Minis for My Girl

Two weekends ago was an anniversary with my girlfriend and, her being awesome and all, I had to make her something. My gift, continuing a theme from last year, was making her some Dr Who miniatures, this time the 11th doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond.

And the complete group for full measure. You can find close ups of Mr. Tennant and the Master by clicking here. All of the miniatures (except for the TARDIS) come from Heresy Miniatures, a real quality independent miniatures maker.

So, when special days for your loved ones come calling, have you brought your hobby skills to bear? I'm interested to hear how!

Ogre Circus: T-Giving Weekend Work

Even though I traveled up to the wilds of Superior, WI I was still able to get quite a bit of hobby work done over the weekend. Mostly it was painting these fools:

BATTLE REPORT: 1850 Tourney Prep vs Space Wolves

Another video battle report for you all. This was another battle down at the Last Square in Madison against a fellow looking for some tourney prep with his Space Wolves. Be sure to watch the after battle report for my critique on the mission.



And apologies to you text battle report lovers- no time for it this week. Have a good holiday weekend!

Happy Tanksgiving!

Since right now I'm hopefully arriving in Duluth, MN (weather permitting!) all I have time for is a Happy Tanksgiving to all of you in this US of A.

To my international subscribers (and domestic, but really, eat some turkey instead of reading a blog why dontcha!), what about our hobby are you tankful for this day?

Tournament: Merry Mayhem Prep

First, thanks are needed to both Loquacious and Brent for getting me on the HoP Top X once again! My Internet fame continues to grow... and this also probably means that I should, like, alphabetize/reorder the IG Terminology link THAT IS RIGHT ABOVE THIS POST! How cool is that?

Anyway, I digress.

As I must have mentioned previously the reason for all of the Ogre Circus craziness is to prep for a tournament going down here in Madison called Merry Mayhem. As far as I understand this tourney goes a bit more on the "silly" side, partially because its a charity tournament and partially because it's all Christmas themed.

Some examples of the holiday silliness:

• the missions. The ones that I have heard have such interesting titles as The Grinch (break into  different buildings and grab "presents"), the Isle of Misfit Toys (run around chasing the toys) and The Perfect Tree (whoever has more models within 12" of the Perfect Tree wins [Ogres and monsters count as 3])
• get a free reroll for donating a toy
• get prizes for having your wizard sucked into the warp the first, be the first to roll insane courage, etc.

So I finally got some actual practice this past Sunday... and was stomped. Not because I played poorly, but because I neglected to have any unit champions in my list which was apparently the only way to grab misfit toys. I smashed a lot of stuff but just couldn't get any points.

Fortunately  the missions are now posted so I can determine victory conditions (which often involve champs collecting tokens) so I can retool my army list, but MAN was that disturbing.

Changing my list to accomodate this development has also had the pleasant side effect of making my hobby related tasks easier to do. I'm probably going to cut the Scrappies because a) to look upon the Scraplauncher set is to look into the face of FEAR ITSELF and b) they just don't help very much with my objectives. It's not so much about smashing (except for the Perfect Tree) and more about grabbing.

So, with that in mind, here's a sketchy version of my revised list that I was helped with thanks to a kind poster on the Ogre Stronghold:

Tyrant
Slaughtermaster

BSB

6 Bulls, Champ, Bellower
3 Bulls, Champ, Bellower
3 Bulls, Champ, Bellower
6 Irongunts, Standard, Bellower
11+ Gnoblar Trappers, Champ

4 Leadbelchers, Champ, Bellower

2 Gorgers

Game plan is have the Ironguts and possibly the large Bull squad play defense, smashing into the enemy so they can't grab tokens. Meanwhile the other Bulls, the Trappers and the Leadbelchers will run around grabbing tokens wherever they can. The Gorgers come on late to either take out warmachines or delay squads from grabbing tokens.

It's probably the characters that I'm having the most trouble with. Definitely need to include Tyrant and BSB but I'm debating replacing the Slaughtermaster with two Butchers. I'm not sure if I'd even have the points to do it, but it would add a bit of flexibility to my magic phase, enabling me to deal with two far flung groups at once.

Finally, we have the To Do list for hobby, which includes:
Finish painting Gorger 1 and BSB
Paint Gorger 2
Clean and paint the Trappers
Convert, clean and paint the Leadbelchers
Create movement trays
Create a display board

I think this is doable with some work over the weekend.. either way, wish me luck!

Ogre Circus: Gorgers and Bruiser

Over the weekend I managed to convert up my BSB and a pair of Gorgers.

As you can see I have followed your demands and included the Ogre Champion as my BSB. I'm still undecided about adding some more circusy elements to him (HINT: POLL ON RIGHT). The banner is from the Minotaur kit, and I decided to fill it out a bit more with green stuff.

There were a ton of thick sprue lines on this fellow, as well as a few gaps that I had to fill with green stuff. Still, with the pin the banner seems to be staying in place fairly well.

As you can tell I rethought how I was going to do the Gorgers. Instead of Strongmen I went with the suggestion of feral beasts, locked up in cages and on display. Their bases will have broken cage elements strewn about. They are created from a mix of Minotaur body and arms and Giant head and hands.

I tried to evoke more of the feel of the traditional Gorger by sticking various horn and bone pieces on them and evoke skin stretched around them with greenstuff.

Hope you enjoyed these- there's lots more hobby work to do over the next couple of weeks, so I gotta git er done!

Ogre Circus: Ringmasta Burnam, Dressed to Kill

 Da Ringmasta Burnam of da BIGGEST SHOW on EARTH  is ready ta GET DA SHOW ON DA ROAD!

 Yes, that's right ladies and gentlemen, Ringmasta Burnam is all painted up and ready to whip some Thinlings' pants off. For my first major greenstuffing project I think he turned out pretty well, and any odd inconsistencies in his clothing I'll just put down to shoddy Ogre craftsmanship. Stupid Ogres, learn ta sew why dontcha?

 Originally his coat was just Blood Red but my girlfriend convinced me that adding a gloss shine would really help it stand out. I think it does the job well, making it seem like polished leather... though the idea of it creaking when Burnam moves around is now in my head. Euugghh...

Also, I like stripey pants, and Burnam seemed to be a good place to have some.

And, as always, since I am a magnet fiend both of his hands are removable. I don't have any replacements made up quite yet, but in the future if I want to switch him over to having a shield/ironfist and/or a great weapon I can do it.

Thanks for reading, and see you all tomorrow.