An open wallet

Alrighty, it looks like since Hotlead, I’ve gone on a bit of a spending spree. I had two packages at the door today when I returned from running some household errands.

I ordered 2 packages of French Foreign Legion from Wargames Foundry. £24.00 + £15.00_ shipping converted to Canadian is a whopping $68.46.

Seriously £15 shipping for 14 miniatures. 

I have 7 of these guys painted up already so wanted to get a few more. 

Maybe next time I should wait for a sale or something. Hey, at least they threw in a free figure that I have no idea what range it is from.

I also ordered 7 figures from Artizan Designs and the March and April issues of Wargames Illustrated. With £10 shipping this converted to about $69.49 The April WI issue came with some Warlord Games Epic English Civil War figures that hopefully I can trade or sell at next years Hotlead convention.

It is an interesting scale but I don’t have the capacity for any more projects right now.

The photos of the miniatures are below.

I also placed a small order with Westwind Productions. It converted to $35.11 Canadian, but that’s for 8 miniatures total.

Lastly I purchased 3 pots of Citadel contrast paints and a can of primer for $52.45.

So with a previous hobby budget of $208.19 plus another $225.51 for a total of $433.70

I also added 29 figures to the lead mountain.

Today it’s pretty hot out and I primed 13 Battletech miniatures.

The Light Elves are finally done

Quick post today. 

I managed to put some texture paint on the bases of 27 light Elves a week+ ago. All that was left was the flock. 

I don’t want to say I found the time but more like decided to get off my but and base them.

Here are the all of the completed Light Elves. Need to get a picture with the “regular” Elven figures.

It’s like Christmas in August

I had three orders I’ve been anxiously awaiting. One each from Northstar Miniatures, Wargames Illustrated and Green Stuff World.

They all came today which was both awesome and annoying as I muttered it’s like Christmas in August and the Mrs heard it and proceeded to ask various questions about finances etc. Oops!

Anyhow, one shouldn’t dwell on trivial matters like money. LMAO.

I should start by saying I have a pretty big Wild West collection and have been looking to grab some more. I’ve also been into Rangers of Shadow Deep and think it could be re-skinned to a Wild West setting.

Lastly, slavery was and is bad and the south who fought to keep it were wrong. I purchased the following figures first and foremost for the zombies.

First up is the Artizan Designs, the Risen South box set. Two confederate necromancers and 8 confederate zombies.

Next up is from Dracula’s America. The Dark Confederates boxed set. One Necromancer (evil looking dude in white) 5 ragged confederates and 4 confederate zombies.

Lastly on the Wild West frontier, I picked up three new single figures from Artizan and 5 foot and mounted packs.

From Green Stuff World, I got two packs of barbed wire for my WWI trench boards and some fallen leaves for scenery.

From Wargames Illustrated, I purchased the August issue and a Giants in Miniature figure I plan on leading a future expedition to Mars.

Plugging along...

Here’s those Elves I was talking about. Front middle is the Metal Maquette that is limited edition from Northstar reserved for pre-orders and such.

Here’s the humans. Sorry for the botched picture. Three metal champions and 5 plastic figures.

I also painted some Nolzur’s Spiders. Black contrast and brown paint slapped on the furry areas. Eyes picked out in red. The white spider obviously uses white instead of brown or red. He’s the leader. I kept two cocoon bases separate as they will make good scatter/objectives.

Just a small update from my Mantic Games The Walking Dead collection. One of the Scavengers (Andy or Jud) and a walker as well as the giant resin one. Having discovered Contrast paints these guys paint themselves but I’m stuck with about 1/2 my stuff done the old way (layers and dry brushing) and he other 1/2 using contrast. They look ok together but don’t match 100%.  It shouldn’t but it does bother me. I dunno. Also all the new kits are resin which is an improvement for details but takes a bunch more time to assemble.

Today I slapped on some glue and flock for another 20 Oathmark figures. My “regular” Elves are almost done. I think I have 14 or so archers left to base. Up next are the light Elves which are all painted as well. Just need basing.

There are (all plastic) 6 archers and 10 spearmen for the Elves.

The 4 figures on the right are metal. Three come from the King,Wizard &horn blower pack. The 4th is the Limited Edition maquette.

More Oathmark

I finished up a few more Oathmark figures today. I forgot to take pictures of the group but another 5 Elf Spearmen and 5 Human spearmen are completed.

The Human Champions were also completed as was the Elf maquette.

I also built the 30 Light Elves. There are 2 units of 10 archers (Rangers) and 10 swordsmen (pathfinders).

For now here is a picture of a red headed human champion.

A little bit of paint

Spurred on by the conversions, I sprayed some primer on and set to painting.

I had an older can of brown Krylon.

I primed everything and after leaving it to dry I set to work.

I noticed that the paint wasn’t adhering very well to the primer. And the primer still felt tacky. That hasn’t happened before. I found by taking my time though, I was able to get a nice coat.

I started with a palette of browns and greens. This is what I completed on Saturday after about 1.5 hours.

I painted for maybe 45 minutes on Sunday and did a little bit more. I’m not happy with the dark green cloaks on right side of back row. Too glossy. I might repaint them.

I also wanted white linens for the shirts. It really pops/ breaks up the monotony of green and brown.

My plan is to paint everything and do skin and hair last. Hopefully I can do a bit more before the weekend.

Simple conversions

While I wait for orders from Northstar Military Figures and Charlie Foxtrot Models, I thought I’d convert some figures I had one hand.

I’ve spliced the photos to show the original and what I ended up with.

The first is a Ranger if Shadow Deep. It was a simple conversion. Removing the hand holding the severed head and gluing a plastic Oathmark Elf hand holding a bow and a quiver on the back. 

The next two come from the Frostgrave line of figures. They are an elementalist wizard and apprentice set.

I’ve wanted to do the spear armed apprentice for a while. I used a trusty pin vice and set to work. I’m actually pretty happy with the result. I didn’t butcher the bottom hand.

Lastly I chopped off the right hand of the Wizard and glued in an Oathmark Human sword.

Self Isolation

This is a weird time. I was home sick all of last week. Thankfully it was just the Flu. What a weird thing to same. Just the flu.

The 26th Anniversary of Hotlead was also scheduled to take place Mar 20-22 in Stratford, Ontario. It was cancelled by the organizer prior to the Federal Govt restricting the size of get-togethers.

I’m suuuper bummed out it was cancelled, however, it was the right thing to do! And when it comes to Hotlead, I cannot be trusted to do the right thing. It is my favourite time of the year.

So I spent some time assembling some backlog items.

Two Sarissa Precision MDF Flatbed Wagons were assembled. But I somehow forgot to snap any pictures. I have three more pieces left to build to complete my train.

I enjoyed the minimal amount of pieces. I have some Renedra sandbags, I'll be using to build some removable fortifications to each of the flat wagons. A Machine Gun or Field Gun and crew will sit behind them.

What I disliked was the finicky-ness of assembling the undercarriage.  But they are £7.50. It is what it is.

On Sunday, while enjoying the beautiful sunshine, I managed to prime my Oathmark Dwarf Heavy Infantry with Army Painter Plate Mail Metal.

I haven’t primed anything in a while but this can was absolutely amazing. Maybe sitting in my basement for 2+ years is the trick! It went on so smoothly and seemed to get into all the crevices nicely.

These guys are going to paint up so quickly! I’m pumped. I only need to pick out the skin, hair and weapon hafts. Maybe add some brass or gold bits for variations.

I also thought I’d show the progress on my existing Dwarves and Goblins.

The blue ones are Dwarves and the red are Goblins. Both come from the Oathmark line of plastic figures.


All that's left is to do the bases.

Elves and Dwarves

What a busy few days. I finished building the Dwarf Heavy Infantry.

I divided them into two units. They were all stock from the box minus one head from the Dwarf Infantry box for a “champion”.

15 Warriors with Shields: I paid extra attention to make sure each torso had a different weapon and head attached.

15 Linebreakers: I only used the fully enclosed heads. 

I forgot to take pictures but that can be rectified.

But onto the good stuff. I based the Elves.

Here are two units of 10 spearmen. Each will be bulked out with 5 more troops in the near future.

Here is (yes another) unit of 10 spearmen. However hear have white plumes on their helmets and white gloves. My plan is to use these as a Royal Guard of sorts. The champion’s arm is a basic conversion using a standard sword arm with the Champion sword arm.

Here they are all together. I have another box to put together bulking out the units to 15 figures each and some archers.

Now that the points are available for Oathmark, it appears that the Elves are quite expensive. They will be an expensive but small force.

Plastic Wolves

 

About two weeks  ago, my Goblin Wolf Riders and Dwarf Heavy Infantry showed up. As part of the Nickstarter, I received a metal Champion and wolf for free. A week later my other five metal riders and plastic wolves arrived.

I must admit that I need to be in “the mood” to put together plastics. It is very time consuming and I’d rather spend my hobby time painting or playing games. That was one of the reasons I switched from GW to historicals.

I built 6 wolves the day they arrived and on Saturday evening, I powered through and built the remaining 15. I was in the mood.

What I liked: each wolf consists of two halves and a base. No finicky heads or tails to glue on separately. 

What I disliked: There are only three poses. You cannot mix the left and right sides of the bodies together. The join line down the middle is unsightly and will require some greenstuff to cover.

My overall thoughts: I’d rather sacrifice the variety of figures for the ease of the build. These are a win.

I refrained from puttting any riders together as (ARGH) the torsos and chests are separate and the legs are annoyingly connected to the sprues.

However, I really was in the zone and I assembled 10 of the Dwarf Heavy Infantry.

The first 5 have hand weapons and shields with open faced helmets.

The remaining 5 have 2-handed weapons and closed face masks.

The other 20 figures will be divided into 10 more of each hand weapons/shields and 2-handed weapons.

What I liked: Nice poses, variety of weapons. Hand weapon + shield guys go together quick.

What I disliked: The 2-handed weapons support hand is finicky to get angle correctly. Depending on the angle of the 2-handed weapon, fitting the head can pose a problem.

Overall thoughts: Nice figures. Go together reasonably well. Looking forward to paint as they are predominately clad in metal armour. Think a simple paint job will yield awesome results.

Oathmark Army Planner

This year I have decided to primarily focus my hobby efforts on my fantasy figures, namely Oathmark miniatures and a small smattering of Rangers of Shadow Deep.



I sold off all of my Warhammer figures in the last few years.


 
As I've mentioned before, I have plastic box sets for each of the major races.



I was apprehensive when it came to building the figures as I was nervous to commit to a specific build in the odd chance that the weapon type was too expensive or not effective.



Growing up with Warhammer, I'd check out an army book, create some sample lists, buy the figures and then build accordingly. It made sense to me.



However, with Oathmark, it’s a little different. The rules aren’t out yet. The figures are being slowly released.

On February 5, 2020, Osprey dropped a major bit of information. They released the Oathmark: Battles of the Lost Age - Army Planner, which is a PDF with dropdowns that can be selected that you can use to see the points costs of different units.

Finally!

It took me a while to figure out how to open it but what an amazing guide. The only unknowns now are the differences between a King, Prince or General, Captains or Champions, or the 5 levels of spellcasters.

I decided to play around with the lists in the army planner.

Based on what I currently have for Goblins and what I plan on purchasing, I can field something like this:

Goblin King (Mounted)

Gobin Spellcaster Lvl 2(Mounted)

2x 10 Goblin Wolf Riders

Goblin Captain

Goblin Spellcaster (Lvl 3)

2x 15 Goblin Soldiers

2x 10 Goblin Archers

15 Goblin Spearmen

I won’t put the actual points per model but this force rings in at 1754 points.

All in all, it’s a fairly cost effective force. This is how I’m going to create the troops.

For the 65 Soldiers, Spearmen and Archers:

2 boxes of Goblin Infantry

1 additional sprue of Goblin Infantry (on ebay)

For the 20 Goblin Wolf Riders:

1 box of Goblin Wolf Riders

The 5 mounted metal champions or lord miniatures. You could just as easily grab a sprue off ebay once released.

The hero figures are the metal mounted shaman and foot shaman, the free maquette if you backed the nickstarter and the limited edition Uber wolf as the king.

This gives me some wiggle room to upgrade/downgrade the characters to play anywhere from 1500-2000 points or to add a few more things. 2x 10 wolves takes it 1994 points.

My Dwarves on the other hand will look something like this:

Dwarf King

Dwarf Spellcaster (Lvl3)

15 Dwarf Warriors

15 Dwarf Linebreakers

2x15 Soldiers

15 Spearmen

2x10 Archers

This force comes in at 1977 points. It’s even cheaper to purchase than the Goblins

For the 65 Soldiers, Spearmen and Archers:

2 boxes of Dwarf Infantry

1 additional sprue of Dwarf Infantry (on ebay)

The Warriors and Linebreakers come from 1 Dwarf Heavy Infantry box

The King and the Spellcaster both come from the King, Wizard and Musician blister pack.

I’ll share lists for my humans and elves later.

The Uberwolf

Quick post.

This arrived yesterday. Bolga on Uberwolf

It is a resin figure from Northstar Miniatures for  Oathmark.

It is limited to 40 figures worldwide as the mold  broke. 

When I heard it was limited, I told myself to forget about it. Bolga (the goblin on top) would also be released on a normal (plastic) wolf in metal.

But I was on the Northstar website one day and the Uberwolf was available so I snagged it. Small victories.  

It also shipped ahead of the pre-order.

Here it is with a Ranger of Shadowdeep I had on hand  for scale.

Oathmark

I’ve always loved fantasy skirmish and massed battle games. My journey began when as a 13 year old boy, I wandered into the Games Workshop at the Eaton Centre.

Over the years, I’ve branched away from GW and thus, fantasy. I’d even sold off most of the armies or factions that I had been collecting.

I moved into historical and pulp, moderns and sci-fi but I’ve always held a special place in my gaming heart for fantasy.

When Northstar started teasing Oathmark and the new plastic lines, something deep in the recess of my brain clicked. I modestly backed the first four Nickstarters, for one box of infantry each and that free metal figure.

Like all good hobby purchases, they sat, NIB on my hobby desk of shame for months. It wasn’t until the second round of releases started to be announced that I decided to get my act together.

I quickly build the Dwarves. I toyed around with several unit sizes and armaments. Without having the rules available, I was hesitant and settled on 10 each armed with bow, spear and hand weapons. The spear and hand weapon armed units each have a captain-y type figure and banner bearer as well.

I liked the variety available in each box and the poses. However two things about the dwarves was I did not like quickly popped up. I don’t like the pose of the shield arm. It looked odd, especially without the shield attached. But I suppose it does make sense for a shield wall. I also wasn’t fond of the head/neck joint. You can’t turn or tilt the head for variety/dynamics etc.

I built the Goblins in the same fashion. I liked this kit a lot better. But the head/neck joint was still bothersome.

The human faction was built the same. 10 each of bows, spears and swords. But I only made one captain and one banner bearer.

I was disappointed that I had no rule sets, no point values or weapon attributes to see what flavor I could add to the factions. But my plan was to always add a second box of each so I was confident that I would probably have a well-rounded force in the end.

Then came the Elves. I decided to throw it all on its head. I built 30 spear armed elves, in 3 units of 10. Each with a captain and a banner bearer. I also added helmet plumes on one to differentiate a type of royal guard.

Now, I know what some of you must be thinking, “Elves without bows?” The heresy. I know, I know. But whatever. My second box will balance that out along with the future light elves release.

Anyways, on to the pictures. And as always, excuse the poor photos. I really need to dust off that light box I built.

This is that versatility I was talking about. This photo is one box of Oathmark Human Infantry. For roughly $45.00 CDN I'd say the value here is excellent.

Here are the 10 swordsmen. I like most of the poses. I left the shields off during painting and attached them later. What I didn't realize is that some of the soldiers are literally hiding behind their shields. The figure with the axe (second from left in the rear row) is a prime example. I just need to stay cognizant of that in the future.


My plan for the banner bearer is kind of up in the air. I like the House Mormont sigil (Black Bear on a green field). But I don't want to fork out the $$ for several flags. I'll probably try my hand at making my own.

If you look closely at the rear row, only one figure is actually holding his arrow properly. I don't know what I was thinking at the time. Live and learn. I'm kind of embarrassed. I actually own a bow and have used it, but in my defense, it has been quite a while.


Once I get some games in these guys will be either super accurate or at least I'll have a good argument for why I can't roll dice to save my life. "They can't even hold their arrows correctly, how am I supposed to roll a 6?"

 Lastly the spearmen. Not much to see here aside from some high held shields. At least I'm consistent. I picked up a loose sprue on eBay so will be adding another rank, with a captain and banner bearer.

I "believe" light cavalry may be the next human release. I'd like to add another box set before then to bulk out the force.

Based on 2x 30 figures box sets and 1 5-figure sprue, my initial ideas are:

2x10 archers

2x15 spearmen

1x15 swordsmen

Alrighty. Well. It felt good to get a hobby post in. A lot has happened since last April. I guess I was just in a funk. Too busy to actually sit down and type out what I'd painted or played, bought or sold. Hopefully I can change that.