Slann slave troops

Another unit for my Slann army done. This time captured human slave troops led by a Slann slave master. These miniatures are TAG Aztecs and a Citadel pre-slotta (circa 1984) Slann. These guys as you'd expect aren't great troops under the rules but they do bulk out my infantry force rather well. Just the Slann cold one riders to go now plus 3 extra lizardmen and a few extra scout miniatures I picked up. After that it's onto the Pygmy ally contingent.

Cheers Jon

The Sea Witch- Pirate ship WIP

Well having painted up a crew, got a copy of the rules and played a couple of games I'm rather taken with the Legends of the High Seas game. Of course every pirate crew needs a ship, Jim my club mate and some time opponent scratch built his scurvy crew a fantastic ship that can be seen here

http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/2010/10/pirate-sloop-6-finished.html

Suitably inspired by Jim's excellent effort (as well as the thought of being tonked by a ships broadside in the next game) I thought I better get a ship sorted too. It's not based on any real ship and I aimed to make a wargames piece rather than a scale model.

I looked for pictures of pirate ships on the net printed them off and took them down to the wargames room. Then I built a basic structure out of foam core card and polystyrene blocks all stuck together with PVA and then clamped over night. A quick trip to Hobby Craft furnished with some balsa wood and some dowel which I then used to clad the basic structure. The windows and figurehead came from the bits box.

There's still quite a bit to do before the model is ready for painting but so far it's looking better than I thought it would. I've got a game planned with Jim on the 9th so that's my deadline to get it finished (I hope).

Cheers Jon

Achtung Tiger

Another new project 20mm WW2 Germans for Rapid fire. A few people at the club are looking to paint stuff up for NWE 44-45. My regular opponent is planning to do a battalion of the DCLI
Looking around on the net it seems one of the most famous battles involving the DCLI was hill 112 during the Normandy campaign their opponents during that battle were the 9th SS panzer Division supported by SS Tiger battalion 101. So that's what I'm going for

Having decided what I'm doing I went to the box with all my 20mm WW2 kits I've collected for the day when I would finally get the rapid fire project I've wanted to do for years done. What I found were these three Tiger 1 die casts that I picked up off some magazine last year at £1.99 each. They were in panzer grey but they got a re-paint into something more suitable for Normandy 44. I may added some crosses and numbers at some point and I'm still deciding weather to base them or not. Next some panzer grenadiers.

Cheers Jon

sculpting part 2 - the finished article

A few weeks ago I posted up some pictures http://jonswargamesminis.blogspot.com/2010/10/trying-out-some-sculpting.html

of a sculpting WIP I was doing to convert a TAG Aztec Eagle knight into a Slann Eagle knight. Well he's been finished and painted so here a couple of pictures of the finished article. I'm quite pleased with it I'm certainly never going to be a professional sculptor but for a first effort I'm pretty happy. Now I've just got to decide if I want to do eleven more to make a unit...........

Jon

Slann spawn band

Well a week of painting later and here is my Slann spawn band. Spawn band are Slann Militia raised in time of war and the only compulsary unit in the 3rd edition army list. The miniatures are a mix of OOP Slann models from all three Slann eras (pre slotta, first generation Slotta and WFB 3rd edition Slann) as well as two converted Grenadier frog folk from the late 80's. The colour scheme is the one that is carried throughout the army of red, white, yellow and green with gold metalics.

All these miniatures where ebay purchases and in varoius states of disrepair. The horn blower was a blowpiper whose blowpipe had snapped off and was given a plastic beastman horn as a replacement to make a musican. The standard bearer was a Slann mage with his staff top cut off and bits from my bitsbox used to make a suitable standard instead. Also from my bits box where a load of old GW Saruas shields to add to all the miniatures missing shields.

Cheers Jon

Slann scouts

Next unit up for my Slann army are these scouts. A small but useful unit of skirmishers to advance a head of the army. The basing idea came from the fact that one of the models which came with several others from an ebay lot was broken off at the legs. So I stuck him on the base and decided to paint the base to look like he was standing in water then I just copied the theme for the rest of the unit.

The water theme works quite well as under the rules slann suffer no movement penalties for crossing water terrain, makes sense for giant frog men really. I really like the way these have come out.

Cheers Jon

Troglodytes

Another unit for my old school Slann army. This time it's troglodyte vassals basically larger, meaner and smellier cousins of the lizardmen. These miniatures are circa 1984 Tom Meirer citadel miniatures
http://www.solegends.com/citboxes/cp3troglodytes.htm

except for the second picture down which is a letter citadel miniatures troglodyte

http://www.solegends.com/citc/c24troglodytes.htm

They are all mounted on 40x40mm bases and painted in my usual white under coat magic wash style. Interestingly I got these guys of ebay and I think a couple of them had the dreaded lead rot, while painting them I noticed some areas had lost all their detail and one had become very brittle (in fact I broke his legs while trying to bend him straight).

These five big guys should add some punch to the battle line and being vassals are totally expendable in the pursuit of the Petal thrones objectives.

Cheers Jon

Slann Beast Master

Just a couple of pictures of my freshly painted Slann beast handler and his cold one hounds. This another OOP citadel set from the late 80s. Apparently it was only available for a short time by mail order I picked this one up from Ebay. I wasn't too impressed to start with but once it was painted this miniature set actually turned out to be quite nice.

In the army lists Slann beast handlers can have a variety of beasts cold one hounds are the cheapest and not very tough. As alternatives I could have giant scorpions, giant spiders or sabre tooth tigers so I might source some suitable models for a later date.

Cheers Jon

Trying out some sculpting........

Well the Slann army is going quite well, I've spent more than I'd admit to the good lady wife on ebay. However there are some units in the 3rd edition army lists that are going to be be hard to represent because either Citadel/GW never made the miniatures or they made one pose for each type that is now OOP anyway so to get enough of each miniature would take a long time and cost too much money. Sadly most of the above units are the Slann elite like eagle warriors of Jaguar warriors.

So what has this got to do with sculpting? you may ask. Well I ordered a Aztec unit builder deal from TAG to use as Slann slave troops. TAG tend to give away free miniatures if you order over a certain amount so they sent me a very nice Aztec eagle warrior. I wasn't sure what to do with him but it struck me that he might convert into a Slann eagle warrior with some work (major work really)

So I've had a crack at it and the photos above show my current progress. I think more work is required yet this is very much a WIP at the moment. I've used green stuff before on conversions usual to fill gaps or cover up a rough area on a conversion with a pouch or such like. This is a lot more involved however. First I cut the feet off and tried to sculpt some suitable frog like webbed feet (which are probably a bit big if I'm honest) and then moved on to turning the human face into something fat and frog like. I've certainly gained a new found respect for miniature sculptors having had a stab at this.

Whether I could do this for a whole unit I'm not sure but perhaps a small unit of Elite troops (say 12) might be a possibility for the future.

Cheers Jon

50 followers

I noticed today that I've hit 50 followers. So a big thank you to all those who find my little corner of the web interesting enough to follow.

Cheers Jon

Slann mage and slaves

Another addition to my old school Slann army. This time it's a powerful Slann mage priest. In 3rd edition WFB Slann mages aren't allowed to touch the ground or they lose most of the magic powers as such they travel on palanquins carried by lobotomised human slaves.

The original 1980s Citadel model of a Slann mage (see link)

http://www.solegends.com/citc/c22slannwizard.htm

had a couple of problems

a) it wasn't a very good model

b) it's oop

one turned up on E-bay but went for £30+ quid which is a lot for a model I didn't like. I was going to use a current GW Slann. when I came across this model from Gaspez-arts

http://www.gaspez-arts.com/?go=details&id=61

Gaspez mostly make fantasy football miniatures and this guy was supposed to be a team manager for me though he screamed Slann mage sitting on a palanquin. The only problem was I needed some human slaves. I'd purchased an Aztec horde deal from The Assault Group (TAG) to use as a unit of human slave troops. Luckily I had some spares so with some steel rod and some green stuff I converted them to carry the mage priest around. The final model is a little rough (I'm no sculptor) but the paint job hides some of that and I'm reasonably pleased with how it's come out. Next up is a Slann beast master.

Cheers Jon