Wizards tower

Well the summer holidays are proving to be very unproductive on the hobby front (I'm actually starting to think there isn't a time of year when I am productive to be honest)

However I have managed to produce some more Mordheim scenery. First up is a wizards tower. This is a resin piece I got of ebay. It was pretty nice striaght out of the box but I wanted to make it look a little more wizard like and less military watch tower like.

The battlements of the tower are a seperate piece so I decided to build an alternative roof for the tower (sutiably damaged for Mordheim). The roof is made of card and balsa on a hardboard base. the chimney (which you can't actually see in the photos doh) and extra window came from a pack of spares sold by the same company who made the tower and help to match my scratch built roof to the orginal building.

I can now have the tower set up with battlements or a roof depending on what I want the tower to represent. I have a few more buildings and bits finished for my Mordheim project which hopefully I'll get pictures of posted up in the next few days.

Cheers Jon

The Red wolf Inn

Another ruined building for my Mordheim project this is the red wolf inn. It's built on a 6"x12" mdf base out of foamcore, polystyrene and balsa wood. I like the way it's turnned out except for the front. If I was doing it again I would probably make the front less straight and more ruined.

Next up are some resin buildings I got cheap off ebay (augusts budget spent) which I'm turning into ruins.

Cheers Jon

Sell swords

Well the Mordheim project continues but I haven't had much worth posting up on the blog. I've got two more human war bands in various stages of completion. I've started sticking together a fourth war band (Averlanders) using some Perry's plastics and a load of GW empire bits my mate Jim sent me (Cheers Jim!). I've also got half a dozen ruined building at different stages of construction.

In the mean time I've started trying to get back into painting at work on my lunch break. I have a paint station and a a very limited set (think black, white and some basic colours) of GW paints in my office. The pictures above are the results of this weeks efforts.

All the miniatures were found in my bits box. I've painted them up to represent various sell swords that Mordheim warbands can hire on. Starting at the top we have

1) A pit fighter - an old citadel Norse miniature with a Mordheim plastic buckler added.

2) A Warlock - very old citadel pre-slotta wizard sadly he was so old when I tried to bend his hand it broke off. So a rummage in the bits box brought out a new hand and a lantern.

3) An elf scout- A 5th edition GW wood elf. A bit chunky for an elf IMO but you can't beat the price.

4) A duelist - an old dogs of war miniature from GW.

5) A Freelancer an old Grenadier fighting man miniature

I mat sprayed these miniatures but they look a little flat now so I might go back and use some gloss varnish on things like the metal work and gems.

Cheers Jon

Mordheim Warband No1- Marienburgers

I finally finished these guys last night. As I said in a previous post the basis for these guys is the Perry miniatures WOTR mercenaries box set mixed with plenty of GW and other parts from my bits box. The only miniature that isn't from the Perry's box is the captain who is an old metal GW Mareinburg captain that I found in my bits box (bonus!)

Generally the GW parts (arms, heads and weapons) are a little bigger than the Perry's stuff but as long as your consistent with things like arms I think they look OK.

This particular band of ruffians are from Marienburg. In game terms Marienburger war bands have more starting gold crowns (600GC as opposed to 500GC) to start their initial war band
meaning you can have a few more men or snazzy wargear to start with.

I worked out a rough war band before I started sticking together and painting the miniatures which looks like this

1 captain -sword ,buckler,heavy armour

1 Champion -sword, buckler, light armour

1 young blood - helmet, halberd

2 marksmen - handguns, helmets

2 warriors - halberds

3 swordsmen - bucklers, swords

now I just need to finish the roster off with some names and fine tune the equipment and jobs a good'un.

Cheers Jon

Mordheim - building no.2 and first test miniature

Well I've had some good fun with the Perry's plastic WOTR mercenary box, I've spent a couple of evenings with my bits box and the perry figures and now have three fine mercenary warbands to prowl the ruined streets of Mordheim. There are a couple of shots of my first test paint job for my Marienburg warband. This guy is a swordsman henchman. I've gone for a blue and yellow colour scheme for this band which is quite striking and perfect for flashy Marienburgers.

Talking of Mordheim's streets I've put together another ruined building using the same techniques I described in my last post. Came out quite nice I think. I'm putting together a larger building in the form of a ruined inn as my next building. I'm also going to crack on and finish of the Marienburg warband to.

Cheers Jon

Mordheim - ruined building test piece

Here's my first piece of Mordheim scenery made just to try out some ideas and test my skills really. It's a simple two storey ruined house corner. The basic shell is foam core on a hardboard base. The upper floor is built from card with a balsa wood veneer. The street paving is made from a thin layer of filler left to semi dry and then paving stones were scratched in the filler with a sharp pencil. While the tiled floor is just squares of card glued onto the base.

While searching my scenery bits box I came across a bag full of the original plastic bits from the Mordheim box set (door,windows, ruined roof pieces and supporting wall pieces) which was a stroke of luck. So I've Incorporated a couple of windows and some corner wall pieces into this building.

The whole thing was given a liberal coat of homemade textured paint (pva, grey emulsion paint and floor tile grout) to give it some texture. The building was painted with various craft paints and household emulsion paints (much cheaper than using your good mini paints)

All in all I'm quite pleased with the result I'm going to need to do quite a few more though to fill an average 4x4foot Mordheim board. In fact I think the scenery will take longer than the warbands to do. One thing that does need careful thought is the amount of rubble /debris that goes into each building to much and it will become to hard to fit miniatures in to the ruins to little and the ruins will look far to clean.

Cheers Jon

Mordheim.......My new project.

Well after a good rummage through my rule books to decide what project to kick start my new (improved?) wargames collection with I've settled on Mordheim as my first project.

I use to play Mordheim a lot when it first came out and it is a great little game. For those of you going Mord..a what? Mordheim is a skirmish game set in the Warhammer world. The background story is that the great city of Mordheim has been struck by a meteorite turning it into a post apocalyptic waste ground in which various factions have sent warbands to loot the ruins.

As well as providing skirmish games of Warhammer between warbands of 5-20 models. Mordheim has an excellent campaign system, anyone who has played legends of the old west or pirates of the high seas by WH historical will know the system, that allows your warbands to increase in experience gaining new skills and equipment.

I decided that Mordheim fitted my new frugal criteria quite well

1) The figures are 28mm but no warband can have more than 20 models in it and most can only have 15 which keeps the cost down.
2) GW have all the resources as free downloads on their website (yes really!) even the rulebook
3) I don't have the original buildings from the box set anymore but I have loads of foam core and balsa to scratch build some city ruins.

All in all the project should stay relatively cheap. I was going to buy a box of GW Empire militia to build my first warbands but while I was looking at ebay I came across the Perry miniatures European medieval mercenaries box. The Perry's box has twice as many models armed with a variety of weaponry for £3 less than the GW box so I ordered a box (post free too!).

I've made my first ruin as a test piece and hopefully I'll post some pictures soon. The perry's box arrived today and I hope to build the three basic Human mercenaries warbands (Reikland,Middenheim and Marienburg) from the miniatures in that box.

Cheers Jon