Category: Hobby

Hi all, Dave here with another update on my halfling force, I know its been a while since my last post but progress has been slow so I figured I’d wait till a had a few more units done to report in.

First up was yet another unit of braves/spears which takes me to 4 in total (only one to go).

I went for a slight hill in my basing to try and link into the rolling hills theme i’ll use for my cav.

Next up was the battle pig… I mean iron beast, this thing takes some painting but i’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The challenge with this one was to make it pop considering it’s pretty much just all metal, so I went for some war paint to tie in with the shields on my troops and balloons on my aeronaughts.

I managed to finish one of my favorite units rule wise next, the lawn mower…. I mean harvester. I actually remember to take some WIP pics along the way so I threw them in too.

I decided to tick off a hero option next and worked through what I had primed and ready to go so this mounted sauceror got some paint, and i’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

I finished up August ( I know I still have a few days left) with a troop of stalwarts. I’m working on four troops that I can link together to form a horde.

I only have 1 regiment of spears left and 2 heroes primed and ready for paint, so it’s time to start assembling more. I’ll aim to get my EJs done in September and probably greedy guts and my feast master.

Thanks for reading, hope you’ve enjoyed.

Dave

It’s time to get this red show on the road. I discussed my colour scheme etc in part 1 here

My first two paint items are coming out of the Mantic Mega Army Halfling box. First things first I wanted to get a unit of infantry to get some unlocks going down. I believe that one of the best units in the army are the braves. Therefore I am going to paint up enough to make a regiment at PMC, or should I do MMC. What’s more acceptable do you think?

Just jokes. I don’t give a damn what you think, but I have done PMC anyway. If I fit them on I fit them on

Yes I am aware these aren’t fantastic pictures. Thank you for pointing that out. These were a real pleasure to paint. I love the character on the models.

As I mentioned in Part 1 I was using the new Army Painter quick paints. It went on so easily. Looking back now there a couple of tiny white spots. What I am not sure about is is this where paint slid off when I was painting or has it flaked off after the fact? I will have to keep an eye on this in the future.

One thing I haven’t enjoyed is not being able to build more of these hand weapon and shield guys. I even have a couple with one arm, but I guess that’s what makes them “Brave” right?

Next up is the Iron Beast, for no other reason than I wanted to.

Now this is a cracking model and quite simple to paint. As many of you may be aware none of the brands of quick paints to metallics. This is army painter’s grey highlighted with Vallejo silver and I think it has come up reasonably well. The pink is probably not quite as bright as I’d like but that is partly the lighting also.

The iron beast really lend itself to the quick paints as the detail is just the right level. The larger flat areas aren’t that large or flat so it goes on quite well. A quick highlight also helps break this up.

Anyway this is what I completed this month, obviously no basing yet but it ill get there

Hi Dave here again, i’m back for another update to cover off on what I finished over the last month.

So its been a bit under a month since my first update but I’m happy with my progress so far.

Starting off I managed to complete this war machine team, I magnetized the barrel so I can swap between howitzer and volley gun. (or more likely just never use it)

Next up I completed the only non mantic mini I’ll use in my army, the sergeant with the banner of Hodenburg. Hoden in german translates to testicle so I did my best to free hand a sneaky cock and balls on the back. The mini is from TTCombat

For my mounted muster captain on aralez I wanted to mix in a bit of height, maybe too much height…. I was super nervous chopping off the base but it came of relatively easily, I used 2mm brass rod to give it height, and stuck some penny washers in the base under the foam hill for weight. Lastly filled in the base with braves to make it look like the captain is charging over the battle line into combat.

To finish off the month I completed this engineer, it was super quick and super fun to paint.

I also snuck in this ice blade for an up coming tournament.

In other unrelated news I finished a backdrop for some scenic photos and recently picked up a battle mat so I decided to set up some scenic photos for my army. Here is what I have finished to date. I’ve gotta get some diffusers or something for better lighting, and also probably use something better then a samsung phone, but I promise the end of army pics will be much better. (please if you have any tips for getting good army shots let me know)

Up next on the paint table its back to the grind of infantry. I’ll finished another regiment of spears, paint the iron beast and then hopefully get a regiment of juggers completed as well. I’ve already made the base for them but it needs some finishing touches once I get the minis stuck on, I’m attempting to make it look like my juggers are charging down the hill into battle.

Like always, if you want to know any paint or materials I use, or just have questions in general, just let me know.

Anyways, thanks for reading

Dave.

Well it’s June and it’s the start of the Counter Charge Mantic Army Challenge. If you don’t know about the challenge listen to what we are doing by clicking here and downloading.

I have chosen to start getting the halflings going and what I am starting with is the Halfling Mega Army Box available from Mantic Games here.

For you regular listeners you will know that I am very lucky to have accessible child labour to do my assembling, so I have the whole box assembled and ready to go!

What I Like:

I really love the character of the halfling models. The faces are detailed enough to see expressions but not so detailed or small making them too difficult to paint. I really like that there are options for 3 of the four main infantry types, namely braves, spears and rifles.

I don’t mind the mixed sprue of cav and infantry although I do feel the split is slightly off for the current ruleset with the cavalry not being my first choice unit. However you never know how this may change with future rules updates.

I love the halfling iron beast. such a great model, mind came in a perfect single piece (reportedly related to the league of infamy kickstarter) and it has a lot of character with the two chefs on top. I’m looking forward to painting that one.

The characters. The sauceror, greedy guts, feast master and engineer are all cool.

What I dislike:

Not enough options to build your units in the majority one way. For example I would’ve loved half of the 60 to be braves but I can’t do that.

No mounted characters. With the amount of mounted options in the box I would’ve loved a mounted character option.

The thick terrain piece like attachment point on the cavalry. At this point it’s well known that a major drawing point is the visual appear of multibasing. Having the thick attachment pieces to go on the base is overall less appealing and requires some work around on your basing.

How am I going to about painting these bad boys and girls?

Well for starters I purchased myself the new speed paints complete set from army painter which I reckon is pretty good value. Check it out here

My main base colours are going to be:

• Hive Dweller Purple for pants
• Purple Alchemy (tends towards pink) for shirts
• Dark Wood for wood
• Hardened Leather for light armer and boots etc
• Crusader Skin for skin
• Fire giant orange for hair

I will then highlight up with vallejo paints with a quick highlight. Going on the model the purple alchemy does still have a lot of purple tone so it really needs the highlight to make it pink.

Below is a quick test which the quickshade paints made super easy to test with.

Bases I will be doing quite bare but using some resin multibase pieces. I’ll save that for a later blog!

Hope you enjoyed.

Matt

Hey Dave here again,

With all this hobby talk going around I figured it was about time I ticketed off one of my long-time goals, blog a hobby project. So I figure I’ll aim for monthly update of how the project is coming along, what I’m working on and what I’ve managed to complete. It coincides really well with counter charge’s all mantic army challenge however I managed to start a little early, but lucky (or not for me) I have a bucket load of minis to paint.

You can check out the hobby challenge on the Counter Charge Facebook page.

Since really falling in love with kings, I’ve been wanted to do an all-mantic army and when I first heard mantic were releasing halflings I knew I was all in.

( actual footage of me, when i saw mantic’s halfling release)

So what’s my plan?

I’m running with the rule of 2, which is buy 2 boxes of everything. And I’ve come close to that.

I want options once my army is complete so I’m looking for around 3000pts before I’m calling it done. I’ve been testing pretty heavily with Matt Croger and some other friends over UB2 and I think I’ll go with the following options to start

– 5 regiments of braves/spikes ( I’ve modelled up more spears then hand weapons as I like the spear look, however I’ll most likely run them all as braves)

– 2 Rifle regiments

– 2 jugger regiments

– 2 wild runner troops (although I have millions of spare cav, so think might turn into 2 regiments as well)

– 4 troops of stalwarts

– 2 aeronaught regiments

– 2 EJ Grenadier regiments

– 2 Generals on winged aralez

– 2 volley guns (But I’ve magnetised the base to swap between howitzer and volley gun barrel)

– Mounted sauceror

– Sauceror on foot

– Muster captain on aralez

– Sargent with the banner of hodenburg

– Iron beast

– Harvester

So no short order…. See what I did there…

So what theme am I going with? Well from seeing all the release material from mantic, I really love the rolling hills, green fields and cobble stone roads. I’m attempting a kind of shire defense theme, where the halfling villages are being mustered to defend there homeland.

As for colour, I’m going for a red/yellow/brown mix, I want my pop colour to be red and I want the rest to compliment. I spend a bit of time staring at the old empire states colours and originally wanted to go for an aldorf theme or hochland, however one theme would make the army look like Santa’s helpers and well, I painted enough blue on my last army so I needed a rest. Now that I have completed some units I do get a very Gryffindor vibe from it however

1. I’m a massive harry potter fan so it work for me

2. I feel the colours really compliment each other well and the minis aren’t lost amongst the basing.

So where am I at?

Well I’ve managed 3 regiments of braves so far, I’ve based the spears so they can form up into a horde if I need.

I’ve finished 1 troop of wild runners – I’ve tried to make it look like my cav are charging down rolling hills, and this troop was my test piece for it. The pre-moulded base on the bottom of the aralez feet is going to be a challenge for me. I’ve managed to clip them as short as possible and use strategic tufting to hide what I couldn’t.

Lastly I had a bit of fun with flicker LED’s and went for a bombing run feel for my aeronaughts

Next up is my banner of Hodenburg, its my only non-mantic model in the army as mantic haven’t made a standard bearer (yet…. There is still time Ronnie!), I’m also working on one of the volley guns, and engineer.

I’ve got plenty built, primed and ready to go, so I’ll most likely work on some spears again after these are done, and start on some more bases.

Here is a pic of my jugger bases, however I’ll most likely add some trees and potentially a fence in the lower half of one

(not really sure why I based up some troops? maybe I was testing something… I might use these for rifles if I have spare minis.

I’ll check back in July to see how I’m going, as for now I look forward to seeing what you are all working on,

Cheers Dave.