Dwarf Characters

For my Kings of War Dwarf Army I acquired some Scibor miniatures for Heroes and they are very nice. I used colours to match the Army of course and these probably need just a little more work on them. The army standard bearer has a standard that is actually from an Avatars of War Dwarf Beserker plastic kit. I naturally had to add a pair of sacred and magical Beer drinking vessels to the hands of the statue. I was considering painting the statue of the Great Bearded Drinker as metal. I think while it does match the rocks on the unit bases it could do with a quick dry brush of a lighter colour to give it more pop.

I got creative and made these beasts below. They came about because I decided to try a game using my regular Dwarfs as Evil Dwarfs (Abyssal Dwarfs). That came about because as part of being a KoW kickstarter backer, Mantic sent me some Golems (x 3) as part of the rewards. The Evil Dwarfs have access to them as an option. So after that game and more reading of the options it turns out they have a very powerful Hero option of these Halfbreeds. I joined them to some old GW chaos knight horses from my old miniatures horde with the help of some modelling putty and bits. The oversize belt buckle is a Mantic Dwarf standard accessory. It was fun and not something I have done in a long time. 

Anyway perhaps these bad tempered beasts came about from a mythical drinking session. The story goes on about something that happened while a forbidden magical and unusually strong brew (even by dwarf standards) was consumed in Lost Vaygas and a prank or a dare that no one actually remembered the next day but months later something odd was born unto the world.

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi) 

Painted RISK figures

One of the gamer's at my local Club (Darwin Tabletop Gamer's) showed me these figures he painted that come with a RISK Board Game. I thought they just had to be shared here. He used the Army Painter method and I reckon they look excellent. Top Job!

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi)

Dark Ages movement trays project

My Saga figures in my collection have slowly grown in size. They are not taller, just more of them. I have been playing Kings of War games with Dwarfs and they have been very enjoyable. KoW though is monsters and spells and regiment blocks of infantry etc while Saga is a Skirmish formation game. I like KoW rules though for big table top battles at 28mm. So my idea was to get a base solution to use my already based figures for Saga in Kings of War historical style games. Extending the use of the figures into a different style of game.
Part of my inspiration for doing this is these fantastic Historical Army options at the excellent Hour of Wolves and Shattered Shields site. The Viking age pdf has been my guide as to just what a potential army could be. I also tend to immerse myself in periods I like. Historical novels, history sites, Vikings TV series and so on. So my initial plans have me thinking of Vikings invading England. Anglo-Saxons vs Vikings. Perhaps do a campaign. Then do it again but with later Vikings (the ones who occupied York etc). Then perhaps even later with the Norman invasion re-worked. A lot of game possibility's.

Base size
The PDF also has a base guide but, the KoW rules also has a base guide that can be figured out. Humans = 20mm square base. Troop = 10 figures, Regiment = 20, Horde = 40. With Troop and regiment being 5 figures across and Hordes 10 across. However due to 25mm round bases for Saga I will not be able to reach those total number of figures on the same base sizes. I am cool with that and feel no reason that my units need to reach those totals. But I did run with standard tray sizes and figured out a spread of 25mm bases that I liked and I sent it off to Warbases. UK to laser cut me some MDF trays. Some wargamers may feel that I am just stretching my collection out too much and they could be right but mehh. What evs. On the tray for 40 figures I configured it for just 14 holes. Sure I could have squeezed more on like another rank of seven but that means my collection would have to grow by a lot more. I will be increasing the collection but not drastically. I already have a fair few unpainted plastics. How much more work do I really want? Sure It would be cool to get a great shield wall look going on but perhaps that's a later on project.
Here is the results.

Base for a Regiment (footprint of a 20 strong unit). Only 9 figures though. 

3 sizes. Troop, Regiment and Horde. Before flock is applied.

I glued on sand and small rocks then painted and flocked in the same way I have based the figures. I got enough bases for 2 Armies so I can be the ultimate game host. Mwah ha ha ha.
I have no projected time line for this project so it might be a while before another update but I am looking forward to when it is ready to rumble.

Cheers for now from Brendon (The Kiwi)

Australia's Greatest Fighter Pilot (WWII)

Australia had many men who signed up to become pilots and air crew in WWII. Among them was Clive Caldwell. Propaganda during the 40s gave him the additional name of Clive 'Killer' Caldwell. Turns out a name he wasn't that happy with. I learnt a lot from this book like how Clive mastered aerial combat accuracy by shooting his aircraft's shadows on the ground, and how he was heavily involved in pioneering strapping bombs to Kittyhawks in North Africa. It is interesting the difference described between a German pilot and an Allied pilots rotation through North Africa was huge. Turns out Allied pilots had a rotation scheme but German Pilots didn't. This accounts for the differences in number of aircraft shot down by these pilots.
I picked this book up because Clive was based around Darwin (I live there) in the Northern Territory of Australia after the bombing of Darwin started. This book is a good read on a subject I don't know that much about. Up til I read this I knew more about the American Heavy Bombers in Australia's North than Aussie fighters in the Top End.
Clive went on to have a major breakdown in relations with seat polishing superiors. In a traditional Australian enterprising manner Clive had a hand in moving contraband around (liquor) with RAAF aircraft (and some times US bombers) but this came unstuck when it came to the attention of authority's. This led to a Court Martial. When Clive passed away the only official mention he got was in the Northern Territory parliament. To me it seems that Australia, to it's shame overlooked his contribution in our war efforts despite the illegal smuggling. A trade that actually contributed to helping situations such as trading for US Engineers to improve Island landing strips etc. Well worth a read I reckon. Covers a lot of geography in this book. From shooting down Stukas to dog fights with Zeros and putting down Japanese Dinah recon planes over the skies of Darwin.

Cheers from The Kiwi (Brendon)