TFOG June: the last Slann

Ahhhh...can you smell that? The sweet smell of a painting challenge completed. Here is my final entry for a Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers:

TFOG May: Slann mage on litter

Looks like I might be the first of my battle brothers to post in this month's A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers challenge. I couldn't have a Slann force and not take a mage on litter:

TFOG April: finally some Slann...

As we approach the final stages of the Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers I've finally manages to paint some Slann for my, errr, Slann army...

This month's offering is a small unit of Slann warrior priests, the Brotherhood of the Sacred Heart:

TFOG March: P'ffff't

Last month's entry for a Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers consisted of a small unit of Troglodytes. These stinky dudes needed a leader, so this month I present you with:

P'ffff't - Troglodyte level 5 hero

TFOG February entry - Troglodytes

My every-growing Slann army continues to grow without any Slann. This month I've painted a unit of Troglodytes for A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers:

These are Trish Carden sculpts from the 1980s.

As per my lizardmen last month, I've given these "counts as double handed weapons" for those things they are carrying, which comes out at 44 points per figure, so 176 points in total this month.

Troglodytes cause fear but suffer from stupidity. On the plus side they are immune to fear and panic. Amusingly they also "cause nausea" which mean they smell so badly that anyone in combat with them suffers a -1 to hit! So hopefully all told they should cause some fun on the battlefield.

I've gone for a bish-bosh approach again with painting these...there are possibly even some parts I've left unpainted.

Basing-wise, I've tried recessed bases on these (40mm) and I think they've turned out OK. Minimum effort for mediocre results is my maxim for this force. I haven't painted the rim of the bases because yet again I'm being indecisive about the base colour. In my defense I'm just about out of the old Calthan Brown, so I may have to repaint all the bases with some different shade of brown.

So, we are about halfway through this challenge now and I keep putting off painting some Slann. I've got a Troglodyte hero lines up for next month, but from April it will be Slann all the way.

TFOG January 2016: Lizardmen

My entry for this month's A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers challenge is a small unit of Lizardmen:

The Warhammer Armies book gives these as 20 points each. I've given them "counts as double handed weapons" for their long axes at an additional 4 points per model, so that's a points total of 96 this month. Lizardmen have a toughness of 4 and 2 wounds each so not too bad. How they actually fare on the day is a different matter of course.

At first glance you would be forgiven for thinking that I've fielded four identical figures, but they are actually variants of the old Citadel AD&D range. In fact, technically they are AD&D Troglodytes, but I'm fielding them as Lizardmen. This range was noted for producing a number of variants for most of its figure lines, but in a number of cases you would have to look closely to see where the actual variation lies. The full variant set for the Lizardmen can be found at The Stuff of Legends (images provided by Richard Scott of Otherworld).

The paint jobs are very basic, and were quick to achieve using mainly dry-brushing; the scaly skin on this figures makes dry-brushing a doddle.

Also, I've finally decided on a basing design. I've decided to base all the figures in this army (with the possible exception of the spider) on round bases with a simply sand and tufts decoration.

TFOG Slann colour scheme and my first sculpt

Trying to get some Slann painted for the Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers project is like wading through treacle! I'm really struggling with these little frogs. It's partly me being indecisive about a colour scheme, partly I'm finding it difficult to paint detail on the frog skin, and finally it's just a case of committing to a painting project and then finding I want to paint anything but that project!

So in the interests of trying to write at least one blog post per month on my progress, here's a side-by-side of two different colour schemes I'm contemplating:

"Traditional northern European" green vs "Amazonian tree frog" blue and orange. So what do you think? Any preference?

I've managed to get this blog post in on the very last day of the month. This is due in part to much of my hobby time this month being spent on a new pursuit - sculpting. I enjoyed converting my Odo figure last month so much I figured I would try to sculpt a complete figure, and here he is:

He's based on a painting that can be found on the rear cover of the Lost and the Damned Chaos book. I'm pretty pleased with him as a first sculpt, although I acknowledge of course that there's a lot of improvement needed! But the main thing is I really enjoyed doing this, and I hope to do a lot more next year.

I wish you all a happy, healthy and hobby-filled 2016!

A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers: giant spider painted

In my last post I assembled this brute and applied a small amount of greenstuff to mould the legs into a striking pose and fashion a pair of mandibles. I've now finished painting it:

I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out, particularly given that when I started to paint it it felt like it was all going wrong. One of the things that's really helped to turn it around is a good bit of drybrushing.

I'll be basing it at some point of course, but I haven't settle on a base design yet so I'll leave this for the time being.

A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers: giant spider

When I revisited the Slann army list in the Warhammer 3rd edition Armies book prior to starting this project, I was pleasantly surprised to read that Slann animal handlers can take giant spiders. I'd been looking for an excuse to paint up one of these guys for a while, so this was the ideal opportunity. The figure I had in mind was this handsome chap:

I was keen to try to construct the figure in a bit more of an "attacking pose", which was slightly daunting given that I've never converted a figure before. So armed with greestuff, a fair amount of patience, and Google results of "tarantula attacking", I came up with this:

I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out. The figure is unbalanced (hence the support in the images) but I will compensate for this when I base it.

I started painting it last night. So far I'm not massively happy with how it's turning out, but I hope I'm just going through the "it gets a bit crap before it gets better" stage of the painting process!

A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers: flogging a dead mojo

This month I bring you the gift of scantily-clad eunuchs, and I dedicate the post to my three fellow Oldhammerers Chico, James, and Paul. Simply because they are a great bunch of lads. Why, what do you think I meant?

So here we have them (the eunuchs that is):

From left to right we have: Nolg, Zolg, Lolg, Dolg, Folg, Molg, Tolg, Solg, Holg, and Clarence.

I heavily borrowed the painting scheme for these guys that can be seen in an advert from White Dwarf 96:

I used Foundry paints and I particularly like their Sky Blue triad, which you can see on the warpaint and shields, and goes on like a dream. It's going to be the spot colour for my army.

I need to tidy up the bases but every time I enter a painting challenge my painting mojo just shrivels up and dies!

I'm also a few points short this month. According to da roolz these guys come in at just 45 points. Ah well, Paul's excess points on his wraith rider this month restores the balance!

A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers: tutu evasion

So I got a bit confused this month and assumed that the deadline for the first batch of 100 points completed would be October, but apparently not! So rather than have to wear a pink tutu (don't ask) I rushed to get out 100 points by the end of September deadline. I figured the quickest way to do this was to paint one of my command figures, and so I present to you F'rrr K'iw, level 5 Lizardman hero:

I really like this range of Lizardmen, which started off as preslotta figures but many of them then acquired slotta tabs. I can't remember with certainty who sculpted them but I think it was Trish Carden.

According to Warhammer Armies, a level 5 Lizardman hero with a shield costs 72 points, so I'm not quite up to the 100 pts, so I guess I'll have to make up the deficit next month.

But hopefully it's enough to avoid Chico's pink tutu...

Check out my fellow gamer's progress: Chico's fabulous jade temple dog, and James' stylish (if Nurgle can be considered stylish!) palanquin. Paul promises to have something uploaded by Wednesday, so keep an eye on his blog!

A Tale of Four Oldhammer Gamers...ribbit

So this thing is happening. Back in July, just prior to this year's BOYL, the esteemed Warlord Paul of The Black Hole blog suggested we take on the challenge of "A Tale of Four Gamers", an idea that first appeared in White Dwarf 218 back in 1998. The "we" being Paul, Chico (Oldhammer on a Budget), James (Realm of Chaos 80's) and myself. The armies would be of an Oldhammer flavour and we will fight our battle/s at BOYL 2016.

The rules are simple in that between now and BOYL we must each amass a force of 1000pts at a rate of roughly 100pts per month, and to blog about our progress at least once per month. We haven't set ourselves a cash budget in that we each already have most, if not all, of the miniatures we will need. So the bulk of the challenge will lie in the painting and the modelling.

The forces chosen are:

- Chico: Hobgoblins
- James: Chaos (Nurgle)
- Paul: Undead
- Myself: Slann

John Blanche's wonderful Slann illustration from the 3rd edition Warhammer Armies book.

Why Slann? Well, since returning to the gaming scene at BOYL 2013 I've only painted two forces: a chaos warband for BOYL 2013 (that didn't actually make an appearance), and a human/giant force for BOYL 15. Both forces had one thing in common: a predominantly red/gold colour scheme. This was coincidence rather than design but I think it's fair to say that I'm now utterly bored of this colour scheme! So part of the reason for choosing a Slann force was because I could experiment with very varied colour schemes. If you think frogs are just a dull green colour then try googling Dendrobates and check out the wonderful colour schemes of these amazing little creatures. What better inspiration could I have!

I also discovered when researching Slann army choices in the 3e Warhammer Armies book that Slann animal handlers can not only take warhounds, but giant scorpions, giant spiders and sabre-tooth tigers! Brilliant opportunities for painting and modelling there.

So look out: the frogs are coming.

Ribbit.