Ral Partha AD&D Monsters 11-417 Greater Stone Golem

And staying with the idea of creatures made from stone... this was one of the last figures made by Ral Partha under the TSR banner before they in turn went under. It's got all the usual indicators of Ral Partha - good clean lines, great sculpting and no flash. He was a lovely figure to paint as well - a base coat of gray, and then a very VERY light wash of Army Painter Dark tone, followed by dry brushing. The light wash picked out the detail and gave some areas a marblling effect, which I think looks great on the figure. As with the Metal Magic Stone Giant, I picked out the eyes with white, and it definitely gives the figure an rather otherworldly gaze. Very pleased with the way this turned out, and I can see him getting quite a bit of table time as a generic guardian of temples.

Metal Magic C1034b Stone Giant with Club

Hobby Products GmbH was a German company that produced games and miniatures, and Metal Magic was the  imprint used for their miniature lines. They produced a wide variety of ranges over the years, many of which had little visibility outside of Europe. Most of their ranges had been phased out of production by the mid-1990's. As a consequence - this chappie is a bit of a rarity. He is a wonderful sculpt, and looks like he was deliberately modelled on the black and white line drawings from the Monster Manual 1e - check out the line drawing below. He was also a pleasure to paint - base coat of gray, light sand for  the loincloth and brown for the leather, then Army Painter Dark Tone, followed by dry brushing with gray and then white on the club. The white eyes were picked out simply to give focus to the face. It is a terrific figure, elegant, brooding, and I find it amazing that a company capable of such great sculpts could go under. This figure is definitely going to see a lot of table time!

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM72 Female Troll

Q. Where do trolls come from?

A. Reproduction between male and females of the species, of course.

This is another Asgard sculpt, and it is one of the better ones. It is also comparatively rare, both in term of availability and in subject matter - but then, I suppose the demand for female troll figures is limited. The usual rules of painting any Asgard figure apply - keep it simple. I have an on-going theme in my D&D campaign of trolls and ogres having gray skin, so it was a matter of picking our out a contrasting colour for the hair, which is why she ended up as a red head. After that, Army Painter washes, and dry brushing. Simples! I think this is a terrific figure - obviously female, unpleasant to look at, and malevolent. Just look at that expression! I particularly like the hairy chest as well - it's like something found at 2am on a Sunday morning in a side street in Stoke. In my D&D campaign I have a need for a cave dwelling witch, and I think I've just found the figure to represent her...

Asgard Fantasy Monsters FM24v2 The Silent Shambler take 2

A bit of gap in  posts due to me being away, and also heavy rainfall preventing me from varnishing - so expect a number of posts in the near future as I catch-up with completed figures. Next out of the Lead Mountain was this fine fellow - now, I've already painted another one of them here, and whilst I was happy with the paint job I always thought it would have been good to use the figure as a Lurker in my Woodland beings HOTT army - so that dictated the paint job. This time I used a very light brown, then Army Painter soft tone, and then a very light almost yellow-green for the dry brushing before picking out the eyes and teeth. The base is simple flock, to match the rest of the troops.

I really like this figure - it is one of Asgard's best - and I still think it holds up now, nearly 40 years after it was sculpted!  I just like the strangeness of the pose, and the slightly dim but malevolent expression. Very please with the way it turned out!

Grenadier SM13 Storm Giant (conversion)

Next out of the Lead Mountain was this unfortunately incomplete chappie. I had acquired him as part of a job lot, and he came without either of his hands - Grenadier went through a period of casting their figures in multiple pieces, and the smaller components nearly always got lost. He should be holding a hammer in his right hand, and casting a lightning bolt in the other - see the picture to left for how he should look. Originally I was going to sell him on, but then I realised I had a need for a Storm Giant character my current D&D campaign, and decided to try my hand (no pun intended) at a conversion.

The main issue was scale, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that a lopped off hand from a GW Chaos knight, holding a spear, worked really well for his right hand - a bit of superglue and a bit of Milliput worked wonders. I was a bit stuck for a left hand - he definitely looked like his arm was raised to do something - and then I thought, "what if he is generating lightning from his left hand to charge the tip of the spear in his right hand"? A bit of digging produced the left hand of a spare Chaos sorcerer from HeroQuest, and again superglue and Milliput came to the rescue - however, the scale of that left hand was a bit smaller than the other hand from the Chaos knight, but I hoped that it would be disguised with what I had in mind. I wanted to present two electrical bolts coming from his left hand to the tip of the spear, and for that I used two paperclips, bent into the relevant shapes, and then fixed them with superglue between the left hand and the spear tip.

After that... the paint job. The white primer covered a multitude of sins, and then it was just a matter of keeping it simple - base colours where possible, then a wash of Army Painter soft tone to bring out the detail, and then dry brushing to bring out the highlights. The most difficult bit were the electrical bolts, which were originally light blue, and I overdid the dry brushing so that they almost appeared white. I also did the eyes of the figure in the same colour to give some continuity, and also to emphasise the strange, other worldly appearance.

I am very happy with this figure, especially when you consider it is conversion and nearly got passed to someone else. Definitely a major player in my D&D Campaign!

Ral Partha Personalities and Things... 01-62 Trill

Next up from the Lead Mountain: a Trill. What the heck is a Trill? It's an interesting figure - as with all Ral Partha figures, it is well sculptured, but it's about twice the size of "normal" Ral Partha human - so I mistakenly assumed that Trills were a humanoid (Neanderthal?) variant, larger than normal humans, coarser, and far more muscular, based in an environment where early Greek/Spartan armour is preferred - so, hot and dry and filled with olive trees. As it is, a check of the Chaos Wars rulebook puts the Trills firmly amongst the powers of Darkness - I am guessing that it is simply a play on the word "troll"? Anyhow, the pose and the armour swung it for me - this Trill was going to painted up in the style of a Spartan. THIS IS TRILLLLLLL... It was a lovely figure to paint - simple base colours, then a wash of soft tone Army Painter, and then a simple matter of picking out the white on the loin cloth. I like the figure a lot, and can see it getting some table top time as either a champion for one of my Greek/Spartan skirmish games, or else as a minion for a Titan or a Storm giant in D&D. It really serves as a reminder of how good Ral Partha were before they went under.

Speaking of which... the good folks at Iron Wind Metals are busy trying to resurrect some of the Ral Partha sculpts in conjunction with their Chaos Wars game:

The new Chaos Wars KickStarter is now live!

Here is the link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1050509756/ral-parthas-chaos-wars-dwarf-undead-troglodyte-min

Together, we got the Chaos Wars successfully launched, which was no small task.

Well worth a look!

Hordes Of The Things (HOTT) - Woodland/Wildling Army - Citadel, Foundry, Shadowforge, and Unknowns

This will be my 100th posting, so I thought I would make an effort and show you my favourite army for Hordes Of The Things (HOTT). For those of you not familiar with HOTT, it is a fantasy miniature wargame, published by Wargames Research Group, able to represent armies from a wide variety of settings. There are a number of reasons I like playing HOTT - once you get over the odd writing style (Phil Barker, you need to speak to the people at the Plain English Campaign), it is actually a simple, fast moving set of rules that allow a game to played within an hour - and more importantly, you can use any miniatures from any manufacturer, and you do not need loads of minis to build an army. In short, you can use that handful of lovely old-school minis lying around to make a unit in HOTT, instead of having to buy hundreds of minis. And of course... the fewer minis you have to paint, the more time you can have gaming :)

In HOTT an army consists of Units - there are are several Unit types, such as Shooters (Archers), Riders, Warbands, and Hordes. Each Unit type costs a number of Army Points (AP) to use in a battle. Each player has up to 24AP to spend on their Army. Each Unit is on base and is represented by 1-4 figures.

I have always had a bit of a soft spot for Wood Elves, woodland folk and their kin in other fantasy games, and over the years had collected enough of them to use in HOTT. My current Woodland/Wilding Army is currently based on the current Units:

1 x Behemoth @ 4AP each = 4AP

6 x Hordes @ 1AP each = 6AP

2 x Riders @ 2AP each = 4AP

2 x Shooters @ 2AP each = 4AP

2 x Spears @ 2AP each = 4AP

1 x Warband General @ 2AP each = 4AP

And so on to the Units. First up we have the Behemoth - big, hulking heavy hitters to lead the attack. This is represented by a Citadel Ent on a 60x60mm base. A lovely figure to paint - dark gray undercoat, then dry brushing in light gray and white to pick out the detail, then a matter of picking out the green and shading accordingly. The claws were simply a cream colour with a hint of yellow, and then a soft brown wash to give the effect of wood, and I think it turned out very well. Very pleased with this beastie, and he is very much the star of the team :)

Next up, the Hordes - basically an ill disciplined, bad tempered rabble. This is where I used several figures from several manufacturers - the Dryads are from Foundry, the Scarekin (Scarecrows and Pumpkin heads) I think are Ral Partha, and the Treemen are Games Workshop. The great thing about HOTT is that you can mix and match the figures you want under one generic grouping, in this case Hordes - in fact, I have additional Hordes being painted up, so the composition of the army may end up changing to include more Hordes in the future. As it is, I just took one look at the Scarecrows and Pumpkin Heads and thought YES - they are going to be in this Army, regardless of who else makes room for them! I think they are fabulous sculpts, both amusing and sinister at the same time. The Games Workshop Treemen are also favourites - a bit static perhaps, but they painted up well, using the same techniques as their big brother the Ent. The Dryads came from Foundry with several of their sisters, and painted up quite well, and I think going forward the Riders may well get replaced by more Hordes/Dryads from Foundry.

Next, Riders - light cavalry. These are represented by Dark Temple female centaurs from Shadowforge. I like the figures, but perhaps the plumed helmets are not entirely in keeping with the rest of the army. These may get replaced by "standard" centaurs in the future - some of the old Ral Partha centaurs are very well sculptured, and so they may get a look in, or alternatively I will replace them with more Foundry Dryads to bulk up the Hordes units. 

After that - Shooters, or Archers. These are simply wood elf figures that I acquired, and I have no idea who they are by. Any ideas?

Next, Spears. These are represented by Wildmen or naked Picts - again, I don't know the manufacturer, so any help is great appreciated! These were a very quick job - base colours, and then a coat of Army Painter soft tone followed by matt varnish, and I think they came out really well.

And finally - the Warband General, represented by figures from Foundry - a Dryad Standard bearer, a May Maiden/Wiccan maiden as the leader, and a wolf as bodyguard. A great use of spare figures!

The army does OK in outings - the main tactic is to lead with the Behemoth, followed up closely by the Hordes - if the Behemoth recoils, the Hordes re-generate pretty quickly (usually). The Shooters and Riders providing support and protection from the flanks. The Spears are there to hold any strategically important areas once the Behemoth has taken them. It doesn't always work, but I enjoy playing with the figures - and, if I want to change the Army composition, it is simply a matter of painting 3-4 figures to create a new Unit, rather than having to spend money and paint 20 or so. 

I have several other HOTT armies created using old lead minis, and if there is any interest I'll post pics of those too.