Week 6: Tristan - LOTR Wargs (warhammer) painted

A quick post. I had to focus on getting my wargs painted as they've been sitting here primed for two weeks. I've actually painted 30 of them, you can see more details on my blog. Not sure how many this should count but I definitely need them to count as week 6. Some of you (aka Karl) have seen my washes only goblins before. This is more of the same.
Edit: Wow no comments eh? I guess it's not very impressive seeing three models. Maybe this will be more impressive. (< 6 hours total painting time from primed to finished for all 30).

I've given myself 15 points for these guys, as they are essentially all 1/2 a model until I get the riders done.

30 wargs painted in just under 6 hours (356 minutes) +30PP

Well, I've talked a lot of talk about these guys, now I've pulled it off and my estimate of 6 hours was correct for total painting time (not including assembly, green stuff, basing, priming)

Here's a close up of three
and here's all thirty of them

Here's the list of steps for anyone interested.

(# of mins) step

1. (6) white drybrush on 6 wargs
2. (4) black drybrush on 6 wargs
3. (14) paint grey stripe on backs
4. (63) paint mouths black
5. (38) gryphonne sepia wash
6. (32) gryphonne sepia wash
7. (35) gryphonne sepia wash
8. (16) paint eyes yellow
9. (28) paint teeth dheneb stone
10. (14) paint accessible claws dheneb stone
11. (10) paint tongues skorne red
12. (25) paint hard to reach claws dheneb stone
13. (10) paint grass catachan green
14. (25) fix bases grey
15. (10) black wash base and teeth
16. (26) drybrush base bleached bone
    

Request: Orc & Goblin list advice

OK, here's the situation. I'm currently painting up 30 LOTR wargs (hope to have them done in the next day or two) they are the plastics and will all have riders (since I'm using for WHFB).

Now the conundrum is that I just got an older box of metal warg riders. It includes 3 with spear (all same sculpt) and 2 different archer sculpts. I was thinking to use them as champion models, and then had the epiphany of using a couple spear armed guys to convert some standard bearers, like this example I found online (though I will probably just convert the spear into a standard)
My question is - what would you recommend? Considering I have 30 wolf riders - how many standard bearers do you think I should convert? IMO musicians are more important to fast cavalry, so would a couple standards be sufficient and should I convert some into musicians? champions? I figure the archers could pretty easily be converted to horn blowing musicians (using their bows and green stuff)
What number of each would you break down the 5 models - champions/standards/musicians?

ps. Planning to get a Sharku to act as a big boss.

30 wargs, ready to paint.

I've been threatening to get started on these for a while now, with the new WHFB escalation league at Heavy Support Games, I've finally been motivated to hunker down.

30 wargs - cleaned, assembled, green stuff'd, glued to washer base, sand glued to base, primed.

I took 2 from each group and gave them light mists of both white & black primer.
I will take a further 2 from each group and give them drybrushes with which & black.
That will leave 2 grey for each group - hopefully removing some of the uniformity of the models.

glued to bases
sand glued to base
primed & misted
Two posts in a day :O Well I had a long hobby day yesterday so it's not unjustified.

goblin characters

I got the finishing touches done on my two goblin characters tonight. To try and make them stand out from the crowd a bit, I gave them purple armour/robes (still using wash only technique) and decided that wasn't enough - so I used an actual paint on a single piece for each model (green dragon helm for lord, red skull spikes for shaman) - much better.

Total actual hours for this army should be record low! As for painting points, I've slipped a little behind - 82% done points for 86% of the year done. I really need to get those warg riders painted, as alltogether that'll be 60 painting points, more than enough to complete my goal.
They shouldn't take very long to paint either. I figure about 6 hours to paint 30 wargs and another 6 for the riders. The problem is getting their bases ready/adding magnets/filing gaps.

Goblin Hero/Lord
Goblin Shaman

O&G update - spear chukkas

Well I failed in my plan to get all my wargs assembled for priming this weekend. I didn't want to let the hobby room booking go to waste so I varnished all my orcs & goblins, and I also primed my two "spear chukkas" (aka mordor siege bows) and my two goblin characters (shaman & hero).

I still have the shaman and hero on the painting table (sorting out some of the colours for them is a little more complex) but I've completed the two spear chukkas and crew. Painted like all the other models from this army - nearly nothing but washes. I think it worked really well on the war machine itself, I used white and darker grey before starting the wash treatment to look like colour variations in the wood.

finally updates... pt3

Ok I know I'm not supposed to use a flash but it's getting late and I couldn't get decent pics of the trolls without it. These guys are my April entry for the Lo2G @ Two Headed Dragon. At least this lets you see the colour scheme and details and not just a brownish blob. These guys were really quick as well. Here's my paint list.

1. black wash base
2. sepia wash on stomach and leading to arms
3. while wet, devlan wash around sepia
4. devlan wash rest of troll
5. repeat steps 2-4
6. ogryn wash entire body
7. thraka wash in 'healed' spots, followed by blue wash and another thraka wash
8. devlan wash scales
9. ogryn wash again
10. paint metal black, then boltgun metal, then black wash
    
11. loincloths are baal wash x2, leviathan wash, baal wash
12. teeth/fingernails/toenails are dheneb stone foundation followed by ogryn wash
13. eyes are blazing orange
14. fresh cuts are emerald green
15. leviathan wash on the nips
    
16. drybrush bash bleached bone

Converted hammer to sword (no idea what impact this has for LOTR, but looks dead cool)

Hammer

Spear (plastic)

Goblin Archers (+30pp)

I remembered not to throw out the list I made for painting these guys so here it is. I really only used washes on these guys, the only solid colours were the metallics, black and bleached bone. Using this method I managed to paint all 30 of these guys in probably just over 6 hours work (not including prep) which equals out to almost 5 guys an hour. I'd definitely recommend experimenting with a gray undercoat if you haven't tried.

Prep
1. tape over washer.
2. trim off tape with scissors.
3. cut off slot.
4. super glue to base.
5. white glue and dip in sand/rocks.
6. prime grey with Armory.

Paint
1. black wash base
2. paint eyes white
3. gryphonne sepia wash over eyes, flesh and hair
4. alternate splotches with other skin tones (colour group a)
5. skin tones on all flesh (colour group a)
6. paint body clothing twice (colour group b)
7. shade body clothing (colour group c)
8. paint body clothing (colour group b)
9. boltgun metal on front of boots, shoulderpads, quiver bottom
10. black wash boots, armbands, arrow feathers, shoulders twice
11. paint quiver twice (colour group c)
12. paint bows (colour group d)
13. paint eye pupils black
14. paint teeth bleached bone
15. drybrush base bleached bone

Colour groups
a) gryphonne sepia, ogryn flesh, baal red, thraka green
b) baal red, thraka green
c) devlan mud, ogryn flesh
d) gryphonne sepia, ogryn flesh, flesh wash, devlan mud


Here are some quick pics of the goblin archers I painted up for the Lo2G deadline. Sorry for the lower quality.

Couple shots of the whole unit


Closer pics of the archers, front & back with showing

Champion
Musician

Legend of 2HD gamers - pt1

First deadline for Lo2G at Two Headed Dragon was last night. This is the fantasy version of the tale of four gamers. I got my 30 gobbo archers painted up (I will post pics of them later tonight), and I played 2 games (we are using the Scourge of the Crown campaign rules - found here [http://www.bfgclub.org.uk/Scourge_of_the_Crown_rules.pdf]) so started by rolling up three territories, where I got 2 Stone Circles (+1 wizard of any value OR +1 magic item up to 50 points) and a Road (+100 points). This let me add a level 2 shaman with the staff of sneaky stealing to my army. The rest of my army was a goblin warlord with a couple magic items, 5 river trolls, 25 orcs with shields, 15 black orcs with shields, the 30 goblin archers and a spear chukka.

1st game was against Philip and his Wood Elves. He had lots of wardancers, some dryads, 10 scouts, 10 glade guard, 5 glade riders and a hero and mage. Game seemed to be edging his way (he kept running his scouts out of charge sight of my black orcs and pelting them with arrows) however my shamans staff meant I was able to stop his mage from using the forest moving/attacking spell for the first few turns, which left his wardancers stuck in the forest until I was able to charge them with my trolls. My trolls proceeded to rout his wardancers (after he killed my shaman - who had miscast and lost a wound) and destroy them pursuing, then do the same to his dryads. My goblin archers saw off his glade riders in one good round of shooting. In the end I got a marginal victory, and took the Town as new territory (woohoo extra special choice!).

2nd game was against Ken and his High Elves. Ken is just learning so this game was a bit of a mess, as I forgot about his horses attacking in one turn and we ended up having to cut off before my turn four could happen, however my black orcs had seen off his lion chariot and a unit of lothern sea guard. Also had his Silver Helms locked with my orcs, about to be flank charged by my trolls, and also while they were stuck in the middle my spear chukka killed 3 with a good shot (coming from the side, as he had 9 and we lined them up in one long rank). Ken decided to forfeit cuz he had to get home, so I picked up another territory (another road, woot!) bringing my total up to 5.

In total my trolls got 2 experience points (need to remember about these in game!!!), my black orcs got 2 and my goblin archers got 1. Other stuff I forgot sometimes through these games being my first games with O&G were; bonuses to waaagh magic from units in combat, elves cause fear to goblins (made my general useless a couple turns), calling a waaagh for one turn and the change where shields give you a better save in close combat.

Quite pleased with this night (tons of fun!) and also with my army. I will eventually want to change from goblin characters to orcs or black orcs. Also very impressed with my trolls, I'm going to want to keep my warlord with them in future as well I think. I should also have a second spear chukka for future games and was pleased with their performance. Gotta give them an orc bully though as Philips hero mauled the crew in my first game. Also I need to build some movement trays for the guys with magnetized bases.

Now.. what to paint up for next month's deadline. I really like how my goblins turned out (only used washes and metallics over grey undercoat and they look awesome - hoping I picked up best painted for this month). 3 trolls would make the points limit. Might be easier than painting another large batch of guys.

I'll post the scores on Sunday once our Grey Knight posts them in the Two Headed Dragon forums.

ps. I also traded Philip some Wood Elves for an Escher gang and some Space Marine bits, so unfortunately my mini queue #'s are going up. Le sigh ;)

Orcs & Goblins for WHFB and LOTR

Ever since I started using magnets myself I'm always looking for good ideas. One that originally inspired ideas was posted on santa cruz warhammer about switching fantasy and 40K bases for daemons. I loved the idea but am not the biggest daemon fan so it kinda sat on the back burner.

After enjoying myself so much in a local tale of four gamers competition for 40K - I wanted to enter the fantasy event when it ran. Problem was I was kinda stuck in fantasy, all I had left was some chaos bits of the last army I was building when I lost interest (I sold my previous Skaven army I built for a GW staff tournament to finance the new stuff), and no army was really grabbing my attention.

It took a while, but it came to me - I've always liked the randomness of playing with orcs/goblins - but never really fell in love with the models. That's when the idea came to use LOTR orcs, goblins, uruk-hai and trolls, but mount them with magnets for both games.

I just got my shipment of magnets from K&J (HIGHLY recommended) last week, and today I got a chance to sit down and get some gobbos ready. I've got some pics and some tips for magnets I've learned today.

1. Always mark polarity of magnets (I do this as I take one off, mark the next)
2. While John @ scwarhammer drilled nice neat holes leaving some of the base as seperator, I didn't have time for that, so I did it the dirty way. I drilled holes easily large enough for my magnets to pass through, and then taped the top of the base. It only took me about an hour to drill & prep 60 bases.
   
3. Magnets can be pesky to get into place, so where possible - use them to your advantage. For me this meant I would put a magnet down on the table, and then hold the stack of magnets on top of the base, above the hole - so the magnet on the table would just zip up and into place in the superglue. I'm sure anyone whose used magnets a lot knows this - but I sure felt smart when I figured it out so figured I'd share.

and finally here are some pics
magnets under tape
gave some hand magnets to attach standards or nets
gave ALL magnets under quiver to attach shields
here's my goblin captain on the round base

Another good day for toys

Had two packages waiting at home for me today.

• A large LOTR package, including 5 trolls and almost 70 orcs/uruk-hai.
• My recent order from bits & kits, mixed feelings, great prices - but these guys always seem to screw up little things (first order was missing 1 shoulder pad, but had 5 backpacks), another order was missing 2 sentinel cabin bits, though the order sheet in the package said it would be refunded. This order had a vindi siege shield, some random bits for my Space Sharks and 100 Space Marine heads. They were on sale for 1 pence, so for around $2 I got a ton of heads. Even better though it said they would all be mk7, at least 4 beakies were included. I also got the 2 metal sentinel cabin bits that were missing from the previous order. Except.. I ordered a bunch of 20mm square bases and they sent 25mm round - yeeesh!

Anyways - time to get painting!

A good day for toys

Well today had a few surprises in store for me - three in fact! A bunch of stuff I had coming to me from trades and purchases all arrived at once.

• Got a box of moria goblins I had coming from a trade to add to the 60 odd I have already.
• Got my order from a local (same province) retailer which was some more evil LOTR stuff to round out the gobbos I've already gotten a bit, including a shaman, captains and a mordor siege bow (will use as counts as spear chukka). Still on the fence with these guys as it took 7 days to contact me that an item was on back-order, and then after confirming I was still getting the free paint brush set through email my order didn't have it. Waiting on a reply.
  
• Also finally got my stuff from a long ordeal with an online retailer. Basic premise was a friend purchased a box of AoBR and called to make arrangements for the Space Marine portion to get mailed to me. Well 48 days later after many many emails I finally got a box from the retailer. While it did have a number of extra goodies, including an extra AoBR captain, a Pedro Kantor and a Rhino chassis - it didn't have any of the bases!! Will never deal with this particular retailer again.
  

Orcs & Goblins

army value: 2,000 points (current)
background: I've always liked the orcs rules, but never found much love for the mini's. I decided to build an orc & goblin army using the LOTR models and magnetize the bases so they could mount on either square or round bases.
condition: 67/102 models complete tabletop standard (66%)
record:

1. 2HD campaign 2009: 1/1/1 w/d/l
2. HSG escalation 2010: 1/2/7 w/d/l
   

awards;

• 2nd place, Lo2G @ Two Headed Dragon.

related links;

army composition;
30 goblin archers
5 trolls
24 orc boyz
2 spear chukkas
15 black orcs

to do;
assemble/magnetize 30 riders
prep uruk-hai
paint uruk-hai