Painting Table Saturday + Alastriel + Eowyn

Alastriel the Elven Spellsword.

Painting Table Saturday #56. Finally, as a request for +Mario Morrhaye (painter of dwarves!), here is Alastriel (Reaper 02967). I've had her on the painting table for a long time... and I hope it's been worth the wait. She was blond, then a redhead and now strawberry blond.

Cloaked in green and blue with yellow Object Source Lighting from her staff, her skin was pink at first with alabaster overcoats and finally the yellow glaze on her staff-lit areas. The yellow glaze was also applied to the stepping stones. On closer inspection you may notice her eyes are brown, with blue eyeliner and ruby red lips. 

This week I'm also painting my (Lord of the Rings) Hearth Guard for SAGA. Note that Eowyn is almost finished and I broke Gamelin's sword. Gah! That was upsetting. I will do my best to fix that.

I expect to have these on the table by next PTS, depending on my workload. It's the busy end of the year, or as we say here, the 'silly season'. Christmas is coming!

More Alastriel goodness:

God bless you and have a great week!

Painting Table Saturday + SAGA + LOTR

Painting Table Saturday #55. What a week! My daughter Ella turned 9, my brother in-law turned 50 and the town I live in (Hamilton) turned 150! On Monday night I had my first game of SAGA, with four players. I haven't posted the battle report yet but it certainly was an entertaining game. I ran Anglo-Danish with some Lord of the Rings miniatures. This has again inspired me to finish painting my collection of Games Workshop miniatures from the Sir Peter Jackson movies. Speaking of which, I need to buy some tickets to The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

Surviving members of my Grey Company, which will get some more paint.

A new Hearth Guard, from Rohan!

Anglo-Danes and Normans?

More fantastic miniatures on the painting table this week.

Meanwhile, these miniatures wait...

God bless you and have a great week!

Petty Gods Artwork + Fimtakar + Goddess of Spices

Here is my latest artwork for the Petty Gods project.

Fimtakar

The Great Traderess, Goddess of Spices Yet-to-be and Spices Long Forgotten.

Petty goddess of spices known & unknown, spice traders, and sea travelers... it is said that she carries around two clay jugs, one in each hand - one that pours out spices yet-to-be, and the other which pours out spices forever forgotten by modern civilization.

I'm glad this project is back on track, thanks to Richard LeBlanc at New Big Dragon! In the words of Greg Gorgonmilk, "He has singlehandedly rescued the PG project from its vicissitudes."

Here is the official announcement. 

Boromir + Fellowship of the Miniatures Painting Challenge 2014

Boromir, Captain-General of Gondor.

A special edition (#54) of Painting Table Saturday. Back in August I entered The Fellowship of the Miniatures' Painting Challenge 2014: 'Lord of the Rings Single Hero Model'. He sat patiently on the painting table while I painted other miniatures. The November 27th deadline was fast approaching as I waited for inspiration. Then a stray Uruk-Hai gave me an idea. This weekend I finished my entry and I present to you...

Boromir, High Warden of the White Tower.

Before adding the final touches and terrain.

Wonderful symmetry? The yin yang of close combat.

I have found this model was a lot of fun to paint after I decided to add an Uruk-Hai as a terrain feature! What did I learn when painting this model? 

1. I really enjoy painting. There is something satisfying about bringing an inanimate object to life with paint and a brush.

2. I'm happy with perfectly imperfect. There are plenty of wonderful errors in my painting style and I often don't correct them, especially when a mistake looks better than my original intention.

3. Next time I should check to see if the sword is straight before I take any photos. I'm not the best photographer but I should have noticed that!

God bless you and have a great week!

Tank Trouble + WWII Wargame + Bolt Action

Wargaming has been around for a very long time. The game of chess is a simple form of wargame, first devised in India long ago. Risk and Battleship are other simple wargames. In historical wargaming, participants work with either historical battles, or historical armies in hypothetical situations. ~ The National WWII Museum.

Last Monday night Lewis set up a very special WWII wargame using a fog of war (two towels hung on a microphone stand) that involved setting up two separate tables with the same layout and pairs of tanks, one for each. You only saw your opponents tank on your table if you had line of sight. 

The original battle took place during the Battle of the Bulge, in the crossroads town of Eschfeld (more about Eschfeld here).

We fought at the crossroads where the germans had to be removed by the British to enable a fast approaching force of allied infantry to complete a flanking move.

Unfortunately the movement of said infantry would be impossible until the germans had been removed. Allied Intelligence reported several medium tanks sighted in the village, however it was up to the Tank platoon commander, Captain Hunter, to see if this was true. With his meagre force of 3 shermans and one firefly he had his work cut out for him.

Little did he know that Oberstrumphenum Keenankreig lay in wait with a couple of Panzer III's, a Stug and arriving later, a Tiger!

This was an experimental scenario with limited intelligence for both players. As Darcy commented, very much like "Battleships". ~ Lewis Morgan

I took photos and occasionally aided Lewis who was referee. Blair (Oberstrumphenum Keenankreig) and Dave (Captain Hunter) had an enjoyable if somewhat harrowing night guessing what lay in wait around the corner. I noted that Blair, though bold in his actions, played more on the defence, setting up an ambush early on. Dave was a timid attacker, testing the water before diving in. Losing a tank in one of the gateways was a severe setback for the captain. However, taking out the Tiger was a superb stroke of good fortune. Because of this, Dave was awarded a Pyrrhic victory.

As an aside, I have never seen Lewis work so hard. There was condensation on the windows!

God Bless you and have a great week!