Modelling day

Autumn is making the days grow shorter, colder and wetter outside. This means we have to entertain ourselves inside with a day of modelling. I've been casting me new Hirst arts moulds to create a big pile of building blocks after the inn project. With this in place Hans and Ludo had time to come over for a day of building buildings. They wanted to get a go at these new building blocks and when it results in more buildings for our Mordheim games, that is a good thing!

I set up the table with all bulding blocks sorted in small boxes, put out the glue, paint, sawed some MDF bases and we were good to go. We started before noon playing around with all the blocks before glueing them into a building

Hans started maybe 3 concept buildings and destroyed them all before really deciding on building a church like ruined building. Ludo was very creative with a mosaic flooring and a nice wooden lid outside that could be an entrance to a basement of some sort.

Myself I started a project for 3 storage houses that can be put next to each other as a block of houses but also apart be separate buildings. The idea is that the centre building has 3 walls and that the left and right wall act as a wall for the other storage houses if put together. The left and right storeage house will have then only 2 major walls and act as real ruins once put by themselves on the battlefield. The 3 buildings will have a small pavement at the front and very small allyway like road at the back. Today it was the centre building I'd be working on.

I made some sketches first so building is easier. Building out of the blue is somewhat difficult because you have to build the entire concept or idea without glue first to check if it will work. And building 'dry' is very unstable :) and will get you started anew some times :).
We were using a goblin shaman as a test miniature to check the buildings sizes, windows position, etc. He will be posing in some of the pictures in this post (a real celebrity you might say :) ).

Hans decided on building a church like structure with some open walls for good playability.

No wooden flooring was needed here, but some wooden benches for this curch were made with the latches from one of the moulds. Ludo also used this concept for putting up some benches against the wall in his building. Cool concept looking good in both buildings I'd say.

My building was coming together nicely and with 3 stories high not a small building. Here you can see the concept with twoo wooden floors and both Hans and Ludo concentrated at work.

Ludo decided it would be a good idea to have nails in the flooring and started hammering away on his paint mixing tile.

The sounds were like he was hitting through the tile but nothing broke and the result is a very nice looking building here.

Some details on the curch benches here. Simple concept but coming together nicely in the church building. Keep in mind when creating these kind of small features for your building not to glue them in place before painting.

It will look like the following picature when finished but you can see here that painting this when everyting is glued together will be a nightmare if not impossible.

We did not get to painting yet after a day playing around with the plaster building blocks but the final result looks good! The concept of modular buildings that fit together (base size wise) is proving to work as you can see in this final picture. This will conclude this post of the modelling day that was relaxing, fun, productive, creative and something we will definitely repeat.
Of course the finished products will be shown here on your Mordheim building scenery blog! :)

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 3

The final stage of the first Mordheim building using the Hirts Arts moulds is done! The building is actually finished and it looks great! What are the final steps towards the final product? Let me reveal you the secrets.
In the last post you could see the actual building finished. Highilghting done and the stony look was there. I finished the wooden flooring and added moss and weeds to the building. Also one of the citadel trees had its place on the building board. The tree can be removed and a simple square can be put over the hole to look like a well if needed. Modulare gaming table building in effect here.
The size of the inn is the biggest square for a game board piece I wanted. The finished building can now be used as a centrepiece of some sort. Other buildings will be a third in size and roads can be made in a similar fashion. I will post on the concept in future posts when new buildings and roads will be built. In that way you can see a gaming table be born :)
Anyway a picture of the final result and this one includes already what are the next projects of which a new post will talk about more.

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 2

The inn layout had originally only one floor and the roof floor. For the Mordheim building I added an extra floor to give it some height. Actually now it became 3 stories high.
I bought some water based paint and diluted the black down with water so it coveres the tiles nicely in all ridges cracks. This took some time and in two sessions I painted the entire piece nice and black.

If you look closely you can still see seems of white of the stones where the paint didn't cover but only so little. I hope this will be covered or out of sight when the stones are highlighted.
Which brings me to the next stage. The first highlight was applied with a dark grey. I'm using large brushes now (size 14 and up and also a large flat broad one). This was done realy quickly actually and a great result directly. I also wanted to apply a second highlight with a light grey to give the stones some depth and wear and tear look.
This was even quicker since only the windows and door and edges were concerned here. I added some more light grey to the flooring as well since that looked better.



The only things to do now is paint the beams dark brown and add flooring. The beams were a bit of a mistake to add directly in this building because painting became very difficult there. On the other hand it gives the building a nice and sound rigidity directly. WIth so high walls this was good to have already. I think for smaller buildings with less beams it wouldn't matter, but it is gooed to keep in mind.
The flooring I will build and fit but not yet glue in place. There painting will also be very difficult. Maybe the flooring will stay loose as an addon, so you can change here with the layout of a building, who knows. Add a couple of ladders and all. It will be good!
New small build projects now have started: small planters, a well, small wall sections, all moveable stuff to putt on the table and to fill our city of Mordheim.

The Great Library

Last night it was carnage and mayhem in the City of Mordheim. The north east quarter of Mordheim housed once the Great Library. Under count Ignatius Steinhardt it grew to considerable size, containing knowledge unrivalled in Marienburg. Since the comet plummeted into the library, all the mystical and religious tomes, Deamonic and Necromantic lore was scattered through the ruins.
Yesterday night was a night to search through the ruins to look out for gold and long forgotten lore. A Slayer warband calling themselves TreasureDoom got word of activity in the area of the ruined Great Library. It was becoming a night to seek doom and gold (not particularly in that order!).
TreasureDoom consists of a Giant Slayer that once started seeking its doom in Mordheim. Two trollslayers already in Mordheim seeking larger creatures still (and the prospect of finding some glitter, gems and old golden artifacts) cought up with him. They hoped to attrackt greater greatures that will help settle their slayer oath. Eventually a large trollslayer with a huge doublehanded axe entered Mordheim seeking a mighty death and looking out for some lost rune weapons that supposably are buried under the ruins of Mordheim. He joined the venturing slayers and TreasureDoom was born. Since some gold to be gathered is always nice and finding your doom in the process can be seen as an added bonus.
TreasureDoom ventured Mordheim for some time and a dwarf clansman and his apprentice were the slayers in Mordheim. The dwarf was an old engineer seeking the old plans of ancient dwarf inventions stored in Mordheim before the comet fell. The two clansmen joined the slayers to complete TreasureDoom for now.

The warband ventured out to the ruins of the great library on this busy night. In the gloom the area sparked with loose magic of old tomes and shrapnel of weirdstone that mutated some old spells on scrolls. Other sounds could be heard in these ruins and the keen hearing of dwarfs quickly made out that also a band of orks, an incoherent bunch of undead, pirates that just boarded Mordheim, an other group of dwarfs (treasurehunters most likely) and some pesky fidly elves were also present.
After the first sounds of battle where some pirates started brawling the sky grew even more dim and a thick fog descended over Mordheim. Only inches of sight were there, with some clear spots when some wind parted the thick alien fog for a brief moment. This didn't bode well and it was going to be a long night.

After the racket of the pirates subsided the slayers made a carefull slow move into the ruins. Ueha Fiendcrusher started for the first floor of a nearby ruined building. With his rope and hook he directly succeeded in pulling himself up to the shoddy flooring. In a corner a could make out some old scrolls that might be worth checking out. His fellow slayers slowly advanced through the rubble deeper into the area of the old library buildings.
To their left sounds of bones and dragging zombies could be heard. According to the sense of the dwarfs also a vampire was present. they should be carefull with a bloodsucker around. The other dwarfs were also carefully venturing into the ruins and it looked to the slayers they were seeking out the undead warband. Might be a good idea for now to close in from the other side.
With the thick fog in place now al of a sudden a swarm of flies joined the already soupy air. This was not good at all, with elves also chittering through the rubble it was a very bad night indeed for the dwarfs. The orcs were causing the usually disturbance since they were even squabling amongs themselves and one of the pirates jumped into an old well apparantly. He found not only an ancient scroll but also a worthy opponent. The echoes of batllesounds resounded from the well adding to the dissorientation in the fog and flies ridden air.
In front of Alri Doomfate some shadows were seen in the mist. He charged directly for his axes were thirsty. The two young pirates got a fright but recovered quickly and with cunning, low pirate tricks and sheer luck they managed to evade the axes and get some thrusts with their cutlasses and daggers in. Maybe this bold charge wasn't that smart of the giant slayer, maybe his axe was too thirsty to pay attentioned to defense. His mighty dwarf axes didn't succeed in parrying the attacks and the slayer went to the ground directly. Threachereous Mordheim claims its victims directly and anonymous in the thick fog.
Ueha is in the building searching the scrolls and since it was not the place to thoroughly go through them he tucked them in his beard for later investigation.
The air was full of sounds of batlle. The vampire had difficulty keeping himself alive and went down after finding a scroll and triggering some stray magic. The undead managed even to make the foggy flie infested air worse by picking up a scroll that started a chaotic storm with acid rain to occurr.

One of the slayers was recovering from wounds of some foul liquid he got over him earlier when searching through some old barrels (maybe containing some beer). This acid rain was not doing him well, if not it was very bad as he went down as well. Already a quarter of the warband down so soon, the slayers gritted their teeth and were now more determined then ever to avange their comrades and seek their own doom.
All around the slayers other warbands were struggling to pick up scrolls that trigger all kinds of random events. Also some warbands ran into each other. This was more cause for mayhem and carnage then the scrolls themselves. You could see warband members with a scroll hastily making their retreat of the battlefield. The slayers however heard the elves in the distance and more nearby smelled the hatefull orcs. Time to charge those greenskinned savages. The orcs were way too organised until this point. Maybe the warpstone was effecting them in a positive way for once?
As the warbands thinned down, some fled the battlefield altogether. In the end it was far beyond midnight and the only remaining in these warpstone-gone-mad ruins were the slayers and the other dwarf warband (of course) and the greenskins. After some chopping with axes even the greenskins sort of routed although with the greatest loot of scrolls.
The slayers started looking for some loot and sold the scrolls directly. In the end they left with some hefty loot in gold, just as they like it. Some casualties that must rest out the next battle but nothing gold can't compensate.

The two towers

Sometime ago I got the Warhammer watchtower as a present for my birthday (thanx to Emely and Arjen!). After the successful (re)construction of my Mordheim ruins, I wanted to use this tower as well. However, the tower in its 'normal' form is not very useful in a game of Mordheim. So I decided to open up the tower to make 'playing inside' possible.

The first option I considered was leaving one wall off or making it detachable. On inspecting the tower I found out that it's a lovely model, with lots of details and extra parts, that makes a great site/sight on the battlefield. Alas, no interior details or floors.

So I went out for some Balsa wood at the local 'Hobby Modelbouw' shop. For one reason or the other I never worked before with this material, but all construction work went perfectly smoothly.

And the best idea popped up during the construction: Instead of one tower, I made two tower, each consisting of two walls of the original one. Not only did I get a 'free' extra tower, but they're more 'playable' as well.

Friday they will hopefulle make their debut in Mordheim. I hope I'll find the time to place them on a base. Painting won't be ready, there's a lot of detail on these..

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 1

It's been a month vacation that caused nothing much for me to have produced in the modelling/gaming part and therefore no need for blog posts :) But I have ordered three moulds at Hirst Arts. I ordered the following ones:
#51 Dragon's Inn Mold
#201 Floor Tiles Various Sizes
#40 Basic Block Mold

My idea was to have enough bricks for builidings as well as arches for windows and doors. Floor tiles for flooring of course but also for building streets.

I started casting the moulds with modeling plaster. I found 2 brands: Knauf and Krone.

Knauf is found at the DIY store and Krone I found in a local arts and crafts shop. The Krone is almost half as cheap but they both are not that expensive: Knauf sells at EURO 6,00 per 2,5 kilo and the Krone at EURO 2,00 per 1 kilo or EURO 6,00 per 5 kilo.
I already casted the moulds about 8 times and it seems that is enough for making a tavern or something. Now some lasts casts are done, so I have enough stock to start building.
Of course the buildings will consist of more than plaster blocks alone. I went to the DIY store and got some lengths of 10x10 mm square and 5x20 mm flat pieces of wood. Almost 3 meters in length this should give enough beams and planks for roofs and doors and floors.
Also I got a piece of 4mm MDF that should act as a base for the building. Everything should be modular so I'm going to design 2 or 3 sizes of bases. These can have either a building or a piece of street, square or other scenery for the city of Mordheim that can be built with it. The first building will be the dragons Inn tavern from the Hirst Arts website. I'm going to alter it a bit so it's open to one side and it can be used in Mordheim for fighting in and around. SInce Mordheim is a thrashed and worn down city the buildings should resemble this. The roof will be crashed in, that kind of stuff.
When going out for buying the raw materials I also came acros my local games workshop store. It had a nice boxed set of trees.

I was looking for something like that, because the Mordheim buildings should have some grown over moss, plants and trees in them as well. This box with three large gnarly trees will be just right for the purpose. Also some chains, skulls and signs are in the kit that will fit perfactly in the Mordheim scenery I'm making.

For now some more casting and the building will start! Time for me to take out the saw and cut me some beams and create the MDF base plates.

More will follow in next posts, so keep reading!

New Warband: Dwarf Slayers

New Warbands are always difficult. What to choose and when chosen a subject what will be the contents of the warband. I started playing a night goblin warband in Mordheim and I almost finished the last models for this warband. With these done I have a big set of gobbo's to create a warband and change a warband with. Final items are some bases for now.
So a new warband since we all had ideas of starting a new warband. First up for me were the dwarfs. Cool sturdy warband and something completely different then the unpredictive gobbo's. Exploring the possibilities of the dwarfs I found that the warband could contain a slayer. In a far away past I played a trollslayer in Warhammer Quest. So the slayer theme was born. Doing some investigation further I came across some sites of players that already made some experimental rules for a slayer warband. Eventueally the following rules for Slayers in Mordheim seem to fit the best.
So how will the slayer warband look like:

Giant Slayer with 2 dwarf axes
Troll Slayer 1 with 2 dwarf axes
Troll slayer 2 with a 2-handed Gromril axe
Troll slayer 3 with 1 dwarf axe
Clansman 1 with mace and shield
Clansman 2 with 2 pistols

I'm still figuring out how to equip the clansmen for this warband. I've been looking at adding only some slayers to this warband but for the story of the warband it seems better to have some followers in the form of some clansmen. In the future slayers can be added and maybe also a rememberer. Or maybe equipe the clansmen with some armour is also a nice option. Still not sure there. The SLayers also should have some tattoos and/or scars of course. With this list of dwarfs there is little gold left for that. Maybe down-equiping them and adding the tattoos might prove interesting slayers. Even thought of "scrificing" a Troll slayer for more tattoos/equipment.

The miniatures have been bought for this band: Garagrim Ironfist will be the Giant Slayer for the band and I bought the set of boxed troll slayers. Some longbeards will be the clansman and maybe a special character like the Dwarf Master Engineer with Brace of Pistols might be a nice clansman.

The bases for the dwarfs is a bit of dillema. For the gobbo's I followed the "rubble" base technique found on the web. I can't find the link again but it basically is putting some glue on the base, put stuff on it that you have lying around on your modelling area (cut of bits, sticks, etc.) put them in. Then I put them in some very fine sand and let them dry. A quick lick of black paint and highlight with graveyard earth and bleached bone for the good Mordheim city rouble street look and you're done.

For a painting schem I'm also still deliberating. We did some brainstorming on the color of the beards and crests of the slayers. I am doubting between black or the original orange. Maybe the orange will prevail and I have to come up with some cool scheme for the trousers. Still to get a more Mordheimy look and feel the dwarfs will get some more pouches and stuff (dead rats and frogs) and the odd eye patch. Some green stuff challanges there but good fun to create.

Building projects in Mordheim

Inspired by the nice series of battle we played, I've started to (re)construct the Mordheim buildings I collected over the years. The first action was to give each of them a base. Hopefully this will mean they will become a little sturdier.



The results up till now can be found here. Next step will be to paint the bases and enhance them a little with details like gravestones & such ;-)
And last but not least: Find a suitable method to store and transport them...

Paint Session Goblins (3)

It has been a while since the first stage of gobbo painting (Night gobbo painting that is). Of course I have been doing some painting in the mean time (I'm not that slow) but not always them gobbo's. The dwarf treasure hunter Morheim gang is taking shape and I found some gnoblar trappers that will do nice as cool base-additions to the existing gobbo's. Bases are still a poblem for me. I can't get the hang of finding a good theme and stick with it for the entire gang.

Anyway how are the gobbo's doing I posted earlier? My way of painting consists of doing one color at the time and if possible working it out entirely. Starting with the large surfices I work m way to the details. The large surfaces are also ideal for highlighting easy and these are the first things I did. With these night gobbo's I started with the green skin of the gobbo's and finishing it with severel highlights.
Next stage are the black clothing the night gobbo's hae. I reworked all black surfaces in a clean way. That means that I paint all items black with clean lines bordering other (future) color areas. In this way I don't have to keep reworking parts because other areas are "tainted" with the wrong color. I like clean lines here where possible. So black areas were done and I highlighted them towards a light bleue. First stage is a heavy regal blue highlight to give the night goblins the look of wearing midnight blue robes. Because wear and tear they are highlighted towards light blue and even light grey is used here.

Next up are the silver areas I started with boltgun metal painting the iron/silver parts. The iron parts will be worked upon with a black ink probably, leaving it a dark metally surface (like the pot of the night goblin shaman). The silver parts ( I like my night goblins to have lots of silvery jewelry) will be highlighted with chainmail metal (earrings, bracelets, etc.).
After this it is basically time for detailing the gobbo's This means picking out the bad moon symbols, mushrooms they are carrying, weapons, etc. I use bright colors for small items so they stand out. Also some skulls have to be done and they will be "bony" in look and feel. Starting with black dark browns, I then usually highlight them to bleached bone (in rare occasions even a final white highlight).

Multiplayer Mordheim scenario's

Incredibly but true, up till now the 'members of somegamers' show up almost all of the time when a battle is planned :-)

This resulted in lovely, bloody, multiplayer Mordheim battles. Since the orginal book does not contain that much multi (more than 2) player scenario's, we normally used the ones provided in later white dwarfs. Since my collection of Town Cryers is MIA, that source of multiplayer and other scenario's was not available.

Fortunately, all Town Cryers have been made available here! Last time we used the Gauntlet scenario found in TC 21. Good fun, deadly for my warband though.... (Thanx to Eric Johnson for writing that :-)

So, what are the candidates for the next session? Here's a list with multiplayer scenario's found in TC's:
13: the sword of the herald (requires referee)
21: the gauntlet (requires Heroquest tiles)
22: assault on the rock (SoS)
23: the bodyguards
25: blood hunt (dramatis personae), the item lost (dramatis personae)
Personally I hope we'll choose the 'body for our next battle...

Paint Session Goblins (2)

A new paint session for the gobbo's just finished. In the previous post you could see the first stage of getting the green color on the skin of the gobbo's. Now the goblins get their layers of highlights after the goblin green and green ink. A new highlight of goblin green is applied after which a transition to rotting flesh green is applied. It is finished off with a some layers towards bleached bone. This is the status right now.

Mordheim: The Gauntlet

Last sunday, the weather was hot and the game was ablazin'. What a way to start a post on the latest Mordheim game. The four of us were tricked into The Gaunlet scenario by Arjan. It looked fun up front with all the tiles in the table and the fact that we were running through corridors. Especially my gobbo's were thrilled at first to enter the maze (the squigs were almost not to be held). How did it all go then. The following is a summary of our game.
It started out all difficult with the goblin bos being a sneaky git. He could move D3 gang members on the board before anyone started. The boss himself went first on his giant squig...triggerd the first trap...gore and dead bodies dropped from the ceiling...and...the gobbo got so scared that turned on the spot and bolted back towards the entrance. He fleed directly of the board (which is quite smart considering the fact he jumped 11 inch on the board!). The orcs from Hans were lucky enough to really start the game. His orcs entered the battlefield with a lot of rummaging and directly tripped 4 traps! Bolts were flying, gore dropped from the ceiling, snares sprung nets but still they survived. A good start to explore the first inches of the dungeon.

The Nurgles are next up to enter the dungeon. The nurgles slithered on the board and ... triggered a trap (of course) ... and one of the chaos worshippers opened a pit ... dragging a total of 5 gang members into the hole! Let's see if they get out in the next turns.

The gobbo's turn where all gobbo's may enter the dungeon. They squabeled a bit on the board and because of some animosity among them Daft Wullie went into a frenzie and attacked one of his mates: Wee Bobby. In his run into Wee Bobby, he skewered him directly out of action. Also the gobbo's triggered a new terror trap but this time held their nerves.

Now it's the halflings turn. Ludo decided to leave the biggest part of his gang home. They were probably too scared to even come in the vicinity of the dungeon. Only the sergeant and a couple of halflings entered the dungeon. They are best in being stealthy enough in the dungeon and not triggering the traps! Still the halflings ran onto the field and triggered 2 traps.

2nd round started with the orcs and the nurglings triggering very little traps. The Nurgles had to climb out of the pit of course. The gobbo's sent a squig towards the halflings, but (as in other games also encountered) the halfling proved very sturdy and even though the halfling was netted by a previous trap it won the combat! One of the other gobbo's made a run for the treasure put triggered a terror trap and ran directly back again. The gobbo's were not lucky and didn't held their nerves against all this gore dropping from the ceiling.
With a relative easy round we enter the 3rd round. The Orcs were ready to move and they all did. By some miracle only one triggered a trap and ended up in a cage, which he smashed directly.
The Nurgles were recovering from the big pit and on their way towards the centre of the dungeon triggered some more traps. One of the Nurgles got caught up in a snare and another one didn't make it out of the pit yet. The plague bearer triggered a terror trap but since he was more terrifying himself there was no real issue there. A Nurgle gang member got into a fight with one of the savage orcs and exchanged some blows.
The gobbo's are up again for some action. Their leader gone meant that the other bosses were eager to show their leadership skills. They urged all gobbo's on towards the centre of the dungeon. The fanatics were in range of the enemy and were released into the ante chamber. One of the fanatics triggered a trap that sent a ball flying towards him, but since he himself is an expert in swinging a metal ball he dodged it easily. The running gobbo's triggered all traps that sent 3 cages flying down trapping 3 goblins.
The halfings turn is a bit silent. One of the pitted halfings failed to get out of the pit and the netted halfling cannot be bitten through by the squig.
We come to turn 4 where 8 savage orcs start moving and they do this so carefully (ORCS?) that no traps are triggered. The orcs are now in the treasure chamber as well and see the squigs running around. They start slinging rocks at them but 4 slingers mis all the squigs and bounce of them. In some hand to hand combat a Nurgling gets squashed.
The Nurgles are go! One gang member gets out of a pit and one still remains in his pit (he must be practicing his biceps?). The Nurgles are also in the treasure room and face green lines left and right (the savage orcs to the right and the night goblins to the left). The plague bearer gets sent towards the treasure and an abys opens that he narrowly escapes.
Within the gobbo's it is mostly cages that are battled against. They can't get out of them by the way. The 2 fanatics don't inflict wounds on the nurgle leader but also survive getting clobbered themselves. The plague bearer is still alive and even manages to kill a squig. The squigs get a hard beating this battle.
The halflings again start to shoot like madmen but the quig they target survives.

Turn 5 starts and the orcs poke each other to charge a squig. One of them can't bear the shame and heads for it and indeed kills the last squig. All gangs circle each other now in the central room and no one goes for the treasure. A lot of hand to hand combat starts among the orcs nurgles and goblins. The halflings keep their distance to survive the fray. The gobbo's get decimated and the nurgle boss gives his enemies a good pounding. One of the savage orcs is brave enough to pick up the treasure and even manages to hold on for 2 turns. The halflings only briefly sneak a peak in the treasure room and the game ends.

The orcs found some gold coins and a suite of light armour after all this carnage. What a scenario, what damage. One pro is that surviving a trap gives experience. That can end up quite good if you survive.

It's 30 degrees (outside) so let's have a battle

In about an hour we'll (hopefully) see battle again (no worries, just on the table top). Recently I found a hidden treasure on the web: A collection of scanned Town Cryers: here (A big THANX to Svenn!).

I vaguely remembered there was a scenario in the old days that made use of Heroquest tiles. Since I bought a second hand set of Heroquest (more or less complete), I am thinking/planning on combining Heroquest with Mordheim. So today, being the host of our game, I'll 'force' my companions in playing the 'Gauntlet' scenario. Hope they still like me afterwards... and hopefully they will hate my warband even more ;-)

Paint Session Goblins(1)

Recently I decided that tuesday night will be a regular painting slot. Our gamers are invited to stop by for some painting, modeling or just having some coffee and a chat about new warbands, upcoming games and whatnot. I've just finished my first tuesday evening painting and of course want to share with you the results.
For long I paint model by model. Sometimes I have severel projects going on but basically it's painting one model at a time. Now I wanted some extra models for the Wee Free Men warband, to easily switch when weapons change or extra warband members have to be hired. I also got a new (real!) night goblin shaman model from Hans that needs to be painted. Therefore with all these new models to paint, I decided to paint them together. Same stages for every model at the same time. Consistency of shading, color, highlights, inks etc. are now guaranteed basically, so actually it's quite a pre. Not too much at the same time but around 5 models will do for now. See how this will work out.
Current stage for all models is that they have a base coat of goblin green where needed (face, arms and legs) and a black layer on all things clothes related. Some parts where dark shading is needed I also aplied a bit of chaos black. For all Goblin Green parts I inked the creases with dark green ink. Now they can dry and the next time I'll (highlight) a new layer of Goblin Green to have nice tight dark green edges and deeper areas. After that I'll highlight the green parts up until almost white edges.
What are the results for today then! Okay, here they come.

First up these 3 guys, they are from left to right: a snotling modelled to hold a big mushroom (only black undercoated for now), A night goblin holding a spear and another night goblin holding a spear (also modelled an arrow through its hat!)

In the centre of this picture you'll see a night goblin champion. I removed the shield holder on its left hand and remodelled the hand again.

How cool is this project! It's of course a squig standing on half a goblin. Modelled the squig so its leg could actually stand on the head of the gobbo. The gobbo is half dismemberred and notice the foot standing beside the model. That will eventually stick out from between the teeth of this squig. How vicious and evil can a squig look eh!

This is the night goblin shaman I was talking about. First stage of painting obviously. He will probably get a couldron with some purple or bright green broth in it.

This is obviously a work in progress in a further stage that I wanted to showcase. This is my new Night Goblin Big Boss mounted on the giant squig. It is quit far finished already, but I am having trouble with the base. The idea is a spear in the ground and a giant musroom, but what to with the rest of the vast base..... Probably keep it "clean" with some grass or sand..... still thinking about this one.

Review: Felix and Gotrek first omnibus

A blog about Mordheim gaming is linked to stories of fabled heroes wandering the realms. Therefore I found it appropriate to add a small review of the latest book I'm reading.


The stories of Felix and Gotrek exist for some time and they are now available in a handy paperback omnibus (there are 2 actually, the second omnibus I also have, but first this one has to be read of course). As said an omnibus containing 3 books, giving you approximately 800 pages of reading material. I'm now half way the first book and I have to say it reads quickly (more info on the book on amazon).
For those of you who don't know who Felix and Gotrek are: Gotrek is a Trollslayer and Felix a human with some noble (educated) background. The story is that Gotrek saved the life of Felix (he was almost trampeled) and they got drunk and took a blood oath. Since then Felix is sworn to follow Gotrek to note down his heroic adventures and write down the story of Gotrek and how he eventually dies in some epic fight. The Trollslayer has undergone some crime in which he lost his honor and now he is sworn to roam the lands to meet his death in some fight against a truly big enemy.
Felix and Gotrek take up all kinds of adventures in this first book. It mostly are small quests where they start in a city, adventure out in the lands and mountains, find some gang of beastmen, chaos warrios, troll, slay them and head back to a city. In that sence it is a bit tedious that the same concept returns. But reading the fights they get in is high tension reading and a lot of fun.
I was already thinking of starting a dwarf Mordheim warband and when reading Felix and Gotrek this becomes more and more appealing. The dwarf society (and specifically the trollslayer) is definitely a good idea to start a warband with. Also reading this book gives some background on how dwarfs also venture to cities and are not alone to be found in the mountains burrowing deeper and deeper! I think the new dwarf warband will have a Gotrek theme around it.
When I'm a bit further in the book a new update will follow. Tips for other books are welcome of coarse!

Fizzle & Shizzle

I’d like you to meet the newest member of da ‘Ooliganz. It’s my shaman Shizzle, freshly recruited as a replacement of his brother (and fellow shaman) Fizzle. Fizzle came to an untimely end in the last battle after a bullet from an Averlander pistol hit a soft spot of his otherwise thick skull.



Fizzle is nonetheless worthy of a place in the hall of fame as he was the reason why da ‘Ooliganz made the trip to Mordheim in the first place. Hoping that the consumption of wyrdstone would help improve his (at best) rather mediocre shamanic skills, he convinced the leader of his tribe to send an expedition to Mordheim by drawing a vivid picture of fat lootz and ‘eadz to bash in.

Well, the promise of fat lootz and ‘eadz to bash in proved right. But sadly, it turned out that it didn’t help his shamanic skills very much, as he managed to cast only one successful spell in 5 battles. The fact that Thrall, the leader of da ‘Ooliganz, decided to sell all the looted wyrdstone for hard cash instead of giving some to Fizzle probably didn’t help either.

Anyway, after Fizzle’s demise Thrall decided to hire his brother Shizzle as a replacement. It won’t be long before he can prove himself in battle. Hopefully he will turn out to be more talented than his brother!

Groupshot of da South Side 'Ooliganz

Yay, piccies! I'll add one too, a groupshot of da South Side 'Ooliganz. It's my first attempt to take pictures of mini's and they turned out too dark. I've added contrast with the Picasa tool to correct this a bit.

I've also made individual pictures, they will follow in due time...

Squig hoppers

With the Wee Free Men being introduced (more pictures and introductions will follow), other night goblins related miniatures were also put in the photo booth. My squig hoppers found their way to a nice picture and I couldn't keep them from the blog :) They are attacking me as we speak! Oi Gerrof!

I started with this one as the boss mounted on a giant squig for my warband. Since I got the giant squig with night goblin miniature this one will not be used any more. Pictures will follow of Big Nose and his trusty (wild and outrageous) giant squig Gobbler!

Wee Free Men, meet: Gasher

The Wee Free Men have their set of squigs that wreak havoc in enemy lines. They are controled by some of the night goblins if they can focus. This is one of 5 and is called Gasher! A realy nasty squig that loves to bounce into battle.

Sometimes the squigs run out of control and start nibling on the warband members. To represent this I started to convert a squig to eat one of the night goblins. A leg has to be added sticking out of his mound, but I think it is a good start. Of course this blog is to show further stages in the conversion and paint process so keep checking to see progress.