Fulfillment...

Of a Kickstarter, that is.

Today I picked up my Heresy Miniatures Kickstarter package (Apparently  previous delivery attempts had been made. I assume by one of those  "stealth"-postmen that don't use doorbells and delivery cards, as I had been home that entire day and hadn't seen or heard anything... If they'd used a regular postie, I'd have had my stuff a week earlier...)

Here's what came out of the box:

As usual, Heresy miniatures shows the excellence the  "Forum of Doom-collective" has become known and loved for. The package was sturdy and caringly wrapped, with a nice thank-you note and some candy. Little touches that really make you feel appreciated as a customer, and the fact that Heresy keeps this up, even with the insane workload of the Dragon and Kickstarter fulfillment really speaks of their dedication and deeply entrenched customer care.
But it was the contents that really blew me away this time. Heresy Miniatures metal casting has always been very good, especially considering that essentially it has always been a one man operation. (Two man now, wouldn't want to ignore "Minion Dave")
But with the resin casts from the Kickstarter Heresy really kicks it up a notch, they are just near perfect! Clean neat detail, all perfectly cast with no bubbles, no flash, barely any moldlines at all!
Really looking forward to building and painting these.

So what did I get?

I didn't go crazy overboard (My budget nowadays simply doesn't allow it anymore), but I got some cool bits to make my dungeon that more dangerous:
6 More Gribbly Slugs, the six I already had simply weren't enough, I really want to swarm my adventurers!
3 Maggotmen to serve as herders for the above.
1 Terror Grub, a huge, hideous maggot to serve as a mother/living god to the Maggotmen. Perhaps, at some point I'll also add the Maggotmen Leader to this crew of creeps.
And two trolls, a Dungeon Troll, who gets to stay just as he is, and a Snow Troll, who will get horns and hooves to become a Highland Minotaur. The latter is a conversion I had wanted to do since I first saw the snow troll, but never got around to while he was available in metal.

What's a Highland Minotaur?  Well, imagine this, but bipedal, carnivorous and extremely vicious:

See you next time!

Brother Astarte

This weekend I started painting my first true scale space marine*, but I didn't get him entirely finished. Today I had the chance to do the last few touches.

*: Now he isn't my first true scale space marine, I did one a few years back, trying to use only regular marine bits, it didn't quite work the way I wanted. He is however the first of the Howling Griffons true scale warband for games of Inquisimunda and such.

I present to you, Brother Rolan of the Howling Griffons:

The last known pict-capture of Brother Rolan, during the height of the Luyvan Insurrection, early 997.m41. The image was recorded by a security pictor inside a manufactorum near the Luyvan spaceport, hours before the final evacuation preceding Exterminatus. The Howling Griffons 5th Company performed desperate rearguard actions to allow as many key personnel and civilians to escape. As the 5th Company hasn't fought in the subsector since, it is unknown if Brother Rolan was among the last evacuees.

Brother Rolan is a battle brother of the Howling Griffon's fifth company, second squad. Brother Rolan is a recipient of the Aureum Gryphe (seen on his right greave) and has been awarded the right to personal heraldry, as depicted on his right pauldron. Both are unusual, as the lack of other markings or awarded honour-gear seem to indicate that he is still young in his career among the Astartes. On his left greave you can just make out the  badge of the Jülich Sanction campaign. The aquila beneath it indicates he was present at that campaign's culminating 5 day running battle in the great city of Lorimar's Fall. It is speculated his Aurum Gryphe and personal heraldry were earned with feats of valour during this conflict.

Plains of glass

A couple of months ago (wow, time flies) I got an extra set of glass shelves for my display cabinet, as it was slowly getting crowded.
This weekend I finally added those extra shelves to the cabinet.
For that I needed to drill extra holes to support the shelves. While I originally hoped I could do this in situ, after clearing the mini's out of the display cabinet, it quickly became obvious this would be impossible, there simply wasn't room to move a drill about and the risk of shattering the glass was too great.
So, with the aid of my loving and patient wife and son, I completely disassembled the entire thing, drilled all the holes, and proceeded to reassemble the whole contraption... I took the opportunity to properly clean it out as well, as now I could get to every last nook and cranny.
There was a moment of confusion when, instead of having parts left over as usual when assembling furniture, I had to feed extra components into the heaving mass of proto-furniture. But we overcame that and all was well.
I had a few scares when reinserting the glass shelves: Because the shelves were closer together, and there were more of them, I had more nasty little metal pegs to maneuver around, the occasional unexpected tink of impact causing me to freeze nervously. In the end, nothing broke, except a sweat, and I now have a shiny, roomier display cabinet:

I believe this is the largest conversion I've made to date. ;P

Next on the schedule is to repopulate it with my miniatures and arrange them in such a way that I can safeguard for future expansion, as I will not be undertaking the adding of shelves again!
I'm hoping I can do that over the next couple of days. Currently all my miniatures are clumped together in the old display units, which will be handed of to my sister for her hobby stuff, once I've emptied them out again. Here they are, all base-to-base in the largest inter-setting, inter-range and inter-scale melee ever:

Not really a way to do justice to lovingly assembled, converted and painted figures, is it? I'd better free them soon.

See you next time!

"It is pitch black, you are likely to be eaten by a..."

Guess what I painted this weekend? 

A cute little quartet of Cave Grues!

Here they are:

The photo washed out the highlights and richness of the brown a bit. :(

As I said, I will be using these as Cave Grues: Absolutely lethal monsters (they're on 30mm bases, which in my basing scheme makes them the equal of epic heroes in prowess!), but very intolerant of light. So, on certain scenarios, these will be lurking on the edge of the board and players will have to track their light source(s). As long as you have a light source, they will stay outside of the light's radius of illumination.  Light goes out? Grues close in. Better get that lantern re-lit before they reach you!

The miniatures are Heresy Miniatures crouching and leaping Lurkers, which he sadly doesn't make anymore. (Unless you've taken part in his recent Kickstarter, where they were part of the perks, hopefully their inclusion means they may get a return in the future.)

Sunday paint session: Griffon done.

Over the last few painting sit-downs I've been working on a Griffon. Today I got to finish it.
It's the old metal GW Griffon that Emperor Karl Franz normally sits on (I have the Karl to go with him, but I just needed the monster. Maybe I'll find good old Karl a horse one day...). A lovely, classic Griffon, no frills, no extreme styling, and most importantly, no integral tack and saddle.
Here she is:

And finally a couple of size comparisons:

FYI, that infantry miniature is on a 30mm base, not a 25mm one...

As Griffons reputedly live in rocky, mountainous regions, I decided to model the base accordingly. Originally the Griffon was rearing on it's hind legs, which left little room for larger rock formations, until I had the idea to support one of the front legs on these rocks. I quite like the way this makes her seem to be posturing, presenting a large profile and clawing at the air intimidatingly.
As an older metal model, there is a bit more work to assembling her (I'm pleased that I managed to get the joins unnoticeable), but it does mean the model has a nice heft to it. I'm quite happy with the way she has turned out. Enough to actually be thinking about maybe building a Griffon nest as well, maybe even look for a couple of baby Griffons in a similar style. It's an idea I've been toying with a bit more lately, to build nests or lairs for some of the larger monsters I have in storage or on the to-purchase list. I'm partly inspired by the Witcher 3 in this, which I've been playing a lot recently, and where you can get prime loot from wrecking monster nests with bombs! But also because "Find me a Griffon egg!" and similar are just classic errands to send heroes on!
Anyway, that is for the future.
I've got a giant on the assembly desk, an idea for converting wraiths from Empire Flaggelants (again inspired by Witcher 3), and a drawer full of minis that are ready for paint, including a Beastman warband, a mob of subterranean degenerates (the Hobbit Goblintown goblins), the remains of the Undead band and some more heroes....
Plus there is the Witcher 3, which I'm enjoying tremendously, partly because the game is so very pretty, but also because of the lore of game and the monsters and places in it have positively got my head bubbling with ideas and plans to co-opt for my fantasy games and setting.

Until next time!

An eclipse, an old man and the Baron's daughter

This afternoon, my son and I had a little wargame, partly as a farewell to the summer holidays and partly to finally inaugurate my stone circles.

The basic premise was as such:
Once again the baron's daughter, the Lady Mygraine, found herself mysteriously locked outside the castle on the evening of a lunar eclipse. As it happened a local Necromancer, August Knochenmaurer, needed a victim for that night, what coincidence... As soon as her abduction was discovered (Which was quickly, as the baron always gets suspicious when the servants start acting relaxed and suddenly stop wearing cheese in their ears.) the baron summoned the nearest heroes. It is known that she will most likely be sacrificed in one of the stone circles in the local forest. Two bands of heroes respond, but who will arrive on time? 

At this point I gave my son the choice which warband to play: My faithful knight Lucien D'Abelard with his squire and a few retainers: 2 spearmen and 3 archers. Or the Paladin Hieronymusch Lightbringer and his comrade Father Gerhardt, two occult-hunting powerhouses. (We used the IHMN rules and both companies were roughly 200 points. That's how much of a pair of brutes Gerhardt and Hieronymusch are!) After carefully considering all the cons and pros, he opted for the duo of godbothering maniacs. (a good choice it turned out). The other heroes would play no part in the game, being locked out by a wall of thorns summoned by the necromancer.

Here is the table I had set up:

He could enter the board from any table edge and had to search for the circle where the Lady Mygraine and the necromancer were at, by getting within 3" of it. I didn't which one it was either, as we randomly rolled each time he approached one. As an eclipse night brings out strange creatures of every kind, each turn I'd randomly roll if and what creatures would show up.
Here's what happened:

Show me the money!

Well, the first batch of coins (of two, if I recall correctly), has arrived today.
After a bit of struggle with the somewhat "Colombian Export"-style packaging*, this is what greeted me:

Pretty coins, with a nice solid heft and clink to them! Made me a happy camper today, I currently have a set in it's bag laying next to the keyboard, just to shake now and then to hear the jingle and tink. (Yes, I'm that easily amused...)

I'm planning to use these as physical props during roleplaying, but also in, for example, may chivalry and dungeoneering games as a tangible form of "points" for warband building and advancement.
I think, tomorrow I'll go looking on auction sites for cut glass jewels to handle larger denominations of value.

Have a nice weekend!

*: I didn't get a pic of it, I was too eager to get to my prize, but when the next pack arrives I'll hopefully remember to do so, it was quite funny (to me) to open up the envelope and inside the pouch find a tightly taped up package, that looked like the sort you see in movies and tv reports about drug busts...