It’s a little later than planned, but I’ve had to dedicate time to getting sorted in time for Seven Stones recently (that will be in May-June's post).
At the beginning of March there was a big push to make Gothmog the record holder for Battle Streams in Middle Earth. I had already painted him, but decided that I could press mould a couple of shields for him on foot and mounted to dedicate to the effort.
Gothmog's heroic effort paid off and he claimed the title from Eowyn (I think).
Then continuing the Moria theme so far this year, I began March with a relatively easy, but arguably essential hero to the list, Groblog. I did him in the same colourings as the rest of the Moria brood, but used a nice bright Runefang Steel colour for his Mithril crown, to make it really stand out amongst the dark colours of the army.
Next up, I cracked on with something that I had really been looking forward to, the Cave Drake.
While I was attending the SBG Grand Prix in Feb, I saw that Mr Matt Davies was in attendance, with a stall of his GenerationShift bases (if you are unfamiliar, I recommend you at least take a look). And I grabbed a large ‘Rolling plains’ one for the Drake, as with a different colour palette to its intended one, it could make a nice cave floor.
I began the Drake with this base, and had a moment of inspiration. As I wanted to use the skeletal remains of the Moria scenery kit, but realised that they couldn’t just sit on top as it’s not a flat surface. I could try gently scraping away as the bottom until it fits and then green stuff the gaps, but that seemed like a lot of work.
Then I had figured out the solution. I got some blue stuff and made a mould of the remains. After this, I crammed it with green stuff and then before letting it set, glued the back of the green stuff onto the base, peeling the blue stuff away and leaving it to then set. I repeated this with a second one and it made a great look IMO.
I then set about the relatively quick task of painting it up, sticking to the same colours as my Moria bases, but with Rakarth flesh, washed with Agrax for the bones and lightly highlighted to give them shape. As well as Steel Legion Drab with the same wash for the cloth.
Next, I had to paint the Drake itself. I went for Rakarth flesh for the eggs, spines, teeth and claws. Lupercal Green with a drybrush of Waaaagh Flesh for the scales. Steel Legion Drab for the underbelly, Gehenna’s gold with Corvus Black pupils on the eyes and Khorne Red inside the mouth. I had tried this mix on the baby first, to make sure it worked out.
With the beast painted, I then drilled a couple of holes into two of the feet and used a small length of paper clip, to wire it to the base, which I drilled another couple of holes into. After a lot of nervous checking and double checking that I’m in the right place.
That was probably my biggest single model for this year and proudest achievement. And here she was at his debut game, where she helped us to victory by ripping holes in the lines of Dale.
The next project was out the blue, when I saw that the Battle Streams theme for the episode was Denethor. I realised that I had the newer FW one, who sat ignored and thought ‘why not?’ He was one quick evenings work, but I was happy with the effort on him. He is currently sat, waiting patiently, for when I get around to rebasing all of my Minas Tirth army.
I then went back onto clearing out the piles of goblins, by banging out another 16 (the last 8 spears and 8 shields), leaving me with just 20 bows to do, to finish the goblin warriors!
I then went to a repaint of my old Durburz, as I had painted him 10+yrs ago and wanted his paintjob to fit the rest of the army. He was done just in time for the EAHC event ‘Fool of a Took’ as my leader.
This was the first time I had run out my Moria army.
I then had another Battle Streams queue jump, as the theme was unnamed Captains, so I grabbed my metal orc ones, that had been grabbers hastily in a MTO and put them together that evening. I sadly didn’t get any further than spraying them, as our little boy had picked up a bug and started being sick. I did hear later on that I won the dice from the draw for the night and was elated by that. So felt I should show solidarity with that by finishing the captains afterwards.
After this, I hurriedly repainted two goblin spears so that their paintjobs matched the rest for Desolation of Stockport. Here the goblins did me proud, achieving my best GBHL position ever with 6/30.
I now began my tackling of the last of the goblins, beginning with the first half of the goblin bows. Amongst them, I had the 4 metal ones and did all the helmed ones with them.
This just leaves me with 10 bows, 4 spiders, a batswarm, Ashrak and Druzhag to finish all of my Moria stuff…but I had to crack on with my Seven Stones army and the display board… but I’ll come to that in the future.
Cheers for reading guys, and I’ll update for the next two months around late June/early July.
No comments:
Post a Comment