Company advance!

As part of the Monthly WiP thread on the One Ring, I decided to paint up 8 Easterlings with Spears and Shields (80 points exactly for SBG), which is conveniently a company of Easterlings with Pikes (35 points for WotR). I believe that I'm also the first to have finished for the month (for the second month running!) and only have another 3 with spears left to paint :D

Fuel for the fire

Well, I actually have managed to get some more models done, so have a few pictures. In addition, I managed to find my list of what I currently owned and how many I needed, but it needed updating, as I've said before - unfortunately, although I went through all of the models, I didn't find the time today to take pictures of them in massed ranks: still, I have less than a dozen non-cavalry left to paint up (which are likely to be my next entry for the WiP Community thread), so you'll soon get to see everything i have and ALL of it in paint!

Without further ado, a list of what I have and how many more are needed:

Pikes: Total needed - 64 (62 with the command choices), Have - 25 (11 unpainted), Need to get - 37-39 more.

Swords: Total needed - 64, Have - 23 (1 unpainted), Need to get - 41 more.

Bows: Total needed - 48, Have - 23, Need to get - 25 more.

Steeds: Total needed - 12 (11 with the command choice, although it will likely include a conversion), Have - 5 (3 riders unpainted, 1 overall needing stripping/painting), Need to get - 6-7 more.

A few more bite the dust!

Well, I've taken over a week to actually get these pictures onto my laptop, let alone poste dup onto the blog, which was further set back by a meeting I had over the weekend in Manchester (as awesome as it was :D ).

Anyhow, apologies for being late (I say that far too often!), but it is all here! A test run of an Easterling Kataphrakt rider, as well as having completed a few more standard Easterling warriors. So, hee's the overall effect of my Easterling Kataphrakt: any thoughts or comments? Yet to see how it works on a Desert Yellow Steed though, but I feel less iffy about the hoof colour now, which is good - still comments/criticisms are always welcome!

It's not just the models shown that I completed though: I also managed to do the legs for the other horses (which are pictured in previous blog entries), even though I've not started on the riders.

I know that I said I would post pictures of the whole army so far and maybe an army list, probably a count up of how many I have and how many are left to go, but I haven't had the time, the lighting, nor the space to do so. Still, it's likely to be done in the next few weeks!

Another piece of tiny news!

Sorry all, I got sidetracked this time around by The One Ring's community WiP challenge, which I entered with my Dwarfs. You can find out more info over on http://minesandmodels.blogspot.com/

Anyway, on to Easterling/Rhunish news! As I said, this is something quite minor to you guys, but it's of great benefit to me. I can't actually find my army list (the one that I'm planning this army to) because it's a sheet of paper and we've had a couple of tidy-ups since then (I won't have thrown it away, it's just I don't know which location it's ended up in).

That sound slike bad news, which it kinda is (but at least I have it somewhere!). However, the good news is that I found something that I've been looking for for a while: I found my list of how many Easterlings I have (specified by weapons etc), how many I need overall and how many until I reach that goal. Unfortunately, it's a little out of date because I have since obtained a couple of sprues, a few randoms and a lot of a dozen or so metals.

Once again, that will be time-consuming for me to count them all out again and then update the list (probably stick it on my computer as well), but it has the advantage of me thinking "I might as well use it to finally get the 'army so far' shot that I've been wanting to take for a while".

So, that's something to look forward to! Until then, here's a couple of pictures of a prototype Pink Horror of Tzeentch that I came up with (Skull White, then Leviathan Purple all over, Ultramarines Blue tentacles, Golden Yellow eyes/glow, Ice Blue flames/sucker-finger hols with Tentacle Pink flame-tips, Fortress Grey nails/teeth, Chaos Black tongue [with 'Ardocat Varnish on top], Dwarf Flesh "inside horror", Scorched Brown base).

Tiny update!

Apologies to all for not having posted for a while. I got a bit sidetracked with Chaos Dwarf Radio (which can be found here: http://www.chaos-dwarfs.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=8076 ) and, more recently, auditions, as well as a miniseries for Chaos Dwarf Radio based around Chaos Dwarfs in 8th edition.

I have done a little work on my Easterlings. I collected up my metals and snipped off the flash and I have now spray painted them. Within this were: 4 plastic pikemen, 7 metal pikemen, 3 metal swordsmen, 4 riders and 2 horse legs (lol).

Next step is to take pictures and paint them. I also have a sprayed sprue, missing one or two to paint. I'm thinking that I might get some more bog-standard guys done (the 4 plastics at least, maybe the sprue as well) to get the bulk of what's left done and then do the riders as a treat to you all for putting up with largely the same pictures (excepting the recent horses).

Then you get to see the riders on their horses (and I'll do their legs at the same time, although I seem to have misplaced one). The following update would be the metals and then I will take a group shot of everything and see how it all looks.

Not sure when I got them done, but I completed two (I think) metal pikemen a while ago as well.

Might need a character for the army soon, lol. I did bid on a standard bearer recently, but somebody sniped me on it after 3 days of winning!

Tally ho!

Only a slight update for now. I still need to find where I left the legs (well, the three individual legs) and get them painted up and glued on, but I was just testing the paint scheme really.

Anyhow, the basic premise was to have the darker colours of the straps and tassles, with the darkness behind the gold as well, countered by the lightness of horse-skin and tails.

The colours for skin are Fortress Grey and Desert Yellow (not combined though). The straps/saddle are Scorched Brown, the hooves are Shadow Grey (although I'm still not 100% sure of it working...), tassles are Liche Pruple, the tail is Kommando Khaki (to match the spear-hafts, arrows and bows), the armour is Chaos Black with Burnsihed Gold on top and the silver armour (name has slipped my mind right now) is Chainmail.

I tried to make them fit the current paint scheme as much as possible, but feel uncertain about the overall effect. Having said that, it could be because I haven't yet added the riders and there may not be enough contrast, annoyingly. I was hoping to avoid having too much dark, since the cloth ont he warriors is all black and purple. May have to reconsider the horseflesh (as well as the hooves, which I'd usually do in Fortress Grey, but that had become a skin colour).

8 is company...

Howdy, y'all! Sorry for the delay, but was entertaining a Dutch friend for two weeks. Just sent him packing back to the Netherlands and during his flight back, managed to complete 10 more Easterlings in an hour (that's about 6 minutes each!).

I went for the simplest method I could, which was just to do a whole spure at once (still on the sprue, which allows me to get to hard to reach areas more easily and hold them still a little better too).

I managed to get four archers, four swordsmen and two spearmen completed, as well as tidying up another eight Easterlings and painting the bases of all 18! So, I managed to swell my completed (but still largely unbased) model-count by quite a lot.

All that's left (out of the ones that I own) are another company of eight spearmen, four more archers and three more swordsmen, as well as five katapharkts, although one of those needs to be stripped first.

P.S. As you may have noticed, one of the spearmen has some Chainmail missing on his shield on the diamond part), but I rectified that after taking the pictures! Here's a shot of the lot of the ones completed last night (including the ones with the slight tidy up and bases painted).

Delayed...

Hey all! Sorry for the month and a week's worth of delay, things got a little hectic (what with interviews, sorting out second stage interviews, auditions, script-readings and my girlfriend training for and starting her new job). Anyhow, I haven't really had all that much time for painting and the little bit that I did do, I haven't had time to take pictures of in daylight. So, without further ado, I have painted 8 more Easterlings (2 with spears, 2 with swords and 4 archers). As you can probably see, I haven't finished tidying them up (I did the last few bits at night and I was tired and I'd just finished gluing them after clipping them off from the frame: long story summarised, I have to paint over bits of grey plastic and sloppiness of not keeping "in the lines") and haven't done the bases. In all actuality, I've not even glued them into the bases yet :P

Anyhow, I do have some great news! I am the VERY proud and lucky owner of an eBay bid for nothing more than 4 Easterlings with sears (plastic). Why am I so pleased? Because the spearmen are always needed in larger quantities than the swordsmen and bowmen (archers are at 33% limit in SBG too!) because they allow an extra two attacks if enough are there (for SBG) or are just simply better, ignoring charge dice and giving +1F (in WotR) for 5 points! Plus, I've never seen them getting sold without being in a larger bunch of models and usually there's only one or two anyway.

As a quick note, I did tally up the models that I own (although I need to add 4 to the spearmen now, lol) and how many I needed, then worked out how many more I need. Annoyingly, when my girlfriend tidied the bedroom (whilst I was out for 11 hours to do a script reading), I ended up losing track of where I'd put it, heh. Oh well, I know that I now have 20 spearmen and a few more than that of archers and swordsmen each, as well as 5 Easterling Kataphrakts (which I forgot I'd won!), which need stripping and spraying and building. Still, I know that I need about 50 more spearmen, about the same number of swordsmen and some archers (as well as 6 or 7 more Kataphrakts) and Epic Heroes, command groups, a Mumak and such like...

Until next time, which will hopefully be sooner!

Tutorial

Well, here are my 26 Easterlings and I have sprayed them. I got a little distracted with, well, lots of things, unfortunately not Warhammer related. Anyhow, I'm going to go through my painting, step by step. First stage is to undercoat all of the models in Chaos Black. Personally, I prefer to spray them as it's quicker, less boring to do, uses up less of your paint and gives a better surface to paint on. Paints needed: Kommando Khaki, Dwarf Flesh, Chainmail, Chaos Black, Burnished Gold, Chestnut Ink and Graveyard Earth.

The first stage is to paint all of the wood in Kommando Khaki: this includes the bows, arrows and pikes. With the arrows that are in the quiver, it is best to just lightly brush the paint perpendicular to the arrows until you achieve the desired look. It's pretty much drybrushing them. This step is first as it can take a couple of coats to do: if need be, do one coat, then do the next stage and then do the second coat.

Next up, paint all of the skin in Dwarf Flesh. This inlcudes the hands and the the holes int he helmet (as they have a face inside it, after all). Don't worry too much about neatness, excpet around the Kommando Khaki, but don't paint unnecessarily messy.

The next step is the cloth, which is Liche Purple. You'll need to paint the headscarf, which comes around under the neck as well and continues down the back, and the back tabard part, which has a front part between the legs that comes down from a small downwards-pointing triangle with a blob on it. If you need a better picture, the next step should show it at another angle, which may help.

This step is only for the models with shields, but requires a deft hand or simple tidying, which will come soon. Paint Chainmail onto the shield, leaving the square, central blob (correctly, it is a "boss"), the lines running down and the curve at the top. I randomly forgot to paint the diamond that surrounds the boss, but you should (Note: I seem to have rectified this by the time I took the next picture).

This part is just tidying everything up. Chaos Black on everything that hasn't been painted so far that either has plastic showing through or where you've not quite been too tidy. This stage is important because the gold won't come out as well if it isn't on the black and because the cloth that isn't purple will remain black.

At this point, paint all of the armour, including the helmet (but not the holes with skin showing), the weapon heads (the WHOLE sword, the pike-head and the arrowhead), the quiver (holds the arrows) and the black on the shield with Burnished Gold. This may look a bit like drybrushing and you may have better results if you do a few light coats that are drybrushed, but my paint is of a consistency where I had to do two flat coats on the helmets and sword (this includes the handle) and a single coat on the armour.

Just another angle to show you the result and where to paint.

This is the last step of the model itself and is the Chestnut Ink. This goes ONLY on the tips of the weapons, so the arrowhead, the blade (only the blade) of the sword and the head of the pike. If you have difficulty locating this colour, it's because it was run out of production: I fortunately still have loads in my pot, however, those of you that don't have any, you can still buy it from Coat D'Arms (137 - Chestnut Wash).

Here you can see it on the sword blade as well. It looks beautiful on the pikes, when broken apart from the armour by the Kommando Kahki of the pike-handle. Well, in my opinion, anyway.

Lastly, paint the bases in Graveyard Earth (which I need to add another coat of) and, once done, sand or base as you wish (I plan to add sand and maybe paint it, although unsure of this or another route just yet).

Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!

To continue...

Well, since I decided to keep the last post a little shorter than I could have done, but I will carry on here. Not really very much to add in or update with here, but I had eleven Easterlings still on sprue and today I managed to receive another fifteen on sprues. To save you bothering to count, there are six pikemen (already had six painted, so I now have a company and a half. Anybody that wants to offload some pikemen, I'm ready and willing to take them!), seven swordsmen (already have eleven, so now a total of eighteen, two more than necessary for two companies, although I may dump them into the pikemen formation to bulk it out until I get some more of each) and thirteen (woah!) archers (of which I already have a dozen, so I now have enough for three companies. Although, it'll be two companies and the models to go on a Mumak [which I still need to get], which will replace the Haradrim: anybody want them when I have the funds, you can buy/trade for them ;) ). Anyhow, I have an extra twenty-siz Easterlings still on sprue and I hope to spray them tomorrow, then get to work with painting them. Then, all I will need to play small games of WotR with them is a Fallen realms Epic Hero (Amdur, Lord of Blades or Khamul the Easterling). Until next time!

Pikes & Pixels: Catching up!

Hello all and welcome to the first post of Pikes & Pixels! It's an attempt to chart the progress of my Lord of the Rings (LotR) collection and endeavours, relating to both the Strategy Battle Game (SBG) and War of the Ring (WotR) systems. (P.S. Please note that the toy dog and pink blanket in the pictures are my lovely girlfriend's :) She calls him Toto.)

To start with, it seems only fair to get up to date with my current progress.

First of all are my completed Easterling warriors, replete with pikes and shields. I have two more (still on sprue) to get done and am trying to get as many more of them as I possibly can. They are complete to gaming satisfaction for me, but I want to add sand to their bases and either leave it unpainted or paint it either Iyanden Darksun or Graveyard Earth (which is the colour of the bases and trays) or Graveyard Earth, drybrushed with Iyanden Darksun. Anyhow: one company so far, wanting to increase it to at least four! Trades will be necessary to do this ;)

Next up, we have my currently completed Easterling warriors with swords and shields. I have 5 more, but they are still on the sprue. Annoyingly, I have been wanting less of these than I do of the pikemen, but (as most of you likely already know) you get 8 in a box, but only 4 with pikes and I'm not prepared to pay the extensive amount necessary for the metals in blisters, which would give me the right numbers, but at a higher cost.

Last of the Easterlings that I have completed. 10 Easterlings with bows. Not the best archers in the world, but tough and resilient enough to make them worthwhile including (at least in WotR. I should note here that I've not played that much SBG, but am planning to try it out a bit more.) in the army list. These guys are most likely to have the first dozen end up in a Mumak, which I'll talk about in more detail later. Once more, I have 6 more on sprues still. I am undecided if I should base the ones to go in the howdah in the same style as those to be on the ground or if I should make some sort of wicker/balsa decking for them: thoughts are most welcome ;)

Lastly is the colour scheme: I undercoat the models with Chaos Black, then paint the neckerchief-style parts and tabards in Liche Purple, paint all of the armour/weapons/quivers in Burnished Gold, the skin is Dwarf Flesh, the silver on the shields is Chainmail, the wood is Kommando Khaki (the arrows are drybrushed), the bases are Graveyard Earth and, lastly, the blades and arrowheads get a wash of Chestnut Ink (no longer available at Games Workshop, but it can be bought from Coat d'Arms).

Future plans for the Easterlings: I plan to finish the 2 pikemen, 5 swordsmen and 6 archers, then base all of them with sand. I am desperately trying to trade for Khamul the Easterling and would also like Amdur, Lord of Blades. As to expanding the army, I will get some more companies of each, although I may try to trade off a large number of archers to get more desirable companies. I would also like to get some Kataphrakts, although I would like to convert them to be riding the Mahud Camel Riders' camels (giving a Kataphrakt horse to Khamul and, maybe later, a plastic Fell Beast as well), a Mumak to have some conversions and paintwork added to make it an Easterling-themed Oliphaunt, a Mordor Troll or Mordor Troll Chieftain (which I plan to convert to have a shield, a mask, the Eaterling "ears", a pike etc) to make a Rhunish troll and to get an oriental dragon (from a local pet shop) to add some armour plates and use as either a Cave Drake or Dragon of the Ancient Times. Those are just some of my ideas thus far ;)