The last two infantry units for my Midgard Warhammer Empire army

Finally! These are the last two units for my army. First up; a unit of Handgunners; 

I went back to a basic yellow and black colour scheme for these and gave them some kind of NCO whose job is to control the volley firing and reloading drills.

Next are my only other infantry missile troops, some Crossbowmen;

I've used a blue and yellow palette for these because I see them as being Tilean mercenary crossbowmen. 

The backdrop is another Jon Hodgson one.

The Foot contingent of my army is now complete; two groups of Ogres and eight of human footsoldiers, plus various leaders. 

I have assembled twelve armoured cavalry over the last few days, six heavy armoured Lancers to represent Imperial Knights and six armoured Pistoleers. I've got to finish off their horses, because a lot of the horse tack for these Wargames Atlantic Renaissance Heavy Cavalry comes as extra pieces to glue onto the horses. I'll hopefully be able to undercoat them, but I'm not planning on painting them until after my holiday.

Two more Midgard Empire units

I'm getting these finished at last. Once again, these are based on Wargames Atlantic conquistadors.

Below are two units of Warhammer Fantasy Empire spearmen (I'm not sure why the Empire never had pikes);

These are predominantly in the Averland state colours of yellow and black, but both units have a splash of a third colour, red in the top picture and green and red in the lower one. The flag in the upper picture comes from a Warhammer Wiki page and the backdrop is from a Jon Hodgson backdrop book. The first group are clearly better armoured, perhaps they are the guards of some rich lord?

Anyway, I now just have two groups of ranged troops (handgunners and crossbows) to complete and then it will be time to start sticking some Horse together.

Finished some foot units for my Midgard project

 I've been working on this Warhammer Empire project, using Wargames Atlantic conquisadors for ages but I keep losing enthusiasm for it. Anyway, I've finally finished 32 figures as four units of foot troops. Scroll down to see them all.

Above are eight double-handed swordsmen, known as Greatswords in Warhammer Fantasy. Next is a unit of Halberdiers.

Below are two groups of Sword and Buckler men, playing the role of Empire Swordsmen.

Although my original plan was an army representing Averland in yellow and black, I decided to add some extra colour to some of the troops, basically because I was bored with just yellow and black. Black, yellow and red still works for Averland, but the red and blue colour scheme gives me the opportunity to add troops from elsewhere in the Warhammer Empire, in this case from Altdorf. The predominantly red and yellow uniforms could represent Talabecland, or maybe are just a variant of Averland's yellow and black but with a more dominant red component representing the colours of a local lord. It doesn't really matter too much. I've got some blue, yellow and white figures on the go as well. Maybe from Nordland or perhaps Tilean mercenaries?

Overall, it gives me a nice colourful army.

I've also got to work on my cavalry next. These will also be Wargames Atlantic and will be a mixture of armoured types with lances or pistols and lighter horse with lances and swords.

Back to my Averland project

I sort of lost interest in this project for a while, but I'm getting back into it again. I've completed three Command stands which will act as Heroes for Midgard.

The flags used for the first two groups were downloaded from a Warhammer Fantasy Wiki site and reduced in size to suit 28mm figures. I have a couple more standard bearers embedded in two of my infantry groups using flags from the same source.

The figures are all Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors, which are perfect for this project because I have made two groups of Rondeleros (Sword and Buckler troops), two with long spears and one each with handguns, crossbows, halberds and greatswords. All pretty much standard for a Warhammer Fantasy Empire army. 

I was going to paint them all as Averland troops with yellow and black "uniforms" but I decided that I would widen the colour palette with red, blue and white, although I have incorporated black in a couple of cases.If I had to justify this, which I don't, I'd say that they were Tilean mercenary crossbowmen or troops from the personal retinue of some Averland magnate. Frankly, who cares? It just adds a bit of colour. I've decided that I will finish each group of eight figures before moving on to the next, so I get results more quickly.

Once all the infantry are done, I have 24 mounted figures to do. Twelve will be in full armour and the rest will be light horse. The armoured box contains the option of pistols, so I'll definitely do a unit of six pistoleers but will probably use lances and shields for the other 18, although I have been thinking about doing six mounted crossbowmen, assuming I can use spare crossbow arms on the light mounted bodies. We shall see.

So, I'm reasonably OK with how these have turned out. Not my best work but fine for a big army on the tabletop, where they will easily pass the 1 metre rule.

Apart from Mingard, these would also work well for Sword and Spear Fantasy in 28mm.

The backdrop is from a Jon Hodgson backdrop book.
 

It's been a very long time ....... but I've got something finished!

I've not posted anything since mid-June, because I've been away on holiday and also because I had no urge to paint things. Still, I did pick up a brush again and I've finished off a nice command base for my 28mm Warhammer Fantasy-themed army for Midgard. Here it is;

Hopefully, people will remember that I posted the idea for this ages ago (it seems) and here are the results. He is very much based on the Elector Count of Averland, Marius Leitdorf and he will be my army commander and chief hero for my Averland-styled Midgard army, so it seemed a good idea to base him up with the army's battle standard. The standard bearer is a Wargames Atlantic renaissance armoured cavalryman mounted on a plastic Perry barded horse from the WotR mounted men-at-arms box.

I'm reasonably happy with the outcome, they definitely pass the  "one metre away" test, i.e. they'll look fine on the table.

I posed the figures in front of a Jon Hodgson Handiwork Games background.

Now, having got my painting mojo working, I really need to get on with some troops for Count Marius to lead.
 

I don't usually do WIP posts but here is one today

I'm working on a fantasy army for Midgard using Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors. 

This chap below will be its general.

He is kitbashed from a Perry War of the Roses horse and horse armour, a Wargames Atlantic Renaissance mounted body and arms and a Warlord Games Landsknecht head. Since taking this picture, I have cleaned up the blemishes from where things were attached to sprues and he's ready for undercoating.

The fantasy army in question will be based upon a Warhammer Empire Averland force, so I think that the inspiration for the general is fairly obvious. In case you aren't familiar with Warhammer Fantasy, the original is this guy below;

He is the Elector Count of Averland, Marius Leitdorf. My figure is going to keep the black armour and red and yellow sleeves and also the metallic blue horse armour, but I'm definitely not painting suns on it.

I'm hoping he will look pretty good once completed. I'll probably undercoat him later today.

I'm still painting up the first few groups of his infantry, but none are near completion yet.

Wargames Atlantic Ogres (all nine of them)

I've had a project in mind for a while, and these guys are the starting point. There are nine bodies in the box and I've used all of them. First, the Boss;

He's clearly the Boss, because he's got a nice tidy moustache and beard that almost keeps his fangs hidden. I bet he even uses moustache wax!

Next, two ogres with halberds, which they probably call Ver Big Choppas or suchlike.

Then, a couple of swordsmen with bucklers that would serve as a full-size shield for a human.

Another leader type, but not a Pwoper Boss and a guy with a dismounted cannon he's using as a "handgun".

Finally, another "handgunner" and an ogre with a Big Club and a dagger, which would probably be a two-handed sword for a standard human.

These are the start of my Midgard Fantasy army, which will be using Wargames Atlantic conquistadors (both foot and mounted) to make up an army based upon the old Warhammer Fantasy Empire province of Averland, hence the predominance of yellow and black in the colour palette I've used so far.

These ogres are huge, over 5cm tall and really bulky chaps too. I've got movement trays to turn them into two units of four figures, who would be led by their own Hero figure.

I've got all in foot figures for the army assembled and undercoated and I'll begin painting them fairly soon. I have Roman auxiliary archers to finish first.

28mm Wizards project

This is going to be a bit of fun, I hope. I am planning a Renaissance 28mm fantasy army based upon the Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Electoral Province of Averland for Midgard and other sets of rules (e.g. Sword and Spear Fantasy) based on the Wargames Atlantic Conquistadors, Landsknechts Ogres and Renaissance Cavalry sets and I thought that a couple of wizards would be a good idea. My original plan was to get a single sprue of the Frostgrave Wizards I set but then, I realised that the whole box would give me eight bodies which could come in handy in the future. 

I then got to thinking that the Warhammer Fantasy Empire used to have Eight Colleges of Magic and I now had eight wizard figures. Therefore I knew that I'd have to make up eight wizards who could be painted up to represent each of the eight colleges. I assembled all eight figures and have now undercoated them.

So, across the back line in the photo above, I have a Jade Wizard, a Bright Wizard, a Gold Wizard and an Amber Wizard and in front there are a Grey Wizard, an Amethyst Wizard, a Wizard of Light and a Celestial Wizard Obviously, I've chosen an undercoat of primer that will work well as a base for the various colours I'll be using for each Wizard.

As I said at the beginning, I see this pretty much as a fun project. I'll do a separate post for each Wizard as I finish him.

From 2024 into 2025

Well, this should have been a review of my achievements in 2024 and a list of my plans for 2025. However, as regular readers will know, I suffered as huge flare-up of arthritis in both hands last year, which pretty much threw all of my plans way off course. When I was able to paint again, I concentrated on some quick wins by painting stuff that I wanted to paint and not things that were long-term projects. So, really, my 2025 plans are pretty much based around a few of the things I was supposed to do in 2024 plus a couple of new ideas. I'm not going to bother listing anything. Just getting various stuff done will be a win as far as I'm concerned.

I will be trying to focus on Midgard, though. This is because I already have two or three armies that might easily be repurposed for Midgard without much effort. These are Principate Roman auxiliaries, a force that is almost complete but just needs some archers, a Dominate period Roman army that really just needs a couple of mounted leaders and maybe some skirmishing light cavalry and, thirdly, a fantasy Norse army based around my Bad Squiddo shieldmaidens and some jötnar and other mythical beings. 

I do have a fourth fantasy Midgard project, which will be a Warhammer Old World Empire army with human foot and horse and some ogres, all based around the Wargames Atlantic conquistador sets of foot and mounted troops plus the Landsknecht ogres. I think I'll need to find a suitable Battle Wizard from somewhere, too. 

I do have one small urgent addition to my 18th century Syldavian and Bordurian imagi-nations, too. I won't say what it is, because it will be required for Winter Wonderlard V at the beginning of February.

So, that is pretty much all I have to say about future plans. 

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.

My next project

I don't often post WIP pictures, but I thought I'd make an exception for this lot, which are all intended to be primarily for Xenos Rampant.

Above I have 30 figures based on Frostgrave plastic  Cultists and Ghost Archipelago plastic crew figures. The crewmen have the same kind of baggy trousers as the cultists and once they have been given suitable headgear they blend in rather well. All of the figures have been equipped with weapons from the various Stargrave plastic sets, plus the occasional Cultist knife, sword or spear. These will work as cult members, pirates, post apocalyptic reavers or ragged mercenaries.

Next, here are 40 figures made up from the Stargrave Troopers and Mercenaries I box sets. I intend these to be Heavy Infantry.

Finally, a mixed bag made up from a mixture of the Mercenaries II and Crew II Stargrave boxes, who will be Light and Recon Infantry (the latter equipped with sniper rifles), five Wargames Atlantic giant spiders with sci fi weaponry and finally 10 Games Workshop plastic Space Marines that I bought from someone at the club ages ago for a tenner and which I intended to paint up and sell, but never got round to it. These will be two units of Elite Infantry. Obviously, I won't be bothering with any Chapter heraldry or other 40K gubbins.

I still have a box of Crew I figures, 15 Crew II figures and 15 Ghost Archipelago figures, plus 12 small spiders and seven giant ones to use. I am sure they'll end up as something useful.

I have to admit that I will leave it a while before I make any more giant spiders. They are pretty tricky and time-consuming to put together and I don't think I'd have done it yet without Guy Bowers' really useful guide on the WSS blog HERE. Having said that, they are worth the effort because they look pretty impressive, even without an undercoat.

Mixing Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago and Stargrave figures together is really easy and generally everything goes together without any hassle or swearing.

I now have a total of 100 individual figures to get painted over the next couple of months. I am planning to do them in groups of 10 at the most.