Tag Archives: Games Workshop

Bretonnian Mounted Men at Arms / Brotherhood Villein Initiates

Once again I have no idea what the hell a Villein Initiate is but I am hoping that they are the same as my Bretonnian Mounted Men at Arms. This is a Kings of War Regiment. The figures are old 5th Edition/6th Edition Mounted Squires. I added a few standards and the odd head swap with plastic Men-at-Arms miniatures.

I got these figures years ago in an internet trade. I am pretty sure I paid $20 for the lot (plus postage) which was about one tenth the cost of the same figures new in New Zealand at the time.  I think the days of deals like that are long gone unfortunately.

 

Bretonnian Battle Standard Bearer – or some other thingie in Kings of War.

Now that I have got a couple of thousand points of Orcs ready for Kings of War I am moving on to my Bretonnians who will become Kingdoms of Men or Brotherhood or something.  Most of my stuff is pretty much good to go as it has not lived for ten years in a box but was actually shelved and looked after. I have to paint some Pegasus Knights and some more Grail Pilgrims to use as their Kings of War equivalents.

I did find this fan made list which I like for a direct Bretonnian Warhammer Fantasy to Kings of War crossover.  I will probably use it for friendly games at home but will use one of the more official armies (Basiliean or Brotherhood or whatever) if I ever go to a tournament.

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I am pretty sure that I got this miniature from the Bretonnian Army Box that was available for a while when the Bretonnians were revamped for 6th Edition back in 2004. He is the Limited Edition Bretonnian Army Standard Bearer.  It is another chronically unbalanced miniature. A plastic horse with a metal rider and a stonking great metal standard that shifts the centre of gravity of the model up so high that on anything other than a dead flat surface it keels over. To that end he fell over in my last game with him and toppled off the table and fell apart on hitting the floor. I had to do a bit of gluing and touching up but here he is – back in one piece.

I like to paint my Bretonnians with simple block colours. The heraldry on the barding is from a sheet of water slide decals I got off a guy in the States who knocked them out himself. I am not sure he operated any more but he was known as Imperial Forge.

Grimgor’s Wheels (aka Krudger on Gore Chariot)

OK, so I had acquired this painted Grimgor Ironhide miniature way back in time. I had an unpainted Orc chariot. Now Grimgor has some wheels. I have a driver figure but there was no room for him. Was going to mount him standing on the yoke but it made it look cluttered – so an orcling is along for the ride instead.  Grimgor needed a few touch ups to fix paint chips received after twelve years living in a box with other miniatures but other than that all I did was hack the slotta base tab off the bottom to glue him into the chariot.

In Warhammer Fantasy Grimgor is a killer character figure. He had attacks out the wahzoo, magic items galore and came with a big unit of Black Orcs that made him one tough nut. So tough that when GW destroyed the Warhammer Fantasy milieu I think he was one of the only characters to survive or something. I guess they had a lot of un-sold Grimgor’s in metal and resin and didn’t want to melt them down. Who knows.

In Kings of War he has been relegated to a generic Orc krudger. Why Mantic decided to use that term I have no idea, other than perhaps Games Workshop had copyrighted “Boss” and “Orc” in the same sentence. “Chieftan” would have done it for me. But Krudger he is.

As far as game stats go he is no slouch in Kings of War either. Hits on 3s, is wounded on 5s and has seven attacks. His Crushing Strength (2) means he beats down most armour. Coupled with his Thunderous Charge (2), unless I am reading the rules wrong he gets +4 on his dice roll to wound (assuming he charges and said charge is unhindered). He can be upgraded with the usual KoW magic items and also take a Goblin Stabby Sneak (effectively a Goblin assassin who is ranged like a throwing weapon and has a 50/50 chance of returning to be used in subsequent  turns) or a Goblin Zappy Sneak (a Goblin magician who obeys orders on anything but a 1  – if you roll a 1 he attacks you instead – who uses the Zap(2) special rule  to potentially zap a few extra wounds onto your enemy).

Of course he also has the special rule Inspiring so he can force your opponent to re-roll a failed Nerve test for one of your units if the Krudger is within 6″.

Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts Special
    (1) 7 3+ 5+ 7 14/16 185 Hero (LrgCav), Base Size: (50x100mm), Crushing Strength (2), Inspiring, Thunderous Charge (2) Add

I have always liked the GW Grimgor miniature and thought this was a good use for the second hand one I had. I do have another version that my son and I painted together back when he was about eight but he will be the subject of another post.

Snotlings/Orclings

A long long time ago in a galaxy far away you used to be able to field Snotling armies in Warhammer. I never actually saw one but thought the idea was cute so started assembling a collection of Snotlings. Of course they sat boxed and in the case of the pump wagon, in pieces. I think I have one of the older Pump Wagons as well as another of the newer ones as well – I just couldn’t find them.

I have based these for Kings of War where they do duty as Orclings – a close relative of Snotlings but they branched off the orcish family tree when they cross-bred with an IP Lawyer.

First off a “regiment” sized unit – six 40mm square bases. All I did with these was black undercoat, a goblin green dry brush and some green ink – then picked out weapons and loin cloths. Didn’t bother with eyes or such.

The pictures were taken on the kitchen table because it was too damn cold to go over to the Woolshed with them. At least it wasn’t raining.

This “regiment” is based on a single base using an old GW Pump Wagon as a unit filler.

And the two “regiments” together.

Trolling for clicks

OK – I have been accused of being an internet troll. This time those detractors are right. Three Games Workshop Stone Trolls. These guy s were heavily chipped and required some touch up paint. Other than that I just slopped some washes on and redid the bases and made a movement tray for them. Happy with how these guys turned out.

 

I am hoping that someone can tell me what manufacturer made this figure. He seems a bit different to my Warhammer Stone Trolls so I am assuming he is not a GW figure. The tab has been filed clean so there are no identifying marks.

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Heavy Metal Orcs

These are the first two regiments of Black Orcs that I have based on ‘regimental bases’. I titled this post Heavy Metal Orcs – and there is a good reason. Each of these bases weighs 400g. That is 800g for a 20 figure regiment. The figures are mounted ten to a base. I made the bases 125mm wide and 60mm deep. The extra 10mm depth allows a bit of leeway with ranking these rather bulky figures up.

These are part of a second hand lot I brought about twelve years ago, give or take.

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Classic individually based orcs.

These figures have not been repainted or touched up – just re-based. I am still pretty happy how they have turned out. Way better than twenty individually based miniatures.

 

Unpacking Orcs

At least twelve years ago I brought a whole pile of GW orcs and goblins second hand off the internet with the intention of making an Orc and Goblin Army for Warhammer. Well…like so many projects that kind of slipped. I painted one unit (some Boar Boyz) with my young son and then his interest sort of waned so they went into boxes and never saw the light of day – until this week. I decided that I would begin the task of refurbishing the horde. I am pretty sure that I never brought anything for this army new. It was all second hand. I got a fantastic deal on metal Black Orcs – and have nearly a hundred of them. All up I doubt I spent more than a few hundred dollars on this lot.  But a deal is no good if it is sitting in a box never seeing the tabletop or a lick of paint.

I am planning on rebasing the Orc infantry onto stands with four or six orcs per base. All the metals are slottas so I may see my mate at Dopey Dog Laser Engraving to see if he can make me some mdf bases with slots.  Will still be usable for Oldhammer or even Kings of War – and make moving these large units a lot easier.

First refurb is the Boar Boy unit. They need some touch ups and the bases are currently plain green – so some basing will be required. Then I might finish the Giant pushing the Idol of Gork (in the pics below). The giant is one of the Albion Giant miniatures with hands and arms repositioned.

 

GW/Front Rank Size comparison.

I was asked to do a post showing size comparison between Front Rank 100YW Archers and Games Workshop Bretonnians. I have no unpainted figures so cannot compare raw metal/plastic so have to show painted versions. On the whole I think they work together very well.  I can say that GW and Front Rank horses do not mix. GW horse – all plastic at 5th/6th Edition – are big. Front Rank riders can fit on GW horses (see this post showing Front Rank cavalry mounted on GW barded horses).

 

Heavy Metal: 40K Terminators

Now first off – I did not paint these miniatures. I brought them at a convention bring-and-buy I am guessing ten or more years ago. I have never played W40K but took an instant like to these. I got pretty much a whole playable army (I am guessing) that is almost all in metal figures for the cost of perhaps two squads at current Games Workshop prices for plastics. I am talking about three full ten man squads of infantry, a landspeeder, a couple of vehicles and a bike squad, the terminator squad and some specialist figures (librarians and such like).  I have added a few new units – a battle trike and a tech marine/servitors.

I particularly liked the decals used – and have never found out where they are from or who made them. If I did I might expand this army and start playing a few games.   If any New Zealand readers know who painted these, and could point me to where the decals came from I would appreciate it.

 

Bretonnian Grail Pilgrims

One of my favourite units in the Bretonnian army of Warhammer 6th through 8th editions (not that the unit changed in those revisions) are the Grail Pilgrims.   These guys lug a relic – in this case the deceased body of a dead Grail Knight and his steed about with them, and adorn themselves in relics of the dead knight – pieces of clothing, armour, surcoats and horse furniture.  Also, for some strange reason they often carry their kite and heater shields upside down.  They are the soccer fans/groupies of the fair land of Bretonnia. Just a shame the Orks already have a copyright on the  ‘Ere we go’ chant.

The sculpts for these were the best foot figures in the entire Bretonnian range that came out way back in 2004 – a range that never saw a new figure from that time until the end of the world.

One thing about them that stands out is that for guys straggling alongside outside for years on end, they are remarkably well fed. Most of them are packing some serious insulation against those cold nights in the Bretonnian Alps.

I have acquired another couple of dozen of these guys second hand so plan to expand this unit out to 40 figures for a Horde sized unit for Kings of War.

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The central figure here is an Empire figure I think, slightly modified.
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This is another Empire figure, with the addition of a plastic Bretonnian jester head from the Archer set.

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