Pictures, stories, and reviews of fantasy miniatures
Above you see the finished box for my 10mm orcs. It will easily hold an army of Hordes of the Things, with room left over for any expansions.
For the inside, I have added a simple magnetized sheet to keep the models in place:
Only problem I have encountered is that the close fit of the lid tends to pull off the paint – you see this at the hinged side of the box. Well, you can’t have everything I guess.
Until next time!
Simon
Here’s the box after I painted it. I did some mistakes with the varnish (it was my first time working on a wooden box, instead of something of metal or plastic…), but on the whole, I am happy with the result. The silver symbol belongs to my first Hordes of the Things faction.
I have also attached a magnetic sheet to the insides:
The troop blocks stick beautifully to the surface – I tried shaking the box and not a single miniature moved. My youngest boy is sleeping very light tonight, so I’ll have to wait finishing the upper half of the box to another day. But the idea is to use a magnetised sheet there as well. I will use that space to attach an army list. That way, it will be easy to simply choose two boxes and get right down to gaming.
Until next time!
Simon
As I have been building my two armies for Hordes of the Things, I have started to also think about storage and transportation. On the one hand, there is the cheap route of a simple plastic box with magnetic sheets inside; on the other hand, there are the traditional foam or magnetic storage solutions, specially produced for wargamers. In any case, I wasn’t very keen on either of these solutions. I want my miniature containers to look good (plastic boxes do not) and be affordable (ready-made storage is not). So I instead opted for buying inexpensive nice wooden boxes, painting them, and then adding a magnetic sheet on the inside.
As you see above, I am still in the process of painting the box. Next, I will cut and glue two magnetic sheets to the inside. Here’s what it looks like now:
I really hope this works out! A box can easily fit a Hot-compliant army, while setting me back no more than 15 euro. Good for the bookshelves; good for the wallet!
Until next time!
Simon
Good news! I finished the next step in building my small orc horde. At the time of writing, somewhat less than 100 orcs have been glued to magnetic strips. Next up I will glue sand to the bases and give them a basecoat. Then it’s off to painting!
This force will give me 10 warbands for Hordes of the Things, totalling 20 points. I will need another 4 points before this army is done. I might add two units of wolf riders – perhaps one unit of archers and one unit with swords?
Until next time!
Simon
I just cleaned and washed the orcs for my second Hordes of the Things army. All in all, I expect this force to come in at about 90-100 models. Next up I will assemble them on 4x2cm strips and add a layer of base paint.
Until next time!
Simon
As you can see above, my “The Golden City” army for Hordes of the Things is finally starting to come together! All the models are assembled and primed; some are entirely finished, others are just in the early stages of painting. But I am very excited over how I might actually pull this off! I have never planned and completed a project of this kind before. Instead, I usually move from idea to idea without finishing anything. Time for a change!
For my own documentation, here’s the army list for the army:
THE GOLDEN CITY
1 x Councillors (magician generals), 4 points
2 x Mounted City Guard (knights), 4 points
2 x City Guard Archers (archers), 4 points
6 x City Guard Spearmen (spearmen), 12 points
Total: 24 points
The army consists of 42 individually based models, each of which has been magnetically attached to a sabot base made out of rubberized steel. The spearmen and archers are from Copplestone Castings, while the magicians and knights are from Pendraken.
Until next time!
Simon
After a few days of letting my hobby table gather dust, I started to work on my first Hordes of the Things army again. Now I am doing work on the bases for my units. Lots of fiddly work, but it should soon be done. Hope to post a progress picture on the whole army soon!
Until next time
Simon
I always admire people who can just churn out whole armies without blinking. Myself I take forever to finish just about anything! That is why I am so happy to have finished two whole magnetized strips of orcs, which gives me… one whole 4x2cm base of orcs! Wonderful – I now have ten of these not-so-nice people. I am actually pretty happy with the colour scheme: three colours on yellow base paint, then two washes, then finishing touches and grasses. Very quickly, very efficient – and does not look too bad on the table.
Now, there is a long way to go before I can do much with these. For an army in Hordes of the Things I will need 18 strips of these (giving me 9 warbands) and then another 10-15 wolf riders to fill out the rest of the army. Well, at least this is a start!
I just received a custom battlemat from Playmats. The mat uses the Undergrowth/Swamp texture from a 122x122cm map. It was then scaled down to 60x60cm on my request, to better fit with the 10mm scale. The mat set me back 59 euro.
Here is a shot of the texture on the first side (the “Undergrowth” texture):
And here is apicture of the second side (the “Swamp” side):
The details are looking good, despite downscaling with 50%. So that part of the experiment worked well. Another good thing is that the mat does not reflect much light.
My only issue is that the colors look much less vibrant than as advertised (see here). While I was expecting the mat to be darker than one of latex or vinyl, I did not anticipate this huge change in color. Could it be due to scaling or to the choice of material? I might write to the seller and ask about it.
Until next time,
Simon
Today has been a bad day. I sometimes have a migraine like headache (probably due to exhaustion) and it reared its ugly head this day. For this reason, I have been pretty much incapacitated. Luckily, my partner has a day off and have taken care of our children while I huddle in my room.
While I was waiting for the migraine to subside, I did some hobbying to relax. Not much happened. However, I did complete a strip of Copplestone orcs:
I am planning to build this army so that it is usable both for my Hordes of the Things project, as well as for any future Lord of the Rings-themed projects. The bases will be dark brown with dark green grass and mosses, and I will build and paint them on magnetized strips of 4×1 cm. These strips can then be combined into various bases (4×2 cm, 4×4 cm, etc.) as needed. If I play a Lord of the Rings-themed game, I can just make a different “command strip” with the banner carrying the lidless eye of Sauron.
The above example was speed painted – I think it looks good enough. The banner sign is a fluorescent mushroom, which is the faction symbol for my Hordes of the Things army. I will probably call the faction something like “forest people,” since they are meant to be inspired more by the ancient Gauls than Tolkien’s orcs. They will therefore also organize into warbands rather than hordes. I might even add a huge snail as a behemot to their force – again, in the non-Tolkien setting of course. 😉
Until next time!
Simon