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.

Wee Free Men, meet: Wee Dangerous Spike

One of the Bosses in the Wee Free Men is Wee Dangerous Spike. It is a constant battle to see who is the boss in the warband and Wee Dangerous Spike is at it all the time. His height is a bit of a problem for him and he's always stretching to his full length to show his mates he could be THE boss!
Big Nose lets him be, because there's no real threat at the moment. Within the Wee Free Men a big nose counts and Big Nose is no match for the other bosses. You can see Wee Dangerous spike trying to lead two Night Goblin gang members into battle ( if they don't fight amongst themselves that is).
Wee Dangerous Spike carries a sword and a shield into battle (and his trusty dagger to fight dirty). He already has some experience in previous battles and is now one of the quicker goblins in the warband with an enhanced initiative.

Wee Free Men, meet: Slightly Sane Angus

My night goblin shaman: Slightly Sane Angus is the supplieer of mad cap mushrooms for the Wee Free Men. Specifically the night goblin fanatics rely heavily on their fungi so the shaman is definitely needed. Angus is probably the sane-est gobbo in the group, hence his name. In one of the pevious battles he suffered an armwound and wasn't able to perform his Waaagh! magic and missed a battle because of it. As a remedy he ate his stash of fungi to reduce the pain and was out for a couple of days (foaming in his cave). He is now up and running and wil return to the batllefield with freashly brewed mad cap mushroom broth in one of the next batlles. For now Angus sometimes manages to cast the Fire of Gork and with some practise he can go a long way.

The shaman model is a "regular" goblin shaman which I made into a night goblin shaman by painting it in the Wee Free Men, night goblin colors dark blue and blacks.

Da South Side ‘Ooliganz

Wow, a real blog! Never thought our group of rabble would lead to that! ;-)

So, I guess it’s my turn now to introduce myself and – more importantly – my warband. I started playing Warhammer some 10 years ago after some guy who I worked with at the time, Arjan, introduced me to it (not sure if there is any relation between the events, but soon after that he moved to another employer…).

I started with a Brettonnian army, mostly from the models that came with the boxed set. After a while I became bored of fielding armies with just cavalry and bowmen. I picked up an army of Greenskins on the cheap, being attracted by their wackiness and the diversity in troops they offer. We also played Mordheim sometimes back in those days.

Then, after playing for a few years I got hooked to World of Warcraft…. It took up way too much (all) of my free time, so no time was left to play or paint Warhammer. But now the WoW addiction has worn off and I’ve started playing real games again ;-). First a few odd games of Warhammer with Arjan. Soon Arjen and Ludo joined in. And then we started a new Mordheim campaign with Tom joining in as well after 1 or 2 games.

But enuf about me, it’s high time to introduce my warband! I play a band of Savage Orcs called ‘Da South Side ‘Ooliganz’. Ludo came up with the name ‘Ooliganz coz my band tends to move and charge as one big green mob like a group of football… well… hooligans! South Side comes from the area I live in in Rotterdam (Kop van Zuid). My warband consists of savage orcs completely, (almost) all of them armed with 2xclubs. So they are very heavy melee oriented (like a band of savage orcs should, of course): charge and bash some ‘eads in is the usual tactics (repeatedly screaming Waaaaaaaghhhhh in the process).

Modelling wise, I am currently in the process of rebasing them, replacing the (Warhammery) green flocked bases with (for Mordheim) more suitable cobblestony bases. I’m also adding some different bits ‘n bobs to the bases to be able to tell them apart (they were a very generic group of savage orcs b4!). I’ll make some pictures soon and will put them up here.

Also, I’ve made some purchases to start a new warband… the ratty Skaven it will be! But I suspect it will be a while b4 I can field them.

Squigfest

Starting the blog is one thing, but do I do in this Mordheim party? How did this all start and where did my warband come from all of a sudden. I started with Warhammer some 15 years ago. At the time I started a Warhammer 40K Tyranid army. Got fully infected with miniature games and warhammer, necromunda, warhammer quest etc. followed suit. We played with a friends group that I know since high school. Since moving to Dordrecht my gaming activities faltered and the painting also came to a stuttering halt.

Some painting was done on the "cool" miniatures I could lay my hands on. The squigs and night goblins always had my attention because of their comic look and utter coolness of course. The odd squig was painted and I met "some gamers" in Dordrecht! They introduced me to playing Mordheim. Since it is so easy to start a warband with just a couple of miniatures the first game was in full effect before I knew it. I got infected and started painting avidly!



New squigs were bought, new night gobbos painted and the Night Goblin warband was bourn. I'm just finishing a giant squig with my goblin boss as we speak (he did his job well on the batllefield already). Squigs at the moment are my favorite "characters" and the overall warband is themed around them (and doing quite well at the moment).

My Night Goblin warband is called the wee free men which is related to the Terry Pratchett books of the discworld (specifically A Hat full of Skye). I will introduce the characters of my warband on this blog in the coming time. You can then follow them as they progress and gain experience with the games of Mordheim we play.

So, what's going on...

Well, a group blog, and I'm a member, how on earth did this happen?
With the demise/decay of my personal blog continuing in a domain far far away and my local gaming club fading away in hibernation, I thought my days as gamer were over.

But it was not to be: Saved by old (Ludo), very old (Hans), ancient (Arjen) and a new friend (Tom) I'm back in Mordheim. And back at the painting station. And even back on in blogosphere.

So what's happening?

My Carnival of Nurgle is spreading diseases in the old town, cowering at the sight of very large and very small greenskins, trying to kill off those nasty Averlander halflings with my brutes (three rounds of h2h, no halfling injured in the experiment..) And always looking out for those pesky high elves returning whenever you don't expect them ;-)

And off course on a different front I survived yet another EuroGT . And yes, this site really really needs to be redone.. So, after the holiday, I'll look into it (Promised Lex, have to avoid the curse of the grey seer...) (Anyone interested in joining the EuroGT webteam, let me know!).

And then there's the big temptation round the corner: Flames of War... I could not longer resist and subscribed to Wargames Illustrated and am now waiting for my first FoW box to arrive from down under :-)

Anyway, I'll keep you posted!

Starting the blog: it's now about Mordheim

This blog is the result of some gamers from the Lowlands (Netherlands) who play Mordheim for a while and want to put their stories, links, photo's together. The stories will mainly cover games of Mordheim. Of course since we are all involved in the hobby world of Games Workshop this blog will contain, paint examples, portraits of warband members, specific conversions, terrain making and whatnot. Since we are all finding links to cool websites and other blogs related to Mordheim or other Games Workshop games, you can find them here. Maybe even the odd review of some books might end up here. All in all an ambitious project where we all give a small contribution to.
Link to existing photo gallery which started all this.