Waxwing

Crap shot, great little bird - one of three in a tree outside our house yesterday - hoped for, since there are hundreds about at the moment, unexpected because there are no berry bushes within view and, well, they're rare! A lifer for Nicky, first in 2 years for me. Just a pity about the poor light...

More roof... found this taken between the pics in the last post, the roof progressing. I forgot the hole for the pillar so had to cut it out. I also left a gap for a set of steps to run up from the ground floor... so after this very few boards were added. I now just need to build the tower section... and figure how I'm going to paint it. First, games night tonight, my orcs vs 2000 empire, I need a massacre this week and next (vs vampire counts) to win our little 3 way league... 

Flat roof/trolls

Didn't quite get the beams parallel but they look ok, here I've started putting floorboards down, while pouring seven more moulds worth of blocks - should be enough to complete the tower.

Next project - probably anyway. The black orcs need basing but I started on these. With only three model designs and not wanting to mix troll types repositioning was the only option. I already use the painted three - and usually if I win they play a part - so with supporting attacks 3 more are a no brainer. Just have to remember the colour scheme...

Ground Floor Walls...

...built. PVA is like cement with these blocks, except it goes of solid in minutes. Here is the ground floor just short of one course, and half the blocks for that alongside. These I've moulded to take the support timbers for the wooden ceiling/floor, simply by putting a piece of bolsa the right size and orientation/position in the mould before pouring. Simple, except about a third snapped (but were useable), a third slipped (the block moved while setting so they're unusable) and a third came out perfect... so one more casting session and this floor is finished.

  The Blorcs, still lacking a photo, won me the fight - 2000 points each, vs empire, I had 30 blorcs, 2*30 choppa and shield lads, a couple of chariots, 2*5 wolf riders, 2 chukkas, a lobber, a lord, BSB and l2 orc shaman (who got gaze and fists). And three trolls. He had a 50 man halberdier horde with warrior priest and Griffon standard BSB  (he loves this unit), 20 great swords, 13 flagellants, 10 handgunners, a cannon, a mortar, a fire wizard, 10 white wolves and 10 knights with Templar Grand Master. The board was pretty open, a couple of woods one central one centre right, a hill for his artillery, a tower for one of my chukkas and a scattering of magic monuments that did little.
  He deployed the halberds central with Greatswords on their right and flagellants/gunners on their left. Behind the gunners was the hill with the artillery. On his far left were the white wolves, and on the far right the knights - which, was his downfall. I deployed (from the right) chukka, trolls (opposite white wolves), chukka in tower, blorcs with general, chariot, chariot, orcs with bsb, orcs behind two units of fast cav (who advance marched half way towards his lines). He got first turn, advanced both cavalry units as far as he could, the cannon wounded a chariot, mortar misfired, the wizard killed a few of the bsb orcs. He had a sniper in the gunners who wounded the bsb. I called Waaagh!, the blorcs moved up so they'd need nine to hit the white wolves flank, both wolves headed closer to his lines, the orc units passed ok. Blorcs and trolls double charged the white wolves and destroyed them, the bsb orcs occupy the central woods, the other orcs turn to the left to face his knights (who have at least another turn of marching before they're close enough to charge). My shaman was out of range to cast anything.
  On turn two he advances his infantry a bit, the greatswords charge a unit of wolves who flee and get away, putting the greatswords half a move two the left of the rest of his infantry. the knights move round the wide flank, setting up for a charge on the left hand boyz the next turn. The wizard and sniper do little, the cannon finishes of the chariot and the mortar misfires again. On my turn I move the blorcs and trolls up to threaten the artillery/handgunners and the remaining chariot to support them. The fleeing wolves rally and move behind the knights, the other wolves get behind his lines heading for the guns. Crucially, the shaman is in range and irresistibly casts fists on the halberdiers, killing around eighteen. The miscast gives him stupidity/frenzy. The chukkas and lobber target flagellants and handgunners and kill a few.
  Turn 3, his knights charge the orcs who hold, the infantry turn towards/reform to face my approaching blorcs. Magic burns the wolves behind his lines, his cannon kills my other chariot and the mortar misfires a third time, exploding. Next game he'll take and engineer... The knights fail to break the orcs, lose but hold. I charge the handgunners (who are the right hand end of his line from my perspective) with both blorcs and trolls, wipe them out and reform to set up charges on halberdiers/flagellants respectively). The knight combat continues, magic and shooting softens up his infantry some more. The wolf riders (who fled) are positioned to rear charge the knights (though needing 10).
Turn 4, his infantry shuffles backwards except the greatswords who move to set up a charge on my bsb's unit (still in the central woods). Magic and shooting do little, I think he miscast wounding the wizards and killing a few flagellants. I charge the blorcs into the halberds, my general kills both bsb and priest with one swing of his akrit axe, the blorcs with the banner of butchery do just that, the remaining halberds flee and are caught. The trolls needing 3 roll snake eyes and stumble in front of the flagellants. I gaze of mork his wizard, shooting kills a few greatswords. Crucially, the wolf riders charge the rear of his knights, only one dies, I win by two but the combat goes on.
Turn 5, the greatswords charge the bsb unit, beat them but fail to catch them. The knights lose again by 1 (note I haven't killed any because of the armour, am down to about eighteen orcs and 2 wolves) this time they break! And are run down. Now he wishes he'd supported his cavalry! My trolls charge the flagellants (I think 5 remain), wipe them out and reform to face his cannon. The victorious orcs/blorcs head back towards the great swords (but won't make it). The fleeing orcs rally. Magic kills one great sword, the lobber is too close but a chukka skewers a whole rank, leaving 3 left.
Turn 6 he charges the great swords into the rallied orcs, one survives and holds. The cannon grape shots the trolls, killing one (who already was wounded), they flee. My turn I fail to kill the remaining great sword who holds.

tl:dr Major victory to the orcs, unsupported cav = bad, orcs not failing animosity = good.

Plans

Bricks laid out, rearranged, stacked, toppled, lines drawn and corrected and eventually an almost rectangle, a rough circle, foundations dug. The idea is to bury half of the first course, build 4-5 courses up for the square section then add a wooden ceiling/flat roof. The round tower will then go another storey or so... for this first effort each sections design is finalised immediately pre building.

And these blocks are heavy! The paper left beneath the trench didn't seem enough to take the weight so I added a card reinforcement, when the model is done I'll trim the whole base to more or less that footprint - this is a stand alone building without grounds.




















Waagh! This Blorc is finished bar a final super light silver drybrush on the weapon blade and obviously basing. Not sure how I'm going to do the latter, inexplicably forgot to sand or otherwise texture the bases pre base-coating so it'll have to be something simple. And they hit the battlefield tomorrow night... I'm happy with the skin tone although the highlight is slightly stronger on the rest of the unit (which are done but not photographed). It's dark angels green, then 1:1 dark angels : khaki then a heavy wash of thraka. 

Beginnings

... having received 3 Hirst Arts moulds through the post, plus 5kilo of plaster, I had to jump in and get started. The plan is small tower, similar to Hirst's wizard's tower but with a round actual tower, probably evolving into a fortified church/chapel. But how many castings?! There are the results of 3.5 moulds above, enough for about two rows of brick work - so only another dozen or so of each mould needed for a building! That said, the process is satisfying - mix, pour, scrape, pop, an hour per casting, I've yet to get an air bubble free result... Despite wet water, prodding each cell with a cocktail stick and a lot of table banging there's one or two large (requires sanding or is terminally deforming in the case of decorative pieces) and a multitude of tiny bubbles each time. Might have to make a vibrating casting bed...
















But first (and, actually, I doubt I'll make one for a while) Black Orcs. These are still wip, a speed painting attempt to put a fully painted unit in my army - 8th's unit size increases has left me with bare plastic filling our what were finished unit. I got these from Warhammer World, and old style box of twenty and a new 10, giving 3 ranks / 41 ws4 s5 attacks, they've got to eat the ghoul hordes I keep facing (and hopefully the knight horde I was swept from the table with a couple of weeks ago).
These I base coated black, drybrushed the whole model tin bitz / boltgun metal / wash sepia / drybrush selectively boltgun then mithril silver.
The skin in the picture is just knarloc green, still needs highlights, the red and bone is done. After the skin it's a quick tidy up on the metal then bases then battle...