People from a Hammer film

A very long time ago, my friend Owen gave me a very heavy box containing a load of miniatures. In the box was a plastic bag full of odd little villagers. They were obviously pretty old, and each model had a job title written on the metal tab.

I did a bit of internet research and discovered that they are GW figures for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay from 1985. No wonder they look a bit wonky. Actually, they're well-sculpted in terms of conveying the characters that they're meant to be, and some of them are impressively detailed. The thing is, they're very old-fashioned and the overall proportions leave a bit to be desired.

Anyway, I painted a few of them. I think the differences in scale can be put down to inbreeding.

Here is a witch (labelled "witch" on the tab) and an old woman (rather unkindly labelled "hag").

They're not really bad models - the detailing is pretty decent. Here are (from left to right) a druid (who looks like a drunken monk to me), a herdman (who looks like the naive and weirdly wholesome young hero of a bad fantasy novel) and a poacher.

I also made a village pond. The village pond is a vital part of medieval life, supplying the visitors with "drinking" water, mud and a place to meet the locals whilst drowning suspected witches. This pond was a simple resin cast made by Magnetic Displays, which I picked up for £3 at a show. I added some grass and a couple of ducks from the Warlord farm animals set. Delightful.

"Will I float or will I just drown?"

And now for something slightly different. A while ago, I got a couple of Avatars of War miniatures in a sale. One of them was a vampire, who I painted up this weekend. She's a very good model, and in terms of style completely different to the villagers. Getting a decent picture of her was really difficult, but here she is.

Space Precinct

Back to our usual (vaguely) regular schedule of (possibly) informative articles about modelmaking. This week, I had a go at the vehicle and headquarters of the security team that I made a couple of weeks ago.

The vehicle is a hummer, which I bought at an event and which came as a large single lump of resin. The detailing was actually pretty good, although there were some odd bits around the wheels which I just painted black. It was strange trying to paint a vehicle in a roughly realistic fashion. I even used a bit of weathering powder (if that's the stuff) around the wheels.

I think it looks suitably battered. I didn't go over the top with detail or shading because, oddly, that looked rather unrealistic. Anyway, it should make a reasonable addition to the vehicle pool an a good transport for the security guys if ever they need one.

The second item (which pretty much finishes the unit off) is a building for the security guys to hide in. It was from Troll Trader, and cost about £4. As with a lot of Troll Trader stuff, it was made from MDF slightly thicker than that used by other companies and, while slightly basic, it looks like what it claims to be.

I added a few details to the model: some posters from a sheet of 40k designs for the walls, wire mesh on the windows (I bought a sheet of mesh at the local craft shop), a small box on the roof and a bit of machinery that provides power or something inside. This year's entirely random scenery purchase was a box of resin air-conditioning units, and I stuck one of them on the front. After all, if you're going to be guarding a dangerous border town in some ramshackle post-apocalyptic future, you might as well do it at a reasonable temperature.

I did contemplate adding chairs or a table, but they would get in the way of putting models inside. That does always seem to be a problem with the more complex terrain features: either they really don't let you move models very well, or they take up so much space that any game would have to centre around them.

Here's a shot of the interior, looking rather primitive. A space policeman's lot is not a happy one!

Tune in next time for medieval peasants (possibly)!

My Big Dark Fantasy Novel

So, slightly different post here.

Both of you who read this blog will already know that I write books. More particularly, I wrote the Warhammer 40,000 novel Straken, about Colonel Straken of the Imperial Guard killing a lot of space orks, and the six Space Captain Smith books, about Captain Isambard Smith of the British Space Empire killing a lot of space ants.

Now I've got something else planned. In December 2018, I'll be releasing a new book onto Kindle. It's called Up To The Throne, and it looks like this:

Giulia returns to her birthplace to kill the man who scarred her and left her for dead - only to find that he is no longer a gangster but a powerful politician, and may be the only person who can save Pagalia from its enemies. As she carves her way closer to vengeance, it becomes clear that her revenge may destroy the entire city.

It's a dark fantasy story, a sort of revenge thriller set in a magically-supercharged Renaissance, full of clockwork tanks, haunted ruins, flying machines and a lot of menace and intrigue. I'm not that keen on the term, but if you want to call it Grimdark, feel free.

This is a first expedition into the world of self-publishing, and I'll update you guys as I go along. It's pretty daunting, to be honest, but I'm looking forward to it too!

Warpig

Last week, I tidied my desk. Most of this involved clipping parts out of sprues and putting them into little plastic pots from Ikea: tedious, but strangely satisfying. Under the heap of parts, I found my old set of modelling tools in their sinister little roll.

Is it safe? Is it safe?

I got to work on a conversion that I'd had in mind for ages. A while ago, I'd purchased a box of broken Privateer Press models, which included a headless thing which I think was originally a bison with a saddle. Armoured legs were sculpted onto the saddle.

I used the head of an ancient (and not very good) orc boar, and blended it to the body with quite a lot of green stuff. I used a chaos knight's arms and torso, and added a Brettonian head for a suitably enormous helmet.

A few other bits were added, a base sculpted from a lump of clay, and then it was time to paint this chap. It took ages - every time I'd finished, I found something new. But I have to say that the result is decent. The bright colours and weird concept go together quite well, I think: he could work in either Mordheim or Frostgrave.


The mysterious knights of the ancient Order Of The Pork Rampant are known for riding enormous mutant pigs instead of steeds. While they are regarded as eccentric by their comrades, and are often the butt of sausage-related jokes, there can be no doubting their prowess in battle. Many a hungry orc, thinking himself about to get a cheap luncheon, has been horribly gored by the grunting warpigs of the Order. Here we see the bold knight Sir Plusse de Requirements, looking for glory while his steed looks for truffles.

Welcome to the Guard

While the effectiveness of the Imperial Guard has varied from time to time, it has always been an inescapable truth that the individual guardsman is crap. That's the point of the army, really: the Guard are (or is?) a horde army, using loads of little people to wear down the enemy by force of numbers. What this adds up to is that the average unit of guardsmen makes the cast of Dad's Army look like the Special Operations Executive.

Of course, in a smaller-scale setting, one man can make more of a difference. I found a few old Guard models, added weapons where necessary from the ever-excellent Genestealer Acolytes set, and painted them up to look like a second-rate security team, rather like the not-very-fearsome riot police in the 1970s Dawn of the Dead. I think the lack of uniform gear rather helps.

The other reason why they're in blue is that they don't clash too much with my genestealer cultists ("they don't clash" - what is this, a fashion show?), and so could pass as recruits if needed to bulk out the numbers. They've got similar (ie rubbish) stats to low-level cultists, and so could easily join the ranks with the rest of the cannon fodder.

I'm expecting a Beastie Boys cover out of these guys

These aren't the best-painted models I've ever done, but they'll be fine (probably). The face on the middle chap was either a bit miscast or not a great sculpt: I've done what I can, really.

The sunglasses are a feeble attempt to look tough and competent

These two look a bit more professional. They're still really old sculpts (they both appear in the ancient blue Citadel catalogue) but I added new plastic arms, which fitted remarkably well.

Last weekend I went to Colours at Newbury Racecourse. It wasn't quite as good for random broken stuff as last year, but I did manage to pick up a few decent things. One of them was this whopping great lump of resin in the shape of a Hummer armoured car. Ideal for the security forces, or the genestealer cult.

A Few Eldar More

Here are a few more members of the Eldar squad. The first is another metal combat drone. This model is at least 25 years old, but I think it's still pretty cool.

The second two are based on Privateer Press Scyrah models. The first was converted to hold a modified Dark Eldar rifle, which was bloody fiddly. The second was given a left arm from an Empire spearman. I also cut the decidedly odd boob-plates off her armour and sculpted her a smooth chestplate from green stuff.

Again I went with a vaguely cyberpunk painting style, livening up the outfits with red details and trying to keep it as clean as possible.

I've given them unusual hair colours (at least, the ones who actually have hair) to make them distinct and to go with the futuristic style.

I'm actually not sure how many of these guys you'd have in a Kill Team squad, but six seems a decent number so far. I've also got some old dwarves to do for Frostgrave and a group of security guys based off Imperial Guard models for the town. It's a busy life painting little metal men!

War and Warpstorms - Eldar Mercenaries

As well as being the title of a long-lost Jane Austen 40k novel, war and warp-storms are a hazard to all spacefarers in the local system. They have trapped a small number of Eldar on the planet's surface. Although they tend to keep to themselves, the Eldar live on reasonable terms with the human population and are respected for their intellect, skill and delightful cheese and wine parties.

I find it very hard to resist the lure of broken miniatures. I recently acquired a load of broken Privateer Press models, including some characters from the Retribution of Scyrah faction. The Retribution are basically steampunk elves, but they don't have the archetypal steampunk look like many of the other Privateer models.

I didn't like their oversized weapons, but I thought that the basic models were really characterful and well-sculpted - much more so than most GW Eldar, which are fairly dull sculpts. So, I decided to add some different weapons where necessary and paint them as vaguely cyberpunk Eldar mercenaries.

This lady had a new sword and pistol. I really liked the complex armour on the model.

This guy is a sniper. He's a terrific miniature. I went with black on the gun instead of the usual metal, to suggest that it's very advanced.

I realise that the market for this is rather niche, but if you're wondering what the back of a space elf marksman looks like, here you go.

The last eldar so far is a GW model - but a very, very old one. Years ago, when you bought an Eldar dreadnought, you got a little robot dude thrown in for free. They were called combat drones, and I think they look awesome. I'm not sure why I like these models so much - I think it might be the sheer weirdness - but the Eldar mercenaries have a little robot friend.