Marienburg, Undeadish, etc! (plague)

After a few years away from painting, gaming, etc. and selling off most of my collection, I am trying to get back into it in some way. I’ve started coming back to a couple of the web fora I used to visit, and though I would start cross posting what I’m up to. Some of you may have already seen this elsewhere.

So to briefly get up to speed… Due to lack of time, and most of what I have being in the wee hours of the night, I am going to take a shot at solo gaming. Not my ideal, but it seems like my options for actual gaming are that or nothing. I’ve decided to go with some old school fantasy gaming, but will be taking a fresh look at rules. I will be using commercially available rules, and then tinkering with them to work as a solo game. I may try out several games, but after looking at a few I’ve decided my initial rules will be Legion of Battle from Crusader Publishing (Crusader Miniatures.)

Initially I was going to stick with a lot of the basic WFB fluff, as one of the armies will be my existing (and continuing to expand) Marienburg army. But the more I have considered it, the more I have decided to move on. They will still be Marienburgers and seem a bit familiar, but they will be in a different setting. Simplified, these are the Good Guys.

The Bad Guys will be what I am currently referring to as the undeadish. The core of the opposition will be undead, but also those who are still alive but have sort of “sold their souls” and become mystically bound to the forces of the undead (undeadish) plus various villianous allies, mercenaries, and enslaved troops.

I will explain some of the concepts for the setting later. My plan is to run a narrative campaign, and possibly turn it into a little bit of an art & writing project as well.

I’ve started with some figures I’ve already got, and have been slowly expanding that on a fairly small monthly(ish) budget.

I’d like to get my existing Marienburgers photographed & cataloged, and have started a little project to that end. You can see the start of the photos at http://zerotwentythree.blogspot.com/p/a ... nburg.html

I will do the same with the Undeadish when I finish up the basing. In the meantime, here is what I’ve done for them…


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(Undeadish infantry)


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(Undeadish ogres)


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(Undeadish giant and witch, shown with an ogre for scale)


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(Skeleton infantry)


Near future plans are for more skeletons, skeleton and undeadish cavalry, and to make a decision on what to do about some armoured, elite skeletons. Still plenty more beyond that...
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

While I make up my mind about the horse colors, I decided to finally base & varnish some of what I've recently painted. I decided to stick with the same style base as almost everything else I've got. At some point I will paint something on the banner.

I have been contemplating whether I want to rebase my individual Marienburg figures onto 40mmx40mm bases like these. I've never been a fan of individual based figures for mass combat games. But I'm also not a fan of extra basing work.

skele01_zpskvzsudwj.jpg


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Subedai

Member
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

The bad guys look great so far, I like the colour scheme that ties very disparate troop types together and leaves no doubt as to their evil allegiance. Units on multi bases look nice ranked up as these regiments prove, though I've never done it for any of my 25/28mm armies. Your Marienburgers are fantastic btw, lined up against these ghoulish bad guys all in black they will be a spectacle to behold!
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

I love the colour tones! Its a shame you did not do the skellies in a "cold" tone. THe yellow skellies, although nicely painted, dont match the other models.
 

Scalene

Member
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

Good to see you back, zero twenty three. I couldn't work out why your name sounded familiar, and then I looked on the blog and saw the logo and it rang a bell. I started reading your blog just before you packed it in at the end of 2012, and it seemed a real shame. Your undead barbarians are just fantastic, so keep up the good work.
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

Thanks for the replies!

The good guys riot of color contrasting with the limited & drab palette of the bad guys is what I was after. Using cooler tones on the Germans vs. The warmer, earthy to es on the skeletons was a conscious choice to try to differentiate between the still living but enslaved "undeadish" and the "animated dead" who lack any sort of free will or consciousness (presumably) of their own.


Setting

I am starting to lean towards a medium-low fantasy concept, or at least something less than the Warhammer world. I've actually been thinking about a setting quite a bit and finally did decide to completely part ways with Warhammer. I think the major fantasy elements will be:

Non-human but "humanoid" races. At this point, in the part of the world in which my campaign will be set, it will be mostly humans, with ogres, and small numbers of giants, great orcs, and swamp goblins. There used to be elves, but as far as anyone knows, they're all dead. Rumors of other races in far flung places. Some may be introduced as part of the narrative.

Undead. Obviously. But this is a new & foreign thing, as far as my Marienburgers are concerned.

Magic. Mostly rare and powerful, and manifesting itself through items and creatures rather than mages flinging fireballs at each other on a battlefield.

Fantastic beasts. See previous item.

The divine. Divine intervention will be about as common as in the real world.

Technology will be mixed. I'm still attached to the Empire & renaissance, so gunpowder, pikes, etc. will be around, but I will probably be leaving out any steam tanks or robo-horses. Navigation & ship-building will be slightly less advanced.

I've quickly sketched out a first, (very rough) draft of a map-like thing. The highlighted area is where the action will happen, centering on the city of Marienburg and the surrounding hinterland.

Map01e_zpsf92acpqq.jpg
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

While digging around through old boxes, I came across this. I had intended to use it for my old Skaven army, but it will work just as well (better?) with the undead!

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Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

I stole a series of 5 & 10 minute breaks throughout the last few days to put some paint and a series of washes/glazes on the Caller's beast. This is a bit of a new technique to me -- I've been using it to an extent on all of the undead, but for decades I've been more of layering & blending style painter, and have stayed away from doing many washes. But I'm learning to love it!

However, I've got mixed feelings on how this particular figure turned out. It's not really a subject that should be too colorful, but also felt like it needed a bit more color than the washed out look of most of the rest of what I've done. Hopefully it doesn't look too out of place once the army is filled out.

While I was basing it up, I also finished the base on a previously painted Undeadish giant.

For reference, the giant is on a 50x50 base, the Caller's beast (I need a new name for it) is on a 50x100.

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Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

Earlier this week I received a box of Warmachine Bane Thralls. I've been looking for an option for some armored "elite" skeletal troops. I had been considering a few different ideas, and these were on the list but I kept resisting because I think the shoulder plates (pauldron?) look ridiculous, as do the bits of someone's iron fence they are wearing on their backs. The latter are easily left off. I had considered clipping the shoulders, too, as illustrated by my quick photoshoppery to test the idea...


thrallmod_zps8acv90wc.jpg



So now that they're in my possession, I can see that the square "pads" on which the separate shoulder plates sit might look like decent, if someone bland, armor plates on their own, with the exception of the "champion" figure who is designed completely differently. I could just leave his on, as above. Honestly, though, I think the plates look less ridiculous in person.


Other observations about these figures.... they are sold as "plastic" but they are not polystyrene. Maybe a lightweight, hard resin? Not sure the shoulder plates will be nearly as easy to trim down & clean up as if they had been polystyrene. The detail seems OK on most of the figure, but the skulls look pretty disappointing. I was already on the fence a bit when I saw close-ups of the skulls in photos. In person they are even more caricatured with pretty soft looking detail. Looks like there will be a little cleanup, hopefully this plastic isn't too tough to work with.

I'll withhold final judgement until I've actually worked on & painted these, but at first unboxing I find them a little disappointing given the regular retail price.
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

After exploring the Oldhammer forum a bit more this week, I've started thinking about the idea of "remote gaming" as an alternative or supplement to solo gaming.

The concept would be that I would set up the battlefield, the figures, etc. and would play against a remote opponent by keeping a blog with updated photos of the table, use an online random number generator to get dice results, and would get instructions from my opponent that I would carry out on their behalf. This got me reconsidering Hail Caesar as the basis for a fantasy game, since the movement is somewhat loose, based on a verbal description, and partially dependent on dice. There would be little change from playing an in-person opponent other than me moving their figures for them.

So now I'm considering digging up an opponent and giving that a try.


Below is a pic of two older figures I finally based. The figure from the Confrontation range is quite a bit bigger, even when taking into account the larger base. But between that and his proportions, I think he might make a good partner for the old GW "Death Elemental" that I will be painting up sometime (hopefully) soon.

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Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

Very finely painted models here. I'm really loving the high contrasting tones of the units and the choice of models is great with some really interesting and unusual sculpts.

I couldn't agree more on reducing the pauldrons of the armoured skeletons, but I'm still a sucker for tall spikey things at the backs behind the head, whether it be banners, ornaments or practical or combinations. I can't help but think - "all that armour and no skull protection".

Lovely work there, sir.
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

I agree about the skulls being the weak spot. I thought about putting some armored helmets on them, but I want to make sure they retain an very obvious undead/skeletal appearance. I may do some head swaps...


I attempted to clean up and assembled one of the Bane Thralls, sans pauldrons. I set them up next to the figure so you can see how huge they are. They look like pieces from a segmented sewing thimble! You can see that the platforms on which the pauldrons are supposed to sit could look like more modest pauldrons on their own, if I dressed them up a little. So I might just try that.

I need to go back and spend some more time cleaning up mould lines, especially on the fingers. I can't say I am a fan of whatever this material is. It's like they used something that combines the worst qualities of lead/metal and polystyrene. Filing the stuff leaves a lot of texture and "fluff" that needs cleaned off, similar to styrene. Normally I use an knife on the styrene, which did seem to work better with this stuff. But it's a harder plastic/resin, so it doesn't cut/scrape as nicely. This one looked like it had a gate/tab/sprue/whatever on the collar that had been cleaned off, but left behind a pretty rough, chunky surface. That and the fingers were the worst parts to clean.

In spite of that, I still like the sculpting, aside from the head and pauldrons, and they are nice designs. You can see in the pic that they are much smaller than those old, monstrous Citadel skeletons. But they're bigger than just about anything. I think the Bane Thralls should fit well with the Mantic stuff, which is good since I have a big pile of their skeletons to work on eventually! In fact, I think I will also look into using some of the Mantic skeleton heads on these. If I can get my hands on some of the current GW skeleton heads, those might also fit.

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Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

Hordes o Bits do lots of skulls and heads, so you might have luck there.

Those shoulder pads - worse than anything out of the 80's power suits.

I'd even upend one of them and pop it behind the skull for that armoured wizard/vampire cape look - possibly with a nipped backspike at each corner making it look like some mean-arse collar - then again - you never know till you blu-tac it in place first to find out if it's gammen or sweet.
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

The Secret Weapon skulls arrived today. They look great! They're a decent size, well sculpted & cast. I just wish some of them had lower jaws. But I think I will still have plenty of use for them. Here's a pic next to an old, huge GW skull, and one of the Warmachine Bane Thrall skulls (has a peg on the bottom.) I think these will work as perfect replacements for the Bane Thralls!

http://www.secretweaponminiatures.com/i ... cts_id=230

skullcomp01_zpscsxlpbja.jpg
 
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish

Quick paint test for the heavy skeletal infantry. Obviously I did leave the excessive paulrons off, and swapped out the skull from one of those I got from Secret Weapon. Pretty pleased with how it looks.

This was also a bit of a photographic experiment as well. I used my phone and a pretty well rounded online, Flash based image editor called Pixlr for the photo editing.


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While I was cropping the photos, I also noticed some of the extra stuff in the perephery of some of the photos and thought I would post this tiny peek at other parts of my desk...


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DAGabriel

Member
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish (Heavy Skeletal Infantry Te

Very sweet so far, and nice thing with that peek into the future!
 

Harry

Moderator
Re: Marienburg vs. the Undeadish (Heavy Skeletal Infantry Te

Wonderful stuff.
Always enjoy your painted armies.
Love the restricted colour palette thing you have going on.
Doesn't half make for some striking miniatures
 
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