Should have been working on my Wood elves.... brain didn't want to, picked up this old Rackham figure to work on instead, still have to work out what to do with the arms plus I want to re-work the face to make it better defined somehow. I was intending for this guy to be an attendant / summoned by the fire mage with the Southlanders, but i'm now tempted to do an entire "cult of fire" type warband lol.

Wood elves: Shepherd (PiP)

Just a quick update photo to show progress on this guy, he's coming along OK though still a ways to go yet.
I think I prefer to paint more organic models (e.g. models not wearing so many different random bits of clothing) lol.

Wood elves: Shepherd (PiP)

I've had to work a lot of extra hours this week including today (Sunday) so i've not done a lot, but I did start work on this guy (and I did the white and flesh on a few other elves while I was there). I've done a bit more work this evening but there is no light and therefore no photo.

The miniature is  Games Workshop Spell Singer (bought a while ago when I dabbled in Woodelves (I think I played 2 games before I got shot of most of the army), so this guy is metal rather than "fine"cast).

Anyway that's all I have for now, might have some finished shots next weekend, or earlier if I catch some daylight hours.