Monday, August 22, 2011

Undead Warband for Mordheim

Hi, folks. I've been doing a little painting and touch-ups on some old minis I've had sitting around for a while. Washes, rebasing, all that kind of stuff while waiting for various terrain pieces to dry. You know the drill. :)

After reading a lot of posts and articles, primarily at Tom's Boring Mordheim Forum and Mordheimer, I decided to go with a mostly living Undead Warband.

Valkar's Legion 499 gc
Valkar The Red - Vampire - Sword, Mace
Eli Morte - Necromancer - Sword, Bow, Club
Larion - Dreg - Mace, Sword
Brother Darylion - Dreg - Axe, Mace, Bow
Other Brother Darylion - Dreg - Spear, Bow
Ghouls x 4 Names: Stench, Dread, Hungry, and Badness. (each in a separate Henchman group to increase chance of rolling The Lad's Got Talent)
Dire Wolf x 1 (Named Goggie) Wanted something fast, besides I likes me some doggies.

All of the pics are taken with my new GameCraft Minis Modular Gothic Ruin as a backdrop. Article about the ruin can be seen here.

Valkar the Red  - Vampire

I think he's an old Reaper mini. I painted him a long time ago. Just added a black Future/Magic wash today and rebased him. I still need to add a sword to the model.

Eli Morte - Necromancer
WHFB players may recognize this guy. My son Bob painted him a long time ago. Today I rebased and gave him a black Future/Magic wash.

Dregs: Larion, Brother Darylion and Other Brother Darylion
 The Darylions (Left and right) are GW Mordheim Dregs. Larion (center) is a HorrorQuest Vampire Thrall. All have been rebased, washed and Larion had a club added which was cut off one of the Ghouls. Larion, Brother Darylion and Other Brother Darylion is a lame reference to the old Bob Newhart sitcom. "I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl".

Ghouls: Stench, Dread, Hungry, and Badness. In no particular order. They're interchangeable. :)

These are slightly converted Heroscape Ghouls. I wanted to alter their poses. Arms cut off, bodies cut in half, clubs appropriated. It were horrible. :) A couple of them are based on some "pigskin" scrapbook specialty paper meant to represent an American football's surface. I like it for cobblestone.

Dire Wolf:

An old GW plastic Vampire Counts Dire Wolf. He got the reno treatment: wash, drybrush, rebase. He's named "Goggie" because that's the way my son John used to say "Doggie". :)
Well, that's it for now. Thanks for looking. C&C welcome.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Dirty Mordheim

Sorry, didn't mean to get your hopes up. :) I just meant I added weathering to the Mordheim buildings. Several people suggested I dirty up the buildings some, so I took their advice. I'm glad I did. The weathering makes a big difference. I just used some black washes and some Doc O'Brien Weathering powders and then sealed them with a matte clear acrylic spray sealer. I also added some barricades, barrels, and furnishings as suggested by other posters. Please keep the ideas and comments coming folks. They've been hugely helpful and are much appreciated. Now for pics:



 Pic below is a slightly better shot of the canal
Some of the buildings after weathering. Mainly I did black washes around windows and doors to simulate black soot left behind from smoke pouring out of the doors and windows while the building was burning. Also blackened all of the broken wall edges and most floor boards. I alos added various weathering powders, mainly close to the ground to represent dirt that's been splashed up onto the lower walls.

 The building below also has muddy brown weathering powder added to corners of the plaster near the timbers.

 Pic below shows some of the muddy brown as well as mildew green powders added to the stairs.





 Pic below is The Mordheim Arms after some weathering. It had the muddy brown added to the lower portion of the ground floor walls and some rusty red powder added below the lanterns.

 The pic below shows weathering with the black for windows, doors and wall edges, and use of muddy brown powder at the bottom of the walls, with some mildew green powder for moss or mold.



Pic below is entitled "Thou Shall Not Pass Pass"
Skaven Plague Priest holding off a couple of Reiklanders.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for looking. I do appreciate your comments. I haven't been able to comment back because Blogger is giving me error messages when I try to reply to your comments. Iam reading them and appreciate you taking the time to post. Right now some Blogger glitch is keeping me posting comments anywhere. Anyone know a solution?

Next up is a couple of ramps I made for minis to access the platforms and a pending post/review about the GameCraft Miniatures Modular 28mm Gothic Ruins I recently received. Plus, the Postal Carrier was good to me and delivered a GW Garden of Morr I won on e-bay. You know that will feature prominently on this board soon.

Monday, August 15, 2011

Canal Sections for Mordheim

Just finished the canal sections for the tabletop. Got 36" of canal now, and a few wooden bridges. These bridges are meant to represent bridges put in by adventurers to help them get to the wyrdstone. I might make a fancy stone bridge in the future. The canal sections are based on vinyl floor tiles. The tiles are 5" wide, but with the walls, the canal surface is 4" wide. The section between the two platforms does not have walls; the platforms themselves act as walls. The two sections that don't go between the platforms have 1" tall walls made from Hirst Arts bricks. I really like the water effect for the canals. I copied the method described by Mason on the Lead Adventure forums in his Krappefortt build. I think his is much better but I'm still pleased with my results. I used some plain paper towels and watered down White Glue mixed with some green craft paint. Let that dry and then drybrushed up through 4 successively lighter shades of green. Then did 5 coats of Gloss Decoupage to make the water shiny. Here's some pics.
Pic above looking up canal shows a few of the improvised bridges. The canal has a retaining wall until it passes between the two raised platforms in the background of the picture.

Pic below shows a confrontation on the bridge between platforms between a Skaven Warplock Engineer and Reiklander Champion. Sorry for poor pic quality. I wanted to show the light on the water effect.

Pic below shows a Dwarven Ironclad cruising down the canal. May be some Dwarf Treasure Hunters are nearby.
Below pic shows an old Flagship Games ship at anchor in the canal. Perhaps a Pirate Warband has already gone ashore.

Pic below shows canal, bridge and retaining wall

Pic below shows the size of the wall with a standard GW mini.


Well, that's it for now. It was a pretty productive day. I got the canal done, the bridges and a bunch of ladders, and to top it off I got my Gamecraft Miniatures order in the mail today. I ordered the 28mm Modular Gothic laser-cut Foamcore Building Frame and 2 sets of Resin Doors and Windows. Already have the resin trimmed, cleaned, straightened and primed. That'll be the next build for the table. Thanks for looking.

Luckyjoe

Saturday, August 13, 2011

A little Mordheim

Been workin on some Mordheim terrain. Got a 3 feet by 3 feet table done. I know it should officially be 4 x 4 but I'm lazy and impatient so 3 x 3 is the best I could do. Tabletop is made from 1.5 inch thick styrofoam trimmed with 1 x 2 inch wood trim. Painted with some Glidden "Leather" acrylic house paint I got free from a recent promo offer. Great stuff, kind of a greeny brown. Sealed the whole thing with matte Mod Podge decoupage I've had for a while. I went with 3 x 3 foot because I already had a nice Zuzzy 3x3 "Ruined Land" mat for Empire in Flames in case we go outside Mordheim, and a couple of Lemax Christmas Village Cobblestone Mats for the Mordheim surface I picked up cheap on e-bay. I drybrushed the cobblestone mats a little and the tabletop was ready for buildings. Here's some pics

This is the table from one angle. The green area will be a canal. Still need to work on that. The two gray stone platforms in the foreground are amde from 1/2 inch pink insulation foam. They have playable interiors which are still WIP.   Another view from a diferent angle.
Yet another view from a different angle. I'm beginning to sense a trend here.

Last view of the whole table from a different angle.

Here's some shots of the individual buildings. Most are made from foamcore and wooden craft sticks. Some with Hirst Arts components. One is a Pegasus Hobbies model and I used a few Hirst Arts Arts and Pegasus Hobbies and GW bits. Most are based on cheap vinyl floor tiles. Some still need a lot more detail added. I decided to use a lot of bright colors but also have the obligatory black and whites. I have to say I got a lot of inspiration from DJK's Fantasy World. His excellent fantasy builds got me inspired to make some 28mm WHFB and Mordheim terrain after a long hiatus in 15mm. Thanks, DJ for the great ideas and motivation.
Some Pics of individual buildings.

The Mordheim Arms. My fav. The front is decorated Mordheim State Troop colors. (Ostland) Purple and white or purple and yellow with the Mordheim "M", and a few Hirst Arts bits. The window grates are made from black plastic "granny grates". Lanterns on either side of the doorway are from the Pegasus Hobbies Large Gothic Building kit. The shields are cut out pieces of mat board.
Side view

Another view

The view above shows a rope hanging from a beam caught on the top floor. Perhaps this was once a bell tower? The rope can be used for snipers to climb up to vantage points for shooting.

Here's one that's not a ruin. A Pegasus Hobbies Large Gothic Building Kit. Has a playable interior. Perhaps this is a Sisters of Sigmar annex.

My son Mark's ruin.

Another view

My son Stephen's ruin. We used this in some SBH games as well.


The red ruin
  Orange ruin

Yellow ruin

Green ruin
Green ruin with shot of balcony.

The Inn. This one has  a bridge between sections and a little stone courtyard.

Another view

The leaning house

Another view
Back view
Long house

Side view long house

Small ruin

Brown ruin

Gold ruin



So there we are. I forgot to take pics of the tall blue and white building visible on some of the shots of the main board. I also need to make some canals to replace the green foam pieces in the main board pics. I need to add more detail and weathering to most of the buildings, as well as ladders and stairs.

More to come. Thanks for looking.