Oldie goblins!

Here's some old Goblins that have been piling up for years. I thought this summer was a good time to finish them up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genestealer Cult for Necromunda and Kill Team

I'm pretty sure these are the first GW models produced in the 2010's that I have painted. The previous "new" ones were for Space Hulk third edition. Back then, I left the Patriarch unpainted and used this opportunity to do him too. 

These should enable me to play all those new 40K skirmish games with modern figures. They painted up quite nice as a summer cabin project. 

As a whole, I think these models pay great homage to the old cultists. They're more a remake than a reimagining.

I like the rank and file neophytes. They really look like something that could pass as human.

My favourite mini of the group. A simple design that just looks good!

I tried out Vallejo chipping medium with this one. I like the chipping effect, but you really need the topcoat to be airbrushed on. When painting it on with a normal brush, the chipping medium activates and makes a mess of things. The figure is a necromunda Ambot with a cultist head converted in. The idea is that he's wearing a mining exoskeleton suit.

These were my least favourite of the bunch. Meshing the blue Genestealer carapace with rest of the model seemed hard.

Throwback: My Vampire Counts ca. 1999-2001

I decided to dust off some old figures that haven't seen the light of day in a while. Apart from using some of the undead in Warhammer Quest games these haven't seen the outside of their case since maybe 2005 or so.

This was the first army I painted to completion. I started doing these after getting rid of my first orc army in the 90's. It was still fifth edition and I started doing this for the first vampire counts book in about 1999 and finished maybe 2001 for sixth. The painting is suitably crude, especially the bases, but they're still usable. I remember being a fan of Romero movies back then and it definitely shows in the zombies. I remember having a blast painting them.

This army used to have a grave guard unit with halberds but someone paid me silly "rare-money" for those so I gave them up.

"Gargoyle" Bloodthirster

My kids have now grown old enough (ripe old age of 3 and 6) to play Heroquest with me. I want to play with a painted set, but the original figures might not be a joy to paint. Luckily there are plenty of old Warhammer figures to use! Here's the gargoyle. Better pack your brodesode!

I tried to do a "glowing hot iron" effect on the horns. Works for an oldhammer figure.

The figure is based on a 25mm base so I can still put it on a Heroquest board. I was afraid that the small base would make the figure unsteady but it's surprisingly stable. I think the center of gravity is pretty close to the center of the base.

Scale creep *sigh*

Goblin Wolf Riders

A bunch of old Goblin wolf riders off my oldhammer pile. Nothing inspirational but I think they'll complement Grom and his chariots nicely to form the fast attack force of the army.

Grom the Paunch and friends

Here are Grom and his mates. I took advantage of my airbrush while doing the wolves which made the project a bit easier to tackle, but this still took me some effort as there's quite a lot of surface to paint, shade and highlight. 

A unit of three chariots can be used in Kings of war. I never used light chariots in Warhammer Fantasy itself, thinking they were too flimsy.

"Witness me!" I got a bit of a Immortan Joe vibe from Grom so I made one of the goblins give him a salute.

The backs of the wolves have been airbrushed with a couple of layers of grey on top of white. I then gave them some sepia wash as well as Nuln Oil. The end result is quite acceptable for the quick paintjob.

I found an old Goblin banner from my bits box. It was in rough shape but ended up fitting quite well!

The skin on these goblins ended up a bit darker than I planned.

Some 90's Savage Orcs

And the quest to reduce my mound of unpainted old GW stuff continues! The shaman I've done a few years ago, but now I painted him some company so he won't feel lonely.

It's a mixed weapon unit for the games that allow them to be used as such (Dragon Rampant, for example). I can imagine the savage orcs being skirmishers rather than rank and file, acting as scouts for the army and launching kunnin' ambushes in the woods. I also swapped the basic round shields the melee figures had into something more tribal. I never sculpt anything so doing those shields from green stuff is a roaring success for me :)

Orc reinforcements

My pile of unpainted old/middlehammer orcs&goblins has grown worryingly so I suppose I have to do something about that too.

The boar boyz and big 'uns have been nearly complete for almost a year now. First I needed to wait for those original paper banners. Then I tried to find some shield decals and then.. I just hate doing shields sometimes so I kept them on the shelf instead of finishing them. Now that I painted Ruglug's Armored Orcs I finally completed the whole batch. Doing those shield decals freehand on the big 'uns and boar boyz was no fun but I console myself with the thought that orcs aren't exactly artists themselves so quick and crude shield symbols will do.

The original Ruglug's Armored orcs are probably some of the worse orc sculpts for Warhammer but I've had a bunch for probably a decade now so I had to give them some love eventually. In contrast, the Big 'Uns are some of the best orc sculpts Citadel ever made in my opinion!

 

The boar boyz are ok. The boars are of course pretty dull but at least now I have some orcish cavalry where there used to be none. 

Some "oldhammer" undead

My first finished models for the year and it's already March! *tries to remember it's not a second job but a hobby that should not stress you out*

Along with old Marauder and Citadel Orcs, a bunch of old Undead models have found their way into my lead pile. I delt the urge to do at least some of them so here's 15 skeletons and some spooks. The Skeletons are a mix of old Nightmare Legion models and some other old skeletons, the ethereals consist of two ghosts and two barrow wights. Nice models all in all. Reader Samuli S commented that I should try some different backdrops for my photos, so I did. How's it look?

The next batch of models will be some additional 20mm WW2 Germans to give me some support options for Chain of Command.

More old school orcs

I painted these up for the Warhammer Quest game I showed you eralier but here they are:

Two Marauder miniatures' "Giant black orc" and a Citadel Black orc champion. 80's stuff.

A regular orc champion painted as a Black Orc (I need some for WHQ)

Good old Gobbla

Savage orc shaman

 I tried out the new Citadel effect paint, Nihilakh Oxide on the Black orc boss. The result was mixed. It can give you a nice oxidation effect but it takes some practise to use properly.

Epic loot and summer field trips

I got some additions to my hoard. Most of the time when I visit domestic auction sites and online flea markets there's no interesting hobby stuff available, but every now and then someone sells old stuff from their garage and I might get something nice for a low price. This time I got the first edition of Space Marine, nowadays known as Epic 40k. 

The game has not really been on my shopping list, but the deal I got was cheap on the basis of the seller not knowing whether all bits were present. Well, the box is missing the unit cards and half the Space Marine figures that came with the box, but has a complete Chaos Horde box full of Chaos Space Marines, Chaos Squats, Minotaurs, Beastmen and the like. The Chaos Marines are really good figures so I'm not complaining.

The main reason I got the box was because of the buildings. There's 14 plastic/cardboard 6mm scale urban buildings in the box, and they're generic enough to be used in Battletech Alpha Strike games. I think the Marines and Rhinos can also be used as infantry and infantry transports in Battletech. I'm also thinking of trying to make a simple silicone mold of the roof bits so I can start making my own. I recently bought some mold making and casting stuff to try out. It definitely wasn't cheap, but I think it's a part of our hobby I'd like to learn.

Apart from that, I thought I'd bore you with some holiday snapshots of historical sites I visited this summer!

First off, I got to visit Cagliari in Sardegna again. I visited ancient Karalis in 2012 on a EU project trip and this time I was out there in a research conference presenting my paper. It's a nice old city with just enough to see and do to keep you occupied if your days are mostly filled by sitting in a meeting room. Cagliari is a nice place to just roam the streets and to appreciate the layers upon layers upon layers of history that have been building up there for two or three millenia. And enjoy superlative Italian Ice Cream, of course.

The city's renaissance period walls were truly massive. Apparently no-one bothered to try and besiege them at any point. A working example of deterrence in effect?

There was a nice archeological museum there highlighting the cultures which have dominated the area. There was evidence of visitors and trade from all over the mediterranean.

The bronze age wargamers had problems with scale creep.

Greek style helmets.

 The rest of the summer I spent safely within the borders of my native land, but there were a couple of opportunities to soak in some history. My wife got the idea to visit the fortress of  Olavinlinna which is situated here in my home province of Savo. I have only been there once as a child so it was nice to see it again.

The Finns under Swedish rule began building the fortress in 1475 on the frontier between the Swedish and Russian realms. Well, actually the fort was built way into the land that was claimed by the Russians behind the border of the treaty of Nöteborg which forbade the Swedish and the Russians from building forts on the frontier. The Russians weren't using the land and Finnish settlers were making their way to the area so the fort was built to consolidate Swedish authority in the area. Obviously this didn't sit well with the Russians who saw it as a breach of the treaty (which it in all fairness was) and it served to worsen the relations between the realms for years to come. The fort saw several sieges and was lost to the Russians in 1714 during the Great Northern War. Later on, it became a part of the Autonomous grand duchy of Finland after our whole country was lost to the Russians in 1809 and became a part of independent Finland in 1917. 

Today the place is a tourist attraction, but I have to say the best thing about the place is the outside. The inside the fort is really bleak and basically just stone tunnels and vaults. Just like a military fortress should be. No pampering of perfumed royalty here.

The town museum happened to host an exhibition of miniatures which my wife agreed to go to with a sigh. 

Scharnhorst

A Bf-109 in Finnish air force colours. This was an operational model people take out to fly. Very cool.

Last, and sadly least, was the fortress off the shores of Helsinki. The fortress is known as "Sveaborg" (fort of Sweden) by the Swedes and "Suomenlinna" (fort of Finland) by the Finns so I'll be diplomatic and use the old Finnish language version of Sveaborg, "Viapori". Viapori was built during Swedish rule against Russia in the 18th century. It was called "the Gibraltar of the North" and is infamous for the blunder of it's commander who surrendered the fort to the Russians in the war of 1808-1809.

I've been in Viapori often enough, but this time the fortress was not the attraction I was there to see. The shipyard in the fort has been working on a gun boat built using 18th century schematics. These boats were used extensively on the shallow island network off the coast of Finland during the Russo-Swedish war of 1808-1809 and I was interested in seeing it as I heard that it was complete and on display. Sadly, the rumours were not true. Apparently they had set the finished hull in the water and paraded it before finishing the sails or anything, and hidden the boat after that. All I got to see was a bit of the hull visible under a tarp in the old drydock of the fortress.

Nothing to see here.

This sight wasn't worth the trip especially as I had to push my sleeping son on some of the bumpiest cobblestones ever through the streets of the fort to get there. So that's why it ended up being the least of the trips this summer. Anyway, I hope to see it finished one day.