Painting up Sacrificial Lambs

I've just finished painting up five Wood Elf archers. They are from an era long before Glade Guard, they are Marauder archers with plenty of character (I think so anyway). they were one of my long term half painted figures that always had enough paint on them to play with but not enough for them to look nice. So anyway, I have painted them up and now feel a wee bit sad as all the internet experts all say a unit of five scouts are there to be an annoyance to your enemy shortly before they are exterminated! This rankles a bit with me, not because I cherish every single model I paint, and definately not because I play in a protective style (indeed my Skaven army is used as a Kitcheneresque WWI attritional type of warfare). No the problem for me here is the ethos of the army, I simply can't see such a small population of elves glibly sacrificing themselves for the temporary gain of holding up a unit of bloodthirsty beastmen for a turn when they are so few. So what I intend to do with these guys is to use them in an aggressive forward manner but not with the intention of losing them in my opponents first magic phase. Of course how I achieve this is not yet worked out...

Suicide Squad?

Paintwise they came out ok, I sculpted a spite on the central archer who i will be using as a Lord's Bowman more often than not, I suppose in a vain attempt to provide an extra reason to keep them alive I may well throw a mage in the unit for mutual protection.

I also managed to get rid of some figures and CDs on ebay that amounted to €1.45 more than the price of Storm Of Magic, which basically means that my ebay wealth stayed in the Paypal account for approximately 45 minutes. Ah well, easy come, easy go!

Defeated by Saint Patrick!

Well due to a clerical error, Saint Patrick's day and the ensuing alcahol prevented me from playing a game of warhammer last weekend. All I did do was nearly finish my 5 Wood Elf Scouts, I say nearly but as I half made a woodland spite on the base of my would be champion he has probably got another week of work on him.My other significant hobby related acts were to sculpt a pair of balls on Red Maw the Chaos Hound and submerge my Sludge Jellies in Wooden Floor Varnish. Oh yeah, I downloaded Battle Chronicler to make super snazzy battle reports. By the way floor varnish is not a good idea, it eats milliput a bit!
No more Guiness for me until I make a dent in my painting list.

Preview of Wood Elves Vs Lizardmen at the weekend.

This Saturday me and Boy! are going to have another game of Warhammer. My wood Elves vs Lizardmen. I'm using (obviously) the old Wood Elf army book as there hasn't been a new one since 2005! The Lizardman army book is from 2003 so I'm not sure how under/over pointed it may be so to err on the safe side, Boy! is fielding 2750 points Vs my 2500. As this is his first attempt at writing an army list too I thought it might be fun to have uneven forces.
 After looking at the Lizardman book I'm not so sure it will be any fun as Scar Veterans are nasty, as are quite a lot of the army. As far as I can tell he will be using two blocks of 30 Saurus each, 20 Temple Guard and the rest made up of shooty Skinks and Salamanders.
 For me I will run will a fairly Glade Guardish force with 2 units of both Wardancers and Dryads. A Treeman, some Glade Riders and a hero on a Great Eagle. I'm trying to fit a second mage in the army as I know there is a Skink Priest in the list who will be used to cast spells through. I'm thinking of taking a Spellsinger with Calingor's Stave and hope to use the woods as a battering ram!
So I've got to go up into my Man Cave/attic and make sure all the Lizardmen are ready for some arras up their jacksies!

Super Viper Assasination Squad and Clan Pusfoot Sanitation Dept.

Well I've done a bit more painting and would like to share my efforts. As I wasn't very impressed with last years painting total, I thought that to knock out a few figures from my nearly finished but can't quite work up enough enthusiasm pile, would be the way to go. So firstly my Super Viper Assasination Squad:

Super Viper Assasination Squad

Head Murderer Solam Stabb

This is an old Citadel assasin from the late 80's, a real Old School miniature. I painted him black, high lighted grey (not gray) black ink washed him and repeated the process. As with a lot of my photogaphy, it looks better in the flesh. He was on my prepped but not ready for painting pile/table/area for at least 10 years if not more. Now he's finished I can use him as an Eversor™ or even a non Imperium affiliated freelance buttonman.

The rest of the squad

The four remaining members are Black Tree Design sci fi figures that are no longer available, so that makes them priceless! The paint job was the same principle and are just intended to be a bit of added muscle for Stabb, although I think they will double up nicely as law enforcerment officers on various Imperial planets. I have another 4 or 5 of them including a heavy stubber type weapon so the whole unit could be fielded in some interesting hit type scenarios.

Necromundan Icrotic Slime

Icrotic Slime

Two simple to make Death World Gribblies next: Icrotic Slime for Necromunda and beyond! They encyst on your head filling you with euphoria making you a semi superhero until the timely help of a buddy chisels it off or your brain becomes a larder for millions of the little buggers. Making them was a joyfully easy affair. Two blobs of green stuff on a base painted green. Simples!

 Clan Pusfoot Sanitation Dept.

Clan Pusfoot is the name of my skaven warlord clan that I use when I'm using the big wormy tailed feckers. I always imagined them to be in a fairly large lair somewhere in the badlands but with good infrastructure so a quick commute to the Empire wasn't out of the question. Access to the Chaos Wastes was also a vital as was a big Clan Skyre teleportation device that got them to the South Lands pretty damn smartly as well. Access to Athel Loren a bonus. Empire, Chaos, Lizardmen and Wood Elves were (and probably still will be) their main antagonists so equidistant  from each of those realms is where they have dug their warren.

Skik Mishik Maize Stirrer

This is a Skavenslave spearrat that has received some modification. Instead of being armed with something useful, the Slave Overseer decided to give him a large bronze maize stirrer to defend himself with in battle, just one more indication that he isn't required to survive the battle.

Gurk Jizzik Tunnel Maker

Another converted Skavenslave, this time with a pick for digging tunnels and splitting unarmoured skulls. unfortunately I made the top of the pick too big but I am very pleased the way the pet rat came out.

Snikket the Hedge Cutter

This slave has been given a slashhook for trimming hedges and beating the Bejasus out of other lightly armed troops.

Gypsy the Rat

The rather large base on this model was made simply because I had a lump of DAS modelling clay and no other idea about what to do with it. The pinkish blob of something on the base is meant to be a rag but I suppose it could be flesh either. Your choice.

Whats in the Figure Case?

A new (and possibly very shortlived) feature I'm starting is; Whats in the figure case?
I'll take a pic of my figure cases with stuff I intend to paint and hopefully this will help motivize me into painting the bloody stuff!

Figure Case #1

In figure case #1 we have:
Telekinetic Wyrd
5 Attilan Roughriders
2 Orlock Juves
4 Mutants
Chaos beastmaster (converted)
Nurgle Sorceror
Eldar swooping Hawk Exarch
Astropath
Genestealer Hybrid
Beastmaster Wyrd
2 Ice Warriors of Valhalla
Catachan Luitenant

Figure Case #2

In figure case #2 we have;
The Skaven Screaming Bell
Ratling Machine Gun
3 Jezzails
Deathmaster Snikch
Skaven Assasin
5 Wood Elf Archers
Necromancer
Gotrek & Felix
Mutant
Glam the Laughing Elf
Wood Elf Hero
4 Dwarf Ne'er Do Wells
Norse Warrior Woman 

The varied collection of figures just emphasise my goldfish type attention span shows how none of my armies ever get finished. As you can see there are quite a lot of figures in there and if I can get all of these finished this year I will be delighted with myself! What is unfortunately more likely is I'll prep a load more miniatures and start them instead!