Ork Mortars from Bitspudlo

 A while back I went looking to fill a gap in my Ork Lobbas.  I have three of the Forgeworld models magnetized to swap out between field carriages and the weapon mounts of the Gargantuan Squiggoth and I wanted another three in case I decided to use the Squiggoth and the field artillery... or just didn't feel like digging out the Squiggoth to swipe the guns for a game... anyway... I was surprised to be unable to locate them on either the Forgeworld or GW sites.

 I play a lot of legacy models and play in different editions of the game so I went looking for a replacement model and, after some sticker shock on Ebay, discovered Hexy Shop.  They carry a variety of third party conversion bits and a few complete models.  I located the Lobba replacement with a company out of Poland called Bitspudlo.  At $13.23 a pop I thought I'd give them a go.

The resin is good quality cleanly cast with sharp detail, a dry, and very paintable, surface but is a little on the brittle side and there were a few bubbles in the road wheels.  No major flaws and they fit the theme of the GW Orks with glyphs and a cobbled together appearance.

I painted them up in a state of very poor repair using the Secret Weapon rust line augmented with the GW Technicals; Ryza Rust, Tyhphus Corrosion, and Necron Compound.

All my basing supplies are packed so I'll have to base these on the other side of the house move. 







Packing up the house is going quickly now and my Ork models are all stowed so I grabbed, an about to be packed, Tinkerbell from the Twisted Game to use for scale. 

We're out house hunting so no updates for a couple of weeks... and then... I might... maybe... get one more out before everything is too packed up to continue working.

Cheers!

Raging Heroes Holy Blades All-Stars

Raging Heroes has had a few regular releases that expand on the TGG Kickstarter offerings.  Its very nice to see them working outside the massive Kickstarter format.

The Holy Blades All-Stars are a group of female Paladins that I'll use for warbands in Vanguard, Mordheim, and Frostgrave.  I'll also get a lot of mileage out of them in some RPGs, especially High Fantasy in the vein of Dragon Age.

 The Models were pretty clean and the resin has crisp detail and is just flexible enough to make handling them easy.

 The Models are very light weight and several of the more dynamically posed, the Standard Bearer in particular, were prone to falling over if the terrain was at all uneven, or the table was bumped, so I added a 1" (25mm) steel  washer to the base and now they are super stable.

 The flag staff of the Standard Bearer is holding up a huge, otherwise unsupported, banner and I'm afraid that it will eventually break during handling.  I'll probably try to replace it with a brass rod or similar if that comes to pass.

Painting wise the banner is not finished.  I'm going to add some patterning and images to it after we get on the other side of the big move.  So its mostly just concept at this point... playable but not really done!

 I experimented with a different way of doing armor and started with Tire Black (Secret Weapon) over the standard Khaki primer/white dry-brush foundation.

This was then dry-brushed with Engine Metal (Secret Weapon) and edge highlights were Necron Compound (Citadel) then lining with Tire Black thinned 50% with Glaze Medium (Vallejo).

 The rest of the color scheme is kind of traditional for warrior nuns and I viewed them as an Order of Paladins that specialized in fighting the Undead and so are equipped with a lot of tools for the consecration/reconsecration of burial grounds so that the Necromancers could be stripped of their access to the mortal remains that fuel their endless hordes.

 With that in mind there is a lot of gold on these models.  I tried to make the embroidered cloth of gold details have a different texture to the ecclesiastical tools that are meant to be metal.  To accomplish this the gold cloth is entirely non metallic while the tools etc... are done with regular metallic.

 The gold cloth is Iron Oxide dry-brushed with Sun Yellow (Reaper) while the metals are Brass Casings (Secret Weapon) washed with 50/50 Flesh Wash (Secret Weapon) and Glaze Medium then spot highlighted with Shining Gold (Citadel)

Whites are layered with the Reaper Bone Triad (Dirty Bone, Graveyard Bone, and Splintered Bone) and lined with diluted Soft Tone (Army Painter).

Lots more to do and the packing is accelerating!  I'm hoping to get some a few more Raging Heroes, Lead Adventurers, Hexy Shop, and RWBY figures done before the end... fingers crossed!

The Port House 3D Print

 I'm flinging paint at the model backlog in between bouts of pre-move prep so I have a half dozen projects in one stage or another of completion that I hope to finish before pack out.

This is The Port House from Rampage: The Lost Islands Kickstarter.  Rampage is very aggressive with releasing files and they often follow up the initial file release with some adjustments, improvement, or corrections soon after the initial offering. This is the 1.0 version of the Port House.  They have updated this, and several other models from the project, since I printed it and it seems that they have generally re-scaled the models for the more common Heroic scale.  That means that this model is a wee bit petite compared to my other buildings.  Its even a bit small compared to the Tabletop World buildings that are scaled for true 25mm.

 Since most of my games that use this style of build tend to be fantasy themed I'll imagine this as a mouseling, or gnome, building.  I'll have to do up some mouselings with timber floor bases!

Actually for gaming I probably should have moved to clear acrylic bases years ago... but I didn't... so now I'm not inclined to do so... maybe when I start a completely new army I'll give it a go but I'll otherwise keep trying to theme match the bases for the existing sets.

Gerystone and wood standard process.  I skipped out on plaster for this one and may go back and add it later... I had some print errors with this model and went with it being a bit run down.

 You can see the very wide back window area that looks like exposed wood... printer error... also some of the supports for the railing failed to survive the print and some outside wood supports and one face of each of the doors are a little fuzzy or deformed.  This was an early 'learn to print' model for me and I learned a lot.  Still, I think it'll be serviceable enough on the tabletop as part of the larger town so no need to let it go to waste!

For scale there are some Twisted minis, a couple of Lead Adventurer minis, and some Reaper Mouselings.  The other buildings that I'd like to compare it with have been packed so I'll have to do that on the other side.

 I've done a lot of the Greystone Village buildings and I'm trying some new things.  Since this building has a tile roof, instead of a wood shingle roof, I went with a variegated red tile.  It was fun to play with the color mix to get a more natural looking roof.  The rest of the Lost island buildings tend to have this tile roof so it'll be a nice addition to the wood shingle schemes I've already done.

The Greystone has been a theme here for a long time but I think the next step will be to add some variations to the stones.  I'll probably do that with the next several residences but stick with the more monochrome grey for working buildings like shops, forges, warehouses etc.. 

I've also skipped on putting magnets in this building as the magnets seem to have found themselves packed up already.  It holds together very well as is and each level is in two parts that are offset from the level below.  I'll likely put magnets in the bottom level at least just to encourage it to stay together through vigorous rotations but it seemed to spin and slide and stick together as it is so no rush on it... one more thing to remember on the other side.

 The roof tile started as an Amethyst (Secret Weapon) wash over the black base followed with a Gory Red (Reaper) Dry-brush then patch dry-brush areas... some with Phoenix Red (Reaper) and other areas with Scrofulous Brown (Vallejo). 

The printer error is also visible from the outside rear of the model as a elongated window but I just painted it to resemble wood slats and moved on.  I think it adds some character to the model!

Pack Pack
Paint Paint
Zoom Zoom!

The Order of Vampire Hunters Board Game - The rest of the Kickstarter Exclusive Hunters

The remaining eight Kickstarter Exclusive hunters are ready to pack.  I'm racing to wrap up the open projects on my desk before the big move... lots more to do!













First up are Akecheta and Samuel.  I think of these as  'ranged heavies'.  They are done mostly in earth tones and raw metals.

 The next set I think of as 'finesse melee' types. They like to get stuck in but are not relying on overpowering their enemies to win.

These are more colorful than most of the hunters.

Emma looks straight out of Vampire Hunter High with the rising sun tee and pink sneakers.

Daniel Stoica was the first Kickstarter Exclusive Hunter and its unclear whether or not the rest will be seen at retail.  I hope so because there are a lot of cool archetypes that will otherwise be few and far between. Daniel is the Samurai-esque Hunter that is done in emerald and saffron.

 Isabella is a Conquistador themed hunter that seems wildly out of time... Who knew that Vampire Hunters tended towards cosplay!

Painting her reminded me of a buccaneer themed Ogre Kingdoms army I painted that featured various colorful, usually striped pants/pantaloons.













The last set of hunters is Jean-Louis, Bram, and Billy-Bob.

Jean-Louis looks like he caught the Time-ship during the Napoleonic era although closer inspection revealed that some vampire sourced bits have augmented his uniform.

Bram is a classic tough guy hunter in an armored duster while Billy-Bob is a bruiser with electrically augmented boxing spikes.

Finally I'm taking a moment to remember a friend who passed away yesterday.

Rich was a great friend and a genuinely fun guy to be around.  He very much inspired me to keep the ogre pants theme going for an entire Ogre Kingdoms army some years ago. His jovial good nature, quick wit, and constant encouragement made that project very special indeed.  We ever-after greeted and made our farewells with shouted OGRE PANTS!  Farewell Rich, I'll see you on the other side.

 RIP OGRE PANTS!