After months of nothing, some Miniatures.

This blog was always going to be a bit irregular, basically being a random collection of my thoughts on gaming. Sadly I haven't had much time for the blog lately with the very little time I have for my hobby being spent on, well, my hobby. However I did have a burst of energy last night which might be the beginning of doing more.

I managed to finish three models last night. As with all of my painting, none of them are particularly well done, but do show my rough style which keeps me happy and reflects my rough personality and what I want to get out of my hobby. Namely relaxed, a bit loose but with personality.

The first one is two reaper models. One designed by Tim Prow and sold as a dark cleric, the other one a variation on the traditional overloaded adventurer also sold by Reaper.

I painted the model as an Amethyst wizard for Warhammer, if I bother using colour magic rules.  Personally I find it hard to imagine the 'dark cleric' being used for anything else and I get the feeling Tim Prow always had Warhammer in mind when he did the original sculpt. I added the overladen adventurer behind as faithful retainer, possible apprentice. This means that the mode would be wrongly based for the playing strictly by the rules and could not be used in competitive games.

But as I don't care for that kind of thing and narrative is more important, I think it adds a lot to the model, including difficulty to paint due to the retainers detail. Basically in Warhammer, unless your using it for a small skirmish, a model represents between ten and twenty five actual people in my mind. Characters have their retinue with them. Wizards in particular are the most powerful of their type, way above the majority of wizards you would ever meet or play in the roleplaying version. I imagine they have a big group of staff, apprentices, juniors and bodyguards with them when they go into battle. I can also imagine really powerful dark wizards needing none of this who can easily take on twenty five heavily armed Orcs with enhancement spells that you don't need to show in the rules, in which case one model is one model. The important thing is remembering a model is simply showing the presence of  something, not literally representing the person (skirmish gaming, such as how 40K was intended,  of course, is slightly different as is some smaller scale gaming).

This is aimed at visually alluding to this. It doesn't take too much work with a friendly opponent to work out a couple of house rules to allow you to work round different base sizes. WFB second edition even had suggestions for this different basing and it adds to the narrative by giving the characters presence in my opinion.

The next models I painted are from Foundry's swashbuckling range. These were aimed at either small skirmish games or adding character to my empire army, perhaps to represent particular objectives on the table or to become part of an Empire baggage train. I painted them very quickly and both look heroic without adopting the over the top look of that scale. They also reflect my approach to gaming, trying not to just represent heroes but believable narrative and fit in with the Warhammer world of WFRP first edition rather than that of later editions that lead to Age of Sigmar.

The earlier Warhammer World of WFRP First Edition and the pre-seventh edition was something that was more akin to a setting where youn played out your narratives and something that I aim to get back to. As such, I will show in future posts how I see this world and plan to develop my armies in it in the future games I play. After all, thirty years on the slow creep of doom presented in The Enemy Within carries more possibility and excitement than any sudden apocalypse caused by an over sized, over priced model called Nagash. I hope to devote the next few posts to show how I am developing that world and narrative with my gaming.