Battle for the Drunken Hippogryph Inn (Empire vs. Beastmen, and terrain)

[Lyinar]

I've started a project that's probably going to take me a rather insane amount of time to complete: a winter battlefield and two armies to fight over it.

I'm going to be making a Fortified Manor House as a coaching inn called the Drunken Hippogryph (the first name on the name generator I was using that didn't suck). I'm also doing a separate Watchtower, which I've already got, and I'm thinking of converting a second Chapel set into a set of stables.

I've already gotten a few miniatures done, partially as test pieces.


The general of the Empire army. Somewhat randomly decided for green and black for the heraldry, so the army's probably going to be from some random part of Hochland.


A unit champion from one of the Gor Herds in the Beastmen army that I'm doing.


An outhouse that I painted up to test the colour scheme I wanted to do for the other buildings, and also to test the application of snow to the models.

[Harry]

Great idea for a project log. (I love terrain).

Pulls up chair, cracks open a can and gets comfy.

[Lyinar]

I've gotten my Beastlord done. Going to take pictures when I get home tonight.

[mrtn]

Great idea for a project log. (I love terrain).

Pulls up chair, cracks open a can and gets comfy.

Gimme a beer while you're at the fridge, mate? Agreed.

[Lyinar]

As promised, there is my Beastlord:


As he's got the "Gnarled Hide" Gift of Chaos, I painted his skin the same colours I'm using for stone. The converted blade he's carrying is representing a Giant Blade.


Also, the Wizard I'm going to be using in my Empire army... I pretty much modelled him generically, so I've got a number of lores I can pick from before painting him up.

[Lyinar]

Didn't get much done over the weekend, as my mom was visiting.

I have had an alternative idea for the Wailing Banner, as I'm not quite good enough with freehand to do the screaming demonic face the item's name and rules would suggest.

Let's just say that if you've read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and have the Warriors of Chaos army book (and work through the phonetics of it a bit...), you'll know exactly why my version of the banner causes Terror once I get it painted and post a picture.

[Lyinar]

Here is my Beastmen Battle Standard Bearer with Wailing Banner: Tremble in fear of the badly-transliterated Vogon poetry! MUAHAHAHA!

[mrtn]

Vogon poetry written in the black tongue is actually quite high on the geekometer!

[Paw]

Vogon poetry written in the black tongue is really awesome geekery! And I really like the Empire general. This is really interesting, so i will subscribe. Keep up the good work!!!

[Daniel36]

Definitely keeping this log in my sight. I love project logs like these.

My friend and I are also working on a similar project. I recently started a Mercenary Empire army and he is doing Vampire Counts. Together we bought some scenery so we are going to turn it all into a village that has to be defended against the Undead Menace. As his brother owns a Beastmen army that I am painting and I am also working on Wood Elves, we have quite a couple of fun combinations to battle out with.

What we are NOT doing, however, is going for a snow theme, so it will be fun to watch you do that. I like how you applied the snow to the outhouse, it looks really nice. I'm not too sure about the basing though, it looks a little unnatural.

I understand you left some parts "unsnowed", to break up the basing, but I guess footprints would look more natural than the seemingly random non-snowy parts. Then again, I am too scared to do snow bases so I applaud your bravery. Keep up!

[Lyinar]

I am actually trying to go for a light snowfall, which should help explain why I was going for the patchy look on the basing. I agree that it doesn't look quite right, though. Then again, I've about 7 years experience at painting and maybe two years with actually doing proper basing, so it may just be my lack of experience shining through there.

I am planning on doing footprints on the base for the Giant I'll be getting, at least.

[Lyinar]

Finally managed to get some of the models from my first attempt at an Empire army up here. Will likely be starting back up on this after the holidays.

[SotF]

Just curious, but what method did you use for the snow?

I keep looking for something that works for early spring/late fall and can't seem to get it right

[Lyinar]

Sorry for the delay in answering, but I used fairly fine sand on the bases, painted it with Charadon Granite and washed it with Devlan Mud to make it look like wet earth, then put random blobby patches of PVA glue on it and slid the base into a pile of Gale Force 9 snow basing material.

For the snow on top of the outhouse, I not-quite-drybrushed the PVA glue onto the areas I wanted snow on, and then sprinkled the same snow basing material onto it.

I've got my cannon and crew done. Will be posting pictures in the next few days. Going with slightly faded-looking grey and green for the commoners in the army instead of the black and fairly bright green from my General. I figure the general is spending the money he saves on fancy dyes on food and equipment for his men instead.

[Lyinar]

My Great Cannon and crew. Have a Helblaster Volley Gun awaiting painting, too.

[Lyinar]

Been a while since I've posted anything here, but I've gotten some more scenery to add to the battlefield, probably on the opposite side of it from the inn:



I'm also somewhat reconsidering whether to go with Beastmen or Warriors of Chaos as the "bad guy" force. I'll be posting pictures of a Chaos Knight I've been working on as soon as I get him done.

[Lyinar]

I went ahead and got one of the Sorcerer models that came out with Storm of Magic today, and here he is:



I did a bit of conversion with a Chaos Space Marine helmet with the 40k-ish details shaved off.

[Elfboy]

Awesome, just what that sorceror model needs Love the way the eye on the helmet mirrors the staff, nice touch.

[mdiscala]

Sick paint job on the eye. Maybe a border or something on the base of his skirt? Like a bunch of runes going around at the edge would look awesome I think.

[Lyinar]

Finally got done painting my Grey Wizard, who will be a L4 in larger games, or an L2 in smaller ones.







I'm getting a LOT better at doing proper layered highlighting.