Saturday 29 December 2012

New Armies for the New Year

Greetings, and best wishes. In a classic move reminiscent of my younger self I have been distracted from my KoW Orc horde. The demon that is eBay, has lured me into this dangerous path, with several bargains. The High Priestess, under my instruction, got me the Mantic Christmas Box for Christmas. This feast of miniatures was compounded by the Mantic Spring Clear out, where more bargains were had. Resultant from this I now have three new Mantic Army projects. Admittedly I haven't received all these miniatures in the post yet, but a man can dream and plan.

1. Elves

I have managed to get around 750 points of Elves, nearly all infantry, a solid core for further expansion with Cavalry and Drakon Riders. In truth none have technically arrived yet, apart from the sprues from the Christmas Box. This is the curse of eBay! Sill as there is a massive hobby backlog, its not so bad. I have no idea about fluff or indeed a colour scheme for these guys yet. No doubt it will come to me in time.

2. Marauder Orx

Two Grunt Sections, the Trike from the Christmas Box and an old 40k Nob with no arms makes up this army so far. Its not much but according to my calculations its around 530 points all options taken. The initial impetus for this force was the two Grunt Sections for ono £5 on the eBay. How could I turn this down? The Christmas Box has added to this force, as the orc sprues added to variety of the Grunts, and meant there are several bodies left over. These are going to be converted into a heavy weapons sqaud, something which doesn't exist in the Warpath rules, but would be badass nonetheless and would fit the destructive tendencies of the Marauders in the fluff.You can't have enough Dakka.

I even have the beginnings of fluff for them too: 'The Yellowfist Brigade'. An highly organised band, well for Marauders anyway, with ambition. I have begun to assemble this budding force, including the Raptor, which looks amazing. The minis have have a lot of nice accessories on the sprues and I am enjoying putting them together. As for paint schemes, I'm thinking bright, lots of yellow. As they are a ramshackle race, they are going to have a fair bit of variation between minis, which will also be more fun for me. Win/Win.

3. Forgefathers

The Mantic Christmas Box included 5 Elite Forgefathers and a Weapons platform, a prefect base for an army. An order for 20 Steel Warriors, and one depleted bank balance later, and I have the basis for a Space Dwarf army. Sadly unlike the other emergent Warpath force I am building, I don't have any fluff or background in mind.

Colour scheme-wise, I am thinking of dark greens, dirty metals and grey flesh, which would fit the minis, in my mind's eye anyway. It seems 'wrong' to paint these aliens like they are Caucasian, or even humans, hence the grey skin plan.

So 3 more army projects and even more of a backlog, but then what's wrong with that?

Friday 7 December 2012

Army Log: Commander Panda's Orcs Uodate II

So I have managed to get some good solid hobbytime in, with the High Priestess going her works Christmas do. Not the the furtive one model undercoat or secretive couple of quick miniature  assemblages kind of hobby time, this was a good solid session. Naturally this time was spent working on "The Green Horde of the Beast", despite there being other wargaming temptations.

Gradually the Horde is taking shape. 15 Axes are assembled and undercoated by hand. I've heard great things about spray on base coats, and given thw time and hassle of manually doing it I have resolved to purchase some this weekend Gods willing, or as soon as I can get round to it. 10 Great Axes are assmebled The Gore Riders are assembled, my willpower broken. I aimed to finish these last as a kind of reward for getting the foot sloggers done. Looking upon them in the bag in the army box I couldn't resist. Also 10 Greataxes are assembled, awaiting painting.

The Gore Riders are great minis, and I got 11 bodies in the bag. I don't know if this is intentional or some kind of fortuitous mistake on Mantic's part. Far be it from me to waste this opportunity, so using an old metal 'Cold One' from a long forgotten Dark Elf Knight I have concocted a 'Krudger on a Slasher' using the Champion as a proxy. In his stead as unit leader/champion in the unit, I have used a right arm, bigax and head left over the Great Ax box to fashion a slightly more killy Orc.

The only real issue was that some of the weapon arms and the standard were a bit bent and out of shape. I remember reading somewhere that a warm bath (I am paraphrasing here) would sort them out. Sure enough a bit of water in a pan on the hob for about 2 minutes, and they were soon straightened
out.

Painting has begun on the Beast and the Flagger. A brown base coast has been applied to the fur cloaks, as well a light brown to the Flagger's banner. A dirty silver to some of the metallic areas. My painting is not good, but it can only get better.

In terms of unassembled models only 20 Axes remain. This begs the question 'What next for the Horde?'. Ranged attacks are something that the horde lacks, so some Sniffs or Goblin allies do seem a natural option. The Heresy Minis Goblin archers look great and would be great pseudo-Hobgoblins, matching the fluff for Sniffs. But then a unit of Moreaxes would add some serious attacking power, or maybe another unit of Greataxes. Financially speaking though another One Player Army set, cheaply bought off eBay, would be many more worthy warriors to the Horde.

There are temptations to deviate from the racial purity of the Greenskin horde. Goblins and HobGoblins don't count, as they are the natural minions and under slaves of the Orc; if anything their addition is inevitable. It is the prospect of non-Goblinoid allies that intruiges me.

Titan Wargames do an excellent line of Dwarfs, which could easily be Abyssal Dwarfs allies/slave masters. This would unleash destructive war machines to add a ranged aspect to the horde. But then there is the prospect of Ogres from KoM, painted as Orkoids allowing KOM warmachines. Choices Choices.