Warhammer Dogs of War Duellists

Hi All,

Followers of the blog may remember a couple of posts ago I made mention of a mate called Evan...

One quick thing before I go - a special mention of my very good mate Evan. He's been a bit of an inspiration on these guys and even gave me a unit of Birdmen of Catrazza gratis. Stay tuned for a unit named especially for him...

As I'm a man of my word I present a unit of sell-sword duellists, captained by the infamous Evan the Black of Estalia.

In his earlier years Evan the Black was a gentle, kind-hearted soul scratching out a living working as a stage coaching boss and playing pub trivia in the dives at night. A chance encounter with a cold-hearted tax collector at a trivia night, a scuffle and an "unfortunate accident" where the tax collector fell of his own knife and Evan's ordinary Estalian life was erased in an instant.

He fled to Lustria and lived off his winnings and the contents of the tax collector's purse until the money ran out. Forced into a life of petty crime and violence he learned the hard way that life isn't easy at the bottom. Nowadays Evan the Black leads a band of the very hardest of sell-sword cut throats, going where the money is and doing whatever is asked - for the right price.

 

Til next time...

Cheers,
Millsy

Dogs of War Pike converted from Empire Spearmen

This is my first pike unit for my WFB Dogs of War army - the Reggimento Pica de Belalcázar, or the Pike Regiment of Belalcázar.

The name comes from Sebastián de Belalcázar, a Spaniard from Cordoba who travelled to the New World in search of riches. In Dogs of War terms they are a plain 24 man pike unit with full command. They have two colours - a regimental colour and the family colour of their captain.

I used the old style Empire spearmen as they have puffed and slashed uniforms, more in keeping with the look I'm after than newer figures. I was lucky enough to find almost the entire unit without shields attached, meaning the majority of the work was in drilling out and replacing the spear shafts with brass rod and reattaching the spear heads. I also did a few head swaps from various other Empire sets for extra variety. I'm going to have to magnetically base these guys as the brass pike makes them quite unstable, the "at charge" ones in particular.

Here's the pics. Remember to click for larger versions...

And here's some flat images of the two colours, regimental one first and family second. These were knocked up in InDesign / Photoshop as usual with some free clip art images and a pic from Wikipedia.

Comments and such welcome as always.

Cheers,
Millsy

Warhammer Dogs of War - The beginning...

Hi All,

The Dogs of War are the first of my major projects for 2012 and have been in the background for a good 2+ years already. Most of that time was spent collecting and doing some customisation / modelling work. No painting at all had been done apart from one test unit filler but that will have to wait for the blog until the unit itself is complete.

I started work about 10 days ago and as I've been on leave I've had a fair amount of time to dedicate to things. This is a good thing in terms of the project because I'm using it as an exercise in painting for quality, NOT quantity which is my norm. I love the figures, fluff and style of this army which along with the relative cost to buy these days (not to mention even finding short run OOP figs) means these guys deserve the best.

Enough blather, time for the pics. Remember to click for the bigger versions...

Lucrezzia Belladonna and "consort"

It took seven hours to paint her but I'm pretty pleased with the result. She was in quite a state and required some very careful stripping before I could start. Her "consort" is a minor noble from backwoods Pavona, currently on probation to see if he makes the grade. He carries the Belladonna Banner, which isn't magical other than the fact that losing it would prove instantly, permanently and spectacularly fatal.

 

Reggimento Bambini de Lucrezzia Belladonna

The Reggimento Bambini de Lucrezzia Belladonna (or Belladonna’s Boys as they are more commonly known) are the personal bodyguard of Lucrezzia Belladonna. These are my own effort at creating a Regiment of Renown and you can check out the full story and starts over on the Dogs of War Online forum.

These are Harlequin miniatures which I bought on the cheap a couple of years ago. I really like them and have been racking my brains for a way to use them until now.

Army Paymaster and Borgio the Besieger

Like Belladonna there was a fair bit of work required cleaning and repairing Borgio before I could start painting. He'll eventually get his own custom banner as well. The Paymaster is an old style Pistolier officer.

Crossbows

My first of at least two units of crossbows. The champion is pinched from Braganza's Beseigers. I got an extra command set somehow so used him here. These were also in a state, havind had there tabs chopped off amongst other unpleasantness. They're come up alright with some work including pinning.

Cannon

I'm a bit of a fan of the whole medieval ordonnance concept (I've got a 15mm Field of Glory Burgundian Ordonnance army already) and you can see that creeping in here too. In addition to plenty of crossbows there will be quite a few cannon.

This one (minus one crew member) is already done. Another arrived today along with an old style Dwarf cannon. I've also got at least one, possibly two old style Empire Hellblasters in the post (which I'll just proxy as normal cannon). Add to that Bronzino (crew pictured here, gun under serious repair work) and I'm already over my head in terms of my "grand battery". I can't use them all at once but this is art right??? ;-)

So that's everything that is complete so far. I've got a pile of stuff backed up including 3 lots of heavy horse including Voland's Venators, one lot of light horse converted from plastic pistoliers, 3 big lots pike (converted Empire spears, Ricco's Republican Guard and Alcanti Fellowship), more crossbows, duellists, a hireling wizard plus other characters and even more so stay tuned...

One quick thing before I go - a special mention of my very good mate Evan. He's been a bit of an inspiration on these guys and even gave me a unit of Birdmen of Catrazza gratis. Stay tuned for a unit named especially for him...

Cheers,

Millsy

For sale page added

We've added a For Sale page to the blog so we can try and shrink the lead mountain a bit. Feel free to stop by and see what's on offer. First up is two completely painted armies for Hordes of the Things (HoTT) by me.

Cheers,
Millsy