Category: Miniatures

Miniatures

Kings of War Project (part 1)

This is a funny one, because it’s a project about 20 years in the making. In 1999, my younger brother and I rediscovered Warhammer Fantasy Battles and the fantastic Mordheim. We were pretty instantly hooked, and spent just about every Monday evening for the better part of 2 years building terrain, painting minis, and rolling dice.

That Warhammer 5th Edition box was pretty hard to resist, with awesome Bretonian knights facing off against really sweet looking Lizardmen. The hobby was still pretty young, and finding a stockist wasn’t the easiest thing to do. But we had a blast, and really got into terrain building and army painting. Then Mordheim came out, and we fell off of the freaking planet with happiness.

Mordheim was the beginning of my obsession with skirmish games, and I must have painted up about a dozen warbands. My Sisters of Sigmar were an amazing group of fighters, and we had some amazingly fun games.

Sadly, since then, I haven’t been able to scratch that itch. Frostgrave came pretty close, but there was something missing. I’m not sure if it’s the mild goofiness of late ’90s Games Workshop, or the generic stats for soldiers, but it wasn’t quite there.

Frostgrave is a fun and brutal skirmisher, and still near and dear to me. But I’m looking for something a little more… monstery?

I tried Kings of War: Vanguard when it came out, but I really didn’t like the older Mantic miniatures, and got distracted by Wild West Exodus and Infinity, which both have excellent miniature ranges. Saga: Age of Magic was just too fiddly for me, but I still had a good game or two before moving on.

Some of these Dwarfs survived this Saga: Age of Magic battle and will be a regiment of Shieldbreakers!

But now… I have that itch again, and I think I’m finding some relief from Kings of War. I haven’t played a game yet, but the regiment building is bringing back some good old fashioned nostalgia in a big way!

Also, the game can cross over with Vanguard, with results from the smaller skirmish game potentially affecting the larger Kings of War game!

So, there you have it. I’m building my regiments of Dwarfs now, with a few rules baked in for fun. First, I want to use as many older models as possible. I have a ton of old GW Dwarfs that I can mix with some newer figs to bilk out a pretty sweet army.

Second, I want to be able to remove the regiment leaders to use for games of Vanguard, which I will be able to do by building the multi-base for the regiment with a magnetized slot for the leader. I’ll follow up with that on my next post!

Third, I need to finish the Dwarf army before I start the other five!

Until then, I have about a hundred miniatures that I need to finish up!

Miniatures, Workbench

Nighthaunt Project (part 2)

The second part of the Nighthaunt project is this pair of ponies, which turned out waaaay better than I was hoping for!

I used my airbrush to blend a nice earth tone brown into an eerie green, then pulled out some ethereal highlights with a light blue gray. Then some rust effects for the metal, and I’m calling them good to go!

Next up, I’ll share the leader of this motley group! I have a ton more Nighthaunt I should finish up, they really are a lot of fun!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: The Incredible Hulk

Nothing like being all smug about all your newly-finished Marvel Crisis Protocol figures, except maybe when you realize you never photographed all of the original release figures back when you finished them!

So, here’s the first of the OG MCP figs, Doc Banner’s altered ego…

Mean Green was a lot of fun to paint, but I really haven’t found an MCP mini that I didn’t have fun with!

One of these days I’ll remember to putty in that wrist seam, there’s no excuse really. But I’m still happy with the finished result!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: The Winter Soldier

The story of the Winter Soldier is not only one of my favorites from the MCU movies, I really loved the comics version as well.

Ed Brubaker did the unthinkable when he brought Bucky back from the dead. The running logic in the late ’90s was that pretty much any character death at Marvel could be un-done, except Uncle Ben Parker and Bucky Barnes.

After Bucky came back, I spent a bit of time wondering if Uncle Ben was going to stroll back through the door and scold Peter for making him wait at the library.

I wasn’t initially thrilled with the Winter Soldier sculpt for Marvel Crisis Protocol, but once I got it put together and painted up, my mind changed pretty quick. He’s a great looking figure, and I can’t wait to see how he plays!

Miniatures, Workbench

Fantasy Realms: Gronk Boomshot

One of the cooler aspects of owning a 3D printer is seeing something you love from a great sculptor, buying the file, and several gooey hours later, holding your new mini in your hot little hands.

One of my favorite companies out there right now is Artisan Guild. The sculpts are gorgeous, with tons of character and expression. The Ogres and Dwarves are neck and neck in my heart right now, but Gronk Boomshot here pushes things over the top.

Peg leg? Check. Bandana? Check. Loincloth barely covering his booty? Checkity check. He’s the whole package.

I also wanted to play with skin tones here, so there is a bit of blue in the shading, and a lot of pinks and reds on his facial skin. A true delight to print AND paint!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Shuri

I am slowly working my way through the backlog of MCP figs that have been growing in number since the pandemic began. I was also a little nervous about painting the Wakandan figures, since it’s easy to make a ton of mistakes with darker skin tones that end up making a mockery of your subject.

Shuri also has some facial markings that took a very steady hand and a super tiny brush, but the end results are exactly what I was hoping for!

So many more minis to show off, I’ll have more from Wakanda this weekend!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Hawkeye

One of my favorite story arcs ever has to be Matt Fraction‘s fantastic run on Hawkeye a few years back, and I am so happy that Atomic Mass Games went with this version of the archer for MCP.

Clint looks pretty capable, and the Hydra logo on the rubble tells me everything I want to know about this encounter!

I’m thinking of putting together a team of street-level heroes for my next game, with Hawkeye, Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and Suri to round things out. Probably get my butt handed to me, but it will be fun!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Vision

Just finished up Vision yesterday as part of my “oh, hell, Atomic Mass Games is about to drop a million cool minis and I only have half of my MCP painted” reaction.

This version of Vision is from the incredible Vision comics that Tom King put out a while back. It’s a pretty grim, yet fantastic bit of writing!

I love that Vision is phasing through this smashed up bit of wall, too. Very nice touch!

Miniatures, Workbench

Marvel Crisis Protocol: Valkyrie

I just realized today that I haven’t actually posted pics of most of the Marvel Crisis Protocol miniatures that I have painted up, so I’m going to have to make a change to that!

Valkyrie, though, is a newer mini that I finished up this week. The box art shows her in her classic comics version, all Nordic and blonde. Nope. I’m a big fan of Tessa Thompson’s portrayal in the Marvel movies, so I opted for a darker skin tone and black hair.

I kept everything else pretty straightforward from Valkyrie’s classic comic look, with the purples and vibrant blues.

Miniatures

Town Guards, Part One

My quest to find the perfect town guards came to an end this month. The awesome sculptor that runs Tytan Troll Miniatures on Patreon has been knocking out some amazing sculpts to print this month. They remind me a lot of the guard in the Diskworld books, so I really didn’t have a choice.

The first batch of four printed up in under 4 hours, cleaned up beautifully, and were a blast to slap a quick paint job onto!

I plan on using them to replace the villagers in my first Rangers of Shadow Deep game, with my Rangers investigating an eerily quiet barracks instead of a village.