Adrian's Blood Bath at Orc's Drift

 

Long time, no see. 

After a long pause for a year, I'm back on track with the objective of completing yet another batch of old metal miniatures.

 

I've been thinking about how do I want to expand and round-up the orc army I am collecting and was my first entry on the OWAC. With the colours, motifs and the clan heraldry chosen is no secret that I got in mind collecting the entire Blood Bath at Orc's Drift army and after that, maybe adding some more trolls, a giant and some warmachines. 

As I doubt I will get my hands in the amazing Man Mangler in a foreseeable future and doubt if having a unit of boars and some wolves, the army lacked the last punch to get another complete run on the OWAC, which not only I love participating. It is an opportunity to complete entire projects that are sitting in the shelves unpainted. THE opportunity (don't skip a challenge if you can get here or start one with your friends, you'll notice how your projects get completed at last!).

However, the "special" rules for this year gave me the opportunity to try tinkering the other units of the campaign, with the goal of finish most of the miniatures needed. And following this year challenge, do some cool pictures that resembles the art of the old campaign book.

The (December) workbench

 

I finally got a box of Ruglud's armored orcs. Some of the most awesome orc sculpts out there. My plan is having a big blob of these fellas ranked up, going with the Kwae Karr clan heraldry.
 

They're commanded by the chieftain Magyar Ironfist. I got an old C15 orc shaman to be Bagrash that's still in the mail somewhere. I went for other miniature because the Bagrash model is superb but not so easily read as an orc shaman.

For the Vile Rune orcs I already had a lot of Harboth's archers and C15 orcs painted, so I got Fangor Gripe in my hands and a batch of C15/16 orcs with none other than Guthrum Mane. However, some of the FF orcs and Guthrum needed some repairs.

So they got their scimitar and glaive respectively repaired. Hope that the FF orc spear doesn't break because it has bent several times in the process (and already arrived bent).

Now that I had the putty out, why not repleace some of the heads in a pair of quite characterful hobgoblin and orc sculpts. 

Voilá, instead of repeated sculpts, a new orc and hobgoblin. Normally I would have reserved them for trading, but I love both of them and  think that the conversions works pretty well with the swap.

The Challenge

Now that we got the basics done, it's time to present the units for this year. More or less in the batch I'll try to paint each month bare for the leaders month which will be a mix of the campaign characters.

Brommedir's bows at Orc's drift

I dunno how many elf archers I still have. I swear that this may be the last of the lot but maybe I discover another ton of them in a box somewhere else. 14 monopose elf archers that will have a small shield in the left arm. Brommedir itself is an special, yet pretty new, metal model.

Maybe I'll proxy Brommedir with an elf captain that's also in the mail, because I almost got my hands in one but missed in the last minute.

Osrim Chardz's dwarf engineers

The opportunity to paint the last 5 of my Uther's Dragon Company dwarves and a bunch of awesome dwarf engineer or miner sculpts. The leader is none other than a Dwarf of Legend that I think it's a good proxy for Osrim, which was impossible for me to snipe one in ebay or the groups.

The Linden Way Militia

A collection of Perry Miniatures, Midlam Miniatures and oldhammer citizens (as well as some of the characters still in the same mail as their other friends and foes). I almost got the entire militia unit and all the special civilians.

Oh, and yeah, that's Beli in the mix. Hope I can also get my hands in Gymlet from the personalities at Orc's Drift.

The characters at Orc's Drift will be painted probably in the leader month. Whereas the militia and the townsfolk divided between a rank and file and the wildcard, as I hope to make the entire scenery for the campaign.

Funny thing about the humans, I almost got in my hands the original elf which is the base of Mayor Leofwine sculpt and it's a million times more easy to get. I didn't expect that at the time they crossed scultps between different races (e.g., some different types of characters or units based on the same human, but not from elf range). However, I think that'll proxy him in the future, because it is not a miniature that I like a lot.

The Kwae Karr Orcs

I will probably expand some of them in its month because I want a unit of 20 without the special characters and also to get a Kwae Karr banner without damaging the original Ruglud banner.

The Vile Rune Orcs

I love the classic C15 orcs and some of the FF range too. Led by Fangor Gripe.

Grashak Kra, the handler from the Severed Hand Orcs

Not handling pretty much at the moment. But cannot miss in a challange about the pretty ilustrations of the book.

Last but not least

King Fyar's in his winged serpent

In his wyvern. I'll try to do a conversion that allow replacing the old wyvern shaman and the original wyvern rider. I went for the amazing 4th/5th edition wyvern because it got an official recast with the made to order and it was one of my favourite monsters of all time.

Oh, and don't forget that there are spies among us. An half-orc spy, from the orcs of Midlam Miniatures.

Let's pretend that the orc army is the main one, that will be a total of 669.5 points of orcs to add to my previous army, and 30 more orcs to the horde.

Brommedir elves will be another 246 points as an unit of kith warriors with long bows and armour. Osrim and his sappers another 200 points. And the town militia probably 135 points of human villains with bare minimum. So that gives me a total of 1250.5 points following the traditional rules.

Let see how I can complete the challenge, including the pictures resembling the art from the campaign book.

PS: Mathew Sullivan from the Oldenhammer in Toronto, your army was an inspiration years ago to start this project, and your Harboth's are amazing, so I used them for the intro picture if you can read this.

Until January's update, Merry Christmass, a happy New Year aaaaand 

Adrian's out.

Ben's Blood Drinkers Space Marines - OWAC IX - Intro post

For my fourth run at the OWAC I've finally built up enough impetus to attempt a long-held ambition - completing a Space Marine army for 2nd Edition 40K.  I've had a few goes at a Space Marine army in the past, but never finished off an army I was satisfied with.  I took quite a while deciding what chapter to paint as I wanted it to meet quite a few criteria.  It would need to:

• Tie in to some inspiring oldhammer art - probably Space Marines covered in checks and flames by John Blanche
• Contrast with my blue and yellow Alaitoc Eldar from OWAC VII - so not Ultramarines (blue) or Blood Angels (yellow helmets on assault marines)
• Be a bit brighter than the Relictors (dark grey) and Dark Angels (dark green) I've painted before
• Have chapter symbols I could use transfers for - I've never been satisfied with my attempts at hand painting
• Ideally, be a bit different to other armies I've seen before

I therefore decided to paint Blood Drinkers, taking inspiration from the 40K 2nd Edition box art.  Blood Drinkers are described in the Angels of Death Codex as having markings similar to Ultramarines, meaning the 5th company with its black shoulder pad trims would resemble the space marines in the art, and red/black will be bright and contrast nicely with blue/yellow.  I managed to buy some black goblet transfers for the chapter badge online, and could use my stash of generic space marine transfers for the rest of the heraldry.  

I test painted a couple of models to try to decide whether to paint them bright red in the style of the 2nd edition codex, or darker in the style of the original Rogue Trader illustration of Space Marine chapters, and to try out the Rogue Trader yellow stripe on the helmets. I'm still trying to decide!

 

Test painted models

Should I go for brighter red...

Or browner red?  What about the yellow helmet stripe?

Whichever I choose, there will be flames!

Blood Drinkers have been described as having achieved a measure of control over the black rage that affects the Blood Angels and their other successor chapters.  I thought the army would therefore need plenty of Apothecaries and Chaplains to inspire and monitor their brethren.  I decided to collect a diverse, mobile force with plenty of bikes and vehicles rather than an all-out assault army, to give me a variety of units to paint.  

I've tried to keep it all second edition, with a couple of notable exceptions.  As with my Eldar I've used larger bases than the originals - I think they look better and with modern base sizes I can more easily use them in games across editions.  One or two bits and pieces, as few as I could manage, are from later editions - either where I had the parts missing from purchases in my bits box, or where later awesome models were sculpted in the style of the art in a way that no conversion I could do would match (notably the Blood Angels captain).  

I spent ages drilling all the barrels and trying to get the arms, weapons and shoulder-pads all fitting and coherently posed.  I now think the reason I could never get this to work properly as a thirteen-year-old is that they don't actually fit well at all, and need a fair bit of reposing and filling with greenstuff to work.  I did some minor sculpting and conversion to fix broken or chapter-specific parts.  I had my son 3D-print me a few vehicle parts, and I plan to try to press-mould a couple more missing bits.  The result of all this is I've assembled far too many models - around 5,000 points, with a few more characters, scouts and marines to call up once I can find the time, and all the required arms...

To tackle this I therefore decided I had to split it into manageable separate forces.  The first would be a flexible core based on the opening 2nd edition battle report in WD166.  This comes to 1500 points (once I swap the HQ Captain for a cheaper Medic), more or less covers the minimum requirements for an OWAC season if I don't manage to get any further, and, if it was good enough for Andy Chambers it's good enough for me.  I'm now thoroughly looking forward to putting primer to metal!

Nathan’s daemons of Tzeentch intro post

I wasn’t sure I would sign up to challenge number nine after failing challenge number eight (with a khorne army of all things) but the call went out and here I am. I’ve picked an army I collected for Warhammer the Old World which also fits this theme so I reckon I won’t end up in the field of bones this time - and that army is daemon’s of Tzeentch. The vast majority of the figures are third edition era with a handful of the metal screamers thrown in for good measure which I will count as discs of Tzeentch for the purposes of this challenge. Enough of my crapping on - here are the pics:

A couple of test pieces

Most of the army

Greater daemon and champions

And the artwork to inspire me!

Well there you have it. As I paint up the figures I will work out the points cost although for the horrors I will need to split the values as technically blue horrors had no value in third edition as they arose when a pink horror is slain. It expect it will be well over 3000 points as a Lord of Change alone comes in at 1400 points. That is third edition for you - massively unbalanced but the figures look great.

                                                    

   

Space Elves! Intro post - Andrea

 Hi OWACers,

I am Andrea and I going to [continue] painting the Eldar!

This is what, among all things I hoarded in the last years, will be my new challenge:

The family picture of my OWAC9 challenge

But let me introduce myself: I am a happy 50yo guy from Italy, introduced to the Warhammer world in the middle 90s. Started with Warhammer Fantasy 4th ed, later I included also the WH40K 2nd edition; ooooh, great days where those days!

This is not my first OWAC, as I successfully concluded my challenges in OWAC1, 2, and 3... well, then I started the OWAC5 but fell in the field of bone (I dared to paint the Space Wolves: I love and hate them)

My past [successful] OWACs!

So, this year is WH40K again but, this time, with my old good space pointy ears! The list, following the 2nd edition codex:

                                            Unit                                       points

                                            Avatar of Khaine                    300

                                            Farseer                            170

                                            Exarch Howling Banshee      62

                                            Guardian Squad (x6)              66

                                            Guardian Squad (x6)              66

                                            Howling Banshee (x4)           108

                                            Wraithguards (x5)            175

                                            Dreadnought War Demon    160

                                            Wave Serpent                         150

                                            Scatter Laser platform             59                                            

                                            D-cannon platform              55

                                            Total                                     1349

The idea is to give justice to most of my remaining Eldar miniature and to give rise to a small force to properly play Rogue Trader. As you can see there are still many units from 2nd edition: let's say they are useful to get the proper amount of pieces for the challenge, and they will be a due addition to my 2nd edition Eldar army. 

Oh, artwork! As an aspirant Rogue Trader player, I just took one of the wonderful illustrations of that time, which was one of the pictures that hits my imagination the first time I come into contact to sci-fi Warhammer:

For some reason (who knows what I was thinking about in that moment), bases decoration pattern of previously painted RT and 2nd edition Eldar does not match, so it is likely that bases will be a bit different.

OK, let's have a closer look to units which will be (more or less) organized in:

Two leader/monster months 

Two rank&file months (1: two guardian squads; 2: Wraithguards and Banshees)

One Veichle month

(do I said I am loving 3d printing?)

Extra stuff month

That's all, I think, for the moment. Of course, there is more to paint than I presented here but anything more will be surprise ;-)

Good luck to all challenger, may we all finish our goals!

ciao, Andrea

George's Imperial Guard - Intro Post

 

Colonel Audacian watched as his regiment assembled. Boots crunched in perfect synchronicity, a gratifying vindication of hard hours spent on the drill ground.

Imperial and regimental colours flapped in the wind as the vast columns took up their positions.

Audacian was proud of his regiment. He was proud of every soldier who stood before him. And unlike many imperial commanders, he went to great lengths to keep his troops alive.

Through skilful diplomacy and radical battlefield tactics, he had minimised casualties. Their campaign had seen them liberate planets from heretics and conquer new worlds for the Emperor. And all at low loss of life.

But Audacian was woken from his thought by the serpent whisper of the commissar who stood by his side.

“The time to let blood for the Emperor is nigh.”

The commissar almost seemed to enjoy the thought of the guard suffering mass losses.

Audacian had noticed the steady increase in the number of commissars attached to his regiment. They would arrive, unannounced, and follow officers and NCOs at all times. The commander himself was now under constant surveillance.

Perhaps his refusal to sacrifice the lives of his men had roused suspicion. The imperial administration expected officers to be ruthless.

And now he faced an impossible situation. He had been given a direct order to mount a full regimental frontal assault on a heavily defended position. With commissars now everywhere, he could not see a way to avoid this suicidal strategy.

Audacian felt the commissar’s hard stare. He cleared his throat, drew his sword and ordered the advance.

 

I was 7 when my dad and I first stumbled upon a Games Workshop. Already obsessed with toy soldiers, I insisted that we go in. Weeks of pocket money was invested in the plastic imperial guard box set and now it feels only right that 35 years later I get round to painting them!

Inspired by that superb John Blanche cover art, I’m planning massed ranks of infantry, with plenty of banners! White Dwarf issues 109-115 will provide lists and painting guides (Although in the spirit of Rogue Trader, points values are secondary to narrative!)

Speaking of narrative, I do love a bit of fluff! I will certainly be taking the opportunity to expand on Audacian and the sinister commissars!

I also want to thank the wonderful community for stepping forward and providing essential miniatures for the project. Graeme, Joseph, Auke and Glyn – thank you! You are all heroes and the Emperor will smile upon you!

I can’t wait for this challenge. There are a lot of brilliant projects to look forward to. Best of luck to everyone!

 

Points:

1 X command section: 280 points

2 x tactical squads @ 200 points each: 400 points

1 x white shields squad: 200 points

1 x support squad: 445 points

5 x commisars @ 45 points each: 225

1 x land speeder: 200 points

 

Total: 1,750

Audacian's regiment! Awaiting stripping and priming!

That classic box art and the inspiration for this project!

Charge! Filippo's Bretonnia Army - Introduction post

 

*sound of thundering hooves intensifies

It's good to be back. New year, new OWAC, brand new army. Life is good

For this year I've been granted the opportunity to paint a fifth edition Bretonnia small army. I had the chance to buy a lot of models during the last month and this is the backbone of a much bigger project.

If possibile, I'll do my best to go way beyond my limits. Sleeping is overrated after all.

Here's the list (1004 points)

1 General of Bretonnia (172 points)

1 Hero (74 points)

5 Knights of the Realm (204 points)

5 Errant Knights (176 points)

10 Bowmen (145 points)

10 Squires (124 points)

10 Men-at-arms (145 points)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I may have bought 70 more bowmen, many Knights (Realm, Errant, and Grail), a Green Knight and Louen Leoncoeur. Some are already painted, the idea is just to fix some details without starting from the primer. 

And I still have the undead to finish.. WHAT A YEAR! WHAT A LOVELY YEAR!

My offering is the test models painted many month ago. But in the end I'll stick to the classic blue and white colour scheme

We Are the Damned - Valtteri's Undead Legion - Introductory post

Introduction

Since I'm new to OWAC I'd best introduce myself. I'm Valtteri, a 40-year old hobbyist from Finland. I got drafted into this challenge by Jaakko, who I met last year in a Necropolis gaming event I organised. (Side note - Necropolis is an excellent game, I put a link in the bottom if you're interested.)

Rolling dice with style since 1985.

I got into little toy soldiers and Warhammer when I was around ten years old. Hero Quest and Space Crusade were my gateway drugs, but I was really hooked when I saw an unit of skeleton warriors at my friend's. I had to get some of my own.

I actually managed to build and paint a pretty decent sized army, though I never actually played the game. I just couldn't get my friends that interested in miniatures.

Oh how I miss these.

Unfortunately I sold all my models when I moved out of my parent's house and mostly forgot about minis.

It took me some 10 years for the hobby flame to be rekindled and I've been hooked again ever since! And I've been playing too - lots of different games. I've gradually moved out of the GW sphere into more accessible (and fun) indie games but I've never lost my love for the classic Fantasy Battle aesthetic.
I've wanted to rebuild my Undead army for a while now and OWAC seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Full disclosure: I was so excited about this project that I accidentally painted two units beforehand. I told myself I'd just paint a few models to test out a color scheme and all of a sudden I had two full units complete with command groups, hand painted banners and Wights to lead them! Oops. 
Naturally these won't count towards the challenge, though I'd like to include them in the final army pics.

I'm quite proud of them.

The Vision

The look I want for my Undead army is sort of a 90s grimdark vibe. I still remember how different the models looked in the 5th edition Vampire Counts Army Book compared to the previous Undead book. They were dark and broody and menacing! The colors were more muted and down to earth and the bases had more tones than just Goblin Green.

These blew my mind as a kid.

I remember pouring over this one particular page over and over again. For some reason I never did try different recipes for bone, I just tried to emulate the bright box art skeletons.

They don't make army books like they used to.

An army of just dirty undead is pretty boring though, so I want to give the characters more vibrant old-school colors and paint the classic 4th ed banners. I rather like the combined effect in my test units.

I have devised a fairly quick painting method for my skeletons which gives pretty decent results, as you can see in the previous test models. I'll save the actual recipe for my first proper post in January though!

One other thing I'd like to do in the future is to build this army so that I could use it in 5th or 6th edition games as well. This means adding some extra models for it to be a Vampire Counts army. I won't do those for OWAC9 though.

The Models

So, I've chosen my army and it's color scheme, now I just need some minis to paint. Unfortunately I only have a single Wraith left from my childhood army, so off to the shops I go.

My precious.

I realized fairly quickly that there doesn't seem to be that many old Undead minis for sale. I did manage to score a decent amount of heroes and special models: Wights, Wraiths, Mummies, Necromancer and my favorite the Vampire Lord. But not nearly as many as I would have liked.

Isn't he dashing?

A proper Undead army needs masses of the walking dead though and there was no way I was going to hunt down dozens of old metal models for them. I mean I only have the one kidney. (I actually do.)
First I discovered the Oathmark skeletons which are just great. I used them for my test units, pictured earlier. They are more akin to the newer edition skeletons though and don't quite satisfy my itch for nostalgia.

Luckily we live in the future age and I found some excellent 3D printed models for my horde.
The Skeleton Warriors are by Celtic Miniatures and the Horsemen, Zombies and the Zombie Dragon are by Red Bard Games (again, links at the bottom for those interested).

Celtic Miniatures

Red Bard Games

I want all my regiments to have a proper command group with painted old school banners and an old school champion to lead them. The Horsemen are lacking a mounted Wight but maybe I'll find one during the challenge.

I also found some great Skeleton Ogres from Ral Partha Europe (Das Schwarze Auge minis) which I plan to use as unit fillers, since there's no profile for them in WHFB.

Love these big guys.

Finally some OG metal.

The assembled army is looking pretty good. Combined with the units I finished earlier I'll have an army ready to crush anyone on the battlefield. Can't wait to get started!

Primed and ready!

Artwork

This year's OWAC's theme was artwork and for me the 4th ed Army Book cover is the ultimate piece of Undead art (the black and white pic of Nagash inside comes as a close second).
So my plan is to create the models in the cover: Wight Banner Bearer, Necromancer (well I guess he might be a Vampire but whatever) and the Horseman.

Best.

I already have the models for the first two but I'm still looking for a suitable knight. I don't plan to actually convert them to match the poses, I'm just going to match the colour schemes and paint the banner. Cutting up old minis just feels wrong after going through the trouble of finding them.

They're close enough.

I'd also love to do some old school terrain such as the Burial Mounds in the classic How to Make Wargames Terrain book.

Also best.

The Plan

So here's what my OWAC9 plan looks like:

• January - Rank and File
•  25 Skeleton Warriors including a command group and a banner - 241 points
• Wight - 37 points
• Necromancer Champion- 163 points
• February - Rank and File
• 10 Skeleton Horsemen with a a command group and a banner - 236 points
• Maybe a Mounted Wight if I can find one (39 points)
• March - Rank and File
• 20 Zombies with a a command group and a banner - 88 points
• Zombie Ogre (unit filler) - 16 points
• Wight - 37 points
• April  - Rank and File
• 5 Mummies - 225 points
• 5 Wraiths - 375 points
• 2 Skeleton Ogres (unit filler) - 76 points
• May  - Wild Card
• The 3 army book cover models (around 200 points)
• Terrain
• June  - Leader
• Vampire Lord - 410 points
• Liche on Zombie Dragon - 850 points (!)

I'm fairly confident I can tackle most of these. The Zombies might take more time than I think and the Zombie Dragon as well. If that turns out to be the case I'm sure I can still finish at least 10 Zombies and the Vampire Lord to satisfy the monthly requirements. If I can paint everything fairly quickly I have some extra models in mind as well...

If I do manage to paint them all, the army is going to be worth almost a whopping 3000 points! (Even more with the two test units). We'll just have to see how far I will get!

Links:
Necropolis - A diorama Skirmish Game

Skeletons by Celtic Miniatures, Etsy

Undead by Red Bard games