Mars Miniatures

Mars Miniatures

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Balrog's Army of Darkness (Pics and Video!)

So another quick update with another video.

This time its the armies of darkness which have vowed to destroy the heroic Dwarves...
its Balrog and his Axis of Evil!

Here's a description that I made for the youtube vid:
The Balrog has raised an army of darkness to compete against the advances of the stalwart Dwarves.  The Wraith and his undead skeletons are bound to the Balrog's will.  Orc and Goblin warbosses lead their hordes and have joined the Balrog in hopes of honor through war and bloodshed.  Even the crafty Drow, the Dark Elves have pledged an alliance and bring their favorite monsters - a Basilisk, a Hydra, a Blink Dog, and lots of baby Dragons! 

The Balrog himself has called on old friends from other dimensions... Cthulhu-ish dimensions.  A menagerie of Shoggoths, Beholders and other horrors have appeared to bring an age of Darkness across the world.

Will the heroic Dwarven defenders resist them and save Middle Earth?

Keep updated on my blog for all the news! 
http://mars-miniatures.blogspot.com/


Not sure if I will keep making vids.  They just seem so grainy.  And I cant really keep a steady shot while side stepping from one end of the table to the other.  I prefer hd pics for a wargame blog.

Anyway, on to pics and some new minis.  The vid is at the end of the post.

 An overview of the Army of Darkness

Mr B.
Balrog.
Mighty Overlord of Evil.
I hear he cooks a mean barbecue though...

Here are some tentacled horrors known as Shoggoths.
Balrog has been known to hobnob with the Big C himself.
You know... the Big C.?  He takes naps in an underwater city called Ryleh?
He "calls" out to people through the power of dreams.

Here are even more Cthulhu horrors.
Left to Right: a baby Dhole, a Yithian, and a Dimensional Shambler

Hey its the Beholder brothers and a Smoke Monster (I hear he had some friends on a "lost" island)

A Regiment of Reknown, the Nightmare Legion.

And here is Balrog's lieutenant, Murkillor the Wraith.
Is he a Ring Wraith?  Hmmm... not sure, really.
I heard on the grapevine that he is only a distant relative of the Witch King of Angmar.
Doesnt make him a bad person though...

Some Orc archers with a drummer. These guys are just waiting for Boromir and/or Lord Stark to show his face.  Arrows or an executioners axe, Sean Bean is going to take a dirt nap if these nasty fellas have any say in the matter.

Here is a proper 80s Oldhammer Orc Boss on a war pig.
He is a MM23 Marauder Orc General On Boar.
Next to him, that big armored brute is Gorfang Rotgut, chieftain of the Red Fang Tribe.
He has beef with the Dwarf King Kazador.

When Gorfang attacked Karak Azul he broke into Lord Kazador's throne room and captured many of the Dwarf Lord's kinsfolk. Some were taken back to the dungeons of Black Crag where they remain to this day, to the anger of Kazador. The Dwarf Lord's son, Kazrik, was not taken captive but was shaved, and his head tattooed with a crude Orc glyph representing Gorfang. Then he was firmly nailed to Kazador's own throne. Although Kazrik survived, the experience has unhinged him somewhat. Lord Kazador has sworn vengeance and awaits the day when he can crush the Orc chieftain himself.

And here is another Orc Boss, Gorgut.  Jeez, all these Orcs have similar names.
He is boss of the Black Fang Tribes and actually has a 5th edition module for his backstory...
The "Lair of the Orc Lord" box set.
I dont have it, so I got no idea of his fluff.  Not that it matters much, since I tend to "Baron Munchaussen" storylines here on my blog.

Another famous Greenskin here.  Its Skarsnik the Goblin warboss.
He is leading this unit of Gobbos.
Hmm... he doesnt seem to have his companion with him - Gobbla the large Squig.
Why?  Because I got Skarsnik in a trade and there was no squig to be found.
I need to remedy that at some point.  In fact, I have no squigs at all.  Shame!
I love those adorable critters!

A long line of archers and 2 Goblin Fanatics.
Drunk on mushroom brews, and whirling their deadly ball and chains around, they really are a menace.

And now we get to the baby Dragons...  all rebased on squares and ready to fight in the big leagues.
These guys are on 50mm squares.

And these lil ones are on 40mm squares.

Here's the Mother of Dragons, Countess Alyssa and her Blink Dog, Muffins.


And finally a shot of more Drow units and the overall DarkElf Commander Alrik Stormbringer with his talking cursed sword.

And here is the video on Youtube.  A nice little overhead view of the whole army.

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So with these last 2 posts we have a quick accounting of the painted minis for this blog.
Thats 453 painted Dwarves and allies.
And now 228 painted Orcs, Drow, Undead, and various monsters.

Not to mention all the terrain, there's caverns, mines, dungeons, forests, swamps, a fortress, a chamber of records, and now all the overland terrain with bocage/walls/fences, a farmhouse, trading post, crop fields, and wheat fields.  I have been pretty busy over the past year. 

With more being painted all the time!  But you can see that I really need to start recruiting more Orcs and Goblins.  I have some Oldhammer Rugluds Armored Orcs on the painting docket.  I also want to paint up a vintage Citadel Orc from the Fiend Factory era - an Orc General on a Tusker.  Tuskers look like something that lives on Tattooine.  Apparently they went extinct and didnt make it to later editions of Warhammer, but they do look cool.  I also have some 80s Citadel Lord of the Rings Uruk Hai.  And a Marauder Goblin General on a wolf.  So, yeah, stay tuned for more Oldhammer Greenskins.  And some battles too, promise!

Cheers,
Mar




Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Army Of Moria with Video!

Short update today, but this time with a video!
I took out all the painted Dwarves I have on my shelves and the current muster is at 453.
Its just been a lil over a year since I began my retro delving into Oldhammer goodness and I still feel like there is just so much more to do and stunties yet to purchase and paint. Gotta catch em all!


Quick pic of the Muster of Moria.

And here is the video.  Which could be a lot better, I admit.  But the music is inspiring!  The Dwarven Empire will reach the limits of glory.  I do need to find a Dwarven Napoleon figure, I think I remember seeing one sometime ago.

In the next post I will show off all the enemies of our stuntie heroes... the Axis of Evil!  Orcs, Undead and Dark Elves.



Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Citadel Imperial Dwarf Box Set & More

I have got my hands on an Oldhammer Citadel set from the 80s.
Its the Prince Ulther Imperial Dwarves!
I have had 18 of them for awhile now, but didnt have the box itself.  So I jumped at the chance to get another 18 of them but this time with the box.


Here is the front. 

And the back with the fluff and rules!

Here are the 2 figures I had been missing.  A musician and Prince Ulther himself. 
All this time I thought I had Prince Ulther, but actually I had the unit champion, Borri Forkbeard.

So, here is a pic of all 36 Imperial Dwarves I now have. 
As you can see, Runelord Kragg has joined this unit.
Front rank from left to right: 2 troopers, musician, banner, Prince Ulther, Runelord Kragg, Borri Forkbeard, 2 troopers.

Here is another newly painted Dwarf. Boren the Hunter with his trusty feline companion. 
He might be a druid, or a ranger, but he is definitely a rat trapper.

Oh look its Ratcatcher and Bob the Bouncer. 
They convince Boren to join the Rangers.

So Boren joins the ranks of the Rangers alongside Josef Bugman himself.
Front rank left to right: The Beercart, 2 drunk dwarves, Pickles the Mapmaster, Josef Bugman, Stonewall Jarlson, Finlay the Bagpiper.

Two newly painted Grenadier Dwarves.  One is carrying a sack, and the other is carrying something wrapped in cloth.  Is it gems, gold, or food?  Im thinking its explosives of some sort.
So these two join the Dwarven Miners.

So the Miners unit is growing even more.

3 more painted Dwarves.  The fella in the center, I have no idea who makes it, but he is definitely of old school manufacture.  The other two are converted Throne Dwarves.

Another 4 recently painted Dwarves.

All 7 of these new fellows will join Gloin's unit - The Iron Hills Regiment.
Notable Dwarves in this unit are:  Gloin (Gimli's dad), Nindalf the Wizard, Hodor, 5 Dwarf Lords of Legend (The Baron, Angus, Lastro, Uther, and DeathEye), and also Cheery Dwarf.

Gimli and the other 3 Dwarf Lords of Legend who have 2-handed weapons have gone to join the Hammerers unit with the High King.

I also painted up some 80s Chaos Warriors.  Here is a Slaanesh and a Tzeentch warrior.

A Khorne and a Nurgle warrior.

A newly painted Reaper barbarian.  I think I will call him Hagar the Horrible.

He will be joining the ranks of these fine barbarians. 


Readers of this fine blog will know these fellas were in the employ of Tyrion.
But now they seem to be chums with those Chaos Warriors.


So a rather haphazard post of newly painted stuff.
The next one will either be a photoshoot of all the painted Dwarves I currently have.  The Grand Muster of Moria.

Or I might show off the Orcs and Gobbos.  I have a ton of new ones painted up. 

All the older Greenskins have been rebased to squares and are nearly finished with their bases being flocked.  The Wraith and his undead, the Dark Elves, Dragons, and various monstrosities are all in line for flocking as well. 

At any rate, Im hoping in the next week that all base work will be finished for the enemies of the Dwarves.  Which means only one thing...  War is coming!

Cheers,
Mar