An Outlaw band plus a Big Surprise (at the end of the post)

I've been working on these, on and off for the last couple of weeks. The figures are from the Oathmark Human Light Infantry box but I've used them to create a band of outlaws to use in Never Mind The Ruckus games.

First; two groups of bowmen;

Next, a group of men with spears and staves;

And next, two leaders and a mysterious Black Knight (don't Outlaw legends always have one of these?);

As I said above, these are all Oathmark figures, except the Black Knight who is from the Perry Men-at-arms on Foot plastic set.

I like the figures, even though they don't look particularly historically accurate. They definitely look like something from a film.

So, as legendary screen outlaws living in the woods, green has to dominate their wardrobe choices and therefore these are the Men of the Holly Wood (and they are all wearing tights too), in which case, the Black Knight has to be Sir Antony Courtois of Falworth (even though he isn't carrying his black shield.

I could easily use these guys as Rangers of the Dunedain too or for Rangers of Shadowdeep. There are plenty more of these in the box to be made up, so I have lots of options here. I think more Dunedain might be a small project, but probably not in green.

Now, for the Big Surprise;

Yes, it is the last Giant Spider from the Wargames Atlantic box set. I had thought I'd lost the head and thorax but I was tidying up all my computer and other cables and found it on the floor under my desk. I decided to paint this one in a completely different colour scheme, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Here is Big Spidey with an outlaw for scale;

All of the pictures feature a backdrop from one of my Handiwork Games Jon Hodgson backdrop books.

More Wargames Atlantic giant spiders

About a year ago, I posted about the excellent Wargames Atlantic Classic Fantasy Giant Spiders. Back in January I decided that I really had to assemble and paint the rest of the box, and here are the results. I've taken two pictures of them. Firstly a simple shot showing the spiders against a plain backdrop and, when you scroll down a second picture set up as a small action diorama.

As you can see the six big spiders are absolutely huge posed with a Bad Squiddo Freyja's Wrath female Berserker (who I use as my Barbarian character for D&D). The smaller spider is the Barbarian's latest acquisition, Fluffy the giant wolf spider.

I wanted to use a simple but menacing dark palette for these spiders. After assembly, a tricky job,they were glued to 5cm MDF bases which were then covered with a mix of PVA glue and calcium sand (which is used in reptile vivariums). 

I undercoated the spiders in Halford's matt grey spray primer and, once dry, gave them a wash of Nuln Oil. Next I set about a series of dry-brushed layers in dark, medium and pale grey and then set them aside.  Once dry, I then finished off the spiders with a wash of diluted W&N Indian ink and, when that was dry, I picked out the fangs and eyes in a pale grey. The Indian ink had dripped down onto the bases, which was what I wanted and I finished the bases off with a simple wash of lightly diluted Agrax Earthshade

I should have made seven giant spiders and one large one, but somewhere over the last year, I seem to have lost the head/thorax part for one of the big guys, I might have to look at some kind of human/arachnid mutant at some point.

Anyway, as promised above, here is the diorama;

I'm pretty happy with this picture. I think it has come out really nicely.

The scene was set up in my lightbox, using a Jon Hodgson backdrop, a selection of my 3D printed ruins and a floor made from my Warbases dungeon tiles. I took several shots with aperture priority using different light intensities and different apertures, shooting at an exposure range between ISO 100 and ISO 800 with my Pentax K-70 DSLR. 

If you suffer from arachnophobia ..................

 ........................ look away now! Lots and lots of spiders.

These are Wargames Atlantic's giant spiders with the sci fi add-ons of face visors, big guns and robotic legs (well, not all the legs). To give some idea of their size, they are based on 4cm circular MDF bases. I shall definitely be using these as Greater Xenomorphs for Xenos Rampant and they could also be used in lots of other settings.

In addition to the 12 giant spiders that are in the set, you also get 12 smaller spiders on the sprues. I've painted 10 of them to use as a Swarm in Xenos Rampant but they could obviously pop up anywhere.

I used some spare 3cm circular plastic bases which I didn't use when I made up 10 Space Marines recently. Waste not, want not, I say. These don't have any weapons, well apart from their teeth and poison stings.

I decided on a brown palette for all the spiders because I wanted them to look like an alien menace from a semi-arid environment. They were undercoated in Army Painter Leather Brown spray primer, drybrushed with Vallejo Orange Brown and then the little details were painted in. I gave the giant ones bronze weapons with green on the biological-looking parts, and I used red on the eyepieces of their face masks. The ones with visible eyes had them painted black, the same as on the smaller arachnids. Finally, they were given a wash of Winsor & Newton Peat Brown drawing ink.

All the tufts on the bases are from Gamer's Grass.