On the Painting Table: Celestial Dragon

Heh heh.

Well what Nippon army would be complete without an Oriental dragon!? So I went on eBay and bought this handsome chap from Reaper Miniatures.

Well, imagine my surprise when he came in the post and this was how he matched up for size! 

I did have a chuckle but he's actually kind of cute.

Obviously in-game I can't give him the same stats as a full sized conventional dragon but I see him as a fast moving war machine hunter flanking unit. I may even give him access to spells.

I went with a gold dragon look. I always liked gold dragons back when I played Dungeons & Dragons and it suited the special nature of this miniature. I used Dwarf Bronze | Flesh Wash | Dwarf Bronze | Shining Gold | Burnished Gold and Kommando Khaki | Bleached Bone on his belly.

 And here he is with the rest of the army as it stands!I'm getting there!

Pretty soon I'll have a force big enough for a little Skirmish game against Dark Elves and soon after that I'll have a proper army!

Nippon Characters!

After a long break I have finally got back on track with my Nippon army and here are the first two characters!

This first dude is going to be one of my Lord level special characters. He's half human, half Oni and all ass kicking in combat.

(See what I did there?)

The miniature's from Bushido, a welcome Christmas present from my friend Neil. 

I painted him dark red | black ink wash | dark red | lighter red | light red. The metal bits were Tin Bitz | Dwarf Bronze.

This slightly grumpy looking woman is one of two assassin heroes I'm going to have, hiding in a unit, just like a Skaven assassin.

She's a miniature called Kimiko from West Wind and I have to say DOESN'T look as nice as I expected - mainly due to my lacklustre paint job.
 

But she'll do for now. 

 And here's my comp0lete Nippon army as it stands.

You can see that the Samurai are a little smaller than Kimiko but not TOO much.

I'm liking the colour scheme and the start of the imagery I'm going for. When it's done I think it's going to look great!

On the Painting Table: Warhammer Samurai!!!

It's wargasm time!

I don't know about you but I like them.

These are Wargames Factory Samurai miniatures that I'm going to be using in my new Warhammer Nippon army.

Scale-wise they're a little small (though GW models tend to be a bit over-chunky) but still usable and there is a general difference in stature from people from the east and west anyway.

I've gone for a dark red | black ink | dark red | lighter red armour plating with khaki | cream on the cloth.

I wasn't sure about it at first but am now pretty happy.

I'm not great at faces I have to say but for mass infantry in a wargame they will certainly do.

I didn't feel my painting was up to my usual standards but these are only the first five of a much larger force.

It's a major bummer that the sprue connects to the swords and is thus really hard to file clean without damaging them or leaving a little nob.

I've decided to have a little Dark Elf / Nippon Mordheim campaign so we should be seeing lots more of these guys in the near future. My wife is eager to get playing.. which is real nice.

Warhammer Samurai!

Well it isn't an official GW model but take a look at the first miniature in my new Nippon army!

Samurai!!!

 This dude was from Wargames Factory and this far in I've been very impressed by their ease of construction.

As with a lot of miniatures the place where the sprue connects to the figure can sometimes be irritating. With this guy it was a big connection on the katana that needed VERY careful filing.

I am exceptionally pleased with starting this project.  I'm using the amazing army book published on this site for my basis (though I'm inventing my own Nippon history).

I have plans for pikemen, archers, riflemen, an oriental dragon, a phoenix a water elemental and some Oni (Big red daemon ogres).

With Christmas coming up (and a new campaign turn about to start in the Last Chance War), I should have a good opportunity to insert the Nippon race into the action coming in from the east. 

Here's hoping that the other poses look as good as this one...