BEHOLD...... CHEESEGRAVE!

My oldest son has been seduced big time by Frostgrave...we haven't played a game yet (my fault) but he has constructed an entire board of ruined buildings off his own bat, both scratchbuilt and purchased. I'll be posting a picture of these soon, but in the meantime let me introduce my warband.

Professor Grunkasse we have met BEFORE, he of the lunar head. The Professor is an elementalist, but an elementalist with a difference. He believes there is a fifth element as yet proven to be one of the essential components of the world....... CHEESE! In his lighthouse on the east coast of Gonchovia, the Prof. has been labouring to find a source of the rarest cheese in the world.... Greencheese , or Mooncheese. It is known that the moon is made of this rare substance and he believes that if he can find a supply on terra firma he will be able to prove his theories and become the first and greatest cheesomancer the world has seen. Legends whisper of  a lost city that lies in a hidden valley somewhere in the not noticed mountains between the lands of the Pewter Moon dwarves and those of the Wild Woods of the Owl Elves. The city of Grasslichauch was famed for it's fromagers who it is believed had a way of duplicating the subtle textures of Mooncheese. Professor Grunkasse believes that somewhere in the city he will find a supply and so set himself on the path to cheese glory.

The Prof. usually allies with the Pewter Moon dwarves, but they are reluctant to enter the city of Grasslichauch which they believe to be under the thrall of the Crimson King. So he has assembled a band of followers, all eager for a slice of cheese. You may notice that all items that are usually metal are in fact fashioned from hardened green cheese. This avoids metallurgic reactions with any of the Professors spells.

Here is Grunkasse again, with his apprentice Rennet. Rennet is eager to learn the mysteries of Elementalism and carries a hefty cheeseknife at all times.

The Earl of Jarlsburg on the right (templar) and his brother Balaton (barbarian).

the shifty brothers Cam and Bert (thug and thief)

Boursin, the trusty crossbowman

and the treasure tokens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lots of lovely cheese for the adventurers to find among the ruins.

unless others get there first. Son 1  is assembling a rattish warband, perhaps based on the rats in The Box of Delights.

One of my signatures, I often have a random hand sticking out of the ground.

More cheeses!.

The figures are Citadel and Asgard, and the cheeses from a dolls house supplier on ebay.

PEWTER MOON DWARVES

It's been ages since I posted any figures, but I haven't been idle. Amazingly I stuck long enough at a project to actually complete it (well, almost complete it). I was thinking about doing some new fantasy stuff, but in bite size chunks, so fell back on that great rule set, Hordes of the Things. Half the fun of these rules is planning your army, and trying to incorporate all the figures you want to use into 24 points. Inevitably I ended up painting  more than I needed, as well as some figures to use with the army when playing another ruleset.

Here we have then, the Pewter Moon Dwarves, implacable enemies of the Crimson King, they dwell in lighthouses and granite castles along the Northern coasts of Gonchovia. The dwarves hold the great alchemist and conjuror Professor Grunkasse in high esteem, possibly because his head is moon shaped (or does he wear a warmask to aid his spells?)

(picked this guy up in a dumpbin at a show. He was missing a hand so I added a plastic zombie hand an an old Rafm staff). 

Pride of the army are the Walrus knights, 6 HOTT knight elements in total.

(I've had these guys in mind for years now, so it's nice to finally realise the idea. Cheap EM-4 plastic dwarves off ebay riding Britains walrus also from ebay. The walrus medallions are GW shields with moon device on them and the flagpole moons are plastic beads.....from ebay. Each figure cost about £1.20 in total).

The footslogging infantry are 6 blade elements, with 2 extra to make a unit of 20 for other games

(again plastic EM-4 figures with Milliput cloaks)

A Hero Jasper Brummbar mounted on his faithful steed, and 2 Beast elements, the singing bears of Norrin

(Brummbar is a Reaper figure, and the singing bears are plastic ebay finds)

2 Behemoth elements in the form of  hairy Struppigs with howdahs. As well as the Pewter Moon, the howdahs bear the Sunchild device of their allies.

(plastic Star Wars beasts from a dump bin with EM-4 Dwarf crossbows in the scratch built howdahs)

To defend the army from frequent aerial attacks from the Owls of Lord Aluco (an ally of the Crimson King) the dwarves often field a unit of pikes (not for use with HOTT)

The whole army in array

There are more forces to follow for this campaign. Owl worshippers, Ice Gypsies and of course the Court of the Crimson King.

I really enjoyed banging these out, and spent little time on overshading, relying on loads of washes from GW and Army Painter (the latter are really good).If I missed a bit, or went over a boundary with the paint I just carried on regardless. In recent years I've been a bit pedantic with my brush, resulting in minimal amounts of painting being done and boredom with a project before completion. 

Apropos the last comment, I realised why my Thistlewood project ground to a halt. It was the bases which were dull and drab. So I'm going to redo them using Tetrion filler as above but washed green. This is how I (and all my gaming mates) used to do our bases in the early 1980's, so they are suitable old school in appearance.

I've recently linked up with a gaming buddy (Von Trinkenessen) from those days  (and we are planning a few games of Prehammer (we used to use WRG Renaissance rules for our fantasy games), so I am really looking forward to seeing his armies again after 30 years, and trouncing them.