Koyote in Frostheim -SORRY- ALL PHOTOS PRIOR TO P.14 ARE INACCESSIBLE

[Hupp n at em]

Great thread, really inspired painting and conversion choices. 

[Daniel36]

My goodness what nice conversions. Never seen those gamezone "Estalians" before but definitely keeping them in mind for a future Mordheim warband.

[Koyote]

Sadly, I had to cancel my plans to attend Adepticon.  The silver lining is now that I don't have a painting deadline I can alternate between painting my SAGA Irish and  my Frostheim warband. 

I'm almost done with my first unit of Irish Bonnacht. In between painting Irish warriors I cranked out my first two demon frogs/toads for my Summoners to launch at their foes.

Demon Toads (Imps)



Is it just me, or does the demon toad on the left look a lot meaner than the demon toad on the right?

I was planning to use the Otherworld Miniatures' Type II Demon as my Minor Frog/Toad Demon, but then I stumbled upon these beauties:



These models fit my kooky frog/toad theme, perfectly.  The smaller ones can serve as Minor Demons and the big one will be a Major Demon.  They were made by manufacturer called Toad King Castings as part of its Warts & Wings Kickstarter.  Toad King doesn't appear to have a webstore yet, but I'm in contact with them and hopefully I will be able to get my hands on them very soon.

...KILL. KILL. KILL.

[cutp]

FYI toad king castings website is live

http://www.toadkingcastings.co.uk/

[Koyote]

FYI toad king castings website is live

http://www.toadkingcastings.co.uk/

Thank you, good sir.  I will be placing my order today.

[Daniel36]

He does look meaner! Funny, I was just looking at Toad King the other day. He makes nice stuff.

[Koyote]

I just finished painting my first unit of Irish Bonnacht.  Before I start on my next unit of Irish I'm going to knock out a couple of Frostheim models.  My next Frostheim project WAS going to be a couple of Estalian men-at-arms.  The plan is to convert and paint 2 Gamezone Minatures Imperial Pikemen (pikes will be replaced with spears), but CMON screwed up my order and sent me the wrong blister.  Instead of Pikemen, I received a blister containing a mounted knight on a barded steed.  How does a order picker confuse Pikemen with a mounted knight? Strange. 

While I wait for CMON to sort this out, I'm going to move my Templar and Marksman to the front of the painting queue.  As I mentioned earlier, I don't want to paint my Templar and Marksman as Averlanders or Estalians, so I need to decide on a different color scheme and origin for these two fellows.




As I was admiring the Sylvania uniforms on page 57 of  The Uniforms and Heraldry of The Empire, I remembered that Mordheim is set in the year 1999 of the Imperial Calendar (which also coincided with the year that the game was released).  The year 1999 is a couple centuries after Vlad von Carstein took the throne of Sylvania, but a decade or so before he truly revealed himself by raising a massive undead army and starting the Vampire Wars.  This means that while the devastated city of  Mordheim was being scoured for warp stone, Sylvania was still a province of the Empire and as such it still had human nobles, knights and state soldiers.  Bingo!  I will paint my Templar and Marksman in Sylvania's colors and they will represent exiles or simply mercenaries from Sylvania,

[Koyote]

I've also been thinking about which models to use as a Crow Master and Blood Crow. 

I purchased the Crow Master as part of the Nickstarter, but when it arrived I realized that the model doesn't scale well against the other models in my warband, which are primarily GW models. So, if I want my Summoner to hire a Crow Master I need to find some different models.

Several years ago I started playing Hell Dorado. As time passed I realized that after Cipher Studios wasn't really that interested in promoting or expanding the game. Thus, Hell Dorado withered on the vine.  This left me with a couple dozen models and a game that nobody, including myself, was interested in. 

A year or so later I found a use for some use of my Hell Dorado models. With a little bit of conversion work I had myself an Arab themed Mercenary Crew for Malifaux.  Pictured below are a few of my favorite repurposed Saracen models.

Von Schill




Ronin (left) and Freikorpsmann (right)




Misaki




Freikorps Specialist




One of the Saracen models that didn't make it into my Malufaux Crew is Tarik ibn Malik's hunting eagle.  It's a great model, sculpted so that it's tearing the head off a zombie-like figure.  If I paint it black and straighten its beak, it can pass as an enormous corvidae (although corvidae do not have raptor-like talons so a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required). 




After deciding on a "crow" model, the next step was to find myself a counts-as Crow Master.  I began by associating crows and ravens with characters and races from the Warhammer world and other fantasy worlds.  One of the strongest associations to float to the surface of my little mind is the long relationship between the Dwarfs of Erebor and the sentient ravens of Ravenhill, near Lonely Mountain.  If memory serves, after Smaug's death, Thorin asked the king of the ravens to send a messenger to the Iron Hills to summon King Dain and his warhost.

The Warhammer is not Middle Earth (although some would argue this), but I like the idea of a Dwarf with enormous raven companions, so I got to work.  I started with a Mordheim Dwarf Treasure Hunter Beardling model.




I gave the model a more respectable beard by adding a braided end of a beard from an Avatars of War dwarf model.  I used greenstuff to to patch the beard, add a falconry glove, increase the length of the model's tunic, increase the size of the hat and to add a leash to both the raven on the dwarf's arm and the model of the hunting eagle (now turned raven). I also added a scabbard so the little fellow has somewhere to put his sword when he's not sticking people with it.

I used the Blood Crow (BC) from the Frostgrave Crow Master for the raven perched on the dwarf's arm.  I was worried that the small surface area under the BC's feet and the model's thin ankles would cause problems in the future, so I drilled two small holes into the dwarf's hand, cut off the BC's feet, added a dab of superglue to each stump and inserted them into the holes.  Lastly, I used greenstuff to sculpt the BC (now raven) some new feet. 

Hopefully this little extra bit of work will create a fairly strong bond between the two models.  And since the remaining portions of the BC's legs are a bit thicker and coated in glue super glue, the BC's legs will be less prone to bending or breaking.

WIP Dwarf Roost Master and Giant Ravens (counts-as Crow Master and Blood Crow)

[Urquhart]

Good conversion!!!

[Philhelm]

I'm looking forward to the Sylvanians.  Do you have any plans for a Stirlander, or perhaps a witch hunter?

[Koyote]

I'm looking forward to the Sylvanians.  Do you have any plans for a Stirlander, or perhaps a witch hunter?

I do like the colors of Stirland's uniforms.  Green is a relatively easy color to paint, but painting yellow makes me grumpy so I try to avoid it.  Why I decided to paint an Averlander warband, I'll never know.

Typically, Witch hunter models have a lot of character so they'd be fun to paint and play with, but my current warband is lead by a Summoner who conjures demons to do his bidding.  In the world of WFB (I refuse to call it Age of Sigmar), witch hunters don't mix well with spellcasters who have dark congress with demons.

It's funny that you brought up witch hunters.  I love GW's new(ish) Witch Hunter model (pictured below), so my plan is to use it as my warband's Captain.  He won't be a witch hunter, but rather a landless noble turned mercenary captain.  The model's pistol will serve as a counts-as crossbow. 

I haven't decided whether to paint my captain in the colors of one of my existing human mercenary factions or paint him as belonging to a different province.  Hmm?

[Philhelm]

Well, if you're playing Frostgrave in the Warhammer setting, perhaps random cultist encounters could be represented by witch hunters trying to hunt down your wizard.

If you want a non-Averlander Captain without yellow, then my vote would be for Ostermark (purple and cream variant).

[Koyote]

Well, if you're playing Frostgrave in the Warhammer setting, perhaps random cultist encounters could be represented by witch hunters trying to hunt down your wizard.

Thanks Philhelm, that's a clever idea.

My order from Toad King Casting arrived today.  The medium toad is a tad smaller than I had hoped.  Nevertheless, there's a large enough difference in size between the Heresy Miniatures Demonic Toad Familiar (left) and the TKC Giant Toad Medium (center) that I shouldn't have to worry about my opponents distinguishing the Imp from the Minor Demon.  The different bases sizes will also help distinguish the two.

ALL BOW DOWN BEFORE THE CROAKING MIGHT OF THE TOAD DEMONS!

[Nooblord]

Thanks for the pic. I have my eyes on those toads. Are the base sizes (left to right) 20mm, 30mm, 40mm?

[Koyote]

Thanks for the pic. I have my eyes on those toads. Are the base sizes (left to right) 20mm, 30mm, 40mm?

You're close. The pictured base sizes are 20mm, 25mm and 40mm.