Titan (Giant)

Another element for 15mm-scale Sláine Hordes of the Things finished.  My Titan Dwarf army now has this Behemoth element: an actual Titan.  The Titans in the world of Sláine are the degenerate former rulers of Tír na nÓg (the Land of the Young: a prehistoric, mythical British Isles).  They were once masters of an advanced domain, but while their cousins the Titan Dwarves have retained their intellect (& skills at imbuing weapons with magic), the Titans have dwindled in number & intelligence, becoming little more than slow-witted inbred brutes, their glory days forgotten to all but a handful of their number.  

I've painted this Titan wearing shields from my planned Midgard Berzerkers & Tribes of the Tuatha Dé Danann (Tribes of the Earth Goddess, Danu).  The white/blue for Midgard, the yellow-swirls-on-red for Sláine's Sessair tribe, & the yellow/red/white tartan for the Fir Domain tribe. This characterful giant figure is from Copplestone Castings' Barbarica range.  The range has fantastic sculpting - very detailed, with absolute minimal mould lines.

Titan Dwarf Artillery

I've finished another element for 15mm-scale Sláine Hordes of the Things.  My fledgling Titan Dwarf army now has this Artillery element.  The heavy weapon is a Dwarf Bolt Thrower from Peter Pig, while the crew are the un-armoured Dwarves from Copplestone Castings' Barbarica Dwarf Command set.

Titan Dwarf Cleric

 This week I finished another element for 15mm-scale Sláine Hordes of the Things.  This is a Cleric - a mid-level combat unit with Magician-disrupting abilities.  There's not that much information on the Titan Dwarves of Tír na nÓg available, but they worship Goibniu, the son of the Earth Goddess Danu. It is he who is said to have taught the Titan Dwarves the secrets of metallurgy and brewing and how to infuse items with magical properties. Their religion teaches that Goibniu forged the Titan Dwarves from iron and poured beer on them to give them life.

So, seeking a bit of variety in the largely barbarian (& sorceror-bolstered) forces that I have planned for my Sláine collection, I reasoned that if any faction had Cleric-type units, it could be the Titan Dwarves.  This also fits in with the trope of high fantasy dwarves being adverse to ostentatious displays of magic.

Titan Dwarf Spears

 

Giant centipedes

This weekend I finished D6 Giant Centipedes for my Lustria-themed Warhammer Quest collection.  As I couldn't find any sensibly-priced wargaming centipedes of the right scale, I made these using the same tiny rubber novelty ants which I used for my 2D6 Giant Ants - I simply trimmed parts from 3 ants & superglued them together (using Gorilla Superglue, which has a rubber additive) to make each Giant Centipede.  Then I affixed them to my usual jungle recipe bases.  The paint scheme was straightforward, nothing fancy or impressive - I based it on real-life giant centipede colouration.  These have the Venom characteristic, & are a little more challenging to fight than Giant Ants (4 gold each for slaying), Giant Insects (5g), at 30g per base, the same as Snakes.  For comparison a basic Skink is worth 40g, & a basic Saurus warrior 150g.

WQ Stats for foes & creatures from across the classic Warhammer World can be found on the excellent Warhammer Quest Chronicles website.

More snakes

This week I painted a few more bases of snakes for Warhammer Quest.  These figures are from Black Cat Bases, who have a wide range of esoteric miniatures at sensible prices.  Added to the two bases of snakes from the GW Lizardmen Cold One riders sprue that I painted a while back, that's five bases of snakes.  I think I'll add one more of the coiled snake on my next Black Cat Bases order, for a nice even 'D6' snakes encounter.

Apologies for the unformatted tall column of photos, but Blogger appears to have been 'upgraded' to remove the tools for wrapping text around & aligning images :-/

Two more rickety fences

Finished a couple more lengths of rickety fence for Ronin & Chain of Command games.  These are laser-cut ply pieces from Fenris Games, glued to large hobby lolly sticks.  The basing uses various Gale Force Nine flocks & Gamers Grass tufts.  Pictured with a pair of my Japanese peasants for scale.  I have plenty of these rural fences now.  Time to work on my more substantial Japanese walls & Sarissa Precision buildings next.

T'au Fire Warrior

I recently dusted-off an old Fire Warrior that had been languishing with the rest of my half-finished T'au collection in the attic, & painted it.  Right from the start of collecting T'au back in the early 2000s, I was certain that I wanted a turquoise-armoured force (I loved the turquoise skies from the box art of the desert-coloured T'au), but with my more limited painting skills back then, my models always ended up looking toy-like instead of grimdark.

Granted, T'au are one of the slightly less grimdark factions in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but I want mine looking gritty.  I think I've finally achieved it, by keeping a limited palette based around GW Hawk Turquoise, mixed to varying degrees with black & grey.

I really like the muted tones that have resulted, which I think strikes a balance between 'popping' visually on the tabletop, but also being plausible as an urban scheme (I have previously attempted various urban camo & even Berlin Brigade-style block-camo on T'au, but couldn't make it work).

I think I'd go so far as to say this may be the best Warhammer 40,000 figure painting I've ever done - it's certainly not up there with the incredible work seen on many other blogs & in White Dwarf, but I'm really happy with it - I even tried zenithal highlighting for the first time.

I'm planning to try out the Black Ops rules with a few T'au & Imperial Guard miniatures at some point.

Amaxon Priestesses

This week I finished painting another Amaxon Priestess for my Lustrian Warhammer Quest collection.  I based this model on the Hasslefree Miniatures Azura Halfblood, pinning a pair of large feathers from the Games Workshop Greatswords sprue to her head, hiding her Elven ears with a pair of helmet wings (also from Hasslefree), & using Green Stuff to model a head band & top to cover her bare chest.  I think the helmet wings hint nicely at one origin story for the Amaxons of Warhammer - that they are the sole survivors of a Norse expedition of which all the men died in the jungles of Lustria, while the women created their own culture among the ruins of the Old Ones.

I'll use this figure to represent a High Priestess (worth 1900 gold) or Priestess Queen (worth 2400 gold).  Since converting this miniature, Hasslefree have released this off-the-shelf tropical sorceress, which I think I'll have to buy to represent a mid-rank Priestess Champion (1000 gold).

Pictured here is my finished High Priestess, along with the Serpent Priestess (590 gold) that I painted a few months ago.  I decided to add green warpaint to them in the end, to complete the tribal look.  In the lore, Amaxon motivation can appear fickle to outsiders, so in Warhammer Quest games, I'm thinking of having it random whether encountered Amaxons attack or aid t he players' adventuring Warriors; & they may help slay evil foes first, before then attacking the Warriors.

Terradon

Things have been very busy for me this summer, but I have managed to complete a few small miniatures pieces, including this Terradon for my long-running Lustrian Warhammer Quest collection.  The model is an old Jurassic Park juvenile pteranodon toy (I think it came with the Dr. Alan Grant figure), which was block-coloured in grey & blue, & emblazoned with the JP logo, but which I have repainted with a more interesting scheme - natural jungle camouflage from above, & sky-blue from below, with an orange crest for display (which also mimics my red-crested Lizardmen to a certain degree).  I drilled a hole in its rib cage for the flying stem.

The base was my usual jungle recipe, with snippets of plastic aquarium plants.  I used a spare Battlefleet Gothic transparent flight stem for the illusion of flight.  I drilled a hole in its rib cage for the flying stem.  I left the Terradon unglued from the stem, for safer storage/transport, & also so that the flying base could be used for other aerial creatures if necessary.

Really pleased with how this turned out - saved buying an expensive official Games Workshop Terradon miniature!

At 400 gold for slaying (the same as an Ogre), a Terradon is an early level challenge for the adventuring Warriors.  For comparison, a basic Orc is worth 55g, a basic Lizardman Saurus is 150g, & a Lizardman Kroxigor is 750g.