We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. Landestrum for my Empire army.

 Or oh there's some lovely filth down 'ere.

Ten days after finishing the basic paint job on the crossbows I've managed to finish the Landestrum peasants. A mix of original citadel and a few foundry re-releases. I've done a few weapon swaps to add some farm implements and to break up the all clubs vibe that was going on. The weapons are all from Essex miniatures and were available when these figures first came out. I know because I bought some at the time from the Guardroom in Dunstable.

I've always wanted a unit of these, pathetic aesthetic and all that. After playing Whiskey Priest's Brettonians I have a new found respect for human levys. Mind you his peasants had shields and spears, mine just hand weapons. There are so many scenarios where a mob of unwashed filth is just the ticket so really I had to get these done. Who knows they may even turn out to be stars on the battlements, throwing rocks and rotten turnips isn't that hard.

Scythes and picthforks from Essex miniatures turn beggars into sons of the land.

 You'll have someones eye out with that, oh, er..

The mob.

As I mentioned in my post about the crossbows, I'm speed painting here, base coat and shade. If I get time I'll go back and highlight before but certainly after BOYL14. They are far from perfect but they'll do at a pinch. To be honest I'm itching to get some layers on them they are so full of character. However I have other units to get done and I think less than two months now. Speaking of other units the next unit to get the speed paint treatment are these old perry halberdiers.

Empire Crossbows. Gettign ready for Bring out your lead 2014.

Having signed up to a big 3rd ed siege game for BOYL14 it is probably about time I got my units ready. I've decided to experiment with the dips that are available from a bunch of companies these days. The idea being to get the units finished in record speed. I've also decided to take the figures to base coat and washed (rather than dipped) first and moving straight onto an new unit. This doesn't mean they are finished, just gameable with, in case I fail to finish everything to more exacting standards.

Here is the first unit I've finished to the stage where I'm happy to move on but looking forward to go back and finish.

 Here we have eighteen crossbows, the three with plastic crossbows are from my original 1980's collection, most of the rest are original citadel picked up from ebay and the obvious ones are from the re-released foundry-citadel mercenaries.

 I have tried to give them a sort of uniform, purple and yellow which sort of follows standard colour on metal of the middle ages but keeps them distinct from Bretonian forces. I've also tried to keep them looking like a ragtag bunch with a mix of uniforms/personal choices. Obviously the majority of these are late middle ages not really Landsknechtes so I haven't gone for a riot of colour.

 The two guys in the middle here are the crossbow offerings available in the foundry citadel mercenary re-release packs. They were picked up at the first BOYL last year.

I've done some simple head swaps to get more variety. To find out where the heads went stay tuned!
I'm looking forward to getting back to these and doing the highlights to properly finish these but once the bases are done they are usable now and I still have a lot to do.

Speaking of which here is a single picture of the next unit I'm going to paint up to this stage:

BEF platoon for Chain of Command.

I have a lot of historical stuff, all sorts of periods, indeed when this blog goes quiet I'm often painting historicals. I've never actually shown any of my historics on this blog. I always intended to start Erny's other place for my historics but never did.

Three things have happened to make me change my mind. Firstly I thought why not put them on this blog now that the Oldhammer blog is up and running again and well the whole Oldhammer community is pretty strong I can stop banging on about it. Secondly I've really got into Chain of Command by Too Fat Lardies. I have painted up a platoon of BEF in 15mm. At this scale the games ground scale is 1:1 which for a WW2 game is pretty special. I have been working on some terrain too and had photographed a little setup to show you but hesitated over adding historics to this blog. Finally Orlygg went and posted historics today so why not.

These are Peter Pig early war. The last European theater British I painted were 10 years ago late war 20mm for Rapid Fire. I really enjoyed getting these done rather than stands of 15mm for FoW. I just need to get the Jerries done now.

I'd be happy to add more historic stuff if people are interested.

The Oldhammer Chaos warband challenge. Raiding the lead pile.

 I have entered into the Oldhammer chaos warband Challenge issued by tp_1983 on the Olodhammer forum:
Link!

We all rolled up random warbands and then put them all in the pot each getting someone else's warband to collect convert and paint in just over one month.

I put some restrictions on my challenge.

All miniatures are to be pre-1991. All miniatures are to come from my existing collection, no extra purchases, swaps or trades.

I have ended up with the following Warband:

Warband 9 - Erny
Chaos dwarf level 5 hero with bestial face (goat) and weapon master (WS 10). Follower of Khorne. Has chaos armour and a magic weapon with flight capability.

Followers:
- 3 humans
- 5 giant wolves
- 4 chaos dwarfs
- 2 chaos goblins

This is a pretty nice warband though the conversion work isn't going to be too great with only a goat head to add to the champion. Game wise it is perhaps a little weak but not terribly so. Three of my follower units have the option to take missile weapons and I'm going to take everything they can, there are some level 15s out there after all..

On to the lead pile to put the warband together.....

Once more into the man cave. It may not look it but it is organised honest.

On top of the Freezer, a stack of three boxes of Chaos Dwarfs.

This is the box we need.

Four CD crossbows  and a little chap begging for a goat head and magic sword.

On the oposite side the the Chaos Dwarves I have a few boxes of more, "ordinary", chaos.

Another box of goodies..

I know I have more Thug archers but this was all I could find. Lucky I only need three.

This chap is needed only for his head.

That's right, it's on the bottom.

Loads a goblins..

Some nice old citadel wolves.

Two goblin Archers, one has been badly converted and will be repaired.

The full warband.

Warlord Wilfy.

Sometimes your working on a battle report and you finish a picture to add and it make you smile so much you figure you'll share it straight away.

Here is Warlord Wilfy, he has a touch of Nurgle's pox in this photo but is very happy to be bossing about the boyz.

Not bad dad, not bad.

For good measure here is his Brother Captain Artorius  trying to hide in some distinctly tired old terrain.

Space Marines are so cool.

Show us your boxed sets: Rogue Trader Box sets.

It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a Citadel boxed set. I love getting miniatures in the original boxes though I'm happy to take them out and paint them.  I haven't gone as far as to buy an empty box but would consider it for a set of miniatures I already had without box. Somehow the boxes are as evocative of the earlier periods of Games Workshop as the miniatures and I love them. Indeed I've posted on my collection of printed card encased miniatures before.

Here and here.

Since then my collection has grown and I have decided I really ought to do another post and here I concentrate on early 40K, that's Rogue Trader to you and me. A number of these I haven't seen photographed anywhere yet.

So here is the RT only pile, not complete by any margin but on the way. Only the Imperial Guard are original from my youth, bought about 1990 I guess.

Now a closer look:

I believe these go for a fair bit these days, particularly if like me your box contains the kit:

This was bought some time ago with the intention to make it up but maybe it does well as an artifact, not many kits left on the sprue like this anymore. Certainly not with the original decals. I probably have enough old land raiders.

Next is the Rhino, this is my newest box and sadly the Rhino is made up but did come with yet another predator, landspeeder and rapier which had so far been missing from my collection.

I'll finish the vehicles first before moving on to the figures. The Battle wagon is currently an empty box, the kit was present but is being made up at the moment, unlike the land raider it was already half constructed.
There are a few shots of the front of the box out there.

Not sure I know any of the back. the text should be readable if you click on the image.

More orks then I've had a few sets of these raiders for years but maybe six months ago I finally picked up a set in their box for a price I thought fair (probably less than they originally cost). Again we know the front.

But what about the back? The only set to have a story like the Fantasy Regiments of Renown. However you'll notice this set is marked as a regiment of renown. Again clicking on the picture should make it readable.

Speaking of Regiments of Renown the Harlequins are labeled  as such.

But don't actually have a story.

I think my favorite set has still got to be the beaky marines. The box just has the right blend of reflective 80s writing, technical style drawings, model pictures, colours and of course iconic painting. This is 40K bliss.

Again I'm not sure there are any pictures of the rear of the box out there.

And this side art I don't think I have seen anywhere but on the box.

So that's RT for you. Let me know if there is anything else you'd like to see. In a later post soon I'll take you through my more recently acquired 2nd/3rd ed fantasy boxsets.  If there is any interest I could also do several posts on my 90's 4th ed fantasy and 2nd ed 40K boxed sets,  that would take a great many posts but they are becoming older and rarer.

Skirmish in the Vale of the Temple: 3rd ed Warhammer 1000pts Dark elves Vs Dwarves.

Fairly recently Dreamfish posted on the oldhammer forum about trouble she had encountered fighting with his Dark elves against Dwarves:

Forum post to be found here.

So when a club friend challenged me to fight his dwarves I knew I just had to take dark elves. To keep things simple we decided to go with just 1000 pts a side.

The battle was fought over a vale bordered on two sides by rocky hills.  In the center there was a wood and a ruined temple to some evil deity.

Here's how the armies stacked up:

On one side the dark elves deployed masked by hills and woods from the dwarves.

On the other the dwarves set up hoping to catch the pansy elves in the open with their war machines. The thunderes in the army all fired as crossbows. Must have been a new powder mix.

Separated by a large rocky outcrop from the main dwarf force was a unit of giant slayers.

The battle started with the dark elf force rushing forward behind what cover was available, this meant that almost all the dark elf force was on the right most side of the battle field. The Dark Elf sorceress Mistress Glutton struggled to keep up. Her singular chaos mutation was to be enormously fat and traveled at half speed. Her spells had also been close to useless with such spells as immunity from poison and flight. Where was wind blast. 

Realising his firing line had no targets and the dark elves were going to take his flank the Dwarf general started to redeploy his army shifting it round to face the coming threat. The giant slayers surged forward eager to engage the witch elves in a sky clad frothing frenzy.  The stone thrower launched an indirect missle at the unit of warriors and missed.

However after another two turns the indirect fire had wiped out most of the warriors, luckily the general Lord H'ward (he how has something of the night about him) had escaped so far but things didn't look good. Drastic action was needed. The chaos hound handler was instructed to send her beasts directly towards the main dwarf  battle line hopefully to draw fire.  Mistress Glutton took to the air like a depraved blimp eager to take on the warmachine crew in single combat.

Before the Crossbows began picking their way through the wood as was their orders they let loose a single volley towards the oncoming Giant slayers.

The giant slayers edged ever closer and the dark elf warriors were all wiped out by indirect fire from the stone thrower. Lord H'ward was killed. The witch elves were only too keen to charge the Giant slayers and they proved to be more than a match for the frothing loonies. 

These vents took place over several turns and in the meantime Mistress Glutton had managed to position herself (with several flight spells) in order to charge the stone thrower crew, once these were dispatched she was able to deliver the same fate to the cannon crew aided by strength of combat giving her an extra attack.

The dwarf general, a slayer himself had worked himself up into a frenzy and charged the chaos hounds who quickly fled. The dwarf warriors in Tesudo were unable to catch the venerable general up and he was pin-cushioned by the Dark elf crossbows.

The witch elves managed to work around the dwarven flank to make short work of one unit of crossbows. The second would be easily dispatched however the main unit of dwarf warriors was too large to be engaged. Equally the dark elf forces were too fast for the lumbering unit of warriors to catch. The battle ended in a stalemate.

It was a fun game and really brought home the Dark Elf vulnerability to war machines.  I have some thoughts on the issue but as I plan to challenge for a rematch I'll leave those thoughts until another time.