The Scarlet Imp-in-Hell

This was an unexpected addition to the painting queue, but one that I had to paint pretty much as soon as I got it! The figure is a Reaper Bog Homunculus, but in Bones plastic, rather than metal (presumably the product of a recent Kickstarter not yet available for retail). It was a gift from a friend at UK Games Expo earlier this month, and I love the ugly little thing!

I'm not a huge fan of Bones, especially for smaller figures, but this was relatively straightforward, with most of the work in prep was fixing the integral base - I have never seen a model with such a concave base! Clipping and sanding the base to something flat enough to glue down was quite a chore!

Painting was a doddle - various fleshy tones, a couple of washes, and some bone to pick out the teeth and talons etc. The eyes were large enough that I (for once!) painted them - a bright red, with a dot of yellow just to add a little more impact. For once, my efforts have actually photographed semi-well, and I'm even more pleased with how they look in person. Will I start painted eyes on all my models? Well, no...

Not altogether sure what I'll end up using this little imp for - maybe the start of a new cult? He'll almost certainly be my go-to for a small demon in games of Frostgrave and Rangers of Shadow Deep.

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Disclaimer: All links to third-party sites are solely for the purposes of sourcing the products I have discussed, if anyone is so inclined. I have simply linked to the original manufacturer or the source I used (but feel free to shop around!) and make no money from people clicking through.

Dark Hills

My terrain collections is... scattershot. It's generally just enough to accommodate most games, albeit with a bit of squinting and hand-waving. 

Recently, though, I have been on a drive to bulk up my options, with a view to consistency, and now have enough to build a small rural village or farmstead that serves most purposes from Medieval to Fantasy, ruins in the same style, and, recently, even some trees! What I didn't really have were hills (aside from one old GW hill I think I inherited from a friend). Perhaps this is down to living in middle of the Thames Valley, but all my games were taking place on a similarly level playing field.

I decided that it was time to rectify that omission, so I snagged a few of Gale Force 9's 'Battlefield in a Box' rocky hills and escarpments. I am a big fan of the GF9 terrain and have more than a few pieces in my collection. As always, these were largely usable straight out of the box, though the application of the supplied flocks (two different types, which is a really smart inclusion!) and a spray of PVA glue to fix them really added to their impact.

Simple, quick, and effective - exactly what I want from my terrain! If I had any complaint it's that the two larger pieces don't actually sit especially flat - there's a noticeable gap between hill and table on some edges. Unlikely to be an issue in-game, but still a little annoying now that I've noticed it!

With luck, they'll see their first games of Rangers of Shadow Deep very soon...

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Disclaimer: All links to third-party sites are solely for the purposes of sourcing the products I have discussed, if anyone is so inclined. I have simply linked to the original manufacturer or the source I used (but feel free to shop around!) and make no money from people clicking through.

Rats!

Every good plague cult needs a swarm of vermin. It is known. I've had a bunch of these Anvil Industry rats knocking around for a long time, just waiting for some attention. Well, over the long weekend, they finally got it! 

I chose to mount them on individual 25mm bases, rather than on larger 40/50mm bases to better match the rest of the army... jury's still out on whether that was the right idea, but I can honestly say that I'm not painting up any more rats for a while! 

They're lovely sculpts, with plenty of variety in the set - some groups, some individuals, some up on rubble, etc. - and nice, sharp details that take well to my wash-heavy approach. The only issue I had painting them was the low profile meant handling them was a little awkward, especially when it came to varnishing and finishing the bases. I might need to invest in a proper painting grip or handle or something.

The low profile also seems to make photographing them a challenge, especially with my limited skills in that field. They could do with a re-shoot soon, along with some of the earlier models on this blog - while my painting hasn't improved substantially, my photo set-up has and I can definitely do better than the muddy brown photos of the Poxwalkers and the Plaguetouched (it's the photos, not the paintjobs - honest!).

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Disclaimer: All links to third-party sites are solely for the purposes of sourcing the products I have discussed, if anyone is so inclined. I have simply linked to the original manufacturer or the source I used (but feel free to shop around!) and make no money from people clicking through.

Pac-Man From Hell

It has been altogether too long since I did any miniatures stuff for pleasure (Feb 2022), and even longer since I painted anything (July 2020!). Recently, though, my minis mojo has been on the rise, and I've been dabbling with a few projects, some new, some unfinished. I've even been inspired to break out the paints again!

I wanted to start with something relatively simple to get a quick 'win' under my belt, so opted for a single creature, rather a new unit or something. As it happened, the target of 'simple' was achieved on all counts! The model I selected was a Roiling Oil from the Pathfinder Battles line of pre-painted miniatures. As I've said before many times on this blog - I love the D&D/Pathfinder pre-paints for big monsters. They tend to hold better detail than smaller figures in the same lines (fewer bendy weapons!) and they're usually fairly cheap to pick up on the second-hand market despite the arbitrary rarities allocated to each model. Mould lines are often a bit of a drag to remove but, again, easier to do on the larger models.

This one was a large ooze - a perfect addition to the Choleric Order of the Yellow Bile, which has gone a while without reinforcements. Naturally, the black ooze was re-skinned to represent one of the cult's sacred idols, a physical manifestation of the Yellow Bile itself (or so they believe).

The paint-job was simplicity itself - brown base-coat, dark yellow all over, brighter yellow highlights, brown wash all over. Done.

All told, I'm rather pleased with it and have found it a home alongside the Choleric Order on my shelves. It's actually a more effective centrepiece than I first thought - the model is much larger than one might expect. That works nicely enough given the fluff of the force!

All I need to do now is figure out what stats I want to give it. Of course, it's a big, yellow maw, so I reckon it has to have some kind of bonus against ghosts and other ethereal undead...

Nom nom nom nom

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Disclaimer: All links to third-party sites are solely for the purposes of sourcing the products I have discussed, if anyone is so inclined. I have simply linked to the original manufacturer or the source I used (but feel free to shop around!) and make no money from people clicking through.

Heavy Lads

So it goes again - back to models after a long layoff. In between a few smaller ideas (which I hope will grace this blog soon), I have revisited the Nameless Army, adding a bit more weight to the force in the form of five heavy infantry.

Unlike the standard Nameless Army troops, who are fairly stock models from the Fireforge Northmen kits, these chaps are made from a fairly eclectic mix of parts. The legs and arms are from the Fireforge kits, but the torsos are from GW Greatswords with the skulls and wreaths on the breastplates filed off. These parts didn't mesh up especially well - the GW torsos are designed to sit on much more narrow-hipped legs, so I carved back the hip area on the legs to blend them in a little better. The join between the two was still a little severe, so I added some tassets repurposed from the Van Saar gang shoulder-pads to help balance out the two elements. Only one of the tassets ended up wonky, so I ensured that it was covered by a tightly held shield arm.

Very wonky tasset at bottom right. Slightly less wonky tassets everywhere else.

The heads came from Anvil Industry's Daughters of the Burning Rose. Though intended for Gothic SF, these visored barbutes are perfect for Fantasy and fit nicely alongside the helmets worn by the rest of the force (they also have hooded versions if I ever want to do something more Templar-y). I did need to do a bit more carving to enlarge the neck sockets on the Greatsword torsos and, as the heads are resin and I wasn't convinced by the contacts between the elements, I pinned all of them in addition to super-gluing.

They're not perfect, and the smalls of the back still attest to the fairly significant size different between the tops of the legs and the bottoms of the torsos, but I'm pretty happy with them! Once painted, they will add a much-needed bit of hitting power to the Nameless Army, lending support to the single five-man unit of swordsmen I currently have.

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Disclaimer: All links to third-party sites are solely for the purposes of sourcing the products I have discussed, if anyone is so inclined. I have simply linked to the original manufacturer or the source I used (but feel free to shop around!) and make no money from people clicking through.