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

Planning for 2012

Hi all,

Millsy here with a bit of a wrap for 2011 and some plans for the coming year.

I've had a pretty busy year all up in gaming terms. 2011 was probably my highest output ever in terms of both figs and terrain, an outcome I'm pretty chuffed with. Over the year I knocked off a pile of stuff, including but not limited to...

• A complete New Israeli force for Gruntz 15mm sci-fi plus a stack of terrain to match
• Close to two complete 28mm armies for HOTT (soon to be for sale so watch this space)
• A pile of Warhammer Lizardmen
• Close to 30 x T-34s for Flames of War
• Two decent sized (800pts or so) forces for Song of Drums and Shakos
• Almost my entire backlog of 28mm colonials miniatures, plus a fort and associated buildings
• 30+ figures for 1938 A Very British Civil War along with close to a dozen repaints of diecast vehicles

To be honest that list has surprised even me as I typed it out. I actually had to refer back to blog posts to make sure I'd not missed anything. There were other bits and bobs in there too but this is the material worth mentioning. I feel I've matured as a painter too both in terms of speed (which should be obvious!) but also technique. All up a great year from my point of view.

So what does 2012 hold? I'm planning a four pronged painting assault for the year ahead...

Warhammer Dogs of War
These guys have been sitting quietly in the background and slowly growing. Given I have mostly finished the Lizzies it's time to give these guys some serious love. I plan to make these a really special army with plenty of extra effort and not just painted ASAP to play. I've already started so stay tuned for some pics.

Gruntz 15mm
I've got two more forces bought and ready to go, plus there is a painting challenge on the forum. Things have wained a bit in terms of interest for me but a couple of the other lads are kicking off in the C&G clan. Hopefully v1.1 of the rules will finally surface and that will also fire the enthusiasm.

Colonial Sudan
I'm about halfway to where I want to be with these guys. I still have some basic Mahdists infantry to do but I can then hook into both the cooler Mahdist units and also add some more Empire troops. Finances have slowed this down a bit which is not so bad really even if it means my fleabay cravings have gotten a bit worse of late. ;-)

1938 A Very British Civil War
Again, these are about halfway done for stage one i.e. figs owned. Some pretty snazzy industrial terrain is in the works birthday-wise I believe and we've got the odd game on the cards too. Plenty to look forward to here as well.

Gaming-wise there are a couple of major upcoming projects...

Napoleonic Campaign
I've finished the rules and the map for Poland 1807. Nug and I have worked out our starting positions and we're in the middle of raising forces before kicking off properly in about a week. The campaign itself won't be heavily blogged as it might give things away but individual battles certainly will get reported.

Going the whole hog on the list of systems
Nug suggested we try and get a game in of EVERY major system we play this year, something I'm certainly up for. If that happens it will be pretty cool as it means close to a decent sized game every month.

That's about it from me for 2011. Just time for a quick Happy New year to all before closing. We've climbed to a "massive" 21 followers on the blog (welcome all!) so the sky is the limit for 2012.

Edit: This makes 10 posts in a month, also a new record for the blog. Woohoo!

Cheers,
Millsy