Blog Lord Agragax's Making and Painting Blog - God Save the Queen!

Well, I do have all the Night Goblins from Battle of Skull Pass already to add these chaps to, if that’s what you mean - the Gold and Silver Moon spear Goblins I mentioned earlier will be added to my two existing units of 20 Spear gobbos to get 2 units of 24, and the 3 Archers will be added to the 20 of those I already have to make 23 (I can add a character in to give it a size of 24). The Squig Herders will be combined with the new Squig Herd set GW have released to make a bigger Squig Herd unit for Fantasy.

 

Given that I'm safely bunkered down at home with quantities of Warhammer still to make and paint, it's about time I gave you all an update! Here are 17 Lothern Sea Guard:


I got the first 10 from the Island of Blood boxed game, another 2 as freebies when my dad and I went to Warhammer world back in the glory days of Fantasy and 5 from a nearly-new paint set from the 8th Edition Fantasy era that I found at a charity shop and bought for something like £2 (the box was a bit battered but the models were still on their sprue and the paints, brush and primer were unused).

Once again any feedback would be much appreciated!

(And if anyone's fearing that my Dwarfs are being sidelined for other races, don't fret - I've got a massive joblot of Warriors and Miners that I've split into reinforcing several of my existing units and creating a new unit of Warriors with Great Weapons and a box of Ironbreakers to make, and have started on reinforcing one of my Warrior units now - for the Ancestor Gods! )

 

Perhaps it's something to do with me having fun playing the Dawi in Warhammer: Total War, or perhaps it's just because I've got a massive backlog of Dwarfs to work on. Either way, here's one of my existing Dwarf warrior units, with improved painting and reinforcements! I told you all that the Dawi would return to my blog after so many Elgi and Grobi have blackened it with their presence!


12 of the 18 Dwarfs are the still-decent single-piece versions from the Battle for Skull Pass box (ah, the memories), but after sorting through the massive joblot of Dwarfs I bought at the beginning of this year, I've added six more to this unit to make a more survivable unit of 18 (as you probably know by now I like relatively elite fighters to be in smaller units in my games of Fantasy). I also took the opportunity to touch up the paintjob I did on the original 12 in the unit to make them look better, including some washes on the beards and axe-heads, and I'm pretty chuffed with the end result.

Also just as a heads-up, you'll notice that future units of Dwarfs I put up on this blog will have different colour schemes to these chaps here - this is because unlike my High Elves, who I've given an entirely uniform colour scheme across the units in the army except for those coming from a specific city (like the Sea Guard and Swordmasters), I envisioned my Dwarfs as having uniform colours across each unit, but each unit having its own regimental colours, as I always thought the Dwarfs would put more value into concepts like 'regimental pride' than the High Elves.

Anyway, once again any feedback would be appreciated!

 

To continue my work in touching up paintjobs on models I had originally started painting when I was younger, here are a Tiranoc Chariot and an Archmage:


The improvements mainly were painting the chariot crew to more accurately resemble my Spearmen, touch up areas that had spots of colours that shouldn't be there, flocking the chariot's base with grass (as for some reason I didn't bother with that for that particular model when I was younger), painting jewels on both models, painting the Elven ruins on my Archmage's base to match my High Elf Temple and giving the chariot crew and Archmage a slight wash of Reikland Fleshshade (though for Elves I apply as little as possible to retain a pale complexion). One thing I did keep as it was though was the black eagle banner emblem on the chariot, because I was extremely chuffed with that when I painted it and it came out so well (when I was about 14 I think it was) that I didn't dare try to improve on it in case I ruined it! You may also have noticed the improved photography this time around, thanks to a piece of old white card that I was able to fold to make a white background to help my models stand out better.

Anyway, hope you like these, they're massively overdue I know but with the refusal of my iPad to post more than one photo at once on its own I have to transfer all my images to my laptop and post them from there, and family commitments meaning I now get little time to access the forum on my laptop, this was the earliest I could get them to you. Currently I'm working on four Rat Ogres, twenty five Giant Rats and their Packmasters for my Skaven, so if you see anything remotely ratty on the forum it will probably be coming from me

As always, any any feedback is much appreciated!

 

It's been a while, hasn't it? But never fear, for I have some more of my miniature masterpieces to show you all!

As promised, after so many Elf-things and Dwarf-things taking the spotlight, it's time for the Children of the Horned Rat to make a comeback!

First my four Rat Ogres:

The two on the right are unmodified models I got in my copy of the Island of Blood box, and the two on the left are two more that were part of someone else's Island of Blood contents that were being sold second-hand from one of my favourite model shops. Of course the big downside of the Island of Blood models is that they are very monopose, so I had to get the clippers and bitz box out to do some kitbashing, but I think my efforts have worked out well - turning the head of one to face forwards and giving them both different arms (interestingly enough from the Middle Earth Mordor Troll kit, as I currently don't have the old multipart Rat Ogres kit - the troll hands have only three fingers compared to the Rat Ogres' four, but given they're patchwork mutant monsters it doesn't matter, the Packmasters probably don't care anyway as long as they kill stuff).

And talking of Packmasters, here are the pair who will be goading this unit of mutated Monstrous Infantry into the fray:


The Master Moulder on the left is an unmodified one from the Island of Blood box, while the Packmaster on the right is a monkey-rat Night Runner with a double-handed club that actually features in that kit (the Night Runners sprue directly descends from the 6th Edition Clanrat set and the Mordheim Skaven gang kit). I thought a club would be the only thing besides a shock-prod that an angry Rat Ogre would actually notice!

 

And we have yet more Skaven goodness! While I was painting my Rat Ogres, I was also painting 25(!) Giant Rats:
Cheap as chips and almost as effective as a Clanrat unit, these little bastards will make a great throwaway unit to keep ranged troops occupied or redirect a Frenzied foe.

Just like their bigger brothers, they also need some Packmasters to keep them moving in an orderly (for Skaven) fashion:


Once again we have an Island of Blood Master Moulder (this time with a gas mask head from the Plagueclaw Catapult kit to differentiate him from the other one - the lower prong of his Shock-Prod was broken when I bought him, but this also helps to make him look a little different) and four more Night Runners painted in Packmaster colours and with old Clanrat weapons, the spears essentially being the Whips Packmasters have in the rules.

These were completed at the beginning of December - since then I've been putting together the last of my Celts and the extra ten Romans I bought not long ago for SPQR, and painting a unit of Great Weapon Dwarf Warriors - have to keep the verminous hordes in check, by Grungni

As always, any feedback is much appreciated!

 

So much ratty heresy !!!

Excellent work, I enjoyed the giga-sized cattle prod

 

Your wish is my command!

Just some Moonscape craters for 40K, painted grey and brown and covered with the sand I use on my 40K bases to tie the whole lot together:


This one was decorated with spare Imperial vehicle bitz (washed with Nuln Oil to look suitably charred) and an unexploded missile to represent a vehicle’s untimely demise:

 

Great work mate. Keep it up!

 

I've just checked that and yes, both the Moonscape Craters and Battlescape set are OOP now, which is a shame. Good job I got them when I did!

 

It's been a while since my last significant update, but I assure you it's worth the wait!

Remember my unit of Dwarf Warriors with shields I painted a while back? Well, here are some of their brethren, this time with Great Weapons!


Once again most of these are from the big Dwarf job lot I bought last year, though four are from the very first unit I made when I was 8 years old (which was before I bought Battle for Skull Pass, so I didn't know that the Warhammer Fantasy rules existed at that time and just made them with whichever weapons I thought looked good on them, so they ended up with a mix of Great Weapons and Hand Weapons and Shields). Three of them in the front rank (the Standard bearer and the two leftmost) are Miners from the job lot whose helmet candles and pick axe heads I cut off and replaced with spare helmet horns from the Quarreller set and Great Weapon heads from the Dwarf Warriors set respectively.

These will form part of the aggressive side of my Dwarf army, alongside my Hammerers, Miners and Slayers, while their Hand Weapon and Shield brothers will form part of the defensive sect that also includes my Longbeards, another Shield Warrior unit I haven't sorted out yet and my Ironbreakers (who are still unmade at the moment - I was considering Irondrakes but they'd clash with my wish to convert a Flame Cannon at some point soon as they both come out of Rare).

As always, any feedback is much appreciated!

 

A mighty unit. Good job.

Worthy enemies for my Chaos Dwarfs to fight!

 

It's been a long time - of late I've been so busy with making and painting projects that I haven't had time to post any up here!

Much of my time has been spent on historical miniatures currently (more on that in my Historical Blog), but I still had time to work on something for my Fantasy models - I had originally made my Stegadon to have the Giant Bow option so he could be an ordinary Stegadon as part of my Special allowance, and I'd finished painting him long before I joined the forum, but I recently had the idea of painting the Giant Blowpipes anyway, and using Blu-tack to adhere them onto the howdah whenever I want to use him as an Ancient Steg instead, as can be seen here:


And if I just want to fit him in as a bog-standard Steg I can take the blowpipes off! A nice bit of multi-purpose engineering here even if I do say so myself

As to what I'm working on at the moment for Fantasy, all I'm going to reveal is that Dwarfs, Skaven and Greenskins all have new stuff on the way!

 

I'm one of the 'Old Guard' who still by-and-large uses proper paints rather than Contrast (the only Contrast paint I use is Apothecary White and purely as a wash for white-painted areas).

 

Looks great! Notably, I once used Giant Blowpipes as "stand ins" for Salamanders... I did this by use a long base, and having two Skinks operating the blowpipe as a team and presuming that it was a flame thrower of sorts. Just food for thought if you feel like using them in another capacity.

 

Maybe it's fate that I've just finished a cannon model around the same time @NIGHTBRINGER started building one...

Well, I've kept it in the shadows for long enough, but this is what I've been up to for the last several months!

Here it is folks... a Dwarf Flame Cannon conversion!


For ages I was working out how I could use the spare Cannon barrel from the Organ Gun kit to make another war machine, until I saw some photos of Flame Cannon conversions other guys had done and felt compelled to make my own. The majority of it is one of the mine carts from the Dwarf Miners kit, with some spare plastic components from a Dapol model railway kit trimmed and stuck together and placed on top to seal it (as the carts from the Miner kit are empty), with the back dragon head cut off and replaced with the cannon barrel and the side of the cart nearest the pony festooned with other spare Cannon bitz to control the cannon (including a fuse cut off the top of a Miner dynamite stick stuck in the middle of a cog, various levers and gauges, and barrels stuck on top to represent vats to store the flammable liquid use to produce the gout of flame, which are drained out into the barrel in a controlled manner via the levers).

The crew are spare Warrior and Miner models from the job lot I got a couple of years ago, modelled to look suitably like artillery crew with spare arms and bitz from the Cannon kit, some of which have been converted (the crewman on the left originally held a cannon shell in his left hand, but as that was inappropriate for a Flame Cannon I stuck the top and bottom components of a canister from a Miner pack onto the middle of the shell to look like he is holding a big canister of something, while the master gunner in the middle has a taper made from a Dwarf Warrior axe with the lit end of a Miner's candle stuck on the end).

Next we have a converted Battle Standard Bearer for my Dwarfs:


Another spare Dwarf Warrior model, given the wings from a Champion head from the same kit and an amalgamation of two banners from the Miners kit to make a particularly impressive standard, which has the symbol of my hold, Skull Pass, and the Master Rune of Valaya (all the better for stopping all this magic tomfoolery) painted on it.