The Last (Four) Samurai

So, I've finally come to the last four of the Warlord Games samurai heroes.

First up, we've got a ninja and a female samurai. The ninja is assembled as per usual. For the female samurai, I cut off the banner she was holding and replaced it with a blade from a skaven. It's the right shape, but a bit hefty. Never mind. Apparently, such weapons were standard among female samurai, owing to the longer reach. I also cut her head off and turned it to a better angle. Then I ordered another of the same miniature off Ebay.

Next up were the last two: an archer and the unconverted version of the lady holding a banner. I'm pleased with the heraldic design on the banner, which is the same as the design on the samurai with the blue coat.

And finally, here's a group shot of them all, about to have an adventure. To begin with, I had thought that they weren't great miniatures, but I've really warmed to them in the course of the project. I'm quite tempted to get some of Warlord's ninjas, but I've got far too much to paint already.

Chaos Terminator Lord

I've had the pieces of this model knocking around for ages, and this week I thought I'd take the opportunity to finally put it together.

The basis of this model was a chaos terminator torso and space wolf legs and arms. As the commander of the army, he needed to be sufficiently huge. I felt that assembling the model as usual made him feel a little bit stumpy, especially with his cloak heaped onto his back.

I've never really liked space marines, power fists or making space marines even bigger, so I decided, logically, to give my space marine a power fist and make him bigger. In fairness, I gave him my favourite power fist, which I took from an old metal chaos marine champion. It's hard to see the details here, but they come out better later. I was pleased that it fitted his plastic arm so well.

The legs were "chaosified" a little with green stuff. I still haven't got the hang of this and my additions feel rather blobby to me, but they'll do.

To make him less stumpy, I added thin bits of plasticard under his soles. I also cut the ball-joint at the top of his legs and put another piece of plasticard under it, to raise it slightly and lengthen his torso for a bit of extra height (being big is clearly an important sign of status in the 40k world, along with wearing no helmet or wearing a really fancy hat).

The left arm was surprisingly fiddly, as it was supposed to hold a shield. He got a space wolf axe and a fist from an old orc big 'un. It looks suitably clunky. I added spikes to the left shoulder pad to balance out the cloak a bit and sculpted green stuff so it looked as if they'd burst through his armour. His head came from the space wolf terminators.

Now time for some paint. I painted him pretty much as I've done the rest of the chaos marines, except that I made his face a little more human than the other marines, by mixing in some blue-grey with the skin colour. I found an Imperial eagle to go on his base. I'm not sure about the freehand on his cloak, but it's the best I can do.

Wulfrid Hammerssen was once a loyal captain of the Space Wolves. After winning his spurs at the Purging of Scapulon, he joined the war-host that Logan Grimnar sent to assist the Imperium during the First War For Armageddon. Here, Wulfrid and his squad led PDF soldiers and guardsmen against the chaos cult known as the Red Arterial Spray, routing the enemy completely.

At the end of the war, however, the Inquisition decided that too much of the population had been exposed to the corruption of chaos. The people of Armageddon, including those who had fought alongside the Space Wolves, were to be deported and killed, and the Wolves themselves were to be mind-wiped.

Enraged by this betrayal, Wulfrid gathered four ships, filled them with as many citizens as he could manage, and set a course away from the planet. Cursing the Inquisition, the Administratum and the whole Imperium, Wulfrid headed into the depths of space.

Since then, he has found new allies. His ships, along with smaller vessels captured over the decades, continue to haunt the space lanes, preying on Imperial and renegade craft alike. The descendants of those he rescued still fight alongside him. Any he captures are offered the choice of freedom from the diktats of the Imperium, or a swift trip out of the airlock. Inevitably, Wulfrid's war against the servants of the Emperor has drawn the interest of the Chaos gods, and he has found himself with some powerful, but dangerous, additions to his horde.

Wulfrid the Turncoat, as he is now known, continues to plague the forces of order. For a long while, he was content to be one of many small thorns in the Imperium's side - but now that chaos is resurgent, he has found new opportunities to spread his own savage brand of freedom far and wide.

Making An Outpost For Necromunda

Over the last week, I've been building a new outpost for my futuristic town. This model was based on a "tri building", from TT Combat, which cost £9 and was from a range designed for Infinity.

The TT Combat buildings are really just MDF boxes, with greyboard to provide some detail. Compared to a lot of other companies, they're cheap but crude, but they do give you the opportunity to customise your MDF box as you see fit and make as much of a project of it as you like.

For this model, I added some DAS putty to the corners, where the pieces of MDF met, to hide the joins. I also used the sticks from cotton buds to make some drainpipe-type tubes to hide some gaps. A bit of basing dirt was used for grit and muck on the bottom of the building and on the roof, to suggest dilapidation. I also glued a couple of suitably distressed Warhammer 40k newpapers to the roof, to look like discarded newsheets. These used to be available for download and printing from the 40k website. I also made a roof hatch out of plasticard (keeping the hatch pretty flat so that models could still stand on it).

The sign above the door was a complete fluke. The greyboard parts of TT Combat kits come on a sheet, from which you cut them as needed. Often, the sheets have what must be a reference number printed on them. I always keep these bits (sad, I know) because they make interesting details when stuck to model buildings. In this case, I trimmed the number down to size and mounted it above the door. Goodness knows what it means, but since it's not very catchy, I expect that it's a reference number for this particular building. Perhaps it's a research outpost in some miserable Soviet-type empire.

The inside of the building was a bit bland. There wasn't much room to put any posters up, but I stuck a metal grille to the floor just inside the doorway (another bit of unused greyboard from a TT Combat Japanese shop). I cut a piece of random 40k tech down to size and mounted it on the wall opposite the door, with some other bits of cotton bud to "power" it. I don't know what it does, but it looks viable. In true Necromunda tradition, the doorway got some warning stripes.

There comes a point with terrain where you have to trade realism against usability. I wanted to keep the inside pretty empty, so that models could fit in and furniture could be added and removed as necessary (I imagine that the models overturn the tables to fire out of the windows). I had some Mantic desks and bookshelves already painted, which would suit it fine.

However, in the bits box, I found an MDF staircase that I bought ages ago at a random wargames show. I'd originally planned to use it in fantasy, but with a spray of white paint and another 40k poster, it looked pretty good for this model. Like the furniture, I don't plan to glue it in, so that it can be removed for access. Here's the furnished version:

Painting was reasonably simple: white spray with bone and rust colours sponged on top to represent wear and tear. I did some detailing in blue, mainly for variety. And that's about it, really! There's more that I could do, but for now, I think it's fine.

You Can't Run, But You Can't Hide Either

The ork commandos were defeated. The surviving aliens fled the battlefield, leaving the heroes victorious. As the heroes holstered their weapons and congratulated each other, a siren wailed. Soldiers from the governor's own personal guards ran into the spaceport. This didn't look good. It was time to flee the scene!


The aim of this game was for the heroes to run from one side of the board to the other without getting shot to pieces. The enemy consisted of six enemy troopers (five gangers and one leader). The twist was that, each time a trooper died, he came back in from a random table edge.

"Here he comes..."

It was a short and ferocious battle. Although the heroes cut down several of the guards without much trouble, reinforcements flocked in and soon they were swamped. Predictably, the first to go down was Maria Poppinata, taken out of action by the guard captain's bolt pistol.

Doctor Apocalypse ran forward and, using a generator as cover, took out two guards with a well-thrown grenade. Sadly he was then felled by a lucky flanking shot from a guardsman with a lasgun. The others rushed forward, seeing a gap in the enemy line, but suddenly three more guardsmen ran into the melee, ready to raise hell.

The trusty Dave was shot down by a guardsman coming in from the north. Finally, four uniformed heavies surrounded Doombot X-7. The robot accounted for two of them with his sword and autopistol, but, sadly, he was pulled down and deactivated by the remaining pair. Ouch.

"I'll terminate the lot of you!"

So at last, the one survivor was Captain Fancy. Fancy had kept alive this far by a combination of derring-do and being at the back (perhaps derring-don't is the best description). He failed his bottle roll, seized upon the better part of valour and ran like hell into the depths of the underworld, somehow dragging his companions with him.

*

Oh dear. Well, it could have been worse. Rolling on the injuries table, Doctor Apocalypse, Maria Poppinata and Doombot X-7 made a full (if somewhat surprising) recovery from their injuries. Dave, however, got not only a full recovery but some experience points, which was enough to win him a statistic improvement, taking him to Strength 4. Truly, what has not killed him has only made him stronger!

I think, if I was to replay this, I would have the slain enemy returning from a random flank, and not the edge of the table that the heroes were trying to exit from. As it was, they found themselves running straight at a barrage of enemy fire, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Anyhow, the adventure continues, and I have a plan for the next game...

Warhound Titan and two Lake Town Houses

This week, I had a go at one of my warhound scout titans. The idea of a scout titan is slightly odd: I'm not sure that being half the size of a normal titan counts for much when you are clearly about 50 times bigger than a man. I doubt that you can sneak up on very much. Still, I rather like the old miniature, and it was fun and easy to paint.

Just to show that I've shaded its red bits:

I've always liked the look of the Lake Town Houses from the Lord of the Rings game. They're fairly simple, decent sculpts which fit the rough vaguely-Tudor style that I've been going for with the rest of my buildings. I bought one off Games Workshop, and another from my friend James (thanks James!).

I didn't attempt anything very fancy with them: they were easy to paint and came up looking nice in basic colours. GW have an interesting faded-paint effect on their ones, but I wasn't confident about pulling it off, so opted for unpainted wood.

This one is the luxury variant, complete with gabled window and glass.

This one is a bit less elaborate, but it has its own "outhouse" - ie a dunny.

As I say, nothing very amazing, but they'll fit in nicely with the rest of my terrain and fill up the board quite well.

One Knight and Two Samurai

I've been painting the last of the Epic knights and two more of the Warlord Games samurai heroes. 

The last knight is presumably what became the 40k plastic Imperial Knight kit. I went with similar colours to the others.

And here are all five, pictured as they stride across Abbey Road.

The two samurai guys are a lady with a fan, who I gave a pink robe, and what I thought was a wealthier chap, who is wearing a jacket and carrying two swords. His face was slightly miscast, so I ended up painting a scar down it to "hide" the error in casting. I rather like them both.

Only three more samurai to do now. I'm quite tempted by the Warlord ninjas, who look like a lot of fun (to paint, not to know). 

More Small Titans

I painted two more of the old Epic knight titans. These are lancers, and are just as oddly designed as the others. I like their weirdness.

Again, I went for slight variations on the colour scheme that I used on my titan. They're quite gaudy, but I like that and I think it fits the style of the old models back in 1989 or so.

Here are all the small titans so far, standing in a row.

Myron Jubalgunn and the Dangerous Alien

Last post, I made Myron Jubalgunn's friend, the "dangerous alien" from this picture:

This time, I had a go at Myron himself.

The main thing about him is that he's got a long coat. I first thought that an Eldar scout would be a good basis, but the posing wasn't quite right, and I noticed that he seems not to be wearing a shirt (or anything else!) under it. I decided to base the model on an old Empire flagellant, which has a bare chest and long robes.

The basic model was given new feet from green stuff, and arms from Eldar models. Because the flagellant seemed a little short, I put him on a small piece of slate. The head came from a Dark Eldar, the guns were from Warlord Civil War cavalry, and much of the rest of the additions were green stuff.

I don't mind filling gaps with green stuff, but I'm no expert in sculpting with it, and it would be easier to get Nessie's autograph than a smooth finish with it. As it happens, I did quite a bit of sculpting on this model, and I'm 60% happy with the outcome. Here's a WIP.

What a mess.

It looks a bit better with paint.

I'm not sure what the metal thing around his neck might be: it's sculpted onto the flagellant body, and looks like a steel collar. I painted it a more vibrant colour here, to draw the eye to the head. Myron is meant to have a large scar across his face, which wasn't easy to paint. He still looks rather short, but I think that's just the angle of the picture.

Here is a picture of Myron and his alien friend, waiting to have their portraits drawn.

Overall, I'm not 100% happy, and one day I might try to give Myron longer legs, but for now, they look alright.


EDIT!

So, I wasn't happy with Myron's short legs, and I decided to make him a bit taller. This was fiddly.

I removed him from his base, cut off his feet and put him on two small bits of plasticard to make him taller. I pinned the plasticard to the model and to the base to stabilise it. Then I sculpted boots around the plasticard. To be honest, it's hard to see what I've done and it looks a bit rough (because it is). But it does make him taller and more imposing. So, here's the modified Myron:

And here he is with his friend. Much better - or at least I think so!