CLAN OF THE JADE BAT

I finished these a while ago, but have been waiting for some free daylight time in which to photograph them. Middle son, whom we home educate, was feeling ropy today, so we scrapped lessons, and while he chilled out with Return of the Jedi, I snuck up to the attic to take some pics. These Minifigs Hobgoblins were surprisingly quick to paint, but as usual, I prevaricated about the bases for weeks. First they were painted green, to fit in with other Prehammer figures in the army, then brown, then I decided I might want to use them for old school Dungeon games (when this might happen I have no idea) so changed them to grey, which I'm not entirely happy with. I suspect they might change again. I'm not fussed about bases matching in an army, so long as they suit the figures.

To re-cap, these guys are for a reconstruction of part of an early 80's Joe Dever battle you can see here . Airfix dinosaurs, Airfix Sherwood castle parts, Minifigs and Tin Soldier crew. All available in the early 80's (pre '83 is generally my goal). 

Citadel Fantasy Tribe skeletons.

The Banner of The Crimson King, a recurring character in the odd world from inside my head.The Jade Bat Clan are in his service.  The piled heads are from the top of an old Broo standard I think. 

The Horned Skull is an Asgard ogre skull with added horns. Dave Wood  helped me out with this piece.

The badge (or mon) of the Jade Bat Clan

The Daimyo of the Jade Bat Clan, Ichiboti Tadanoi 

He carries a shield coated in dragon hide.

These are Tin Soldier samurai. The left hand standard bearer has had a head swap, but the others look quite Hobgoblinish. I think they are wearing masked helmets, but I've painted them up as faces.

The cavalry contingent. Garrison figures.

The lizards were going to be yellow, but somehow ended up orange.

Their shields sport the Jade Bat too.

Another Tin Soldier dude, mounted on a Ral Partha land dragon. This is Saiko Madasakoi

The rank and file...good old Minifigs Hobgoblins from the late 1970's. 

I painted them following the description in the Monster Manual, but also following the lead of Spooktalker, over at Belched from the Depths . I don't think I've seen figures better painted than his. Mine are pale shadows of his amazing work, but I appreciate the inspiration he gives me.

The mace warrior on the right is my favourite pose.

The entire clan in array. 

AGRIPPA AND CROW - MORDHEIM WITCHUNTERS

During the game of Frostgrave we had the other night we used my old Mordheim warbandas cultists. Originally they were witchfinders, but seem to have gone over to the dark side.

They were Agrippa and Crow, Witchsmellers Pursuivant.

The witch hunter's transport. Note the Asgard rat creeping underneath. Citadel pony and Essex cart.

The hands are from a suspected witch they forgot to unchain. Old Citadel iron maiden in the back, and Minifigs books.

Agrippa and Crow

A flagellant.

More fanatics.

Theses guys are very odd.... I'm not sure what I was thinking about when I made them.

I painted these when Mordheim first came out, but only had a couple of games. Great idea for a game, which Frostgrave has carried on from.

A GAME OF FROSTGRAVE

Well it's been a while for various reasons, none terribly exciting fortunately. My oldest son Robin (14) inveigled me into a game of Frostgrave last night which was good fun. I'm not a great fan of skirmish games in general (they all seem the same to me) but it has to be said he had done a great job making all the terrain and preparing the figures. Here are a few shots of the table and his figures

Some scratchbuilt buildings

The Liche Lord

Gothicky pillars. The dragon is from a box of cheap toys found in The Works budget shop. 

A demon floortrap (pilfered from my bits box)

Skellies, cobbled together from leftover sprues.

Robin was short of skulls, so he ingeniously used some of these extra bits.... freaky eh?

Mix of skellies. The standard bearer is a rather nice figure from Warrior miniatures.

Robin's warband. The bishop is the wizard.

More warriors.

All in all a great set up. Frostgrave has certainly captured his imagination. I'll post my old Mordheim warband next which we used as cultists in the game.

REST IN PEACE - JOE DEVER

I've not had much time to do anything over the past couple on months, let alone work our what blogger have done with my dashboard, but I've just heard the very sad news that Joe Dever has died. Mr. Dever's fantasy battles inspired me to get into fantasy wargaming more than any thing else, and I still very much hope to get my copies of his games finished in the near future. I had a feeling that he might be ill as his periodic appearance in Wargames Illustrated showed that he had lost a lot of weight and was not looking too good.

I am really quite gutted by his death, and offer my sympathies and prayers to his family and friends.

Thanks for the inspiration Joe.

OLD SCHOOL LORD OF THE RINGS PICS

 I just stumbled across these pictures on the History of the South London Warlords website which are rather fun. The first shows a Middle Earth siege underway at Salute 1980. The castle is made up of several Airfix Sherwood Castles, I have yet to ID any of the figures.

The next pic.is about 1985, and shows the SLW plugging their Middle Earth Army lists for WRG Ancient rules. I may have a copy of these somewhere, but if not must get them for my Grimoires of Yore collection. Figures are a bit far away to ID, but the scenery is rather nice.

A PREHAMMER PROJECT - JOE DEVER BATTLES

I'm sorry it's been so long since I posted....I've just been busy busy busy. A change of working hours from full time to part time employment, setting up a part time gardening business, trying (and failing) to change school for our middle son and now deciding to home educate him, along with various other time consuming issues all contributed to a lack of blogging . Fortunately I've managed to stuff in a fair amount of painting this year and am up to about 300 25-28mm figures so far.

The first part of the year was spent cracking on with my 28mm Robin of Sherwood figures for Lion Rampant, but this has ground to a halt as I wait for Rogue Miniatures to release their Gulnar and Owen of Clun figures. I'll show the finished forces when I have acquired and painted these 2 bods.

Having finished painting all my Thistlewood figures I need to arrange a grand review  and to umpire the game, but in the meantime I have embarked upon my next project, travelling even further back into the early 1980's to rebuild the armies shown in this little picture from White Dwarf 35 (November 1982).

I've burbled on about this picture before HERE , but just to recap it shows one of Joe Dever's epic battles he used to put on at shows like Dragonmeet and Games Day. I was obsessed by this tiny picture back in 1982 (remember gentle reader, we had no recourse to any pictures of fantasy figures let alone battles, other than those shown in White Dwarf, and they of course were grainy and black and white), and even went so far as to build the howdah bearing dinosaur which featured in many games before being sold off in my great fantasy purge of 1987.

Anyhow, I've identified most of the figures in the picture so far as I can, and have managed to collect them all, (or suitable substitutes). I hope to show them as they get painted and based and them assemble them into the scene shown above...... what strange pastimes we have.

To kick off with, I have rebuilt the dinosaurs, recapturing my lost youth (the models that is, not real dinosaurs), and the figures Joe put in them look like Minifigs Hobgoblins. It's difficult to see, but I reckon that's a sensible guess, and I love the models. Of course I had to collect more than just the crew, so ended up getting about 60 extras!

The Hobgoblin contingent....WIP. I'm waiting for some brass chain to affix the howdahs, a Hobgoblin (or in fact Samurai) chieftan from Tin Soldier Miniatures and some crescent moons to go atop the infantry standards.

Asgard ogre skull at the top courtesy of the ever helpful Dave Wood (aka The Dozing Dragon) who has helped me out a number of times...a perfect gent. The pva on the big standards has just been applied, the theory being it forms a flexible skin which will give a bit and prevent the paint cracking, however it seems to be "pooling" rather a lot, so I may have to go back to the drawing board. The skeletons on this and the original are from the Citadel Fantasy Tribe range. The dinosaur itself is the Airfix Ankylosaurus and the howdah a cut up Airfix Sherwood Castle. I happily found a box of spare castle bits at Warfare show in Reading a couple of years ago, so didn't have to chop up my complete castle (which will be featuring in future Prehammer games).  

I just love these chaps. They scream OLD SKOOL D&D!!!! The illustrations in the Monster Manual set the trend for Hobgoblins being Oriental for the next 10 years or more.

Some of them were in a frightful state, but I replaced a number of weapons with spare Minifigs kit (luckily I have a good supply, having been buying MF for 35 years or so), and they had a good blast with oven cleaner to spruce them up. The lack of heavy detail is a real boon to paint removal and some of the castings came up looking brand new (which was nice).

The banners will bear the device of the Bloody Bat and have a little MDF crescent moon on top. I have some very similar Hobgoblins riding lizards from Garrison Miniatures (yet to de-flash) and the shields have cast on bats, so there you go.

The generals steed (Airfix Triceratops), being whipped and prodded by spare hobgoblins. The general has yet to appear in the form of a seated Tin Soldier Samurai Lord. The little howdah, so far as I can see in the original pic. is made up of a slice of Airfix tower, so I have done the same here.

What fun. I'll hopefully get on and paint these soon and then be back to show you how things are progressing.