The end of an empire...

The great plan has started, and in a grand way. I have started into motion a massive re-aligning of my projects - not just thinking, web surfing, and making notes - but a major change.

Almost three years ago, I was given the core of my Warhammer Empire army, the army box set that Taeklonn won in a raffle at his local GW shop. Add to that more gifts (more raffle prizes!) from my kids - Helblasters, Greatswords, many sprues of 5th edition spearmen and handgunners, and more. I think that I had over 2800pts, of which I had only purchased 6 minis: 1 box of metal Greatswords command, and 1 warrior priest for a total of $30.

Before the Empire project, the Tau had a place at my painting table. Fire Warriors, Crisis suits, a Broadside, a Hammerhead tank, Catachan Imperial Guard converted to gue'vasa, lots of drones.

Out of all of these minis, only the six Tau Stealth suits were completed.

So I made the decision to give these minis away - the Empire troops went back to Taeklonn, as he is the one that won them in the first place. And the Tau were given to Vahll, as in my collection were the remnants of his beginning 40K collection.


Partially painted minis, sprues, bitz, and books - now off to a better home.

I am a little sad that they are gone, but I know that my sons will get them into action.





I have to admit, though, that I did not give away all of my GW minis:


I have a few greenskins hidden about. Maybe someday...


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Empire Outriders, part 6

Here is a pic of the very first horse I have done in 28mm:


Wow, not nearly done yet, but it is getting there. I used a mix of Daler and Rowney Burnt Umber ink and 50% Future and coated the entire horse except the saddle. I like the effect of the ink on the horse; the mane and tail will require some dry-brushing to make them look right. The tack does not look good, so that will need to be repainted and then a wash of Reaper Pro Paint Wood Stain Ink to give it a more leathery and less pink look. The saddle will be dark grey and the blanket will be dark blue.


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Moving slowly, but progress

Small and infrequent they are, yet some paint is being applied to minis -- sorry but no pics yet --

The first small set of Legion of Ever Present Glory troops for the Tsolyanu are almost done. I completed the bases earlier in the week; they only need a clearcoat (which will be yet another story as I am definitely not using the wonderfully toxic Dullcoat anymore...).

The unit of Empire Outriders is getting a dab or two of paint also. I am about to start Step 2 of the horse painting experiment - the block colors are done (with the exception of the saddle) and now a wash of ink will be applied over the entire creature. Scared? Yes I am.

As the prospect of having completed minis is getting closer, I have been thinking more about terrain. I have a few plans and some materials gathered, so soon I will attempt to make... something.



There is yet another MMORPG that is absorbing my time and attention. It is a new game from NCsoft called Aion and it is quite simply beautiful. The graphics, from characters to terrain, are stunning even with our outdated graphic cards. I will try to post some screenshots - I have a large collection since I have been using them to get ideas for mini terrain projects.


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Empire Outriders, part 5

Just a little bit of evidence that I actually am making some progress on the Empire project:


This is my first-ever attempt at painting horses, so bear with me.

The plan is to paint the horse, along with some of the tack, in basic colors and then give it a good wash of dark brown. Almost like 'the dip', without the dipping. Then, I will come back and touch up the horse, adding socks and various other marks, and voila - done! Hope so, at least.

I did initially plan to paint the horses in different colors, but the paint I selected is rather ancient and needed a lot of dilution. With a lot of paint on the palette, I just kept on painting... There is a slight variation in the colors, but not much.

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Taeklonn and his GT award

As I had originally mentioned before - link - my son won an award at the 2009 ConquestNW GT.  I finally found some more pics here .  Also, issue 351 of White Dwarf will have an article about the tournament.  I'll be parting with $9US to get a copy, my first in maybe 5 years.  The price sure went up since then!

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Empire Greatswords, part 4

A little bit of modification was in order for the standard bearer of my Greatswords unit.

I'm not yet brave enough to try a hand-painted flag, so I cut the staff from the right arm piece, just above the hand.  After a second look, I also removed the remainder of the staff that I had left above the hand.  It would be a lot easier to mount a new staff to the hand, rather than attempt to line up the two sections:

Looks reasonably straight!

And, the finished (but unpainted) product:

A little bit of decoration for the top finishes it off.

Now, for some flags.  I think that I will try to talk Feawin into helping me out with that, as she is much better with computer graphics than I am.  The base colors will be those of Nordland - blue and yellow.  I think that the flags for the core units, spearmen and swordsmen, should be a bit plain, with the veteran troops, like the Greatswords, adding some more detail.  The Army standards will need to be large and dramatic, as befitting an Army of the Empire.

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Empire Greatswords, part 3

I finally broke down, and bought some minis for my Empire army:



This is the command set for my Greatswords unit. Each box contains 5 minis - leader, musician, standard bearer, and two Greatswords.



Very nice minis - much better proportioned and finer detail than even the latest plastic offerings. I am not yet certain about what to do with the standard. My ability to paint flags is p o o r so I probably will replace it with a paper flag and brass tubing staff. The situation is a bit more complicated with the standard bearer's sword being attached to that same arm, but it should not be a problem. I might even keep the skull atop the staff - seems appropriate for the Greatswords.

The Greatswords unit will go behind the first spearmen unit and the Outriders on the painting queue. I'm thinking of a dark metallic color for the armor; it should stand out more against the brighter armor that will be used on the other units. The slashed tunics will be in alternating buff and blue, and the plumes will be white.

Incredibly, this is the first set of minis purchased for my Empire army. This box was $22 US - maybe a little steep for 5 metal minis but not too bad for nearly 2800 points of Empire troops!


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Empire spearmen, part 2

Just a simple head swap:



Looks a little different... the bit was in the first Handgunners box. There are 2 or 3 more that I will be using in the future. I think that I also need to watch the length of the neck when fitting the new pieces on; the new trooper seems to be a bit odd that way.


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Empire cannon, part 1

Just started work on my cannon for the Empire force:



I had forgotten that the box set comes with two different trails, one for the mortar and a longer trail for the cannon. Once I find another barrel and long trail there will be a second cannon in my force.

I also put a little paint on the crew:


The gents on the left and middle are done except for basing and varnish. The loader needs an ink wash over his leather vest and some more detailing, but he is close to complete also.

I'm going to switch to a slightly different base color for the blue parts of their uniforms. The blue I'm using now, Reaper Pro Series Breonne Navy, does not like to stick to the gesso primer; it just slides around and I find it hard to control. I'm using other Reaper paints (the yellowish color is Reaper Pro Series Buckskin) so maybe I have got a bad batch of blue. Feawin suggested (at a visit to Michael's) that I try Delta Ceramcoat Navy Blue; I'll use that on the Outriders and see how it works.


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Empire spearmen, part 1

I have finally started to dive into the pile of plastic spearmen. These minis are much easier to assemble than the current offerings from GW obviously, as they have only two parts without the shield. I like them though!


Here are the first six of 45 spearmen that I have. I have left the shields off for now; it is much easier to paint the mini without the shield. So far, they are ranking up well - one of my perennial problems with GW minis is getting them to fit together nice and tight, and these should pose no problems.



Here is a close-up of the rear rankers. The one in the center looks like he had a bit too much ale the previous night!

The close-up does show the age of these minis. The detail, especially the hands and face, is softly defined. The faces are rather featureless, and the hands are just odd. I still like them though! And, once I slap some paint on there it won't matter much.




And some front-rank types. I'm glad that these are holding their spears at 45°; level spears/pikes are a pain to play with on the table.

I plan to do some head swaps with the bits I have leftover from the other boxes of Empire troops that I have. Plastic minis make conversions almost too easy - fun too!


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Empire spearmen, again

Thanks to the kindness of my sons, I am now in the possession of yet more Empire troops:


4 more sprues of spearmen/handgunners!

I now have enough for 2 20-figure spear blocks, each with 2 detachments of 6 handgunners (or even more than that). I have a preliminary army list, but now I will gladly rewrite it. This addition, along with a purchase of just a handful more minis (mostly for the greatswords command) will give me almost 3000 pts of Empire troops. Plenty for a long time!


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Empire Greatswords, part 2

As I was working on these minis, I noticed that they appeared to be advancing to an angle when placed in the typical GW slotta base. So, I clipped the trailing foot off of the slot in order to reposition the mini on the base.


In the pic you can see the effect of the repositioning. On the left is the original configuration, and it is (in my opinion) advancing towards the corner of the base. On the right is the modified version, and is advancing toward the front. Hopefully, the mini will stay glued to the base after the modification.


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More Empire troops

Once again, I have received another gift of Empire troops for my army. I'm not quite certain how Taeklonn came into possession of these sprues, but they are a most welcome addition.

In the box, there were two of these:


This is half of the Empire cannon box, meaning that it is not complete. However, I have a leftover cannon barrel, since I made a mortar with the cannon box that was a part of the Army set. One piece is missing - the trail. I think that I will make a four-wheeled cannon out of the bits on these new sprues.

I also received two of these:


This appears to be the command sprue from a 5th edition Warhammer box set. I do not think that the infantry command figures are quite complete; the arms on this sprue appear to be meant for knights. I should have enough bits to complete the minis though. This sprue does have a mounted figure, which I am going to use to make a mounted standard bearer - just need a spare horse!

Last but not least:


Six of these! These are great figures! The spearmen will be one of my large core units in my army. I like these minis much better than the ones I received in the Army box. Sure, they do not have the variety of poses available in the newer boxes, but they are beautiful minis. And they are not hunched over like the new ones!

The best part is the handgunners. I will try to post a comparison photo, showing these against the new handgunners, in the near future. These handgunners almost appear to have sprung forth from one of the Ospreys on landsknechts. My favorite is the gunner in the top left corner of the photo. All of them are great poses with great detail and much better proportions than the newer minis. I might even pull these out of the Empire army to be the nucleus of my historical Renaissance force.


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Empire Outriders, part 4

The Outrider unit is finally assembled.

The musician was altered slightly. Originally, the musician is armed with either a pistol or a repeating pistol, but I wanted something different. There are plenty of repeater handguns on the kit's sprue that could be modified.

Here is the basic repeater handgun piece:


My plan is to lop off the right arm so the weapon will be held by the left arm, leaving the musician able to have his horn in his right.

With the mini being plastic, it was very easy to snip away the arm, and carve and file away the hand:




The only tricky part is to leave enough material to show the trigger. A very sharp knife helps. I also put a little putty on the stock to fill in some gaps.

Here is the fully-assembled musician:







The unit leader underwent a similar conversion. His original weapon was a grenade launcher, a weapon that is good for heavily-armored targets but once again I wanted something a bit different ( and a higher quantity of shots).

In the kit, there is one repeater handgun that is separate, i.e. with no arms/hands molded in. With a bit of snipping, I freed the leader's arm from the grenade launcher and cut the repeater handgun to fit:



The trigger guard broke on each weapon - not too surprising since it is thin. The butt of the repeater handgun's stock was trimmed to allow the hand to fit within and to get the trigger guard back together. Also, I rotated the wrist. Test-fitting of the new weapon showed that it would not fit alongside the horse's neck. I scored the wrist along the cuff but I did not cut it completely through. A part of the wrist was left intact, and I twisted the wrist gently to get it into the proper angle, then filled in the gap with glue. This was a bit of an experiment, as I would usually just cut if off completely and then drill and pin the wrist back to the forearm. Hopefully, the joint will be strong enough.

This is the finished weapon:


And, the fully-assembled leader:


In retrospect, I can see that the pose of the arm is a bit awkward; I hope that nobody else notices!





Here is the entire unit, together:


The horses are leaning a bit, but it does rank up together nicely, and should be a good-looking unit once painted.


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Empire Outriders, part 3

I have been able to get some work done on the Empire boys during these holidays.

Here are the first two Outriders:


I am finding that these Outriders are easy to assemble. The weapon/arm pieces do what they should without leaving obvious seams at either the shoulder or wrist. I think that the cloak helps with that somewhat. At first, I was not going to use the cloaks, but I think that (unfortunately) it is necessary without substituting left arms from another source. The left arm is integral to the cloak for the 'gatling' firearm of the Outriders. Also, the cloaks will help cover up the poorly designed rump of the mounts!

Here are some close-ups:



Along with the cloaks, my Outriders will differ from the Pistolier unit in a number of ways. The Outriders for my army will be the more experienced unit, composed of older troopers - Outriders have beards while the Pistoliers will be clean-shaven. The Pistoliers will have plumes on their helms, while the Outriders do not. And the Pistoliers will have the slashed/puffed tunics.

I am still working on the leader and musician for this unit. I have a couple of simple conversions planned, just to make them look a bit different. Pics will be loaded up when they are done.


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Empire Greatswords, part 1

This was quite a surprise. Vahll (my youngest son) had been mentioning to me for a while that he had something for me, something that I really wanted. I shrugged it off until our family Christmas party, when he gave me this:



The start of yet another Empire unit! This one is not yet complete, as the box set does not include command. Also note the marking there on the front of the box - my son won this in yet another GW-Tacoma raffle, so the 'theme' for this army continues... so far my entire army has been complimentary, not a penny spent on it (yet)!

Contrary to the rest of my army though, these minis are metal:


There are ten minis in the box, with four different poses. After a brief scan, all of the minis look very well cast, with no obvious defects. The swords need to be straightened, but that is not a problem.

I had a vision of a unit of 20 Greatswords, but I might limit that to 15. I will need to get a command group - I expect that there is a blister of 3 command minis (leader, standard bearer, musician) available from GW, and then I can get another 2 minis in a blister also.


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Empire Outriders, part 2

I have not had much time to put into the Outriders, but I have assembled the horses:


Those are the three basic horses included in the box. The one on the left is the leader's mount, and there are two each of the others.

These came together easily, but I am disappointed in the fit of the parts. There is a bit of a gap on the horse's neck on the left side from assembly, which I didn't notice until after I glued together the first one. I was able to solve that with a bit of extra glue on the following mounts. There is also a problem with the hindquarters. The two halves of the mini slope inwards at the join, although it really should not. Some of it will be covered up with the baggage pieces provided in the kit, but the rest went under the knife and file to smooth it out somewhat. Once painted they will be OK, I'm certain.

Here is a pic of all five:


Not a bad start.


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Empire Outriders, part 1

In the Empire army, there are two types of firearm-equipped light cavalry - Pistoliers and Outriders. There are several differences: Outriders are more heavily armed; Outriders are more experienced (game-wise), with an improved chance to hit with ranged weapons; Outriders are more expensive points-wise; and, Pistoliers are actually more colorful, as they are wearing slashed-and-puffed tunics (as shown on the box front above).


Here are some photos of the box contents:



Front and back of the main troops sprue. There are two of these in the box.


The leader/musician sprue.

Lots of pieces of plastic in this box! There are a lot of separate weapons and head variants (twelve different heads for 5 figures). There are a few nice accessories - ammo pouches, blanket rolls, and some bottles, but not so many as the handgunners set.

I had originally thought to make both of my fast cavalry units as Outriders, but now I am not certain. The Pistoliers would be a bit more colorful, so I might make one unit of each.


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Empire handgunners, part 2

I was able to finish assembling the first unit of handgunners yesterday, and the unit looks nice:



I raided one of the boxes of state troops for extra heads so each handgunner has the same style of hat within the unit. This might cause some problems later when I assemble the swordsmen but it should not be a big issue. On the recommendations of the handgunner expert (Taeklonn), I did not equip the unit with a banner; there is a fifer however.

Other than the head swap with the swordsmen box, these have very little modifications. The leader (equipped with the long rifle) has a plume added to his hat; one gent has his ramrod in the ground in front of him; and two of the handgunners have some extra ammo on their belts.

I was even able to get the handgunners to rank up reasonably well:


Only 7 more units of troops to assemble now!


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Another Empire addition

My son Taeklonn has brought me another piece for my Empire army. His local GW store had yet another raffle, and he won another Empire box, which he very kindly gave to me.


At this rate, I might not need to buy any GW models for my Empire army! This has two options within the box: Helblaster organ gun or rocket battery. I intend to go with the organ gun.



Lot of parts, and lots of interesting bits: several head choices for the crew, a sword rack, a brazier of hot coals (for heated shot???), a shovel, and of course all of those rockets that will find another use beyond this set.

Although I'm sorely tempted to start working on the organ gun immediately, I do need to finish off some other units of the Empire army first.


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