Reavers spotted in the marshes

I have previously blogged to say that I had ordered some giant lizard models to make Marsh Reavers. Well they arrived and they are quite simply brilliant! They are a bit larger than I originally thought, but they really fit the bill and will make some fantastic models. I've mounted them on monstrous infantry bases and have done the first stage of my usual swamp-base-technique. Whilst the lizard is the same model, slightly positioning it facing a different direction at least gives a slight variation.

I had ordered a sprue of the lizardmen cold one riders for ebay (sorry GW, but I only needed one sprue, not a whole box full). I haven't set about making the riders properly yet as stepping back to the modelling will be a slow process. However, I have clipped out a few of the components and used a bit of blutac to mock up how the rider will fit on the back of the lizard. It fits reasonably well, but there are a few definite gaps. This will mean some fairly substantial green stuff work (obviously I will have to use some to fit the pieces together smoothly, as well as bulk out the stomach, etc, as with the fimir warriors I have modelled so far). Yet I was talking with a warhammer geek friend earlier this week about these very models and he asked a simple question which changed my thoughts on these models to make it far simpler - will they have kilts too? This means that I can do the basic green stuffing as originally intended, but that I can cover up a fair amount with the bandage-based kilts. I'll just have to try and get them flowing backwards so it doesn't mask all of the saddle details.

These fimir must be pretty decent warriors and respected within the clan to be given the privilege/death-wish of riding fearsome bog beasts. Therefore they need to be represented with several marks of prestige - decent belly shields, kilts, spears, shields, and a wild array of weapons. Maybe a few other bits and pieces if I can think of and locate things.

Moons have passed

It has been rather a long time since I did any modelling or gaming, and the fimir have been neglected somewhat. That's the thing about life, it tends to delay geeky fun! I have moved house, been doing various jobs around the new house, liaising with builders about other jobs to be done around the house, and performed in Sweeney Todd at the Marlowe Theatre. Luckily everything has gone well and I now have a bit more time again. Admittedly I'm still sharing that with doing work on the house and the joys of teacher admin work like marking/writing reports, but slowly some progress will be made again.

As you can see, the other 7 marsh hounds have been constructed from the chaos warhound kit, along with the filler on the bases. These have been added to the 'ready to paint' pile. I'm getting quite used to/reasonably adept at putting the filler on the bases - trying to spread it around to leave spaces for pools of stinking marsh water, while simulating the oozing mud of the marshes. I just hope that I can remember/recreate the effect that worked on the bases of the models that I have finished.

I have also worked on bulking up the fir bolg unit. I had made 5 dead of the marshes equipped with hand weapon and shield, but wanted the chance to field the unit with great weapons, so equipped the remaining 5 to illustrate this.

I tried to again get two to look as though they were crawling up from the swamp, though I think only one really worked. I tried to make the second one a bit more subtle, but I was a bit too successful in this regard! They work nicely with the existing 5 though to create a nice and atmospheric unit. I'm looking forward to getting some paint on them at some point, but god knows when that will be.

Anyway, that's enough for now, but I will be updating again soon to show off a few purchases that I have treated myself to!

The Fimir factory

It has been quite a while since I did any work on the Fimir; largely as this time of year is always really busy at work with mock exams, reports, revision classes, etc. However, I also have the added time constraints of rehearsing for a play - Sweeney Todd at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury. Watch the trailer! It's been around four to five years since I last sang in a show so it's nice to be getting back to it, but I had forgotten how much work was involved! Equally, my wife and I are buying a house, moving out of our little two bedroom flat (which has served us very well) into a house so that we can finally get outdoors to have barbecues and generally have enough space to just have people over to entertain. So all in all, there's not a lot of time left for modelling. However, I had a rare day to myself today as work was closed, so I set myself the challenge to actually make some progress.

The Fimir factory has started - the eleven bodies that I have left (I had only initially bought one box of Games Workshop Saurus warriors, which contains sixteen models; at some point I need to buy another box to round out the squad to a suitable size) have all been set to with the modelling clippers and knife to remove spines and correct the angle of the neck. The green stuff has come out to bulk out the bellies of those far too skinny Lizardmen. Look at them! Have they never seen a decent meal?

The buckler shields for the GW Dwarf thunderers kit have had their runes removed and have been temporarily added to the Lizardmen to help get the belly proportions right. These are only temporary at the moment as I need to remove them to then put the kilts on the models. The right hands have been sent to the weapons store and been eqipped with a ragtag collection of axes, swords, hammers, etc. gathered from various Dwarf, Tomb Kings, and Vampire Counts kits. There's even a falchion from an old Heroquest orc! In all of the Fimir models so far only one weapon has been repeated - the morningstar from the GW Tomb Kings skeleton kit.

This is simply because I want enough models wielding morningstars should I decide to pay the points for them in a game. Of the eleven being worked on, five had their left arms sent to the armoury to collect a shield, the other 6 were sent back to the weapon store so that they are brimming with blades. Again this decision was made so that I have some flexibility on how I want the unit to be kitted out on the table top. I now have a selection of models to represent hand weapon and shield, morningstar and shield, two hand weapons, or morningstar and additional hand weapon. It's not ideal, but should help to make the unit a bit eaiser to understand for whoever I'm playing against (we tend not to be too extreme on WYSIWYG). I haven't got around to doing the heads for these eleven models yet, that's definitely the next thing to do, but who knows when that's going to happen?

Finally raiding from the cover of the mists

At last the little Fimir warband that I have been putting together have had an outing and trial. On New Year's Day some friends and I got together to play the Regiment of Renown rules that I mentioned right at my blogging, that was initially giving me a drive and incentive to start my Fimir project. There were seven of us playing: Dave with Lizardmen, Nick with Lizardmen, Barry with Empire, Vicky with Tomb Kings, Joey with Warriors of Chaos, RV with Bretonnians, and of course me with my Fimir. There's a photo of my warband below; I meant to take photos of eveyone's warbands but I simply forgot - sorry!

My warband, 'The Dread Blade from the Mists' were as follows:

• Belenus (24pts)
• Fimm Fian, Leader
• Luckstone, Kroll's Bellyshield, Morningstar, Shield
• Devlyn (14pts)
• Fimm Warrior, Dog of War
• Blade of Prescient Perfection, Additional Hand Weapon
• Pryderi (14pts)
• Fimm Warrior, Dog of War
• Regimental Standard, Morningstar, Shield
• Arawn (12pts)
• Moor Hound, Dog of War
• Spiky Shoulder Plates
• Mabon (12pts)
• Moor Hound
• Lugus (12pts)
• Moor Hound
• The Unnamed One (12pts)
• Fir Bolg
• Light Armour, Shield

The games were really good fun, though really rather reliant upon luck - far more so than normal Warhammer rules, as generally you are only rolling one attack as each individual model acts as its own unit. We each played three games (well, RV only played two, but he had to leave early as apparently he has something called a life???), so we totted up the victory points from all of the games and made a league table - unfortunately I cam last! Begrudging congratulations must go to Dave with his Lizardmen for scoring nearly 700 victory points from his three games - but surely you expect a fairly nasty warband from someone who is the manager of a Games Workshop store!

Battle one saw me face Nick and his Lizardmen. He had one skink, three saurus warriors and a kroxigor - I was not especially amused to see that monster get pulled from the miniatures case! Things started well, and in all fairness I didn't think my Fimir performed too badly despite the fact that I was routed with only one of my moor hounds left alive. Largely I was having an uncanny ability to roll twos. I did however kill the skink and his saurus warrior leader, and reduce his kroxigor to only one wound left, but I couldn't deliver that killing blow before my warband were smashed into a pulp. Once we totalled up the victory points (having worked out the additional rewards you get in this format) Nick scored 158 and I got 73 - not a brilliant start, but not horrendous either. The game also includes an element of experience, so your warband's leader can upgrade some of his statistics based on a roll of 2d6 plus the number of models he killed in that game. Belenus developed a 'Heroic Resolve' boosting his leadership by one. I wasn't that impressed by this initially, especially as other people were getting pluses to their strength, toughness, attacks or wounds, but I think it did help in some later games.

Battle two and this time I was facing off against Vicky and her Tomb Kings. I have played Vicky's Tomb Kings before in a proper game of Warhammer, but with my Dwarfs. I know how devastating they can be, but magic is such a big part of their army and there is no magic in Regiment of Renown at all. The worrying thing right at the start of this battle was the fact that Vicky had about 14 models - by far the largest warband of any of us. Now admittedly her basic skeleton warriors aren't hard, but when she outnumbered me two to one it was a bit worrying. I was definitely anticipating struggling as I simply wouldn't be able to put out enough attacks per turn to kill all her stuff (I think this was actually a problem for me throughout as only my leader had multiple attacks). This was a very close battle and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a result. I was killing quite a few of her skeletons and tomb guard, but equally was loosing my moor hounds and the fir bolg. Once the half hour had elapsed, we decided to continue for a little longer to reach a fair point where we'd had an even number of turns. I'm quite glad it stopped there, as if we had continued I would have been forced to have a rout test and would have conceded 50 victory points. As it was, I ended the game with only my three fimm warriors alive, but having killed half of Vicky's warband, including two of her Dogs of War. The victory point count results as 58 to Vicky and 66 to me - a very narrow victory indeed! This result would be rather influential in my coming last overall as when other players won games, they won by quite convincing margins, scoring easily over 100 victory points, but I just couldn't rank up enough points of killed things; maybe I was unlucky with dice roles, maybe some of the Fimir rules aren't especially suited to this format (tail attack, I'm looking at you here!). I rolled for Belenus' advancement and this time he acquired 'Ferocious Blows' giving plus one attack - I was hoping that this would be very useful, but obviously that would rely heavily on my dice roles.

Battle three arrived and it was time to take on Joey's Warriors of Chaos. I was definitely worried about this game as I know that Chaos Warriors are pretty hard, and when combined with their marks of chaos and good armour I knew I was going to struggle. Well Joey fielded three chaos warhounds, three chaos warriors, and one chosen as his leader - this was going to be brutal! Sure enough I was forced to take a rout test, which I passed, only to be wiped out. I managed to kill all three of his hounds, and one of his Dog of War chaos warriors, but nothing else was going to go my way with generally always striking after his warriors and far too many attacks being missed. One good thing that came out of this battle was The Unnamed One killing one of Joey's warhounds so that the fir bolg 'join us' ability could work, creating another fir bolg model to instantly start attacking Joey again. He didn't last long though. The victory point count left Joey scoring 230 and awarding me a measly 48. This was not the lowest total received from any game though, there were a couple of scores in the 20s and one person only scoring 14. Even though this was the final game we were going to play, we still rolled on the advancement table and Belenus improved his 'Ferocious Blows' again, giving another plus one to his attacks, totalling four now.

The entire day was really good fun, but I learnt some valuable lessons from it. Five of the seven members of my warband caused fear, which did help on a couple of occasions, but playing against Lizardmen (cold blooded), Tomb Kings (also cause fear so immune), and Warriors of Chaos (pretty high leadership) wasn't going to make the best of the situation. It also didn't help that I forgot to make my opponent take their leadership test on a couple of occasions. The other important lesson I learnt was about equipping your Dogs of War. I had deliberately given Pryderi the Regimental Standard upgrade to enable me to reroll panic tests as I thought that would play a big role in the games; now I don't know if we played it wrongly or something, but it just didn't really crop up. That meant that one of my warriors had an upgrade that did absolutely nothing in terms of helping to protect him, nor making him more deadly. Instead he just awarded the opposition 10 bonus victory points for killing him. Next time we play Regiment of Renown I am definitely changing this upgrade: the Totem of Bilious Curses giving Hatred would be good, or maybe the Club Wiv a Nail In' for d6 attacks, or even the Dashing Cloak of Heroic Renown for Regeneration 5+. It certainly seems important trying to find ways to increase the numbers of attacks, gaining rerolls, or improving survivability. The combination of scaly skin 6+, light armour and shield did help make my fimm warriors a little bit more survivable, but it was still a struggle. I was really pleased to have won one game, even though it was so narrow; what was annoying was that Barry lost all three of his games, but was able to kill enough stuff in those games anyway to get quite decent victory point scores and therefore still beat me in the rankings. Full credit to him though for what he managed to achieve.

Oh well, the Fimir return to the mists once more to lick their wounds, consult the demons and plan their revenge. Next time ... just you wait ... next time!

The dead in the marshes

Do you remember that wonderfully eerie scene in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers where Frodo and Samwise are walking through the dead marshes?

Well, ever since uncovering the fan-made Fimir army book and deciding to build a converted army to represent them on the tabletop, I've had that scene in the back of my mind. The Fir Bolg are the dead souls, abandoned in the marshes, unable to rest. Being a huge Lord of the Rings fan and reading about the Fir Bog, I knew that I had to take inspiration from that fantastic scene. I may not be able to do them justice, but I have had some nice ideas - using the Games Workshop Grave Guard models from their Warhammer Vampire Counts range.

I've tried to model some of them as though they are rising from the swamp to join their comrades, summoned by the Fimir Meargh to help protect the clan. Hopefully it will work nicely when all painted up. They were a bit of a pain to put together to be honest - very small ball and socket joints, but I think that their different aesthetic will look good combined with the Fimir, suggesting that they are soldiers from an ancient army, long dead and rotting in the marshes.

I wasn't really intending to be moving onto the Fir Bolg just yet, but on New Year's Day we are going to finally be playing Regiments of Renown. I have put a decent bit of planning into my small band - a combination of Fimir and Marsh Hounds, but I wanted one other model to round out the warband. Looking through the army list at the models that were a bit different, yet cheap enough to fit into the points limit, the Fir Bolg just seemed to fit the bill nicely. I'm not sure if they will contribute much success, but it they do I think that their 'join us' special rule could really help! ;-)

Colours come on as the nights draw in

Over the weekend I found a few hours to do some painting. Rather than sit at home alone and paint, I went round to a mate's house and we both set to work being all arty and geeky - productive, sociable, and just generally a nice chance to catch up with how things are (helped with having KFC for dinner). It's always nice to talk to fellow gamers about their armies and projects/plans they have. This friend has been working on a squig-themed night goblin army. I haven't played against it yet, but it sounds like great fun and the models look brilliant - a fantastic red and yellow colour scheme makes it really distinctive. He has quite a few different armies (to say the least) and they all have a really nice design idea behind them - as do other ideas he has planned/might like to do if he won the lottery and could afford to spend more money on little plastic figures!

This is something that I can relate to as the design aesthetic is something that I really like about different armies - my dwarves have their red and brass colour scheme and rocky bases, along with their 'pound them with guns then smack them with hammers' mentality; my black templars are a definite assault force, looking for the knightly valour and punishing the heathens, in their characteristic black army, white/bone tabards and red detailing; and then my fimir will be a magic-heavy force (ideally 3 wizards by the end of the project) backed up by some brutally blunt melee, lurking from the mists and the marshes. I wanted a different colour look from my other armies, so the blue kilts seemed like the perfect area to focus on - the dark blue of the base fabric and the bright light blue drybrush over the top. These blue colours will be key aspects across the army - even the moorhounds have the light blue as their eye colour.

So I was able to spend a brilliant bit of time on the fimir and moorhounds and the washes have really brought them to life. I knew that the black wash on the metal, shields, etc would work nicely to dirtify them; but I was really pleased with how well it worked on the kilts - darkening the dark blue base, providing the shadows for the folds, yet leaving the light blue nice and bright on top. And then the moment came to try the GW seraphim sepia wash over the grey undercoat for skin. Ok, I think I might be slightly biased but I'm really bloody pleased with how it has turned out!

Just need to finish the standard bearer model by adding something to the top - like an animal skull or similar. I do have one that I think would look really nice, but it's metal and would make the model really top-heavy and unstable. Then I need to finish off the water effect and grass on the bases, possibly adding in a few bits of bark as fallen marsh trees. Then it's just a case of mounting them all up, but it's all coming along rather swimmingly (not that you can swim overly well in a swamp - so perhaps the phrase should be swamp-stride-ingly). And then It's on to making more models and attempting some of the other troop types for the army. So many ideas, so little time and money!

Unforeseen reinforcements

Today I was doing some painting of my fimir (blog update to follow in the next week or so) and talking to a good friend of mine about the next steps for the project. I started talking about other units from the army book that I want to model - in particular the Marsh Reavers. These are fimir riding bog beasts into battle. I have has my eye on a particular model for the bog beasts for quite some time now, and came home to just check on the model again and think about what I wanted to do with them when I eventually get around to getting that far in the project many many months from now.

Then I read their website homepage which said they are stopping their online store on 4th November 2013! In a mad panic to get the model that I wanted I may have inadvertently impulse bought three of their Dragonblood Miniatures Lava Lizards - oops! Just imagine it painted in swampy colours!