Miniatures - Blog Posts

Do you remember how there was several different origin stories for Master Splinter from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Sometimes he was a rat that turned into a humanoid, sometimes he was a human that became rat-like? You know how Master Splinter predates skaven by a year? I decided to make a skaven if they had been humans that became rat-like! Happy April Fool’s whatever!

GRAND CATHAY ANNOUNCED FOR WARHAMMER THE OLD WORLD. IM SO PUMPED!!!

Join Chaos, we’ve got bad girls!

My Warhammer Dwarfs army! I’ll add more photos to this when I can get them out and take better pictures!

Off to kill the emperor. Heres my Dark Elven Assassin in…familiar… color schemes. Happy Ides of March everyone! 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🏛️🏺

Various Reaper Miniatures frost giants for use in my Warriors of Chaos army.

I like my thrones miniature, and my kings dying as a plot device in Fire Emblem games.

A long time ago I kitbashed dark elf Pegasus knights for no other reason than I love Fire Emblem (the GBA trilogy especially) and I also painted them with cutey marks and the color schemes from My Little Pony, a show I was not watching, because it made cool people laugh, it made MLP fans feel included, and it made wrong’uns upset. It took nothing out of my enjoyment to do this, and it made others happy.

If this upsets you, fix your hearts or die.

Here are some chaos units I kitbashed into existence using GW parts. Chaos marauders with great weapons, marauders with halberds, and marauders with javelins. I based the leader of the great weapons unit off of what I thought a chaos warrior would look like if drawn by Rob Liefeld so I gave him skinny Eldar legs and a big front plate shield. I based the leader of the javelin unit on Volgarr the Viking which I’ve never played but have watched others play. Looks hard but fun. I was thinking about Minotaurs when I made the halberd unit.

Also I’m aware Beowulf is a sword guy. This guy just looked like a Beowulf to me!

And more!!

Close ups of the Orcs and Goblins army. I need to finish the bases on a lot of these and it’s my least favorite part. Buy flock in bulk: my advice

And some more!

Close ups of the Orcs and Goblins army. I need to finish the bases on a lot of these and it’s my least favorite part. Buy flock in bulk: my advice

Today is a little different, I want to talk about the secondary market. Because some friends of mine on discord were astonished at how much my empire units new in box cost and I want to elaborate more on making the best use of kits. Consider this part two of hobbying while being cheap and neurodivergent.

You should have a healthy bits box at all times. You can have several of them. There are a lot of eBay listings for just piles of bits and unfinished minis that you can use to make bespoke Warhammer minis out of just spare parts from multiple kits. Kitbashing is not a revelation, it even predates wargames as it’s a carry over from model railroad hobbyists. But you should buy listings of random bits because you can get some fantastic parts from kits you weren’t thinking of getting for incredible prices.

The re release of these old Warhammer kits comes with a lot of great bits for conversions, I think they really are worth more than people are thinking they are!

The main thing I want to talk about though is how to exploit the chud cycle to maximize your hobby hauls. I won’t get super political in this post because it’s not really what it’s about. But there is a cycle where really negative dudes get into the hobby through a video game like space marine 2 or a lore channel and buy a lot of minis. Then they get upset about how modern games workshop, a multi billion dollar company, has gone woke or whatever. Then they go farther back into earlier editions to try to escape whatever it is they don’t like, only to find that the satire is stronger the farther back they go. A lot of these guys putt around for a while and then give up and sell their armies for really cheap on eBay and Facebook marketplace. A lot of them are willing to haggle.

That isn’t political, it’s economical.

Neither is the satisfaction I get when these guys tell me I don’t belong in the hobby and I show them my armies I’ve painted over almost 30 years.

Take advantage of the deals!

I went to my local gaming store, Source Comics and Games, and also Michael’s crafts today. I’m committing to buying local whenever I can. I don’t want to keep giving Bezos money, and I’m going to try to avoid it for as long as I can. I still give GW plenty of money when they do Made to Order runs and for stuff that is on their web store only. I’m gonna buy all my rank and file from my indie local store.

I’ll reveal more about my empire army as I go along. It’s a little different. I’m doing Sudenburg.

Anyway, here’s my haul.

I was rewatching the Ralph Bakshi Lord of the Rings cartoon movie for the first time in many years and I forgot how Stoney Baloney this movie was! I realize that they basically ran out of money and had to use all the rotoscope footage they had which is why the story moves along so jarringly quick. There’s a whole 12 minute chase scene where it’s basically horse dressage while Frodo tries to get away. But this is it! This is how I fell in love with orcs! I saw these guys in this and the Hobbit cartoon and it rocked my world. Who were these fanged and tusked guys and where can I find more!? Luckily it was the early-ish 1990’s and I would soon be provided so much to work with as Magic the Gathering, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and my discovery of Warhammer Fantasy Battles would happen soon in quick succession not to mention that these movies would be remade by Peter Jackson as the new millennium rolled in. What a movie! What a legacy! What an impact on my life!

These shelves are what constitutes nearly all of my 40k stuff. Mostly Rogue Trader and Second Edition stuff as well as the 5th edition boxed set.

I’m a Warhammer Fantasy guy. But I respect 40k.

I’m going to my Friendly Local Gaming Store today, here are some minis from pro painters in the painting cabinet including some names you might recognize!

I found the first Warhammer thing I ever painted, these Eldar Warp Spiders, in 1995 or 1996. I didn’t even know what they were! I would get the 2nd edition 40k big box with the beloved mono pose space marines, space orks, and gretchin, as well as the ever infamous and tournament legal cardboard deff dred in 1997 which is when I consider my actual start in Warhammer. Here they are next to the last thing I painted for a competition, a Chaos Daemon Prince, in late 2024.

Here is my custom chaos champion on a dread eagle! I based him more off Moorcockian Chaos than Warhammer Chaos, but he is a champion of chaos nonetheless! I usually run him as a champion on manticore or chaos dragon if I feel like spending the points!

Throgg the King of Trolls and Harold Hammerstorm! I was lucky enough to buy Harry the Hammer for Games Workshop’s 25th anniversary in 2000. And Throgg I paid way too much to get in box on eBay. It was worth it to paint him though!!

The Mysterious Exalted Champions of Tzeentch! Aekold Hellbrass and Vilitch the Curseling! How long ago did this meeting of the minds take place? Or is this yet to come? Irrelevant in realm of chaos! I have a tendency to paint older miniatures more vibrantly than the modern counterparts, I’m hardly alone in this, but I kind of wish I had made Vilitch more old school looking. Tzeetnch looks better in oldhammer paint schemes.

Here are my Exalted Chanpions of Khorne! Valkia the Gorequeen and Scylla Anfingrimm! How many battlefields have these two bathed in blood and broken skulls for their father? Countless! I’d love to get my hands on the other versions of of Scylla as well. Both of these minis are Finecast models and here’s the thing…. Finecast…. Was fine by the time they discontinued it in favor of Forge world resin. But the original Finecast was garbage. I say this in case you ever come across a Finecast model on eBay. An Age of Sigmar label is usually a good sign that your Finecast is the better stuff.

Here his is! The big man himself! Archaon the Everchosen! The Grand Marshall of the Apocalypse and all his other final fantasy final boss titles! He really was everything a big bad in fantasy should have been and he had to fight with Grimgor, Malekith, and Mannfred for that spot. I bought this mini when he first came out and boy is he heavy. There isn’t a lot of empty space inside all that pewter. Archaon the Grand Marshall of Paperweights!

I needed someone for Grimgor to fight after all!

I’m going to start showcasing more of my Warriors of Chaos stuff for a while. Starting with this converted chaos champion who rolled particularly peculiarly on the Realm of Chaos tables.

I love this guy.

Harboth’s Black Mountain Archers! This is one of the oldest Regiments of Renown along with Eeza Ugezod’s Mother Crushers. I’ve also got both versions of Ruglud’s Armored Orcs. I’ll show those at some point! I’m considering whether or not to put flock on the bases because they are rather unique for GW stuff as seen below. I’m not sure how much I want to obscure such a curiosity!

I finally finished my 3 units of 30 savage orcs! I was encouraged to reclaim my coffee table for when we have guests over soon. These guys are kinda finicky!

A Fimir shaman that rolled particularly well on the old Realm of Chaos mutation charts!

Some tips for hobbying while being cheap and neurodivergent:

If you, like me, pick up cool rocks and want to show them off and have cool terrain at the same time: glue them into cool piles on a piece of cardboard to make landmarks. People have been stacking large rocks in piles for millennia to mark trails and denote distances. And now everyone can see your cool rocks on the tabletop!

Do you ever worry about mixing up too much Green Stuff or Milliput? Have a leftover epoxy putty project. Don’t rush it, it’s just where you put all the leftover stuff. It doesn’t look like much now, but one day I’ll have a four armed, two headed Chaos Giant because I keep mixing up a little too much putty!

Do you ever want to do make statues for your terrain, but you don’t want to sacrifice a whole mini to make one? Glue extra horns and weapons onto Knights and Warriors style army men from the dollar stores! You’ll have some convincing statues after just a prime and a dry brush or two!

Skullvane Manse! This is the third of my big trio of Warhammer Fantasy Battles big towers. This came with an option to make the tower into an observatory and at the time I thought that was less cool, but these days I think the observatory sounds pretty rad and I still have the dome so I might be due to make one sticking out of a mountain or something!

The Dreadstone Blight! I put this one on a base which I carved deep drainage ditches into. I was going to fill it in with a clear resin or something to simulate water but I decided the elevation didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’ll revisit it someday.

The Witchfate Tor! I painted this a long time ago around whenever it came out. It’s due for some touch ups! The “statues” are game pieces from a TSR Hobbies board game called “Dragonstrike” that I bought at a surplus store called Ax Man. Back then I was a smoker with a Redbull habit. Nothing some steady dry brushing and spot detailing couldn’t fix!

I also have the ruined version, the Dreadstone Blight, and another tower whose name escapes me. Not the Deathknell Watch, the other one with the asymmetrical construction that could double as an observatory. Let me know if you know the name!