"Where the warg howls...

 ...there also the Orc prowls."

That little proverb comes from The Fellowship of the Ring when the Fellowship are making haste to cross the Misty Mountains whilst pursued by the howling of wolves.

It's this pursuit that is one of the factors that drives the company into the Mines of Moria and leads to Gandalf's confrontation with the Balrog.

Anyway, I've painted so Warg Riders.

I've been procrastinating on getting these six models painted for some time, and it's led to a significant hiatus in my Quest of the Ringbearer campaign, as I needed more Warhammer for the next scenario, where I'll be studiously ignoring the riders.

However, I'm fully aware that I will also be needing a crap-ton of Warg Riders when Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas reach Rohan.

I've gone for a very quick and dirty approach to these models for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I wanted to get them done, secondly I wanted them to match my existing Warg Riders and thirdly they are not especially nice miniatures. They particularly don't hold up well against the original metal sculpts.

I used much the same method as I have previously: paint colours, dowse in Agrax Earthshade. However, I did start the Wargs from a base of Basilicanum Grey contrast paint, which I haven't used before.

I have to say that it's a contrast paint I like, and I can see quite a lot of uses for in the future.

Other than that, there's not much else to say. There has been recent news that the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game is getting a new edition in the not too distant future (and perhaps a less awkward name).

This might have some tie in to the upcoming War of the Rohirrim animated film, which at least opens up a new direction for the game. Hopefully the rules won't change too much.

This does mean that I might need to scoop up some of the campaign books I've been putting off buying for a long while, specifically The Scouring of the Shire.

I'm not sure I'll invest in a new edition, as I have the rules and miniatures I need and tend to only really play Matt (and occasionally Pete) and the current rules work perfectly fine.

I shall, however, keep an open mind.

Acquired: -70
Painted: 316
Lead Mountain: 667

We Are Legion

One of the many ways the the Tyrant of Badab broke with Imperial edicts was that he increased the size of his chapter to at least three times the standard strength of just 1000 Marines.

In order to replicate this rapid mass production of Marines, having no stores of gene-seed squirrelled away, I took to eBay and snapped up a cheap lot.

These are the Tactical Marines from the 40k fourth edition starter set, The Battle of Macragge, and appropriately, they had already been painted with enthusiasm as Ultramarines, and so needed stripping.

I normally strip miniatures with Dettol, which works fine on metal models, but is less than great with plastic. Therefore, I decided to invest in a tub of Biostrip 20, which I'd heard good things about.

I then proceeded to make a bit of a pig's ears if using the stuff (I used water to rinse them, which was a bad idea) and ended up with clumps of melted paint tucked away all over the models.

I then tried again (after faffing about trying to pick out the clumps with a needle) and made a better fist of things, although in the process neglected to clean up some mould lines.

I'm not totally happy with that part of the process, but at least I learned a few things.

However, I'm happy with the painting process, which I've now nailed down as a production line that's not too onerous for mass producing an army.

I followed the exact same process as for the first unit I painted, with the only change being that I've left the shoulder pads gloss varnished after doing the transfers as I feel this works better with the metallic armour.

According to the official Tyrant's Legion army list from the Imperial Armour: The Badab War book, each Legion Cohort (which is what they call a Tactical Squad) allows me to add heavy units from the main Space Marine list to the army, giving me some flexibility.

Despite this, I'm not sure I'm going to do any more Legion Cohorts for the time being. Firstly, I should probably include at least one HQ units to make the army playable, and then I want to include some more interesting units.

Acquired: -70
Painted: 310
Lead Mountain: 673

Law & Order

"In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime; and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories."

Well, not quite.

In Patriot City, in the world of Freedom Force, Law and Order are not separate, but rather are two faces of the same hero.

An honest cop and a lawyer who was blinded by a mob hit, Law and Order were hit with Energy X whilst in witness protection and were fused so that only one of them can be active at a time.

In my play through of the original game, I've fought alongside Order as an NPC in one of the scenarios involving the gangster Pinstripe, and the two are available to recruit, but I've not gotten around to spending my prestige points on them yet.

These models are again from the Kitbash Games Glory Guard Kickstarter and are sold under the names Truth and Justice.

Law

Mild-mannered Sarah (no last name) was blinded in a mob hit on the Judge she worked for, and later almost killed in witness protection.

As Law, despite wielding a blade with deadly accuracy, she is primarily a protective hero, able to heal, shield and remove conditions for her ally.

Painting wise, yellow and white was never going to be a walk in the park, but I'm quite happy with how she turned out. I had several goes at the white, using washes, drybrushing and contrast paint until I got to a place I was happy with.

Conversely, the Averland Sunset I used for the yellow was a bit watery and ended up working quite well over a Grey Seer undercoat. A happy little accident.

All in all I'm really happy with how she came out. I didn't do the scales on her to nic because I'm not a masochist and they are also represented on her belt buckle.

Order

Officer Samson had been tipped off by corrupt cops to leave Sarah to her fate, but stayed to protect her despite his misgiving. 

As Order he is a classic 'brick' superhero, a heavy hitter with massive strength and toughness, but prone to flying into a berserk rage.

Although quite straightforward, I'm less pleased with my painting of Order. It might be to do with the darker palette, or it could be because of all the models from the set, this had most work to do on mould lines and filling bubbles.

I ended up finding him a bit of a chore. His skin is Mournfang Brown washed in Nuln Oil, whilst the tunic is highlighted Kantor Blue.

I probably need to put more work in to make the details pop, but I found the sculpt a bit of a paint to work around.

He's fine, but my least favourite to paint so far.

With Law and Order finished, I've now completed all of the heroes I own from the original game and have now put together almost the entire team. I still have a couple of characters from the sequel, Freedom Force Vs the 3rd Reich, along with an alternate version of Alche-Miss.

The notable characters I'm missing are El Diablo, Man-O-War and Bullet l, who are actually some of the characters that I use most when playing and I'm keen to include them. Finally there are the optional recruits of Blackbird, Iron Ox and Super Collider, who I'm less fussed about.

When I started this project, I never really thought that I'd get more than a handful of the team done given how specific the brief was. However, the fact that I now can field several different team lineups is largely due to Kitbash Games.

I also have several villainous groups to put against the heroes of Patriot City: Nuclear Winter's frozen forces; Pinstripe's gang of goons; Shadow's dark minions; and dinosaurs propelled through time.

I'm going to wait until I've played it before moving on to characters from Freedom Force Vs the 3rd Reich, however, I might put a bit of effort into the villains that I haven't yet put together: Mr Mechanical, Pan, Deja Vu and the Dominion.

In other news, I've picked up another couple of units for my Badab War project, and so I've gone backwards on the progress. I'm thinking that I might need some honest conversations about whether I'm going to keep some of the backlog that I don't look like getting to.

Acquired: -70
Painted: 300
Lead Mountain: 683