Mighty Armies: Dark Elves

I can't believe it has taken me nearly all of September to complete this little army. I guess I've erroneously concluded that small scale means super fast painting. To a degree this is true. However, there's still a lot of models to cover, with lots of detail, and neatness still counts. Basing these guys is half the battle too. It's a little more challenging with multi-figure bases, at least for me.

Enough whining! Here are some pictures of the Dark Elves. First up are a few different views of the army all together. I couldn't decide which set up would show them better. So now you have two shots of them. You need to enlarge the pictures to see the details, of course.

All told there are 16 stands and about 46 models here. I've got units of great swords, spears, crossbows, and cavalry. I've added in a monster, a "dragon man" and its handler, as well as two commanders and a wizard.  Here are some detailed shots of the army.

I think you can tell which pictures are which units. I made my leader units different colors in case I wanted to run two different Dark Elf armies. My theme colors are dark red with silver and dull orange accents. The blue leader, who turned out to be a chick, was to be my main general. I was thinking the different color would make her easy to see on the battle field.

This was a fun army to paint, though I wasn't inspired to start it.  Maybe that's why it took so long. But once I started working on it, I found myself really enjoying these models. They're excellent sculpts with lots of detail. Like all dark elves, there are female models mixed in with the males, wearing the obligatory useless armor. I kept my painting faithful to the model, no matter how impractical. At 15mm scale showing some midriff is not that exciting. But whatever.

So I'm done with all my 15mm Mighty Armies stuff for now. I plan to reinforce each of my armies before moving on to new ones. Right now, Mighty Armies isn't high on my "game time list." So it'll be a while before I get to them. Still, I really like this line and will certainly expand to more armies in the future.

15mm Fantasy: Lizardmen

I've been quite busy lately, which has really slowed down my painting schedule. It seems like there's no time to break out the paints and brushes. I've managed to grab times here and there, and I've used it to complete work on my lizardman army for Mighty Armies (or any 15mm fantasy game, honestly).  I really like they way they came out.

These are all from Khurasan Miniatures. I think their lizardmen models are the coolest I've seen in any scale. Here's the whole army army. If you click on it, the picture is pretty large and should show a lot of detail.

Let me walk you through what you're looking at.  Up first is the main block of warriors: salamander spearmen. These guys look really unique. The front stand is a salamander shaman, the model holding the skull staff. These stands form the main fighting core, with a little magic boost from the shaman.

No lizardman army is complete without smaller lizards to harass the enemy. Here are some lizardmen, that I'm calling "skinks" after the WHFB color-scheme I picked for them. I was surprised how small these models were next to the salamanders.

Now it's time for the cavalry units. First up is what I imagine to be light cav. These are salamander bowmen on flightless birds. I can see these guys looking for flank or rear charges while harassing with bow fire.

Next up is the heavy cavalry, and the whole reason I wanted these models: mounted crocodile warriors! These guys will be the heavy hitters and they look awesome. I have no idea why they're mounted on wooly rhinos. It's a cool idea, but wouldn't being mounted on something reptilian make more sense?

Finally we come to the big boss. He's another croc warrior mounted on a wooly rhino. I had a spare "skink" model left over and stuck him on the base for a little splash of color as well as making him stick out more.


 So there you have it. I can't wait to get these lizards on the table and see what they can do. As for additional development, I can still add in salamander archers. I'm also planning on putting in a 15mm dinosaur model, either an ankylsaurus or triceratops, for some extra punch. I'd like to find something to be a flying unit too. What I'd really like, just for kicks, is something that looks like the WHFB Slaan models. While I'm not trying to mimic WHFB, I think something like that would look impressive in 15mm.

That's all for now. I've got a ton of stuff on the table that I keep adding to. I'm not sure what I'll be working on next, but I have plenty to choose from!

Mighty Armies: Amazons

I've finally got around to snapping some shots of my first force for Mighty Armies. This is a 15mm fantasy battle game which has multiple models per base. I've played a few test games, and it's a fun and quick-playing rules set. I already have three forces for the game (technically four, since I bought enough Dark Elf minis to make two forces). I ordered from different places, and the first to get to me was my Amazons force.

Here's an overall shot of the entire army, eleven stands total.

Here are some details of what you're looking at above.  First is the Amazon Princess, the army general. At first I wondered why she was so much smaller than all the others. I think it's because she's supposed to be younger, maybe?

Next is the Amazon Queen, who acts as a spell caster in the Amazon army.

The boxed set I picked up had a single stand of "Blade Dancers" which looked like girls in sun dresses. I've no idea what their back story is in the game. In terms of mechanics, they're good fighters and resistant to magic as well as unhindered by terrain. That's some special dress the girls are wearing. I'll need more than just one stand for them to be effective.

Finally here are the main body of troops, warriors and archers.

Despite the small size it took longer than expected to paint these models.  There's a lot of detail on each, and totally I used 7-8 colors. While this is a standard sized force, I'd like to have other options. So I'm going to pick up Spear Maidens (light infantry), more Blade Dancers, Panther Riders (cavalry, probably heavy cav), and even some gryphon riders for flying units. Everything you see above, including the bases, cost me $23. This is not an expensive game to buy in to. So adding all these additional units is not a hit to my wallet.

I've got Lizardmen (or more appropriately, Salamander men) on popsicle sticks now. The Aligatormen mounted on wooly rhinos look awesome!  Once these are done I'll probably switch back to my Flames of War stuff.  There's a bunch of stuff for my Americans that I want to get done.