Battlemasters Tower (Part 4)

Gotta love a lion! 

Continuing on from last time,  we have arrived to the finale stage: the banner.  Way back in Part 1 of this thread I discussed why I chose to keep the original sticker and the steps I went through to preserve it. Now, many many moons later, it is finally time to remove the Artists Tape mask from that old sticker. ..

Artist tape mask over OG sticker. 

And I was thrilled to see that, even after being on since 2019, the sticker was indeed protected by the Artist Tape mask and nor was it damaged by it during removal. 

Mask removed, old sticker revealed.

Finding a perfect color match for a 32 year old printed glossy sticker was going to be a challenge, but I turned to my trusty old range Citadel paints for the answer. I decided to give Ruby Red a go. And I must say, it's a damn close match! I'm just glad it's not the yellow I was trying to match, that would've been a hard challenge for sure! 

Ruby Red added. 

Next, I used a modern GW paint, Retributor Armour, the tassels and trimming accents of the banner.  When took this pic I was unsure about that top bit, but clearly it needs to be gold also.

Retributor Gold applied. 

Having fixed that oversight, I went ahead with the final highlight on the gold using a Citadel Dry paint called Sigmarite. I feel like this turned out as well a I had hoped. 

Finished. 

With that last step, this is done. And here it is zoomed out a bit. The next few pics will give a kind of 360° view of the whole tower. 

And here it is, occupied by it's new dwarf masters. Clearly some noble lost this property in a grudge restitution settlement. And that pretty red lion flag is about to become a table cloth in the drinking hall. Does anyone out there have the stones to try to take it from them? 

Anyone?

Under new management. 

Maddie's Marauder

 Both of my kids have always been fascinated by my miniatures hobby to some extent. Especially the colors of all of my various paint pots and bottles. 

So on the eve of her 3rd birthday she approached me while I was sitting at my hobby table and asked me if she could "paint a guy purple". I thought about it and almost sacrificed an old 2nd edition marine for this unique learning opportunity. But I remembered I had about 40 loose Chaos Marauder Archers from the old Battlemasters game that I won in the late '90s via an auction that was on the old WH40K Mailing List. 

Corax White basecoat. 

I brushed Corax White onto the marauder to act as a basecoat. I figured the easiest way to teach a kid this young how to paint is to use Contrast Paints. So I let her pick what colors to use on what parts and we proceeded with the lesson. 

The Bow of Red Era. 

I held her brush hand while holding the model with my left hand. And I guided her application of paint over the whole miniature. And I gotta say, this turned out better than some of the 'Paint and Take' competitions that I have participated in. I particularly love that she wanted the bow painted red as it totally screams early '90s 'eavy Metal doesn't it? 

Who doesn't love a green mohawk?

Next she picked out a rok to put on the base. (you can see it in the top pic behind the guy's left leg).  Next I helped her apply the grit to the base.  She had a lot of fun shaking the model into the cup full of grit. 

Gritty. 

Next step was to paint the base which we did in two coats.  I gave her a choice in colors for the bases rim and she chose, much to nostalgic pride, Goblin Green! 

And finally, I let Maddie pick out a grass tufts and we glued it down together. 

And that's a wrap! I think she's game to do more and since I have another 39 of these things sitting in a zip lock,  I won't be running out of them too soon.  

Battlemasters Tower (Part 3)

 Continuing from Part Two, I finally made progress on this thing by painting the doors. 

Adorable huh?

These doors were left in their original black primer for a few years now. The idea was that I would simply dry brush them in a gray and call it done. Only that once I got around to doing it I found that the gray of door kind of clashed withe the surrounding gray bricks. 

The gray on black doors. 

Well, I wasn't having that. So a wash of Agrax Earthshade mostly did the trick. I did find that the cracks between the individual door planks needed a kick in the contrast department, and more Agrax Earthshade wasn't going to do it, I needed to bring out something more potent. And that turned out to be Brown Ink from the Citadel Inks set from the '80s. The inks from that time still hold up and they were, and I'm not understanding this, very intense hues. I just used a thin blush and ran the Brown Ink down the joins and along the door edges. 2

Brown Ink in the joins. 

Gray over black. 

The hinges and door latches were all painted with the old Tin Bitz paint, then randomly painted with an old Copper craft paint. 

The studs on the doors were painted in a copper cplor as well then highlighted with Leadbelcher. I used Leadbelcher as a highlight on the hinges and latches also. 

All-in-all, I think these doors turned out pretty good. They really have an archaic vibe to them which is totally what I was going for.  But this mighty little tower isn't done yet. In part tfour I am going to paint the banner that is draped over the front crenalations. Well not the whole banner. -You'll see! 

Anyone know where I can find 25mm-28mm empty milk bottles?

Battlemasters Tower (Part 2)

Current progress level.

In Part-1 I got as far as priming this thing black. I have made considerable progress since then and, as I typically enjoy doing, I took some stage-by-stage pics of the progress.

After thoroughly priming the model in Chaos Black, I basecoated the model using Graphite craft paint.

Graphite basecoat.

I used a big brush for this stage, not only to coat it quicker but because I wanted to see the brush strokes. The brush stokes create a kind of texture that creates an illusion of fading.

Graphite basecoat on top level.

Next up was a layer of Apple Barrel Pewter Grey. This was applied to the raised bricks leaving the Graphite exposed in the recesses.

Pewter Grey level.

And the final stage on this three-stage process was a rather randomly applied lop coat of another craft paint by Apple Barrel called Country Grey.

Country Grey layer.

Along the defined edges and corners of the tower, I added a thicker layer of Country Grey to more firmly accentuate the model.

Country Grey edging.

After this I went and randomly applied a thinned Agrax Earthshade to a few few stones on each face of the tower.

One side with the random Agrax Earthshade.

Here is a view of the same face but with a better view of the stone landing at the top of the lower staircase.

From a different angle.

With that done, the next steps will be the details which are really just the door and the banner. See you here when that happens!

Battle Masters Tower (Part 1)

Greetings!

Recently the notorious Bob and I have been chatting about getting together for another WFB game. Last year we played, and although we had a lot of fun, it was obvious that our local game store is a bit lacking in fantasy themed scenery. I wanted to get a few things for this next encounter (whenever it may occur) so I scoured Ebay for some cheap (-ish) options. As luck would have it I found a guy selling a bunch of parted out Battle Masters stuff, and with that selection was a small tower fort that looks like a little keep. I have always loved that game and everything that came with it, and decided that this would make a fine addition for our Fantasy gaming.

The Battle Masters Tower.

As you can see, the thing is a simple 5 piece model, and since Battle Masters was designed to be disassembled and put back into the box once the game was finished (a novel concept, huh GW?) the tower is easily snapped and unsnapped together.  And, due to storage space reasons, I think I will keep it this way.

You might also notice from that top pic that there is a sticker for the banner. All the pieces in Battle Masters came with brightly colored banner stickers for identification during the game. In fact, when that came out (1992) GW was starting to get into a banner craze where damn near every other model in both WFB and 40K had to have at least one banner per unit. Whoever was behind that vision must have had their dream come true with this game!

Masking the banner. 

I decided to keep the sticker and attempt to paint he rest of the modelled banner to match it. Removing it would a messy, joyless task, so that also influenced my decision to keep it. To preserve the sticker I had to place artist tape over it to mask it prior to applying the primer.

 Before the prime...

Next I took it outside and sprayed on Chaos Black to prime the model.

 ...Not sure if that was a twin-photo worthy event, but I was so thrilled to have a morning without rain that I did it anyway!

...after the prime.

While that paint is curing I figure I should plot out to you readers what my intention is with this paint scheme. I plan on having it match the scheme I used on Death Castle (yes, I know I need to finish it).  But for a minute there I was tempted to try to go for a lighter limestone or flintstone look, just to be different. But I settled on a cold grey granite look instead, considering how this thing is that color already it may have imprinted on my mind over the past 25+ years that it should be grey. So, grey it shall be!

Hopefully I can get it knocked out before the month is over...

Battlemasters!!!!

The armies muster for battle...

Our Friday night Dark Hersey game was suspended due to low player turn out, so those of us that were left sought out a game that we could play that was quick, easy and fast! Glancing up on the shelf, I noticed Battlemasters, the old MB/GW game, and very soon the night would quickly become entertaining! For a more accurate accounting of what Battlemasters was, check out the wiki entry on it.

Once upon a time Games Workshop actually made an effort to focus on the games aspect of their name as well as the workshop aspect and focused on developing new games all the time, Their stores and mail order even provided a small, yet diverse selection of games for casual board gamers to tip their toe into realms of GW. Over the years this has waned tremendously so, with their main focus being Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40.000 and their tertiary support pretty much devoted too Lord of the Rings support (with a mystery box tossed onto the market every two years). But I digress. It seems some time in the late Ansel period of GW, they had a partnership with MB (Milton Bradly, maker of many games for kids of all ages) to produce and distribute games that were for the most part gateway drugs to the highly addictive plastic (and lead or pewter) crack that is WHRB and WH40K). For many people in the late '80 and early '90s these games were often the introduction to wargaming and the GW cosmologies. These games were Heroquest, Space Crusade and finally the big blow out of Battlemasters. They were decently priced (by board game standards) and easy to find. The ability to get your parents to find a copy of Heroquest at the local Toys R Us as opposed to sending them to a complicated and potentially awkward gaming store was something of a win. Why GW doesn't do something like this now still eludes me....! The above scenario is how by brother ended up with Space Crusade, Heroquest and Battlemasters for either Christmas or a birthday over the course of a few years.

Sally forth! The empire knights storm across the field!

Battlemasters is a massive set! Just huge! To date, GW has yet so make a boxed set with this many figures in it! Scoring one of these sets today would give you an instant Empire army, and a damn fine start on Orcs & Goblins and Chaos.

The game itself is quick to learn, easy to play, yet still reliant upon the player having a sense of strategy and a lucky instinct.

The calvary units clash!

 There were five of us, and we broke up into 2 teams of two while I took it upon myself to GM the game, and act as a rules ref and the card flipper. Let me explain what that means: All actions are determined by a deck of cards that lists which stands can take a turn. A turn is a move and/or and attack. Some cards might allow for additional actions (x2 movement for Gobo Wolfriders for example). It is a shockingly elegant system which eliminates a lot of the time spent on trying to move units in a certain time while also forcing the player to try to leave other models a clear path to get them where you want them to go.

There are two really wonky units: the Great Cannon and the Ogre. Each has a unique system for performing actions. The cannon is used by placing a target circle on the unit you wish to destroy, and you then shuffle additional cannon ball cards and lay them down between the cannon and the target. You flip them over an apply the effects to which ever unit ends up under an explosion or bouncing cannon ball.

BOOM! A unit of wolfriders is blasted to little green and fuzzy bits

The ogre has a really crazy deck of cards of his own, which determines what he does. You get as many cards as he has wounds, which allows him to launch into the field and hopefully pound your foes to death!

 

The Ogre and Knights fight to the death!



 I haven't played this game in about 17 years, and we had a blast! It also helped that I now have a table big enough to play it on, as before we had to play on the floor and some models are damaged from those days. We had the whole game wrapped up in just a few hours, and I am sure now that everyone knows how to play it we will get more games in down the road.

I hope you enjoyed!



Battlemaster!!!