Total War!

So I have had my eye on Total War: Warhammer for some time.

I actually bought it in a Humble Bundle Monthly deal, which was excellent value for money. Loaded it up. Could hear the sound. Got all interested. Nothing. Not a thing on the screen!

Turns out, after much fretting and checking, that my good old graphics card just was not enough to cope (GT 9600). I could not afford a new one so it all went on the back burner.

Over the next few months I tried to scrimp and save a bit...very difficult at the moment... all my real cash goes on the family and house, as it should. But I did take part in a long survey for SKY and earned £50. I also got £50 for my birthday in August. And during spare bits of time I did a lot of the surveys on Opinion Outpost, earning £2.50 in Amazon vouchers here and there.

Eventually I count my pennies and do some research. A 1050 Ti looked like a good bet. It actually used much less power than my old card (it takes it all from the rail), was quieter (fans only spin up when put under serious load) and was a decent price point (expensive for me, but decent bang for your pound).

I did a lot of research and tracked down an EVGA slightly overclocked one on Amazon. Totted up and added on all my vouchers. After £90 of vouchers (!) and £50 birthday money it actually only cost me £5 of real cash! Bargain!

I was not looking forward to the change over, having worked with IT for so long and seen so many things go wrong. In the end, absolutely faultless and painless. Even put the old card into my wife's PC downstairs to boost it a bit.

First thing I loaded after checking everything? Oh yeah... Total War!

Finally! An oh boy was it worth the wait. I have always wanted Total War to come into the Warhammer universe, and to be honest, they have done themselves proud. I have now played through several campaigns, trying the Empire several times (once getting trounced late game as everyone around me declared war at the same time, another giving up after a time), Dwarves (to completion, enjoyed that one) and I am now into a Wood Elves campaign (yes I paid £10 for the DLC... wanted to try them out as something different, and given I had a bit of cash on me at the time and I had saved so much over the last year with the package I treated myself).

More to come!

Blast from the past

Next up on the painting board are these (and some unpictured friends). A bit of a blast from the past!

Manual Labour

I have had these two for some time now and I thought they had earned a bit of paint. I tried to spread a few spot colours around but still get the same dirty, muddy look the rest of my IG has.

Archers! Fire!

Another unit of archers done. Again, like with every Man at Arms unit, they will be matching one of the Knights of the Realm in terms of colours.

Command Models

I dug out some of old models that I painted up ohhhh.... too many years ago... that served as the command for my Imperial Guard. Alongside these I have painted up one of the minis I got for Christmas from my lovely wife (I just do not how she knows exactly what I like *cough*Giftster*cough*).

I always loved the look of the cigar in the mouth with the sword pointed forward. The old standard bearer harks back to Rogue Trader days but still does the job. The lieutenant I thought was a brilliant model, just a shame at the time in 2nd Edition they did not do different versions or poses of him. The new model is a resin one that I believe fits in nicely as a Fleet Officer. The scale is not that too far off even if he is not 'heroic' 28mm. Especially with the older IG models which are not quite as huge.

Squires! Mount up!

So with my 20+ year fear of putting any paint anywhere near my Bretonnians I have finally made a start. Well... at least they are riding a horse. These mounted squires are my gateway into tackling the massive number of knights waiting for a paint job.

The plan here is to make each of the four units I have attached to my large knight household or city with a common colour scheme. They may even match some of the men at arms schemes to represent an important noble bringing some of his units with him to battle

With these now complete I have actually started painting up two Knights Errant. These will literally be my first knights I have ever painted since I started collecting this army more than 20 years ago!

Objective Secured

So for a while now I have been thinking about putting together some objective markers that can double up as pieces for terrain, scenary and diorama. I have managed to paint up my little arms cache I made from spare bits.

For something cobbled together out of literally spare bits I am happy with it. I now intend to keep this up on a regular basis and put together more bits that kind of tell the story. For a long while I have looked at doing some sort of supply drop or airborne drop.

Now that the latest 40k stuff is out I am drooling over their set of objective markers. Money is always tight so spending £20 is a big ask but maybe, just maybe, it might go on a gift list somewhere.

A change of Scenary

For a long while now I have toyed with the idea of making a few bits of scatter terrain come objective markers. I do not have the cold hard cash to stump up for the ideal bits I want though so I had a rummage around and came up with this.

Many years ago, when I purchased one of the Catachan Jungle Fighter kits from GW I had one posted to me that had obviously been left under a paint stripper. All the bits were bent, twisted, warped and shrunk. Over the years I have used bits and bobs from the kit that could be rescued and I delved back into it for a few weapons and bits that could be used.

I had also kept the sprues from the last few kits I made on purpose for terrain making. So I started chopping and fiddling and have come up with this rough form.

The beige plastic is from an old Tamiya kit I believe...

I did intend at first to build it out of sandbags (Milliput) but thought I would try sprue stacking first to see what it looks like. It is on a hardboard base (old picture frames being thrown out!) which I might seal with some PVA before applying Vallejo Primer all over. At the moment the weapons are separate for ease of painting. I was also thinking of draping some bandage over for some camouflage cloth.

Battle Fleet

The Imperial Guard cannot always just walk over to the warzone. The most common option is to have the Imperial Navy smash their way into the system and deliver the sledgehammer that is the Guard in person.

I have a sizeable BFG Imperial Fleet.

Two battleships, 14 cruisers, dozen or so escorts.

I am currently looking to paint up a few Sword Frigates, a Cruiser and a Battleship (along with an auxiliary vessel). Methinks I will play a little with some basecoats and dry brushing and see what happens.

Bretonnians - the lowly peasant

So finally I get round to making some more progress on the spearmen, as well as using the grass tufts I got for Christmas.

Painting Moonraker & Spearmen

Work has been as busy as ever and so has home life so I have not been able to break out the paints as often as I would like to relax. However I have slowly made some improvements to the miniatures mentioned in the previous post, as well as another unit of Bretonnians that have been primed ready to go for a year!

I still like the sculpts. I think perhaps some of the hands are a little out of proportion but they have some interesting details and I do not think they would go amiss in the realms of 40K as civilians, advisors, henchmen, background scenary, dioramas, objectives etc.

I also bought a new lamp (Ikea but I got it from ebay second hand) and a daylight bulb (from Lightbulbs Direct - good price and a wide range of stuff). It means I do not have to squint even when I have the 15 bulbs on in the front room (yes... 15 of the damn things and it is still a bit dim for painting)