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An unboxing from the Dark ages - Wargames Atlantic Irish

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I have always had a soft spot for Celts. The idea of those wild people from the North West of Europe, their "fingers up to authority" feeling against the Romans etc. I toyed for a while with trying to make an historical army but never really found a system or players local enough to me to consistently play it. The recent swell in mini agnostic games that are designed to be so has changed that. I was after some javelin throwers for my slowly growing Kings of War Northern Alliance list. This is intended to be my slow burn and use the models I love so what better place than to get some of those Celts I always fancied assembled and painted.  I like models to be simple enough to be functional but still have plenty of visual interest to paint. Scouring the options from vendors such as  Foundry ,  Perry ,  oldschoolminis , ebay and facebook trading groups I couldn't find anything that fitted the lead cast approach so turned to plastics. I think I must secretly be an airfix model

Going with the Floe

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Just starting off on some lava bases for my Kings or War Salamanders army. I wanted the units to have some influence of fire but not be on the slightly stayed and cliched volcanic island. For my Ember sprites, Fire Elementals, Greater Elemental or anything else that is borne of fire I never really like the concept that they were just floating around on a cloud of smoke. I wanted them to be part of an endless stream of molten rock moving along the ground which they were a part of. Originally thinking of lush Hawaiian islands with lava slowly pouring through them, my club mate Jake pointed me towards Yana Dag which also summed up the look perfectly. While not Lava the flames from the natural gas fit the theme and were a nice point of reference.  After a lot of thinking I used the  Geek Gaming basing compound  to create the lava, trying to layer it on thick and create an overflowing effect. Expecting to have to do a lot of work it turned out that was it! Just let it dry, seal it with the

Getting Dirty - Painting grimy industrial scenery

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Having knocked out a few more Deadzone models (I may stick a blog up about them too at some point) I thought it would be fun to delve into the box of scenery that I picked up a while ago. It was a combination of some ebay purchases and a box of bits from a great local guy at a Kings of War Event. I didn't really know where to start so grabbed whatever bits came to light first and started chucking them together. Within a few hours I  concocted the idea I was building a hide out for the rebs in an abandoned mining complex. It meant I could use some of the odds and ends I had laying around from Star Saga and Ramshackle Games' resin parts. Now with some big lumps done I took a couple of plates and thought I would try out some test paint pieces. Ever since seeing Nick Williams doing some on his Orks I'd had in the back of my mind trying the salt and hairspray method of painting. This was brought even further to life with one of my clubmates showing me some of the pics he'd

To the Tap house!

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 Game one down and it was nuts as expected.  Here's the list I took. The plan was to take hunters to jam up the inevitable frostfangs and sit in the terrain with some boomers to supplement the warlock shooting. Siege Breakers to just wander up and sit there. Nomagarok had sent his apprentices to the opening skirmishes to test the enemy's strength and blood his acolytes in battle.  Troop Red Goblin Scouts 2 Boomer Hordes Warriors with 2 handed weapons 2 Hunter Hordes Berzerker Brave Regiment 3 Ogre Warlocks with DL, one with conj staff, one with Amulet of fireheart, one insp Talisman A army standard with the Lute Kuzlo and Mad fall The Varangur eschewed the use of a mage in favour of hordes of northmen both mounted and on foot. Units of Cavalry marshalled by a Lord astride a mighty frostfang deployed on either flanks. The unruly infantry accompanied by their hunting foxes held the middle ground and advanced.   The ogres deployed to the East of the tap house and spread a line alt

Into the Rift

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Despite there being little in person gaming going on these days the guys at Table top Conflict and Mantic have joined up to allow a global campaign for the new Halpi's Rift Supplement . I've signed up with Jock and the Ogres and have been assigned into The College as my sponsors from a choice of 4. I am not sure what it means in the long term but hopefully we'll find out. It gives a great chance to provide more fluff to the band of pirates and what they'll get up to.  Focus for this will really be on using the models I have and expanding their personalities as units. I won't be going for daft skew lists just because it is being played on Universal Battle . The first scenario is Dominate which I think is a great one for Ogres with their scoring heroes and good ratio of footprint to US. It's also being played on the Material Plane and means I have access to a lot of interesting Artefact choices. The material plane also gives some pretty tasty buffs to spell caster

Shroud of the Reaper - Tournament Report

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 Intro After a couple of false starts over the years I finally made it to an event hosted by Bexley Reapers. chucking my freshly painted Ogre pirate units into the car I set off for 4 games of Kings of War accompanied by access to a slightly insane event only Special Character in the form of Davy Jones.  If you want an expert   assessment of the lists on offer look no further than one provided by Troll Cast here .  I took the usual mix of an infantry block in the form of two siege breakers supported by a pair of warlocks and some boomers to help manage the back field and clear chaff. These also had the insurance policy of a blaster to hide behind them. Then a bunch of hard hitting things that could operate on their own, provide a threat and generally look for flanks or just go and die.  Accompanying this rat tag bunch of pirates and to fit in with the theme of the Davy Jones and pirates I took a regiment of pirate scarecrows and a shade represented by an animated figurehead. Yes they a

Glazin' Squad

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With some base layers down it was time to put some mid tones in and then start the process of adding some volume by Glazing. As it was the biggest area and the lightest colour I took the Spacewolf Grey and went over all of the Blue Grey leaving some base coat only in the recesses. This took a heck of a time to get a consistent colour and a fair few coats. The end result was pretty startling and far from the "grey" I associate space wolves with. As instructed, the flesh was given a coat of bronzed flesh/bestial brown mix and I highlighted up a couch more with just bronzed flesh. The red parts got a coat of blood red and they started to get a bit of life and pop. At this point I was a bit worried that the end result was going to look way too stark.  The Space Marine Painting guide suggested using dry brushing t build up depth on on the flat armour plates. I will admit at this I deviated from the true path (don't let the inquisition know). I am awful at dry brushing and have