Sunday, January 17, 2016

Hobby Update: Archers, Arquebusiers, Shield Wall

I've made some progress converting over several units to KoW! Yesterday was a good day for hobbying, so I "finished" up a few projects I had sitting around. I don't consider myself a good painter, so these aren't "done" yet. As I learn new skills (like better washing/highlights), the models will be touched up again. But they are table ready! Which is what I'm going for. First up are my Archers!
Ready to go. The fancy leader model even has paint now!

As mentioned before, the unit is designed to be able to be broken down to run as Regiments and Troops. I touched a few things up, and found a color I think will work for edging around the bases.

While writing this, I realized that they don't look all that impressive horded up. The unit isn't really sculpted to be run in ranks (in WHFB they were run as "Skirmishers", meaning they had 1/2" between each model), so everyone looks a bit... rabbly, They are all shooting directly in front of them... which wouldn't be great in a ranked unit. The do look nice as troops though. The dynamism is more appropriate in the smaller unit size.

Much better. Not they don't look like they're going to shoot their friends in the next rank.

Next on the hobby table was a Regiment of Arquebusiers. They didn't see the table much back in the day, so it was nice to give them some touchups and attention. I still have half a dozen bodies sitting in a box. I'm considering picking up another final box to bump that up to 16... enough to do another regiment (or combine them into a Horde). We'll see what the future holds.. 

Let's shoot some baddies!

I think I need to add a little black hole or something for where the bullet comes out, but not a bad unit for me.

Last up was a Regiment of Shield Wall. For those familiar with the models, the shields they originally came with were dinky. More bucklers than legit shields. I acquired some heftier shields a while ago (the Tomb King shields), but never got around to converting them them until now. 
The banner still needs some work done, but the unit is ready for the table.

Originally, I had each banner in my army semi distinct (diagonal or horizontal or vertical split, or quarters... etc). The idea was that each unit had their own tradition, which would be exemplified on their own banner (some had slogans and such scrawled on too). I decided that this new army was more organized that it was in WHFB, so the banners will be uniform to start with: purple on top, and white on the bottom. 

Look at those shields. Much more "wall" like.
I was going for a "Roman Legion" feel for these guys with the bigger shields. These guys will stand in for now, but since this is Kings of War and there aren't any restrictions on models I can use for this army (thanks Mantic!), I will eventually be picking up a few regiments worth of Hail Caesar minis.
  • Legionaries with swords will replace these guys for my Shield Wall units
  • Legionaries with pila/pilums will stand in for a Spear Phalanx (and probably get the Kaba's Holy Hand Grenades to fluff up a pila volley in game)
  • Praetorian Guard and/or Veterans will stand in for Foot Guard with shields.

The shield designs for those minis are stickers... so I'll need to suddenly get really good are free-hand, or figure out another approach. I've wanted to pick up some Imperial Roman minis for a while, and that'll be a good project for the future. However, 2016 is off to a doozy of a start. I work at a bank, and we were just acquired by another company last week.. so while that gets sorted out over the next few months I'm trying to be a responsible adult and not buy any new plastic, as I don't know if I'll have a job in a few months once that transition happens. We'll see how that goes though... I've got a few months still for sure... it'd only be a few more boxes...

This week on the hobby front, I hope to touchup two Regiments of Knights and get them ready for Kings of War. For now, I'm doing a straight 1:1 conversion (no multi basing as the models are in 253x50mm slotted bases.. which seem like a lot of extra work to multibase with). Hopefully it should be pretty painless.

On the game front, I have game lined up to introduce some of my old Warhammer crew to Kings of War. Haven't figured out what my list will be.. but I should have some kind of recap or battle report posted later this week, if all goes well.

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