Ogre Progress

Hello Everyone

I have recently started an Ogre army using Mantic's lovely Ogre minis, thanks to a decent Ebay deal.  It cannot be denied that these are great miniatures, and in the person the top-heaviness that some online photos have is absent. They have great detail, and a decent amount of variety. To be fair they do have massive massive arms, and so do the Marauder Commandos and Hulk from Deadzone. Some one at Mantic likes the big-guns!

Painting these minis has been fun, and I love the fact that the number of minis that would make up a horde in another army is pretty much the whole army for Ogres, less painting time required AND less monies to spend. As a time challenged new (ish) dad, and with time and funds for hobby competing with Baseball in the hobby arena and more so in the wider family setting this is only a good thing. Further they can double up a trolls in my Orc army. Three Ogres are nearly done, needing basing and final touches, three more are ready to move on from the basecoat stage and three crossbowmen (crossbogre??) have has some base coats.

THE FLUFF

I get carried away sometimes and fluff my armies before they are even 10% ready to play, and the Ogres are no different. My fluff for these guys is tied into a Dwarven army I plan to do, using a mix of Abyssal Dwarves and Titan Wargames minis. There is a link between the two races in that they both make fierce warriors and have a love of gold, and yet in stature they could not be more different. This is the stuff I have so far.

The Golden Hell Bull Bhaalla and his servants

The smashing of the Fenulian Mirror did not only cause the sundering of the Celestials and the downfall of high civilization. Magic forces where unleashed beyond the scope of mortal minds, birthing untold life and magical entities into Mantica. One such entity is the Golden Hell-Bull Bhaalla.

Trickling into consciousness north of the Mammoth steppe in the Ice mountains, at a site where a massive herd of Aurochs were driven over a cliff by eager hunters in ancient times. Bhaalla is in truth a demi-god, representative of the pride and spitefulness of that beast, but also its protective nature. Slumbering under the mountains, Bhaalla was starved of the food of gods, the worship and adulation of the faithful and laid dormant for millennia. It was only in the last few centuries that Bhaalla has truly awoken. Bhaalla was disturbed by a band of Dwarf and Ogre explorers seeking the treasures of past civilisations deep in the mountains. The seduction of the two groups was a simple matter, and soon they toiled and prayed endlessly nourishing the nascent deity. The fruits of their toils was Bhaallagrad, the under Citadel of the Golden Hell-Bull, a underground complex of halls and mine shafts.

Eager for sacrifices and worship Bhaalla has ensnared a cult of Dwarfs and Ogres, both races drawn to Bhaalla's promises of wealth, power and glory. Bhaalla tolerates no other idol and is a jealous proud deity. Neither a shining or dark god, Bhaalla is terrible in wrath and merciful to those who do his will. Raiding parties journey forth bringing slaves, resources and converts back to Bhaallagrad.

ALL HAIL BHAALLA!!!

Taken from http://www.feannadh.com/3_workbench/pictures/taurus_concept.JPG

By my rough reckoning I have around a thousand points, so it will take some time to get them all painted given my glacial painting speed. They were pre-assembled following a Ebay purchase so there are 3 Crossbows, 3 Blunderbusses and 9 Warriors with double handed weapons, and three unassembled which I plan to give a hand weapon and shield. I will add to them in time but this is enough to be getting on with....

I have numerous goblins, including ancient monopose Games Workshop goblins, 20 Night Goblins from Ebay and ten Mantic Spitters. These are the core of a goblin contingent, which will also find a home in the Orc army AND on it's own as a goblin army. These guys will be speedbumps in Kings of War, the Red Goblins. I would like a fleabag unit or two, but I do have some Gore Riders and they will do. For now. 

Taken from http://musksminiatures.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/rankeduppretty.jpg

Reinforcements!

This lot of bandits came in the post today. Excellent minis. More unassembled to come.

The end of the Affair

Ill thought out Rant:

I'm sure by now wargamers have heard or read about the sad news from Beasts of War. I find it a both a totally bizarre situation and really sad. BoW provide coverage and free advertisement for GW, and in covering many systems and companies can be considered quite fair. They were doing good for the wargaming hobby as whole which can only benefit GW.

To essentially punish them for doing so and seemingly being successful seems so vindictive and petty. I can understand having an issue with Wayland Games. However BoW was never a rumour peddler like some sites.

Either GWs products aren't good enough to be compared to others in and open and umbiased way, or GW needs absolute control over their products across the entire internet. Clearly as any one who has seen, say, the mins from Dark Vengeance box set, GW minis are some the absolute best in the business. They could only benefit from the comparisons with others.

Controlling brands and IP is not a matter of locking everything down. If anything its counterproductive. News of the BoW issue spread across the internet quickly, dominating my twitter feeds. Quite a few said they would boycott GW now. How many actaully do this long term remains to be seen. I am one of them. I was thinking about both Chaos Warriors and Lizardmen. No longer.

There are thousands of people who evangelise GWs products for free. It feels like GW would rather they didn't. Sad.

Back into the Emperors Fold

So this week I've been off work with a chest infection. It was bad, I woke up one night coughing and there was some blood in the phlegm. Not good - I've had an X-ray and is well with my lungs.

The time off work has allowed me to indulge somewhat in my sedentary hobbies. So I dusted off Civilization 4, installed it on the old laptop.and conquered the world several times, as the English. The bloody warmongering Aztecs, they always declar war when I don't need it.

I also got some hobbytime in! :-)  For some reason it was my Space Marines that called to be worked on, rather than my recent Mantic Games binge. I've managed to make progress mainly on the Dark Vengeance Terminators and Bikes. I am a slow and crap painter but it has been pleasurable indeed, the bikes in particular are smashing models.

All in all, I didn't realise quite how many assembled Space Marines I've got. Its approaching over half company at least. Not enough are painted but this has improved, no the real issue is stripping all the eBay bargains. This is at the best of times a tedious affair, complicated in this case by the thick paints the previous owner applied. A Rhino in particular is taking the piss - a month in dettol hasn't really shifted it. I got some more Dettol today so hopefully a less paint saturated tub will do better.

There is also a Dreadnought and Attack Bike in need of a deep cleanse, so in terms of cool models to add the the force there are plenty beyond Dark Vengeance. Looking on eBay tonight there seem to be a few cheap Rhinos out there: my eyes are peeled.

Armour is key to the fluff for my chapter, the Swords of Midnight. In my mind each squad has one each! My break from work has also given me time and energy to add and update the fluff I have for my chapter. Its coming along nicely, adding bits here, tinkering there. Its quite lengthy already and I have more to add. I love time off work, even if I am coughing like an eighty year old smoker.

LOOK WHAT CAME IN THE POST!!!

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?

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.