I threw this guy together last weekend, I think.  I’m experimenting with a second Arch-Lector, so I needed another mini.

He’s the same as the last one: Greatsword torso, Flagellant legs, crazy Flagellant head (they come in not crazy?).  Instead of a boathook, I went with a (Free Company) cutlass.

The shield’s from the General kit: the bird will be painted as an albatross.  The giant KF was a no go, so I scraped it off and did another five-pointed crown of Mannan.  It’s a little small, though (that purity seal screws things up) so I filled the space with a goofy, Mignola-esque skull and stuff.  I’m not entirely happy with it: it’ll do, but I’m tempted to go back in and do a CGL on it.  (The club’s CGL, pronouced “seagull,” and there’s a sea gull right there; why not?)

Anyway, this guy will probably be my primary Arch-Lector (since I don’t expect to always run two), and he better fits my preferred Arch-Lector build.  I’m a huge fan of the challenge build:  Arch-Lector, Sword of Might, Shield of the Gorgon, Van Horstman’s Speculum.  He’s amazing at blunting a very dangerous character and, man, everyone hates it when I tell them what he does: that I avoid fielding insane combat characters makes that taste pretty sweet.

I’m doing a few things with this Empire army that I haven’t really done with earlier armies.  I’ve been meaning to throw together a post about them for a while now.  Behold!  I’ve finally gotten around to it!

More Gap Filling

Obviously I’ve filled gaps in my minis previously… but with rank & file and on certain joins it’s unnecessary.  This time around, I’m using some thinned Liquid Green Stuff (LGS) to smooth over dang near any join where it’d be appropriate.

Platform Shoes

I’ve read before about why it’s important to put your models’ feet on some plasticard, so they appear to be standing on the terrain on your bases, rather than in the terrain.  I’m using 2mm thick plasticard.  For the most part, this hasn’t been a problem, though on a few models the contact points are small enough that doing this hasn’t helped much.  I’m hoping that basing will help with that.

Base Gap Filling

I’m a strong believer in gluing metal bits to your bases to give your models weight and stability, as well as making your movement trays less dangerous.  (I hate when I pick up a tray, something slips, and models go everywhere.)  I just glue the weight to the base.  This time around, I’m using LGS to smooth out any transition or gap between the base and the metal.  This should make the base look sharper.

Zenithal Highlighting

I absolutely get the theory behind it, though I expect that I slap enough paint on my models to Defeat The Purpose.  Still, it’s negligibly easy to do, and helps make details stand out…  and it’s entirely possible it does make some difference.

I finally finished this dang batch of ten Halberdiers.  I could talk about how and why I’ll be tackling them in smaller batches, but I think that’s been covered to death.  Ultimately it took me something like a month to paint these suckers.

So, that’s them.  I’ll be knocking out more, soon.  Later today, I’ll be getting in my first real game with this army.

From Day 1, I’ve been planning to play up the nautical aspect of the Nordland army.  (I’ve already got a pretty clear idea of what my display board’s going to look like.)  Although a general lack of easily accessible, usable nautical bits has thwarted me in terms of converting up most characters, I’ve been pretty determined to make sure that it’s clear that my Arch Lectors and Warrior Priests can’t be mistaken as Sigmarites: they serve Manann.

I’m definitely thinking Aeron “Damphair” Greyjoy, here.

Here’s the first one.

He’s the bottom half of a Flagellant body, with the top half sawn off and replaced with a Greatsword torso.  The shield’s from the Empire General kit: I shaved the skull off and replaced it with a plasticard Manann’s crwon.  The clerics should have portfolio-appropriate weapons, so I converted one of the Flagellant’s scythes into a boathook.  The head’s a Flagellant’s, with a paper crown reinforced with superglue.

Since the last time I really posted, I’ve been stupidly busy: both at work and at hobby.

On top of all that other stuff, I’ve done:

• 20x Greatswords
• 10x Handgunners
• 10x Archers
• 3x Wizards
• 1x Captain of the Empire

At this point, I just need to do up the Engineer and the Arch-Lector.

I ran out of metal squares to glue to their bases: I’ve had to order a heap more of them from Wargame Accessories.  In fact, I had to go on a spree: ordering metal squares, movement trays from Litko and skirmish trays from Back 2 Base-IX.

I’ve been holding off on building the characters, since they’re the most clear place to do conversions and work in the Manann / Nordland theme.  I threw together some wizards (Light and Fire) without any trouble.

Nothing special, right?

Well, I also needed a Shadow Wizard… and they don’t really have any bits in the (otherwise magnificent) Wizard kit.

So, I trimmed the hair off of a Fire Mage’s hair sculpted the hood up over it.

Not entirely pleased with the skull on the staff, but nothing else in the bits box really leapt out at me.  I might take a stab at it scratching up a crystal or something.

Ran the Storm of Magic Tournament over the weekend.  I’ve got some ruminatin’ to do about it at some point in the near-term (particularly in terms of how I structured and scored it), but that’ll wait.

I was also extremely productive Sunday and Monday: grinding through wrapping up the remaining Empire models.

In two days:

• 20x Archers
• 20x Handgunners
• 10x Greatswords

Before my current list is ready to field, I still have 10 Handgunners and 20 Greatswords (10 of which are in progress) to assemble… plus characters.  Beyond that, just 10 Archers and 24 Knights are still on the sprue.

Things have been quiet ’round here, but I’ve been extremely busy over the past two weeks.

That’s right!  That’s:

• Halberdiers x49
• Cannon x2
• Mortar
• Weapon Crew x9 (not pictured)
• Steam Tank

It’s done.  I’m very happy with it.  Color notes can be found here and here.  I’m definitely going to roll this.

I knocked out a Helstorm Rocket Battery back on Monday.

I hadn’t planned (and, still don’t exactly) on fielding on of the Rare artillery choices, but I ended up with one and I figured that, because I hadn’t planned on fielding one, it’d be a good place to start.  (Less severe consequences  if I screwed up, see.)

It came together pretty quickly.  I’ve yet to knock out the crew: I figure I’ll do all the war machine crews together at once… also, they’ll wait for me to figure out how I’m going to base them and work them into a scene.

Not much painting difference here: I highlighted the yellow different and I used a slightly different metal wash.

Instead of Golden Yellow, I tried a Iyanden Darksun / Menoth White Base mix on the Marienburger (the results of which I, like a doofus, forgot to photograph)… then I snagged a bottle of VMC Sand Yellow and tried that here.  It’s lighter, maybe too light, but I’m lazy enough / obsessed with easily replicable results enough that “bottle color not perfect” > “mixed color.”  We’ll see how it works on an infantryman: I’m doing up a Nordlander halberdier test model now..

The metal wash was sort of what I used on my Skaven (3:2:2 – Water : Asurmen Blue : Badab Black): instead I stuck with the glaze ratio I’ve had a lot of luck with, plus some of the amazing P3 Armor Wash: 6:3:3:4:1 Water : Asurmen Blue : Badab Black : Matte Medium : Armor Wash.  It’s a great tone, but the flow was waaaay too thin for my tastes.  I’d like to thicken it up a bit.

Anyway, here are the pictures: