Monday, 25 January 2016

Kings of War - Elf King on Dragon

I've been waiting for this model for ages. It would have been in my Clash of Kings army if I'd had it then. But I'd decided not to get the one available then and instead get the new version so included it in my Kings of War Kickstarter.

The model I'm talking about is the Elf Dragon Kindred Lord. This is based on the same Dragon as used in Dungeon Siege, the dungeon crawling game by Mantic., but has an Elf King/Lord on the top.

The dragon itself is boardgame plastic, the elf is metal. It's a lovely model, but does have one major problem. It's actually too big to fit in with the existing Mantic elves. The Elf Lord is massive in comparison with the diminutive Mantic elves. A shame, but luckily it's high up on the neck of the dragon so the difference in size is not quite as noticeable as it might be,

Anyway, I love the model. There's loads of detail and I'm really happy with how it has painted up.







Saturday, 16 January 2016

British Armoured Car Company. Ready.

I managed to get the two Sherman/Firefly Troops completed over the last couple of days. Now everything is ready for the battle tomorrow.

The US Paras are ones that my friend Tony Barnes painted. He passed away almost exactly 2 years ago. It's always good to get some use out the armies I have of his.




Friday, 15 January 2016

Flames of War British Armoured Car Company

Sometime last year I got an imcredibly cheap deal on a Flames of War Open Fire set. Since I already have a lot of German stuff I sold that on to a friend and kept than US Paras and British tanks for myself.

I looked through the Market Garden and Overlord books for a company to build them into and settled on something a bit different. 2nd Household Cavalry Armoured Car Company.

I searched around for suitable armoured car models and settled on Skytrex as they were inexpensive, good and most importantly, actually available. The Battlefront ones always seem to be out of stock. The armoured cars arrived before Christmas and were put away as a present from my wife.

Anyway, with a Flames game coming up this weekend thought I'd like to try these out so I've been rapidly painting them up. Here are the HQ ( 2 Staghound A/C) and 2 Reconnaissance troops (2 Daimler I A/C and a Daimler Dingo).


Now I better get on with those Shermans and Fireflys!


Saturday, 9 January 2016

Greater Earth Elemental

Part of my Kings of War pledge was the Greater Earth Elemental. This huge resin model will be used both in my Force of Nature army and also in my Dwarf Army.

I'm really pleased how it's come out.





For those that are interested I used the following tutorial as a guide to painting the crystals.


Though I simplified it a bit. There was no real need to be really accurate with the shading. In fact being a bit rough and ready made them look more real to me.

Thursday, 7 January 2016

Something a little different... Frostgrave maybe?

So having a 5 year old daughter means I know a little about animated cgi musicals... In particular one with a certain pair of sisters.

Northstar produce this pair of miniatures for use with Frostgrave which very closely resemble the famous duo. I had to get them for my daughter, though I suspect she'll find Frostgrave too frightening to play at the moment.... maybe when she's older.


Since only the older sister should really be any good at magic, the "magic flame" on the younger one has been replaced by a more appropriate snow ball. I also changed my style a bit in order to ensure the bright colours really came through in the way of the film. There was no ink wash!

Now I suspect I'll be asked to find a certain snowman who likes summer.

Sunday, 3 January 2016

Frostgrave - First Game

Since the last blog post I've been very busy finishing off the buildings for the Frostgrave game.

That game took place today. A three player affair with my Summoner Warband against Ed and Henry's, both with Elementalists as their wizards. We used the basic scenario.



My wizard and apprentice spent most of the first part of the game failing to cast spells. I also was getting beaten by Henry who was stuck between me and Ed. Whilst Ed's wizard was off in some ruins retrieving a chest his soldiers fought and beat Henry's wizard.



Then a wraith appeared on Henry's board edge. With this being our first game nobody had any magical weapons and so the wraith was immune to all our attacks. Henry's apprentice fell to it along with all but his thief who sneaked off with some treasure. Then the wraith saw my wounded knight and headed for it. The knight drew the wraith off in an attempt to allow my apprentice to escape, but she was caught as well. With a lucky blow she pushed the wraith away and managed to escape around the corner of a building.



Meanwhile my wizard was tracking down Ed's wizard and knight. They were just about to leave the table when he finally managed to cast a spell, Wall, right in their path! Ed was not happy at all. My demonically possessed treasure hunter took down his wizard, but the knight escaped with treasure over the wall.

In the end I managed to get 4 treasures off the board; Ed got 2 and Henry got 1. We all suffered a lot of casualties but in the after game phase all characters survived without serious injury (except one of my dogs) Though Ed's wizard required some treatment to make him better.

All-in-all we thoroughly enjoyed the game and have all advanced our warbands ready for a future encounter.