The Green Horde: Skullz standard bearer, and other reinforcements

Some news, at last! Not that I stopped painting, but it has become increasingly difficult to take decent pictures: no time, no place, no good light...

I take benefit of a few days off to show you some new figures for the Green Horde. First, some Orc warriors from the 80s:

 

Among them, the standard bearer has its own story. This figure is the standard bearer of a famous Regiment of Renown, Harboth and the Black Mountains Boys. 

 

I've just recently discovered its existence, after some comments here and on the LAF forum. I had painted a Citadel preslotta Orc, and I was told that it was very similar to a standard bearer by the same manufacturer. Indeed ? Never saw this fig before, but I began to search for it, and with luck, found it on a second hand website, sold by a guy named Nico,  living in Lyon like me! So Nico, if you read this post, you know that I have painted this very nice Orc, at last, and I hope you find it not too badly painted.

Here you are both figures side by side:

Next figure is Maniac, a C15 Orc, a range sculpted by Alan and Michael Perry and released in 1985.

Though rather old, these Citadel figures are really nice, and I wish to find (and paint) more of them.

 

During last summer, I've also painted some more archers from various manufacturers. From left to right: Citadel, Citadel (an Orc of the White Hand, from 1980's Lord of the Rings range - he changed side for the Red Eye apparently), Grenadier, Old Glory and Reaper Bones.

Last but not least, I added 5 more Wolf Riders to my heavy cav unit, including a standard bearer and a drummer. All figures by Grenadier, except for the second one from the left who is a RAFM rider on a Grenadier horse.

They will certainly be impressive on the battlefield.

A few close-ups:

I hope we will find time to play at least a game during Christmas :)

Mythologic Greek army complete

 Hi everyone! It's high time to write a new post in this blog. In the end of June, I showed you the creatures painted for a Mythological Greek army. Since that post, I've been painting some Greek hoplites, and I have now enough of them to consider my modest army complete. Modest meaning that this is a 123 pts army for l'Art de la Guerre v4 - with house rules for the Fantasy elements.

Here you are the result (before basing):

The army list is as follows:

General in chief, brilliant: 4 pts

Subgeneral, competent: 2 pts

1 element of Heavy Centaurs: 10 pts

1 element of Light Centaurs: 7 pts

3 elements of Hoplites: 24 pts

1 element of Amazons: 10 pts

3 elements of Psiloi: 12 pts

1 element of Minotaurs: 36 pts

1 Cyclops: 18 pts

 

 Let's have a closer look at the hoplites:

At ADLG, you need 8 figures for a Heavy Infantry element. The first figures on the left are Theban hoplites, with a general element behind. The next are a mix of Athenian and Spartan hoplites, with a Spartan general in the background.

I've also painted 4 more Amazons to complete the Amazon hoplites element.

For hoplites, it's always good to have a screen of Psiloi, here are these young and agile warriors.

Let's have a closer look at the hoplites. I like painting these guys because of their shields, or aspis. Some figures have engraved patterns on their shields (some of the Hät Thebans and Zvezda hoplites), but I must say that I prefer plain shields to paint whatever design I wish, as you can see on the Caesar, Linear and the venerable Atlantic figures.

The last close-ups focus on the command elements - first the Theban subgeneral:

And the Spartan commander.

So what's next ? Still some work. I need to base all these figures, and paint some new ones to have a 250 pts army, which means:

- more hoplites

- more Amazons, hoplites, Psiloi and command

- some more Centaurs, or maybe Minotaurs

They also need some opponents, the Mythological Egyptians! That's another story, but let me tell you that the paintjob is well under way :)

See you!

The Green Horde: a Wizard on Wolf

The Green Horde is not a sleeping project, but as the stats of this blog show, the summer period and the painting don't seem very compatible, with various reasons depending on the year: the heat, the summer break or the excess of work...

Anyway, I'm still painting, and I'm focused on the Orcs on wolves. Several are painted but only one is completely based so far. Since he is an important character, I thought that he deserved a post just for him.So here you are, the Orc wizard on wolf:

As some of you already know, this character is an old Grenadier figure by Nick Lund. I chose to paint his wolf white, and his cloak black for contrast, and also to stick the the army's color scheme.

The same wizard, surrounded by his troops.

And a few more pictures from different angles.

See you for the next chapter!

Greek mythology: of Minotaurs and Amazons, and more

Hi! 

What if I could write a post with tags such as 'Ancients', 'Fantasy', and '1/72' ? Yes it is possible, I promise... let's have a look at some 1/72 creatures from the Greek mythology!

A few years ago, Dark Alliance began to produce Fantasy figures from various universes, something rarely seen before, since only Caesar had produced this sort of sets before - all out of prod nowadays, and incredibly difficult to find at a fair price!

Some of their figures are clearly related to Greek mythology, for instance the Minotaurs:

And this is my painted version:

The first Minotaurs have a very classical color scheme, so I wanted to try something else:

This white figure can be seen as a boss, or as an infernal version of a Minotaur - what do you think of him ?

Next set, the Centaurs:

One of them made an appearance in the 2020 Advent Calendar in this blog - you can see the related post here.

Dark Alliance also released a set containing Cyclops, a dream come true:

If you read this blog for some time, you will remember the post dedicated to this very nice figure.

Dark Alliance also made a set dedicated to Amazons, but I must admit that it is far from my favourite (the sculpting is not the best, and my copy had too much flash). Fortunately, Linear A also released a set dedicated to these female warriors, and this time, the figures are really great:

Last but not least, the Hydra. I had to search among my oldest 25mm figures to find a relevant model, a wonderful Ral Partha figure bought some 40 years ago :)

This old snake fits well with a Dark Alliance Amazon. Here is a link to a post dedicated to this figure, one of the first of this blog back in 2016.

I now have enough figures to add 6 elements to my HoTT Greek mythology army (the Greeks themselves are ready for a long time, see here), but there will be further developments. I would like to add:

- some more of the above figures, of course

- a Harpy: I have an old 25mm citadel figure that could do the job

- a Sphinx: a 28mm figure from Reaper Bones - maybe a bit large but I haven't an alternative yet, tell me if you have any idea

- some gods represented with 25mm figures

 And I'm sure that even more is possible. All suggestions welcome!

I hope you found this post useful, or at least recreative :)

The Green Horde: some more green warriors

Hi! The production is getting very low regarding minis (the usual spring effect), but I could paint another batch of Orc warriors, gathered into a troop (10 foot figures according to Kings of War).

 

Let's have a closer look:

Hum yes, his shield was red in a previous version

 

As you may know by now, I don't like to paint twice the same mini (there are exceptions), and I like to mix figures from different brands, and even different centuries :). Some of these figs were bought a long time ago (in the 80s), and some only a few months ago. Some are new and the others second hand, which is why I can't always identify them with certainty. There are several online sites that provide info about all those figs, and I must say that the research for knowledge is one of the most interesting things regarding those 25/28mm figures :)

The two figures below are recent plastic figures by Reaper Bones. The grunt on the left was sculpted by Tre Manor, the guy on the right was sculpted by Bobby Jackson for the Bones Black range (source: Reaper Miniatures website).

 

The following Orcs are much older: they are metal figures from the 80s by Citadel.  The first on the left is a Black Orc from the N11 series in the Chronicle range. Sculpted by Nick Lund and released in 1985 (source: Collecting Citadel Miniatures).

The following are preslotta figures: the second from the left comes from C16 range released in 1984 (source: The Stuff of Legends); the two on the right come from the C15 Armoured Orcs series released in 1983 (source: Lost Minis Wiki).

 

The next two are from different manufacturers. The first one is a Grenadier figure sculpted by Nick Lund and probably released in 1990 for his game 'Fantasy Warriors' (source: Lost Minis Wiki). The second one is an Old Glory Orc sculpted by Bob Naismith. I couldn't find a release date, but I'm sure that I bought this figure during the 90s.

 

The last two figures are produced nowadays by Ral Partha. The lancer (Light Orc Impaler) on the left was sculpted by Bob Olley probably during the 90s and is part of the Gargantuan Orcz ,and the guy on the right is an Orc Champion by Kev Adams, initially for Heartbreaker (sources: Lost Minis Wiki and Ral Partha websites).

I hope you like them, and also that the explanations about the origins of the figures are of interest :)

A Gallic army for DBA

Back to 1/72 and back to Ancients! The title of this blog declares that most minis should be in the One True Scale, here we are.

At the beginning of this year, I've been able to finish my (second) Gallic army for DBA, but found no time and no mood to take pictures. They're here at last, so let's have a look:

 

The figures are still to be based. There are enough figures for 2 elements of Slingers (Ps), 1 element of Gaesatae (Wb), 8 elements of warriors (Wb), and a General on chariot (LCh). Some of the figures have aleady been displayed on this blog (see here), but some others are new, let's focus on the latter.

Manufacturers, left to right: Caesar, Hät, Caesar, Newline Design

Hät, Revell, Hät, Italeri

Caesar, Caesar, Hät, Italeri

Linear, Linear, Linear, Hät, Hät

Linear chieftain on the left, others figs by Hät and already displayed

This time, I've painted the warriors as if they were related in clans wearing the same sort of tartan to identify. I'm not sure that this was common practice in that time, but I this likely, and it helps to give some sort of visual homogeneity without painting uniforms, which would be inappropriate.

Hope you like them, and appreciate the break from big 28mm monsters (I do)  :)