I am happy to have revisited the old Slann Eagle Warriors unit. More models to bring it up to the full 20 and the addition of a converted banner – with fire breathing eagle head to represent a magical standard…of fireball.
It is great to get this unit finished to a good standard and seeing them done gives me enthusiasm to begin work on some more of the classic Slann models in my collection.
These guys are our first foray into the more technically advanced frog people. We have a Kickstarter running at the moment if you are interested in owning a set in 28mm or 54mm.
Of the set, three are sculpted by Doti (Space Frogmy, sword guy and banner guy) and the other two are my own sculpts. They have all been hand sculpted initially, then I scanned them using my OpenScan Mini, after which the resulting mesh gets post processed until we are happy with the result.
These are a characterful bunch but I feel like I would like to add some more generic looking troopers to this range when I get around to sculpting them some buddies.
Working on my TOW Lizardmen army recently I went all in for some Spider Swarms using our very own spider models. They were sculpted by Doti and they are available here if you are interested in purchasing a swarm.
I wanted to have lots of bases of swarm but have a colour scheme to allow me to split them into units and so painted the legs in 4 different colours.
These spiders are Crystal Spiders and bear the crystal control implants to allow their Bizaza masters to direct them in battle and generally stop them from eating each other.
They were quick to paint up and should provide me with some interesting skirmish troops for Warhammer TOW as well as being useful for any future swarm or insects needs.
Known as cockatrice or basilisk depending on the origins, this one was sculpted by Aly Morrison for Citadel.
The model I had was damaged, chopped in places and missing a foot so I did a bit of conversion work to fix the deficiencies.
Being made of soft old lead the design is very ambitious that it will stay together so I have mounted it on a wire frame disguised in the perch.
I painted it generically snake-reptilian-chicken so it’s clear what the model is supposed to represent on the tabletop. I chose very bright cheerfully lurid colours to better see it on the tabletop where it will be part of my growing Beasts of Chaos army.
The new edition Warhammer TOW (The Old World) has rekindled a bit of interest in painting some more fantasy. Riding that zeitgeist I have come back to the Beasts of Chaos to try to paint enough to play some games this year.
I have kitbashed some MB Battlemasters beastmen with classic plastic Games Workshop Chaos Marauders to create some overcompensating Ungor.
They are painted using contrast paints with some quick highlights on the reds and the areas of skin where it looked a bit patchy.
They were quick and fun to make and paint and they are bound to elicit some giggles during games. They will certainly round out the army as they are some of the few options with some ranged attacks and should make for fun skirmishing troops. I am looking forward to their first outing!
The keen eyed will have noticed that there is no musician in the unit at the moment however I have one of these guys lined up for that duty….
Traditional rough rider units ride the Terran horse. That is fine and everything but what about sticking them on some traditional space lizards instead. To that end we have our Attilan who has swapped the horse out for something a little more scaly.
The riding lizard is from a Lizardman Saurus cavalry unit. I converted the neck so that I could drop the head down to get it in line with the tail level to give is a closer to the ground feel while I was adding pouches to disguise the original harness on the neck. I added some chains from the GW Flagellents unit as suitably strong reigns for this beast.
The colours are a variation on the standard colour scheme for my Cityfight Imperial Guard force – greys and browns, red, blue and yellow. I added some grenades and skulls and various bits to the base to decorate.
In order to really get the opportunity to get this guy onto the games table I will need to paint up his 4 other buddies to create the full squad of 5. They will be a useful addition to the Imperial Guard force providing me with some fast hard hitters for army sized games such as Xenos Rampant or 40k.
An Ork Mega Gargant conversion for you this time. The stock model for this one is a bit funny looking so I gave it a decent bit of conversion work with the putty to get it looking a bit more like the old Kev Adams Gargant sculpts.
I replaced the weedy arm gun with a gatling gun as big as other races titans and stuck the mortar in the belly to give it some more dakka where it counts. This thing has a very large number of weapon systems which all aim forwards.
Painting was mostly contrast paint over the silver base colour. I used oil washes to shade.
I have added a number of epic orks to the base to communicate the scale of the model.
This model is intended to be the centerpiece for my Epic 40k Ork force.
Some reinforcements for the Imperial Forces, The Concrete Jungle Fighters are hardened veterans of the Imperial Guard. Each one is a survivor of countless skirmishes having honed their craft to a razors edge. They are a concentration of roided-up gung-ho superheroes who are equipped with serious firepower in the form of bolters, personal side arms, a grenade launcher and a heavy bolter. If they can’t rip it apart with their bare hands, they also carry grenades and close combat weapons for close encounters.
They have been created by combining the old RT Imperial Guard plastic head with slightly less old plastic Catachan and Cadian Guardsmen.
The Catachan plastics are action figure like unless you do a bit of work on the shoulder joins with green stuff before painting.
I only used one of the original heads for the Sargent, opting for classic plastic heads and a Space Wolf Blood Claw for one guy.
Nearly every Catachan mini you will see painted, is painted some shade of green. Rather than do that, I quite liked the blue version so based these off the blue scheme tailored for urban combat, but rather than going with the red bandanas, I choose yellow.
They have been painted with a fairly quick approach and then enhanced with some decals. I have used contrast paint to glaze the skin tones onto the base, on the black, on the camo pants, on the leather bits. I could spend some more time on the details and effects it’s time to stop as I am happy with the look for the effort that went into painting them, they are ready for some gaming now and I have a lot more Imperial Guard that I want to get painted up to a similar standard.
Going forward I have some of the nice old metal Catachan models that will be perfect as support to accompany these glorious heroes on the future battlefields. Certainly specialists, snipers, heavy weapons support, more regulars etc. would not go amiss.
Now this is definitely one of those bucket list models from the Rogue Trader background which I don’t recall ever seeing anyone create – prime real estate for me to plant my banner in then!
Not even Blood Axes would “knowingly” ally themselves with the Imperials. Blood Axes are happy to hire human mercenary groups however, so in order to infiltrate Ork space and stir up trouble amongst the Orks, Imperial units often pose as mercenaries.
The standard bearer is an important person in the squad as they essentially carry the advertisement for the mercenary bands services. In this case it has been topped with the heads of particularly ornery orks – the orks wouldn’t take them for serious mercenaries if they just had human heads on there, although Space Marine helmets are of course acceptable, being human nobz in the ork way of thinking. Space Marine helmets are not appropriate for our undercover Imperials, and chaos marine helmets would probably mean that the whole Imperial company would be executed for heresy (since it’s not generally seen as worth mind scrubbing and re-educating guardsmen).
The colour scheme is essentially mundane light brown and grey, but I have opted for some bright yellow and purple to emphasise the sci-fi nature of this model. The stripe on the trousers gives them more of a dress uniform feel – I want it to feel like they have cobbled this mercenary uniform out of spares from the company quartermaster.
To follow up on this guy, I plan to paint the rest of the squad so I have a good Freebooter option to support my Blood Axe Boyz.
As the inset text says, these are lobotomised eunochs used as auxiliary troops for the Slann. I stuck to earthy tones for these guys with a contrasting bright blue for the woad style markings. I either used wooden style shield sculpts or painted on wood grain effect on the old citadel shields.
The Human Slaves were assembled from a combination of Perry Mahdist Ansar plastics, old citadel thug and a couple of Katsina miniatures. The Slaver boss is called Grandpa and is one of Doti’s sculpts. The grisly totem is from an old Kroot Carnivore squad.
In games these can be used an inexpensive reserve unit or simply to catch cannon balls.
TheOttoVonBismark 
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