Marienburg

[Crazy Harborc]

Ooooh mannnn......fresh air, beer (pretzels?) AND wargaming. (My doctor would be SO proud of me).

Um, perhaps some more photos

EDIT TIME Including the spouses, the families is a GOOD thing to continue doing for the future. Well......until those children grow ( AND plot holding minies grabbed from the gaming table for money)

[ZeroTwentythree]

Arise once more my plog, and walk the earth...

I haven't had much time for any painting, gaming, or anything else in quite some time. So, if you'll forgive a bit of threadmancy, here's what's going on...

A year or so ago, I had planned out my alternative to the demi-gyph knights. I've got fluff and a concept for my mercenary Chevaliers L'Éléphant worked up but have been stumpped on how to execute some of the models. I'm still not entirely happy so far, but I need to get at least three of them done so I broke down and converted up three of them. I had a lot more elaborate plans for the conversions, but don't have the time or skills to do what I want to right now. So I'm doing three for now, and can go back and do some improved models later. Last week I started painting the first of these three. He's actually my least favorite in terms of the kit-bashing. But I wanted to see how everything looked on this one before going ahead with the other two.






I've also started a new collecting binge... giants. I picked up a Marauder giant and and Ultraforge giant. I already had the Albion giants and a 90mm landsknecht. Still looking to get my hands on some others in the future, as finances allow.... the metal GW giant that came before the current plastic one, the Grenadier giant (now sold by Mirliton), and the giants from Warploque & Black Scorpion are all high on my list. So don't be surprised if you start seeing some giants pop up on this plog in the semi-near future.

[Jim]

Amazing!

Scale looks just about right if he is riding a baby elephant.

Painting is very good - in particular you have a very nice gold and I like the checks on the rim of the shield.

Only thing that looks slightly wonky to me is the positioning of the knights lance arm - could do with being raised as looks awkward at the current angle...

Overall though I'm very glad you are back!

Jim

[Isha]

What an amazing plog!

[ZeroTwentythree]

Second Chevalier l'Éléphant done. Well, mostly done. I forgot to add the straps on the leg armour, so I will have to finish that next.



I'm not totally happy with the armour, and I think I will break it up a bit (partially on advice from one of the guys in the local gaming group) with some black. But I'm going to do them all in gold first, then go back and touch them up a bit.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Other than the shields and a little detail work on the bases, I'm calling the 'phants "done." I'm too lazy to repaint the armour, and now that I see them all complete, I think I'm OK with them the way they are.



Someone at warhammer-empire.com has corrected my French, they apparently should be more correctly called "Chevaliers d'Éléphant" instead of "Chevaliers l'Éléphant."


Got another giant. A Reaper figure, got it cheap. She's the smallest giant I've got so far. I think her sad axe should be replaced.





I'm still on an inexplicable/irrational giant hunt. I have a second Marauder Giant on the way (price was too good to pass up!) Below is a list of where I'm at with the giants at the moment. Mostly unpainted, but I'm working on that. Bologs has long been done, I've got Cachtorr assembled but need to putty over the joints before painting. Currently painting the Pathfinder giant.

Have:
Bologs (GW Giant of Albion)
Cachtorr (GW Giant of Albion)
Marauder Giant
Marauder Giant
Mercenary Giant (Ultraforge)
Frulla Krung (Reaper)
Fire Giant (Repainted Pathfinder PPP)
90mm Landsknecht (Andrea)


Wanted list:
Black Scoropion Giant
GW Orc & Goblin Giant (metal giant prior to the current plastic one)
Mirliton's Garloch. the Giant Prince (former Grenadier figure)
Warploque Giant
Otherworld Giant (the big guy that's actually called "The Otherworld Giant.")


Lower Priority:
Safari Ltd. toy cyclops
Reaper Frost & Fire Giants (they have a few of each)
Warhammer Forge Giant (pissed off because I *had* one of these, but sold him when I was desperate for cash)
...plus I'd probably consider others too...

[ZeroTwentythree]

Misplaced my camera memory, so just a crappy phone pic of the repainted Pathfinder giant, and another shot of the original (alongside a human, for scale.) His sword was all wobbly, and was unusable since it was thin, soft plastic/rubber. So I tried for a "rusty scrap of metal" look, but not sure it's working either. At least it's not, er, flaccid.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Years after painting up the first one (on the right) I finally finished the other giant of Albion (center.) For some reason, I thought Bologs was the one with the tree and Cachtorr was the one with the menhir, but I might be wrong. I included the fire giant in the pic as well, since the phone pic kind of sucked and this shows the scale pretty well.

[Tonny]

Nice looking giants. The middle one is my favorite!

[Scythe]

Lovely plog you've got here! Your units look very nice with all those colors, and all those different models ooze character, great stuff! Amazing elephant knights!

[Wulf]

Great to see some action in this wonderful thread!

The elephant "demigryphs" look great. Nice that you found the time to finalise your concept. If you could find the motivation to repeat that back and white checkered pattern on the blue and black shileds aswell I think that would tie the models together nicely and further enhance an already great unit.

Great to see you back at it!

[ZeroTwentythree]

Thanks!

Great to see some action in this wonderful thread!

The elephant "demigryphs" look great. Nice that you found the time to finalise your concept. If you could find the motivation to repeat that back and white checkered pattern on the blue and black shileds aswell I think that would tie the models together nicely and further enhance an already great unit.

Great to see you back at it!

I like that idea, I think I will repeat the checkered pattern as you suggest.



Here's the next giant, with a spearman for scale comparison.




Speaking of the spearman/men...



These are obviously less colorful than most of my other infantry. I wanted to test out an idea for a new unit. The idea would be to take the "Black Band" name literally as well as symbolically. So they would be literally dressed in mostly black, and my fluff would be that they are a group of Nordlanders who switched allegiance; giving in to the obvious benefits of working for wealthy Marienburg merchants. I will most likely stick with just blue & yellow as the accent colors (not red) to keep the slight hint of Nordland colors. This should also be a good way to get a pile of halberdiers (the only infantry I am lacking) painted quickly.

[unwanted]

Looooong time since I checked in here, but I'm very happy I did. Too much marvellous modelling to comment on each individually, but the elephants are just great!

[mrtn]

Those black-banders look good. Sounds like a good idea as well.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Thanks everyone. I almost never play anymore, and have sold off most of my other gaming stuff. But I'm hanging on to the Empire army, and have been in a painting mood lately. I may even play in a few weeks!

I finished the last two spearmen for my 40 human unit...







I just need to finish the command. Actually, after I took the pic, I remembered that I have a spare musician painted already, so this drummer will probably go into my forthcoming halberdiers. So that means I just need to finish the image on the banner and the champion.

I still have the puff & slash dwarfs, and will finish them off as a separate unit. I've got about 30 of those, and may try to supplement them with dwarfs from White Knight, which match the old GW/Marauder figures in size & character. That's probably going to be lower priority though. Like I said, some halberdiers are probably next infantry on the list. Those and maybe some crossbow. I've always used handgunners, but I'm starting to feel more crossbow than handgun all of the sudden.