Big Hovel 15mm Fantasy building painted by Steve Dean

When a man gets an eye on a home he likes he often does his best to get his feet in the door and then decides to give it a lick of paint to suit his own tastes. A few days ago master of the paint brush Steve Dean whose work we showed earlier this month on our Tabletop Dungeon Party and our Anti-Paladins turned his attention to our HOB1B Big Hovel from the 15mm Human Settlement building range. Ain't it just lovely! Great work Steve. 

The HOB Range of 15mm Fantasy buildings currently has five different Human buildings and five different Orc buildings which are great for HOTT, AoMaS or any other fantasy system to go with your army as objectives or targets. 

You can see them all HERE and you have the choice of each of them or value bundles which save you ten or even twenty percent. All of the buildings were designed by Sam Croes and have been very popular with all of them having their molds replaced many times to keep the castings crisp. Dimensions of the structures are given on the website. 

 

If you are interested in our four new now resin monsters you have until the end of the month to get them at 15% off. The classic Tabletop monster Rhinosaurs along with the HOT War Mammoth and War Elephant too. Restored to normal prices on 1st October 2016. Go to the website or on our blog HERE and HERE for details and more images. 

Thanks for Reading, 

GBS

Steve Dean paints up classic 15mm Tabletop Dungeon Party

Earlier this month I put up a short article about the fine figure painter Steve Dean and his work on our HOT104 Anti-Paladins, which you can see on our blog HERE if you missed it. I have two more images on file here from last year that slipped my notice which are also by Mr Dean so I thought I would share these with you now as they are really good. You can visit his forum from where the images are taken HERE or read on for more information.

The classic 15mm Tabletop fantasy range has a lot of miniatures and monsters among its codes and while we have not as yet completed the re-release of all of them we have the majority of the codes online. Among the most popular are the Humans which include twenty five different poses all well suited to Dungeon Quest, RPG and character driven skirmish. Featuring Barbarians, Wizards, Females, Rogues, Bard, Paladins and many more you can see them all HERE on a specified search on the Tabletop page. Great for any system. 

Steve Dean has worked his magic on a selection of the Tabletop Humans taken from codes 501, 505 and 510. All of these can be had as single miniatures from our pages or as packs. However the most popular option is our great value saver skirmish packs which contain one of every pose plus some extra with a 10% saving. We have FST02 TTF Human Skirmish Pack and FST03 MDA Human Skirmish Pack. Below is our image of FST03. 

15mm.co.uk has put a lot of effort into bringing back not only Laserburn but also the Tabletop Fantasy range and the Tabletop Historicals too and we are really pleased that wargamers both experienced and new to this great pastime have sent us messages thanking us. Sure we want to make a reasonable living but we also want to keep the soul of wargaming intact too. 

Well done Steve and thanks for such excellent paint work! 

GBS

Steve Dean paints up HOT104 Anti-Paladins

That master of the fine brush Mr Steve Dean has painted up miniatures from one of 15mm.co.uk's newest packs in the HOT 15mm Fantasy range those being the Anti-Paladins warriors of the dark or evil overlords. He does fantastic work and you can see the original images on his website HERE. Read on for more or go HERE to see HOT104 on our website. 

I have also put up the single figure images taken from Steve's excellent website. Here they are: 

"We rode north as one. A thousand Men sworn by the mother church to defend the lands against the darkness and perversion that threatened us. Little did we know that the darkness lingers not deep from the surface in some Men. As we rode the voices whispers and shadows lucked in the forests and soon one then another and another fell away until when we came to the snow line there were but four hundred left and we had seen no foe. It was then our faith was splintered as ahead we saw our brother knights but they were not as they had been. Twisted and filled with the bane of life they were now of the darkness. Evil is all the more when once it was good." 

This is a popular 15mm scale pack and we have plans to expand it in the future. As with all the other infantry codes in the range you can choose HOT104 as a pack with sixteen miniatures, three packs saving 10% off the price and lastly as a 'sampler' which contains one of each pose from the pack which is ideal for RPG or skirmishing in 15mm scale. Go HERE. 

Well done Steve and thanks! 

GBS

Warchest Blog paints up SHM Alien Characters

Jimboba is a fellow Scotsman who like this Scotsman really loves 15mm science fiction wargaming. Recently he posted images of some of his collection of 15mm alien characters and I asked him if it would be cool for me to feature his SHM Range aliens on our blog.  He agreed and indeed sent some more specially taken pictures (in the real world he is a talented graphic designer) for us to use.  You can see them below.  You can also see the original blog post on Warchest HERE from which these characters and their stories are taken.

If you like the look of these 15mm aliens which are excellent for any set of rules or setting you can see them all at the SHM 15mm Science Fiction Range on the website.  They are from left to right: SHM31 Baroka Crimelord, SHM50 Razak Bouncer, SHM66 Skorath Mercenary and SHM30 Gizbin Mercenary.  These are all miniatures designed by Eli Arndt.

Good job Jimboba!

Thanks for Reading,

GBS

Painting the New 15mm Cockatrice Monster

Welcome to the fourth article for Age of Might and Steel by Andy Jefcoate a great fan of 15mm fantasy wargaming.  Andy has lots more articles to come which will feature on our blog while this time he shows off his painted up new HOT103 Cockatrice monster from the HOT 15mm Fantasy Range.  If you missed any of the previous articles you can find them by clicking on the links here. Last time Andy talked and shows his painting and use of our HOB1 Human Starter Settlement set of 15mm fantasy buildings see that HERE.  If you missed his article on Zombies you can read that HERE and if you passed over his excellent first article on building a Goblin Army for Age of Might and Steel (AoMaS) you can see that HERE.  We hope you enjoy and all comments or emails are most welcome. Follow the links in the text to visit our website for the rules and miniatures mentioned. GBS

Painting the new 15mm Cockatrice!

Thanks to Gavin I was lucky enough to receive a casting of the new 15mm Cockatrice figure ahead of its release date. I immediately liked it a lot as the casting is very clean with a good level of detail and the pose is good, with it's wings raised in a threatening gesture and one foot poised to strike! 

It is supplied in 3 white metal pieces with the wings provided separately which I always like as the angle of the wings can change the look of a figure dramatically. I was happy with how the finished figure looked so I thought that I'd explain how I went about painting it.

1. After minimal cleaning of the casting I started by gluing the wings to the body and then gluing the figure to a 40mm x 30mm stand to fit in with my collection of AoMaS figures. Once the glue was dry I undercoated the figure in a matt black paint. As stated in an earlier article I like to use acrylic paints as they dry quickly. 

2. I then added my basing material by stirring fine sand into paint of the colour I want the bases to be and put it on. For my current 15mm fantasy armies I'm using a sandy brown as the base colour. The figure was then left overnight to dry.

3. I started by painting the largest area of the figure which was the scaly body and wings. These were done in a dark green but as it is a creature I used a dark camouflage green to give a more natural look.

4. Next I covered the belly and along the underside of the tail in a pale yellow to contrast with the dark green. I painted this in stripes so that the bands along the stomach and tail were clearly visible.

 5.  With the larger areas complete it was time to put the base colour on smaller areas. The feet and beak were painted in a dark yellow, the tongue and crests on the head were painted in a dark red, the feathered areas at the top of the legs and on the head were done in a light grey and the claws and teeth were done in a pale brown.

6. I then covered the whole of the figure in a black ink wash. There is a nice level of detail on the casting so as the ink dries it brings this out and dulls down the colours. It also has the effect of creating areas of shade which gives a good boundary between the individual colours, but also tying them together. To make sure that the ink was completely dry I again left the figure overnight.

7. It was then time to add some brighter colours by dry-brushing them on to the main areas. I used a light camouflage green on the wings and body which highlighted the raised areas on the wings and the individual scales nicely. I then used a white over the feathered areas to make them stand out, before putting a lighter red on the crests on the creatures head.  

8. To add a final level of detail the beak was covered in a lighter yellow, the claws were all given an overlay of a bone colour and the eyes were painted red.

 9. The same bone colour was used to dry-brush over the sandy base as I've done with all of my 15mm fantasy collection. I then gave the figure a coat of matt spray varnish to protect it.

10. Finally once the varnish had dried I added static grass to the  base using PVA glue to fit in with the green of my terrain tiles. As the base then matched the rest of my collection it means that I can freely swap the Cockatrice between armies (which is especially useful with monsters) and it will immediately fit in.

I enjoyed painting this figure immensely. I'm building a fair sized collection of monsters to use with AoMaS and a Cockatrice was something I didn't have previously. I plan to highlight my collection of monsters in a later article. 

In the AoMaS game this Cockatrice could have the following stats.

Magical Creature Align: Evil

Move: Walk or Fly Moral Effect: None

Combat Effect: Each figure is counted as a stand

Magic: Magic Attack (-1 to attack base number)

Although the Cockatrice is a monster it isn't a large figure with the top of the crest on the head being about 25mm from the ground. However, with it's wings spread and tail raised it looks bigger than it actually is. As I write this I'm thinking about how this figure could easily be used as the mount for a character or even as the mounts for a unit of heavy cavalry which would look very imposing on the tabletop!

In the meantime I would recommend buying a Cockatrice (or two, or three) to add to your own collection; you won't be disappointed. 

Thanks for reading.

Andy

Painting 15mm Human Fantasy Buildings by Andy Jefcoate

Welcome to the third article for Age of Might and Steel by Andy Jefcoate a great fan of 15mm fantasy wargaming.  Andy has more articles to come which will feature on our blog and in this article he talks and shows his painting and use of our HOB1 Human Starter Settlement set of 15mm fantasy buildings.  If you missed his article last month on Zombies you can read that HERE and if you passed over his excellent first article on building a Goblin Army for Age of Might and Steel (AoMaS) you can see that HERE.  We hope you enjoy and all comments or emails are most welcome. Follow the links in the text to visit our website for the rules and miniatures mentioned. GBS

Painting 15mm Human Fantasy Buildings

When I first saw the set of 15mm Human Fantasy Buildings designed by Sam Croes I knew that I had to have a set. Having good scenery for whatever genre or scale of wargaming you're doing makes your games much more rewarding. 

There are 5 buildings in the set which can be purchased individually or all together as the HOB1 Human Starter Settlement (with a discount on the total price). Two of the buildings are hovels with thatched roofs and a more rural look, while the other 3 are stone built with tiled roofs and look more like town buildings. They look great together as a single settlement and are based on historical buildings so would be useful for historical games too.

Preparation

All 5 buildings have excellent levels of detail and  on the set I have there was no need to trim any flash. With the resin being of such good quality they probably didn't need any further preparation before painting but I did give them a wash with mild detergent to be sure that there were no chemicals on their surface that would stop paint adhesion. I then undercoated all 5 buildings in black matt acrylic paint and left them overnight to dry.

Rural Buildings

As there are distinct styles between the buildings I decided to paint the 2 more rural buildings first. These are HOB1A Small Hovel and HOB1B Big Hovel.

The thatch was painted in a light brown and the wooden framework on the buildings (including doors and window frames) in a mid brown before all these areas were given a brown ink wash. 

Once the ink had dried the thatch was given a heavy dry brush of yellow and the exterior walls within the wooden frame areas were painted in the same yellow.

Finally the exterior wall areas within the wooden frame were dry brushed in a bone colour, any metal such as door/window furniture or frame fixing plates were given a light dry brush in a gun metal colour metallic paint, and stone doorsteps were painted a mid grey. 

Stone Buildings

I then decided to paint the 2 smaller stone built buildings as they are also very similar in style. These are HOB1C Small House and HOB1D Tall House.

I started with the wooden areas and painted them in a mid brown the same as the rural buildings. If you wanted to make them look more like town buildings these wooden areas, especially doors and window frames, could be given a splash of colour but I wanted to tie all 5 settlement buildings together.

Next I painted all stone areas in a heavy dry brush of mid grey with the roof tiles and chimney pots in a brick red. Any metal such as door/window furniture was given a light dry brush of  a gun metal colour metallic paint, before the whole buildings were given a black ink wash. To finish off a light dry brush of light grey was added to the stone areas and a light dry brush of blood red was added to the roof tiles. 

Large Building

Finally I painted the largest building in the set, HOB1E Large House. As this is a stone building with a tiled roof but also has wooden frame areas similar to the rural buildings I used all of the techniques above. To start, the wooden areas were painted in a mid brown and the stone areas in a heavy dry brush of mid grey.

While the chimney pots were painted in brick red, I decided to paint the roof tiles in a mid blue to give variety. Next, any metal areas such as door/window furniture were given a light dry brush of  a gun metal colour metallic paint, before the whole building was given a black ink wash.

Then a light dry brush of light grey was added to the stone areas and a light dry brush of very pale blue (I added a tiny splash of blue to white paint) was added to the roof tiles. 

As a finishing touch the front door was painted in blood red. This house looks like it belongs to a wealthier person and this made the building stand out.

Results

I am very happy with the final result and have already used the buildings as objectives in AoMaS scenario's. Yes sometimes it's fun to just line up your armies and charge across the table but having an objective makes you have to think about what you're doing. Most battles in history have been one force defending territory and/or possessions against a force that wishes to take them, so why should a fantasy game be any different. 

The buildings can be used together as a settlement, or the rural ones can be used as a small village/farm with the stone ones as a separate small town. I can see me buying another set in the future to expand the possibilities. I am currently working on a human force for AoMaS to use against my goblin force and these buildings will play a big part in the first game. I'll let you know how I get on in a future article.

Thanks for reading.

Andy

Painting Agency Blog spots the Ikwen

“The pseudo-amphibioid natives of the jungle world Kwiell were progressing well through their version of the Bronze Age when the first sky visitors arrived.  Unfortunately for the Ikwen ("the Forest's Children" in their own language of hypersonic clicks and squeals) the visitors were not a curious scientific team, but a fleet of freebooters hired by the Human Empire to scout out sources of the fusion-modulating superheavy element unbihexium.....”

Allison M over at the Painting Agency Blog is a real fan of 15mm.co.uk and notably the Loud Ninja Games range of miniatures you can find there among many other things.  Check out the original blog post HERE and visit this page HERE for the Ikwen. The post on the painting agency blog concerns a guerilla action carried out by the native Ikwen against Human invaders.  A great little story which would sit well for a campaign using any 15mm sci-fi rules such as USEME or Alien Squad Leader with the Ikwen and perhaps the Rim Mercenaries from the HOF range standing in for the greedy Humans.

Thanks for Reading,

GBS

How to Build a Goblin Army in AoMaS by Andy Jefcoate

Welcome to the first article for Age of Might and Steel by Andy Jefcoate a great fan of 15mm fantasy wargaming and a good guy all around.  Andy has more articles to come which will feature on our blog but in this article he talks and shows how to assemble a Goblin Army for use in the game. We hope you enjoy and all comments or emails are most welcome.  Follow the links in the text to visit our website for the rules and miniatures mentioned.  Thanks.  GBS

How to build a Goblin Force for AoMaS 

using figures from the 15mm.co.uk ranges 

As a fan of fantasy wargaming my favourite scale is 15mm as it allows you to field impressive looking forces without taking up huge amounts of space and can also be achieved without considerable expense. Both of these things appeal to me! 

Over the last few years I've used the Age of Might and Steel (AoMaS) rules as they are quick to learn, fun to play and flexible enough to be used for games of a few units a side up to major battles of several hundred figures.  The rules are on the website as a paid for PDF download. The fantasy ranges at 15mm.co.uk cover all the unit types available with many of the monsters being interchangeable between armies. Since reading the Lord of the Rings as a child I've always had a soft spot for goblin wolf riders (someone has to) so the first force I decided to build was goblins. 

Basing 

For those of you who aren't familiar with the AoMaS rules, all the main units are made up of figure stands with a 40mm frontage. Infantry are based on 40mm x 20mm stands with 2 figures for light infantry or archers, and 3 for medium and heavy infantry. Cavalry are based on 40mm x 30mm stands with 2 figures for both light and heavy cavalry. Heroes are based on 25mm x 25mm stands although I generally use 25mm round stands to make them obvious and I like to use a bigger stand for the army general. Special stands such as war machines and monsters can be based as you like but I still use a 40mm frontage, with 30mm, 40mm and 60mm depth according to the size of the model.  Element Bases to use are HERE.

My Unit Choices 

It's no surprise that my first unit choice was wolf riders but they're a compulsory unit in any case. Using pack HOT5, you get 10 wolf riders in each pack which gives you 5 stands. 

I wanted a unit of 10 stands which would therefore need 2 packs. If you buy 3 identical packs you get a 10% discount (use the drop down menu on the product page and select three packs) which is excellent value, and in the end I bought 4 packs but more about that later. 

I then wanted some ordinary goblin warriors, which are medium infantry and the other compulsory unit choice. These are provided by pack HOT4 with 16 figures supplied per infantry pack. I wanted an 8 stand unit so 2 packs would give me the 24 figures I needed with a few left over. This gives you the units you must have (apart from heroes and magic users), so now you are free to choose units that match your playing style. 

I decided on some goblin archers to provide ranged attacks. These are supplied by pack HOT61, and as I wanted an 8 stand unit with archers based 2 to a stand I only needed 1 pack. As heavy infantry are a useful unit to have I wanted some goblin knights. These were supplied using pack HOT4A from the orc range. The more heavily armoured figures work nicely. I wanted a 9 stand unit to form an attack column so 2 packs supplied the 27 figures I needed with a few figures left over for unit leaders. 

For the final unit in my basic army I decided that I wanted some more wolf riders but this time I wanted mounted archers. Although there isn't a specific pack for these they are easily created using the regular wolf riders in pack HOT5 (I mentioned that I bought extra packs) with the riders clipped through at the waist and then another pack of goblin archers HOT61 also clipped through at the waist (but being careful to trim round the quiver). Please see the attached photo. Make sure that the 2 halves are trimmed to a flat edge and they glue together nicely. I wanted 6 stands so I still had some wolf riders left over for mounted characters. 

Choosing Special Stands 

In AoMaS you are allowed Special Stands in ratio to the number of units in your Army, and the ratio varies according to which Fantasy Race you are using. 

All armies must have a general. For my general I bought pack HOT3 which includes a goblin king with an axe along with bodyguards so job done! I put him on a 30mm x 30mm base to make him stand out. The kneeling warriors with spears were used as standard bearers for my units. I then based 3 wolf riders individually on 25mm round bases. 1 was painted as a magic user with the other 2 painted as heroes. 

To bolster the size of my archer unit and give some longer range shooting if I needed it I purchased a goblin bolt thrower pack HOT16. For my initial monster choices I bought 3 trolls using pack HOT3A. Trolls are supplied individually but again by buying 3 there was a 10% discount. Then I also bought a Manticore which are supplied singly in pack HOT28. 

Army Points 

The total APV of my goblin force is 430 which is a good size to start playing with. 

Tactical Lessons 

Heavy infantry are slow but solid in combat against all other units. They should anchor your line where needed. The medium infantry are faster and good at holding the line against other medium infantry or light troops. 

Archers provide ranged attacks but may not charge into combat so you need to be careful where you send them. They are useful for holding terrain features or objectives and move as light infantry so move quickly even in dense woods or rough terrain. Remember that war machines move as heavy infantry though so if you need your archers to move quickly don't attach a bolt thrower. 

As light cavalry the wolf riders are fast and can move around the flanks, but be wary of heavy cavalry. As a special rule wolf riders add +1 to their dice roles in combat but if you want to take on the heavies it wouldn't hurt to involve a hero in the combat as well. Of course if you can get in a sneaky flank charge that's even better. 

The wolf riders with bows cannot charge into combat due to being mounted archers but are useful to the flank or rear of the enemy. They can fire from a march column formation which can be particularly effective. 

The Trolls count as a stand each so can boost the size of units when attached, but the Manticore is the most effective when attached as it provides magical attacks giving you -1 on your base number. 

Conclusions 

After playing some initial games, this is a good all round starting force, but may not work with all scenarios. I plan to add an additional unit of wolf riders, heavy infantry and medium infantry to my collection in the near future. This will give me more tactical options when selecting a force. I've enjoyed the whole process of building and painting this army and although it isn't the toughest it's fun to play with and when all's said and done that's the most important thing for me. 

Thank you for reading. 

Andy

Leonardo Da Vinci and his Tank in 15mm painted by Steve Dean

 

Our fantastic 15mm scale renaissance fantasy packs have been painted up by the multi-talented Steve Dean! Leonardo Da Vinci and his proposed design for a tank too. You can visit the original post on Steve's forums HERE. In this short article I have put up the images from that forum post for you to enjoy. 

Steve plays a lot of different periods and paints a huge array of different miniatures. His intention here is to add these to his fantasy armies in 15mm scale. To that end using his 'Bitz Box' he made some alterations to the standard miniatures and model. Da Vinci himself is mounted on a different horse to the one we supply and the Tank has a very nice and ornate top piece added. As well as this banner top piece the front of the tank has a crest added. It shows just what you can do with this model. Enjoy the pictures and thanks Steve! 

Above you can see our own version of the Tank and of the inventor, artist and great man himself too. These show what you will get (unpainted and unassembled) when you order the packs from us. Click on the links to HOT101 Da Vinci Tank and HOT102 Leonardo Da Vinci to go to our website. You can purchase one pack or click on the drop down menu to select 'buy three save 10%' option for more value! 

Thanks for Reading, 

GBS