Some more Salamaders for my Kings of War army

A couple more units for my Kings of War army. I painted these back in early December, but forgot to photo them for the blog.

A Horde of Rhinosaurs.

And a second Phoenix with a slightly different colour scheme.

More bits for my Kings of War Salamanders

I just completed the Phoenix for my Kings of War Salamanders ready for trying it out at COGS. I realised that I had not posted photos of my other recent units, so here they are.

First up is of course the Phoenix. This is one hell of a model to paint. All those flames and then the feathers. It's so huge that it really is important to get it right for the army. I didn't want this one to ruin the look of the rest of the army.

I looked around the net and decided to go for red feathers with black highlights like they are burned at the edges. The flames are my usual recipe, but with extra white highlights where they meet the bird itself to make it seem even hotter. The teddy bear filling highlighted again with black, covers up what I think is the weakest part of the model, where it meets the ground and makes it look a bit more like its flying.

The Mage Priest is a wonderful sculpt and a good model in the army. A spell caster with Inspiring built-in is not the usual in Kings of War. It has a good selection of spells and I'd consider more than one of these, but Mantic only do one model! With such a dynamic model I just could not run with two the same! Come on Mantic!

The Lekelidon is another superb model. I loved painting this one... A nice bit of cheap chaff he's going to have to fight with my froggies for a place in the army most of the time though.

I'd always intended to do a horde of Ceremonial Guard, but in the end I only really have space for a regiment. I stuck with my original plan though of having them lined up as if on parade... I selected only the parts that would allow this and left the more dynamic bits for other units.

Kings of War - Salamanders - The Whispering Scales

My new Salamander army continues to grow. The latest part bringing me up to 1950 points of new models for the COGS of War tournament this weekend is the formation for the army, "The Whispering Scales".

For this I have two regiments of Salamander Primes, one with 2-handed weapons and a special Battle Captain. 

For the Battle Captain I designed my own model using Hero Forge and then printed it on my resin printer.

Kings of War - Bullywugs... er... Ghekkotah Warriors

I decided that I needed some chaff for my new Salamander army and at 60 points for a troop the Ghekkotah warriors look ideal. However, Mantic don't (at the time of writing) make any Ghekkotah troops. There's a few heroes, but nothing else. 

I started looking around for 3D printable alternatives, but found nothing that really grabbed me. That is until I found the Warp Miniatures Bullywug Warriors. I loved these happy smiling frogs the moment I saw them and knew I had to use them.

Now you might say, those are frogs, not geckos... and you'd be right. But if Mantic can confuse salamanders as being reptiles, then I can confuse geckos as being amphibians. To be fair to Mantic, it's not their fault, but the fault of the medieval scholars who couldn't work out what a salamander actually was.

Anyway, having decided that I was going to use the Bullywugs, (which could also be Riverguard... hmmm...) I decided they needed appropriate bases. Loads of messing with 3D prints; plaster cast rocks; transparent resin, both two-part and UV; and some of the rather excellent Gamer's Grass lazer-cut plants has produced a couple of little troops I'm very proud to put at the front of my army ready to be killed first... 

... and not an LED on them!

Salamander Clan Lord on Fire Drake

I've just completed my Salamander Clan Lord on Fire Drake.

I've used the Mantic dragon with 3D printed salamander and fire effects with LEDs.

The saddle I'm not sure about... 

Kings of War - Salamanders

Rather than flitting around all the time, I've decided to concentrate on one Kings of War army each year. Last year it was my Forces of the Abyss, the year before was Sylvan Kin. This year was going to be Forces of Nature, but it's not been doing so well. I'm not sure whether I've won a single game with them yet... 

So, when all the Salamander stuff appeared on the Mantic Vault I decided it was time for a change. I'd already built some Scorchwings and Fire Elementals for my Forces of Nature, and these would both act as a start to a new Salamander Force. I also had a few old GW Lizardmen I'd made as for Salamaders back in Kings of War 1.0.

So I've been busy adding new 3D printed units and going crazy with LEDs... The addition of regiments of Corsairs and Tyrants along with Firebrand has already meant I'm close to 2000pts. 

The plan is to replace all the non-Mantic models with Mantic ones as I get experience with the force, but this is a good start.

I do have another regiment of Corsairs, a Clan Lord on Firedrake and a Mage Priest in progress. I'm not sure what to do after that, some troops of Ghekkotah Warriors, or a horde of Ceremonial Guard, or maybe some Ember Sprites?

Some new stuff for Mantic games

As of Xmas, I now have a resin 3D printer and I've been busy printing stuff. I started with 6mm WWI, more on that as I get it painted, but since then I've been doing some for Kings of War and Deadzone. 

First off some Nameless for Deadzone, from the Mantic Vault.

Next up is a Greater Fire Elemental for Kings of War. This is transparent with flickering LEDs. Again from the Mantic Vault.

Also for Kings of War, again printed in transparent resin, some water elementals...

And last, but certainly not least... Scorchwings for Kings of War. (not 3d printed!)

A belated update... almost all of 2023 in one post

So, it's been months and months and months since my last update. Sorry!

After Hammerhead things became busy. So many re-enactment events and so much drone flying. So many drones to repair and YouTube videos to edit. I completely forgot to post things on here even though I was still painting models, though not as many as previously. Plenty of games have been taking place at COGS.

Right now things have calmed down. With the snowy winter properly started I'm stuck inside and now can properly spend time modelling again. 

I've just finished the standing rigging on my latest and largest 3D printed ship for Blood and Plunder. This galleon has been stuck on the floor next to my desk half built for at least 18 months. Anyway it really is starting to take shape now. I've just got the sails to add to it and then I'll be ready for some completely crazy pirate battles.

I've also been painting some Spanish Infantry for Blood and Plunder from the new plastic sets and managed to get a game with those at COGS a few weeks ago.

I've also managed to extend my Plague army for use with Firefight and got a couple of games in. I'm playing again tomorrow night.

For Clash of Kings I built a overly complex display board with a video playing inside a gothic building and colour changing LED lit crystals.

And I managed to fly around the event with one of my drones! Is this the first drone video from a wargames tournament ever? (I didn't do so well in the tourney...)

That's enough for now, I have more projects in progress and will try to remember to post some more photos soon!