House Stark– Part 7

We’re now marching firmly towards the end of Fembruary so it’s time to take a look at the latest recruits to my House Stark army for ASOIAF – and this time it’s all about the ladies! In fact the Starks can recruit a whole unit of warrior women, the tough and uncompromising She Bears of House Mormont. I have a unit of these on my “to paint” list, started but currently unfinished, and I did at one time plan to use Fembruary as the encouragement to get them done. Alas, as it turned out I was being a bit ambitious there – small baby to care for and all that – but I’ll get around to them.

Fans of the Game of Thrones TV show will probably be most familiar with Jorah Mormont, the exiled knight who finds himself permanently in Daenerys Targaryen’s “friend-zone” (and count yourself lucky old son – spying on a lady for people who want to assassinate her is no way to win her affections!), Jeor Mormont (the old codger who commands the Nights Watch before Jon Snow) and Lyanna Mormont (the little girl who throws her weight around with the lords of the north in the later series). However those who’ve read the books will know there’s another important Mormont who’s presence in the show is reduced to a blink and you’ll miss it appearance in early episodes; Maege Mormont. With Jeor having packed his bags and gone to the Wall and Jorah gallivanting around Essos with the dragon-queen Maege is left to rule Bear Island. She marches south with Robb Stark’s host, taking four of her daughters with her. Jeor describes his sister as “a hoary old snark, stubborn, short-tempered, and willful” adding “…Truth be told, I can hardly stand to be around the wretched woman”. Oh and the unknown man who fathered her children might just be everyone’s favourite wildling windbag Tormund “Husband of Bears” Giantsbane. In the show she’s killed off early on but in the books she’s still out there somewhere, fighting for the people of the North.

There is a miniature for Maege available in the Stark Heroes 3 box, and to be honest I’m not a fan of it. She’s the one at the top, above Rickard Karstark and Brynden “the Blackfish” Tully.

What exactly is she supposed to be doing? Dance moves? Patting a modestly sized horse? Holding an invisible falcon? Tight-rope walking?

I quite liked the idea of adding Maege to my collection but that model would need a fair bit of converting if I bought it, and ASOIAF models aren’t nearly as easy to work with on that front as GW’s. There was a much better version released as a limited stretch goal as part of the original kickstarter campaign when the game first launched, but rare models like that are hard to get hold of and always eye-wateringly expensive so I didn’t give it much thought – until I spotted one on ebay for a price so reasonable I simply couldn’t turn it down.

Its not all about Mormonts though, as this month I have another lady ready to take her place on the battlefield. Readers might remember that way back in June of last year I painted little Rickon Stark and his loyal direwolf Shaggydog.

What I forgot at the time however was that if you include the little prince of Winterfell in an army you get to take his guardian, the spearwife Osha, for no additional points. Originating amongst the Free Folk from north of the Wall Osha comes south fleeing the Others. Taken captive by the Starks she comes to be a loyal servant and protector of the youngest boys. I’ve been meaning to paint her for ages and this seemed like a perfect moment to get her done as well.

Here she is with her young charge and his fearsome companion.

And there we have it, a pair of kickass ladies ready to celebrate Fembruary by taking the fight to the enemies of House Stark.

House Stark – Part 6

Time to add another unit to my House Stark army and you’d think I’d do the sensible thing and finish off one of the squads I’d already started – the Black Guard of House Bolton or the House Tully Sworn Shields – or something from the starter set that I’ve not got around to yet like the Umber Berserkers or the Stark Outriders. But no, that would be far too sensible – instead I decided to smash through a whole squad of Karstark Spearmen instead.

And there we have ’em – more grist for the mill of the North’s wars!

Still, this – dare I say it – bold maneuver now gives me a 30 point army, big enough to take to the battlefield should I so choose. The sensible move would be to turn my attention back to the Lannisters and get them up to 30 points as well, but sensible moves have rarely been my forte so we’ll see if it happens or not…

House Stark – Part 5

Time to return to the battlefields of Westeros and add some long-range firepower to the armies of House Stark. Back in May I powered through a squad of Sworn Swords and found myself wondering if I could apply the same batch-painting technique to the Stark Bowmen as well. However batch-painting really isn’t my forte so its taken me until now to just roll up my sleeves and get on with it.

Once again there are lots of duplicate sculpts and the effort vs outcome ratio proved not to be worth the time required to make them all unique. Gathered together as a unit though I reckon they look not bad at all.

Once again painting these has emphasised to me how quick and straightforward to paint the Starks can be when I just get on with it. Whether this translates into more northmen soon however only time will tell…

House Stark – Part 4

The other day after I painted those Stark archers I made some noises about perhaps breaking up the rather austere Starks with some nice opulent Lannisters. Instead I’ve veered off my original plan altogether and decided to paint some Stark allies in the form of some very fancy looking Tullys. 

For a while I really struggled with the shields. The Tully colours are blue and red (paly wavy azure and gules, a trout embowed argent apparently, no I don’t know what that means either – ask The Imperfect Modeller, he understands these things). The trouble is the rest of the scheme is very blue, so too much blue on the shields and the whole model just turns into a blue blob. Too much red on the other hand and it would look like they’d borrowed some Lannister shields, especially as I’ve not painted any other parts of the model red. Trying to get a mix of both colours on there looked set to be a lot of work and most likely lead to a lot of freehanding, something I was keen to avoid because a) it’s hard, b) it’s a guaranteed way to slow the project to a crawl, c) it seems a bit counter-productive when the models already have such nice designs on their shields and d) have I mentioned it’s hard? Brainwashed as I am by Games Workshop my next thought was to try blue and white (if it’s good enough for the Elves of Ulthuan…). Here’s a rare WIP picture of how far I got before I decided to change tack. 

Blue and white conjures images of the sky, little clouds, snapping pennants and snow-capped peaks. Perfect for the Knights of the Vale in fact, should CMON ever make them, but not so good for river loving Tullys. 

Then I realised that the answer was staring me in the face. I had been thinking of the raging white waters of upland brooks, not the placid green depths and winding meanders of a lowland river. I even managed to mix in some nice muddy reddish brown after all.

These really are some of the nicest models in the range in my book, and very straightforward to paint as well. Part of me wants to drop everything and paint some more straight away, and part of me thinks it would be wise to make them a treat for after I’ve worked my way through some other stuff. We’ll have to see which school of thought wins out. 

Whilst we’re on the subject of Tullys, I’ve also painted that most famous, complex and divisive daughter of the house; Catelyn (that’s “Lady Stark” to the likes of you and me). Like her opposite number in the starter box, Cersei Lannister, she’s not the greatest miniature ever sculpted so I didn’t knock my pan in trying to paint her to perfection. She’s done, I’m happy enough with the results and that’s good enough for me.

It’s not just about Starks and Tullys though. Something I want to capture with this army is the appearance of an alliance of Northern houses. In time I plan to include Karstarks, Umbers, Mormonts and Boltons. Maybe someday I’ll be able to add some Manderlys, Glovers and Hornwoods too (again that’s assuming CMON both make them and then decide to actually sell them in the UK…). Those who are familiar with the later books or series of the TV show often forget – I know I do – that the Boltons start out as allies sworn to support the Starks. In this case the men of the Dreadfort will be represented by a squad of the ominous Black Guard. As mercenaries these lads can also fight alongside my Lannisters (or even any other factions I might decide to paint – although as I’m a bit of a “book loyalist” I don’t really see that happening – unless the wildly unlikely happens and the Boltons join up with some other faction in a later book).

As with the Tullys I really like these models so I’ll aim to prioritise them in the near future. So long as I don’t invite them to any weddings everything should be fine…

House Stark – Part 3

I had planned to stick to models from the ASOIAF starter set until I had a couple of little armies up and running but unless you’re new here you know by now that I’m the biggest hobby butterfly that ever lived so going off on a tangent is parr for the course. Sure enough, rather than sticking it out with the core units as I planned I decided to paint Arya Stark, the wolf girl of Winterfell, instead. Her face looks very, very pale in these photos and no matter what I do I can’t get them looking right, suffice to say she looks a little bit healthier in real life.

From the same set of models as Arya Stark comes Shaggydog, the dark furred dire wolf of Rickon, the youngest of the Stark children. Honestly I fancied painting a wolf and he had “easy win” written all over him!

Shaggydog is often described as the most feral and dangerous of the direwolves, which is exactly what will happen if you give a three-year-old boy a large, savage wild animal and expect him to train it all by himself. I do see where Eddard was coming from with his insistence that the children should care for the puppies themselves (a dire wolf is for life not just for Christmas and all that) but a little more thought in regard to his youngest son might have been worthwhile. Then again no-one else seems to have given it much thought either. Anyway, as usual when the owner fails to do any training it’s the poor beast which gets the blame so now he has a reputation for being a bad dog – and Shaggy’s protestations that “it wasn’t me” have fallen on deaf ears. 

Having painted Shaggy I decided that whilst I was on a roll I should paint up Rickon as well, on the grounds that he’s only small and so should be a fairly easy win too. Sure enough, I powered through the little lad as well.

Neither of these latter two are models that I planned to use in my Stark army to begin with but easy wins are easy wins and it’s always nice to have options. However whilst character models like these are great I still need to be working on some troops for them to lead and so lately I also turned my attention to the Stark Bowmen. Having powered through the Sworn Swords I found myself wondering if I could tackle the Bowmen at a similar pace, and the answer is… yes, possibly. 

Like the Sworn Swords they may be a bit plain but they’re also wonderfully quick and easy to paint and right now that’s a huge bonus in my book, so we’ll see if I can crack on with them over the next little while or if I get distracted by something a bit more showy like those opulent Lannisters which are forming an angry mob on the edge of my desk…

House Stark – Part 2

I’m not usually one for batch painting but if I’m honest the House Stark Sworn Sword miniatures I have are both straightforward to paint and not very interesting so I decided to just power through without delay. 

With this little lot done the squad was almost complete and just needed a man with a banner to help them stand out in the thick of the fray.

With him done the unit could actually be called complete, as Robb Stark will be taking the final slot and acting as the leader. However there will be days when I feel like having someone else in charge of the army, or Robb will be attached to a different unit or busy doing something else like helping Uncle Edmure to plan his wedding. At such times I’ll need someone else to take charge of this unit – enter the Sworn Sword Captain.

The unit still isn’t done though, to be called complete it needs a movement tray so I got that painted up as well. 

And as I was doing so I realised I still hadn’t painted the movement tray for Grey Wind either, so I painted it at the same time.

Here’s the full squad of Sworn Swords, ready to take to the field.

In theory my next move will be to paint up some more units from the Stark vs Lannister boxset but having painted these Sworn Swords I’m in the mood to tackle something a bit more fancy from the wider Stark range so I might veer off and do that instead – watch this space I guess!

House Lannister – Part 1

The barbaric bannermen of House Clegane have their place but my Lannister army is mostly going to be made up of the house’s own (rather classy looking) troops. I don’t often get the chance to paint some nice, opulent looking colour-schemes but the Lannisters provide it in spades. Whilst the rank and file of House Stark prefer to look grim and austere as they march into battle the Guardsmen of House Lannister know that if you’re going to war you ought to do it in style!

These were a lot of fun to do and I’m looking forward to working my way through the rest of them. However whilst the troops are taking to the field someone needs to be manipulating things from behind the scenes; enter the queen of paranoia and rash decisions herself, Cersei Lannister.

Like several other models from the starter set, the original miniature for Cersei isn’t the best, the sculptor has done a fine job conveying her expression but it feels like a sketch, not a finished piece, which leaves a lot of the work in the hands of the painter. Still it’s a nice enough miniature in my book, and definitely counted as an easy win (once I’d figured out how to paint blonde hair that is!).

Cersei is joined by her little brother Tyrion Lannister, who’ll be the second of the non-combat characters for my Lannister army. They’ve done a good job of capturing the character with this one and, especially compared to some of the other models in the starter set – like his sister for instance – he’s quite well sculpted too.

All in all I’ve been enjoying painting these brightly coloured, smartly turned out models, they’re a nice change from the grubby-looking individuals I usually paint. Alongside the Starks, painting up an army of them is one of my key goals for the year so expect to see plenty more of them in the coming months.

House Stark – Part 1

This month I’ve mostly been concentrating on painting the Lannister half of the Starks vs Lannisters starter set for A Song of Ice and Fire (expect to see them here soon!). Lately however I fancied a bit of a change of pace so this time we’re going to be looking at the hardy northerners instead of their fancy-pants rivals.

So far I’ve not done much with the Starks but what I have done is tackle a couple of the key characters for the faction and a few troops. The leader of my Stark army, for now at any rate, will be Robb Stark so he seemed like a fine place to start working on the faction. When Lord Eddard Stark is called away to the capital King’s Landing he leaves his eldest son Robb to command the North in his absence. Soon garnering the title “the Young Wolf” Robb proves himself to be a capable leader and a cunning and determined tactician.

I really like this miniature, it’s not fancy but it contains a lot of personality and really suits the character of the young northern lord. However anyone who’s read the novels will know that the younger Starks seem to get into trouble the moment they’re separated from their pet dire wolves, so I reckoned I’d be wise to paint Robb’s canine companion Grey Wind as well.

He’s better sculpted than pretty much any wolf Games Workshop has managed over the years but he’s still not the greatest model, the head especially is really poor and from some angles looks quite squashed and misshapen. In the end all he needed was a fairly quick and dirty paint job, and to be honest that’s all he really deserves as well. 

Just a boy and his dog, going for a walk… to King’s Landing…

Of course even these two stalwarts aren’t going to defend the North without a little help and as it happens I’ve got a whole heap of Sworn Swords on my desk ready to heed their liege lord’s call. These are not the most visually interesting sculpts by any stretch of the imagination – they’re not bad but they’re not all that exciting either. I do have a lot of them however so I went for a scheme that was quick and easy to replicate but nothing fancy.

All being well I should be able to rattle through the rest of the squad in short order – but first; some Lannisters!

The Mountain’s Men – Part 2

“A handful of Ser Gregor’s men emerged from the towers to watch him dismount; hard-eyed, hard-mouthed men, the lot of them. They would have to be, to ride beside the Mountain”
Jamie Lannister – A Feast For Crows

Four more House Clegane thugs join the two I painted last week.

I’m quite enjoying painting these guys, they’re nice and straightforward. I reckon I should be able to bash through the squad fairly easily, but before I do that I turned my attention to “the Mountain” himself, the infamous Ser Gregor Clegane. 

In many ways this model is a bit of a missed opportunity. He’s a big lad – the character is always described as being an absolute giant of a man – but there are a lot of blank spaces on the model and the size of it only emphasises this. I’m not suggesting he should have been bedecked with skulls like a champion of Khorne, but adding something in all those spaces, particularly something characterful that reminds us of his barbarity, would have been worthwhile. Likewise obscuring his head behind a full helm seems like a mistake, it’s very accurate to descriptions of the character from the novels but this is surely a miniature who is crying out for a bare head on which to display an expression of furious and bloodthirsty rage. Instead we have a knight in House Clegane livery modelled at a larger scale than the rest of the range, and if it wasn’t for his sheer size there would be nothing at all to tell us that this is the feared Mountain himself. Overall the model is chunky and crude, which admittedly also described the character. There are a couple of new versions of the character which have been made since this one but without seeing them in person it’s hard to say how much this issue has been resolved. Still, stand him next to his troops and there’s no doubt why he’s been nicknamed “The Mountain”.

Brutal bastard that he is, he’ll be taking charge of my Lannister army – at least until I get around to painting Jamie Lannister.

The Mountain’s Men – Part 1

Like many people, I suspect, I have a difficult relationship with George RR Martin’s series, A Song of Ice and Fire. For one thing the name transcends the usual pretentiousness of the fantasy genre to reach for something that sounds downright silly. That aside though old George has a knack for writing the most deeply flawed characters and making them engaging. You find yourself caring deeply about people that, if they were in a lesser series, you wouldn’t give a damn about or would gladly see bumped off as soon as possible. He nails the hard fact, that in real life – and especially in times of war – there are no straightforward “goodies vs baddies” (despite what the news media might like to tell us).

As the characters so the books themselves; Martin’s writing may be compelling but it’s far from perfect. The first novel, A Game of Thrones, still stands for me as amongst the very best the fantasy genre has to offer, but the sequels – despite some really powerful moments – sometimes fail to reach it’s giddy heights. Whole chapters drag by in which next to nothing happens. Pivotal characters appear to be abandoned whilst the misadventures of every peasant in Westeros are paraded before the reader’s glazing eyes. And then of course there are all the high points, the compelling storyline, engaging characters and powerful writing that keeps you hooked whilst George retreats to whatever distant citadel he lurks in whilst he twiddles his thumbs for another decade or so, counting his cash and leaving the rest of us to wonder if he’s ever going to actually finish writing the damn thing.

Then there was the TV show and, in keeping with the theme, it had its up and downs. To begin with at least it was great; they changed things from the books (generally for the worse unfortunately but it was all forgivable in the early days) but the acting top-notch, and on the whole they did wonderful job of drawing the viewer into the world. Those who’ve seen it will recall the wedding held at Kings Landing which was so beautiful even Joffrey got a little choked up. After a while of course it all veered wildly away from the plot of the books and the flaws in the last couple of series are so extensive, and have been described in detail so many times, that they really aren’t worth going over again now. In the end it all came crashing down as the surviving characters smashed their way through the fourth wall to lecture us, the audience, wagging their fingers self-righteously in our faces because we had cheered for the wrong people all along and everything that had happened was somehow our fault.

So yeah, A Song of Ice and Fire is a series which – and I know this is quite a common phenomenon – I will say that I love and then complain about for the next couple of hours.

When it comes to the ASOIAF miniatures game I sat on the fence for quite a while. I loved the Lord of the Rings (both the books and the films) – although admittedly without the uncritical passion of some of my friends – but I never really got into the miniatures games. I’ve painted the odd model here and there but nothing substantial. ASOIAF however captured my interest. In general the miniatures themselves are much better, and that alone should be enough, but I feel – without wanting to indulge in self-psychoanalysis – that there’s more to it than that, I just can’t put my finger on exactly what. The intricate world-building and vast cast of characters of the novels, which at times makes them so dense for the casual reader to approach, is perfect when it comes to creating background for a miniatures game. However as soon as I realised the game was made by CMON I backed off, and stubbornly refused to buy anything for the first few years. Burned once too many by their shenanigans in years gone by I sulked, until a deal too good to resist came along and my resolve crumbled – which brings me to where we are now. I’ve got a bunch of Starks and Lannisters from the original starter set, plus a few extras, so I’m going to start by putting together a couple of little armies, alongside my efforts to work through my other neglected projects. First on the table we have a couple of ruthless rascals from The Mountain’s Men.

There are some pretty damn dastardly scumbags in Westeros but few are quite as unpleasant as Ser Gregor Clegane, often called The Mountain That Rides, or sometimes Tywin Lannister’s Mad Dog. The men that serve under him are known collectively, and unimaginatively, as The Mountain’s Men and are, not to put too fine a point on it, a right bunch of utter bastards. Needless to say my Lannisters won’t be getting their hands dirty when they can call in their bannermen instead so my first step towards raising an army is to bring in a few of these thugs, starting with this unpleasant pair. Butcher’s boys beware! 

I really enjoyed painting these two and I’ve already got a few more that I’ve started working on so expect to see more recruits appearing shortly.