Bogfish.. Kroxitrog... Fishigor... Kroxitoa..? big guy for bog trogs!

Finished painting a fun new sculpt by Blackball Games, to use as a Kroxigor Big Guy for the Bog Trog Blood Bowl team.

He's a bit too small for a strength 5 guy- looks more like strength 4, but he'll be obviously different than the rest of the team, bigger and more of a 'Come get some' pose, so shouldn't be any doubt he's the Krox...besides- as much as big minis are fun for their imposing presence, they are very troublesome on the pitch.

So here he is:

 

 

The turtle shell isn't part of the original sculpt, I made that from green stuff, to tie him in with the Bog Trog team. 

Easterling Command Conversions for Lord of the Rings

I've always liked the idea of having a Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game Easterling army.
The models are nice, the helmet is very cool, and they seem to be a force that could have a very tight theme and still be a tough contender.  They have only average shooting, but have good armor, access to spears and very tough cavalry.  They don't have the variety of a list like Gondor, or the range of characters Gondor has, but they can position themselves as a good counter to Gondor. There are a couple interesting newer lesser characters and command types, and there is always the Nazgul Khamul to fall back on.

My sense of theme makes me reluctant to add allies to fill tactical gaps, or even what I perceive as not really fit for the list.. such as orcs in an Uruk-hai army... Uruks are supposed to be more disciplined than orcs and willing to fight in the sunlight, yet we're supposed to believe Sauruman has his Uruks drilling to fight in formations of Sword Uruk/ Spear Orc/ Pike Uruk?  What is this? The Oreo formation with the soft squishy Orc in the center? Just begging for a disaster on the field. I refuse to do it. Just to gamey.
But I'm chasing a pet peeve out into the brush... back to the trail:

Easterlings look like a fun & viable theme list, but the metal command characters are both expensive and didn't thrill me much, so like I did with the dwarves, I set about to make my own on the cheap:

First a banner. The obvious choice is to use a spearman, but the box has 8 archers, 8 sword & shield and 4 spear.  This makes spears too few to spare one.  It also has an illegal percentage of bows in the box, which is annoying- I'd have preferred 6 archers & 6 spear- as it is, if you're not adding a lot of cavalry (which I will be) or taking cheap orc filler allies (which I won't be) then you end up with more archers than you can use.
But an archer wasn't going to be much help for a banner...

So I took one of the sword miniatures and cut the sword out, trying to preserve it. The unfortunate thing about the LotR kits is the lack of any extra bits whatsoever. So save everything.

Next I drilled a thin hole through the hand.  Testing with brass rod, I found what I already assumed: the angle was wrong. So I took a jeweler saw and sliced the hand off and glued it back on at an angle that would hold the banner pole perpendicular to the ground.  I didn't want a flag, I wanted some kind of symbol.  Looking through the bits I found the freebee plastic Numidians from Wargames Factory, on it was a banner symbol that suited me just fine.  The pole was too thick, which was perfect: cut it as a stump and carefully drill into it, so when the brass rod is inserted, it looks like a metal casing for the pole.  Here is the result:

Next up is a Captain.  I was planning on just taking a sword mini and change his arm to a raised "follow me into the fray!" pose, but looking at one of the GW pdf supplements, I found an alternate captain type, with 2 swords. That looked fun. The actual model is part of a $25 set that gets you the dual sword character, a battle mage fellow and a banner.  A bit pricey (but not as much as the $12.50 individual characters). I do like the battle mage mini, but I didn't want a flag banner, and the pose of the dual sword character is mediocre at best: it's just too static.  So $25 for a mini I like, one I don't want and one that I'm 'meh' about isn't a solid purchase.  So I decided to make the guy myself:

I took the one sword & shield pose that has separate shield (there is only 1 of this pose) and cut the 'shield bump' attachment off his hand.  Since the angle of the hand was too vertical, I removed his hand, and changed the angle to what suited me.  I then attached the sword which was removed from the other model (see? save everything!) and made a pommel.  Easy-Peasy. 

Here he is:

I much prefer the sense of movement of this mini.  Looks ready to carve up Gondor for Rhun! 

I'll be looking to make a basic Captain as well as an Amdur, who uses an Easterling Falchion.. kind of a bastard sword like the elven blades. More to come. 

And the winner is...

The contest has come to a close now.  Thanks to all who follow, pass-by, lurk, comment and of course those who entered the contest.

There were many good and interesting answers to the question "What was the first Game played by Homo sapiens sapiens?" But since none of the answers were correct, it means there is a 12-way tie for first.
So like any good gamer I rolled a d12 to find the winner.

See? Poor neglected fellow comes in handy sometimes. 

So what did I roll? We'll get to that.  But first the Answer to the Question!

Our species' first game was...Stick in the Eye!  If you were playing along at home and guessed 'Stick in the Eye', then you were right! You should have entered the contest! 

History of Stick in the Eye.  

Like many games, Stick in the Eye developed out of a spiritual ritual.  Sometime around 60,000 years ago in central Europe, Cro Magnon man, to curry favor with the gods, would stand before the tribe with a sharp stick in one hand and induce a hive of bees to cover his body.  Should the gods reject him and tens of thousands of stinging begin, he could end contact with the gods by forcing the stick deep into his brain through his eye.  Neanderthals who happened to observe this behavior would shrug and console themselves in the belief that at least this unfathomable cousin species would surely die out and leave the planet to them. 

Prehistorical Reenactor: Not as popular of a hobby as you might think.

This continued on for thousands of years, though the Neanderthals did not.  As many rituals find their way into popular past-times, the bees were left behind and impatient as ever, the humans went right to the stick and the first game was invented.  To play stick in the eye, a group of people would sit in a circle, and one would take the stick, planted on the ground with the pointy bit in the air, spin it, and who it pointed to had to take the stick and jam it in their eye.  This scored the man a point.  Which is the origin of the common terms in gaming: "points" and needing the "most points to win", etc.  This man would then spin the stick and it would continue until all players were either blind, dead or suffered a momentary lapse in stupidity and quit.  

Many realized that this game was not very fun, but no one likes a quitter. Besides, there wasn't any other game to play.  After a few thousands years of this, people began to think of new games that didn't involve a stick in the eye. Sure, most of these early games were not much fun, and many still quite dangerous, but most people agreed they were better than 'Stick in the Eye', and thus humanity had a new useful phrase for evaluating the desirability of something. 

Which brings us back to our contestants.

Which contestant won?

The die roll was an 8. 

The 8th entry was Ray from Don't Throw a 1. 

Congrats Ray! 

You win one Internet Llama as well as a prize that must travel by standard post.

Send me an email to Laughingferret@yahoo.com with a shipping address and off it will go.

After you get the prize I'll put a picture for everyone else to see, but since it's your prize I'll wait so you'll be the first to see. 

Thanks again to all who entered, it was good fun and I'll have to think of things to do like this in the future.

Better than a Stick in the Eye after all. 

Tossing Around the Ol' Haggis: Scotlings from Impact! Miniatures

I finished painting a very fun set of miniatures, the 'Scotlings' from Impact! Miniatures, sculpted by Pug on the Talk Fantasy Football forum.

If you're looking for a unique and versatile team, or if you just enjoy playing a game of Blood Bowl while quoting Groundskeeper Willie, this is the team for you.

Are they a Halfling Team? Well .... sort of.  You could probably use them as a dwarf team pretty easily too.

Look at them yourself to decide ...

Edit: I added a thin light 2nd grid to the Tartan, so replaced the pictures with the newer ones.

Probably my favorite... the Caber team. Could be a treeman, could be a deathroller, but it'll be fun either way.

The 'double team' ... "Pick on someone your own size!" Great for a player with Dauntless!

  

These guys play dirty... flingin' a haggis, kick to the groin & flashing his bloomers...

 

Great character in these.. I love the happy catcher especially. He looked like an older fellow to me.

 

Had to show the back of this one... not all Scotlings wear ought beneath their kilts! 

 

And the Fan with more important things on his mind...

I have a Tournament in less than 2 weeks, and the minis I'd planned to use to build my 'Hobgoblin' team have still not arrived... the chances of making that team in time is looking slim, so I am thinking about taking these fellows!  If so, I have some plans on what to add to them and I'll show it all to you as I do it.  

By way of review, since I got to spend some time with these minis up close and all, and they're a new product, it seems appropriate to give a review:

Overall I'm very pleased. These minis are fun.  I'm pretty sure I've said that a few times now, but only because they really are.  My Finance looked at them and said "They are so cute! I love them!" and I have to agree, they certainly made me smile.  

Now, it must be said that if you are accustomed to (and require) the precise sculpting of crisp details and smooth blended lines of minis from such as Rackham, Infinity, Dark Sword Miniatures, Study McVey, and others, then these might be a little rough and amateurish in some spots for you. Some areas, such as hands (typically the bane of most artists), are lower in quality than you'd get from the top miniatures sculpting companies, I can't argue that.  Then again, some of the details, like the teeth I was quite impressed with for the quality of detail.  But how I see them, these are *cartoons*.  If you can embrace them for what they are then you'll enjoy their character and exciting poses.  They ooze personality and humor. The important parts are well sculpted and completely succeed in establishing the nature of these characters.  If that sounds appealing to you and you don't need hyper realism all of the time then I think you'll be pleased with these miniatures. 

The casting was clean, with minimum flash and mold lines were easy enough to clean up. 

There are 14 different poses, which is quite a lot of variety for a metal team.  Plus, only the Caber team required assembly, so there are some very good dynamic poses for single-cast miniatures. 

Rating:

Casting/Sculpting: 8/10

Cleverness of Design: 9/10

Aesthetics: 10/10

Recommendation:  If you love Blood Bowl and enjoy silly & unique teams, then I highly recommend these miniatures. I've already grown very attached to them in a short time. 

The team can be purchased from Impact! Miniatures here. 

Now, Hit the Pitch!

I don't want to bury the contest... as of this posting, there is just 26 hours left to enter. 

The contest has started!  Ends Oct 27th. at 12:01 AM  

Go  HERE  for the announcement and the link to enter.

I'll just be waiting till it's time to pick the winner. 

Letting Loose the Lynx: Panzer II's completed for Frau Tottenkinder

The Panzer II Luchs tanks, 'Lynx' are finished.

I really like the look of these light tanks.  I think they'd even make nice 'city breaker' tanks for 15mm scale!

I got a chance to play them and the Stalking Tiger on Friday... and just like in elementary school, where when a kid has brand new shoes everyone steps on the shoes to get them dirty chanting 'new shoes!' my vehicles got smashed.  Tiger Walker: first shot of the game it got popped by a sherman. Then the first Lynx also was destroyed before it got to do anything.  The 2nd fired at the offending sherman, but with both tanks having moved, reduced the chance to hit so much it wasn't surprising it went foul, then it too was destroyed.  Yikes. Not a good first night for the Ahnenerbe Armor!  -Forgot to bring my camera, so no battle pictures I'm afraid.

Baby bear did get some revenge though-managed to get to the sherman and two-paw throw it onto a hill, reducing it to rubble and squishing a couple enemy in the process.  I'll take what victories I can get.

I don't want to bury the contest...

The contest has started!  Ends Oct 27th.  Go  HERE  for the announcement and the link to enter.

I'll just be waiting till it's time to pick the winner. 

Mmmm.. Hirn... Death is no excuse to shirk your duty!

Some fast & dirty troops to bolster the ranks of the Ahnenerbe.

Same troops, but divided into more manageable sums for pictures:

&

Painted for speed... they are just zombies after all, but I'm pleased with the effect.

31 Zombies in all.  For the basis of them I used the German Zombies from Studio Miniatures, sold through Brigade Games. 30 zombies for $33.50...hard to go wrong. The set is very simple though, with only 2 poses and those are 1 piece: legs, torso & head connected.  The set has 3 sets of arms for every 2 models, with an extra head (must cut the head off of one to use it) and a soft cap to add to a head without helmet. 

With some removal of portions of limbs, cut heads off to change their angle, etc, you can get a decent amount of variety.  To increase this, I added a sprinkling of heads & some torsos from the Mantic zombie set.. and a couple officer heads from the plastic Germans from Warlord Games. 

Death is not an excuse: you fight until Frau Totenkinder says you can stop. 

I don't want to bury the contest...

The contest has started!  Ends Oct 27th.  Go  HERE  for the announcement and the link to enter.

I'll just be waiting till it's time to pick the winner. 

Stalking Tiger: Totenkinder's WWWII Walker

This model is probably half or more of what motivated me to start the Frau Tottenkinder project.
Dust Tactics really hit it out of the park with this one in my opinion.  Has to be my favorite walker I've seen.
So of course I had to have one in this army.

The Stalking Tiger:

I went for subtle highlights for this one. After the dirt & grease the highlights get a bit lost, but they're there.

I suspect it'd look a lot different if they weren't there, despite I'm not really seeing them as much now.

It comes with alternate weapons.  Actually, I plan to run it as above, with a heavy machine guns and a cannon, to mimic what a tank would be equipped with, though it is intended to be used with either a cannon & energy supply or 2 AA machine guns as below.  But I like the look of mixing the two weapons. 

Still more to come. 

I don't want to bury the contest...

And the contest has started!  Ends Oct 27th.  Go  HERE  for the announcement and the link to enter.

I'll just be waiting till it's time to pick the winner. 

Hi-ho, Hi-ho, It's off to War we Go: Tottenkinder's Commandos

Allied File FT-0732

On March 7th, 1940 Allied Polish Metaphysical Agents identified a trusted officer under Tottenkinder, Hauptmann Weiss, as one of the immortal cultural personification entities.  Hauptmann Weiss commands a small crack team of commandos, carrying out missions of sabotage and presents a serious threat to communications and vital structures wherever they are put into action.  The commandos are diminutive, in fact they are dwarves, and no reliable reports have been made of them numbering more than seven.

She should be considered a top priority for removal and should not be underestimated.

Her code name has been assigned as Snow. 

End File.

Snow Weiss, or Snow White, has been a servant of Frau Tottenkinder for untold centuries.  Lured by Tottenkinders minions, the dwarves, she now serves them as they serve her.  A spiritual symbiotic relationship between them exists that is not understood by those outside of Tottenkinder's circle.  The dwarves are fiercely loyal to her, and she has the ability to heal them from even the most grievous wounds.  The dwarves excel in all manor of covert warfare.  From stealthy infiltration, to sapping, high explosives and bunker busting.  They are a sledgehammer employed with the grace of a rapier.  Snow herself is a flexible and dangerous opponent, able to use the skills of her squad to far more than their meager number would suggest.  

   

Snow with (L-R) Bashful, Grumpy, Sleepy, Doc(in back), Sneezy, Happy & Dopey.

Latest Frau Tottenkinder squad complete!  These were a lot of fun to work on.

Snow is an Ariadna mini from Infinity, and the Dwarves are Grimn from Hasslefree. 

More to come!

And the contest has started!  Ends Oct 27th.  Go HERE for the announcement and the link to enter.

I'll just be waiting till it's time to pick the winner.