The Yhetee Refurbishment Plan (Part 1)

 Can you get more seasonal than a ...snowman? 

While digging around in my fantasy bitz bin*,  I stumbled upon the icy club that I hacked off of an Ogre Kingdoms Yhetee miniature way back in the late oughties. This provoked a desire to find the rest of the miniature. After a bit of searching I found him inside the old box for the original metal Norse Blood Bowl team. At the time, Blood Bowl was out of print and the rules were being kept alive on one of GW's Specialist/Fanatic websites as a 'Living Rules' edition. Warfrog and I had started a BB league with our D&D group at the time and we had a day or two of games and for whatever reason now lost in time, we just didn't pick it back up. The rules at the time had a Yhetee option (Ice Troll specifically) for the Norse and I just had to model it up. l located a Yhetee model locally (they were sold in blisters for semi-sane prices back then). I picked this guy because that out stretched arm gave the impression that perhaps he was trying to intercept a flying ball. 

All bitz found and ready for reassembly.

This particular miniature has an extreme lean, which wasn't a problem on the 40mm square base he was packaged with, but on a 25mm round, that tbe Blood Bowl game was requiring in that edition, I just couldn't get the thing to balance.  So I had to use a 25mm square base with weights glued into the bottom of it (see top pic).  It wasn't a perfect fix but it helped a lot.

25mm square.

And that's as far as we got with the whole project and I haven't played BB since! Now, in the present, I want to restore this guy for use in The Old World game. I have a small assortment of Ogre Kingdoms models that I might be able to cobble together into a small army. The problem is that I need two more of these models to meet their minimum Unit Size. 

Expanded base. 

Meanwhile I have gone forward with updating this fellow to The Old World. I simply glued him onto a 40mm base; He was just too well attached to the 25mm one. Using my trusty old pinvise, I drilled and pinned the weapon back onto his hand.. Then I used green-stuff to distort the edges of the 25mm base. I added a few rocks and skulls also.  I am contemplating adding some snow to it's base to help sell the notion that this guy is from the Mountains of Mourn. But I won't make a decision on that until well after these things are painted. 

Expanded base with decor.

I added some grit and skulls and now he is ready to be primed. I also added three more Yhetees (I won them  in a sweet deal off of ebay!) Which now gives me a unit of four. These guys didn't require nearly the amount of work the first one did, so they too are now ready to be primed. I just need a warm day to make it happen. 

Don't lose your heads guys. 

*It isn't nearly as awesome as you might've  just imagined. 

Brettonian Pegaduke (Part 1)

 ...or is he a Dukeasus? Either way, it's a Duke on a Pegasus. And he is an awesome figure indeed. 

Duke Needs a name.

I got him during my last trip to Knoxville when I stopped by CM Games in Cedar Bluff who were having a 50% off sale on their used Warhammer miniatures. This miniature was in good shape and was completely unpainted,  so dropping $25 for this guy wasn't a bad deal at all. By the way,, this was the same sale that I bought the Cygor at as well. 

And he also looks good on a car dashboard. 

Afrer getting him home I added grit to the base as well as a beastman skull, then I primed it. I then used Skeleton Horde on the Pegasus' hooves and the beastman skull. But that that's the extent of the progress I ha e made on this thing thus far. To be honest, I just can't settle on a paint  scheme (although I think I know which direction I am leaning towards...). But I am still undecided so I am going to mull over this a bit longer. 

Primed.

Little Big Guns Never Tire (Part 2)

Big bada_boom! - but with five barrels blasting off simultaneously. 

"Let 'em get a bit closer..."

Yes,  a classic Organ Gun from the early 1990s. I prefer this version over the plastic kit.  Even though it is mostly wooden versus the current solid metal style.  It just has more character and has a cool feel to it. Also, unlike the cannons, I  felt that I could paint the the wooden areas to match the army's color. 

Painted wood. 

I like it like the,, but I thought it needed something more. While digging around in one of my old catalogs the (2004-2005 to be specific) I was thrilled and inspired upon spotting this picture: 

Hats off for Colin Dixon!

It's Colin Dixon's version of this classic Organ Gun with a banner top added to the front of it. And it just so happened I had that piece as well. I just had to copy this simple conversion. Also, hats off to Mr. Dixon for basing his war machine way back then. I always thought the war machines looked better on bases and I was glad to see The Old World game* move forward with this. 

Banner top added with copper basecoat.

I also like the gold trim he used as well, and decided that the warm copper/gold color looks more striking than the cold color of the pewter/silver. 

These next two pictures show one of the crew half-way through with being painted. In particular I wanted to show off the Wyldwood Contrast Paint on the barrel. It looks great and I don't think i will ever go back to...whatever I was doing to get a worked wood effect before. Wyldwood wins it!

Once I was done with the artillery piece, I enhanced the gun barrels using Abaddon Black. 

After this came the grass tufts to finish the whole thing off. 

Backsides. 

Yes, I do like how this turned out. The crewman waiving the helm around has a stripped outfit but everything I attempted to paint those stripes I hated the results. So ultimately I just kept his outfit a single color. 

And that's it really. Now I just need to get this thing into action! 

"Cheerio!"

 

Big Black Orc Warboss

 

Oh yeah, "ezah big 'un!" I wanted a Warboss on foot to join my Black Orcs. To lead Black Orcs you gotta be da biggest and badest. Enter  Bazdogg Nekk-Choppa*, the commemorative release Orruk miniature released for AOS.  He is perfectly suited for this role, and, just barely, fits on a 30mm base. 

Primed +.

Once primed I set about painting him using Contrast Paints. It's important to note that I haven't glued on his head so that I could paint his tongue and mouth more easily. 

The first few Contrast Paints applied.

Black Templar Contrast Paint was washed all over the metals and flesh. 

Battle-Ready!

Caliban Green was painted on the flesh. Leadbelcher was carefully painted on the giant axe  then it was given a careful wash of Cryptek Armourshade. Back to the flesh, this was painted next with Snot Green then washed with Nuln Oil.

More layers.

Next my attention returned to the suit of armor. A layer of Evil Sun Scarlet was followed by an edge highlight of Wild Rider Red. 

Wild Rider Red.

After this Stormhost Silver was used to apply chips and scrapes randomly to the up raised parts of the armor.  

Done!

After that all the boney areas were painted using Ushanti Bone, Screaming Skull, Wraithbone and a final, minimal, highlight of White Scar.

Done! (From another angle).

And that is essentially it.  There is a random grass tuft stuck on the rear part of the base, but no further vegetation was necessary due to all of the rocky debris already on it. 

That axe looks like it was torn from something much bigger.

I didn't take many pics of the those final stages but here are all of the glamor shots taken from all the different angles. 

Backside.

I can't wait to get this guy onto a gaming table and see what sort of mayhem he can cause. (If you ever read my battle reports one can assume that the odds are high that he'll be snuffed out in an anti-climatic fashion after doing one cool thing).

I can't explain the Sigmarine mask, so I won't.

But just for kicks let's see how he sizes up next to the Black Orcs I painted back in October. 

"C'mon boyz!"

And here is the full mob.  It just occurred to me that I probably need another Black Orc or two (or maybe five or six) in order to get a Rank Bonus. But for now, I am satisfied with these guys as they are. 

"Waaagh!!!"

*My model is not keeping that name. I'll come up with a name soon though.