Goblin Horde

Goblins, Thousand's of them!

 My Goblin army is so far the largest, but that's because they are goblins.  So far they have 2 warlords, some wargs, Goblin Riders, 4 Cave Trolls, bowmen and lots of spearmen and warbands.  To finish the army off are the Goblin Shaman.

 The Wargs are based in packs of 3, and I have them with poison bite, in fact poison is a recurring theme with this army.

 Warg riders are just heavy versions of the wargs themselves, based in 3's, I was going to base them in  2's but didn't like the look, and they hunted as packs anyway.

 The Cave trolls are cool, I just love them, they are also the toughest creature in the army, although very stupid.  Goblin bowmen use poison arrows so they have more impact than  dwarf bows.

 goblin warbands make up the large part of the army, they are mixed packs.

finally come the Goblin Shaman, In order to make them look cool based 1 figure to a base I added a nice pool of water and a glittering crystal with a blue glowing look, made by cutting a piece of cork and  painting it and varnishing it.  They add a good bit of power to the goblin army, although their magic is weak compared to Dwarves they still give valuable aid to the Goblin army.

Dwarf army

The Dwarf host is here

Here is my Dwarf army, the start of it anyway.  Dwarf Housecarls , a King, 2 units of bowmen 3 units of scouts and 5 bases of druids.

The Dwarven housecarls are based in units of 5, and are a mixture of all the dwarf packs.  the army is made up of many colours to represent most dwarves turning up in the clothes they were wearing but with a lot of red and blue which helps to make the army look slightly more uniform.  I figured the Dwarf king or warsmith is on an adventure to reclaim some Dwarf hold his grandfather absentmindedly lost of maybe kill a dragon, either way the king/leader will not have an army so to speak but will raise his axe and members of his clan will join him, some of his personal household become leaders and officers and you have a simple army.

Dwarven Druids are a nice feature of the army.  I based them with little standing stones.  The figures are from the wizards back but with other dwarves from the dwarven king pack, 'the guys holding up the king'  I cut them into 3 dwarves and used them as exulting Druids.

The scouts are just dwarves in hoods, I thought they would look good as scouts based in 2's

The high king himself, as mentioned before I removed the dudes who carry him as I didn't like the look of them, and I based the king with a couple of warhounds [Irregular miniatures dogs]  and a pile of gold from the fantasy dungeon range.

Dwarven bowmen are just as they sound.

Un-Dead army terrain

Here are all 3 pieces of terrain for the undead army.  The wizards tower, Mausoleum fortress and graveyard.  Next armies to do are my Goblins and Dwarves. 

Undead Fortress

 Finally I have finished the undead fortress.    I wanted a defensive fort or castle for my army.  I didn't want to just build a fortress so I came up with the idea of a tower which was once an actual defence, but maybe a battle was fought there long ago and the remains of the tower became a graveyard, so a chapel was added to the tower on one side and a  mausoleum on another side. The small bridge if mostly for effect with coffins bobbing up and down in the putrid pond.

 On the far side is a smaller chapel in marble and a priest's dormitory.  Around the base are a few gravestones to help the building fit in with the graveyard I built earlier.

 So the fortress has a function to act as a centrepiece for the undead themed terrain.   The fortress can be used by the freshly undead as a defensive bastion in their war on the living.

10mm Graveyard

 No undead army is complete without a honest to goodness graveyard.  As I am using 10mm I needed to scale the graves, I also was looking for a very crowded graveyard, so I left only 5mm between each grave, I also used a small headstone on each grave with a stone style grave cover, the grave covers are all different colours such as marble, garnet, etc.  I also added a few larger tombs for the better off corpse, and a small water filled sink hole with floating coffins.  also many of the graves have been dug up with 10mm scale coffins laying around.

Necromancers Tower

 When I started the Fantasy project I decided to make 3 bits of terrain specifically for each army.  For my first but of tinkering I started with my undead army.  So I had to come up with an undead theme.  To start with I decided on a Necromancers tower.  The idea I had in mind was of the tower in Ian Livingston's book Titan, a book which in my  early youth killed my head with ideas.  The picture of a wizards tower in the book in profile with interior visible, and that's the inspiration for this one, minus the interior.

 The Tower has a number of features, it has a nice watchtower on top for the Necromancer to look out for whatever it is Necromancers look out for.    On the base I have a blue pool of water washing into it for a fresh drinking supply, and at the rear it has a green brown pond with a tentacle sticking out for all the bad stuff to be dropped into.

 There is a yellow stone living room, and a white marble enchanters room where the necromancer does all that stuff they like to do with dead bodies.  On the top roof there is an observatory, probably for looking at whatever stars need to be looked at.   Please also note the green slime dripping from the drainpipe. 

Overall I was most happy with this model, Although at first I painted it grey and it didn't look all that good so I repainted it yellow/sand and I thought that was just perfect.  I like the way the candles are burning too.  It took me 2 days to build, not including a day for painting.   Now onto my Graveyard.

10mm Undead Army

 This army is the start of a project so only a small force so far.  I got hold of a dozen packs of pendrakens 10mm Fantasy and had a lot of fun playing with ideas while painting them, for a theme I am going for a Necromancer stroke Draugr theme.  necromancers to raise the dead ofcourse and Draugr to fit in with a norse/skyrim theme of my fantasy project.

 Skeleton spearmen FU2 & FU19 packs mixed together.  I am  using them as Draugr foot troops.  Although in Norse Mythology the Draugr are zombie like creatures the skeletons represent warriors who failed in battle and could not get into Valhalla and so their spirits posses the skeletal remains in order to gain back their honour.  

 Skeleton blades, swords and shields, Code FU10 & FU20.  As above but with swords.

 My commanders.  The necromancers are from the Undead command pack FU5, and the Draugr lord is FU26.  The Necromancers are simply wizards who use magic to extend their influence, ie. make an army of skeletons and kill all life, I feel the same on a Monday morning.  The Draugr lord on the other hand is from the Norse idea again, He is not a lost spirit but a great warrior who should have gone to Valhalla but did not go as he has unfinished business on earth, and his skeleton retainers above will follow him in his quest.    well that's the idea.

 Spirits, pack code FU14. I loved these guys when I unpacked them, I painted them dark blue then shaded them lighter blue repeatedly and ended with almost white at the heads and foot, giving them a look of ghosts we all know and love. The plot behind these guys is the same as the skeletons, but they lack the true force of will to reanimate a corpse, and so they wonder in a semi corporeal state following the Draugr legions in a hope of regaining a chance to settle their souls debt.

 Vampires!  well they didn't fit in with my undead theme, or rather my Draugr/Necromancer theme, but like in skyrim the vampires are just undead dudes who can chose to follow anyone into battle for the correct incentive.  Maybe they are after something the enemy have, and so aid the Necromancer, or maybe the said wizard has some sort of hold over them.  Likewise the Vampire may follow the Draugr because of the same idea, or maybe the Vampires are very old and actually knew the guy when he was alive?  As I am not using Vampires as leaders so they are based as units of troops, maybe a coven of vampires if that's the correct word, maybe a coffin of vampires, hmmmm... I will get back to you with that one.  

 A close up of the Necromancer and Draugr.

 Zombies, ah yes zombies.  These are kind of ok, and fit a lot better than the Sci-fi- Zombies that Pendraken has.   As to how they fit my army its quite simple.  you can see from the painting they are in faded heraldry of yellow and green, so in fact are my flags for the undead as a whole.  The idea is that at some point a kingdom was destroyed, their heraldry was yellow and green, maybe a defeated army, and so when the bad guys need more troops just raise the local recently dead.   Unlike the skeleton's and spirits I am departing from my Norse theme.  Instead they are simply plague victims, maybe there is a plague at the right time, or the Necromancer caused it. either way the plague virus is just like solanum Virus form Zombie survival guide and World War Z, they are simply common zombies from all the books and films, they shamble along and as they 'allies' are already dead they naturally gravitate towards the living, ie the enemy.  Maybe a bit of pushing and shoving is involved on the part of the Draugr or maybe the necromancer has plague victims gathered up and put on carts to be released  at the appropriate time during a battle.  as to how good they are in combat, well read World War Z, they are stupid and slow, but they just keep on coming, yes when the undead horses march they really do use total war!  Great thing is they can always infect the defenders making more zombies with each kill.

10mm Dragons

Dragons!  I here you say, Dragons! [again]  Yes, Dragons.    As I am building my fantasy collection I thought I would like to add some dragons to my collection.  These are all scratch built out of wire and milliput.   So far they are only 3 types which you can see here, but more to come.

 The Dragons are 10mm scale.  They are many forms of dragon such as the dragons of J.R.R.Tolkien Smaug From the Hobbit or the Worms and Cold Drakes from other of the great masters works, then there are Chinese dragons closer to cold drakes, and Dragons from  Norse Mythology which come in the form of serpents, again like the Cinese cold drakes but these guys breathe fire & Ice.  This led me to Skyrim!

The Dragons of Skyrim were well designed, after all they are actually realistic, at least in a gaming view.  When I take on a dragon with my Enhanced Dwarven crossbow I  do get that moment of thrill as the giant flying lizard crashes to the ground.

 Along the skyrim theme but not sticking to it I designed several types each with different powers on the table.  Here is a red/Brown Dragon, it is the officer class of Dragon for my Dragon army, They can breathe both fire or Ice. 

 Here is the Frost dragon, a foot soldier Dragon, it breathes Frost

Lastly are the Green Dragons, which breathe Fire.  More on this project later as I have the ideas.

6mm Spanish Sussession Austrian Army

 The Austrian army, Built for the Italian Campaign, and will be a defensive army, so I will need fortress guns to add to it, and it needs more infantry but its on my list of stuff to do.  I based the battalion guns on 2x3cm bases to slot in with the line infantry, you can see the results with my French army post.

 The full Austrian army, the sheep arnt part of it but fill in space!

 Austrian cavalry.

 Austrian Dragoons, so far they are the best units in the army, despite the fact they are only 4.

 Austrian command 1 Commander, 2 sub generals 2 lesser generals.

 Austrian cannon, 3 batteries.

6mm Spanish succession French Army

 Ok so its not a full army yet but its on its way.  I am doing the Italian campaign mostly thanks to mr baccus person [Peter], I was chatting to him about what to do with WSS, british/French etc and what campaign.  He said Italian campaign, so here I am.   I am making the French army as a attacking army, my Austrians defensive.

 French generals, 1 overall commander, 2 sub generals and 2 lower generals, depicted with different number of figures.

 French Mortars.  I decided to dig the cannon into position with gabions around them, simply as it looks cool.  The gabions are made from sticks with wire wrapped around and gravel stuck to the top. 

 French siege guns, dug in and ready to blast the Austrian defences.

 The French army in full

 forward and rear view of the siege guns.

 Forward and back view of the mortars dug in.

 more of the French generals

 French dragoons, dismounted to represent how they fought, I dislike mounted dragoons.

 French cuirassier, and 1 regiment of gendarme, 3 regiments of guard cavalry.

 French horse, only 4 regiments so far.

French infantry, note the battalion guns to add fire power.