Evil Midget Marauder with a Mohawk

Avatars of War's dwarves continue to infatuate me.  They have some really good looking stuff.  This piece happens to the be the standard top.  A very wide pose for rank and file, my plan is to use the miniature on the flank.

Often when I build my fantasy armies I spend extra time with the miniatures on the front rank and also like to make those out on the flanks look just as aggressive.

Still have a bit of gap filling to do on the back, but you get the idea.

WAB News and tidbits....

Haven't felt good for a couple days, Papa Nurgle is visiting me and has this yellowish substance oozing out of my nose...and I think someone is turning the screw on the C-clamp that was accidently put on my head.

So that said, no progress on truck, no progress on the go-kart, no-progress on the Crusaders, no-progress on the chaos midgets to report.  Just sat and slept in the couch in front of the Rolex 24 at Daytonna, and I won't be going to race the kart indoors in Illinois next month, next winter I will be doing that.  My old man has made plenty of progress on his kart and has it about ready to go, we should be faster with the chassis and set-up changes.  And I did invest in a CE Armored leather jacket, tired of banging up my elbows.

Now onto the news, stuff that I'm looking forward to.  My WAB Armies of Antiquity book showed up, didn't expect it for a couple more weeks.  Paged through it and noted a few things.  Think my Romans will be played as Middle Imperials.  Lots of options for the Crusaders to play as knights also...and I like the expansion of the Middle Ages.  Pat at The Historical Wargames Podcast site did a review of the first third of the book, well worth the listen to if you like the greeks and the early stuff.
http://www.historicalwargames.org/

Speaking of Middle Ages....Fire Forge is getting ready to ship their Teutonic Knights.  I just put an advanced order in for two boxes, I'm looking at the AoA book and thinking about Knights and Vikings.  Although, mine won't be Teutonics, they'll be more of a western variety.  Once I receive the boxes, I'll definitely do a review of them.

Victrix is getting into the Ancients game, they made an announcement that their greeks will be coming out soon.  I'm really looking forward to that, once I see them, that will determine if I ever do any greeks.   Not like I need another project, though.

An Obnoxious Midgetgor....

Well the little rune things can be covered easily with chaos bits.  I knew that I had to use the screaming gor head with the #1 salute, it was just too obvious.  I do like Avatars of War's sense of humor.

Using up some of the Procreate with these models.  I've decided I like GS and Brownstuff much more.  Very subtle differences, but noticeable to me.

So if that works, then I know of something else that works.

Yep....Midgetgor's....Avatars of War Dwarves Work Well.....

Having done lots and lots of beastmen, I have tons of beast stuff in my bitz boxes.  So this is a good use for them.  Very simple conversions sometimes are just what is ordered.

Eventually, I think some with hooves will be in order.

Midgetgor!!! Tainted Avatars of War Dwarf

Fusing a beastmen gor head to an Avatars of War Dwarf berserker, is a pretty simple conversion.  And if you like mutant marauders like I do.  It gives you even more variety.

Not all of my beast-mutants have horns.  So this one did not get any.  Next one probably will.

The Butcher's Bill ... A Converters Encyclopedia

I would like to point everyone's attention to a brand spanking new blog that I have linked up in my blog roll. And I do mean everyone. Doesn't matter if you are into 40k, Fantasy, Steampunk, Warhammer Ancients, or Historical gaming. That blog is the Mike Butcher's: The Butcher's Bill, found at the following link: http://mikebutcher-thebutchersbill.blogspot.com/

I've known Mike for quite awhile, we bounce ideas back and forth often, and attend a lot of tournaments together. I've been after him for a long time to start up a blog, so if you don't like it you can certainly blame me for it.   Mike has been painting, collecting and playing with 28mm miniatures for over 25 years, and is in my opinion for us who love to game with massively cool armies is one of the premiere converters / modifiers of miniatures out there. There are alot of people that can concentrate efforts on building pretty one-off display pieces, but its hard in my opinion to make huge themed and unique armies, and Mike is one of those rare people with that ability.

He has countless awards over the years a Silver in Golden Demon competition, a WH40K GT, numerous best painted, players choice, and best army awards over the years as well as being featured in White Dwarf several times , and twice Citadel Journal. Most recently he has won the WAB singles title at Adepticon (2010 and 2011) and his Greek City States Army was featured in Wargames Illustrated the magazine.

So as a sampling for those of you, if its 40k that you like, check out my Old Stuff Decemeber post showcases one of his armies against my army:
http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/12/old-stuff-wednesday-december-cerulean.html
or Check out his post converting a chimera to carry Ogryn.
http://mikebutcher-thebutchersbill.blogspot.com/2012/01/orgyn-sized-chimera-circa-2009-wh40k.html

Or if you like Ancients checkout his post on his Greek Army that was featured in Wargames Illustrated:
http://mikebutcher-thebutchersbill.blogspot.com/2012/01/greek-city-states.html
Or if you like Fantasy and Chaos like I do checkout his conversions of standard ogres into Khorne Ogres:
http://mikebutcher-thebutchersbill.blogspot.com/2012/01/olde-stuffkhone-ogres-circa-2008-9-whfb.html
This is all just a sampling of some his work. I'm sure there is more to come in the future, and if not I'll pester him some more and force him to go go-karting with me.

Slaanesh Standardbearer Mutant....

Somehow while building all of my marauders I forgot to build some standard bears.  So I'll be building a few more mutant marauders.  This is the first one.

Not an "ungor", but a mutant marauder with a small amount of armor and conversion.   I do love the Flagellant heads.  They are very cool looking pieces.

Slaanesh banner from the demonettes.  The arm with the mace is a Flagellant.

Not much on the back, but the overlapping scale armor on the shoulder has a bit of mail modeled in.

More to follow, I have some Avatars of War - Dwarf berserkers that need to feel the taint of chaos and mutation.

I'm WAB'n It.... Yes Warhammer Ancients News

Most of you that read my blog regularly now that I thoroughly enjoy Warhammer Ancient Battles 2.0.  Now the WAB: Armies of Antiquity book has also been released a supplement that is made of a few new rules and absolute ton of armies lists.  I've yet to get my copy, mainly because of work and spending my hobby budget on a new racing engine for the kart, but I will get it eventually.

Well this month, there is a WAB sort of bring and battle tournament like set up of gaming being played in Waupaca, WI, at the appropriately named Waaghpaca, primarily a Warhammer fantasy event that is attempting to expand into a full-fledge Convention.  More information can be found here:
http://www.wwhfb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2959  Fellow Grumpy Old Coot Mike Butcher is running the event.   Tables and terrain being provided by the Waaghpaca Tournament Organizer, The Bear, over at this blog:  http://www.youmagnificentbastards.com/

And this month I was made aware that a new Historical Wargames Podcast was around, put on by Adepticon Veteran and SoCal Maniac, Pat Lowinger.  Can be found at http://www.historicalwargames.org/
Pat's second podcast was a reveiw of the first third of the new WAB: AoA book.

Old Stuff Wednesday - January... War Mammoth Conversion

Back a few years ago, someone in Canada commissioned me to do a Chaos War Mammoth conversion using using a Lord of the Rings War Mumak. 

This is one of the bigger conversions that I have worked on.  I went through a lot of GS doing up the fur on the mammoth.  I remembered struggling with the idea of the howdah and settled for using scored plasti-card construction. 

The head was some of the most fun building up the armor.  I decided to use a plasticard piece to make a large flat armored piece on the head and then blended the GS in to it.

The person who commissioned the model did not want me to build a beastmaster and did not have me build any marauders to go with the model.  In hindsight, I wish I would have at least build the beastmater rider.  One thing with the Mumak model is the wrappings and supports and harness for the howdah is already modeled for you.

Add a bunch of spikes and chaos shields and panels.  Makes for finishing off the model.

Last year I purchased another of these models for myself.  Hopefully this year I will get around to converting one for myself.

Odds and Ends and Observations

Yea so tonight is one of those nights that I'm trying to unwind from a heated meeting with a community.  I'm not going to go into detail, cuz it will bore you to death.  Mr. Butcher can chime in and second the idea that you do not want to ask me what I really do for a living while eating anything.  I often get worked up and have to take some time to unwind after these things.  I won't sleep well, and especially now that I know there is more pressure ensuing as part of the project.

So how to unwind.  For I visit some blogs, maybe do some window shopping on ebay, dream about running ovals in a go-kart at high speed, work out on my bowflex until I can no longer lift anything, and occasionally look for some sports to take my mind off of things.

I watched a video linked up on Tabletop Gaming News, from GW of all people, that showed their new Vampire Count models.  Oh MY.  Too bad I'm uninspired by 8th Edition, and VC rules. Most of those models are awesome.  Absolutely incredible detail.  The mortis engine is what I think of when I dream of undead, besides dreaming about zombies and skeletons.  I also really like the black knights and wraith things...And the Wight King.   Krell to me is like this awesome Chaos Exalted Undead Champion. 

One thing I watched, just turned my TV on while I sat down to surf on-line, is a E60 showing on Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packers, quarterback.  His back story is something I find inspiring.  He is supremely confident in himself and his abilities and carries an absolutely massive chip on shoulder to prove to people that he is not just a good or great QB but that he is also that same person off the field.  I was a naysayer, when they drafted him.  I thought he would be another failed Cal QB.  I did not think he was that good, and I did not know his back story prior to Cal.  Honestly, I thought he would be another Rich Campbell, who also played for Cal and was drafted by the Packers and was a miserable QB on the field.  Besides they still had the QB #4, someone I personally could not stand, still playing for them and not going away for awhile.  Then the indecisive #4 made his choice to retire, and I like a Packer fan was now behind Rodgers in the #12, hoping that he would at least be as good as Lynn Dickey who also wore that number and despite all of the injuries was a very serviceable QB.  Then #4 did his baby routine and decided that he wanted to steal the keys back from #12.  And that is when Rodgers really won me over, his character did not falter.  He faced more adversity than anyone I've ever seen in sports.  It was out of his control, but he stood tall and believed in himself and carried that and his massive chip on shoulder all the way to a Superbowl win.  I admire that.  And yes I don't miss #4, he can go ride his tractor and send pictures reporters on his own time. 

Ahhh....highlights of Denver...I hate the Steelers....Teebow time was great.  Even old #7 was elated.  Another of those stories of a person that everyone says you can't do something, and he goes out and does it.

Then as I'm watching that, redmanphill's awesome blog Subject to Stupidity, made me contemplate Beastmen names, like Gor and Ungor.  Now granted I'm rambling on, typing and probably thinking about way too many things all at once, but that happens with me often, so excuse me if this is not really well thought out because again this is a massive run-on sentence, composed of part rambling to clear my head and unwind and part incohesive or maybe better known as incoherant rant.  Why Ungor???  I mean the gor are certainly more fun to do in my book, than the ungor, as well as more interesting to look at.  And being "ungor", could there ever be a less inspiring term invented by GW, than oh they're smaller than the Gor and not as tough, and they look slightly different, more ugly, they don't have full on cool looking rams horns.  I'm sure the writer of this fiction, probably sat around one night having a pint of some crap and was like I have to come up with a damn name for these ugly little bastards and probably went something like....oh I can't think of anything really neat to call them, so.....they definitely are not gors........oh eureka, that's it.....[picks up his pint and drains it]....that's brilliant....they are not gor......don't you get the brilliance of my thinking....just call them not-gor, brilliant idea...except I can't write them up as notgor....no stupid editor....will go along with that....but it is a brilliant idea......notgor.....how do I get this stupidly brilliant idea by that drunk editor......what is not.....yea that's it ......use that prefix "un"....it will be ungor. Yes. BRILLIANT. So very inspiring.  The beastmen fanboys will absolutely love it.  Wonderful.

And with the gem, I think I have finally unwound.  Sarcasm has worked for me once again.  Thank you.  Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.  I wonder how damn many spelling errors I had in this incoherent rambling.....I will click the spell check out of curiosity.....on second thought this is not working....need try something else.....probably the bowflex and some dumb-bells......why do they call them dumb...bells......ahhhhaahhhh never mind..........

Chaos Undivided...attention to Conversion

This boyo is a different sort.  An imperial space marine backbanner with a chaos icon.  I do like this icon.  The head is an OOP head, I believe from a raptor, but its one of the coolest chaos heads out there.

The arm is from an OOP terminator.  Again a simplistic conversion, but one that looks and feels like a cool character.

After looking at last months Old Stuff Wednesday and my wargame against Butcher's Nurgle Legion, I knew I had to model something with a back banner.  I'm definitely going to carry that over on my loyalist when I get a chance.

Another Chaos Spacemarine Character Conversion

More or less an excercise in use of special left over bits.  As with a couple of this batch not really using a lot of GS.  These are relatively straight forward conversions.

This one will also go up on Ebay with the rest of the group in week or so.  No paint, just the converted model.  I'll make that announcement when the group is all ready to go.  I'm currently running some auctions on some of my left over chaos spacemarine bits, more of that will follow.  If you are interested....checkout my listings... http://myworld.ebay.com/madhouse_workshop

Next Chaos Space Marine Conversion...Iron Within...Iron Without

I had an Iron Warrior in mind while doing this one.  Bionics and mail.  An old OOP metal horned head.  Possessed legs.  The axe is a leftover Chaos Warrior Champion bit from Warhammer Fantasy.  Some metal piping from Dragon Forge.  Not much of anything in GS.  Don't always need GS.

Won't be painting this guy.  And again there will be auctions of the individual figures once I get this group all done.  I'll announce that when they are ready to go.

Chaos Space Marine - Slaanesh Conversion...Come Get Some

I've had these Slaanesh bits for years and never really had a use for them until now.  I love doing poses like this one.  It screams chaos and come challenge me. 

Again you don't always have to go completely over the top with green stuff sculpting to make interesting characters.  Lots of times using the right bits in combination make for a very unique miniature.

Only a few chaos spacemarines left.  Matter of fact I've begun putting up what's left of my chaos space marine bits on Ebay in my Madhouse Workshop Account.