Duelling Paintbrushes 5: Work complete.

There are those amongst you who have doubted me. And to those people I say 'bah!' and 'fie!' You are wrong to doubt my endurance speed painting prowess simply because I choose to work at a more leisurely speed and not update so often. And as proof of your foolishness, and your almost certain weedy git status, here are pics of those portions of my duel which were not competed in the last photo. I fear you shall have to wait unto Monday to see it all arrayed together as I am in fair Melbourne Town preparing to go unto PAX and teach speed painting and terrain techniques to the masses, and have not brought with me that which was already complete. These photographs, originating as they do from my powerful mobile telephonic communication engine, lack somewhat for the quality of lighting. Superior photos will be deployed on Monday.

Hark! A Troop of Shield Breakers (those nice old GW metal Long Beards from around 2000, before they fell to the foolishness of having the SAME SIZE BEARD AS A CLANSMAN [grrr!]) I have attempted to suggest crippling nicotine addiction by the tint of their beards.

Helgar Forgedottir and the last parts of her horde to be based. Note the converted standard bearer made from a 5th ed. plastic champiuon torso and 7th ed. plastic legs. Also the rather obscured form of the Dogpedo.

Tremble mortals before the mounted arm of the Khazalid Temperance Society, driven mad by a lack of alcohol.

Lo! Sharpshooters do appear. These are wrought of a mix of GW and Harlequin models with mighty barrels added and shields brought into being from random and varied junk. Also halberd bayonets.

Fear the might of Forgedottir's Hammer! Fear him indeed! (Note that the base is not quite finished, but I was impatient to post - I will finish it post haste after the post is posted)

And there, hippo fans and weedy doubting gits alike, you have it!

What is more, last night while infesting Gregtopia, I started to paint up another troop of riflemen. Thos would get finished today, except that I am volunteering at yonder PAX AUS and have some sort of sinister family gathering to attend after that. Doubt not my powers mortals!

Also look out for some sort of TFH update on Cupday, which I plan to spend as all right thinking men spend cupday, making undead terrain. Oh yes.

Duelling Paintbrushes 5: The end is in sight.

Long have I left my blog lay idle. Long have men clamoured for updates on the Duel of Kings. Long have grown the beards of my Dwarves as they wait...
And the wait is over! Aye, at last an update on DP5: Duel of Kings!
Astute readers may have noticed the duel counter slowly ticking over as I 'complete' things (although I've been marking things as done before I finish the bases - I like to leave them to last and do them all at once). I can now reveal that:

• All 40 of the Ironclad horde are painted, and most are based (this includes a Throwing Mastiff marker and a unit filling cider wagon)
• All 10 Berzerkers are painted, but not based.
• The flame cannon is completely complete.
• All 10 Shield Breakers are painted, but not based.
• The King has become an Army Standard when I realised that I had one converted but had never painted it. Also because I wanted to use the Queen Helgar model as the champion in my Ironclad to save on buying a command group on eBay.
• The 5 Sharpshooters have been converted and are mostly painted.
• The Earth Elemental has been built, but no further. Also, I think he'll be demoted to a plain old earth elemental, he's not really big enough for a greater version.

I'll post some good pics when all is complete. For now, here are some in progress pics from my phone.

Forgdottir's Hammer (front view) Made from a Dreadball Iron Ancestor with various additions.

Note the might smoke stack which lurks unseen in the upper image.

The complete cohort arrayed for inspection.

Annual Terrain Compometition 2015: Results.

The wait is over at last! The compometition results are here!
The thick red velvet curtains part with a gentle sigh and the exertions of a gang of sweating stage hands. The lights slowly rise on the following scene...

Congratulations Mike and Riley! Your prizes will be on their way shortly!
And to those of you who missed out... there's always next year.

Pretty Pictures of Burkittheim.

Recently, I was commissioned to build $400 worth of Mordheim terrain for a sinister man from Sydney (ie: Mr. Alex Burkitt of the Infernal Muppets, a group of sinister sydneysiders who throw dice at one another on a regular basis. That or play Warhammer. I'm not sure.) 

And now, for your delectation are the photos I took of Burkittheim before shipping it. I was going to take more, but my camera batteries went flat, and I forgot to take more once I had recharged. In the immortal commodore-rear-window decorating words of Ned Kelly, Such is Life.
(note that I did not resize these before posting, so they are at the original camera file size, which is pretty chunky.)

Ah, beautiful downtown Burkittheim.

Which can be viewed from a range of angles and directions.

Such as this one.

Ruined building No.... er... I think this is No. 4? There were numbers...

The mighty carriage factory of Herr K. G. Benz & Sons. Also possibly known as Ruin No. 4.

The side of Burkitt Bros, dealers in finest reconditioned arms and armour.

And here we see the side of the house of ill repute. Which is most ill-y reputable.

The strange sort of tower-and-grave yard might of Ruin 5. This is definitely ruin 5.

This is ruin 3. I'm almost certain of that. It has an interior. Because such things are good, or so I am told.

Ruin 3 connected to one of the corners with a bridge of great sturdiness. Note also the ladder.

Yet another view of said ruin.

This is the back of Burkitt Bros.

The Burkittheim Guardhouse, featuring it's mighty round towery-thing. Which would be a wonderful place to deploy a warmachine in WFB, or KoW. Let us hope Herr Burkitt resists the urge to use it thus.

Another view of said guard house, which features EVERY kind of stone technique I use.... apart from one.

But it does have a multi-level interior to make up for missing out on one stone technique.

Ah, Burkitt Bros, you return to end the article. huzzah!

I can now also reveal what ACTUALLY happened to Mordheim. It was not struck by a twin-tailed comet. It was struck by a single tailed giant mutant space cat with warpstone eyes.

Well, there you are, about a month's worth of Mordheiming it up like a mad mad. I'll be posting the TFH Annual Compometition results on the weekend, so keep and eye out for those too.

Duelling Paintbrushes 5: The First Photos.

Here it is, the fifth day of DP5, and time for some pictures. I didn't post anything earlier because everything I'd painted was not yet based and I had not done the shields for the Ironclad horde yet.

The first 18 members of the Ironclad. These have been painted since Friday night, but the bases and shields were not finished until today. And yes, I know Dwarves do not like trees. These Dwarves have discovered something called an 'apple' which comes from something called a 'tree' and which can be turned into something wonderful called 'cider.'
They also listen to bands that have not even formed yet.

And here is the mighty apple-brandy powered flame belcher!

I've always liked this incarnation of the GW flame cannon. Mostly because barrels and dwarves go hand in hand and the newer models look awful.

The base is made from cardboard and balsa with slots cut in for the crew bases. I have treated these bases in my current basing style - my older dwarves have fairly boring grey bases which I will update at some point.

 What does the future hold in store? Well, I'm still stripping the paint from the other Ironclad, and I still don't have an actual command group for them. Also, I will be making a unit filler for them (although I actually have 40 models - the spares will be used for more units.)
Also, I will announce the winners of the Terrain Compometition soon - it's been a bit of a busy week with the re-starting of school and Dp5 and all.

Duelling Paintbrushes 5: And so it begins.

And lo, here we are in October, the month of the Duel of Kings! I have chosen to paint up more Dwarves (I already have a small WFB Dwarf army, but even for WFB it needs considerable expansion) and by the simple expedient of rummaging in the stash, I have uncovered most of what I need. Having run various ideas through EasyArmy, I have come up with the following:

Ironclads:

Horde of 40.

Using vintage GW plastic Dwarfs.

Sharpshooters:

Troop of 5.

Using converted vintage Harlequin Thunderers.

Berserker Brock Riders:

Two troops of 5.

Using the official Mantic figures (because who wouldn't want to use a unit of guys on giant dire badgers??)

Shield Breakers:

Troop of 5

Using GW's mid-era metal Longbeards. You know, the ones with actual long beards they made until the plastic Warriors/Longbeards came out and paradoxically made Longbeard-dom dependent on wearing a mask instead of having a long beard.

Flame Belcher:

Warmachine.

Using the old metal Flame Cannon model from GW. The one which is basically a barrel.

Greater Earth Elemental:

Monster.

Using the Mantic Dreadball Iron Ancestor (a sort of giant Dwarf robot) which I will convert by adding lots of steam generator equipment and arms and weapons, probably from Khador warjacks. It will not exactly be an earth elemental, but it will be a potent masterwork of Dwarven engineering.

King:

Individual.

Using the old GW Queen Helgar model. So a Queen then.

My cat does his best of ignore my Dwarves.

My WFB Dwarves are painted up in a red and yellow brewery theme. The idea being that each regiment is made up of the regulars of a certain pub or staff of part of the brewery, who band together to defend the main brewery or any of their beer convoys. I've never been that happy with the colour scheme I used, so I've decided that this new KoW detachment will consist of those Dwarves who have lived above ground longer, and have thus discovered... TREES! Or more specifically, apple trees. Yes! Dwarven Cider Drinkers! Thus Ironfoundersenn's Brewery will be re-inforced by the forces of Forgedottir Cider; their new hipster cider making division. This means I will be using different colours for the forces of Sigrid Forgedottir, but more of this later.