Kings of War - Forest Shamblers

I've been running Forest Shamblers for some time now in both my Kings of War Elf and Nature armies. They generally very good with Vanguard, Pathfinder, reasonable defence and attack and the ability to be Surged into flanks.

Old Metal GW Dryads have been working fine for them and fit my concept well. However when the 2nd Kings of War Kickstarter was running Mantic decided it was time for them to produce some proper/official models for them. I included 6 in my pledge.

Initially when the pictures appeared I was not sure I liked them (this seems to happen a lot with Mantic models) but now I have finished painting them I really, really like them, the detail is great and they fit the fluff brilliantly

I think when they finally become available at retail (they are at retail) I'll be getting another 6 and my Dryads will be converted to be Hunters of the Wild. However until then I will mix the models up in my shambler hordes. I think they go together rather well!

Kings of War - Water and Air Elementals

I've just completed a few additions to my Nature army for Kings of War.

The Greater Water Elemental is from the Reaper Bones range and is a transparent blue casting. I've simply dry brushed it with turquoise and white, then gloss varnished it.

The Air Elementals are made from Merino wool felting glued onto a wire armature. They will be mixed in with my previous Air Elementals which were made from the smoke from the Flames of War smoke and fire set.

The air elementals now make a horde.

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.

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.

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!

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.

http://www.corehammer.com/painting-green-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.

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.