Ragnarok Miniatures - New Figures to the collection

'The Stahlsons' Armoured Trolls

The Ragnarok Miniatures above and following are some of the first miniatures I've added to my collection this year. The Figures were received last month from the recent Ragnarok 9 Trollheim Kickstarter which was floated at the end of last year and were received ahead of the anticipated delivery, which was nice. All the figures are sculpted by Colin Patten and his style is immediately noticable and the figures fit with many manufacture ranges over and above the many that were sculpted by Colin of course but also other ranges.

I have a number of the Ragnarok minitures already and this package is adding to the range I have which are intended for use in a number of roles but particularly bulking out my Oathmark Army, use in my Solo Fantasy Campaign, various Fantasy Skirmish rules and in some LotR gaming to name a few.

A good deal and a fair passle of figures received, I like the Armoured Trolls particularly and will be useful in a number of roles under a variety of guises which the generic look will fit nicely.

'Uruk Warband'

Along with the Trolls, I went for the Uruk Warband which includes 32 figures in various guises.

'Uruk Command and Armoured Uruks'

Self explanitory Armoured Uruk core with 12 rank and file and a 4 figure command group. I picked up an additional Command group to flesh out previously picked up Ragnarok Armoured Goblin types. Armed with reasonably sized shields and mainly polearms and a few scimtar like swords. I'll probably ditch the scimitars in favour of something a bit heavier.

'Uruk Archers'

Again, self explanitory with the Uruk Archers being of the armoured variety. One issue I didn't like with these is that they came with the standard seperate hand with bow which also came with the Forest Goblins below. While this looked fine with the goblins, it looked a bit small for the beefy Uruks, so I substituted the bows with some spare bows from the bits box. Pretty sure they were from spare Empire Archers, which look the part size wise.

'Uruk Trackers'

The Uruk Trackers are a very usable generic goblinoid beefy type and could be used in a variety of roles again. Armed with spears and lighter shields than their armoured counterparts, the shields are fine and similar if not the same as the Goblin Shields in previous releases. Don't like the spears as pretty blunt looking and like the polearms with the armoured Uruks are very soft metal, so these will be replaced for harder wearing alternatives, probably rod and plastic spear heads.

'Forest Snaga Archers'

Bringing up the rear of this gang are the Forest Goblin Archers. I have a pack of the Forest Goblin Spearmen from previous Kickstarter which I liked a lot and make ideal skirmishy types and the archer addition was a no brainer for me. As you can see, the seperate hand/bow which are pinned and glued to the figures look nicely sized for the shorter stature Goblins but is way to small for the strapping Uruk warriors to bother with.

The previous releases from Ragnarok are available from Gripping Beast and I assume the latest Kickstarter will be available there in due time. I'm probably going to be picking up a couple of additional Goblin types from GB in the near future.

Oathmark Army Update - Peter the Giant

Here's an update on a little bit of progress on troops for my Oathmark Army currently under construction. Namely 'Peter the Giant'.

The model is, for those who don't recognise it, one of the 'Giants of Albion' set from the OOP Citadel Dogs of War range. I have a couple of the box sets from years ago and the other model from this set will be the next giant for the army, but won't join the ranks until the army list is due for expansion.

The model has a number of firsts to it for me. First model completed this year, first model I have completely painted using a wet palette, first to be varnished using spray varnish, first use of pigments on a model and first model I've named after a family member.

He's named after my father-in-law, who it has to be said it closely resembles, even down to the one good eye. Peter is no longer with us as he sadly passed away last year, but a wee bit of a memorium for him, (which I'm sure he would appreciate).

The model is all in all a bit of an experiment in many ways and I found I had to learn things all over again but I will perservere, as most of the experience was positive and reasonably happy with the end result, but with lots to learn.

I really liked using the pigments on the base as I was sure I would be and will be looking to experiement with them more in the future and see if I can get a bit more proficient in their use.

I did have an issue with the spray varnish, a matt one from MigAMMO. I sure the issue was not with the product, but my use of it, as the final coat ended up pretty shiny, which I don't like. So I ended up applying a brush coat of my trusty Windsor & Newton Matt Varnish to finish up. The fact that most of the model has had four varnish coats has had a slight blurring effect on some of the detail but nothing too worrying.

Next unit up on the Oathmark painting front will likely be the first Human Infantry Spear unit, with the Human Bowmen unit currently under construction, but next on the painting queue are some fantasy skirmish figures to be finished off hopefully soon.

 

WIP July - Oathmark Troops

As promised in my last post, I have here some of my WIP that I've been working on during the lockdown. This time around it's the first of the troops I intend to use for games of Oathmark when we are allowed to get to the clubs again.

Infantry unit is based on the Fireforge Forgotten World Infantry that I picked up in the kickstarter tale end of last year, or the first two of the three boxes I picked up anyway. Took a bit of construction and a reasonable amount of mould line removal plus the heads that I used from the box sets don't fit very well (sitting very high on the torso) and required cutting down to sit correctly to my eye anyway.

I used a selection of GW heads from Empire and Bretonnian sets and altered a few of the Fireforge heads adding greenstuff caps to match the look I was going for. I ended up using about half a dozen or so of the historical heads from a Fireforge Scandinavian box set to add some more variety but these had to be drilled and pinned with gaps at the neck filled as the location method between the kits is completely different (historical the socket is on the head, fantasy the socket is on the torso).

I'll add the other box set to the unit some time in the future for use of the unit in other rule sets but they're not required for Oathmark. In fact only 20 of the figs are needed for Oathmark and I'll probably sabot the figs so they fit the base frontages for use in the rules.

The Cavalry follow the same basic premise of the Infantry being from the Fireforge Forgotten World Kickstarter bundle I picked up but this time using only GW heads principally Bretonnian for a slightly diffent look. Again, there's another box to be constructed to make up a larger unit but not required for initial small Oathmark games planned. The Infantry and Cavalry units are destined, in their full sized capacity, to also be used in my ongoing Alba Campaign as Northern states militia types.

Finally in this WIP trio is the first of the giants planned. Probably easily recognisable as one of the GW Giants of Albion from the defunct Dogs of War range which I have multitudes of in the 'to do' list.

Picked up a couple of the Giants boxes when they were current but never really had a use for them until now so they've finally managed to see the light of day.

Bit of a pig to assemble with much drilling and pinning and still to finish off filling in the gaps with greenstuff to finish off the assembly and will move onto painting up this bad boy once I've finished a couple of other figures that are nearing completion.

I'll post again and report on progress for this project including other troops in construction for this army.

Next up, a wee bit of WIP on my Future Wars project progress from during lockdown.