Rogue Quest level Eleven - The exodite ranger

So this is it. The end of the first part of the Rogue Quest for me ! I'm reaching the 6th model and today's entry is the ranger ! 

The ranger is an essential class to my eyes in any good dungeoneering party and to represent that class I had plenty of opportunities. The 40k universe has plenty of scouts of all kinds and Jes Goodwin has sculpted some excellent eldar scouts. Of course eldars are a must as rangers as the ranger class is usually one favoured by wood elves. But if I had to choose an equivalent for wood elves in 40k, it would undoubtedly have to be an exodite...

Good thing is I just happened to have a model looking like an exodite scout and commissioned by no other than Axiom with whom I happen to share this Rogue Quest project ! The opportunity was too good to ignore.

The model is really nice and was sculpted by Patrick Keith (or Kirsten Dunst, don't know, always tend to mix those 2...). I had to slightly alter the model to adapt it to what I wanted though.

Design sketch by Axiom

For some reason I had decided I wanted the model to represent a female eldar. Just because. The pose was not spectacularly feminine and no real physical trait helped. That wasn't a problem though.

Rogue Quest Level Nine : The Druid

I'm reaching the end of this little journey in the future dungeoneering Axiom and I wanted to explore as this is the 5th out of 6 models I'm about to present you. This new entry is the druid. The druid was introduced as a subclass of clerics with specifities that made him a little more characterful. 

To represent that kind of character in the grim darkness of the far future and especially in the depths of the underhives. Thing is, I actually didn't pick the class first but the model, I was considering doing a cleric as it's a type of characters I fancy but I couldn't find any suitable model (Alex did find a very good model though). That's when I fell upon this confrontation dogskin (who would be replaced by ratskins in Necromunda) which I 'd had for some time without knowing what to do of it.

Like many confrontation models, this one is very small and delicate and if you look closely the base somehow seems a bit too large while the arms are also slightly too big for the model. With thiselement and the fact he's wearing a dog pelt, I knew I could use him for something really nice. I gave him a unassured pose on purpose to show combat with guns is not necessarily is forte. The druid's power lies somewhere else...

Rogue Quest level Seven : Mad Dog Finnegan the Barbarian

Level 7 of the Rogue Quest ! This time is my turn after Jon's brilliant bard and I decided to go into the heavy weight category this time. 

As you know, the barbarian is one iconic type of adventurers renowned for his delicacy and very refined approach of things...

Yeah OK, laugh all you want, wether you want it or not, the barbarian is the hero we all admire as kids because you can immediately understand what he's all about, generally one goal, and almost one way to achieve it : violence. When violence doesn't solve a problem for a barbarian, it basically just means he hasn't used enough of it yet.

Rogue Quest Level One : The Fighter

"Just what is Rogue Quest ? 

JB, I want to know what Rogue Quest is ?

Hey what's that thing? I have no idea but I want to be part of it !"

Ahaha, calm down my friends, I am going to tell you about Rogue Quest right away, I have no will to torture the millions of you any further with that doubt.

I'm pretty sure most of you will have played some form of dungeon bashing at some point in your life, be it Dungeons and Dragons or any other RPG, Heroquest (and its advanced form) or Space crusade (and its advanced form too), Space Hulk, you name them...

Illustration by Tony Ackland

Well I've had this idea for some time now to go back to the roots of dungeoneering but in the grim darkness of the far future. I know there already are some games to do just that (Space crusade and Space Hulk) but they lack something really important to me : Characters.

For me, the base of a good dungeon bashing is the motley crew which for some sordid reason decide to unite to rampage a dungeon.

Now I want that in the future now, I want a squat along an eldar with a marine leading the way in the corridors of a crashed space craft, the gutters of the underhive or the ruins of an old bunker. I want a bunch of heroes with their very own characteristics to seek treasures and encounter weird creatures.

I've talked about this idea here and there and one of my esteemed colleague Jon/Axiom has come up with the brilliant idea to make a group project between us to build a group of 6 adventurers based on the archetypes we all know :

- Barbarian

- Bard

- Cleric

- Fighter

- Paladin

- Ranger

- Thief

- Wizard

Inspired by the impressive work of Sho3box and Mr Saturday with their Judgement day project, we've decided to do something similar by painting a new model for our party one after the other.

That's how the Rogue Quest project originated ! Since we both are great fans of confrontation, it was only natural to replace our own dungeon quest in this setting.

For now, I'm still working on rules to play this and the choices so far are :

- Using Advanced Hero Quest (AHQ) rules and build characters and monsters based on Rogue trader and 40k in general.

- Using Rogue Trader rules with the dungeon generation rules from AHQ

- Using SPace hulk and giving more flavour to each character

So far I'm leaning for the first 2 options with a slight preference for the first one but this will have to be playtested and will be the object of future posts.

But let's get back to the point of this all : Characters !

To start this project, I somehow needed an evocative character, one that made sense. The perfect opportunity was this marine scout I had customised by the great Kevin Adams at BOYL this year. Not only is this model unique but it's also one meant to represent me and therefore is the perfect model to play in such a sort of game to me !

I won't lie, using a model Kev sculpted in front of me with a very dear friend and cider around while I could see Tony Ackland in the distance is absolutely priceless for the pathetic maniac I am. The model was one I got from Sho3box on the day and it was insane to see Kev build a whole replica of my poor self in the matter of minutes at the end of the day (I was lucky enough to be one of the very last to get my face sculpted) all of that while chatting with us and drinking. The final cherry on the cake is that all the funds gathered are meant for charity.  How right get this get ?

Levels of awesomeness have reached critical figures here.

Confrontation hunters

Gibbons (left) and Bronson (right), 2 underhive hunters.

On today's menu I'm advising you a couple of confrontation hunters who have been saved from the limbos of abandon like most of my late models. It's kind of funny to find in a quite misknown game and model range as confrontation to find models that are even more misknown !

Those familiar with confrontation (brief history HERE) will know names like Bratts, scavvies, ash waste nomads, techs and all. If you've been on this blog before you might also have seen rarer gangs like the venators or Helmawr gangers.

Well today's gang is one of hunters but it is not a gang that was specifically described in confrontation's rule or background.

Connie and Blyde - Adventurers on the run

After getting Kaleb and the chaos androids done, I've kept on ending those half finished paintjobs that have been giving me weird looks for some time...

The 2 adventurers above were first meant to join the crew of Lucas Stern my sensei hero but for some reason they didn't make it into the final list.

They could still be added to the group as you  can notice their colours are the same. I actually left them aside only after I had painted the base colours and skin which makes them really close style wise. The models didn't fit in though for some reason.

Dwarf adventurer - BC1 starter set

I realise the last models I've produced were not really old lead and though this is in no way a problem, I just wanted to ceize a few opportunities to get some old lead painted in between a couple of cool things I'm working on at the moment.

This model is the stout dwarf warrior from the renowned BC1 adventurers Starter set :

Just watch that good face, isn't he lovely? You can see him all quiet and calm for the time being but just throw an orc or a goblin in the same room and you get meat all over the place.

As I said this one comes from the BC1 adventurer set :

Image taken from Solegend

Rogue trader Squats - The return of the Heavy Industrialist Union

After their summer adventures in the foreign lands, the ranger squad of the Heavy Industrialist Union have finally got the last bits of paint and have even gained a friend in the process.

If you want to read their summer adventures, here they are :

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

I hope you'll excuse me the poor photos but I haven't bought another camera and have to take my pics with my wife's phone for now (Christmas should hopefully solve that matter...)

Although it took me almost 3 months to complete this little war band, I had real fun with them. The aim behind building this gang was to have a team of scouts or rangers, the sort of squats you send on remote locations to explore hence the limited militaristic look of them and the fact that 2 of them don't even have weapons.

Stranger in a strange land - The give-away prize

Please let me suggest you some music to go with the post to come :

You're fine? Good, let's begin then.

You may remember, I organized a little give-away to celebrate my 100th follower?, Well you may also remember that Warlord Paul won it. The little challenge associated with this event was really simple, everyone who felt like participating only had to pick one model amongst those I submitted and give 2 flavours to go along.

And here is the result !

Citadel devout cleric...and some muscled reinforcments

Alright people ! Some of you may remember that I am currently engaged in a 2nd edition Dungeon and Dragons campaign on the Oldhammer forum. This campaign is run by the most excellent Captain Crooks with fellow players Gaj/Weazil, Count von Bruno, Penddraig and Weismonsters.

The party has reached the 3rd chapter of its adventures and as the time goes by, the bound between players and the fun had is ever growing.

If you fancy having a good read with adventure, laughters, great cultural references and all, I strongly welcome you to give them a read. All the player's and GM's notes are hidden to make the story clear and nice to read but you can see how the work goes behind the scene (if you wish to) by clicking on the spoiler boxes. The 3 chapters so far are :

• 1st Chapter : The Quest for the Abbot's cheese
• 2nd Chapter : The chase to the Crystal city !
• 3rd Chapter : The temple of Pieter Onne-Dray

 

Back in March, I decided I wanted to have new models to represent our characters in the  campaign and while I clearly knew I was going to use the classic paladin from the Citadel adventurer starter set, I learnt that my friend Bruno found the devout cleric to be close to what he had in mind for his Spellsword Rambulge.

So here he is ! The devout cleric is now officially going to be a Spellword, or spellmace since Rambulge is more comfortable with a cudgel than with a blade.

Redeemed chaos champion : How the emperor loves you more than you hate yourself

Now we come to one of the best parts of the Sensei background. You may remember from the starting post on them that there is a little detail in the rules that intrigued me a lot :

 

Rogue trader Mad punk

A lot of work in progress at the moment, most of which being for the upcoming Oldhammer week-end in Newmark. This means a grey sensei, a space adventurers gang and on a totally unrelated note the 2nd edition eldar avatar (WIP pics to come to get your thoughts on the process).

The model I have to show today is the Mad punk form the rogue trader adventurers range.

It is a lovely model with some very pretty parts and some more bizarre ones (just look at the size of those gloves) but I found it very pleasant to paint. I am very glad to have a feminine member in the crew at last. She also adds a little more etnic diversity with a middle-eastern scout friend and the halfling which shows in the grim darkness of a dark future there may be only war but not only WASPs fighting it.

The space rooster

An here we are with another model. This one arrived last week in the mailbox from my colleague Cheetor/Shoebox and as soon at it arrived, it was based and primed and good to go.

The miniature comes from Interloper Miniatures who produce excellent anthromorphic animals. You can also note that the model has been sculpted by no other than Bob Olley which is always a sign of quality :

I did not mean to paint this one as fast as I did and it was actually very low in my priority list but when I had it in hand I felt compelled to prime it and work on it. in a couple of sessions, it was done to a reasonable standard thanks to the great proportions of textures and details (juts the right ratio to have an easy and lovely model).

Oriental adventurer for a Sensei band

And here comes a new follower for my sensei. His name is Moulay Abd An-nour and I really enjoyed  painting him and imagining a background for him. I see him as a scout used to rough environments which is why I painted him a pair of blue Jeans and a leather Jacket to give him a sort of traditionnal adventurer look. He has some very fancy weapons one of which being a shuriken pistol. I think it is a interesting weapon in terms of Background since it either means he got it from black-market or that he got it from an eldar (which I strongly think he did)

A rebel's tale in the Rogue trader universe

Hi people, today let me present you Poakey, a rebel underhive dweller who has seen the light of the Starchild and joined the band of Lucas Stern, Sensei extraordianaire. 

Poakey is a youth whose athletic skills have always been reliable and which earned him a good place in the local Deathball league. Poakey was playing in the Human League until he won his admission in the trans-species league but severe repression by the Hive authorities made him chose a life of rebelion instead of a sport career. It was on this occasion he met Lucas Stern, a Sensei, hero of the Starchild and defender of the oppressed. he has then been following him across the universe to help for the good cause.

This model is a Hive worlder and like quite a lot of thsoe you'll see here, it comes form the excellent Rogue trader adventurers range which integrated a lot of older references and some very good additions.

Pictures from Solegend

But what were the inspirations for that miniature and the way I painted it? Hum well, I can't hide that the quite peculiar haircut with short hair on one side and long hair on the other immediately make me feel about someone most 80's fans know :

Phil Oakey form the Human League

I strongly advise you to read Zhu's excellent article about his particular haircut and how you can see it on other references like Kaleb Daark.

We can note that the model is wearing a pair of power armour legs on top of his regular outfit. I really like this detail because it reminds that in conforntation (Laserburn's heir and Necromunda's predecessor) it was possible to get power armour parts and to wear them even though the real benefit of a power armour only came when the power pack was worn with the rest.

As it is now, those pieces are probably more of a burden than anything else but I like to think Poakey is expecting to find a complete set over time ! I painted the parts in rusted steel to represent the fact he probably scavenged them from some sort of sordid place.

Another thing I like about this model is the strange set of weapons he holds. A wooden crossbow is quite unexpected in a cyberpunkish setting and the chainsword is looking more like a sort of tuned butchering tool than a real weapon. It enhances the fact this fellow armed himslef with what he had under hand.  I also painted the shoulder pad as if it could have been a sort of sport protection to remind his past.

The belt's been painted green against all colour theory logic for the sole reason it reminded me of the belt on this guy (yeah I know, pathetic fanfoyism form a pathetic maniac) :

Roronoa Zoro from Manga One piece

Now here is the traditional group pose with the 3 members so far, the 4th being nearly done and the 3 on their way.

While we're at it, I thought I could show you the next Rogue trader band I'm working on. It's the band of Roger Ferrero, rogue trader and space adventurer. You can see that his band has changed a little from last time but the background is still the same (yeah, the space skelleton is going to be a playable member of the crew).

Another thing which has had my interest lately is the preparations for BOYL 2014, the Oldhammer event in Newmark this summer. Since I 've decided to join a little game implying several sensei, I thought it was the good occasion to make myself a grey sensei (aka BAD sensei). I decided to base my model on Christophe Lambert in the Highlander series and here is Connor Mc Lambert, grey sensei and ennemy of all good things.

I had particular fun making him a perveted katana from different sources and I'm quite pleased of the result. The kendoka in me is particularly pleased that his right hand is holding the saber the right way but that's the part most of you won't care about...

What you can see here has been done in 2 nights and I only need to add some green stuff to make a new collar and to refine the sword and he's good. I used the dark vengeance cultist as a base and it's a really good model to work with. I love how a simple modification can make him look completely different (I have even as we speak some other plans for the very same model) :

Oh and while we're stillat it, let's have a look at some henchmen I kitbashed for my imperial nobles with fantasy imperial trooper, scion tempestus and regular IGs

In the next episode, I'll declare the winner of my little give-away so stay tuned !

Lucas Stern, Sensei master, hero of the Starchild

OK, with all the latest sexual confusion of last Week-end, I managed to get the finishing touches on the Sensei Master for my Sensei warband. This time you can be sure he is a man and has been so for a few centuries and even some millenia (no more phoenix non -sense ^^).

I've already covered a bit of the history and concepts of Sensei in a previous post so today I'm going to focus mainly on the leader of the band.

Let me present you Lucas Stern, my sensei master, leader of the sensei band that will arise in the coming weeks.

This is actually the second time I've painted this model. First time must have been in 1997 or something and I remember I did not enjoy painting him much at the time. It's why he has spent quite some time in a box of unloved half-painted lead until I rediscovered him a few months back and decided a good Acetone bath and some fresh eyes could probably do him good.

My main inspirations for this model were taken from this illustration (coming from the Slaves to Darkness tome) :

And as explained in my previous post, by the Japanese martial art of Kendo which I happen to practice. The real funny thing is that the first time I painted this model it was already with blues and greys just like it is now because for me that's the way Sensei have got to be painted (don't ask me why, I have seriously no clue).

Anyway, this time the choice of colours is justified by the feeling I wanted to give to the model.

The name sensei itself is a japanese word meaning "teacher" or which represents someone who has authority over you in a special field. The description of Sensei as very straight and honorable people in the Realm of Chaos books added to the japanese origin of the name immediately rang the Samourai bell for me and especially the Kendo one.

The picture below explains the different parts of a typical Kendo armour (in Japanese fencing, cuts and thrusts touch so you definitely want some protection to avoid broken limbs and cracked skulls).

Note that all the parts can somehow be found on the original drawing and on the model even if in altered versions. I have serisouly no clue as to wether this was some real inspiration or not but I couldn't let that resemblance unused for my project.

Both drawing and model display some form of blade which is the essence of Kendo (literally meaning "the way of the sword").

So the blue/grey/black colourscheme fitted both my ways of seeing sensei and the colours used in Kendo.

I opted for a red chainsword to offer some contrast. The colours are volontarily not very bright because I beleive such a character has managed to survive for centuries by staying low-profile in the shadows and this model served as a basis for the rest of the band in terms of colour combinations. The poor "readability" of it made me work the blues twice until I got the result I was looking for.

I kept a nice armour and clothing and decided to add battle damage on the chainsword (don't know if that shows well on the pictures).

Some of you may have heard about Musashi Myamoto, a great swordsman and ronin renowned for his swordmanship and being the autjor of the Go rin no sho.

Well I wanted to use some of the philosophy behind this art to give my sensei some more depth and I decided to opt for the principle of Zanshin.

(I'm using Wikipedia's definition)

Zanshin (Japanese: 残心) is a term used in the Japanese martial arts. It refers to a state of awareness – of relaxed alertness. The literal translation of zanshin is "remaining mind"

zanshin is the continued state of spirit, mental alertness and physical readiness to meet the situation

This principle is very important in the practice of Kendo but also in many martial arts coming form the Bushido and it can even be applied to arts. Permanent awareness and readiness is really how I portray sensei. Centuries and even millenia of training, surviving and thinking must have led to someting better than just a bunch of careless heroes.

I chose this concept because it embodies honour, respect, skill and experience. I realy see Sensei as the paladins of Rogue trader, with immortailty as little bonus.

I hope Japanese people or people who practice martial arts won't be offended by my poor freehand skills and attempt at calligraphy. 

I actually tried to paint the Kanji (symbol) like I would have done with a big brush on a big sheet of white paper, trying to write the whole Kanji in one motion (actually 3 to reload the brush) in order to keep a good Zanshin while doing so (if you follow me).

From now on, I'll add a picture of the band growing little by little so here is Lucas Stern with his loyal ratling cook, ready to go explore the universe and serve the Starchild and help those who need hope.

As far as Background is concerned, the Sensei leader will stay a bit misterious until his troops gather around him, for now, all I can say is that he's been serving th eStarchild cause for a very long time and that his time to come to light has come...

I don't know what other follower I'm going to do next but he should be ready soon (meaning before the end of the week).

Duchess Lion - She's a lady !

Enough said, a clean cut and some make-up later...

From now on, I'll behave like nothing ever happened right?

Duke Lion, Hero and member of the Oldhammer legacy band

There's been a challenge launched on the oldhammer forum lately which is one of the best to have ever taken place. We owe it to Axiom who decided to organise a group project where every contestant would paint and submit a model to a team which would be attributed randomly to one of the contestants.

Not only does this challenge offer the chance to win a complete band but it also enables the members to work on a project with the same rules. All the choices have been made via democratic vote (and some rebellion) and we finally ended up with a band of heroes of Good from all kinds of different races and all kinds of different horizons, all tied by the will to act heroicly for the good cause.

"Shorty" AKA Ratling mercenary

Hurray !

One model done ! I've been painting a lot since the beginning of the year but engaging in multiple big projects didn't leave me the place to finish anything. Now I'm starting to have models very close to completion so I can take a couple of hours once in a while or use the drying times of big washes batches to put a couple of details on the "nearly done's".
I took the opportunity offered by Chico on his blog to particpate in "stuntie week"

Shorty has proven a very nice model to paint and the very size of him makes him a model that paints itself. No place for fancy work here, most of th earmour has a rough surface which leaves no place for freehands and th emodel is so small that you basically have to apply 2 thirds left paint on this one compared to any other model.


Her's a scale shot (I know I chose the worst modle to compare him to...)

The paintsheme I used has been designed to fit in my Sensei band so th eblue and red colours were just to fit with the rest of the crew. 

Only fancy details I allowed myslef on this model are the green shoulder pad and th eboots which I wanted to look like these kind of shoes :

These are actually Pataugas, not converse all stars

I associate these shoes with the old adventurers which is why it seemed to fit. It also breaks the link between the ground and the rest ofthe model which is important since the model is so small. An all brown colour wouldn't have fit and would have blended the model in the base.

You can see Shorty in the first place of the second line here :

Picture from Solegend

I do have a fistful of his friends on the page.

- Kylla Condotti

- Worldburner

- Irn Bounce The squat

- Old world Jack

- No-face Fargo

- Plunderino Pete

And apart from a couple of them, I think they will all join Sensei bands or Rogue traders. I'm only keeping those who look like bad guys to make some mercenaries.

Now I'm back to painting the Realm of Chaos challenge band...