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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MMORPG, part 3

As it is almost the 15th, I'll take a brief interlude for the MMO stuff...

Slowly working along with my WoW characters - here is my hunter, now level 20:
This is a pic at Thunder Bluff, the Tauren city. I prefer this city to the others - the others are too crowded with players or too confusing. I might move him out to Silvermoon City though; there is no engineering trainer in Thunder Bluff. And my Tauren shaman:
Level 16 now. My hunter made him a mechanical squirrel for a pet!


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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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