Orcish Kind of Magic!

Finally finished my sculpting project. This one was a joy to work on. but it took so much longer than I thought it would. As I've said in a previous post, it was great to try out sculpting faces and to actually grow mt skills. Sculpting large areas of cloth (especially free flowing) was something new as well.

So here's the Brute Shaman in all his glory from starting concept sketch to finished wizardry fiend.

And here's the finished product.

There are a few other bits and pieces that were sculpted along side this guy, but I'll be keeping them under wraps for now.

So, a year on from my original little goblin sculpt and now I've had 3 different people seek me out for actual sculpting work (You know who you are). This was never an avenue of work I thought I'd get into. I've always liked customising and converting miniatures for my own enjoyment, using spare parts and putty as filler. Eventually I started sculpting more advanced stuff like chain mail and armour plates, but always over someone else's work. I suppose this would have been the logical next step but I'm shocked at how quickly this all came about. Having said all that, I would like to thank ALL of my clients over the years for keeping me passionate about my art and providing me both with opportunity and desire to branch out into new things

Cheers

Big Shoulders and Armour Do Not Mean Space Marine.... all of the time.

Just a quick update today. I FINALLY finished the stormcast eternals and I must say, I'm rather pleased with them. I still need to finsh the chaos warriors and actually play a game with everything, but I'm eyeing up the jumbo Age of Sigmar starter set just as a painting project. It is possible that this is where it could all go wrong for me.

Enough talk of poor financial decisions! Here are photos of painted toys!

Work In Progress On ALL OF THE THINGS!!!!!

It's been a busy week and it's looking to get busier. So with that in mind, let's crack on with the post.

First up, I've nearly finished painting the Stormcasts from the AoS starter set I picked up a few weeks ago. I normally don't like painting large areas of flat armour, but these guys were not to bad. I only have a little bit to do and then I can finish off the Chaos Warriors from the set

Next up, actual work rather than procrastination. Here are few sneak peaks for an upcoming Kickstarter; An Orc Captain and Shaman along with new parts to make a banner bearer. These will form part of the expanded range for the Goblin and Brute that I sculpted a few months back.

I've really enjoyed working on the Shaman (right) because up until now I've reusing cast heads from the original sculpts of orc parts I did last year. The Shaman has been the first chance I've had to properly sculpt a head from scratch and get some real practice in. Originally he had a bit of a melon head, but I've since filed it down a bit so it looks normal... for an orc any way.

That's all I have to show for this week. Until next time.

Smashing Face With Dice! A 40k Battle Report (part 2)

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL(Turn 2)

Not looking to leave bad deeds unpunished, Mike called in the last of his Drop Pod re-enforcements. The Venerable dreadnought hit home in near centre table, glaring down the barrel of the immobilised Megadoof Wagon. Stepping out the orbital lander, the Dreadnought fired off a shot from it's Primary Weapons, but failed to deliver the final blow to the ork rockers. You really can't stop the ROCK!

On the other side of the battlefield, Mike's Marine squad advanced on the truck mounted mob that as it screeched through the ruins at break neck speed. A sustained hail of bolter fire forced the truck to hit the brakes and in it's moment of weakness the marines engaged to destroy the transport with grenades. The ork passengers were unharmed by the destruction, but were far from happy about their ride going up in smoke. It didn't matter at the stage however. My main units were all where I wanted them to be at this stage... close enough to punch the marines square in the teeth!

Meanwhile the Warboss had greatly underestimated the Emperor's Champion. Here was an opponent worth fighting and he'd ignored him favour of the physically big Centurions. Well, as the Centurions were all dead, the Warboss accepted the challenge offered by the Champion. A few brutal sword strokes left the Warboss battered, but a killing stroke glanced off the giant ork's steel skull plate. Alive, bleeding and annoyed at the ringing sound in his head, the Warboss introduced the Emperor's Champion to the nearby side of a building... repeatedly at high speed. Needless to say the Warboss won the challenge.

Behind the roaring cheers of the Warboss' supporters, the sound of over charged engines grew louder. Speeding onto the main street amongst the Marine squads on my right flank, both Buggy squadrons turned up, catching the advanced squad of Marines in a lethal crossfire. Without waiting for the dust to settle, the survivors of the wrecked truck attack. A short brawl saw the Marines wiped out by the sudden advance. The right flank was now over run by the orks.

CARNAGE WITHOUT END (turn3)

Towards the centre of the battle field, The Venerable Dreadnought realised his peril too late to counter. The Megadoof Wagon continued raining hell upon the Marines' rear ranks and the Warboss was already sizing him up for his next BIG kill. A desperate salvo of fire attempted to slow the Warboss and his remaining retinue, but the orks were upon it. A brief, but vicious assault saw the Warboss finally put down, but the Venerable Dreadnought was not lucky enough to survive either. It's hull breached and it's engines damaged, the warmachine exploded.

Out of desperation, The remain 2 Marines of the central squad attacked the buggies. Through a combination fire power and direct close combat, 1 of the ork buggies was wrecked.

Also acting out of desperation, the Space Marine Chapter Master held the main street alone. Against the mob of enraged orks, fresh from butchering the Marines' right flank, the Chapter Master stood little hope of survival. The Chapter Master died a hero. Cut down by superior numbers alone and unremembered.

What transpired in the centre of the battlefield was just as lethal. After forcing the ork mob back in the previous turn, the Assault Terminators followed the orks over the barricades. All intentions on wiping the orks out, once and for all. It was not to be! By sneaky traps, combat superiority or blind luck, the orks battered the Terminators to a man and sent the lone survivor retreating to safety of it's lander.

"THE TIME OF THE ORK IS HERE" (turn4)

The orks had captured the field, no real resistance remained at this point. Determined to make an example of as many orks as possible, the last Terminator charged back into the mob of orks responsible for the death of his squad mates, but failed to deliver on his oaths of vengeance. No sooner had the lone attacker scaled the barricades, the ork Mek, cut the Terminator in two down the middle with a huge buzz-saw. A weapon designed for carving up tanks for scrap, the Terminator was the last marine to fall.

With Five out the six objectives in ork hands, both generals dead and the orks claiming first kill, victory was very conclusively to me. Mike only had 3 empty Drop Pods and the scout team remaining in the far left corner of the battlefield. it would be safe to assume they would not want to stick around much longer as everything they saw before them was now ork territory.

END GAME

Thanks for reading. This has been the longest actual blog I've written, and it came in two parts. I will likely do more blogs like this in the future provided I can show off lots of great painted minis.

Until next time

 'Ere we go! 'Ere we go! 'Ere we go!

Big Guns and Power Armour: A 40k Battle Report (part 1)

For today's post I thought I'd give some much needed love to my 40k Ork army and roll out a battle report. The reason behind this is, for the first time in a long time, I've been able to play a mass battle game with everything on the table fully painted. Combined with the scenery, a great opponent and a few beers I was looking forward to seeing what cinematic moments arose, and whether I could still play Warhammer 40k after a year without.

A big thanks to Mike for letting me take pictures and also a massive thumbs up to his painted Black Templar army. A great paint job that made this battle a joy to play.

MISSION & DEPLOYMENT

With the board set out as a city under bombardment we set about laying our plans for conquest. 6 objective markers were put down, 3 in Mike's deployment area hidden within the ruins, and the other 3 on my half of the board slightly further up the table, 2 in ruins and the other behind a barricade.

With the table set, it was on to deployment.

Mike set up first, but had about half his army arriving via orbital drop pod so his initial set up was pretty quick. 2 ten man squads of marines were deployed close to the objectives in the ruins whilst the third objective was taken by a five man team of scouts with sniper rifles. Mike's General, The Chapter Master was also set up with the central squad of marines.

My deployment was geared around the knowledge I would be going second, but I would also need to play to my strengths i.e. Aggressive as all HELL! With that in mind, I had the Warboss and his rentinue mounted on the Megadoof Wagon set up just left of the centre building with a truck mounted mob of boys close by to act as escort. Plan was to storm up the field as fast as possible and then start causing damage to take the objectives on Mike's half of the bored. A second truck mounted mob took my right flank for the same job and then the Loota boys led by the Big Mek took up firing position in the upper floors of the central building. 3 mobs of gretchin would act as objective holders for the army. Whilst everyone else raced off across the board for a scrap, the gretchin would follow in their wake and hold ground.  I also had reserves coming on the flanks, but they wouldn't appear until later in the game.

A quick rundown on the reserves, Mike would receive 2 drop pod landings in turn 1 and the final pod in turn 2. So I had a fair bit of heavy duty hitter to look forward to in the form of (left to right) 5 man squad of Assault Terminators, 3 Centurions led by the Emperor's Champion and a Venerable Dreadnought.

My own reserves, though not as heavy duty, made up for this in speed and outflanking positions. I wouldn't get the 2 buggy squadrons until turn 2 or later as they would be turning up randomly, but when they did I was looking forward to seeing some wreck marine formations.

OPENING SALVOS(turn1)

Mike's drop pods hit home right in front of my lines, it looked like Mike was going to bring the fight to me, which suited me just fine. The Assault Terminators land just off centre looking to take the barricades and the objective situated there. On my left flank, the drop pod containing the centurions scattered from its intended centre target and landed amongst some other barricades, but ultimately leaving the squad exposed to counter attack.

              

Meanwhile, across the battlefield, the 2 squads of marines advanced away from their claimed objectives with eyes to take the objectives further in to the city. This did leave the central squad dangerously exposed however,  clearly Mike had plans about removing my big guns before I had a chance to use them.

This was not to be.  A severe salvo from the Centurion Grav weaponry crippled the Megadoof Wagon almost instantly, but the band kept playing and the Wagon survived though now it was immobilised so it wasn't going anywhere. Then again, it didn't need to as it had already lined up it's first shot...

Concentrated fire from the snipers and the marine squads attempted to knock out a few Loota boys, but the crafty ork heavy weapon boys were dug in deep. The ample cover provided by the building the orks were in meant that even a direct hit from the Chapter Master's ordered orbital strike didn't kill a single ork.

The orks laughed off the worst of the marines' fire power and now threw their own in response. The truck mob on my right flank hit the nitro and pelted up the street towards the marines' forward position.

Next up were the escort truck boys. Seeing the Megadoof Wagon's suspension crack and drop like 250 ton of armoured brick, the boys decided they didn't want to be anywhere near the Warboss when he got out of there and started looking for someone to blame. Instead the boys leapt off the speeding truck and charged the Assault Terminators. Despite a hailstorm of bullets, broken bottles and low yield explosives, the Terminator squad held their ground, locked shields and took the charge.

Having had his ride crippled, the Warboss was out for blood, even if he had to walk across the street to get it. Bailing out of the Megadoof Wagon, the Warboss and his bodyguard barrelled towards the Centurions for revenge. The Warboss' squad took casualties from incoming fire, but was certain the Centurions never fired a shot. Glaring back, it appeared that the Big Mek was responsible for the freak friendly fire accident.

Despite their unexpected losses, the Brute squad of orks, led by the Warboss, hit home against the Centurions like a meteor. The Warboss brushed past a challenge presented by the Emperor's Champion, thinking the smaller marine unworthy of his time. Savouring the prospect of a bigger kill. Out classed by shear brute force, the Centurions were cut down, but the Champion held his ground against the remaining orks, carving up several of the Brutes and staring down the Warboss.

Dragons, Trolls and Sig-marines! Oh My!

It's been a long time since I posted anything traditional. Most of the last few weeks have been dedicated to sculpting or preparation for the local store's Game of Thrones campaign. (by the way, being hand of the king in this campaign is generally a bad thing and I've had 2 weeks at the job already.)

So now that those projects are done, it's time for some good ol' watercolour paintings. Once again these are from the up coming Cakebread and Walton production Winter of the World RPG, which after handing these paintings in, I have been informed will be ready very soon.

And finally, it wouldn't be a Grinning Loon update without some form of procrastination thrown in the mix. So here are a few chunky monkies from GW's Storm of Sigmar box set. I dropped off playing Warhammer when Age of Sigmar was released, but the models were still really cool looking. Recent rules updates have given me an interest in trying AoS a second time and the Storm of Sigmar box was a bargain starting off point. £20 for a dozen minis, rule book and dice is a bargain way to get into a game compared to the normal AoS starter set which rocks up at the £60(ish) mark. Anyway, unpaid product review aside, here's the work in progress on the Chaos Warriors and Sig-marines from the box. should have them finished next post.