Stirland: a rip-off of The Guide to the Empires East March

[CaptainDangerous]

I was teaching the giant Smegmar how to hold his hammer properly, when I realised iv never actually shown him off!

Once a rampaging raider in the land of stir, his pillaging days came to an end when his leg was hacked beyond repair.
Not truly vanquised, and still very dangerous on his arse, the local lord managed to keep enough distance to negotiate with him. The process was long and arduous, but eventually he accepted the terms, and he is kept well fed, and well kept, provided he doesn’t terrorise the countryside and marches with the army when the need arises!

Also, he can’t say Sigmar properly, and the locals think it’s hilarious, hence his name.

Spoiler: his construction

 

[CaptainDangerous]

a fantastic update! typical cavalry, showing up late to the party!

Thanks Spafe! It feels like too long since I first stole was heavily inspired by your thread, and for how long my army has sat sadly dormant, it all seems to be coming together crazy quickly!

 

[spafe]

haha, my army has not had much done to it in years either, although am halfway through painting up a warwagon for my Ostermark lads

 

[CaptainDangerous]

Inner Circle Knights: Bronzeguard (working title, suggestions welcome)

These guys are the generals personal retinue and are responsible for guarding the army paychest while on the march. Their knightly order vow poverty, but are one of the best fed and armed bodies in the province.


Current Spafograph:

 

[spafe]

Inner Circle Knights: Bronzeguard (working title, suggestions welcome)

Tinpots!

"oh look, the Tinpots taking the glory again!", - Trooper of the 29th, overheard.

 

[CaptainDangerous]

Time to bring out the big guns! Well…big gun.

I used to have a lead one of these, it somehow seemed bigger and was much cheaper?!
Looking at the sprues tho, I think I’ll be able to squeeze out the two mortars as well as the other cannon with a bit of ingenuity and quite a bit of blue stuff!

 

[spafe]

the old metal ones are sligtly smaller (if its the 3rd ed one you mean, I have 2 of them amongst my batteries)

 

[CaptainDangerous]

 

[CaptainDangerous]

Now that I’m in a happy place with my 10 year long Empire project. It’s time to bring on the pain, and start my vampire counts army!

The skeletal horde of Castle Dangerskull:

Begins:

Starting with the cursed city set, this will double up as a substantial part of my frostgrave bestiary!
Plus, I might as well paint up the heroes while I’m on!
They could also triple up as warhammer quest monsters, but I’m not even going there (yet)

The only adaption I’m making to anything is the zombies, I just don’t like em’
But after chopping the gravestones off their backs, I can’t say I totally hate them any more:

Comparison

I had thought of giving the big monster thing (it will serve as a frost giant in frostgrave) a wolf head and trimming them daft bat wing things it has, but I don’t think iv the skill or the patience to do it justice, so will be leaving it as is.

Iv also got around 80 Warlord games skeletons to make up, so wish me luck!

 

[spafe]

old school skeles are a breeze! spray white/cream, ink/wash, then pick out metals, wood and cloth scrapes then wash/ink again!

looking forward to seeing how this plays out

 

[CaptainDangerous]

 

[spafe]

lovely stuff!

 

[CaptainDangerous]

 

[CaptainDangerous]

 

[CaptainDangerous]

And the rest:

It’s a bitter sweet moment as iv had them unassebled for ages and unpainted for an age more. They were never going to be as good as I envisioned them, but they are at least table top ready.

Call it Captains bias but my favourite from the whole bunch is Skeleton Captain Halgrim. If I was a animated skeleton, I’d want to be him!

Next up: warlord games skeleton horde

 

[Ben_S]

The little imp things with chests are cool. I had one on my eBay watchlist at some point, but had forgotten about them.

 

[CaptainDangerous]

It looks like my skeleton legion will only ever be a skeletal horde. I still have 40 left to make, but my desire to do so has passed on to the afterlife.
Although I kinda like them now they’re assembled, it hasn’t been fun.

 

[MusingWarboss]

View attachment 214915
It looks like my skeleton legion will only ever be a skeletal horde. I still have 40 left to make, but my desire to do so has passed on to the afterlife.
Although I kinda like them now they’re assembled, it hasn’t been fun.

Y’ know, I can sympathise with that.

I have long wanted to have an Undead Army but every time I get going on it the project just stalls…

I think there’s just something about building them… my first attempt was with the old Citadel Skeleton Horde and whilst I did get them assembled and… err washed with watered down chestnut ink… in the early 90s, I never did get all the other bits.

Tried again later 90s with a load of metal ones from Grenadier (still have five) but man, soft metal Skellies snap easily…

Attempt three was with Mantic’s Skeletons but after building a unit I got bored. I still have many, many zombies from that range too - I think they’ve been used in more other projects than were used for the original project!!

You’d think they’d be easy right?? Right!!!

Those ones you have are the super fiddly to assemble ones that are from… Wargames Atlantic??? I think.

But they’ll be easy to paint right? Just bone spray and a wash… *laughs in it’s never that simple*

 

[CaptainDangerous]

They are from warlord games, but I think they were originally wargames factory.
They are assembled with 2 part torsos, seperate feet, weaponless arms, and heads with fiddly little neck joints. It’s been tedious from start to finish.

The gw skeletons from the early 90s are still my favourites. Except for the spears sometimes snapping, they were only 3 parts and the ball joints for the arms and head meant you were purely just thinking how to pose them.

I’m not so worried about painting them, I just hope my generous gluing hasn’t flood too many details.

You never know, I’ll keep hold of the rest, maybe in a couple of years I’ll have forgot about the last few days

 

[MusingWarboss]

They are from warlord games, but I think they were originally wargames factory.

That’s it! Wargames Factory!!

I knew they were from a company that was then brought out or taken over and repackaged. I’ve never read a single review of them that hasn’t mentioned the tedious build process.

The classic GW Skellies were ace and were around for a very very long time. Of course the best weapon option was the scythe!

EDIT: Here’s the last one I rebuilt and repainted - and yes, these two test models was as far as that effort went too!!

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