More progress - COS #6

I have done some more building and painting this weekend, but not  much as I had originally planned to do.

I have finished assembling the last unit of Bretonnian Men-at-arms (except for the shield arms that will be glued on after painting). And with that I have finished all the Bretonnian units. I still have a couple characters left though (the Green Knight and some ladies). 

I have also done some priming, so now I have lots of units to paint up. I have started on some figures to get an idea of how I want my color scheme to be, and have landed on most colors I think.
All pants will be Morghast Bone as I think I have mentioned before. Then the tunics and hats will be Caliban Green. I was considering making the hats another color but I think matching hat and tunics makes sense. 

After visiting Warhammer Oslo on Saturday to get my last mail order with more troops for the army I got a tip on how I could paint the feathers. They will be painted Celestra Gray first, and then Ulthuan Gray. Thet way they will get a slightly blue/grey color instead og being white, as I would not be happy with all white fethers. Then the officers will have the quite bright blue Caledor Sky on parts of their feathers to show rank. And the rule is the higher rank, the more blue it will be.

I have also decided atfer talking colors in store that the brigandines of the Bretonnian forces for the most part will be painted Khorne Red. There might be a few variations if it looks more like they are wearing other kinds of a garment though.

Three of the Knights have gotten their colors now. I have one red, one Caliban Green and one light purple. I will come back to the names of the colors of red (used contrast pints) and purple when I have chosen colors for more of the knights.  

With the archers there are some barricades made of stakes and chain that come in the boxes, and today I have figured out how to assemble them, so I made one base up, and for my next sitting (hopefully tomorrow afternoon) I will make the remaining seven. I will place some clusters of arrows ranomly on the bases, and also "pauldrons" of hot coal (to make flaming arrows) and some chopping blocks with axes on to look like they have been used to make the barricades. 

I have also made a little more progress on my first Steamtank.So now the back part is done, and I will start on the front next time I build on it.  

Another weekend is almost over - COS #5

As this weekend is comming to an end I think it is time for another Cities of Sigmar update.

This weekend I have managed to assemble two new units. The second (and last) unit of Bretonnian bowmen, and the first of two units of Bretonnian Men-at-arms. I hope to ssemble the second and last unit of Men-at-arms on Monday or Tuesday. 

I can not complete the Men-at-arms because if I glue the shield-arm to them, then it will be impossible to paint half the front of their body. So I will prime the shield separtely and glue it on when painted. 

small archer painting update COS #4b

 I just learned that was I thought was a protective leather coat probably isn't. It is actually something called a Brigandine ans this is many small metal plates studded together against a cloth to hold it together. This means if something is broken, one can change out just the damaged little plate instead of an entire chestplate. So it is much easier to repair and also much easier and cheaper to produce.

Also the Brigantine gives you a lot more mobility and flexes more than the full plated armor (chastplate). So it is much easier to wear that when you use your arms extensively like you would do as an archer.

And one more thing, being metal plates studded through fabric, it means you can have it in almost any color you would like, as you dye the cloth to the color you want just like regular clothing.

What does this mean? Well, it means I will not be painting this in leather, so I will see that I can come up with. Perhaps the archers will have the green tunics with a blue Brigantine outside? Or maybe I will use a variety of colors making the two units look different. I will start to think about it and see what I can come up with. I need to prime the models first before I can paint them anyway...

A new unit is built, and painting has started - COS #4

 After almost two weeks there has been more progress on the Cities of Sigmar army.

I started to build a Steamtank, but then decided I needed to see how the Bretonnian units look so I could start to plan how to paint them. So I assembled a unit of Bretonnian peasant bowmen. This unit was rather static, as 12 of the figures were monopose archers, but the remaining 4 could be assembled with the arm I wanted to use. They all needed to get their heads glued on though, and there were several extra heads in the box to choose from. One of the characters looks like a warrior monk, and I made him the standard bearer as I think he can't use sharp weapons as part of his religion. Since the unit is archers they don't want a big banner flying over them that can get in the way of the archers shooting arrows where needed, so he is carrying a little shrine on a short pole instead. For the second unit there is a bird-like figurine to use on the banner pole, so I plan to use that. Then for the two units I have of old Bretonnian men-at-arms (don't remember the exact name on the box) I plan to use the big banners. I might also use the spare banners for some of my Freeguild units as the banners look great and it will both unify the army and make them stand out a little from other peoples Freeguild units. I will have to see how the arm connect to the shoulders though, as there are some differences from set to set here.

I decided to try my paint scheme to see how it would look so I started to paint one of the Greatsword soldiers. For the pants I used a color called Morghast Bone, this is a base color so it covers very well with one coat over a light primer. I think that color looked great, and I am exited to see how it will look after I give them a careful wash of Agrax Earthshade and then I will see if I need to layer up or if it will be okay with just a drybrush.

I painted his tunic Caliban Green as I like the contrast of light and dark. Also I know that both these chosen colors will look good together with the brown I will use for leather, and I can use a pink or a purple to give color to some of the feathers in their hats to separate rank-and-file from officers. The idea with the feathers is that all troops have light colored feathers (Same color I plan to drybrush the pants with) and then officers will either have parts of the feather in pink or purple or depending on their rank the entire feather (or some of them if they have more than one). 

The archers seem to have a proetctive coat of some sort on top of their long tunics, so that will probably be painted leather. To get some color variation I was thinking of painting the tunics dark blue for the Bretonnian units. Since they look a little different when it comes to armament they might as well look a little different in uniform as well, and then I will say they are from another area than the Freeguild units but they are all fighting as part of the same army. But to make the units look more unified, I plan to use the same color pants on all units. I was originally planning a more Swedish look with dark yellow and dark blue, but at least for now I am so happy with the color of the pants that I think I will use that for all troops.

I have also started to paint the general on foot and his standard bearer, so far they have gotten the pants painted, and the general has a light green cape that will match his Caliban green tunic. I wanted to check how a red contrast paint would look, so I painted the bardings on a knight horse red (Sir Phineas the Fortunate), the dragon on top of hi helmet and also the tunic of one of the wizards. I also decided on what color to use for the horns of the knight that has antlers on his helmet (Sir Samuel the Huntmaster, although his name and title might change), and here I have used the same contrast paint I use over the metal parts of my Necrons. I also think I will use that color on all the longbows, as it looks rather nice.

Status update after another week - COS #3

Another week comes to an end, so I thought it could be fitting to place a foot in the ground and see where I stand so far for this year.

I have not painted any minis yet, but I have built and primed a Great Unclean One for my Chaos forces, and I plan to start painting him in the near future. I will look at some Youtube videos first to see how people who know how to paint do it to get that nurgly and unclean skin. But I do have a general idea on how I want to do it.

For my Cities of Sigmar army I have finished building what I can on my knights. I have 8 Bretonnian Knights, 7 with lances and 1 with a banner assembled and ready for priming, and I also have 1 separate Knight Errant from a blister that I have given the trumpet to be the unit musician since he is the youngest of the knights. I have not attatched their shields yet as they will block off painting half of their bodies. So I plan to prime them separately and glue them on later in the process. I will also glue the knights to their mounts later in the process, so that I can paint knights and horses as good as possible. They will be joined by 1 more Knight who will be the leader, and that is the finecast model of The Green Knight, that will be the Black Knight in my army. He is a finecast model, but I have bought some more superglue now, so I am ready to assemble him next time I sit down with my minis.

I have also almost completed the assembly of a box of 2 battle wizards. The only thing that is missing is glueing the tip of the staff to their staffs and one of them is missing a hand.
Today these wizards comes in a box of 4 instead of 2 different boxes of 2.  But with so many extra parts in the box that came with 2 wizards there should not be any problem making 6 different wizards so I m thinking on getting a box of 4 at a later time.

I plan to build one unit of former Bretonnians then one unit of former Empire (that is now the current Cities of Sigmar range) and will more or less do that until all the Bretonnian units are built. When the Bretonnians are done I might start up again with my dwarfs.

The comming weekend I hope I can prime what I have assembled so far. If the weather permits I'll prime on Saturday and start to paint on Sunday. I still need to deside on the colorscheme for the army. I know I will use dark green and cream, but I am not sure if all the human units will be painted that way or if I will bring in a second or maybe even a third colorscheme for some of the units. I guess it depends on how good the green and creme looks...
The knights will be painted in separate colors and they will be bright. To tie them in to the rest of the army I plan to paint the shields on the horses barding in cream. 
The duardins will continue to be painted in the colors I have used so far, and that is green, blue and some brown.

One more unit assembled, COS#2

Like I wrote yesterday I have two boxes of the Empire General box. Yesterday I posted pictures of the General and his Standard bearer on foot, and today I finished gluing together the General and his Standard bearer on horseback. Because they were on horseback, I used the short banner pole that was provided in the set, and glued that to a pretty solid statue (well more likely it is the remains of a hero or an enemy). In his other hand the Standard bearer holds a big sword. I was planning to give him a handgun, but the only guns I had available was for the right hand, same as the standard, so I ended up with the sword. It's the same that my General on foot uses, but they will not be standing close to each other on the battlefield, so I don't think anyone will take notice. And if they do they probably will not have a reaction to it, as it is basically just a big sword. 
The General on horseback got a lance and a shield, and on the shield a bird has landed. I have crows or ravens on all my Sons of Behemat models, so maybe there can be some Sons of Behemat mercenaries in the army if the enemy is right. I love that idea, as it would give me yet another reason to finish that army.

I have also started assembling my first unit from the old Bretonnian range, the only box I have of knights. I would love to find more knights, but they are super expensive so I can't afford it unless I find someone who sells them dirt cheap.

I also have a knight errant blister, so I would like to build him so that he can be the standard bearer and the remaining eight knights can have lances and be ready to attack the enemies. I will see how this will look as soon as I get some superglue to glue the knight errant together as he is a metal mini. I probably need to replace his lance holding hand anyway as the metal lance is so bent I think it might break if I try to bend it back, and it also the arm looks very thin compared to the plastic arms.

I have glued all the horses together today, and tomorrow I plan to glue the plastic knights together as much as possible. I will not glue the knights to the hoses though, as I will prime and paint first to get the best result, and then just a drop or two of glue on their behinds to get them stuck to the saddle once painting is done.

I was trying to find a way to make one of the knights stand out as the leader, but then it hit me that I think I have one more knight, The Green Knight, and if so he will be a natural leader for the unit. I will look into this when I sit down to assemble plastic knights later today.

The first two units for my Cities of Sigmar army is assembled - COS #1

I've had a nice time this weekend putting together the first two units for my "New Year, New Army"-project, the Cities of Sigmar. The original plan was to build one, but as they needed a little time for the glue to set, I started on a second one as that happened.

The first unit is a unit of Freeguild Greatswords, they can be assembled with either straight or "special" sowrds, so I decided not to mix the different kind of swords, but to make different units instead. I have no idea how big the units should be, as the rulebook say that he unit has any number of models. So I am thinking that the units should be at least 20 strong, but I'll start with 10 and expand them after asking advice from the staff at Games Workshop.

I have not decided on what to do with names for the minis yet, but I am thinking that I need to name all the units, and then at least the command units and chracters. 

The pictures are not the best as the models are all gray, but I will take more detailed pictures showing off the different units as the project goes forward.

The first unit was made with the normal looking swords, and I gave them a captain/champion, a banner bearer and a musician. In this picture they are in the back row, as they were the first I asembled.

The second unit I made today was one of my Generals and his banner bearer. This set can be assembled with one model on horseback and one on foot so since I had two boxes I decided that both the General and the Banner Bearer will be either on foot or on hoseback. And this unit is the one on foot. This set is the old Empire General set, and is no longer in production.

The General is built strait from the box with a big sword ad a pistol. I thought his face looked a bit ike a young Clint Eastwood, so I named him General Clint Easterwood. You can't see it on the picture, but he has a cape too. I have not placed him on the base as I would like to be able to paint his back as well as the inside of the cape to a good standard and I think having him on the base will complicate that.

The trusted Standard Bearer is a mix of sets. The arms are from the Freeguild Greatswords set, and from that set I also took a sword in a tabbard and glued to his waist. The standard itself is from the general box, but there it is attached to a lance by the ribbon, but I decided it would look better if the standard was attatched to the figure, so I used my drill and made a hole to fit the banner pole into.

I also started to assemble the horses, nd one of the challenges here is that the old square cavalrybases had slots in them, but the new oval bases GW have upgraded to doesn't. That mean I have to cut slots in the bases to fit the horses. But the result is quite nice though.

 

I am not sure if I will do the same for my Knights as it seems those horses might have all four feet on the ground, so then it might be just as easy to just cut the "skis" off and glue them directly to the new bases. I will verify that all horses are made the same way before making the final decision.

I have also started to assemble the riders for the horses, but I will have to make them in two or three sittings, as there are so many parts that need to dry before I can attach the next.