mrtn's Southlands Beastmen and other fantasy armies and warbands

[Kor'Vesh]

I've not looked over your whole plog yet, but your Heroquest minis are awesome Mrtn! I'd forgottedn how nice the models are... I think the zombies are better models than the current GW box, and you've painted them really nicely!

[mrtn]

These are superior minis, is it a sign of more undead in the future?

Thank you. Yes, it is a sign...

I've not looked over your whole plog yet, but your Heroquest minis are awesome Mrtn! I'd forgottedn how nice the models are... I think the zombies are better models than the current GW box, and you've painted them really nicely!

Thanks!

The Dead Men of Dunharrow are finished, I really like that old horseman with the tired old horse.







Here is a converted old Wight King. It was missing it's sword arm, so I replaced it with a skeleton spear arm converted to a flag. The flag itself is from the plague monk box, with some conversions to the rat skulls and the bell chains. I sculpted his new shoulder armour. He also got an old shield, and a sword from the Mordheim accessory sprue.









I've used transfers on the banner and shield, and while I was at it I added a transfer to my ungor standard bearer.

[VenomBlood]

Lotr stuff turned very good, I especially like rust effect.
But the Wight King became a real surprise, you managed to pull this quite meh mini to the much higher standart. Much better than with original arm IMO.

[Cap'n Facebeard]

I've probably seen that Ungor earlier, but I have to comment on how mad he looks. He looks like a real angry goat.

Did those transfers come with your Plague Marine buy? I recognise the old Nurgle skull-with-tongue, with was my fave transfer when I was just a kid and also came on a free sheet of transfers attached to the first WD I ever bought, #152. Bit of pointless history for ye

[juicytomatoes]

Gorgeous George! A super-caffeinated ungor standard bearer!

[Grain Weevil]

That wight SB looks greta, good job

[Abraham Danglebreech]

The Dead Men of Dunharrow are finished, I really like that old horseman with the tired old horse.

That's one of my favourites from the old LotR line. Great sculpting on the Undead as a whole actually. Have you got the three Barrow Wights? I like the colours you have used. Bright while sickly (in a good way)

[mrtn]

Lotr stuff turned very good, I especially like rust effect.
But the Wight King became a real surprise, you managed to pull this quite meh mini to the much higher standart. Much better than with original arm IMO.

Thanks mate.

I've probably seen that Ungor earlier, but I have to comment on how mad he looks. He looks like a real angry goat.

Did those transfers come with your Plague Marine buy? I recognise the old Nurgle skull-with-tongue, with was my fave transfer when I was just a kid and also came on a free sheet of transfers attached to the first WD I ever bought, #152. Bit of pointless history for ye

Thanks. I think I bought the transfers separately, labelled "chaos transfers".

Gorgeous George! A super-caffeinated ungor standard bearer!

Thanks!

That wight SB looks greta, good job

Thank you.

That's one of my favourites from the old LotR line. Great sculpting on the Undead as a whole actually. Have you got the three Barrow Wights? I like the colours you have used. Bright while sickly (in a good way)

Thanks. I don't have the barrow wights. I do have the Nazgul on foot from the Nazgul on Winged Beast set, so that should turn up here one of these days. I received the skeletons I bought from Mantic and WGF when Maelstrom had their January sale, so I'll have something to say about them soon as well.

However, I've started an internship at an architect firm, so while I have less time for hobbies I've been creative at work:









1:100 scale.

[Cap'n Facebeard]

I think you could improve that house by sticking skulls to every available surface.

[mrtn]

Over the last weeks I have very slowly been building some of the plastic skeletons I bought from Maelstrom when they had their January sale. £20 in total got me 10 skeletons (with command) from Mantic and 30 skeletons from Wargames Factory.
I have built five of each to compare them.









They both come with empty hands and loose weapons, compared to the usual GW method of moulding the arm and weapon as one bit, which I think I prefer in comparison.
The Mantic skeletons had more mould lines than I expected. Nothing that wasn't fixable, but it took more time than expected to build the models to a mrtn-certified standard, seeing how Mantic talks about "bigger armies for bigger games". They lack bits though, the box won't give you a spear armed unit since some of them come with hand weapons pre-moulded to the torso. But the models seem quite sturdy and fit for gaming.
That can not be said for the WGF skeletons, which are really skinny and fiddly to build. The amount of very thin bones actually make me think that they are unsuited for gaming, at least if you're a bit rough and tumble about it. I think that plastic glue is necessary, building the WGF models with super glue I fear you'd end up with just a big pile of bone if you bump the table.
The WGF box included much more bits than the Mantic one, since it has millions of small sprues with swords, shields, spears, bows and so on. Most of these seem to have originally been made for historical ancients models which give the models a certain "Jason and the Argonauts" feel. Unfortunately there are only five different types of left arms, and since one of these is pointing you either have to skip a shield on 20% of your models, or just glue the shield directly to the arm (which is what I did). You also don't get any handles for the shields, so I ended up cutting off very small bits of paper clips and glued into the empty hands, not a really satisfying solution...
In future I may try to convert them with added bits to stabilize the skinny thigh-bones, or something like that. The WGF bits also would work great for any charnel pit/graveyard terrain bit, since they're completely naked.

So in conclusion I can say that Mantic will get you a playable army, while WGF probably won't. They will however do wonders for your bits box, which Mantic won't. I think that buying both boxes at the same time is better than one after the other, since you can swap bits and make both sets more interesting, I added a WGF skull to the fourth guy from the left, and added some Mantic swords to the WGF skellies. I hope it was worth my while to type out this, but I've been looking for a comparison of the boxes myself. Oh, and the Mantic skeletons are cheaper than GW's, and WGF are even cheaper than Mantic. £20 from GW would have given me no more than 17 skeletons, compared to the 40 I got.

[Kaos]

Nice housem when can i move in there? :P

Cheers-Kaos

[ArtificerArmour]

Must admit, the WGF skellies really give me the jason and the argonaut vibe that other skellies do not.

Cheers for the review!

[Loki73]

They lack bits though, the box won't give you a spear armed unit since some of them come with hand weapons pre-moulded to the torso.

This is true about the mantic stuff although mine came with spears I had 40 metal pikes from Warlord Games that I put into a horde!

Love the house. Those skellingtons from foundry look better than I thought they would be. I am amazed on how stuff you have painted! Nice work!

[mrtn]

Nice housem when can i move in there? :P

Cheers-Kaos

Thanks. You have to kill a man named Kjell before you can move in

Must admit, the WGF skellies really give me the jason and the argonaut vibe that other skellies do not.

Cheers for the review!

Thank you.

This is true about the mantic stuff although mine came with spears I had 40 metal pikes from Warlord Games that I put into a horde!

Love the house. Those skellingtons from foundry look better than I thought they would be. I am amazed on how stuff you have painted! Nice work!

Thanks, but Foundry? I have no Foundry models.

[Satan]

Now you've just got to paint all those skellies!

[Putty]

good luck with your internship!

those miniature house building skills will come in handy!

[Purplebeard]

Those old LOTR Undead look great - as you point out, the sculpts are really characterful and your painting sets them off very nicely indeed.

[juicytomatoes]

Nice house you built there! Wow, architecture...

Thanks for the review on the skeletons! It takes time to do and it's not pretty pictures, but it's very very much appreciated!

[mrtn]

Now you've just got to paint all those skellies!

Any year now...

good luck with your internship!

those miniature house building skills will come in handy!

Thanks mate.

Those old LOTR Undead look great - as you point out, the sculpts are really characterful and your painting sets them off very nicely indeed.

Thank you.

Nice house you built there! Wow, architecture...

Thanks for the review on the skeletons! It takes time to do and it's not pretty pictures, but it's very very much appreciated!

Thanks, good to know it wasn't a waste.

A friend had some brand new briefcases at his work which were to be thrown out, and he immediately thought "Oh, I wonder if mrtn wants a couple of these for his miniatures?", which I did. The first of two now holds all of my chaos warriors.





The total cost for it is maybe $1 or something like that for the glue for the glue gun, the rest is free materials being recycled.

[juicytomatoes]

That's a great idea for old suitcases Is it more for storage or for portability? I was thinking that carrying a few of these around might be a little tricky.