The Alcanti Fellowship and The Birdmen of Catrazza - 10mm Dogs of War

Today I undertake a short return visit to my 10mm Warhammer Fantasy project. Over the past few years I've had a lot of fun creating massed bases of 10mm fantasy units for the Empire, Tomb Kings, Beastmen and Orc & Goblins. 

Nonetheless, my favourite force has to be 'The Dogs of War'. 

First up are 'The Alcatani Fellowship'. Pikemen in Warhammer Fantasy (well, the old version anyway) were very rare, in fact they could only be found as mercenary troops hailing from the city states of Tilea. 

Though vulnerable on their flanks, pike formations can be rather nasty when faced frontally, with many a cavalry commander ruing the day they charged a well prepared pike phalanx. The Alcatani Fellowship are unique in that they don't always fight for money, but often offer their services to fight injustice and tyranny. GW's version of social justice warriors. 

These 10mm fellas are 3d prints from MiniRat Studios. Great little models and they printed-up a treat. They have quite a bit going on with them so not a quick paint, but they look good all ranked up (there are about 85 figures in this unit).

Next are the Birdmen of Catrazza. One thing I really enjoyed about the 'Dogs of War' list was its sly nod to all sorts of Renaissance Italy ephemera such as Lucrezia Borgia's poisons, mercenary pikemen and Leonardo Da Vinci's whacky inventions. The Birdmen of Catrazza are very much along this vein and remain as much-loved models from the original range. 

These are 10mm renditions of the Birdmen from Varus Miniatures. Beautiful models and a real joy to paint. 

For their basing I decided to try a forced perspective with a tiny windmill on a range of treed hills. It was fun to do.

And for a final shot, here is my Dogs of War force to-date, with the Alcanti Fellowship and the Birdmen joining Bronzino's Galloper Guns and Braganza's Besiegers. Getting close to a real force. I just need more pikemen, always more pikemen...

Thanks for popping by for a visit. I hope you have a terrific day!

- Curt

'Thalassa': 6mm Ancient Naval Warfare

Last spring I came across 'Thalassa' while spelunking through 'Wargames Illustrated Online' and MyMiniFactory looking for, you know, cool stuff which demands storage-to-keep and brain-cells-to-learn. 

'Thalassa' is 1:1 game set in the Hellenistic age of Greek naval warfare. It's historical(ish), but does make some allowances for more 'heroic' combat and leans heavily to a 'Sword & Sandals' type of cinematic game. One unique aspect of 'Thalassa' is that all of the models, dice, tokens etc. are available as 3d prints. They are all beautifully done (1:300 scale), very robust. and quite easy to paint (though admittedly one can get a bit lost in the detail). Last spring I printed off a handful of ships, painted them up and put together two small forces for a rousing game with the boys. I then packed them up and moved on to, you know, the Next Big Thing. 

Fast forward several months, and just before the beginning of the Challenge I noticed that there were a few new ship designs put on offer and thought I'd use it as an excuse to platform the game and add a few more hulls to my collection.

So first up are two triremes with thei very recognizable silhouettes. One is a 'Protos' design and the other a 'Ischyros'. Yeah, I dunno, it's all Middle Sea lingo to me. 

These are the classic Mediterranean 'battleships' of the 4 and 5th centuries CE. The level of crafting and technology packed into these vessels would have likened them to a spacecraft to a lay person of that time. Very impressive.

'Thallasa' allows players to customize the type and specializations of the ship's crew. Archers, hoplites, marines, various types of engines of war are all on offer. You just make your selection, pay your points and then 'slot' them into place on the hull. Fun!

You can also modify the hull with various figureheads, upper command decks, shrines, armoured skirting, etc. It's all pretty neat. 

Next up are the smaller-class ships, the Penteconters. One is a 'Tolmiros' design while the other is a 'Grigora'. 

These are the workhorses of the fleets. The vessels which carried the Greeks to Troy and which were crewed by Odysseus and the Argonauts during their Odyssey.  Nimble and quick, they are quite fun on the tabletop, though they can't take too much abuse when compared to their much larger tri-decked cousins. 

I magnetized the sails and masts so they are easy to store and are not so prone to break during play.

Finally we have a siege barge with a huge stone-throwing ballista on its center deck. It's very much a specialist vessel - a glass cannon with one purpose in-mind. 

Still, a very cool model with its top-heavy armament and supporting crane. Fun!

Finally, and not for points, here are two sets of wreckage markers I did up for the game.

One set is meant to depict when the enemy hull as just been split, with significant debris in the water, while the other is to show when some time has passed and most of the wreckage has sank into the deep.

Thanks for dropping by and have a great day!

- Curt

Champion of Khorne for Nick

Hey There!

Nick and I have been doing an annual figure exchange for quite a while now and for this year I promised him something 'Old World' themed. 

So here we have a Champion of Khorne, a model that was released way back in 2004. 

I think I got this guy from a Games Day in Toronto (I went to a few when we were out East), but I can't be sure of that. He has been lurking on my paint desk for two decades now, so I thought it high time for him to get painted, and what better reason than as a gift for a good friend.

You usually see these guys in classic red Khornate armour, but I thought I'd keep him a little more subdued and down-to-earth in brass, bronze and steel. 

I hope you like him Nick (if not he'll happily take your skull).

Thanks!

- Curt

Anne, Nancy and their Backup Singers

Hi Everyone!

Like many of us I've been making my way through the February doldrums. I lost a bit of steam for a few weeks, which recently included a bad bout of flu and a cold, but I did manage to push along with few more entries and here is one of them.

These gals are a some new recruits to my Sisters of Battle collection.

First up are two heavy weapon Sisters, one armed with a multi-melta and the other with a heavy flamer. These models are from Wargames Exclusive and were an absolute joy to paint. The designer really embraced the gothic aesthetic with their armour, especially with their chimneyed backpacks. These two ladies will be my submission for 'Heresy' as they are the physical embodiment of the Emperor's punishment, created to expunge the heretic in heat and flame (or at least thats whats written on their underwear).

When I first put them side-by-side for my photos it immediately struck me that they look like two epic rockers posing on stage in the midst of a guitar and bass riff, and what better rocker sisters than Anne and Nancy Willson. Maybe I'll go back and put a Heart symbol on their cloaks. :)

The other contingent is a small group of Sisters Repentia with their attendant Mistress of Repentance. The Repentia are older GW models and I love them (made even better as they were gifts from IainW). They are so beautifully sculpted, finger-pokingly crisp and having that wonderful heft of metal.

The Mistress was a bit of a disappointment, and I feel that someone at GW got the short straw in having to sculpt her. I've never been a fan of the quasi-S&M feel of some of the Sister models and this is one typical of that (though the Madonna bullet bustier kind of cracks me up).

Thanks for popping in for a visit!

Curt

A Trio of Villains for 'Hametsu'

Hey There!

This trio of villains is for our Hametsu adventures. Two bosses: a Shikigami a Nogitsune, and a Oni Captain. In Hametsu the Bosses enter play when the heroes find enough clues to their whereabouts, and/or when they've dispatched the lower-level minions. As you'd expect, the Bosses are VERY tooled-up and are designed to provide a unique and tough end-game for the players. 

First up is the mysterious, willowy and floaty Shikigami. This is a 3d print from the very talented Cobra Mode. I really like how elegant and otherworldly this model is. Its been sitting on my paint desk for months while I pondered how to approach it. In the end I decided to keep it simple, with just a few bold colours, trying to mimic with its robes opening flower like a tulip. 

For its war fan I used the airbrush to put in an unstructured rising sun motif along with kanji script on each side symbolizing Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. 

The Nogitsune (Spectral Wolf) is from DM Stash on MyMini. Again, another beautiful sculpt. Fairly straightforward paintjob on this guy. Fun to work on with all the deep-set textures, a veritable playground for Contrast paints. 

Finally we have the Oni Captain. Another 3d print from Cobra Mode. He has a sort of a Hell Boy vibe going on which I just ran with. 

Yeeash, that Kanabo he's toting is something else! You're not going to walk it off if he taps you with that thing.

A final shot of the three villains set against some heroes that I painted last year.

Thanks for dropping in for a visit!

- Curt

Ned & Norri - The Giant & The Faerie

Hi All!

Today I have another set of figures from the talented folks over at Westfalia Miniatures. 

Here is a foraging giant ('Ned') and his faerie friend ('Norri'). I imagine Norri being very annoyed with Ned for messing with the poor cow, and so is giving him a bit of the cold shoulder. 

I loved this model from the first time I saw it online and had to get one (Listed as the 'Fey Giant' sculpted by Boris Woloszyn). I'm glad I did as it seems to have gone OOP on the Westfalia website, but perhaps I'm just not looking in the right spot. It's a bit of complex kit and so had been languishing in the Pile of Possibilities for a few years. I uncovered it again this summer and resolved to get it done during this Challenge.

Most of this was airbrush work, with some of the details brought out with a brush. I'm quite happy with how his skin tone turned out, as I wanted something akin to the greyish trolls in the LotR movies. I had a bit of fun experimenting with spot-shading using contrasting colours. Anyway, I'm happy to have them done up and in the cabinet.

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Thanks for dropping in!

- Curt

The Emperor of Mankind and his Thunder Warriors

 Hey there!

My friend Greg and I have been huge fans of the 30K lore for years, spending countless hours discussing the stories and characters from the ridiculously expansive 'Horus Heresy' series of books (think Wagnerian opera crossed with a Latino melodrama, but with chain swords). To be frank most of the novels are pretty bad, but there are just enough good ones to have kept us coming back for more.

One of very niche bits of this GrimDark lore is set in the time before the Horus Heresy, before the Great Crusade, back to what is described as 'The Unification Wars' of Terra. This was when the Emperor was just one of the many 'techno-barbarians' fighting to be top dog over a post-apocalyptic Earth. In prosecuting this war, he created 20 legions of genetically modified super soldiers that were called Thunder Warriors (something's rhyming here...). These gene-enhanced freaks, er, peerless warriors became the prototypes for later gene-enhanced freaks known as, you guessed it, the Space Marines.

A Techno-Barbarian by John Blanche

Okay, if this wasn't dorky enough the next few paragraphs will descend into a high level of 30K nerdiness, so feel free to skim forward to the next ***. 

Whereas the Space Marines were chosen at childhood to be indoctrinated and genetically enhanced (yeah, nothing dark there), the Thunder Warriors instead originated from a pool of mature candidates, all fanatically loyal to the Emperor, who's bodies and minds were genetically manipulated for aggression and combat. The process was, um, 'imperfect' where the Warriors often became increasingly unstable, both physically and mentally. 

The Unification Wars were brought to a bloody conclusion at the Battle of Mount Ararat. It was not only the last gasp of the Emperor's adversaries on Earth but also of the Thunder Warriors themselves. Though Imperial propaganda depicts them all dying to a man in the last furious hours of the battle, they in fact were eradicated by the Custodes.

A few Thunder Warriors escaped the culling and eked out lives as fugitives in the backwaters of Imperial society. Black Library has a 30K novel, 'The Outcast Dead', that describes a brutal gang boss who was originally a Thunder Warrior. Some great space opera in that.

The French edition of 'The Outcast Dead'. Why French? Because 'La Mort des Parias' just sounds way cooler.

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The idea of the Thunder Warriors originated from a series of concept drawings John Blanche (the creator/visionary of GW's 'GrimDark') did in the early 90s. 

Those drawings not only captured the imagination of nerds like me, but also inspired 3D designers to create groovy models based on his vision. 

So I have a small group of eight Thunder Warriors for you today. These are digital sculpts by the talented folks over at Good Game Wargame. I like the nod to the ancient Roman lorica segmentata armour with the scalloped pauldrons waist tassets and open-faced, combed helmets. They have a very neo-imperial look, which I think fits perfectly with the setting.

In trying to reflect Blanche's baroque art I went with a dark copper base, lifted with a mid-tone brass colour, and finally spot-highlighted with an aged gold. I didn't want them too resplendent as that drifts more towards the Custodes, so I tried to keep them darker and a bit more primitive looking.

As a counterpoint, the Emperor is seen here in pristine white Saturnine terminator armour. From the lore, the Saturnine pattern is one of the earliest versions of the super heavy power armour common in 30/40K. The origins of the armour are sort of conflicted but, hey, a bit of mystery is a good thing, right? The model here is from by Sedivalle through Cults3D. 

I did an experiment by painting up a head of a Dark Age viking lord, placing it in the armour's cowl and then filling it with acrylic liquid water from AK Interactive. It gives an interesting murky/spooky effect that you really can't discern in the photos. Still, it was a neat thing to try out.

The armour is very baroque and grotesque, with huge hunched armoured pauldrons and heavy, segmented limbs. I went with giving him two power claws as I can't see the Big E deigning to use firearms when he could create a 'morale building opportunity' by eviscerating things up close. Yup, this armour conveys a big dose of 'just f&ck off'.

I considered doing his armour with more bling, you know, lots of gold with all the trimmings, but I figured that maybe a more austere, anonymous look would be more appropriate, providing a stark contrast between him and his warriors in their garish bronze, brass an red.

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Thanks for dropping in (and for your patience)!

- Curt