The Lobster's lament

ECW Skirmish Bases

"WHAT CAN YOU SEE TED?"

The real advantage of this 1,2,3 basing (apart from the units looking great), Is that they can now fit into all sorts of terrain pieces. Here is a sneak peek at a church I am basing up, with a broken tower that was crying out for a sniper. Now at least I can fill it to the gunnels with able bodied musketeers, something I couldn't do with my four to a base system before.

 " You were only meant to blow the bloody doors off!"

 Fits like a glove.

"Your names not on the list...You're not coming in!"

This officer figure is a really good one to have as a single figure. He looks great in amongst the men, either stopping them from running or pushing them forward.

Pike Man's lament Basing

 I made the plunge and rebased my ECW regiment onto the skirmish Bases worked out by Michael Leck. These are great and they give a much nicer realic feel to the units. I had planned to base my pike on 35mm bases to make them a tighter formation but they just didn't fit, so the larger bases are 40mm.

So it goes single model =25mm, two models =30mm, three models =40mm.

 12 men in each unit.

I tried to include at least one officer in every unit. I will also be adding a 'free' standard to every unit as I think it looks very period having lots of banners fluttering. These will have no effect on the game though, just look nice.

Praise King Jesus, The True and Only King!

Hay You! Get off my Land!

 My first bit of painting for months and so I thought I would ease back into It slowly. I picked up these hay stacks from War Bases at Colours 2016. At £8 I paused for a while, thinking I could make my own from Daz, but in the end I gave in.
A simple terrain feature and dead easy to paint. I sprayed them dessert yellow then washed with Army Painter strong shade. A few high lights here and there and job done.

 I started to think about getting some forces ready for Pikeman's lament out next January and these stacks are great for ECW. I don't suppose they are much good at catching lead, so will probably be classed as soft cover...CAREFUL JON...I SUGGEST KNEEING. No it's no good he can't hear me from here.

I enjoyed painting these and they got me back into the saddle...time to tidy the painting area and get organised.

Basing ECW for Skirmish rules (Pikeman's Lament)

 I've been giving this subject a lot of thought recently and the fantastic Blog 'Dalauppror' has given me some great ideas.
 Michael Leck has come up with a really good way to represent skirmish troops in a way that looks really good and is very practical. This simple method of using different size bases to subtract causalities is a really good idea. It also will allow some great formations and come in handy when troops have to occupy buildings or small spaces. I like it a lot. The real draw for me is that cavalry based in this way look really good and a lot more realistic. The odd guy out of formation looks a lot more true to life.
It has given me a fresh boost to paint up some more ECW, which has to be a good thing.

The only thing I'm going to tweak to Michael's idea is to make the '3' fig base 35mm for the Pike block, so they are more packed together.

The Musketeer's will have the usual 40mm, so they have a little more room to load etc. I just like the dense formations of the Pike block to look close and crushed together.

Above are the bases laid out for a Pike block, using a big base of 35mm rather than 40mm. All bases are from WarBases.

Forward My Children!

Soriog landing Party

Idea for Soriog VTOL

 I found this great toy of a Halo 'Banshee' and thought it ties in very nicely with the style of the Soriog from Khurasan. As yet there are no released vehicles for the Soriog.

I bought three off eBay for not that much and was pleased with the scale of them compared to the figures. Easily big enough to be a troop transport or air support vehicle. The air foils at the back also give great cover for troops disembarking.

 A Soriog landing bay on high alert.

 Soriog are very large compared to humans, each one of these craft can carry seven Soriog into battle, that's one squad in GRUNTZ.

 As the Soriog are heavy influenced by the design of the Elites from Halo, It makes sense that actual Halo toys and models would fit like a glove. Below is a planned Soriog tank coming hopefully later this year.

 I will still buy the future releases for the Soriog that Khurasan have been planning, but even then these models will still fit in nicely with the range. As even the Soriog vehicles are influenced by the Halo game designs.

 I have also ordered some GW flying stands and some magnets from eBay for these ships, It will be nice to detach them when they touch down to unload their teams of angry Soriog.

Recommended for any 15mm sci fi game. Cheap compared to wargames models and great looking.

I will leave the gaps in the side of the flyers open as If they are windows for gunners, may even stick a few Soriog hanging out, now I just need to book some painting time.

Test Tau

Working on the idea that the Tau battle suits would make great  Mechs for the 15mm Soriog range, I bought a couple cheap on eBay and started to experiment with painting techniques. Not having a air brush, I worked with spray paints. The results were okay but I think with the thicker paint results I will stick to just two colours next time. It was fun to mess around with camo, however after giving it an unhealthy amount of thought I think I will paint the Soriog machinery with just one colour.

The results above (crude as they are) were achieved by using blue tack as a masking material, then washing with ink and weathering the model by dabbing paint with a sponge. The test above was worth doing as I learnt some valuable lessons.

Soriog Warrior

A huge Soriog warrior screams his war cry in battle. He is equipped with hard case battle armour and carries a large energy rifle. 

The Soriogs are a race of large reptile like aliens created in 15mm by Khurasan Miniatures.

Soriog Sniper

Here is a quick sketch of a Soriog Sniper, a range of high tech aliens created by Khurasan miniatures.

 As soon as I saw these sculptures I fell in love with them, partly because of their paint scheme. They reminded me alot of the TAU from GW. I had missed the boat with the Tau but had always liked them, this new 15mm range from Khurasan got my imagination running again and I purchased a bunch of them last Christmas.

Although I don't get much time to post on the Blog I am always still researching and buying new figures and rule books. I have been very taken with GRUNTZ 15mm and have collected at least four forces to play with. The first lot 'Rim Defectives' have been in cryofreeze for months while real life has taken over for a while. However, I am loving the challenge of painting 15mm Sci fi. I love the fact that in Sci fi any thing goes colour wise, the imagination can really go wild.

Anyway back to the Soriog, It is the colour scheme that is all Tau on the Khurasan website, the actual design is very heavily influenced by the 'Elites' from the X-Box game Halo. Khurasan have also started to release other members of the Soriog Empire that match the Halo game. A jackal type of auxiliary and plans to release a giant worm like warrior much in keeping with the 'Hunters' from Halo. I love these designs and will be probably copying the sandy paint scheme as It's a great way to exercise the Inner Tau in me.

Also you could use a lot of Tau machines with these guys as their legs etc look very similar. Also being 15mm the Tau machines look like massive Mechs, Khurasan have plans to release Soriog Mechs/ War Harness but they have been in production for a while now. Tau battle suits are a great stand in for the time being :).

A Dwarf meets his old Adventuring Buddy.

Creating 'Soldier' Orcs through Conversion

 Here is a great tip for anyone creating large Orc armies and want huge numbers of soldier Orcs, not the huge out of proportion 'hero' giant Orcs of GW but LOTR Uruks.

 I had the idea to mix two plastic box sets the other day,Wargames Factory Orcs and Perry Miniatures Medieval French Agincout Infantry.
The WGF Orcs have always been criticised for having play mobile style hands with weapon options, and this really lets the set down. I like the actual bodies of the figures because they have been styled on Angus Mc Bride's MERP illustrations from the Eighties, which I have a soft spot for.

So, with the Perrys excellent sculpted arms and weapons added to the WGF torsos, they work a treat and the figures are greatly improved. Also it's possible to create large blocks of pike armed Orcs, a must for any gamer trying to recreate Gundabad Orcs from the Hobbit films.

There is a sneak peek above but I am yet to complete a unit, so far I am very happy with the results, more on this to come. I just need to find some time to get paint'n.

Reference photo's

Iron Hills Dwarf

Here is an dwarf warrior from the Iron Hills, a tough veteran of many battles .

This drawing is based on the description in the Hobbit book. He wields a two handed heavy war mattock and carries a round shield on his back. Also on his back he carries a large bag of food and supplies. His beard is tucked into his belt and he wears a long mail hauberk down to his knees. On his back under his shield he carries a short board bladed sword. I have also given him a small axe for close work.

The Asgard Dwarf figures match this look to a tee, even the bags of supplies and the round shields on the back. I have given my Dwarf a helmet like the Asgard miniatures and I think it still looks in character.

 LOTR is set in an alternative Dark Ages so lots of chain mail, scale mail and leather work, even Peter Jackson couldn't resist the look of plate armour in his films. Still great films though and so I forgive him.

Elf vs Wolf

  Wolves attacking their hated elven foe.

 Most of these wolves are from Ral partha and are a good size. I have put 5 on a base ( each of my bases regardless of rule system I want to have 6 wounds and attacks. Dragon Rampant actually matches this nicely...lucky for me) So the extra attack I have put down to the lightning reactions of the snapping wolves.
Again the extra wound can be put down to a savage leader with two wounds on the base.  So a unit is made out of two of these bases together making a unit of ten wolves. In the book they say six beasts per unit but I like my packs to actually look like packs. Once the six wounds have been used the other four wolves will just melt away into the darkness again. This I think feels right and gives a nice flavour to the wolf units.

What the hell happened here? This was all tidy last week... I'm out of time tonight more on this later. Bye for now.