WarGods Minis Month 2020 - Antediluvian Pirates

As we close in on the end of this extended WarGods Minis Month we have some "pirates" to help complete the Cretan Pirates unit so I can take a Minotaur for an Olympus warband.

First of the pirates is a conversion of a Crocodile Games Asar swordsman.  I took off the peg from his left arm where the shield would normally go and pinned a sword into the left hand. The part sticking up against his chest is a little off center but I didn't realize it shifted until after the glue had set. It was done last year around this time when time was running out to get the warband ready for the GenCon 2019 WarGods event. He'll probably be in the second rank most of the time to hide this embarrassment. 

Next is an old Earthdawn mini that I thought would be a cool Atlantean or something (he looks a little lizard-y, so maybe a S'syth agent).  He's been based and primed for a very long time and now he's ready to join the pirate unit. I think he turned out pretty good. 

Finally, a miniature I've been afraid of painting since I got it years ago. From Hasslefree Miniatures, Xanthia is a wonderful sculpt (like pretty much every Hasslefree fig) that needed no conversion. I hope she turned out okay. I was having trouble with her face so decided to make her scary by giving her skull facepaint (an effective copout). Since she's such a nice figure I gave her a little more of a fancy base. She'll likely see action in some skirmish games eventually. 

Here we have a view of a 13-strong Cretan Pirate Unit with their Minotaur. More potential members will surely be painted because you can never have too many pirates, especially if they get a Minotaure for you...

WarGods Minis Month 2020 - Gorgon, Warhawk, and More Spears

This 2020 WarGods Minis Month is winding down. This time we've got 3 figures from Crocodile Games and 1 from Ral Partha. There should be two or three more installments of this extended painting theme month before the exciting finale..

These two Asar Spearmen from Crocodile Games have been primed for so long it's not even funny. They were part of a stalled unit that only had a couple of members painted. For Aegyptus warbands I don't like to have the troops be too uniform and these guys are another good example of this with just a few elements tying them together.

And here we've got these new generic spearmen with one from the original batch- see, the original guy doesn't match these two at all and I like that.

Next is an old Ral Partha figure that's been slightly converted. Originally she had two wimpy looking axes that I really hated. So I gave her a turtle shield from Forge of Ice and an older web of skulls from a GW Eldar mini. She's not got a specific role for Olympus or Aegyptus but she can easily be used as a monster if needed.

Here we see the Demigod of Dionysus for a size comparison...

Finally, we've got a Warhawk who can act as a member of the Cretan Pirates unit for an Olympian Warband. His helmet is painted with the blue metallic colorshifting paint I've been using off and on lately- it doesn't really show up in these pictures.

And here we see the Warhawk confronting the loathsome Priest of Aten Revealed...

WMM 2020 - War Altar of Dionysus

In the ongoing effort to complete the Dionysus Warband I used at GenCon 2019, we present the completed War Altar of Dionysus! Complete with Nymph Guards and a Satyr Priest. Below is the stand-in that was used for the War Altar in last year's games- A Reaper mini for the Priestess (she likely will still see duty as the Priest), two champions of Isis conversions from the Aegyptus line of figures as the Guards, and the Oracle figure rebased to act as representation of the altar.

I think this Satyr is from Metal Magic, but I could be wrong. He came on a despicable round integral base (he's metal) and it just had to go. A pretty simple paint job for him and he's ready to act as the priest or a musician for a satyr unit.

Above we have the new Satyr Priest entertaining the male Demigod of Dionysus. Below shows how the Satyr Priest and Priestess fit together with the Satyr Archers from Crocodile Games.

The War Altar itself went through many sketches that were ultimately abandoned in favor of this collection of amphorae on a patch of paving stones. One of the vessels has toppled over (part of a ritual?) and you can probably just make out the lightly tinted purple liquid puddling in front of it. I used some paint mixed into some UV resin to get the liquid effect. Sorry I couldn't get better photographs of it but it does look good.

Below we have the male and female Demigods of Dionysus enjoying the sacrifice...

I still have a few random Wargames Foundry Elven Nymphs, so I decided on a couple of them with spears to act as the War Altar Guards. Although there are no rules for Nymphs in warbands for WarGods of Olympus I think they work from a fluff perspective which I find much more important. She's got some wine stains on her cheeks because I thought it might look good- it's not as good as I hoped.

And here's the very pale Nymph Guard with some nice flowers on her spear. I decided not to give her any wine on her cheeks and I think that's the right choice. We'll say she's the more sensible of the Guards.

Below we've got the Demigod of Dionysus with the War Altar Nymph Guards. I wanted their cloth to match his violet as close as it could and I think they turned out okay...

WarGods minis Month 2020 - Completed Amazon Raiders Unit

About a year in the making, the Amazon Raider Unit is finally done- magnets for 4 of the 5 riders and paint and basing materials for all. I don't think they're too bad- too bad there's no GenCon this year for them to ravage my opponents, because painted minis perform 7 times better than ones that are just primed...

Here we have the entire unit (including the unit "captain" on the white horse who is the only one to have survived last years GenCon adventure without a bent spear or loosened from her horse). I can't wait for them to charge into battle. I might even add a couple more sometime.

Since I try to avoid obvious uniforms and uniformity in my Aegyptus warbands I feel like my Olympians should be sort of like that too, especially the Amazons. So these two are in a sort of red scheme with read spears.

Redspear 1 was actually the second of the magnetized girls to get painted. I had done Bluespear 1 based mainly on what the unit captain had gotten. I liked that but wanted a bit of a change. Since the Harbinger bodyguards for the warband were painted one in blues and one in reds I decided that could be something that I could work into the warband's backstory eventually. Her shield was a cheat- I painted the whole thing the same red as the trim then after the wash simply brightened the trim back up but left the main shield that darkened color. It turned out pretty good.

Redspear 2 was a continuation of the red scheme because I kinda liked it. Her plume came out really nice. The spearhead (like Readspear 1's) is a colorshifting metallic steel because the blue colorshifting paint would've looked a little odd.

Now for the Bluespears, the bookends of the unit. I hadn't planned out poses or ranking or anything when the Raiders were assembled oh so long ago, the same goes for their paint schemes. It was actually a struggle to decide how they were going to look even after finally finishing the unit captain. These two just happen to be looking in opposite directions (when they are looking at each other it looks like they're arguing) so they're sort of like bookends.

Bluespear 1 took some time to figure out how she should look. Eventually I went with a similar scheme to the unit captain. It works.

Bluespear 2 was the final piece of the unit and is my favorite. While I was painting the second Redspear I was thinking about what to do with this one. She's the only one without chainmail skirts, so that was something different. I decided to give her pearlized armor just to make her stand out a little (the paint I used is called pearl and is sorta metallic). Her shield was another no-brainer because I wanted it to be different from Bluespear 1 so she got a nice deep blue background.

As the Amazon Raiders ride off into the sunset, WarGods Minis Month 2020 nears the inevitable end. It will see the completion of the units that made up the Dionysus Warband I used at GenCon 2019, plus some other stuff....