Winter Guard Uniform colors

The default scheme for this Khador mainstay unit is rather more garish than I would prefer, especially for mere conscripts in a nation that is only just beginning to industrialize. So I decided to come up with my own color scheme, but couldn't tell which imagined colors would work best. So I painted up some test models.

It's still pretty hard to decide, but I thiiiink may favorite is the one on the right.

Note that these are not finished models in any sense. The skin, weapons and leather bits were painted quickly and sloppily for now, because this is just a uniform test.

Khador starter set painted

Got my warcaster and two warjacks done.

I gotta admit, it's weird painting sci-fi/fantasy stuff after sticking to historicals for so long. The Khador infantry should feel more natural but these big stompy robots took some getting used to. I do feel that these paint jobs are a bit on the bland side, especially for how much surface area there is, I might need to add some weathering and maybe a bit more battle damage.

Also, in retrospect it's silly that I posed the shooty warjack to be charging, while the melee specialist is just standing. Oh well.

New Project for the New Year

Hey everyone, here's a birthday present I got. Or some of it, anyway. The other two warjacks I'm leaving partially unassembled for now, so I can magnetize their arms later on.

Even if you've never read a single word about Warmachine before in your life, you can maybe tell from the commander's hat that this is the fake-Russian faction. The warjacks (i.e. the robots) are very distinct and specific to this setting, but the rest of the miniatures might occasionally show up in my historical fantasy skirmish wargaming.

Merry Christmas!

...and happy holidays, and in case I don't post again this month, happy New Year's too!

I have two new projects for the winter. One is a diorama contest entry, and the other is still secret because I don't have any good pics for it yet.

The contest basically has just three rules: Warlord minis only, no more than 20 cm in any dimension, the theme is harsh/hostile environments.

I've started a thread on their forum to document my planning and execution. I've pretty much decided I'm going to model Erik Dahlbergh and his assistants on the Baltic ice during the Great Northern War, checking the thickness to see if Karl X's army can safely perform the March Across the Belts. I'm thinking Dahlbergh himself will be a metal infantry officer, the assistant(s) will be various gun crew models, and I'll also have the dragoon horse-holder minding their mounts, and if the base isn't too crowded by then, a couple reiters keeping watch.

Unfortunately, my card is having weird issues with foreign transactions, so I don't have the miniatures I want yet. But I've been playing around with a mock-up, and 20 cm isn't a whole lot of space. This will be interesting...

Pan Twardowski

I'd hoped to feature this guy in some Halloween Mordheim, but I didn't get him done nearly in time, and now I don't have the energy to play. So here he his, famed sorcerer and alchemist, Pan Jan Twardowski. You can get the gist of this folkloric character from his wikipedia page, though it doesn't explain why he rides a chicken.

The chicken is a cheap toy from a dollar-store farm animal set, embiggened with greenstuff. I wanted to make it a specifically Polish breed, and it just so happens that there is a breed called the Polish Chicken that is quite visually striking.

The guy himself is a old GW Kislevite from the waist up (except for the sword blade and feather from Warlord plastics). His legs are from Wargames Factory's WSS plastics, with plenty of greenstuff to make the two pieces fit the weird chicken shape.

And I'd be lying if I said I didn't have help on this project from another icon of Polish culture...

Vlad Țepeș

A couple pics of my Halloween costume. If only there'd been some way to get the 12-foot sharpened pole onto the train...

Be vewwy vewwy quiet, I'm hunting witches...

Pan Blaszkowicz and his men didn't dare repeat the story of their vampire encounter at the derelict village, or at least, not while sober. But the strange smoky-green gem pieces, some bearing fragments of Latin text, demanded an explanation, and a fair market valuation if at all possible. The hussar made inquiries among noblemen, jewellers, and scholars of his acquaintance, and was eventually advised, in hushed tones with the curtains drawn, to see a certain Jan in the city of Kraków. Blaszkowicz and his men set out on their journey, unaware that their drunken tale-telling and furtive research had attracted the attention of another monster, albeit a much more human one...

Spending the night on a small farm on the way to Kraków, the Polish adventurers were ambushed by the belligerent witch-hunter Laird Tregowdy and his grim Calvinist henchmen. Surrounded by musketeers and archers, the Poles prepared to fight their way out, or face execution for their ill-defined but presumably quite grievous sins...

Poles at the farmstead

Laird Tregowdy leads from behind

face-off