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

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.

Mounted Mongols and Knights

Mounted mayhem in this post with 4 Perry Miniatures Knights and 5 FireForge Mongols. All plastic and all 28mm. These earned me 90 points in the Painting Challenge.

The Mongols feature 4 armoured torsos from Gripping Beast Arab Cavalry. The Mongol on the square base will have a rider swap for a Bow shooting dude. It's an idea for skirmish units to make them have less figures per unit. I will eventually show what that looks like at some stage.

The Knights have two leader types with extra gold to make them stand out in a unit. I plan to do a few more of these types as my Knights have increased considerably. 

Cheers and enjoy your painting from Brendon.

Norman Knights and a Mongol

Pleased to have completed these 4 Conquest Games Plastic Norman Knights and another FireForge Mongol. All shields are hand painted designs. The shield with the metal boss is actually from the infantry set and is a fraction smaller than the cavalry shields. The Normans are a great value for money set as you get 15 in the box. I aim to get more of them completed before the end of Painting Challenge. Likewise for the Mongols I have a few more in the painting production line.

Cheers from Brendon

Prep continues and new unit trays

I purchased some laser cut MDF products from Knights of Dice. 4 x Cavalry Troop unit trays and some cavalry single bases.
The outer lip on the unit trays required gluing on to the base which was no problem. After that dried I carefully angle cut the edge so they match my existing unit trays. Sand was glued on the edges as well prior to paint and flock.

Cavalry Troop unit trays with some blank spacers after primer spray.

Fireforge Mongol horses. Some on 50mm square bases.

During my prep for the Painting Challenge I realized I was a little short on Cavalry bases (25 x 50mm) but I had a few 50 x 50 bases. Looking at my Cavalry regiment trays that I had made in the past to accommodate 8 on a unit size for 10 it is actually legal to use a minimum of 6 miniatures on that Unit size in the Kings of War rules. For a Troop (5) three is also acceptable.
A light bulb went off in my head to make a few Calvary bases with one miniature on a 50 x 50 base.
Another economic way to make my collection stretch out to gain more units. I think this is also well suited to units that are classified as a 'Skirmish' unit in the KoW historical rules. Skirmish units do not block 'Line of Sight' so a unit with less figures and more space suits this rule in my opinion.
The square base is also great for the occasional horse on a bigger angle rather than the disciplined straight ahead usual way of basing.

Anyway if that is too many words here is a Perry Knights MOSH PIT!

Cheers from Brendon

Painting Challenge

I created this post at the end of the Analogue Hobbies 2015/16 painting challenge and never got around to posting it. It's been announced for the 2016/17 season so if you need details go here...

http://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com.au/2016/11/the-seventh-annual-analogue-hobbies.html

It's a lot of fun and great for motivation. I don't think I will achieve the results of last time round as I actually had a few weeks leave at home. No such plans this time.

I found the painting challenge extremely motivating and it was a very productive time for me.

Here is me and most of the painted horde. It had to be gathered from throughout the hobby room.

I managed to make a huge amount of impact into my Arab army (and grow my beard longer).




 Managed to get a lot more Mongol maniacs painted.

 2 boxes of Perry Light Horsemen. 6 Archers, 6 Crossbowmen and 12 lancers.

Prior to starting I had built and primed a lot but still it wasn't enough with some assembly done during the challenge.

Cheers from Brendon

Troop Cavalry movement trays

I purchased some MDF trays from 'The Gaming Guy' and adjusted them to fit 4 instead of 5 25x50mm bases (28mm scale). I cut some spare Renedra bases to make the in-between bases bit and I also hacked an angle onto the square lip that they came with. The angle was so to make them roughly match my existing larger Renedra trays (and make the lip a little smaller).

A 'Troop' of Cavalry in Kings of War terms is 5 x 25mm by 50mm bases. It is acceptable to use 4 as long as the total unit footprint is clear. Using 4 instead of 5 means I can make my gaming dollar go a little further and perhaps make slightly larger armies. As you can see below I stick with a universal basing system of flock and the occasional rock.

Kings of War have a new Historical rulebook released near the end of September 2016. I am really looking forward to that (I pre-ordered a copy thru Mighty Ape). It has already given me inspiration to start getting back into painting/building my historical based collections again. Hopefully these trays fit into those lists options.

Cheers from Brendon

Enough for 4 'Troops'.

Snake monster for Kings of War and a Mongol Shaman

A snake inspired monster on a 50mm base with rocks from the garden. Also a Mongol Shaman.
The Shaman is basically a FireForge Mongol infantry plastic with a few bits and pieces from the mountain of sprue. The Shaman was inspired by a certain character in the Conqueror series by Conn Iggulden. Also because Kings of War being a fantasy setting of course has plenty of Wizard options.

The monster is from the game Malifaux by Wyrd miniatures. It's plastic and it didn't really build together that smoothly. It appears to have no eyes sculpted on but that's fine with me. The tongue was actually longer but impractically fine so it snapped off and I left it that way.
The colours are inspired from seeing Frilled Neck Lizards in the park across the road from home. I Gloss varnished the belly.
There are a lot of 'Monster' options in various Kings of War armies so this should be suitable for a few of those. One of the great concepts of Kings of War is keeping some descriptions vague so no.... 'you must use this company's copyrighted licenced official monster only.'

Photography was rushed to get it ready for submission to the Analogue Hobbies Paint Challenge so a bit fuzzy and a few shadows but you get the general impression of how it looks.
Cheers from Brendon

Mighty mounted Mongols

Next in my painted recently catch up posts are FireForge plastic Mongols (28mm).
Photographed (with an iPhone) in groups for weekly submissions to the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. So yeah.... a bit of colour difference and so on.
I thought I would bunch them together here. Some of them have Torsos and arms from the Gripping Beast Arab Heavy Cavalry set.

You may have noticed that I have created a certain uniformity of duller colours. This was intentional from the start. I wanted a scheme of more or less natural looking dyes. Though Mongols acquired silk as an important part of armour it was possibly worn under garments. It is easy to keep this dull scheme by using all those WWII colours that have been acquired over time.
Life as a Mongol soldier no doubt was one of being constantly on the move and that came naturally to them from a nomadic lifestyle at birth. Living among herds of animals moved from here and there is no doubt dirty and dusty work.

Fun information....
- Mongols warriors trained for stamina. Horses bred for endurance...not speed over short distance.
- Children tied to sheep before they could walk to get used to being in the saddle.
- Animal fat is wind burn skin protection.
- Mongols had many different arrows including whistling arrows and wounding arrows.
- Each mounted Mongol was expected to have at least 5 horses each.

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi)