Mongol War Machines

This post is my recently completed heavy fire power for my fantastical Mongol collection.

The crew are a combination of bits. Heads from FireForge Mongol plastics with Bodies from Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors. Just something I thought I would try to see how it would look. As crew they look fine in my opinion. In 'Kings of War' crew are purely decorative and have no game/rule function. The long pole they have are intended as the winding device but perhaps I could place an arrow head on them for the next reload.

The large iron bolt throwing machines are actually from the Goblin range by Mantic. They have a perfect space for a Mongol shield rather than a Goblin shield or symbol on the front. They are both mounted on 50mm square bases. These are a great model and are metal and it's been a long while since I constructed something metal and of this size. A little cleaning up and a little filing and they go together reasonably well. 

Cheers from Brendon

Arabs and a Norman

Some experimentation has been taking place on my Hobby table. These Arabs below have bodies from three different plastic sets. Gripping Beast Arabs, Griping Beast Dark Ages infantry (middle) and a FireForge box (scale armour). It was just an idea for more variety and just to see what it would look like. Not that they need variety as they dont have uniform colours.
Seems to work good to my eye. The scale armour and Arab combo looks suitable for Frostgrave or a Fantasy setting which is good as that is sort of how I intend to use them.
I have recently had another look at the 'Kings of War' rules and made some Army lists. Both my Arab and Mongol collection have been re imagined to 'count as' Elves. I will expand on that in a later post.
The shields are all hand painted designs.

Below is a plastic Conquest Games Norman on a pale gray horse with colours inspired by all that Read and Black I have been painting on the Beer and Bacon army. A few weeks ago when I quickly searched for a shield (with arm) I could not locate any of the larger ones that came in the box. The larger ones don't have a shield boss and they are only slightly bigger. I only have two more to complete in my unpainted collection and I should have them painted by next weeks painting challenge deadline.

Cheers from Brendon

Arab infantry at the double

By at the double I mean more 'double ups' with two to each 25mm base. Gripping Beast plastic Arabs. All with hand painted shields. I am very pleased with the shields. These are for two different unit types. Spear armed unit and a Sword armed unit. One base has a sword and spear (unit leader waving the sword). His arms are actually from the Arab Heavy Cavalry set with shoulder armour. The body came with the shield arm so that had to be cut away to create this option. The curved sword arm is also from that set. The red Arab with the low sword is an arm from the Dark Ages infantry box also from Gripping Beast.
I challenged myself to try going much brighter in colours for the four figures on your right with swords. For the first time in a very long time I actually reached for pure white paint. A tricky colour to work with. In my mind I see a sword armed unit as perhaps a bit more regal than the rest so having some brighter colours may help them stand out a little against the spear armed infantry but only a little as this army is very colourful which is really it's uniform so to speak.


 

Cheers from Brendon

Red and Black variety of troops

A mixed bag of Perry Plastics to bolster the ranks of my Red and Black army. 

12 foot sloggers and 1 Knight on a horse. The Knight is an officer type no doubt with his gold detail on the horse armour. The two infantry with wind instruments have parts from other kits. The halberd men have had some customisation as well.

 

Not much to say really but I am happy to have worked my way through a lot of double ups for this force recently. I actually assembled most of them before project Goblin Army last year so it's been a long while in the making. It's great to see the initial vision painted now. I won't be posting much new painted from this force in the future as I only have a very few infantry left unpainted.

Cheers from Brendon

ARCHERS! Cavalry!

The Painting Challenge deadline is great for getting items over the line to completion. At some point it's time to stop painting. Miniatures can be overworked until the point of being really unhappy with the result. Sometimes it's best just to be satisfied that it's as good as it might be today and not tomorrow or next week. These are wargames miniatures after all and fill the function within a unit rather than individual display pieces.

That rambling aside below I have for you is 2 FireForge Plastic Mongols on horses. Each are on 50mm square bases.
6 Dark Age Archers with 5 from the Gripping Beast plastic box and 1 from Conquest Games.
4 Arab Archers from Gripping Beast.
1 x Norman Cavalry casualty from Conquest games.

Group Photo.

Morning light was a bit overcast. A monsoon over Darwin means cooler days which is nice. But the shadows on these hides a bit of the colour.

Looking at these Arab Archers below I will consider trying to get the next batch a tad brighter.

One Horse below got a small mound built up to give it a different look than its neighbors. I realise now in the Photos that may not have painted the teeth of the Black horse.

 You have reached a Dead End :) .

Been a long time since I freehand painted a Shield.
Cheers from Brendon during a nice Top End Monsoon.

Awesome Dioramas in Bali

In early October 2018 I went on a family Holiday to Bali and while I have been to Bali a few times before it was my first visit to the Bajra Sandhi Monument in Denpasar. I read in Lonely Planet that it contained some Dioramas that display moments in time of Bali history so I was eager to see it and tick it off my ever expanding list of things to see in Bali. From memory all up there was around 20 Dioramas of excellent quality. Balinese craft work has a fantastic history of high quality and attention to detail. The glass windowed large Dioramas feature trick geometry in the buildings and larger figures at the front with smaller scales at the rear to create fantastic perspective and depth illusions. The superb background paintings that almost flawlessly meet the ground only add to the illusion. I didn't capture that many photos as you can see below. The struggle against the Dutch over time is featured a lot. The international Air-Port in Bali is named after one of the famous freedom fighters Ngurah Rai. For a sometimes miniature painter like me it's always a pleasure to gaze upon these fantastic creations.

Inside the walls of the Monument.  

Japanese occupation WWII. Handing out beatings for Road construction.

Dutch beach landing and assault.

Dutch attack on Balinese royalty.

Japanese surrender in Bali. Mount Agung in background.

More warfare with the Dutch forces.

Cheers from Brendon.

Three Cyclop giants. Monster March.

These three lads are from Puppets War, made of resin and, they have a ton of character. Well done to the sculptor for these excellent designs.

I have had them in my collection for some time. Mainly because two needed some filling at arm joins and I put that sort of work off. Not something I am a big fan of. It's just a part of the hobby that does not appeal but the effort is worth it...when I get around to it.

I attempted three different shades of skin tones with two ending up very similar. They are based on 50mm squares for use in my Kings of War Goblin army. These big idiots are around 75mm tall with the possible Rock Thrower war machine substitute being around 90mm tall including his nicely decorated Dwarven stone. I gloss varnished the Eyes and the mouths and really like the result of that.

I am never sure when it comes to adding blood to add more or less. Not really a fan of too much blood on miniatures but with a grisly stump it was required and the reason for the missing head was snack time no doubt. I just picked the nearest head as the likely consumer.
The eyeballs could have been painted to look down more but, I was happy with how they looked. They look at you the viewer rather than infantry below them. These are not as tall as the plastic GW Giant but I was very happy to discover three distinctly different looking Giants that fit tidily on 50mm square bases. Perfect for my desire of three Giants in my Goblin army for Kings of War. They are my last Submission for The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge but also fit the Monstrous March challenge.

I rushed to get these photos done as I was short on time recently due to my City coming under attack from Cyclone Marcus. A big clean required afterward and I have a few images of that on my instagram profile.... the_brendonius. Lots of destroyed trees mainly. That's life in the Cyclone prone Tropics.

Cheers from Brendon

Arab spear armed double ups.

6 x Gripping Beast Plastic Arab Infantry. Three of them have shields with LBM decals and the others are hand painted. Painting the script is really interesting.

I completed these a while back but didn't post them here. I have doubled these up on 25mm bases in order to make my units look a lot 'fuller'. I have a lot more of these that I had prepared prior to the Painting Challenge but they have been sitting waiting for a couple of months as project Goblin jumped in front of them.

Cheers from Brendon

Goblin Cavalry and a Wizard

Hello. Another installment of my Goblin Army in progress.

This is a Goblin Fleabag Riders, 'Regiment' for Kings of War. Based on a Plastic Mantic unit tray. I added rocks, sand, paint and flock of course. I also added a Perry plastic shield and a small Renedra Barrel to add interest and more detail to find. Originally I planned for the Boss looking dude to be at the front atop the same two rocks but I changed my mind and went for four across the front instead.
The leader was a regular Skull Pass Games Workshop Night Goblin but I shortened the spear and gave him the big sickle moon weapon just for fun.

Here is the first Hero. A Goblin Wizard with a golden cauldron filled with Mushrooms and a Grim Reaper looking puppet that bursts to life with nasty Lightning Bolts. In game terms he is only 45 points. A bargain perhaps. I am going to complete another one using the same figure but with some minor conversion and color variation. The Evil Twins. 

About time I added these up for a Kings of War army list.

Fleabag Riders Horde 255

Fleabag Riders Regiment 145

Spitters Horde 140

Sharpsticks Legion 230

Wix 45

Total:  815 points 

Cool! Puts me well on the way to Goblin Domination!

Cheers From Brendon

Goblin Cavalry Horde for Kings of War

Hello. The Goblin Army expands with unit 3 completed.
This unit was a long time in the making as I started this more than a decade ago for Warhammer but abandoned it shortly after starting.
The Barrels on the unit base are from Renedra and the Dwarf (and Hammer) is from Mantic and the unit tray is plastic also from Mantic but the stones are from my yard (painted over of course).
The Dwarf is painted to match my Dwarf Army. One day they will face the Goblin threat in a game.....one day.
This unit felt like it took longer than previous units. Perhaps that was because of the uncomfortable feeling of painting some of the older Spider Riders that I had glued to the Spiders. Any cavalry is easier by not having the rider attached to the mount when painting.

One of the interesting aspects of the Goblin Army is that in my on-line readings players consider all units expendable and no unit is the stand out threat. As scary as this unit looks (especially to those who don't like spiders at all) it's in all likelihood not very tough.

Hopefully another unit gets added soon.
Cheers from Brendon.