Leopold-Print Cloak

Another roll on the Nice List, and it takes us back to the very beginning, my Dogs of War army!

Let's find out what's new, pussycat!

Payment Clause Is Coming To Town

On the twenty-second day of Advent the WoffBoot brought to me ... a fat man with a white beard.

And he's ho-ho-homicidal!

Steppe By Steppe

Why have a goblin wolf rider, when you could have a hobgoblin wolf rider? And why have any old hobgoblins, when you can have a Dogs of War regiment?

Let slip the Hobs of war!

Wheel Get Them Ready In Time!

In preparedness for an upcoming SkypeBoot against Kraken's chaos cavalry, I want to add some more mounted options for my greenskins.

Spider and Wolf Riders are already on the painting table, and in a fit of ambition that I'll never be able to achieve, I've started assembling some chariots.

You will ride eternal, shiny and chrome.

Mine's A Djinn

Heavens above! For a moment there, I was afraid I wouldn't get all these wizards finished before the fighting started. But this rotund Celestial Wizard puffs in to belatedly join the others, like the chubby kid at the tail-end of cross-country run (ahhh ... school memories).

Shazam!

Tell Me Istari

The Lore of Life is next to be painted, and the model I used completes my trio of miscoloured Lord of the Rings Istari: Saruman the White Grey; Gandalf the Grey White Amber and now, Radagast the Brown Jade.

"So do we all get horses?"
"Yeah, horses... yours is over there. In that hutch."

Whereas the other two miniatures were easy enough to pick up, I had to be patient until I got one at a decent price (about a quarter of GW's original retail). It's out of production now, as it was only an 'extended universe' design by the Perry Brothers, having since been replaced by the 'as seen in the movie' one from The Hobbit.

Light Relief

I should really be painting Jade Wizards or Celestial Wizards right now, but these two have been languishing in my leadpile for many years, and when they heard I was painting spellcasters, they demanded attention.

We can see the light!

They're a couple of Light College Acolytes, cast in metal and going back to 4th Edition Warhammer. They had a peculiar rule where your Light Wizard could have five of these deployed behind him ranks of two and three, to form a triangle with the wizard at the apex.

Amber Wizard, Red Rum

I continue to lay down the lore, and today it's the Amber College of Magic.

There's an interesting decision to be made when picking a Beast Wizard: put him on a horse, and he'll get +1 for casting anything on himself (there are three likely spells), due to the Lore Attribute. However if you want the super-dragon transformation spell, he needs to be on foot.

In the end, I went with a mounted wizard: I expect he'll see most action in cavalry-heavy lists; I found a model I really liked; and I also don't have any model resembling a manticore, hydra, chimera or dragon (*drafts painting list for monsters*).

Giddy up.

Mr. Grey Will See You Now

I already have a few hireling wizards in my Dogs of Empire army (Bright, Amethyst and Light). More than enough to do the job (if by 'do the job' you mean miscast spectacularly or get caught in the open and overrun for a massive loss of points).

And after a bit of recategorization, when I realised my mad scientist conversion was a better fit for an alchemist than an engineer, I could also count a Metal wizard.

So that gives me four of eight colleges. But as you know, I'm not the kind of obsessive-compulsive who would need to collect a representative from every lore of magic, just because I was halfway there.

Yeah, so here's the Lore of Shadow.

Lover of the Russian queen.

Phalanx For The Memories

Eagle-eyes readers of our last battle report may have noticed a discrepancy in my army list: the big block of Spearmen that bravely withstood the Chaos hordes (mostly by getting killed in a slow fashion) was numbered at 40, whereas I only had 30 Spearmen in my collection.

I know they were all proxied in Sweden, but it still matters.

Fear not - your sleepless nights are over. I was, in fact, able to field a unit of 40 Spears, thanks to a timely acquisition and a bit of quick brushwork.

They only had three colours on them at the time of the battle.
(but that's still tournament-legal, right?)

New Army HQ

The sheets and towels may still be in boxes, but I've got the essentials unpacked.

Don't tell Mrs Stylus ... she thinks I'm keeping work files in here.

Oh Captains, My Captains

I think it reflects well on my egalitarian spirit that I spend so much time converting and painting the humble rank-and-file of my armies, and yet when it comes to the heroes, I'll crap out any old thing.

Yes, that must be it. My captains are rubbish because I'm such a nice person.

"Are you not entertained? Are you NOT entertained?"

This is Lorzeno Lupo, merchant prince of Luccini and one of the special characters in the Dogs of War book (although there's really not much special about him - he gives a +1 combat bonus and gains a randomly-determined characteristic bump). So he gets to be my Empire General, by virtue of seniority (and the fact that I couldn't scrape up a model I preferred).

I must have liked the model originally (especially since I picked up two of them) and it's a decent sculpt. I think there are problems with the design: the head is slightly tilted back, and combined with the flat-facing crest, it pushes the inclination of the model backwards, almost if he's falling over. The big round shield also distracts from the nice detailing beneath. I tried to remedy both these problems in my converted Alcatani captain, and I humbly think it's better for it.

From this angle, frankly, any one of us could be Spartacus.

Congreave’s Galloping Artillery, Patents #3 & #9

"Battle is about getting there firstest with the mostest."

Nathan Bedford Forrest

(Confederate cavalry commander, massive racist and namesake of Tom Hanks movies about protagonists with socially-acceptable learning difficulties.)

Mobile artillery is like a box of chocolates ... you want to avoid the hard centres.

Bronzino's Galloper Guns were the only war machines available to Dogs of War armies, unless you want to include Malakai Makaisson's Goblin-Hewer or the Halfling Hot-Pot Catapult...

Like I said, Bronzino's Galloper Guns were the only war machines available to Dogs of War armies. Fair play to Alessio Cavatore for trying something new (and historically-accurate) with cannon, and even more kudos to the Perry Brothers for the fantastic sculpt on these models (compare and contrast the Empire's plastic cannon).

It's really a shame that, in terms of game play, they're pretty bloody useless.

"Your cannon is pointing at my horse again, Bob."
"What do you me to do about it?"
"You could at least take the cannonball out."

An Absolutely Wizard Time

The Dogs of War army list allowed you to field Hireling Wizards with access to any of the Colleges of Magic. A wise general might have painted a generic wizard model, and so given himself access to any type of magic.

I fear this paint scheme limits me to one Lore in particular...

"I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor."
(any resemblence purely coincidental)

The model is the Warlock Nicodemus, a Dramatis Personae from Mordheim. There's plenty to like about it - the robes and cloak are swishy, the staff is gnarled, the beard long and the hat pointy. He's a fraction bigger than most of the other models (in the character history, Nicodemus suffers from some gigantism curse), which makes him an odd choice, given that I went for realistic proportions everywhere else. But I'm a traditionalist, who likes his wizard hats pointy.

On Your Marksmen…

They dress like Tileans, shoot like Dark Elves and steal like drunken students ... what is there not to love about The Marksmen of Miragliano?



We're known as the Oculus Tauri ... because our general is pretentious.

The last of my Perry Brothers-sculpted Regiment of Renown is my favourite. Fluff-wise, it's a nice idea to feature a band of expert sharpshooters among the Dogs of War regiments. And on the tabletop, 20 x S4 shots at BS4 certainly came in handy (this was prior to the 8th edition, when you'd have to hunt around for a hillside to shoot in two ranks).

All this has changed as they've been co-opted into the Empire army - now they're just regular crossbowmen, probably with an unnecessary command group. All that remains are the sculpts.

Gold and Glory

My armies have never had very good standards (boom-tisch!) but back when this was a Dogs of war army, it would be unthinkable not to have a Paymaster (who, in addition to holding the coffers, fights like a hero, carries a big flag and allows Break Tests to be re-rolled – so I think I can see the direction they were going with this one).

Guys Who Went Nuts Over The One Ring Society: founder members.

The original rules also allowed the Paymaster to be accompanied by an account-like figure called a Moneylender – his stats were poor, but he allowed some boosts to the Paymaster’s abilities.

My first thought (and I use the word ‘thought’ advisedly) was to place both Paymaster and Moneylender on the same 40mm base. I could create a nice little scene with a model paychest, and it would act as a unit filler for the Paymaster’s Bodyguard. There were a number of glaring obvious problems with this:

• Unit fillers are meant to linger at the back of the regiment, bulking them out and being easily removable when it takes a lot of casualties. Not with two distinct characters standing front n’ centre.
• What happens if they leave the unit? Or if only one of them wants to?
• What happens if one of them gets killed?
• How do you determine where attacks are directed?
• What, no Stomp attacks?

They’re guns, they’re in hands, so that makes them…

… certainly not Dogs of War pistol-wielding Duellists that have been press-ganged into service as Empire Handgunners.

This unit narrowly misses out on the Most Tenuous Conversion award, thanks to the bow-armed Pistoliers (mind you, you haven’t seen who’ll be proxying for my Knights or Warrior Priest yet). Still, those Mordheim pistols are pretty long in the barrel…

Ten shooters and only one of them is aiming forward.
That grassy knoll has nothing to worry about.

This unit is the last use of my Empire Militia plastics (the remaining ones got painted up as an actual Mordheim gang) and I think I was getting carried away with their potential for conversions. Previously, I’d managed to add some personal touches to the Free Company and Crossbows with a snip here and there and dash of Green Stuff. This time, I went a bridge too far.

Pikes – they're like a spear, man

“SPARTANS! TONIGHT WE DINE IN … where have we got vouchers for? Pizza Express?
TONIGHT WE DINE IN PIZZA EXPRESS!”

The Alcatani Fellowship, the poor man’s pikemen of Tilea. A natty combination of classic Greek helmets, late-medieval body armour and rather skinny jeans.

"What are we - the anti-aircraft part of the regiment?"

Despite their status as cannon-fodder (their stats were comparable to Goblins) – or perhaps because of it – there is a really impressive variety of models. Including command models, I counted 20 different versions.

The Brass Band of Brothers

Caution is a useful instinct. My first decision with this paint job was to re-undercoat the lot with Chaos Black and work up silver detailing from there. Remembering that this is only the first unit of a very long clear-the-cupboards project, I dug out my pot of Devlan Mud to see what some of the old liquid talent could achieve first.

Perfection is just £2.30 away.

From Guards to Greatswords

Do not be deceived. These warriors may resemble Ricco’s Republican Guard, the toughest pike unit in Tilea, but they are actually a work-in-progress for Empire Greatswords.

Swords sold separately

This part of my project to turn a 5^th Edition Dogs of War army into an 8^th Edition Empire army (albeit a mercenary one). Pikes will become spears, light cavalry will become pistoliers, the paymaster will become a warrior priest (switching spiritual incentives for material ones). I hope to have them ready  in time for MidWoffBoot ’12. (Yes, you may tremble.)