The Calcium Crew

Having fun with ancient plastic GW Skeletons. These are being made with Dragon Rampant in mind .

Mk 1 Land Raider

Resurrected some late-'80s plastic goodness!

this week's additions

Really pleased to have been revisiting this army. More to come soon I hope!

Mk1 Land Speeder

"anywhere here on the left is fine"

An absolute pig to assemble, this lad's got more pins inside it than Evel Knievel. I've wanted one of these since I was 10.

let me through, I'm a doctor!

A Rogue Trader era sawbones for the shinymarines. I like that he sort of looks like an ambulance!

Family Photo

Here are my marines so far (less two tac marines that have seemingly gone AWOL), representing their chapter, the Stormwatch. I've plans to swell their ranks in the coming year, and possibly even add a scratchbuilt Imperial Knight...

RTB01 Sternguard

A squad of Sternguard Veterans made using the original 1987 RTB01 space marine plastic kit. Such a pleasure to build and paint.

scouts and devastators

More for my marines- a squad of scouts and some Devastators with Lascannon and Plasma cannon, made from the old '90s Grenadier plastic Space Rangers, still available at a bargain price from EM4!

Toybashed Retro Dreadnought

I wanted to add a Dreadnought to my old fashioned Space Marine army, and I wanted it to be vaguely reminiscent of the old Rogue Trader ones sculpted back in the 80s by Bob Naismith- or at least to look as through they might conceivably have been designed in the same solar system, within the same millennium!

I started keeping an eye out for bits, and found an old broken toy that I liked the look of, and worked out was one of these (on the right)

The size was good, the face looked suitably robotic and '80s-looking and it had overtones of M.A.S.K., which was no bad thing.

I nicked the legs from one of these (in the middle) that I'd found on eBay very cheaply from Singapore.

I stuck them together with a pelvis made from two 25mm hex bases, and added two Assault Cannon barrels left over from when I converted my Space Crusade marines to Lascannons.

After the usual quick paint job and varnish, I'm pretty pleased!

Some new bits for my old-fashioned Space Marines

I've added some bits to my 40k army. An original Rhino:

A squad of Devastators made from old Space Crusade minis. Two were armed with assault cannons, which I don't think are game legal, so I converted them into lascannons.

And a Vindicator. Based on an old GZG APC, now available from Daemonscape (under the name Snow Cat) for a very reasonable £8.99. I added a marker pen cap for the demolisher cannon.

More additions to my old-school Middle Earth stuff

My local Kings of War group has been doing an escalation league, and I've been using it to bulk out my Middle Earth stuff. I can use the army as an allied Kingdoms of Men and Elf force. The movement trays give me the right unit footprints for the game.

 The whole army so far.

 A mounted hero and standard bearer from Gondor, amongst Rohan allies.

 a unit of Gondorian spearmen, and a large Beorning in bear-form. All the Gondor stuff came from Warrior Miniatures, and the bear is from Irregular Miniatures' 54mm range.

These charmingly lumpy chaps are of unknown provenance. They'll serve as man-mode Beornings, or possibly good Dunlendings.

Eagles

a trio of Eagles for Kow and Dragon Rampant, from Mithril Miniatures' Gwaihir models.

“Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.”

Gandalf Stormcrow

Here's a mounted Gandalf to assist my Rohan force for KoW and Dragon Rampant. He's converted, in an extremely minor way, from a Hinchliffe miniature from 1979; I just added a hat brim with Green Stuff.

A Retro Warband for Dragon Rampant

As I pressed on with the KoW 'Middle Earth Good Guys' army I realised I would soon have enough painted stuff to put together a full 24 point warband for Osprey's brilliant Dragon Rampant game.

I already had plenty of Beornings. I chose six of the unarmed ones to represent two units of 'lesser warbeasts'. Dragon Rampant does include rules to make a unit into 'werebeasts', which I will probably do in the future, if I make some 'man-mode' Beornings to compliment these figures.

I added a unit of Rohan warriors with mail, sword and shield. I use 12 to represent a full regiment in Kings of War, and that's also the recommended number for a foot unit in Dragon Rampant. The Leader with the plumed helmet can lead the warband.

Next I added some Riders of Rohan- lightly armoured with bows. I'll use 5 for a troop in KoW, but adding just one more gives me the recommended strength for a cavalry unit in DR.

Lastly I wanted an Ent. I don't have an original Minifigs Ent, and anyway, they're really a bit too small, so I made this chap from Milliput very quickly ast night. With the right paint job I think he fits in quite well. He counts as a Greater Warbeast in DR, and will be part of an elf ally contingent in my KoW army I think.

The finished Warband! Now for some baddies...

Old School Middle Earth

In a few weeks' time, my gaming group will be starting its second escalation league for Kings of War- building an army a little at a time, in 500 point increments, and comparing progress. It really helps with motivation, and gets you a playable army in no time. Here's the dwarf army I built during the last one.

A little while ago I acquired a few hundred very old fantasy miniatures from a friend, and I intend to use these as the main source for a 'Middle Earth Good Guys' army, possibly using an allied Herd and Kingdoms of Men list. Many of the figures  were homecast, either using Prince August casting kits or by recasting (mostly Minifigs Mythical Earth range) existing miniatures. Recasting isn't something I take lightly, but it's hard to object in this case- it's been done with more enthusiasm than accuracy, and purely for personal use, many decades ago. It's also given many of the miniatures a pleasingly indistinct look that reminds me of Spencer Smith miniatures. I've repainted a few already in a 'shiny toy soldier' style that I really like- it suits the figures and is very quick to achieve. Here are some Beornings, Wargs, a Winged Nazgul and some assorted knights.

The Beornings I'll be able to use for the 'Good Guys', and I'll supplement them first with some Riders of Rohan. Here's a test miniature which I painted as a banner bearer, following Tolkien's description of the horse colour, hair, shield device and banner.

And here's the miniature before I started. Under the dust of years, it's got a very nice solid colour scheme, and a great banner painted in washes over a dot matrix printed pattern which has a sort of  'Persian Rug' feel to it.

MicroKoW- the first game

My opponent and I played our first game of 10mm Kings of War on Tuesday night with 1000 fully painted points apiece. The game played smoothly- the reduced size didn't feel at all fiddly, and I really enjoyed it, despite losing pretty comprehensively to Tim's orcs!

RPG Adventurers

Since reviewing those Caesar goblins, and coming to the conclusion that they would be of far more use for RPG encounters than for wargaming, I've been bitten by the D&D bug. I've been looking closely at 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons as well as a few alternatives, and have been listening to quite a few podcasts of live 5th ed. D&D play (favourite so far being Adventure Zone). I've also been taking stock of my old-school RPG minis, and wondering what needs adding. I've been trying to stick to stuff from the '70s or early '80s, and the latest addition, the Hinchliffe Dwarf on the end, fits the bill and rounds out my party of adventurers nicely. I'll thank you to ignore the fact that he is the same size as the humans, and taller than the elf- we'll put it down to sub-species variation!

old school wood elf

had a spare half hour so I dived into the ice cream tub of shonky old 25mm lead from decades of yore and fished out this chap to paint. I've no idea who he is or who made or him or when, but he'll do very nicely as an elven archer for my collection of shiny lads for old school RPGing and skirmishing.

Micro-KoW progress

Have added a bit more to the 10mm Kings of War army. Nearly at 1000 points, which is the minimum required for a decent game I think.

Minifigs Knight Hospitaller

one of those old Minifigs knights, dehorned, re-lanced and repainted. I wasn't too precious about the freehand- I think a certain quickness about the whole thing is better when painting in this simple style, or you risk it looking overcooked. Or perhaps i'm overthinking it, as is my wont! I have to say I think this horse is one of the finest sculpts I can think of - I love it!