Lion Rampant: Death and Taxes

Its tax collection day in the frozen north. Well half the table is frozen, looking a bit like elderscrolls games when changing areas. The Scenario has 6 tax tokens scatterd around the middle of the table. One token worth 3 VPs, three tokens worth 2 VPs, and two tokens worth 1 VP. The player who leaves the table (any edge) with the most Tax VPs wins.

The 30 pt Forces:

The Order: 4 x mounted serjeants

1 x Crossbowmen

1 x foot knights (leader)

1 x foot serjeants

The Pagans (Samogitians, Yatvingians, or Curonians):

2 x mounted Serjeants with bows

1 x archers

1 x Ferocious foot

2 x foot knights

In a marvelous shift battlefield luck, my Baltic Pagans make three entire turns (one unit short of 4 turns) of full activations. Meanwhile the Order's Forces had above average activations, nothing to complain about.

 Im too lazy to write this up, and it was a quick affair. I quickly picked up 6 tax VPs (the minimum number needed to gain victory). My adversary realized soon enough that I had the VPS to win but it was largely too late. I sent my ferocious foot forward like a balistic missile towards either his foot serjeants or his xbows, lucky for me they drove into the crossbows. Saving my forces from dreaded xbow fire. Other than the ferocious foot, my leader and his guard clashed with some mounted serjeants for 1 VP tax token.  That was all the action. My ferocious foot died though, they always seem to do that.

preparations for Frostgrave

I don't own the rules for frostgrave yet. However, I've been bitten by the bug. The setting of frostgrave and warband construction has set my imagination afire.  

This gem was purchased for five dollars at the craft store. I've added various GW bits, and built a door by carving wood panels into a piece of cardboard. The panels are created by scoring the cardbaord with a hobby knife. Steps were created with foamcore. Dont spray paint foamcore without covering it with either glue or paint, otherwise the foamcore will melt.

The model was primed black, followed by a base coat of a medium dark grey.

The next coat was a light grey color applied with a ripped foam sponge material. The foam sponge creates a drybrush effect. This was followed bty a highlight of white on the models edges.

The details, such as the door and skulls still need to painted.

But I couldnt resist getting my WIP snow and city terrain on to the table.

In my humble opinion, the table looks amazing, and has me feeling quite gitty.

The cobblestone mats are from christmas decoration village sets, also purchased from the craft store. They look out of place if you done paint them. So, I took the foam sponge and dragged/drybrushed the mats with a medium grey.

A makeshift warband.

The large buildings are the gothic sets from pegasus hobbies. The other terrain are from various GW sets such as the garden of mor and arcane ruins, some GW storm of magic pieces, as well as two citadel fortress towers.

I guess I should buy the rules and put this terrain to good use.

a Cart from Scratch

The simple popsicle cart. Here is the mostly finished body, achieved by cutting a couple of popsicle sticks into vaguely similar lengths. Wood glue was used to glue the popsickles togethor. The chassis and penny wheels were hot glued. The next step was to cover the ugly penny wheel. This was achieved by cutting thin cardboard similar to cereal box cardboard into penny size circles (the cardboard used was from GB plastic vikings' box). After the circle has been cut make columns by dragging a pen with a metal tip in vaguely even intervals.

Glue the cardboard to the pennies.

The (extremely complicated) underside.

The cart was sprayed dark brown and given a lazy tan dry brush that went along the wood grains, as well as the top edges of the cart's popsickle sticks. EASY cart.

GW bits glued to pennies and based and a woodchip with a sword glued to it (the sword in the stone). Still contemplating frostgrave........

A package arrived! If you don't paint the minis within a reasonable time of their arrival, they'll never get painted!

Arthurians! GB Arthurian figures are hard to come by via US distributors. I found these on ebay for reasonable prices. (left to right: arthurian armored warriors, arthurian personalities,  and west wind guys without heads)

Some of these GB figures have horrible mold lines. I only have experience with GB's plastics and metal saga minis. These older sculpts are not as clean.

On top: Romano british spearmen in helmets. Bottom: Romano british unarmoured spearmen. (they are really cool and suitable for welsh or scottish armies).

West Wind Romano British Cavalry. Im upset about the heads I received, there are too many duplicates, and I only received 1 copy of my favorite head sprue. 

Additionally, I got a pack of GB arthurian Saxon Heros, as well as GB now OOP Rus Varjazi. I quickly primed these fellows so they could join the ranks of my Baltic pagan army. The Saxon Heros are similar in height to the GB Jomsviking range, they both tower over most other miniatures. The Rus are a more normal 28mm size, however the left most Rus axeman was a terrible sculpt. Some doctoring was necessary to enable the Varjazi to hold his axe in a way that looked physically possible. After that the sculpt bothered me way less. The hand was chopped off with a hobby knife and rotated.

These boys are looking ferocious and almost ready for action. Just add flock and voila.

These are random GW parts glued on to pennies with sand added. Don't know what Im gonna use them for. I may cave and buy frostgrave, and then they'll have a purpose! 

Finished haunted forest CDs, New cobble textured paper, and More!

 I forgot to clay the edges of the cardboard that cover the center of the cd. The clay creates a smooth transition from the cardbaord to the cd, concealing the edges of the cardboard.

This is the clay is use. Its around 3$ for the whole block. Best of all it never fully dries, so the brick doesnt go to waste.

Dryad parts were glued to the twigs.

Sand was glued to the cd base, followed by a spray of valspar dark brown over the whole terrain piece. The sand was drybrushed with a cheap acrylic tan, and the trees were drybrushed with a medium grey. A random green drybrush was then applied to both the trees and the sand, and voila.

Id take my time before entering these woods.... (close up shot with flash creates the nighttime effect).

My dogs deceased stuffed animal stuffing came in handy to create an eerie fog.

Wood elf/pagan waystones taken from the wood elf glade guard set. They are based on pennies (cheapest base around!) with sand applied to the penny after the waystone. The Waystone on the far right had extra vines created with hot glue, it was a complete pleasant accident.

Finished stones with static grass and army painter flowers.

Popsicle sticks with sand, followed by the application of the craft rope thing.

Hedgerows!

Both the Cd terrain and the hedgerows/bocage were created in two afternoons. Longest and hardest part of the process is waiting for glue and paint to dry.

Here is the new cobble road. The order of Tannenberg are seeking out ancient horrors.

Dun DUN DUNNNNN

Miniature Update, and WIP CD Terrain Forests

The Storm Giant

These guys have been done for a little while. They're pretty cool in my opinion. They are kit bashed  fireforge foot knights with fireforge foot sergeants, and wargames factory bows. They are pretty generic looking troops, and also look like human rangers for fantasy settings. Im quite pleased with them.

I also recently finished the pegasus hobbies buildings in this picture. I only Used Spray paint! First coat was a full black cover. Followed by a medium grey spray that only came from a downward spraying angle. Followed by a lighter grey with only downward spray as well.

the two buildings that border the immediate foreground also got sprayed with a dark brown and black for damage effects. Kinda wish I didnt do that. The damage effects feel/look out of place in the fantasy setting. It looks like a bombed out building. I wouldve preferred old crumbling ruins not bombed out building. oh well.

WIP CD forests. Hot glue and twigs, thats it. The brown twig cds will be spooky forests. The white twig cd is going to be one of many birch tree stands,

Thin cardboad was glued in the center of the cds to cover the hole.  

I shouldve put clay around the cardboard before i glued the trees, on but when the terrain bug bites you, some times you just go with the flow.

Storm Giant, Reaper Bones

Hello all. On Thursday I received the Reaper bones storm giant. I hot it for 3.75 free shipping on ebay.... Best 4 dollars I ever spent? quite possibly. Whats so exciting for me about this mini, is that it can simply be a wild storm giant, or an aspect of the various polytheistic lightning/storm gods such as: Thor, Zeus, Poseidon, and the Baltic Perkunas. I neglected to spray this bones figure because I started painting him the second the package came. I couldnt wait... Sadly it small spots on the model to be quite resistant to paint, especially the heavily watered paints. So ya....lesson learned. Spray dem bones.

I started by painting the skin and hair in a dark dark blue.

I drybrushed a medium blue (mordian blue) and than did some line streaks with w.e light blue Gw paint I had.

Fast foreward a little... and I gave those light blue streaks a slightly thinner white streak on top of the light blue. The armor was painted in GWs Tin Bitz, and the skirt was painted purple by mixing some cheap acrylic paints. Drybrusherd the hair white

I painted the straps brown

A scale shot for ya. That reaper figure is Karl the ranger... hes not bones. Also for those that dont know reaper figures are extremely tall, probably measure in at 32mm, and what some consider heroic 28mm. They are too damn tall in my opinion.

And here is the nearly finished model. The armor was washed with asurmen blue, as were all the lightning streaks on his body. The purple skirt was also washed with asurmen blue, and the brown leather straps were washed with thraka green (dont know why I chose thraka green, but im pleased with the decision).

The sword was basecoated with the light blue gw paint and given white streaks. It was then slathered with asurmen blue wash. I think the model Is Awesome! I never know how my model will turn out and my plans always twist to places I dont expect. Never the less.... Hes awesome.

Now I just gotta figure out when and how Im gonna use him. Cant wait for dragon rampant..... Also have to try out a song of blades and heros sooner or later.