Elven encampment

This is another little side project to keep the creative juices flowing. I had the idea of painting up a Elven camp with a few character figures. This might make a nice bit of scenery or even an objective for a game.

I have an Elven king and court set from Black tree miniatures. I've always wanted to paint them as they are a characterful set. After giving this some thought, I wondered if a nice camp set would be nice to go with them.

The tents are from TTS and are nice a big. They are resin with an inner of polystyrene just to bulk them out.

The main thing now is I have to come up with a good colour to paint them. What colour is an Elven tent? Well, I'm leaning towards green of course with maybe some being Autumn browns.

The next question is do I leave them singley based or do I mount a few onto a larger base. 

The larger base does make it more of a diarama with wood piles and camp fires etc. Maybe the Kings tent could be with a couple of others and I leave a couple of single stands so I can move them around 

This is probably the closest picture to what I had I mind for colour. Something that could blend and disappear into the forest background at a glance. A bit like an Elven cloak of sorts.

These two are interesting and have details that are worth noting for reference. I like the fine detail work on the canopy, this is something I could do with a fine nib pen maybe.

 Again, a nice subtle colour that blends into the forest.

I'm liking the off white canvas look with pops of colour. Leaves painted onto the tent is a nice look for a Wood elf.

These more ochre shades are also nice, again punchoated with painted details.

Definitely some food for thought here.

Gundabad Orcs

Five more bases of dirty orcs are completed and join the gathering army of Gundabad.

These are a mix of all sorts and contain quite a few resin sculpts from eBay. This nice old sculpt from Harlequin miniatures leads the gang. He's flanked by large uruks created from the Frostgrave Cultist knights plastic set.

For this latest batch I used a lot of mud and dirt washes. These orcs are really filthy, even for orcs!

As aways I have given the metal work a thin wash of Kleer floor varnish to make it catch the light. I also gave the clothes a layer of super Matt varnish to take away any sheen.

Smaller orcs bring up the rear ranks.

My favourite resin orc finally leads his new command through the forest to assault the Elven bridge.

His base has the biggest and meanest Uruks in the group, all hand picked by himself of course.

I always tend to shy away from painting 'greenskins', but the odd one or two looks good in the mix. It helps to make the smaller folk very goblin looking.

Another base of large Uruks. The next stage for these bases is to add some small stones to act as rocks.

 

The mob gathers before the basing ritual starts.

I've also bought a huge orc standard bearer to go with the big orc war chef. He's even bigger than the boss man, but I wanted something to do justice to the new Gundabad faction. He's almost another classic Nick Lund creation, so goes well with the leader figure.

UPDATE: well this got out of hand really quickly. This latest batch driven by some unseen force or will, joined up with the previous batch and before I knew it, had destroyed the settlement and taken over the region. Killing and burning as they went, this has got out of control! What have I done?!

11 bases of orcs works out well, as it leaves one more to do...the War bosses one. This will give me three units in Oathmark, with four bases to a unit. I used a base to represent a rank.

A moving column of death and destruction heading for Moria.

Now it's time to get your rocks on! The mountainous terrain of Gundabad is well known and these bases need to show it.

By placing the stand on a plinth like tin, I could turn it around to get to all the fiddly areas more easily.

Next step is to paint all the stones grey and dry brush them.

A Great Game!

I just come back from the local Wargames club, where I've just a had a fantastic game of Bonnie Blue Flag. After all these years of following it with a great passion, I can finally say I have learnt how to play them.

Above can be seen the dreaded roll that took a veteran unit off the board.

They really do give a very good, atmospheric game to which you could easily write a narrative around. For the odd swings and roundabouts seem to make sense from a historical story point of view.

In this larger 'Port Republic' game, I got to see loads of really interesting developments and twists in the game play. The 10% rule reared it's ugly head, but even this made sense as a unit was cut down by a withering fire at close range.

I won the game with the Southern forces and the star of the game was the Confederate artillery by a mile. Their accurate fire destroyed the opposing Federal battery very early on, allowing my troops to advance unmolested by shot or shell.

In this game I also got to try out melee for the first time. It was pretty brutal with my veterans charging through a regiment of raw troops. The green blue bellys promptly surrendered and throw down their arms.

Just before leaving for the club, I had the quick idea of making some simple tents to mark out the Union camp. These were just pieces of folded card with grey felt tip marker on. I also gave them a quick wash of brown paint. As it was really hot, this had dried by the time I walked to the club.

I will have a go at covering these with dry wet wipes and painting them up with PVA glue. I should be able to mold the creases into the fabric as it dries. Then spray and dry brush them so it brings out the texture. Using bigger pieces of wet wipes should allow me to create the closed ends of the tents too.

The counting stick was great and seemed made for the job.

 What a great night, I'm still on a bit of a high from it.

 Unlike before, there were just two of us playing tonight, so it really allowed me to get into the actual game play. Great stuff!