More Elves - Merchant company

Hi,

Just finished off another unit of GW 1985 vintage elves for my WFB 3rd edition high elf army. These guys are merchant company soldiers and fight in mixed formations half with spear half with bow. As the retainers of a powerful merchant lord they are well equipped with armour and weapons.

The back rank had to be converted to carry spears buy removing the swords, drilling the hands and inserting plastic spears left over from my Warlord games Celt army. the standard bearer was converted the same way but given a longer steel rod instead of a spear. The unit leader was given a plastic feather plume from my bits box to mark him out from the ranks.

Finally we have the elven merchant lord himself another 85 era GW elf, still working on a name for him but painted up quite well.

Going for a short break in Cardiff for the next couple of days with the family, which should re-charge my painting batteries ready to break the back of my high elf host in the next couple of weeks.

Cheers Jon

Time for a clear out

Put up most of my 40K stuff for sale on flea bay today. A bit of a tough decision but none of it really gets used and it's taking up storage space. I also need to raise some funds to refill the family coffers which took a battering when the both my motorbike and family PC imploded within days of each other requiring a big drain on the families rainy day/emergency funds. If any ones interested here are the auctions

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/clarejonward/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340

My wargames room

I gave my wargames room a good tidy a couple of weekends ago and took some pictures before it reverts back to it's normal untidy state. Thought I'd post them to show my little wargames sanctuary.

Basically my room is the garage. Our house has an unusual double length (rather than the more usual double width) garage. I divided the garage down the middle with a stud wall and boarded up the breeze block walls and added a raised floor.

Like most garages the insulation leaves a bit to be desired being rather warm in the summer and bloody freezing in the winter. Also when I convinced the lady wife to let me have my room it was on the condition that I shared with the tumble dryer (boo).

The display cabinets are from good old IKEA. The wargames table is built from MDF with coasters to make it easy to move around it also has six map draws (saved from a skip) built in to one end to provide more figure storage.

Jon

Some more elves

Hi all,

just thought I'd post up some pictures of my slowly expanding high elves for WFB (3rd edition). I'm still working on the background but basically this army is going to represent a small sea elf kingdom on the shores of the elven isle. Most of the population are sea elves while the royal family are high elves. The kingdoms army is split in three main parts the royal forces commanded by the king (green and white livery), the forces of the coast warden (blue and white livery) who patrol/guard the coast against raiders and the forces of Tor-lothen (red and white livery) the kingdoms only major city and a trading port. On top of that are the kith militia made up of trades-elves during times of war.

right on to the pictures

Top- we have the coast warden himself the model is a late nineties early noughties GW high elf hero from my bits box.

Middle - A wizard made from a 1985 vintage GW elf standard bearer with the standard chopped off and replaced with a plastic cannon ball to make a staff.

Bottom - a unit of Kindred made up of lesser/minor members of the royal household. These miniatures are from Ral-parthas elf line good value for money at around six models for a fiver.

Cheers Jon

undead army in five days - the final results

Hi,
as promised I've posted up some better pictures of my painted in five days undead army. All models were painted in citadel acrylic paints and magic washed (Windsor and Newton peat brown ink mixed 1:1 with future Klear). The shields have transfers from left over games workshop spacemarine transfer sets.

The first two pictures are my skeleton spears. Made from all the spear armed skeletons from two Mantic skeleton sets 20 skellies in all.

Next up the rest of the skeleton warriors all armed with hand weapons. The unit leader is an old Citadel miniatures pre-slotta base skeleton who has been sat in my bits box since the year dot.

next up we have the ghouls built from two Mantic ghoul sets to produce a 20 figure unit. Thanks to the extras on the sprue I've managed to make quite a varied unit from what is basically two different miniatures.

An old Grenadier Miniatures undead giant makes a nice army centre piece.

Screaming skull catapults both from Mantic's plastic sets with two extra crew taken from the skeleton warriors sprue.

My Necromancer and General Gaston de la Mort. This is a metal miniature from Mantic. One of the nicest miniatures I've painted in a while and he came out pretty well I thought. The base is a display base that comes with the model for games he transfers to a normal 20x20mm base.

A vampire Lord for when I fancy a change of general. This miniature was from Northstar as a limited edition version of Vlad the Impaler when you bought the WAB army book. Nice miniature who final has a use.

Finally my second Necromancer Joan d'Noir another mantic metal miniature. I wasn't keen on her at first but since shes had a lick of paint she has grown on me.

Cheers Jon

undead army in 5 days - part 10

Well I did it, finished the last unit of skeletons about an hour ago. 60 infantry, 2 catapults and crew, characters and an undead giant in five days not to shabby if I do say so myself.

I took the afternoon off from painting to tidy up the wargames room which had become (to put in nicely) a bit of a pig sty. while I was going through some boxes I came across this giant undead mummy half painted. Finally having a use for him I based him up and finished painting him.I think he makes quite a nice army centre piece.

I'll try and take some better pictures in the next few days and post them up. Of course the armies not really finished yet. Mantic are releasing zombies in October that look very nice so a unit will be a must. I'd also like to add some cavalry and a couple of enthrals as well. To use this army in WFB 3rd edition I need to get a small unit of Grim reapers (skeletons with scythes) Mantic don't do anything like that so I'll have to look around for some.

Having built the core of the army I can know add stuff at leisure when I'm in the mood which is great. I think that's the fastest I've ever painted an army. I'll have to send the wife to her mothers more often.

Cheers Jon

undead army in five days - part 9

Some quick pictures of the skeleton warrior regiment I finished last night. they've come up quite nice I think. The shield transfers are from GW space marines but work. Right time to fill up with coffee and start blocking in the skeleton regiment.

Jon

undead army in five days - part 8

No pictures tonight (I'll try and post some up in the morning). Well the regiment of skeleton warriors with spears is almost finished just need to flock the bases and add transfers to the shields.

I took a bit of a break this afternoon as my mum (god bless her) invited me round for home made steak and ale pie. Mums being what they are she feared I was wasting away at home on my own (despite me being in my thirties and of typical wargamer build). It was worth it though as she'd also made a lemon meringue pie (woot).

So with one day left I've got one unit of twenty skeletons to do......................

Cheers Jon

undead army in five days - part 7

Not a good start as I overslept and didn't get going with the painting until 9.30. Still in three hours I've finished the character models and war machines off. I've put a bit more effort into the character models so they've taken a bit longer but they look pretty good so it was worth the effort. Being a wimp I finally broke of from painting to eat something for the first time today. Still I'm full of beans on toast and coffee now so I'm off to break the back of those skeleton warriors (I hope)

Cheers Jon

undead army in five days - part six

Crikey! half way through already and still 40 skeletons that haven't got past the undercoat stage. On the plus side I know have two days without work (yippee) so I should be able to get a lot more painting done.

Tonight I managed to get the catapults and crew finished and magic washed and my two necromancers blocked in and washed. I've actually highlighted and finished one necromancer who needs to dry so I can finish of her base.

So tomorrow it's onto the skeletons for blocking in and washing as well as highlights and basing for the artillery and characters. A busy day ahead then........

undead army in five days- part 5

The Ghouls are finished so that's 1/3rd of the infantry done! I took them to work and highlighted them in my lunch break followed by finishing the bases and spraying with satin varnish when I got home. Here's a few pictures taking on the paint bench (I'll take some better ones when the project is finished.

I'm pretty happy with them they won't win any painting awards but for gaming they're acceptable. Time for some tea and then I'll crack on with some more painting and try and get further with the war machines and character models.

Cheers Jon