Happy Festival of Saturnalia

A very late post I'm afraid as our Router bit the dust just prior to Xmas.

Happy Festival of Saturnalia to all.

KOW: Destiny of Kings

Got this via kickstarter today for free from the lovely people over at Mantic Games.

They must know how much I love campaigns, I have tried to run so many over the last 25 years or so, Steve the Magnificent till testify to that :-)

Really looking forward to reading this, its like I got an extra Saturnalia present :-)

Sorcerer's Lecturn

As an off-shoot of the books I was making yesterday I made this small terrain piece, which could be part of a Quest objective room or used as an objective marker in Frostgrave or Kings of War.

Making Miniature Books

Thought I would post about how I make books for my miniatures to interact with. I'm going to make some basic ones and a special book that might appear in a mages workshop or in a holy place, like a temple.

I cut 10 mm strips of cereal card for the outer sleeve of the book.

And cut some 6 mm strips from either thick card or because I have loads of it, self adhesive floor tiles.

Then I cut the thicker card/tile into a variety of lengths, these will be the pages of the books.

Have to mention DMGinfo who does a brilliant film on this subject and who I have shamelessly copied. See his you tube channel.

Then I glue the inner page onto the outer thinner card, although in this picture I used wood glue I quickly returned to either superglue or a glue gun, they hold better. Your choice.

Then I fold over the thin cereal card to form to the right shape.

Then I open it add the glue, re-fold and then cut with scissors or pliers.

Different sized page sections create larger books.

This larger book will have a clasp to make it look a bit more special.

Glue the clasp to one side then the reverse.

Then to add a little detail, a skull motif.

You can make books that are open too.

Instead of just one piece of card for the pages, glue in 2, and fold, but do not glue.

Now cut a strip of 6 mm paper for the loose leaves.

Cut and fold each one. I usually just use 2 pieces.

Glue in the centre cut not at the edges.

Here you have all three styles of book.

Keep painting very simple. I paint the leaves first in white then undercoat outer in black. Then paint the centre in colour of your choice, I mainly do browns and tans for leather, a few coloured books thrown in. I leave a gap where the undercoat shows through to give a black edge.

For the open book I paint the pages in bone first to give that ancient tome feel. Then add some lettering to give the illuminated magical feel it needs.

KOW: Herd Hunters

These are my latest additions to the Herd army.

Again I have based these straight onto hardboard without an edge. The larger units I am still creating a tray for and gluing them in, but the smaller units,like these, work well this format I think.

These are the first two, but I have another two in the pipeline, (but ill health is slowing me down rather a lot at the moment) and I have been adding more lichen to the bases and some pink granit stones I picked up from a beach in Brittany some 20 years ago now. I intend carrying on the theme to the rest of the army when I get a chance.

Library Shelves Complete

As the title says I finished painting the shelves for the library I'm making. Don't think I'm going to make many more of them now, the library doesn't need to be that large.

With a few braziers and some tables for research there should be enough pieces of furniture to create the setting.

Just a huge number of very small books to make and paint now, this is the testing partof the project.

KOW: Dwarfs V Abyssals 2700 Pts Game

This is a game me and Steve played about a month ago, I was looking through my back log of pictures on my camera and came across this game.

This was approximately a 2700 point came the largest I have played with the Dwarfs so far.

This was Steve's second outing with his Abyssal army.

They were always rather nasty as a Warhammer army, so not much has changed really.

This was the first time I had used my Steel Behemoth, so I was keen to see how it would do.

It was an impressive looking battle.

Stand off on the right flank, my elementals were tempted to charge but resisted.

So cunningly I thought, used surge , that will get them in, but no I missed by inches, oops!

It was also the first time I had had the chance to use my King on a large beast, Polar bear in this case.

The battle is joined.

The elementals are out flanked.

I think the biggest problem I had was that my shooting was very poor. The cannons really did nothing. Also the Abyssal's often had Regen, which proved to be rather a useful psychological talent, nearly all the early wounds I caused were Regened by the time the battle was begun.

A big whole appears in the dwarf right flank.

The Abyssal's gain a flank and start to exploit it, good play from Steve.

In the centre the Abyssal's are beginning to get the upper hand, the dwarfs are being worn down.

The Steel Behemoth does OK, but really it is a support unit and a blocker, not good at dishing out loads of damage.

The Dwarf centre falters, then evaporates.

Only the berserkers left, who, luckily, relish death!

Surrounded by Abyssal's the dwarfs go down swinging.... at thin air.

The Steel Behemoth was hard to kill, but did little damage.

Finally the dwarfs were slaughtered to a "man", so I took a few last pictures of Steve's lovely looking army and called it a day.

What, no dwarfs?

Victory to the Abyssal's

A much deserved win to Steve, I will have to think about how I use the Dwarfs, a different approach is needed I feel.

Will discuss that in another post.