the Shire Defense Force mobilises!

Today, my first package of the Westfalia Miniatures Halfmen Kickstarter arrived, and they are glorious:

Tomorrow a second package should follow, containing the last few miniatures, and then I should have everything in my hands.
I had a quick look at them, and once again Westfalia Miniatures really impresses. (They already went well above and beyond coordinating with me to make sure my miniatures wouldn't arrive when I was away from home.)

Their choice in resin is excellent, it's light and takes detail very well, transferring every detail of the absolutely marvellous sculpts, while being ever so slightly flexible, which is great boon to actual wargaming use for this miniatures.
The casting is virtually flawless, with barely any mouldlines and little excess resin to deal with. (The only flaw I could find after checking every single miniature, was a slight misalignment of the mould on the visor of one my Goat Knights. Nothing a stroke with a file and maybe a dot of putty won't fix. Which for working with resin, and the sheer amount of miniatures I got, is so minor an issue it doesn't even properly count.) There are the usual slight bent spears and such that are part and parcel of resin minis, but even those are few and far between. And knowing Westfalia, all their shipments are to this standard of quality. They're just gobsmackingly amazingly good and very, very dedicated.

The sculpting is just exquisite and very, very clean. These will be an absolute joy to paint up.
I'd better start clearing my hobby table... :)

Hopefully they'll make their way to the Westfalia Miniatures online store, as I can certainly see myself expanding the collection.

So, what are my plans for these? Well, they'll get fed into the greater Dungeoneering/Chivalry/Fantasy monster project. I think they'll get divvied up into groups of a single Knight and his/her retinue, similarly to what I did with my Bretonnians. And mayble I'll cherrypick a few of them to accompany a Halfling Wizard to raid the kitchens and pantries of Frostgrave for frozen treats...

See you next time!

Edit: I feel these might come in handy at the painting stage... ;)
Food in Heraldry
The Wiki on food in heraldry

The first part of the fleet is complete:

A squadron of Monitors, accompanied by a Nautilus, as well as its submerged marker.
A close up of the flags:

The frontmost symbol on the banners of the Monitors is the icon of Barak Varr, the dwarven coastal hold (or at least, as well as I can reproduce it on a 5x5mm area...):

Behind it is the symbol for their position within the squadron, a rune, a hammer and a battleaxe respectively. These are nods to the symbols on the original paper flags that came with the Monitors. The second squadron will have banners with red fields and white symbols.

The Nautilus has a Norse style Raven and a rune to mark it (as the Nautilii are essentially "lone wolves", my plan is to give each one a norse style animal symbol on their banner (one again, as best as I can render it in tiny, tiny format!)

Additionally each vessel has a runic symbol on its hull, in case the banners aren't clearly visible for some reason.


First step taken, on to the next batch!

See you next time.

The tide is high,

...but I'm painting on. ;)

I had some time to paint today, so I decided to tackle the bases for the entire fleet at once. Get that out of the way.

Here they are, now that the wash is drying:

Once the wash is dry, I can do the final two drybrushes, and the bases are done (except for the gloss varnish they'll get after the minis are completely painted, that is).
After that, I'll start dividing the fleet in squadrons and paint each in turn, alternating with wreck markers or individual ships for variety.

See you next time!

Fleet muster

Whoo, the basing is all done!

Here it all is:

Primer and paint to follow when I have time... Which, to be honest, can't be soon enough for me!

See you next time!

Under the sea

And another step closer:

The four Debris markers are based and ready for primer.

It's hard to see in the pictures but in the waves are some small plasticard offcuts to represent various debris as well as some pieces of plastic rod, to be painted as floating barrels. ("All that Bugman's, lost to the sea. This is going in the Book of Grudges!") The green stuff parts are cut up casts of Dwarven ships, the ones that didn't reproduce good enough to be used for the Wreckage and Submerged markers. Waste not, want not and all that... I sculpted the sea between the debris to look foamy and agitated from the air rising from the already submerged parts of the sunk ships.

Getting close to finishing the bases on this fleet, and getting excited to paint them! Sadly, the next couple of weeks are shaping up to busy ones, but I'm hopeful I can steal away the occasional hour here and there to work on these.

See you next time!

Come and sea ;)

Yup, more waves have been sculpted:

This means I now have a game-legal 750 point Dwarf fleet ready for primer and paint.

All that is left to base is 2 Nautilii, 2 Ironclads and 4 Debris markers and the Dwarf fleet is ready to go. I'm actually getting somewhat excited!
I've been thinking about what kind of debris would be left after an all metal ship sinks. Especially a Dwarven one. All I can think of is airtight compartments that have torn away from the main ship, and casks of ale or mead...
Maybe some very light metal. :P I guess I'll just have to go for looks over realism.

See you next time!

I've got a sinking feeling....

More making waves, today on a sunk ship marker and the first pair of Nautilus-submerged marker pairings:

And the other side, showing the escaping ships boat:

Hopefully this will be carrying some VIP to safety...

And the Nautilus, surfaced and submerged:

I'm only doing a few of these per day, as staring at the white putty on white plasticard trying to discern the exact shape of the waves I'm making is putting a bit of strain on the eyes. Especially in the bright weather we're having lately. (Bitching about the weather is a Dutch national pastime... It's either too bright, too cloudy, too wet, too dry, too warm, too cold, too windy, not breezy enough or annoyingly indeterminate weather. The only advantage to Dutch weather: Don't like the weather, wait for an hour and it will be different.)
Once I do the basing on one of the Ironclads and the Dreadnought, I'll have a game-legal 750 point fleet ready for primer. With a second Ironclad and the remaining three Nautilii I can bring it up to the standard fleet size of 1000 points. I still have the Debris markers to make, but these are essentially just floating bits on a textured base, I don't expect any major issues on them.

The wrecked ship marker and the superstructure on the submerged Nautilus are made through the magical interaction between model, Oyumaru thermoform moulding plastic and greenstuff. So far I'm really liking the stuff.

See you next time!

Making Waves

I'm currently sculpting the waves onto the Man O'War Dwarf fleet bases:

It's hard to see (I guess white acrylic paste on white plasticard isn't optimal for photography...), but the bases on the Monitors are all done.Not shown on this picture are the four oval "debris" markers, as I still have to make these. You can also see the final form of the Nautilus "submerged" markers/alternative models behind the metal Nautilii. The plan is to pair each Nautilus to a submerged marker by painting the flags on them the same.

I'm also starting to look at my Empire fleet, but progress on that is hindered by not owning the mandatory squadron of 3 Wolfships. So I'm looking around for a deal on those. (I'm in no hurry, and money is tight, so most of the silly Ebay prices are right out of the question, I'll have to keep looking for a good deal.) I'm in a similar situation for the Dark Elf fleet, which is still short 6 Doom Reavers.

The plan, at this time, is to complete collecting and building each fleet I own (Dwarf, Empire and Dark Elf), as well as custom fleet-specific, Wreckage and Debris markers and any other markers they need.  Besides the fleets, I have some plastic ships from the old Dragon Lords boardgame, that may be used as merchant ships for a convoy style scenario (I just need to figure out rules and ship cards for them.)
And I'll need some terrain ofcourse. I'm still undecided if I'll simply replicate the cardboard terrain from the Man O'War box in 3d, or if I'll build my own designs. Both options have a certain appeal. (And I only have storage room for one of the options!)
I'm also thinking of making some extra counters with sloops and rafts/castaways on them, maybe some drifting wreckage/cargo as well. These don't feature in the Man O'War rules, but could always serve as objective markers for custom scenarios.

See you next time!