Project: Lewis chessmen as statues and a chess set.

For a long time I’m a fan of the Lewis chessmen. I’m not a chess fan but since seeing the figures the first time in Edinburgh they somehow got to me. Also seen the large collection in London and went back to Edinburgh to see them again there. So whenever in the neighborhood I took the opportunity to view them.

Since then I also bought some memorabilia in the museum shops like a key chain. The Lewis chessmen are always around somewhere. What particularly got to me is the funny expression the faces have and the cool poses that exist (especially the figure biting his shield!).

I won’t go into detail on their origin since books are written around the subject. Suffice to say they are chess pieces from the 12th/13th century carved from (whale)bone and have Scandinavian roots.



Now and then I was looking at a replica chess set of the Lewis chessmen, but somehow they are just overpriced and not that cool looking. This until … I found there are moulds for the Lewis chessmen! Cast your own, paint your own and go crazy! How cool is that! It fits nicely in the range of casting Hirst Arts bricks and build your own scenery.

Received the moulds and started casting away. It’s a bit different from casting bricks but not that different. The “miniatures” look great! They are a nice size and have good texture and detail.



The first set of casts are test pieces for me to see how to paint them. Originally the pieces are carved from bone or have an ivory look. Painting bone on a small scale is no prob, so on this scale it should pose no problems. Only difficulty here is the fact that you want a “black” and “white” set. The white is taken care of with the ivory/bone look. It seems that originally one side was painted with some red dye in the 12th century. I might do a test with first painting a piece ivory and then go over it with red. What also may be cool is to have a full white and red set with gloss varnish on them.



Final ideas are of course painting the pieces looking like grey stone. Should be not too difficult with the experience painting all the buildings :).

Aside from making a great chess set the pieces are awesome for statues in our scenery! The streets need some livening up with cool statues in stone, brass and other materials. They can act as cool gatekeepers for a temple like building and they are awesome as carved statues in a rock formation. Ideas enough for these new moulds!

My stash of plaster is depleting rapidly with casting these larger moulds so order a new 23 kg bag of the stuff. I should be good for a while. I got some interest in the chess pieces as well, so who knows, I might even build a small webshop for selling the buggers.

Freaky diceroll

Last weekend we were playing a round of Mordheim (battle report yet to come!). During our game a lot of dice rolls were made. One of the dice rolls deserve special attention. It was made with the famous skull dice from games workshop and it landed exactly on one of the edges! Maybe the scenery helped a little bit, but only very little mind! We had to take a picture of it and the die remained lying on its edge quite solid.

WIP: dwarf ironbreakers, thunderers

In between Mordheim battles there is progress to made on the dwarf painting front. I just recently finished the first set of dwarf warriors. Pictures will be here soon of course, but I went on painting more dwarfs and started on 10 ironbreakers. They are maybe not the best unit to choose for WHFB but they are fluffy and the models are cool. Nice little sturdy tanks.
The paint scheme is simple here. Metal (boltgun, black wash, highlight chainmail, highlight mithril silver) is the base and then gold and copper detailing, oh and painting some beard ends sticking out of some helmets at odd angles.
I already painted one full fledge as a trial run (and as a figure for my Mordheim warband) and the shields will be blue with gold axe and metal edge.
Of course they will get the stone bases as the entire army will get. They start to look good in their metal base colors here. Already painted to with the full set of copper details. They are a pain to paint. The models are stuffed with bolts (that are copper/gold in my scheme). So three down seven to go.


Since the ironbreakers are progressing rapidly and needed to dry in between drybrush sessions, I started to clean up the thunderers and give them their chaos black spray treatment. Here they are lined up as they will be in battle. Here two of the thunderers are already painted since they were needed in the Mordheim warband. Only 8 to go here, but they have a lot of detail and equipment to paint individually. The total paintscheme will be a lot of leather clothing and the equipment carried by the thunderers that is mostly tools for loading their handguns, metal and copper. The shells they are carrying will be bright red and the handguns metal with gold ornaments.

.. and in between are doors...

Last battle we introduced rules for securing, blocking and above all smashing through doors. In our case they worked out quite fine and resulted in some hectic (and hilarious) situations!

These door rules can be found here. If you do use them, please let us know how they worked out!

BTB: Sewer Fighting

After a long drought the ground in the city of Mordheim was cracking and crumbling. Weeks of blazing sun did not much good for the dirt caked street. The river Stir was just a meager treacle through the city en the sewers were running dry. Because the ground was becoming more and more brittle some cave-ins happened in the centre part of the city. Just along one of the derelict watchtowers the grounds were split open to give entrance to the sewer system of Mordheim.
The sewers were rumored to have many a treasure but also to house hideous and dangerous creatures who eschew the light. This time of the year, the sewer system should contain many a wyrd-egg. The cave-in and the presence of the eggs was an ideal scenario for some warbands to get down there and start up a fight.
In this case four warbands flocked to sewers and got stuck in.
- A band of Halflings was making their debut in Mordheim. Roaming the countryside they were pulled towards Mordheim for fame and riches.
- A group of undead was slithering through the filthy sewers as well. Common place for these night dwellers and therefore no surprise they were present.
- Possessed are always present if a slimy egg or two can be found. If running through some sewers is what it takes, they don’t mind.
- Last but not least the dwarf treasurehunters found their way to a sewer entrance. Cave fighting and underground navigation being one of their specialties, this was going to be an easy job.

Before entering the sewers all warbands were equipping themselves with lanterns or trusting on night vision and familiarity with dark tunnels. Some of the Halflings were stumbling about a bit. The one with the lantern was having a lot of difficulty with the dark surroundings. He was blinding himself with his own lantern. The other Halflings were faring not a lot better. Shooting range was not something to trust on this battle.
The dwarfs however were running along the sewers as if it were the long underground passageways they are used to. Detecting some slimy possessed in the distance they moved stealthily in their direction. The cunning possessed however were just luring the dwarfs in their direction only to run around a corner through a massive oak door and slamming it shut.

Now it was a game of push and shove. The massive slayers readying their shoulders for smashing through the door, got little resistance of the tiny possessed. The door smashed in a and the onslaught began: shyshy and two plague bearers got the full taste of dwarf axes. The dwarfs already familiar with the possessed were wondering where flyface son of flyface was. Was he still suffering from the bellywound he took last battle?

While all this rummaging around was going on one side of the sewers, the other side was getting crowded with Halflings and undead. The Halflings found their way through one sewer only to encounter the beasts of the dark. Some zombies were blocking the way. Shooting is the thing of Halflings and in this case it was shooting at very close range at the mass of rotting flesh before them. A couple of ghouls went down eventually, the Halflings were holding their ground greatly against the undead.

The fighting between the dwarfs and the possessed was taking a gruesome turn when the dwarf engineer went down and the dwarf noble with 2 slayers had the greatest difficulty of getting shyshy out of the way. What luck that flyface son of flyface was not present due to his bellywound.
After fighting in the sewers the dwarfs went above ground in the watchtower to search for treasure. The cunning possessed that were not luring the dwarfs to closed doors were already above ground to search through the ruins. They employed an ogre for some brute force, not counting on the fearless slayers! Loki was hacking away at the ogre and after some heavy blows he split the ogre in two! What a massacre!

The rest of the possessed were weighing heavy on the bloodied dwarfs. It was time for the dwarfs to take their treasure and make for the tunnels again to shake of the pesky possessed.
It was a good evening for a good fight. If only flyface son of flyface could have been present, but he was suffering from a bellywound…


Did I mention that flyface son of flyface had bellywound and did not take part in this battle…?

Battle at the market square

A blizzard had just reached the town when the possessed warband moved out, heading the old market square. Sight was limited and every now and then a hailstorm as big as a dragons eye hit the ruins through which they stalked. As the warriors reached the outskirts of the deserted plaza, moving figures could be seen in the distance.


"We're not alone, my lord" rattled Frogface pointing at a small couch that was entering the square. "over there, a dwarven baggage train". "I'm not surprised" hissed the leader riding his ragged chaos steed "papa Nurgle has lead us not only to some treasure, but has given us a way to show our gratitude as well. You two, come with me, we've got to forestall these dwarf heading for the tower!" Nurgly the possessed leader drove his steed towards the tower, both (true) possessed, Ticky and ShyShy, joining him. The other, slower part of the warband headed to the other corner of the square, keen to find treasures and trouble.


The blizzard worsened and one of the Plaguebearers got hit, knocking him down the floor. Cries in the distance indicated that other creatures were hit as well, not only dwarfs were contesting this market square, some Orcs were there as well... All of a sudden the fallen behind treasure seeking henchmen (the who?) spotted a dark shape closing in on them. A wandering champion of Tchar was approaching them. Flyface and Frogface did not hesitate and charged in, together with a group of Plaguebearers and henchmen.


Nurgly and his two bodyguard had followed a small group of dwarfs to the remains of a small tower. The dwarfs took some shots at them, but could not prevent that they reached the stairs. Nurgly dismounted and sent his steed towards the group fighting the chaos champion.



To make matters even worse for the thunderers, a diseased wolf disturbed by the sound of their guns, attacked them from the rear. As they were fighting this animal, Ticky, ShyShy and Nurgly charged into the fight. Though both dwarfs and wolf put up some strong resistance, they were eventually taken down by the worshippers of Nurgle.


However, when Nurgly looked up from the remains of his mutilated opponents, the view he got from the tower made him furious. The champion of Tchar was still standing, fighting off the group henchmen now led by Frogface, as Flyface was already taken out of action by the follower of a false god. In the middle the treasure rich market square was taken over by a large group of dwarfs. The orc warband was nowhere to be seen, but cut off goblin and orc heads carried by the slayers gave a hint to what had happened to that warband. The dwarfs were now heading for a small group of Darksouls scouting carrying chests found in the ruins. They would not be able to outrun the dwarfs!




Nurgly wasted no time and ran off the stairs towards his threatened minions. He rushed Ticky to join the struggle between the Darksouls and the Slayers. Nevertheless they were outnumbered and the number of casualties was rising fast. All hope was not lost though, as a Plaguebearer finally managed to finish off the champion of Tchar. The survivors of that skirmish could reinforce the warriors fighting the dwarfs. If only they would make it in time...


While the central clash on the market square raged on, the dwarf leader and a minion were using a wagon to carry off their finds to safety. The wagon was rolling along the former carriage road right below the tower on top of which ShyShy was still lurking. The possessed dived down, charging the wagon only to scratch the side. The dwarfish driver looked back, bewildered, but the wagon could not be stopped and managed to get through.


As the possessed was still looking at the leaving wagon, it was charged by the leader of the dwarven warband himself. A brutal fight broke out, and both warriors were soon down to their last wound. However, this time it was the dwarf who got the best of it and the possessed was struck down by his hammer.


The battle at the square on the other hand was not going that well for the dwarfs. The tide had turned now more and more chaos worshipers were joining the skirmish and Nurgly and Ticky were still holding on. Slayers and rank and file were knocked down and taken out and the square was swept free of the persistent warriors.


After the last dwarf had fallen, Nurgly glanced around, noticing only a small core of his warriors was standing around him. The toll for this victory was high! Suddenly he heard a strange hymn and he turned his head towards it. The dwarven leader stood on the edge of the square, chanting a spontaneous dwarven song of loss, blood, honor and above all, curses and the oath to revenge. He finished this song by spitting on the street and withdrawing into the darkness.


A fire war burning in the centre of the square. Unnatural green fumes were rising from it and devilish figures could be seen dancing around or hovering above. Nurgly sat at the center of the festival; his warband sitting around the fire, feasting off a dwarfish and orcish dish. He smiled as a he watched a group of nurglings fought for the head of a former slayer. "That battle was too close for comfort" he thought by himself. "But victory tastes so good...".

Painting dwarfs WIP

Painting the dwarf warriors is taking me forever. I'm doing too much detail apparantly and too much side projects I think. Now I got distracted by painting a dwarf thunderer for my dwarf warband for Mordheim. I hired a new gunman and this has to be represented by a painted fellow of course. Well here is the marksman almost ready. When my dwarf warriors finish I'll do a good photo report with proper lighting and whatnot.




So painting dwarf warriors eh...yep...well...it's progressing...slowly. I took some pics on various stages during the process. Maybe it's taking a lot of time because I'm painting all 16 at once. Usually I paint up to 5 figures at the same time.

The advantage for painting the dwarf warriors is that they are very coherent. When I paint flesh, it's the same for all since I don't have to remember what color combo's I used for the previous 5 for example.

The entire colorscheme is done for all dwarf warriors and you get to see directly how colors work on the group. On the offside, painting 16 faces, 4 or five highlights after each other is getting a bit tedious after a while.

What is the plan for the dwarfs? I chose to paint 3 different beard styles: yellow, brown/orange and black grey. For the coats I took beige and red. 8 guys have the red coats and 8 the beige ones. Metal is metal and will be done with brass and gold accents and the leather pouches and boots will be done the same for all.
I'll leave you with the final pic of my WIP and hopefully can make you guys happy with a final photo session very soon.