Ratmen by Maraud Miniatures

 

Hey all ! After painting the Dark Goblins and the Troll by Maraud Miniatures, I've finally painted the evil ratmen ! Like for the other models, the sculpts are done by the excellent Alexandre Vallet with sketches from Sceptik le Sloucheur.

Rogue Trader Bombots !

What I like about digging into Oldhammer is those little gold nuggets you find that got forgotten but were fun concepts. What's even better is when talented people unearth those gold nuggets and make them tangible.

That's what happened with this beautiful concept of Bombots originating from the gold mine that is the Rogue Trader rulebook :

The most Excellent Curis from Ninjabread fame has designed those for the sake of it and I was lucky to get a copy to pay hommage to it !

Stargrave Crew - Rogue Trader retinue

 

Hey all, so after a little summer break I managed to get a few things out of the workshop, some I can't show yet and some I just finished and need to get out of my system like this Stargrave band !

Now Stargrave has been out for a little time now and despite it being the game many of my friends and I awaited, I've found myself lacking deadlines and games prospects to fully dive into production.
I could obviously pick from the several bands I've painted over the years but you know how it goes, one needs something a little fresh and fancy !
With that in mind, I knew pretty much from the start (actually from before even getting the rulebook) I would want to make a band out of the most classic sculpts from the Rogue Trader era. There's a little modern intruder of course but he really seemed to be made for that band.

That's the sort of stuff I'm talking about !

Shadows under Bogenhaced - Immortal... Immortal !

Last WE was one of those a few friends and I had been eagerly waiting for over the past year. We had the chance to have a rather long gaming WE (starting on Tuesday evening till sunday morning).
The game played was a Warhammer Fantasy Role Play (WHFRP) scenario, part of a broader campaign, this was my first game in this campaign while other players had already quite a few games under the belt but there was absolutely no way I could let this opportunity go to play with great people with excellent models on the most fascinating table I've seen !

A great gaming Week End in Metz !

OK folks, so like last year, I attended a gaming WE in the city of Metz last week. It was the occasion for me to meet good gaming buddies and to play some games I don't get to play often enough, using stuff I had painted and not used yet !
We were hosted by Nico and his gaming club and enjoy the wonderful activities he had prepared for us !

Now let's take a look at the games played, take a good seat and the beverage of your choice, there's quite a few photos if you don't mind. ;)

Oldschool robots... or titans ?

Hi everyone, you might have seen those robots a short while ago in their successful kickstarter by Oldschool Miniatures, well I was lucky to be handed a few to paint !
This is a new collaboration between Oldschool Miniatures and Jason Fairclough from Thunderchild and this time they've decided to scratch therobot itch with a nice oldschool vibe to them !

Adeptus Titanicus - Going Back Oldschool !

So Adepticus Titanicus is coming back to us ! Well of course it seems we're bound to get all the cool things back ! Now the good guys at my FLGS asked me if I wanted to try the game. Why of course !

Now I've said it before, I am NOT building a force for Epic or anything, oh no. But one Warlord simply isn't enough right ? I just had to add him a couple of friends okay ?

Metal Slug - What a tanker !

BRRRRR, PAOWWW PAOWW, KABOOM KABOOM PFRRRRRRRT !

Oh yes, you got it, this is time for the real deal now ! BOYL is coming and with it plenty of new fun games to test with the lads. Amongst those, Our friend Colin has offered to prepare a game of What a tanker ! Cool ! 

What do I need ?

A tank ! No kidding !

Well I don't usually paint tanks so when I do I want to tick some lines off the to do list and I had the perfect idea for that !

Growing in the 80's and 90's comes with a truckload of cultural references you just cannot escape and amongst those, a fondness for small burly tanks had emerged.

Oldschool gaming and a french Oldhammer Event !

A bunch of handsome french and belgian oldschool players !

Those last 2 weeks have been pretty packed with hobby in all its forms, from painting to modelling and even more gaming !

I've played a great number of games of all kinds from old to new, quick to long, small to large and all were simply brilliant !

Be warned, this post will cover many games with a stupid amount of photos !

This all started 2 weeks ago when I had the pleasure to fly to Ireland to visit my good friend Sho3box/Cheetor. Seeing him was already delightful but you know how it goes, when in Rome...

Battletech !

A week ago, I had absolutely no idea these would be painted or that I would even have them...

That's what it is to have great people around you. Let me just explain a few things.

This WE, a fistful of friends and I are gathering at a convention in North-Eastern France to have a few oldschool games and amongst them, my pal Goulven has offered to GM some Battletech (providing table and miniatures as well).

Now It's been more than 15 years since I last played any Battletech and the time before this one was so long ago I cannot remember.

Fast forward a few years up until last week when I was in Ireland in the exquisite company of my friend Cheetor/Sho3box and here he is getting a bagful of models to pick from...

Tellark Spellrender - Dark wizard

I'm pursuing my quest to paint everything I owe to friends so here's a wizard from the February 1987 Flyer I've been given to paint by a friend some time ago now.

Phat S'lann - Giant slaver toad from Katsina

The end of the year is clearly not the perfect time to get anything meaningful done hobby wise but in the wirlwind of emergencies before leaving on holiday, I did manage to finish ONE final model !

I am very pleased I could get this particular one done as it's one from Katsina Miniatures run by the most excellent Doti and Seán.

Let's play a game - Just what are space marines ?

Yup, that's what you think it is. A bunch of the new primaris models from the Dark Imperium. I'm not better or worse than any other and with painting in mind as always I wanted to test how a truescale marine would feel under a brush so I picked a few.

With little time before leaving on holidays,n I couldn't help but build them and see how they looked next to some of the rest of my models.

The outsider - Zombie for Deadcember !

Well, with the end of the year in sight, winter spreading its wings all over the place (at least in the northern hemisphere), it seems apt to celebrate the dead, or even better, their living kind.

That must have been the thinking behind this all (or probably something better) when our esteemed Rab came up with his Deadcember idea following the success of orctober.

Illustration by Zhu

Gras doux - A fresh new old dwarf

After yesterday's post about the first sculpt of 2 from my friends, I've decided to finish another sculpt that was handed to me by his creator Mandrin (check out his Painting videos in french).

You might remember we met some time ago during our french Oldhammer event in Lyon.

The Mutant Brotherhood

Alright, here's the last pair of mutants I've painted (for now) for my group. They're probably my favourite models of this group so far. The first one being a mutant dwarf armed with a powered pickaxe and the other one being some sort of leader or engineer.

25 years of painting (or so) - Battlemasters Ogre

There's a lot of stupid things that come in this hobby of ours. There is. But amongst all of them, there are ideas that made me want to paint an old plastic Battlemasters Ogre rather than one of the many unpainted Jes Goodwin ones I own...

Oh but wait, there must be some kind of explanation, some kind of logic behind all this surely ?

Sort of, yes.

To understand why, we'll have to go back in time a little. I started this hobby back in 1990 by reading (meaning looking at the pictures in) WD and other GW publications (in english, a language I didn't know a word of at the time).

At the time I was painting Revell kits like these :

Of course these kits were way beyond my technical skills (I was 9) but coming from the Lego School of life, I just loved it. I then  started to get my hands on some Citadel models so I got my paints out.

My first models were a blister of 3 tzeentch champions and the first two models I started on were those 2 guys (How I regret I stripped them before taking a picture...) :

But I could feel there was more than what my skills allowed me so I left them aside and when the Battlemasters box was released in 1992, my brother and I were like maniacs at the idea of having 100 models in a box. I decided to start working on the ogre because he was the biggest and most badass model I had ever had in hand.

He incidently was the first model I ever finished !

Here's a little comparison since I'm lucky to still have the guy (with the 25 years of dust that he's gained).

Painting wise, I tried to echo as much as I could bear the original PJ so blue shirt, green on the trousers, red belly plate with freehand, black shoes and loads of blood on the mace ! ^^

See below how I used to just draw lines of darker colours with undiluted paint in the recesses to suggest shades ! See the fabulous basing with a Battlemasters base sawn to roughly the size I wanted and with goblin green sand (and railway flock after that). 

Only enamels right here, no dilution.

Just to be perfectly honest with you people, I did alter him a tad because some parts were just too shitty.

And just for fun here's a little comparison shot along his buddy Hrothyogg (painted a while ago).

As of now I'm feeling quite good with my brushes, they're just the right fun I need, let's hope it stays this way for a while !

Female magus and ranger - Genestealer hybrids

Hi all, here's another couple that goes with the 2 I did last time ! Here's something a little different, a female magus and a ranger !

By now all of you cult lovers should have seen pics of the new releases by GW and I believe we're all excited as hell to get our greasy little hands on the boxes. I have to say I had tears in the eyes at some of the nods like the webber and a few other items.
They're pretty excellent and the proof GW has been very cautious about what people desire for a little while now. I'm eager to add some of the new cultists to the mix honestly !

Space Fleet - Full tyrannid force

AAAhhhh, the sense of achievement when you finally finish an army ! It's been a very long time since I last tasted that sweet taste. And It's probably the first time in my life I've managed to make it happen in a day !

You might recognise those from an earlier post where I was shamelessly showing off bare lead and exposing plans for the future... Well Thantsants' report about his Space Fleet games at BOYL were enough to ignite a fire in my heart.

Space fleet is a very dear subject to me as I've already said HERE and HERE and for some reason I've decided to start with my Tyrannid fleet.

Trooper and Magus - Genestealer hybrids

Following my last post about the limited edition hybrids, here's a couple of new models from a bigger set. If you are wondering about what these sculpts are, well, they're brand new and sculpted by Bob "Patriarch" Olley. I cannot tell you all about it for now but believe me there are some very very nice models in this project, definitely must haves for any old school enthusiast and Hybrid lover.