15mm Gruntz Sand Tiger

 I thought I would try to finish some outstanding projects and this Mecha for 15mm gruntz has been ignored for too long.

 I've never used this masking fluid before and I bought it a few years ago just for this purpose. It went on very thick and I tried to keep it this way as I knew It would be easier to get off the thicker it was.

 late night spraying. I was like a kid in a toy shop, I just wanted to start taking the fluid off straight away but made myself wait till morning.

 First thing I was up with the lark and straight into the painting room to unwrap the Easter egg.

 All in all not bad considering it's a spray can job and not an Air brush. For some reason I am quite scared of air brushes...I'm sure one day I will get there.

 I used Tamiya spray cans for this job, the base being Sand and the grey being Sea grey.

 The paint work was washed with Kleer floor varnish.

 Decals were added over a wash of Kleen floor varnish. These I had bought off ebay and were from Gundam plastic kits.

 I really like it as a clean, crisp colour scheme. If anything I may not go so hard on the weathering next time. For a big organisation I think these mechs and the like would look good as clean and well maintained, like the image above.

 I used a sponge with brown and then silver to create the chipped paint work. The lasers were also painted with gun metal. This vehicle will be part of my 'Rim Defective' army and would have seen plenty of field use, hence I went for a very used look. The legs and feet were weathered and scratched quite heavily, as it would be these areas that saw the most of the damage inflicted by weapons, houses, trees and crushed enemy vehicles.

I used a pencil to score along the edges were the most damage would have build up. I also added scratches with the pencil, these are very small but are the right size for 15mm.

So far so good, a nice little side line project and great fun to try new techniques. not finished yet but not far off. I have decided to called it a Sand Tiger as I think this fits its look and size.

Treated myself to a farm from Emperor Toads Emporium.

 I quite like the simple rustic style of these scratch built models and I think they capture the feeling of the 17th Century very well. I plan to add a few extra touches to the farm like climbing Ivy etc and I love the idea of defending the walled farm in a scenario.

Models like this is the reason I split my large musketeer blocks into smaller bases, so they can man linear defenses.All of the figures below will be based on bases of six and become Sir Herbert Jackson's regiment of Foote.

Bolg's Shield and Standard Designs

 Here are some shield ideas for the Body guard of Bolg. The idea being that the white triangle will represent the mountain of Gundabad with its three peaks. Then within the mountain or around it will be the red eye of Sauron. The mix of red and white on black background should look quite striking.

I tried to keep the designs really simple, the sort of quick, slap dash paint job a twisted orc would do. I don't see them as taking a great amount of time on artwork or decoration so these designs should work well for them. They will be painted quite loosely with a lot of running paint down the shield.

These designs will also make good standard designs. I will choose my favourites for the leader and his top warriors.

A commute to London is never wasted when there are shields to design, great fun.

Shield Wall of Bolg

 I love this pic, I actually measured the shields up against the Dwarves and they are the same size. Perfect I thought, they are going to have real trouble getting through those.

Shield wall meets shield wall.

To add to the veteran nature of these huge Goblins I have cut chunks out of their shields using a file and added paper clip arrows. There is also an axe stuck in one. I will add a blob of superglue to the ends of these arrows and paint them as feathers.

 An order of a group of elves from eBay turned up with a huge orc in it a few years ago, I don't know who made him but he is a perfect captain for the Bolg body guard. He was going to be on Bolg's base guarding him but now he will actually lead the unit. The standards are from Reaper miniatures. I have included two on the leader base as this is an elite unit, there are also a high number of horns and drums in the unit as befits their status.

The bases will increase to a 60mm wide x 80mm deep to fit the larger figures and their long weapons. It's the 60mm frontage that matters, also makes them look a little bit more intimidating on the field. The extra space at the front I will use to put dead enemies on, this looks good and also makes the unit look effective..

 I'm really excited about creating this unit , It's the cherry on the Orc cake after years of painting grunts and maggots.
 Skin tone wise...these are huge Goblins but I don't see them as being Uruk-Hai. I see them as being an older race from the deep mountains and one from which Sauron probably took from to create the Uruk-Hai of the Third Age.
So for their skin I will still make very dark almost black but not with a blue hue ( One I use for Black Uruks). Maybe a very dark brown or with even a greenness to the tone would look good. I am not a fan of green GW orc tones but If it is dark enough It might look good. Maybe a mix of lots of different dark tones with the smaller goblins being of a lighter skin tone.

"BOLG...BOLG....BOLG.....BOLG....BOLG" Gets into your head after you've been singing it for a few days, catchy!

Orc Army

 The army of Gundabad meets the Army of Mordor at last. The new Gundabad Trolls, wolves and armoured orcs finally get taken upstairs to meet join the throng. It's nice to see the wolf packs grow larger and I still have around 50 or so to base up...can you have too many wolves? Well I suppose they did make up one of the five armies so there must have been quite a few, that's my thinking anyway. Out of around sixty odd wolves there are twelve large black Wargs, these are much larger than their grey coated relatives.

 Six bases of Gundabad orcs, two bases of armoured trolls and four bases of wolves join the growing horde of evil.

Need a new box, my beserkers are left out in the cold.

Bodyguard Of Bolg WIP

 Here are some working ideas for a unit representing the powerful bodyguard of Bolg that caused poor old Thorin so much trouble. Looking at It ( designed for Dragon Rampant) I decided to double the size of the unit, so four bases. In DR it means there will be two units of guard, although these figures are based to use with any rule set and I'm looking forward to the release of Osprey's/ Northstar fanstasy rules next year. Whatever rules used these guys will be a nasty tough nut to crack.

I was delighted after placing a test order to Alternative Armies miniatures on their new range of orcs to find that these guys were massive. I think they are called Western Uruks on the site. Well they are so big that they match the scale of the Great goblins I have from Black Tree. They come with empty hands so I found some long cutting weapons to make them look business.
 Also these guys proved to be unbreakable in the battle until Beorn turned up, I read that as the unit being of a shield wall in nature. So I ordered some pavise shields from Essex miniatures to act as an unbreakable wall of wood and iron.

I'm quite pleased with them so far and I'm glad I held off tackling the unit until now, the new figures from AA really are spot on for what I imagined and the shield wall idea is defiantly a winner I think.

They should tower over the struggling Dwarfs and their puny axes....that's a thought, I'd better put some axes sticking out of the shields.

The Table that Time Forgot.

 This was my painting desk a few days ago before I hit It head on and cleared it up. Having a small child only leaves a few hours each week for hobby work and this is the result. Sitting down once a week to snatch an hour or two does lead to a lot of unfinished projects.

 I was getting grid locked when it came to ideas so I decided to do something about It. My wife and little boy went away for a couple of days and I realized It was now or never.
I'm glad to say that the work place is clear now with two projects on the go...well, maybe three.

My weak spot is buying and reading new rule books, Bonnie Blue Flag is a new 28mm ACW game and has got me all aflutter after reading it. I am researching ACW artillery at the moment to finish off a battery or three. Hopefully more on that later.

Basing in process

 Last night I got to use my new flock box that arrived yesterday, after a tip off from a good friend.

 My quick base flocks were put down but when It came to the static grass I used the static box to make them stand up. I have never really used this static device before and was impress with the result. These bases still need the tufts of long grass and flowers to be added but are almost done.

  While the wood glue was still wet with the flock and grass on top, I pushed a brown paint into it with a brush to make muddy footprints and churn up the ground. The whether here is mostly wet and a field in the country would get pretty boggy pretty quickly with hundreds of horses and men running around it. So I made the decision to muddy up the bases..

Another huge decision I made was to split the musket blocks in half. I did this to give me a little more choice on how to field them, also things like entering building, lining hedgerows and spreading out should look better with this option.

 The pike block I kept as one solid block, I had them based individually before for pike man's lament and didn't like the look. So they stay as a solid mass. The musketeers once pushed together again look the same as they did before, so nothing has changed about the look of the formed up regiment.

ECW Cavalry

 The 6mm grass was a little bright I thought so a used a yellow ochre paint to dry brush it and knock it back a little.

 I am tempted to add a few more little touches to these bases like the mixed herbs to act as leaf litter and bracken.