An Empire United or If you go down to the woods today you'd better bring your shades!

[Darkritual]

Yep realy nice work and done pretty fast 2! Keep it up!

[vinush]

Love tho drumming monkey, but you're right. They do hog all the glory for themselves. My monkey knife fighting champion keeps demanding challenges and occasionally smearing his enemies with feces... It gets rather embarrassing after the fifth or sixth time.

THE \/ince

[Gargobot]

Wow! Entertaining posts and a great, rather unique painting style. This is gonna be a popular plog!

[Lord Azoth]

really nice painting...you achieves amazing and characterful faces...

[Zarion]

Just wow! Consider me subscribed!

[jez]

Apologies for not posting yesterday as promised (dirty liar). My son robbed the laptop for the evening - grrrr, kids and their stinky social network obsessions!

Brilliant plog mate, subscribed. I love the idea behind the army and your painting skills are great! Keep up the good work.

Many thanks. I've enjoyed painting all the armies I've done but must admit this is my fave so far. Partly because of the variety but mainly because due to the planning I know where it's going and I know the treats I've got coming up.

Wow! Those are some nice mini's! Well done! The famous regiments are all very cool, but their thunder get's stolen by your awesome monkey

Ssssh, he's already getting too big for his simian boots. You know I'm a fan of your plog(s). I've got a Stirland treat coming up for you soon.

Nice plog! I'll be watching this!

Love the flagellants.

Cheers mate. They were fun to do in spite of the million and one chains, keys, scrolls etc.

Beautiful work! I'll be watching this one for sure. Do you think you could manage of group shot of what you have painted, I jut think it must look really cool all together. Keep it up, can't wait for more!
-C.M.

I might (note the might) be having a game this weekend and 'might' give them their first outing so I'll take some pics. Failing that, I'll do a group shot soon.

Love your paintjobs man

And seriously someone else who does an awesome monkey conversion? Ive got to jump on the bandwagon!

Nooo. Stop the monkey love. They'll soon be taking over the Empire. Haven't you seen Planet Of The Apes?

Fun plog and good paint jobs too. Great work.

Thanks mate.

You really are doing the regiments of reknown justice. The Empire heraldry book is one of my favourite books and it's great seeing it come to life in painted model form.

Yep, I'd recommend anyone getting that book, even if you don't have an Empire army. It gave me so much inspiration, was a great read and adds lots of backstory to the Warhammer world.

The monkey looks a bit of a Animal (muppets) drummer, he's far too cool to keep in time with the others.

Love tho drumming monkey, but you're right. They do hog all the glory for themselves. My monkey knife fighting champion keeps demanding challenges and occasionally smearing his enemies with feces... It gets rather embarrassing after the fifth or sixth time.

THE \/ince

Ha! Ha! Okay, you guys win. I can't fight the monkey love. Guess I'll have to embrace it.
But seriously (if you can get serious about a game with monkeys and half lion / eagle beasties and mechanical horses) small things like the monkey can add a real fun factor and colour to both the battles and the painting. It's just a fun little diversion.

Yep realy nice work and done pretty fast 2! Keep it up!

Cheers. I'm a reasonably fast painter but I'd be even faster if Royal Mail would hurry up with that damned proton accelerator. It's held up in customs. Idiot I bought it off had put the return address on the box as; Evil Genius, Death Mountain, Transylvania which I suspect has roused their suspicions!

Wow! Entertaining posts and a great, rather unique painting style. This is gonna be a popular plog!

Many thanks sir and many thanks all for your comments. Compels me to keep going.

Just wow! Consider me subscribed!

Thank you. Lots of updates planned.

really nice painting...you achieves amazing and characterful faces...

Thanks. For me, faces are the focal point of the figure so I always make a big effort on them. I always paint the face last as well. I know some folks paint them first so as to 'frame' the mini but for me it ties the figure together and I leave it to the end as a treat. I love seeing how the face 'completes' the figure.


Right Boom Baby! "The warmachine springs to life, opens up one eager eye, focusing it on the sky" (ten points to whoever names the song).
How about some artillery action?

In keeping with my bonkers 'include-something-of-everything' philosophy I wanted a great cannon, a mortar, a volley gun and a rocket blaster. Again I'd mix and match the provinces but as my research had told me the Empire's artillery headquarters were based in Nuln, that was a must.

Nuln's colours are predominantly black with a bit of red. Basically so that their clothes mask all the soot from the explosions (and inevitable accidents). Whilst a whole army this colour may be overpowering, I found it would help add some contrast to the army.

This is 'Team Nuln';



(Psst, look at the monkey giving the griffon the evils. He's got murder in his eyes!)



In keeping with the fluff, I wanted to give each unit an engineer, just to add some substance.

"Is that a real horse?"
"Neigh lad, it's mechanical!"



Just to keep you happy, here's another damn, dirty ape (not technically an ape I know, as he has a tail). I don't mind this one too much. At least he's doing his job as a powder monkey, not prancing around 'Little-drummer-boy-stylee'. If you've read Harry Potter then you know how Winky and the other house elves feel towards Dobby when he gets his freedom. This is how the other monkeys in my army feel about drummer boy. If you haven't read Harry Potter that last sentence will have made little to no sense and you're thinking, "Wait? What the hell just happened?"



Finally I wanted a banner bearer. I have little to no idea why I did this, nor why it's a griffon, nor why the griffon is tiny. It's just random. This is the symbol of the Imperial Artillery College at Nuln.



So I had copied it and had this little fella holding it. I think this was an ornamental (emphasis on the 'mental') griffon that comes with the Manor House kit.

I put a bit of foil in between the banner and curled it just to give it some 'dynamism' (is that a word?)



This is some cool, James Bond-esque gun case malarkey.





The 'Von Hell' was supposed to be a clever joke. It's got a duel meaning. It's 'From Hell' but I've got it down as being the surname of the nobleman who owns this contraption, Fritz Von Hell. It's rubbish.

Reaching end of picture limit so this is Nuln signing off.

[jez]

Right, that's Nuln and Helblasters, how about some cannon action?

The cannon was coming from Middenland. It would probably have made more sense to have all my artillery from Nuln but it would just have been too black. I liked the idea of the different provinces having their own artillery. In my fluff, all the engineers have trained at the Imperial Artillery College then returned to their provinces bringing their knowledge home.
Until I'd read the 'Uniforms and Heraldry' book, it never occurred to me to paint the artillery and the wood anything other than brown. However, seeing the pics in the book showed me it was more than feasible.



This would add some colour and quirkiness to my army. I mean, who's ever heard of a blue cannon?!!



Here's my engineer. As Middenlanders favour Ulric, I wanted someone quite 'Russian looking'. This guy, keeping in the vein of cool, special characters to denote, well, cool special characters, was ideal!



Probably overkill but here's the cannonball holder. The kit comes with loads of cool features like this that just add that extra touch.

[dalezzz]

excellent stuff mate although id perhaps suggest more Nordlanders , as everyone knows its the largest exporter of Sea fish in the Empire!

[Daniel36]

I love your basic premise. "I don't want a new army so I'm going to start a new army." And my my, I'm glad you decided against starting a new army because it looks aaaawesome!! I like the idea behind it, all men under one banner type of deal. And you will be one of the few people who can actually field Karl Franz and make his inclusion plausible. Your skill with the brush is great, your banners look marvelous.

I will be keeping your plog under my radar! Oh wait... That doesn't sound right...

[jez]

Down to the last two;

Talabheim was distinctly under represented so I rectified that with a great big, chuff off rocket battery.



One of the nice touches I discovered was that engineers like to give their artillery names.



I liked this idea so named my Helstorm after my daughter. Yeah, go on Kitty. Give 'em hell kid!



Only problem was this is totally covered up by the guts of the machine so it's totally superfluous - oh well, at least I know it's there.



Think I read something somewhere about mortars being rubbish in the new rules but I still had to have one.
This one proudly comes from Altdorf just 'cos it had nice colours which would contrast well with the rest of my artillery.



This is my engineer. I love this figure. There's something a bit sneaky and machiavellian about him. In my fluff I've got him as being a Marienburger. As Marienburg is notoriously wealthy, he's a bored, rich merchant who wants to taste the 'thrill' of battle so he's offered to act as a rich patron and bought this mortar as long as he can come along and observe it on the battlefield. (He reasons that he can be on top of a hill and keep a safe distance).

Look at him overseeing proceedings like an old vulture - the cad!



Another gun case.



And the reverse.



No I haven't got a daughter called Rachel and forgot to finish it off, 'Rache' is German for 'Revenge'. (I pinched this idea from a Sherlock Holmes story).


Thanks for watching folks.

[CapitanMee]

Brilliant work! May I ask how long does it take you to paint, say an infantry man or a regiment?
-C.M.

[Karak Norn Clansman]

Excellent Empire army! On the one hand you understand the importance of including lots of odd metal miniatures throughout the army (and give 'em a backstory), on the other you paint well. The only thing I dislike somewhat is the mixed regiments, because it would have looked better for the army as a whole if each regiment was from one, not two, cities or provinces. The solution to this must be to make the army twice as big.

[Superdan21]

very cool stuff, your banners are awesome, glad to see another person who finds the heraldry book so useful, the carroburg banner in particular is ace, loving the artillery to, i knew watching the blog would pay off :P
i like the fat ostland guy too he's cool, i may have painted him like the fat stirland captain in the heraldry book, though tbh i may pick him up for my nordlanders anyway :P
out of interest how did you paint the check pattern? did you outline it first or just go for it?

already such a characterful army, very tempted to buy a bunch of the citizens and stuff now for my army :P
must say i'm most impressed with the speed as well especially painting such varying colours
I hope you do a unit of deathjack archers i quite like them :P
I can't wait to see morr,

[Student]

More great work. I really like how characterful you are making each unit.

[Boreas_NL]

Pretty colourfull work! But I must complain... Where are your Stirlanders? You won't be winning many battles without them, you know As you're so inspired by the Heraldry book (which happens to be one of my favorite background books), might I suggest the Deathjacks?

[Demoulius]

I love the characterfull additions... My own troops seem bland all of a sudden

[jez]

excellent stuff mate although id perhaps suggest more Nordlanders , as everyone knows its the largest exporter of Sea fish in the Empire!

Nordland will certainly be making an appearance. Partly because they've got such a beautiful colour scheme- Hey, I'm all for style over substance. In fact, I think most of the Empire provinces care more about style, the dandy fops.

I love your basic premise. "I don't want a new army so I'm going to start a new army." And my my, I'm glad you decided against starting a new army because it looks aaaawesome!! I like the idea behind it, all men under one banner type of deal. And you will be one of the few people who can actually field Karl Franz and make his inclusion plausible. Your skill with the brush is great, your banners look marvelous.

I will be keeping your plog under my radar! Oh wait... That doesn't sound right...

Ha! Ha! Yep, this is one of those occasions when I'm glad I had no willpower. It's been tremendous fun. Karl Franz is definitely on the agenda, in fact, he's currently well under way. (Well someone needs to keep those damned monkeys in order!)

Brilliant work! May I ask how long does it take you to paint, say an infantry man or a regiment?
-C.M.

Hmm, don't really know. i tend to do them as a block. A unit of ten would probably take two to three days. That's obviously determined by how many hours painting I squeeze into a day.

Excellent Empire army! On the one hand you understand the importance of including lots of odd metal miniatures throughout the army (and give 'em a backstory), on the other you paint well. The only thing I dislike somewhat is the mixed regiments, because it would have looked better for the army as a whole if each regiment was from one, not two, cities or provinces. The solution to this must be to make the army twice as big.

Nooooo, it's already too big. The joy of doing it this way is I can keep adding units from various provinces as and when I wish. (Actually, it's not one army, it's the start of fourteen separate ones )

very cool stuff, your banners are awesome, glad to see another person who finds the heraldry book so useful, the carroburg banner in particular is ace, loving the artillery to, i knew watching the blog would pay off :P
i like the fat ostland guy too he's cool, i may have painted him like the fat stirland captain in the heraldry book, though tbh i may pick him up for my nordlanders anyway :P
out of interest how did you paint the check pattern? did you outline it first or just go for it?

already such a characterful army, very tempted to buy a bunch of the citizens and stuff now for my army :P

One of the main benefits of the book is that it gives you lots of colour scheme ideas. I find what takes up a load of my time is working out which colour to do what. The schemes enabled me to get down to painting straight away. Yeah, the fat Stirland captain is awesome. Lots of character to him. I'd definitely get some citizens of the empire. They're wonderful, characterful sculpts.

I can't wait to see morr,

Ha! Ha! Pun-tastic!... and Morr is on the way

More great work. I really like how characterful you are making each unit.

Thanks. It's been quite easy to be honest. I think the empire range has some of the best and most diverse figures in Warhammer Fantasy.

I hope you do a unit of deathjack archers i quite like them :P

Pretty colourfull work! But I must complain... Where are your Stirlanders? You won't be winning many battles without them, you know As you're so inspired by the Heraldry book (which happens to be one of my favorite background books), might I suggest the Deathjacks?

Ha! Ha! You impatient rascal. I told you I had a 'treat' for you. Ladies and Gentlemen, for one night only, may I present, the Stirland Deathjacks...

I loved the fluff for these guys. Thieving rogues who ambush baggage trains. Something of the Robin Hood about them. Lovely colours as well.



The fluff for Stirland suggests they're a bit of a down-at-heel, backward province so I deliberately painted these guys 'down and dirty'.



Warm September brings the pheasant, then to gather nuts is pleasant.



"You're not thinking of eating that pheasant by yourself are you boss?!!"

[brendino]

"The warmachine springs to life, opens up one eager eye, focusing it on the sky" (ten points to whoever names the song).

99 red balloons!!!!

Also, great plog so far

[Boreas_NL]

Thank you! Now you'll totally kick ass! You did a great job on the Deathjacks, nice and gritty! I'm now officially a fan of your Imperial army!

Your thread has now been rated!

[dutchwarlord]

The Rocketlauncher looks really great! I really like the bright colours on it.

And I love the last picture of your archers!