Fallen Dwarves and Gundabad Orcs

I've finally finished my Fallen Dwarves having ben delayed by a backdrop falling on a set of miniatures and breaking all the spears, however one quick purchase and some great help from Anvil Industries and everything was set right.  I cannot express enough how lovely these miniatures are to work on, from the sculpts themselves by Miniatures of The North to the casting from Anvil Industries .  So here are the photos included updated shots of my first batch of miniatures:

And here's any army shot and my first attempt at a video so it's basic but does the job:

While I had the camera out I also took some photos of my Orc army which was painted by Mally's Miniature Painting (check out his blog here http://mallysminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/, though this army was painted to tabletop standard he can really paint and is due to paint the characters up for this army soon):

Again here's a quick video to give you the army shot:

Next up I'll be putting together the Marauder Faction for Deadzone (which will be making their way to Mally for painting) and then I'm not sure what I'll work on next though I still have some Enforcer to paint for Deadzone which I built just before/during the house move.

Unitl next time

Phil

Updated Lord Of The Rings army lists for KOW v2

Just a quick update with the latest version of the LOTR army lists for use with KOW 2.0
This is mainly just some formatting corrections and the addition of new units for the Fallen Dwarves with new miniatures becoming available now/soon.

Please go to this post for the latest version: https://cruciumgiger.blogspot.com/2018/07/lord-of-rings-army-lists-for-kings-of.html

As usual if you've tried these out let me know what you think.

Fallen Dwarves WIP

Just a quick one today to show some WIP shots of the Fallen Dwarves.  Progress has been slow on these thanks to the fine weather (which enabled some tidying up being done on the new back garden as well as enjoying a couple of BBQ's with friends and family) but some progress has been made none the less.

These are just a couple of shots taken on my phone so excuse the quality but as you see I've nearly got them fully assembled and hopefully by the end of the weekend I'll have the basing done too, I had hoped to have them undercoated however it doesn't look like the weather is going to be agreeable for that.
Just a couple of words of the miniatures themselves, yet again Anvil have produced some very clean miniatures with lovely crisp details with minimal cleanup required.  The only slight issue (and it is slight) is that some of the two handed weapons are bent, probably about 4 out of all these but I haven't been able to straighten them with the old hot water trick however we're not talking finecast levels of bent here so I don't see it as an issue.

The next time you'll see these they should have some paint on them, probably the first unit/s done and the some time later a full army shot.  I still need to take some photos of the Gundabad Orc army so I'll try to get that done at the weekend as well.

Phil

Terminator Minatures Game - John Connor and Lt

Before taking a break from Terminator to work on some things for Lord Of The Rings I wanted to finish up the troops for the future war and this meant working on the top man himself, John Connor (and his Lt who is a generic character for the game but can be used to lead the LA assault against Skynet, a scenario from the rule book).

As usual for character miniatures I tried to put a bit more into them then the standard soldiers, particularly in John Connors case.  So with the joys of modern technology I pulled up a shot of him from the film on my phone and did my best to replicate the scarring on his face.  This is the resin version of the miniature and again is was a real joy to paint, lots of crisp detail.

The Lt miniature is a metal cast and lacks the crispness of the Connor miniature but still looks okay when put against the rest of the range.  I did struggle with his face somewhat as it was very rounded so I had to paint the facial features on him but in the end I think he turned out alright.

I still have quite a bit of Terminator stuff to work on (the 1984 set, quite a few versions of Arnie and then the big walker) but with the arrival of my Gundabad Orc army from the painter I'm going to work on their bases and unit bases before moving on to my Fallen Dwarves.

Phil

The Fallen Dwarves are here and Azog's Legion

Just a very quick update (and a rather rubbish photo) to say that the Fallen Dwarves have arrived.  Very much looking forward to working on these again so they're being pushed up the painting queue.

Rubbish photo but you get the idea, Fallen Dwarves and lots of them!

If you haven't seen my army as it stands here are a couple of older photos:

Something else that also arrived this week was my Gundabad Orc army which I had sent of to Mally's Miniature Painting (http://mallysminiatures.blogspot.co.uk/) after I had come to the realisation that if I wanted to start gaming with some of my vast collection I was going to need more than me working on it.  He's done a superb job with them, spot on to the brief, and am hoping to get them into action with Dragon Rampant/KOW soon.

My next post should be of John Connor and his LT for Terminator, then I'll be working on some unit bases for the Orcs and then into the Fallen Dwarves.

Phil

Resistance Soldier Specialists - Terminator Genisys

More Terminator from me now as I finish up on my Resistance soldiers with the specialists:

Again these were a joy to work on, they're so detailed that they virtually paint themselves.  Here's some close up of the individuals, again these are just to a table top standard but even so the sculpts shine through:

 A dog handler for detecting those pesky infiltrators

S.A.W. 

LAW 

Mortar 

Loader

One thing I forgot to mention previously is just how many extras you get with these kits in the form of heads/weapons/arms etc, you really can go to town with these guys:

That's it for the soldiers and next up I'll be working on John Connor and a LT to add some much needed command structure.  Beyond that I'll be moving back to possibly one of my favourite armies to work on, the Fallen Dwarves, as Anvil Industries are releasing some new miniatures for Miniatures Of The North.

http://miniaturesofthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Miniatures-of-the-North/Fallen-Dwarves

Phil

Eldar Exodite Dragon Knights

As a break from working on the Terminator range I have been working on my Tevari Tala Riders from Macrocosm Miniatures which I pledged for on their first Kickstarter campaign, who I will be using as Exodite Dragon Knights for my 2nd Ed Eldar army.

I wanted to paint these up differently than to my usual way as they need to match into the Eldar army that I purchased a couple years ago (pictures of which you can find in an earlier blog post).  This entailed some different techniques I'd not tried before such as pre-shading and not using any washes but building up layers with over brushing/dry brushing.  Also as my usual painting style tends to be quite dark I wanted to go with a more vibrant scheme which would fit the time frame of gaming I'm aiming to use these in, this includes green base rims (a rather conflicted choice for me)!

The miniatures required very little cleaning up and were good clean metal casts, the dinosaurs having been part of the Hasslefree range at one point I believe and the riders being Macrocosm's own sculpts.  They went together relatively easy with just a little green stuff work need on the joints for the dinosaurs, the thing I thought would be the biggest issue would be how the riders sit atop the dinos however they all had a natural place where they balanced and all the was need was to pinch the legs in to get a good tight fit.  The right arms then fitted very nicely into the correct position on the saddle.

Once I'd base coated them black it was time for a white dry brush as a pre-shade layer.  I'm not sure what sort of impact this actually had on the end result but it did make picking out the details while painting much easier.

Now was time for the colour scheme, I knew I want purple/blue 'Dragons' because space dinosaurs right but I wasn't sure which way to go with the riders armour (something natural like leather or bleached bone or perhaps metallic) but in the end after a quick check on a handy colour wheel I decided to keep the vibrant theme going and went with and orangey/yellow scheme.  Finally I painted up the weapons to match in with the ones from my existing army and painted up the bases.
I'm still not sure on the base rims as I always paint mine black so I'd love some feedback on them, do they look right?

Here are some further images of the finished Dragon Knights:

Overall I'm quite happy with these considering I wasn't painted in safe zone so to speak but would love to hear your feedback on them.

Next up on the table are the five remaining soldiers for the Terminator Resistance force so hopefully these won't take too long to finish off before I move onto a couple of characters and the another project.

Phil