Heroquest Quest

Quite a departure now from 20mm Ancients to the world of 28mm plastic fantasy in the form of Classic Heroquest. Not a game I am totally familiar with often admired in the thin pages of the Argos catalogue in the 90s. I never got a copy, I did end up with Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition and was chuffed with that one Christmas!

Fast forward to earlier this year and I took on a job to paint the miniatures from the original box and a few extras and some of the advanced Heroquest miniatures. I had previously completed some before the move and once we got moved and a bit settled I took on the rest.

For the most part unless instructed on a particular scheme I based the schemes on Heroquest box art, other Heroquest art then falling back on the work of other painters found on google searches or my own inspiration. 

I like this era in Citadel sculpts, straight forward and nice to paint without the over engineering and complication of modern CAD sculpts! I'm not a commission painter so I was worried about painting for someone else but I was pleased with the finish and so was I am happy to say the owner of these classic miniatures!

Between painting these classic fantasy miniatures and the new Amazon fantasy show based on The Lord of the Rings I am feeling a bit of inspiration for working on my own Middle-earth based project! I've often collected (very very rarely painted up) the Citadel Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game miniatures, starting with the Balin's Tomb boxed set which then expanded from there. Again its an era of great miniatures not too over the top sculpts with the Perry brothers producing some beautiful sets. I really want to work on the Easterlings but I have lots of primed stuff that should be cleared first.

This of course will run alongside the usual 20mm Rise of Rome project which is currently seeing lots of light infantry being rebased for Carthage and Rome and new figures being prepared to top up the Velites and the Punic Gallic contingent. Other eras and projects may crop up but many will hopefully be sold on such as these 20mm Napoleonic Austrians and probably any American Civil War miniatures that I eventually may paint.

Anyway tangent over and back to the Heroquest quest:

Advanced Heroquest Characters

Heroquest Characters

Gargoyles

Chaos Sorcerers

Goblins

Orcs

Chaos Knights

Firmirs

Zombies

Mummies

Skeletons

Painting Tallarn Desert Raiders

The list of paints used for my desert raiders, written down for future reference, VJ = Vallejo GW = Games Workshop.

BASE COAT:

VJ Green Ochre - tunic 

GW Tallarn flesh - flesh

VJ Camouflage Olive Green - trousers

VJ Flat Earth - boots and puttees

VJ USA Uniform - weapons

VJ Flat Brown - Pauldrons equipment

GW Deneb Stone - Shemagh

VJ Offwhite - Headress, plasma glow

VJ Turquoise - Knife handle

VJ Sky Blue - Headress edging

VJ Gunmetal Grey - gunmetal

VJ Bronze - Knife hilt scabard

GW WASHES:

Brown wash - Equipment, trousers and footware eyes/face

Thinned Blue - Headress

Thinned Black - Equipment, Lasgun

Sepia - Tunic, lasgun casing

Flesh - arms, possibly face

HIGHLIGHT:

Tau sept Ochre - Tunic

VJ Tan Yellow - 2nd Tunic

VJ Cam Olive Green - Trousers

VJ Russian Uniform - 2nd Trousers

VJ Flat Earth - Boots & Puttees

VJ Biege Brown - 2nd Puttees

VJ Thinned USA Uniform - Weapon casing

VJ Thinned USA Uniform + VJ Dark Yellow 50/50 - 2nd Weapons casing

VJ Green Blue - Knife handle

VJ Flat Brown - Pauldrons, straps & Equipment

VJ Mahogany Sand - 2nd Pauldrons, straps & Equipment

VJ Bronze - Knife hilt, scabbard

VJ Old Gold - 2nd Knife hilt scabbard

GW Tallarn Flesh - Flesh

GW Thinned Elf Flesh - face

VJ Off White - Shemagh

PLASMA OSL:

VJ Turquoise - raised parts of ribs

Mix of sky blue and white watered down - this also is used to highlight the area around the ribbed area on the plasma gun and area the light hits from the guns glow.

Watered down white - inbetween ribs

Note: posted late as it seems to have slipped through the net. This suggests I had yet to add some comments, long forgotten!

Heroquest quest: Orcs

A friend asked me to paint up his Heroquest pieces from the classic MB and Citadel boxed game from the 90s. So far I have done these 10 and a previous test figure. I was going to get some better snaps for here but my wife took them over before I had a chance! So these hasty just finished and WIP shots will have to do.

They were pretty straight forward to paint up, nice chunky sculpts, in a mono pose and I kept the schemes simple. I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into here there is an unknown number of figures coming my way but this quest will be a sidequest I need to keep up the tempo with the rebase and Magnesia. But all will have to wait bar a few part way done units until after the move if all goes well.

In the mean time I might continue the update to the blog appearance. I'm pleased with the refresh so far a bit more colourful and the Nile mosaic of Palestrina background represents the main thrust of the blog's primary project. I mainly want to update the header next and that will probably do for now. 

I would like to post more content but to do that there probably will be more filler posts and musings! It's also dependent on time to write up posts, in the end I'll just sporadically post as usual but hopefully slightly more often. When we get settled I would like to attempt a bit of Vlogging as I would like to contribute to the wargaming content on youtube since I have found that watching youtube has sometimes been easier to follow when I've been too tired to read! Trouble is I would need to get over the grating sound of my own voice on camera and other such hurdles but it would be good to increase the wargames content available. 

Tallarn Desert Raiders

Taking a bit of a break from the Ancient Mediterranean and took a nostalgic trip to the Dark Millennium of Warhammer 40,000 with these classic Imperial Guard Tallarn Desert Raiders or Astra Militarum as they go by now.

I enjoyed experimenting with colours and I'll post my colours in a seperate post so I don't forget when I pick the project back up. It was also my first attempt at object source lighting (OSL) technique for the plasma gun glow which youtube provided tutorials for.

I may slowly expand this Tallarn army but I am back to painting ancients for now attempting to clear the backlog of Thracians and a couple of cavalry units. Also have some part rebased units to finish too!

Hadria Line Infantry Imperial Guard

Continuing on with the 40k and abandoned project theme I took a few snaps of a prototype Imperial Guardsman or Astra Militarum as they go by nowadays. When I was procuring the plastic Cadians along with some plastic heavy weapons and command sets I had wanted to base their uniforms on German Fallschimjagres. I painted this model up based on the Italeri 1/72 Fallschrimjager art work.

I was a fan of the original Cadian shock troops miniatures in the 90s but I still can not get away with the redesigned helmet on the plastic set. Also, I later decided to have a self intervention, with the 1/72 and 20mm collections becoming out of control, I had now convinced myself to not by any Imperial Guard tanks.

So now the Guardsmen were to be an infantry only force depending on waves of troops and basic heavy weapon support. With this in mind I wanted to change the appearance to fit the theme of such a force. If I could find a historical themed seperate head I could convert the cadians into a rustic looking regiment like the Mordians or Praetorians. 

I discovered on Arcane Scenery's webshop Trent miniatures AWI range which includes seperate heads.  They seemed perfect, spare heads in Tarletons! Giving the guardsman a horse and musket era feel, then repainting them based on 19th century Prussians, with the armour painted in a silver metal inspired by Napoleonic French Cuirassiers. I did have to snip the ponytail but other than that the head fit like a dream. 

I was planning on squeezing as much as I could out if the heavy weapon set by attempting to mount the bolter, autocannon and lascannon onto napoleonic artillery carriages, like the carriage mounted Gatling guns of the 19th century. However, that hasn't advanced any further than the hairbrain stage yet. 

I do have a sentenel walker burried somewhere which was included in a battleforce set and I have a few Tallarn Desert Raiders. This detachmet would provide an irregular contrast to the ridgedly drilled and diciplined force.

Like the Eldar I would love to continue this project but it resides way down the list of priorities at this time. One day! I keep telling myself.

Eldar Guardians

I have recently been having a sort out of my miniatures to clear some space for a nursery. Most of my Citadel miniatures have now been put in the loft but I left out the painted ones and took the opportunity to get some snaps.  

These Eldar Guardians were painted about 11 years ago now I believe, I was in the process of collecting, or more like re-collecting, some 40k stuff. I have always loved the miniatures that the Games Workshop sold and at that time decided to get an Eldar army on which I hit on a redesign of the Aspect Warriors and some new vehicles. Anyway I painted up quite a lot of Guardians  (40ish I think), a few Warlocks and a Farseer along with a couple of Banshee squads (I will need to get them photographed too). 

I was big fan of the plastic Guardian set when they were released in the late '90s, the parts allow quite a few different poses between the Guardians and they look cool and are still some of my favorite miniatures. My first collection of 40k stuff I had gathered back then was conveniently disposed of when I left home, hence the requirement to start again in '07. 

I could not however continue to resist the pull of historical miniatures and between Napoleonic and Ancient offerings from Hat along with the glossy release of the Field of Glory army books, which fueled my collecting of Ancients into an obsession. Since then I have barely painted a Citadel miniature but I will keep the eternal hope that I will get around to painting them, even if it is pure fantasy!  

At the time of painting these I had bought a then new army box which included a Codex so I was following the army lists and restrictions. One of the rules that came in was that each squad required a heavy weapon platform, the sprues came with 1 platform and all the weapon options. I made them up with a pin on the base of the weapon and a slot on the platform (or vice-versa) to allow me to change the weapon depending on the required firepower of the day. These rules and codices chop and change all the time so I am not too fussed about 40k rules but it would be great to game with the miniatures one day.