Marienburg Halberdiers

Here are four warriors with halberds for my Marienburg mercenary warband, ready to venture into Mordheim. The bodies and heads are all Warlord Games Landsknecht plastics, and the halberds are metal arms/weapons from the same box. The only other source is the upraised hand for the gent with the hat, which is probably Frostgrave wizard in origin.

Each mercenary warriors with a halberd comes in at 35 gold, so that's 140 gold for the lot of them. Halberds don't really have the same impact as two separate hand weapons, but I'm building with a theme, not min-maxing. If a warband called Holly's Halberdiers doesn't have halberdiers then something is definitely wrong somewhere.

So, with the Ogre Bodyguard, we're at 220 gold out of 600 for these Marienburgers.

Their names (from left to right) are Toddrey, Boyle, Millner, and Rudy.

Mordheim: Clan Eshin Rat Ogre and Slinger

A long time ago, I wanted to build a Skaven warband for Mordheim. In fact, I've had a warband assembled and primed after an Ebay find maybe a decade ago. Now is as good a time as any to paint some of them up. The little fellow to the right is a test paint to see how quickly I can do a single model for the warband; he doesn't look great (and he's Agrax Shiny™), but he's good enough, and I can always pick out a few more details later.

The large fellow, on the other hand, I took some time on. This is a Reaper Miniatures "Giant Wererat" on a 50mm base. It's a great stand in for a Rat Ogre—210 points of a 500 point warband! It certainly makes painting up a legal force go more quickly, even if it is painful un-optimized. He has a very limited number of washes applied; the fur on his back and the non-metallic metals are the only things I washed. You can see some black got on his finger in the picture, but I've since fixed that with the appropriate flesh tone.

As I said, the rest of the warband is assembled and primed, so hopefully it will go quickly. And if I want to add someone else or swap something out, I still have four bodies/legs on sprue, with enough swords/spears/shields/heads to make whatever I want. I'd like to thank past-Me for this great Ebay purchase many, many years ago.

Marienburg Ogre Bodyguard

I love the Landsknecht Ogres box from Wargames Atlantic. Here's another ogre from that box, painted up for Mordheim. I went with a red, yellow, and blue paint scheme, which is one of the classic schemes for a warband from the city of Marienburg. With their extra 100 gold starting budget, Marienburgers could afford an ogre from the get-go. This fellow is armed with a halberd, which would count as a two-handed weapon, giving the ogre an effective strength of 6 for his two attacks each round. Scary.

The paints to use are as follows:

• Blue (70.925) Dark Prussian Blue (70.899)
• Heavy Red (72.141)
• Heavy Sienna (72.154)
• Gold Brown (70.877)
• Oily Steel (70.865)
• Gehenna's Gold (Citadel)
• Nuln Oil wash (Citadel)
  
• Normal flesh layering colors (Brown and Golden Brown (Craftsmart))

The base is something different. After laying down the Vallejo Dark Earth Texture (26.218), I painted everything black. Then I heavily drybrushed Heavy Charcoal (72.155), did a medium drybrush with Basalt Grey (70.869), and then a light drybrush of Luftwaffe Uniform WWII (70.816), which is a nice blue-grey.  Finally, a super-light drybrush of Deep Sky Blue (70.844). It gives a nice nighttime look that should stand out among my other miniatures.

The Broken Watchtower

I scratch-built this 17" watchtower as a Mordheim centerpiece back at the beginning of the year. Now, it's painted!

The rocky base and the stone bricks are made of solid pink insulation foam. The round bit was a cut-out from a terrain board six or seven years ago. The bricks were hand carved with a craft knife. The stone color formula was Black (Craftsmart), Zinc (DecoArt Americana), Graphite (Craftsmart), and Rain Grey (Ceramcoat).

The main structure was made of black foamboard with half-inch wood rods for the corners. All of the wood is painted a mix of Black (Craftsmart) and Coffee Bean (FolkArt 881), which was then drybrushed with just Coffee Bean.

The plaster on the walls turned out exceedingly well. It's Vallejo Diorama FX Dark Earth (26.218), which is what I used as the ground cover as well. I drybrushed it with very old FolkArt Camel (953) and then a lighter drybrush of very old Delta Ceramcoat... um... it doesn't even have a color name? It's an off-white and the bottle has a copyright date of 2003. I also have an old Apple Barrel Haystack (21179) that might have been substituted for the Camel at some point in the process (they're very similar).

The roof tiles are cut-up strips of cardboard about 3/4" tall. Each shingle is a half inch wide and cut up about 1/2". They're all connected in strips, which makes them easier to work with. The lower shingles are smaller. The color is a base of Ceramcoat Cardinal Red mixed with Craftsmart Black, then a drybrush of just Cardinal Red. Some lighter and darker colors are also drybrushed on for some variation.

Broken Watchtower: 8" x 8" (64 in²)

Total Mordheim terrain: 122.56 in²

As noted in a previous post, I'm eventually aiming for 576 in² of terrain to have a quarter of a 4' x 4' board covered. 122.56/576 = 21%.

Mordheim Terrain: Pie Shoppe Ruins & Fish Plaza Statue

I love the aesthetic of Mordheim ruins. With a campaign soon to start, I figured now would be a good time to make some terrain. Here are the two fruits of my labor: a ruined pie shoppe and a huge fish statue for a plaza.

First, we have the Pie Shoppe. This building is a staggered ruin with about a 6" square footprint. It stands 9.75" tall. The shoppe is made entirely of black foamcore and craft wood (dowels, coffee stirrers, popsicle sticks, etc.). This is my second attempt at making a ruined building; the first was a few years ago, and take my word for it when I tell you this building is a lot better.

The exterior is Craftsmart Brick Red mixed with varying levels of black paint. The interior is Craftsmart Dark Blue mixed with, as you might guess, varying levels of black paint. The wood is FolkArt Coffee Bean (940) mixed with... varying levels of black paint. Finally, everything was drybrushed with FolkArt matte Coffee Latte (2559) to really tie it all together. Then I added some fine turf flock ("Weeds") and clump foliage ("Conifer") from Woodland Scenics. When everything was complete, I heavily sprayed the whole thing with a Mod Podge mix which, while it made it a little shiny for these pictures, should also protect the paint job and flock during play.

Second, we have the Fish Statue. This is a large statue with a 4.75" square footprint that stands about 8.5" tall. The base is some kind of bumpy cardboard shipping material that I painted up like stone. The big fish statue is a Reaper Miniatures "Gulper" that came with the Bones 4 Kickstarter; I had no idea what to do with it, but since Mordheim has a fish motif, I rolled with it. The skeleton on the gulper's fin is from Wargames Atlantic, one of the torsos with no attached legs; I'm pretty happy with how he turned out. The smaller pikemen statues on each corner are Warlord Games Landsknecht Pikemen. Both the fish and the pikemen were painted up with bronze (or another, similar metallic paint), then covered with Citadel Nihilakh Oxide. I'm not sure if it's quite the effect I was going for, but it looks fine.

Pie Shoppe Ruins: 6"x6" (36 in²)

Fish Plaza Statue: 4.75"x4.75" (22.56 in²)

Total: 58.56 in²

A 4'x4' table (48"x48") is 2,304 in². If I were to aim for terrain coverage for half of the board, then it would mean it needs 1,152 in² of terrain. So, 58.56/1152 = 5%? If I aimed for covering one quarter of the board with terrain, that would mean 576 in², which would be about 10% done. That seems more manageable, so I'll set that as the goal. (I don't know if I'll even try to hit that goal, but it's a number to aim for.)

Mordheim: Ogre Bodyguard

Wargames Atlantic finally released their Landsknecht Ogre box, and I scooped it up immediately. I've been waiting for this box for ages, as it was supposed to release back in December. In any case, here's a big fellow to join both my Mordheim warband and my Noble Retinue (shown beside a normal-sized soldier for scale). Everybody needs a hulking enforcer, right?

The color scheme is the same as the other groups (red, grey, and charcoal), just... bigger. The teeth and nails are a base of Heavy Goldbrown with a thin layer of Bonewhite over it. There are eight more ogres in the box, so I'm sure they'll turn up here on the blog sooner or later.

Mordheim: Youngblood "Parasol"

Here's the second youngblood for my Mordheim Reiklander warband. Like Poppet, Parasol wears a mask and is named after her eccentric accessory. This kitbash takes a body and both arms from the Warlord Games Pike & Shotte Landsknects. The right hand is from the Frostgrave Soldiers sprue while the left hand and umbrella are from the Anvil Industry Secret Service pack. The head, with the weird pigtail/bun things, is from the Stargrave Mercenaries II sprue. I had to do some extensive surgery to get the hands and arms to be pretty much where I wanted; while I'm not as happy with this one as I am with Poppet, she still looks pretty good.

So, aside from Poppet and Parasol now being a pair of supercriminals, they also finish off my Mordheim warband. I did a bit more Mordheim work and put together four warpstone tokens. This picture shows the captain, the two new youngbloods, and the four new tokens.

Mordheim: Youngblood "Poppet"

Another round of possible Mordheim planning led me to build another youngblood for my Reikland mercenary warband. Mordheim has a long history of hand puppets, and when I saw a model with a puppet that someone built recently, I was inspired to put a hand puppet on my latest miniature. This is another extensive kitbash: the body is from the Warlord Games Pike & Shotte Landsknects, both arms (including the puppet) are from the Frostgrave Wizards II sprue, the head is from the Stargrave Troopers box, and the mace is from the Stargrave Mercenaries II sprue. (As an aside, good maces, clubs, and hammers are hard to come by.)

This is a great figure that should really stand out on the table—visually, not in terms of her abilities. Youngbloods are hero characters in Mordheim, but they start off very weak, with skills below even those of basic henchmen.

To stay on theme for the end of the year, Poppet can also be used as a superperson. She has a mask, see? Since this is also the color theme for the Retinue, I think Poppet might find a place there as a jester NPC as well.

Mordheim: Captain, Blunderbuss Marksman, and Warriors

More characters for Mordheim! This first picture is my captain and a marksman with a blunderbuss.

The man on the left is the captain. He's a figure from Reaper Miniatures called "Jakob Knochengard, Human Ranger." I got the figure in the Dreadmere expansion box from the Bones 4 Kickstarter. It's a great model that I've wanted to paint up for a while, and this project gave me a good reason to do so. I filed off a few of the bits that made him more "vampire hunter" and added some feathers to his hat to make him more Mordheim. He's armed with a sword and a brace of pistols. He's also a bit taller than the rest of the warband, since Reaper Heroic Scale is taller than the Perry Miniatures or, especially, the Warlord Landknechts.

Case in point, the marksman body is from the Warlord Games Landsknecht Missile Troops box. The main weapon (a nock gun standing in for a blunderbuss), arms, backpack, and head are from a Wargames Atlantic British Riflemen sprue. It took a little doing to get the head to work with the body, but it turned out nicely. I also included a bow (wrapped up to protect it against the weather) so that the Marksman isn't literally a one-shot threat.

Every warband needs a few cheap bodies to get stuff done, so here are three Warriors armed with a club/mace/hammer in one hand and a knife in the other. They're not pretty, but they'll get the job done (hopefully). The bodies and heads are Perry Miniatures Agincourt. The weapons are mostly based on that sprue as well, but with beads for mace-heads and a few knife-hands from Frostgrave boxes.

I'm still not 100% on my warband composition, but there's a good chance that most of these guys will be included. The only one that's really iffy is the blunderbuss marksman, since he's extremely expensive... but I do like the model.

Mordheim: Mercenary Halberd Champion and Marksmen

Mordheim. Now there's a blog label I didn't expect to use again. There's been interest in starting up some Mordheim games, so here we are, over a decade since I last played.

With my Noble Retinue, I already have a number of options to start a warband, but I need a few more stout fellows to fill things out. So, here we are.

First, the halberdier is a good choice for a champion. This guy looks like he's going "Oy, you!" He's got a big plume on his helmet and a bottle of rotgut on his belt. I like this guy. He's a mix of:

• Pike & Shotte Landsknect Zweihander plastic body and right arm, and metal halberd arm
• Perry Light Cavalry (1450-1500) plastic head
• Anvil Industry resin pointing hand
• Frostgrave Wizards II plastic bottle

The other three lads are marksmen built entirely from the Perry Agincourt (English and French Infantry) boxes. I've had them built for a while (to supplement the Retinue), but now they're painted up and looking good.

Several faces and hands to paint on these lads. The champion has actual pupils, but the marksmen just have the blank white eyes. They've seen some things. (Edit: The marksmen later got pupils because they were too creepy.)

English Civil War Figures

These figures come from the Warlord Games "Pike & Shotte" line. Like most of my miniatures, they're plastic. I enjoy building figures probably as much as I enjoy painting them. The first three figures were made as a bridge so that I could use my Red/Yellow team of medieval soldiers as part of a Mordheim Reikland warband. I also envisioned them for use in "En Garde!" or "The Pikeman's Lament" from Osprey Wargames.

This flamboyantly-attired fellow is clearly the leader, ready to blast some poor fool with his somewhat sideways black powder pistol. I'm not sure if this is the first of my miniatures I've displayed on the blog with my occasional orange hair, but I think this was one of the earliest miniatures that I painted with orange hair. I've never got the hang of actual "red" hair, so I use orange instead.

In Mordheim, he was run as the Captain, armed with a sword and a brace of dueling pistols (which was ludicrously expensive).

The fellow to the left was run as a Champion with a halberd. I particularly like his face, and his pose is aggressive and focused.

The fellow to the right was going to a Marksman with a handgun, but never saw action on the table.

To the left, a figure that I've always envisioned as Dutch; In my notes, he's specifically named as Klaas Van Duister, which I presume I made up from whole cloth. I rather like the face, but I feel that especially with the dark clothing, he looks a bit like a vampire.

To the right, a blue bonnet fellow with orange hair, presumably from Scotland; My notes call him Rory MacCulloch. I added a Perry Agincourt buckler to the model because his clenched fist looked kind of silly.