King Alrik and shieldbearers

King Alrik is another very nice dwarf miniature. This was my first real challenge with pinning, but it was nessessary because the fit of the hands were not too good. Also, the shield is quite heavy, so to be able to keep it all togheter pinning was needed.

I decided to keep the King separate from the shieldbearers, as it would make it a lot easier to transport the mini around for games and stuff. It might cause me a little concern when it comes to moving the mini on the table, but for display purposes it doesn't matter.

Some pictures promised long ago

Long time ago I promised to post pictures of lots of my minis. Now is the time to honor those promises. I don't think I can post everything today, as some pics need to be taken or re-taken, but lets start off...

Here are some dwarf miners. This is the most detailed boxed set I have built so far, with all the spare parts and extra stuff. The grudge ponies need to get new photos taken, so they will come later (promise!). There are two things left to do with this unit. 1: Find a battle mark for the banner and the banners for my other dwarf units. 2: Find a way to paint the horn to give it a good depth-effect.

The guards have risen...

I couldn't keep my hands off yet another army as I mentioned in the last update, and the Imperial Guards are on the move in my workshop. Originally my idea was to have a very small army using one or two Valkyries supporting my 2nd Ultras, but as I talked with what I assume is experienced players on the Warhammer Forum, it seems like this might not be such a good idea in the newest edition of codexes. Still I plan for the two armies to fight side by side from time to time, as it is a good concept for games of Appocalypse (but I am a long way away from having an army for that at the moment).
The first 5 guards are standing in attention on my workdesk, waiting to get based and get their unit insignia painted on. The insignia painting depends a little on how my success is with painting insignia on to my 2nd Ultras Space Marine force. I plan to make it quite simple so I don't think it will give me too much trouble. For the Guards I am thinking of using a unit number on one shoulderpatch and perhaps a unit insigina on the other. I will check a little bit to see what other IG-players have done with their troops as I don't want my units to disobey some unwritten rules of the game.
The fluff is far from finished on my Guard army, but what I know so far is that they are mostly based on Cadian figures (some exceptions for variation ofcourse), and that their uniform colors are grey and black. Dark grey pants, light grey jackets / coats and black boots, black armour and black helmets. Their lasguns are black and silver, and the insignia of the all-mighty Emperor is shining silver on their armour and banners.
The way I'm thinking now is that they might be the Royal 101st something-something Guards (something-something will ofcourse be replayced by a real name), and I will either paint 101 on one shoulder guard and a unit insignia (like a simple crown or something) on the other, or they will have unit numbers on one of their shoulders and 101 or a sign on the other. The tanks and transports will have the full insignia no matter what I decide for the troopers.

I plan to include some of the special characters from the codex, but since I have my own army I intend to give them new names. One of these will be Sergant Harker who will be renamed Gunny Highway (Gunnery Sergeant Highway) in recognition of Clint Eastwods character from the movie Heartbreak Ridge. Also I'm thinking of a Colonel Hogan and an Ogryn Bone'ead named Schultz (both from Hogan's Heroes). Lt. Fuzz (from Beetle Bailey) is already standing on my worktable getting combat ready, and the Ogryns Dawg and Mootch (former Beetle Bailey side characters) are laying in pieces as I haven't gotten my glue to bite on their giant bodies yet.
I will not name the individual troopers as it looks now, but I might name some if they stand out for some reason.

The entire army so far is restricted to 5 regular troopers with lasguns (painted), a 6 man Command squad (in painting) and 3 ogryns (one bone'ead) (still in pieces waiting to get assembled and primed). On the shelves I have two units of Cadian Shock Troops, yet another command squad (5 men), one box of 3 heavy weapon teams, and a Valkyrie. So it will take some time before this army is ready to see action on their own.

Back to everyday life...

My mother passed away a month ago, and life is slowly returning to normal (or as normal as it can be after something like that). 

Among the christmas preparations I am finding a little time to spend in my workshop again. Slowly the big group of Space Marines are taking steps towards being operative units in the 2nd Ultras. I have decided to go for the regular Ultramarine "patch" on them, but some tests done on previous Marines have showed that using watermarks is a bad idea (at least for me), so I have decided to paint the logo on to the shoulders of the Marines. I will try this for the first time one of the first days, and the result will be shown here when I feel it looks ok. I fear that a few troops will have a heavy blue coating on their shouldergards from where I've had the need to paint over bad U's. But that is some of the charm of the hobby. I am not now, and I will never be as good as some of the painters I see in White Dwarf Magazine or on the Warhammer Forum, but I feel that I paint well enough for tabletop quality, and I have been given credit for being accurate and good choise of colors (for my Space Marine army). 

I will try to to put together a fighting list of Space Marines from the minis I have finished and still have on my shelves, so that I can start to go a few friendly rounds at my local Games Workshop Store in the new year that is closing in on us. 

I also have an Imperial Guard army now, that has seen the light this autumn. So far 5 regular troopers are standing on my work table waiting to get their basing and unit markings done. As with the Space Marines I will go for hand painted markings, but I think it will be mostly unit numbers painted on to one shoulder guard. Perhaps a very simple logo on the other shoulderguard some time in the future, time will show...