fragilearmytransportbag boot camp

Hills

2010-01-14T21:26:00.000-08:00

Saw this tutorial on the web, which I'm going to use to make my hills for my jungle terrain. I'm going to go one further than this tutorial however, and embed rocks and other objects into the sand to become part of the finished model.

Got some pieces of bark, some cork rocks, and an oyster, which I think will make a cool waterfall/fish pond. Obviously, Avatar is something of an inspiration here.

Warhammer Jungle Terrain: storage shed 1

2010-01-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

Ok: we're going to have an invitational tournament soon, and we've been talking about doing jungle terrain to match the luminous green boards at the shop, and thought I'd get started.

Bought a ton of aquarimn plants from a few local shops which come pre-painted, or rather - not necessary to paint.

Storage Shed
Had this olive oil tin kicking round for ages. I've stuck it onto a cheap acrylic painting board, which cost about $2, and surrounded it with polystyrene. I cut around the tin with a hot wire cutter, so the tin sits into the ground (to give a more extablished feel) and deliberately left the front quite open, as I wanted this to look more trodden and used.

I had a few bits of plastic rod to add a bit of texture to the long surfaces, and used brass etched rivets from MIG productions, although there are many cheaper ways of adding bumps to surfaces:

The doors were from my bitz box, the ladder from a new leman russ, as was the aquilla and the space, for clearing away all that mud!

Looking forward to painting this up, and really weathering it with rust and moss and algea etc. It's alsoa great flat surface for some bit lettering, and will probably do something along the lines of grey base, orange numbering, to contrast nicely with the green foliage.

I found some brass etched folliage from the GW warhammer basing kit, and thought this would look good crawling up the back.

Also in this last photo you can see the basing material, which was a mix of water, glue, filler, sand and a few lumps of cork. I let a little of this go onto the storage shed sides, and smeared the bits that fell off onto the top and the sides to mimic dirt and debris.

Now: I'll leave this to dry and next step painting.

mock-up

2009-12-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

OK - a very rough picture, but put the sled and the santa together, and had a look to get an idea of what I'm going to do with the basing.

Decided I should do a roo-top scene, with a large industrial chimney, which santa is going to dive down to exade xenos scum.

I want to be able to take this diorama apart, and base the ogryn seperately, so I decided to magnatise the sled chains to the ball the ogryn is pulling.

ALso put in his base colours. A mix of red gore and scorched brown and black for his skins, white and Kommando Khaki for the fur, with tallarn flesh skin, with a thinned wash of ogryn flesh and blue. I'm going to be mixing blues into his skin tones to give him a cold look, as well as contrasting nicely with the red and the white.

HoHoHo!

Santa's sled.

2009-12-18T17:20:00.001-08:00

I wanted this to look quite crude, so used gw sprus for the 'skis' and then bits of plastic card to make up the frame. I'm going to cover the thing with a tarpaulin, so just wanted bits that would give a good shape.

I have a terrible pot of GW black spray - that gives the uneven finish, but at least it doesn't come out lumpy.

Santa Ogryn

2009-12-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

So - if you have been following the blog you'll have seen the ogryn I converted, and while in my shop recently, I saw a christmas themed figure competition, and though this guy looked like a pretty good santa.

Give him a red coat and white fur, and a sled full of ammo crates, and a little story about beleagered Valhallans, desperately low on ammo, being saved by the timely arrival of one ogryn with a sled load of power cells who has fought his way through a shit-ton of enemy.....

I wanted to finish off those knights before i got to work on this guy. The deadline is christmas eve, which gives me just under a week to go. Have a mini-diaorama in mind, and will start work on that as well.

2009-12-16T01:35:00.000-08:00

thanks guys!

Really enjoying these guys, and the new empire figures in general. I think I'm a bit odd. I 'get' into armies via the figures and the stories I can imagine them in. These guys are tough, gritty and take no shit.

Enjoy!

batch 2 WIP

2009-12-06T21:05:00.001-08:00

I find personally that the empire knights are too 'historical' and not fantastical enough for me, and I'm sure gw will bring out a new set next year. IN the meantime, Ive ordered forge world black templar storm shields as these look pretty good for empire knights.

here are some WIP pictures. Really enjoying these guys, in my head they're from an order called Teutonic Knights who garrison bleak castles along the norther borders of nordland, with the task of keeping out chaos.

Like the idea of them so much, i'm thinking of painting up an order of teutonic knights, with supporting foot troops all in the same black and white chequer board pattern.

First batch of Empire Knights painted

2009-11-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

I was quite apprehensive about starting these guys, because I loved the conversions I'd done, and wasn't sure I'd have enough time or ideas to do them justice.

I'd originally thought of them as freelance knights, with seperate paint schemes and heraldry, but didn't have the time to do these, and was pretty sure they wouldn't look very good without some kind of comprehensive colour scheme.

I wanted to get the nordland colour schemes in there somewhere, and so originally went for a dark metal colour, that ended up, after a number of washes, looking black. Duh! Why didn't i think of that in the first place. Then came the chequer schemes, and the coloured bits were added last.

Not sure if i'd made these guys too 'busy' with crosses and writing etc, but wanted to get a mildly gothic feel about them. I like the more gothic feel of the terminator shcileds, and have my eye on the forge world black templar sheilds, which i might see if I can get over the xmas period.

Going to start the next lot now, which should go a little easier now I know what colours I'm painting, though might see if I can add a few more skulls etc.

Lances were painted with air brush and masking tape.

Nork Dedog /bonehead

2009-11-10T16:33:00.000-08:00

The ogre hunter struck me a long time ago as being perfect for an ogryn conversion, and here is the beginning. Simple arm swap, and addition of a commissar's hat. Fairly nervous about doing the hat - but the trick I've found is to break the hat down into minimal stages. So I started by clipping off the hair and bone so I had a fairly even surface. I then added a simple hat shape, and let that dry.
The I added the peak at the top front of the hat, to give it its shape.
Then, I added the brim, which was the trickiest part. I made it roughly the right shape before putting the piece on and gently smoothing it onto thefront of the hat.
Then I added the thin roll of cording over the top of the brim, and lastly - when everything else was dry, I added the aquilla, which was fairly simple. I put the wings in first, and then a small ball for the skull went over the top.

Cant decide what to do with him now. Either Nork Dedog, or a bone head, or an inquisitorial retinue member.

40k Terrain

2009-11-10T16:04:00.001-08:00

Been a little distracted recently by some 4OK terrain, and thought this would be interesting.

I've been doing alot of buildings, but thought it'd be good to have some terrain that went down instead of up. A bit like the Rockefeller Centre...... but without a thick foam base to dig down into, the best I could come up with was a kind of sewage treatment centre.

Enjoy:

Paint and play: second 500

2009-10-26T00:44:00.000-07:00

So the knights are primed and ready to go, and the first step is getting the bases done. I like to do these seperately so I don't mess up the figures or the base while painting the other.

These bases are done with a base of filler/white glue/grit/gravel/and cork or bark stones - then airbrushed a number of colours, from graveyard earth, komando khaki, and then with gw washes of devlan mud and green - that i mix up together when wet, so there are natural blends.

Finally a drybrush, and a few little details like bones, arrows, or rusting weapons, painted individually.

For the snow I sprinkle on baking powder, and then blow most of it off and seal it in with varnish to keep the remaining snow in place. I also use vallejo snow in patches, which gives a more visually appeaing look.

Starting the bases for the five archers and two canon crews. A week and a half to get all these guys painted.

Marienburg Freesword Part 2 - Knights

2009-10-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

For the second month of the paint and play, I've added two units of 5 knights, and a couple of canons.

I DONT like the empire knights, or their horses - and decided to use chaos marauder and pistolier horses - as well as go deep into the bitz box to find some interesting ways of converting the knights.

There's been plenty of greenstuff use, which i've taught myself a little as I go along, and gone for a mix of lances and great weapons.

Elysian 99th for 2009 Hong Kong Gt

2009-10-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning of a deamonhunter's army- and actually competed as a IG army in the 2009 Hong Kong Gt.

I used Elysian drop troops, because UI thought that the spookiest place to meet a deamon was inside an abandoned space hulk, and the Elysians had a diving down corridors/hustling kind of look, that seemed to go best with this idea.

I wanted to get my hands on some valkyries - just because they looked awesome - and to add some umpfh! to the whole list I thought I'd use some of my Aquarian Guard leman russes.

I've leanrt quite alot about air brushes and weathering techniques in the last year, and thought I'd redo my tanks, and as tanks can be a little dull looking, i thought I'd paint up some fun crew to sit in them.

I should specially mention my hydra, which I've loved ever since I saw it on the forge world website, and now that there's an excuse to drop that much money, then I couldn't resist.

results below:

The thunderbolt pilot is the officer of the fleet, and the astropath is from Hector Rex's retinue, and is largely unfinished so I can come back to him without time pressures and work on his cloak.

The elysian officer was semi-ruined by GW varnishes, which came out with the snowy effect. Note to self: NEVER USE GW VARNISHES AGAIN!!!!!

Marienburg Freeswords Part 1

2009-10-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

Started a paint and play scheme - and after some last minute wavering towards the bretonnians - in the end I plumbed for empire. Been long lamenting the departure of the Dogs of War, and wanted to capture some of their spirit in this new army. The theme is a rag-taglle collection of forces raised from Empire sympathisers within marienburg, ready to fight in the Storm of Chaos. So the troops will be a mix of marienbrg and nordland warriors (lured into their neighbour's army by the higher rate of pay they offer) - named the Marienburg Freeswords.
This is a monthly paint and play, going up in 500 point chunks. The initial 500 points are below - and included a warrior priest, a lvl 2 mage, 11 greatswords, 6 flagelltants, and 10 handgunners.

These guys are WIP, and I want to come back to the generals esp and do some more exciting freehand work on them, as well as a more interesting base for the wizard, and put some spells in his spell book.

one week to go

2008-10-06T02:59:00.000-07:00

...weddings in the Uk, wife, children, novel, editors, agents, forgeworld delays: it's tough trying to get an army painted these days. But with six day to go I'm back in the saddle.

Now my forgeworld heads have arrived, I've painted and put the drivers into the sentinels, which are finished with bits of vegetation in the ruins.

I've painted up some crew to go into the tanks:

And ebayers have come through with the last plasma guns I need. The heads of the grenadiers are surpisingly easy to clip off, and i've altered these guys a little with alternate head directions.

I've done a little more with the sergeants. My commander is the guy with the hat, and the other guy is leading my drop troop platoon.

And i've based all the figures i need, and have the four ogryns and about 20-odd guys to paint. Should be easy. :P

Tanks

2008-08-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

And here are some pics of the various tanks OI've been working on. They are the same painting scale as above, but as well as this i've used some dirtying/weathering techniques I've notused before.

I've used pastels to add dirt and footprints to the tanks. I airburshed gryhonne sepia around the tracks, then added a mix of weathering pastels and and vallejho plastic putty as mud, with static grass added in clumps to simulate turf that has got churned up by the tracks.

The rust weathering powders were a little underinspiring when mixed with water, and so I've ordered some mig pigments, which I've heard work better.

The chimeras were quite important to the look of the army, which is basically a mech grenadier list, with a platoon of drop troops - and the overall theme is blitzkrieg in the 41st millenium. As these are a high tech army i ordered predator turrets, which give a much cooler silhouette to the tank.

Sentinels II

2008-08-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

Ok - so spent about an hour air brushing these guys. They're looking much better already. Currently in 'rough' airbrush shape. Initial black undercoat, charadon granite base, then adeptus battlegrey, then astrononicum grey and then dots of black and afew more bits of Charadon Granite.
The red/white colour markings are the same as the tanks, and the red is the same base as the kasrkin's armour red.

next steps will to be to drybrush the sentinels, and paint in the markings and guns etc. And then the bases. I've modelled some green stuff to be a splash, and looking forward to working out how to paint this.

Sentinels

2008-08-21T23:26:00.001-07:00

Wanted a break from tanks and decided to get these guys out and ready. They've been sitting in detol for a couple of weeks and now ready for sending back out to the battle front.

Wanted them interacting with the terrain in an interesting way: so one is splashing through the goop, while the other is dashing to get a good shot in.

Weapons and missiles are both magnetised.

These are forge world drop sentinels.

Ogryns 1

2008-06-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

What else does a blitzkrieg genadier mech army need than a tank full of ogryns: since I saw these figures last year, I knew I needed some of them and have managed to squeeze a unit of 4 into my prospective GT list this year.

First base: bases..... wanted to use something that gave a nice impressive look, and the army is going to be based on a green slime/concrete slab world. A couple of smashed aquillas make up a couple of these bases.

There's not too much remodelling that the new ogryn figures need: they're really well sculpted and look much better than the last lost of gumbies.

some of the ogryns on their bases:

The only guy who looked a bit crap was the bonehead, so I cut off his arm and wired him upto a rejigged sentinel power lifter arm:

His arm seemed a little too long and stiff in this pose, so I cut through the piston arrowed here, and turned this into a moving joint, and repositioned the arm turning in a little, to snap off someone's head.

I gave him some more wires, and a another shoulder plate,

And a battery back pack on the back. Leaving this to dry before I come back and add some more details to his power pack

IG Regiments

2008-06-19T01:28:00.000-07:00

Bell of Lost Souls had a create your own IG unit competition recently, and I missed that completely, but thought I'd play around with some figures, and came out with these: used the new washes on the barrels of the guns and also on the metal of the cadians. Really impressed with these: they dry quickly, come out at a fairly 'normal' strength, meaning they dont need watering down to use fresh, and also they dry matt and very evenly, which I was very impressed with.

Cadian Panthers: I had a picture of this guy in my head for a while: a cadian trooper in pure black. I altered him a little by using old elf legs to get the kneeling pose.

Colca Stormhawks: there's a unit of carapace armour drop troops in the back of the IG book, but I based this guy on the original Elysian Drop troops from a white dwarf article after Armageddon. Actually, I think I'm going to use this guy as a base for fdrop troops for my Mech Grenadier list.

Valhallan 501st 'Icebreakers'
When I bought my metal IG army, why the hell didn't I buy Valhallans?! The figures are awesome, and for some dumb reason I bought Tallarn and then switched to the metal Cadians. Got some of these guys again to be crew for my space ship, and love them. Didn't do anything particularly spectacular with this guy, just a dappled camop scheme of three or four colours, and then used a black weathering powder on his gun barrel, which didn't really come off with the dark shades already. Also used a mixed GW wash on the grenade launcher, and it shades really nicely, which I touched up with grey highlights.
Mordian XIVth 'Greencoats'
I got a few Mordians to be officers for a Imperial Navy crew IG list I am going to paint someday - but never really liked the Mordian figures I'd seen painted before: but actually really enjoyed painting this guy. Went for a German WWI colour scheme, a kind of off green and grey mix. Really nicely modelled, and i used a black/brown wash on his gun barrel and a highlight of boltgun and mithril. Also played around with some new weathering powders on the rust of the barbed wire posts. I imagine this guy part of some sucessful, though catastrophically costly, Mordian assault, across No Man's Land on some godforsaken planet, and wanted the base to tell the story.

Suprised myself how much fun I had doing these guys: and the Stormhawk allowed me to test a slightly brighter paint scheme for my mech grenadiers. I prefer the duller armour plates of the original, but think I'm going to go with the grey base of the uniform, rather than brown, as it gives them a more high tech look. Also very impressed with the washes: they cover really well, don't leave water marks, and dry quickly and matt. Awesome!

Sneak Peak: IG commander

2008-06-04T00:14:00.000-07:00

Quick sneak peak of a commander I'm converting up from one of forge-world's tank commanders. Forge world figures are really nice to paint, full of life and character, with good faces, and nice bases for unique models. I've done a couple of these before, and now I thought i'd try a new one for my mech IG

His body was a little too long, and his hips too narrow, but I played around with the legs for a while till i thought he looked normal. Then a bit of green stuff to fill in the gaps.

Imperial Navy: Lightning II

2008-06-02T00:00:00.001-07:00

I used magets to stick the pilot into place, the cockpit cover down, as well as the engine cover, just behind the pilot. The missiles I wanted to make removable as well, and drilled a couple of holes into these. I found that the magnets made them just heavy enough that they fell off the holders, so ended up putting a line of three magnets along thier lenght, and glued a straight piece of paper-clip onto the missile holder to get a good grip.

I talked earlier about putting more than one magnet into a hole: here's an example of the magnets used to keep the cockpit in place, in a hole drilled three-deep.

When all was ready it was time to spray the plane up. I sprayed the plane black first, and then oversprayed it white all over, trying to give it as light a covering as possible, while still getting a good colour. BY spraying from an angle, the black stays in a lot of the recesses, giving you natural black-lining.

I then turned the pieces bottom-down, and sprayed the top of the plane ultramarine blue. I got a fairly nice transition from blue to white along the lenght of the fusilage, and carefully sprayed along to reimpose white along the belly. I then held the wings up and sprayed at an angle, just touching the tips of the wings and the tips of the tail-fins. Spraying at an angle is important, so that the spray doesn't 'splash' back on bits you dont want it to reach.

When everything was dry I started sticking it all together. The wings are held in place by the engines, and so I stuck these first, and only when these were in place did I stick the wings on top.

Next steps will be to put in shading and highlight, and I have bought some weathering powders, and will get to grips with using these as well.

I'm thinking of adding jaws to the front of the fusilage, to add some fancy detail this baby, which is a flash fighter.

The rockets I sprayed black and then white, and then sprayed the end of the noses red.

Imperial Navy: Lightning I

2008-06-01T23:58:00.001-07:00

Time for a break from fantasy, and I've been looking forward to adding to my imperial navy collection with my first lightning fighter:

Ever since I read a bat rep in White Dwarf, featuring George Dellapina's orc fighter-bomber, I've been hooked on air power in the 40K universe. With one thunderbolt under my belt, it was time for a lightning.

Lightning's come in two varients, strike and and fighter, and these bits are all supplies by Forge world (the strike variant replaces the autocanon with two more hellstrike missiles) and i decided I would use rare earth magnets to enable me to switch between these two varients, as well as take the pilot out, in case I ever wanted to use this plane as a piece of scenery in a battle.

First of all it's time for a good wash:

And then the bits are laid out for a day to dry before undercoating.

I found a drill bit of the same diameter of the rare earth magnets I was using, and the citadel drill fits these larger bits easily. (You can vary the depth of the hole, and stack magnets up to get a stronger hold.)

I put a blob of superglue into the hole, and then used a tooth pick to slide the magnet in. WARNING: rare earth magnets are very magnetic. This means they tend to fly around the work area, sticking to each other as well as anything else metal you have lying around the place. It's worth clearing your work-space of metal objects, keeping the bag of magnets well away, and then get back to work.

You can use pieces of metal to stick the various pieces of the plane together, but a better hold will come from using magets on both pieces. To make sure you have your + lined up with + and negative with negative I do this:

Once the glue is dry, I stick another magnet on top of the one in the hole. I then mark the 'up' side, and then take this magnet off, and when I come to stick the magent into the autocanon, I make sure the 'up' side is hidden.

Green Knight

2008-05-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

finished green knight. Two days to go and half way through my pegasus knights. I've abandoned the unit of coverted monk men at arms, but still have to paint five questing knights and a trebuchet......!

grail company

2008-05-09T00:10:00.000-07:00

Enjoyed painting these lot!

One week to go and I'm feeling the pressure to get the army painted. I still have to paint 3 pegasus knights, 5 questing knights, one penitent knight and a treubchet and crew. So far the units have taken me much longer than I had hoped and I have three deadlines in the next week - which is a bizzare coincidence.

But here is the grail reliquary and the pilgrims: and now starting work on the green knight, whom I'm going to use a white basecoat for, to give him an inner glow - which will take more time - and a rather ambitious basing idea for my questing knight.

More soon:

sneak peaks!

2008-04-30T06:04:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the leader of my grail reliquary: a bishop of course! And another of the pilgrims...

And next unit on my list will be the monkish men at arms, one of whom is below.

As far as timing, there's three weeks to go and tons to paint, so really need to get into a rhythm......

archers WIP

2008-04-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

OK: archers work in progress. I'm chosing purple and white as my army colours, as this goes nicely with the palatinate theme of the monks. More of them soon...

Here are some of the archers in progress. I had a lot of fun extreme highlighting the leather, starting with a bestial brown and black, washed over with chestnut and dark angel green ink, then highlighted up through snakebite leather, snakebit and yellow, kommando khaki and then thin highlights of elf flesh and white.

I then glazed them with thinned flesh wash, and retouched the highlights.

The white has been fairly straighforward, and now needs the white to be touched up again. I'll wait and see how the purple turns out to see if i need to dull the leather down a little with another glaze.

next up: archers

2008-04-16T08:25:00.001-07:00

want to have the pleasure of banging a unit out, so started on my archers. Basing them so that the guys at either end are going to be in the water. Otherwise, some cork rocks and I've gone for a few knight and a few empire heads in the mix.

Pegasus bases looking good. the little stub will be sticking out of a lake.

2008-04-16T01:01:00.001-07:00

OK: finished up the grail reliquary this evening. Really pleased with this, and think it's going to make a great centrepiece for the army. It's taken me way too long however, and there's 4 weeks now till the Hong Kong GT, and I have the rest of the army to paint, so am going to have to really get my painting skates on. I found the monk looked a little bare standing on his own, so made the little book stand for him to be reading from. Once I made that, I found that the front needed something just to make it a bit more interesting and so added a scroll from the flagellant sprue.

I have a little lad to sit on the back and shoot a catapult, but I'm going to leave him until the rest of the army is finished, rather than waste time with him now. Thanks for the comments on the highlighting. There's actually three layers on the straps and belts etc, which hasn't really come out with my lighting set up.

Cart rough fit together

2008-04-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Got most of the basic parts of the cart painted up: there's a banner pole to come, because everything in warhammer needs a banner pole....!

think I'm going to add a book/lecturn for the monk to be reading from, which will really tie this piece up nicely. Never painted candles before, and always been a little apprehensive about painting flames, but very happy with this so far!

monk finished

2008-04-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

Finished off the monk, and rather than give him his book to read from I wanted something a little more bretonnian. I hovered between a incense censor, and liked the idea of a bell more. Serves as a club at the same time. I'm having a lot of fun playing around with this guy and the reliquaries on his cart, and doing alot of glazes on the armour. I also had a little play with the sheild, and want to try and make this extreme highlighting the style with the knights: to accenuate their semi-magical/mythical status.

Cart and horse

2008-03-30T06:27:00.000-07:00

I painted all the bits seperately, and spent quite a bit of time on the base of the thing. I also had a first go round with weathering powder, and used a couple of rust powders on the sword fragments on the base. I'm going to leave all the flock etc once I have put the cart and horse on:

I had to get the horse at the right level for the cart to balance: and drilled a couple of holes into the base, and slid him in. Meanwhile, I used a little bit of green stuff - to be painted up later - to make sure all his feet were touching the ground:

Then I used the rest of the greenstuff to raise the end of the cart to the right level, and stuck the wheels of the cart in place. Rather than drilling these before hand I thought I'd stick them in place and then drill up from the bottom into the cart wheels and glue them in place again.

I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to put onto the cart: the basic options are a load of reliquary items and chests, and candles and the like, or the grail knight balanced on the barrels. Opinions appreciated!

Squires

2008-03-28T01:57:00.000-07:00

Most of these guys were already painted, but I wanted to go over them and titivate their bases. I used flock, bushy-material, and a couple of different colours of litchen to give the impression of men who are scouting ahead. I think they still need touching up here and there, and I want to go over the arrow flecks and do something a little more interesting with them: but pleased with the improved colourfulness the figures have, and pleased with the blue-looking water. I also cut off a little of some of the figure's bases and aded little bits of water, so that there was a nicer mix of colours in there.

Blessing Markers

2008-03-26T02:32:00.000-07:00

I wanted something special to indicate the Blessing, and settled on these Sisters of Battle bits. First time round I made the water green and swampy, which got somewhat lost with the green flock around them, and so to add a nice dose of colour to the army bases turned them blue. This will hopefully give the whole army a cleaner look as well as adding a nice strong colour to the army's pallette.

One of the centre pieces of the army is going to be the Grail Reliquary. I have two of these, but wanted to do something a bit more substantial. I decided on a cart, and here are a couple of work in progress shots:

The 10th Crusade: The Return of Edmund FitzLacey, The Black Prince

2008-03-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Now, my army for the Hong Kong GT this May was going to be a dogs of war army based on the survivors of Bohsenfels...but thanks to GW Dogs of War have been taken off the list of tournament legal armies. A problem? Not at all. Opportunity! Time to re-paint my Bretonnian army, and to paint up Edmund FitzLacey, The Black Prince as he moves from young errant at the time of the Albion Campaign to grizzled veteran.

The Theme
The Tenth Crusade...... a blind cobbler's son has had a vision of a holy grail, leading to a massed movement of monks and peasants, led by the half-mad Abbot Franklin. As they plunge into the wilds, companies of knights come to their aid, led by Edmund FitzLacy, The Black Prince.

The Concept
Brets were my first army, way back when they were just a White Dwarf list. I revamped them for the Albion Campaign, and have been alternating between them and my dogs of war ever since. I'd gone for a grungy look first time round, trying to play down their bright and ponsy look, but this time I'm going to try and combine that colour and pageantry with a dirty and travel-stained look.

I have a few figures already painted upto a decent standard: mainly the skirmishing archers. So with the Hong Kong GT set for the second weekend in May, I've lots of painting to get done.