FreshMilk

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

Herohammer Ludwig Swartzhelm

When I first started the hobby way back in 1993(?) one of the models I was obsessed with was Ludwig Swartzhelm. I would stare at the picture in the Empire army book. A few years ago I managed to acquire the model and my growing Empire army now needed a Battle Standard Bearer. It was time to tackle this guy.

Here are the final results (in reverse order of WIP - doh.)

Hand painting this emblem was intimidating, but I've been working on free-hand skills for a while now so I gave it a go.

The biggest challenge was actually trying to recreate the dark blue armored barding on the warhorse. The rest of the model was pretty easy to paint.

One thing that I did NOT want to spend a lot of time on was the banner. I've been painting free-hand banners a lot recently, and I've gotten reasonably good at it. But I wanted this guy "finished" and on the tabletop so I cheated and printed out a copy.

Here's the picture. That dark blue armor on the warhorse was difficult.

The banner!

The original miniature, primed and ready to go. I should have uploaded these pictures in the opposite order. A new trick I've started using for painting mounted figures is to blue-tac the rider to a spare horse and then just paint him on that. I've tried using a pin and sticking it into cork but that never seems to work for me. This works fine.

Chaos vs Lizards - Battle for the Four Stones

For our annual Christmas break 2025 game of Warhammer Fantasy battle, my son loves creating his own stories and special rules. He wanted to create his own off-shoot storyline from the running narrative story I've been playing (which he's helped play lots of battles with me). This is a WHFB 4th edition game.

Here's the scenario he came up with: the chaos army is trying to activate the Four Stones (center) so that the special character "Lil' Rocky" can be used. Get a unit in contact with the center stone scenery piece and they try to "loosen" the stones. First attempt, need to roll a 6. If you fail, each subsequent attempt is easier (5 or 6, then 4,5,6, etc.) as the previous attempt loosens the stones.

Lil' Rocky is a cool figure my son bought at an HMGS flea market and he made up some special rules for him for use in whichever battle he appears.

Other special scenario rule is that if the stones get activated, the warped mechanical "chaos giant" (represented by his 40k Chaos Plague Dreadnought) gets to use the flame cannon (breath fire like a dragon). Until then, just using the normal rules for a Giant.

The Lizardmen army is trying to stop them. If they can prevent activation of the Four Stones, then Lil Rocky won't show up until mid-way through the next battle of this small linked campaign.

Roughly 1000pts per side. From the overhead shot, terrain would be the biggest challenge - maneuvering around it would be critical.

Long-ways deployment.

The Chaos Army emerging from the forest

The Lizards approaching the stones - the Skinks on the road

Lil' Rocky, watching from the side

Chaos split their forces, the harpies, pack of chaos hounds and the beasts going around the right side of the trees, the minotaurs and dragon ogre around the left side.

Newly painted Harpies make their first appearance...

The Kroxigors were deployed in snake formation, weaving their way through the trees

Two blocks of Saurus Warriors, led by the Skink Shaman general (Level 1 mage). We would soon find out how tough a huge block of Saurus warriors can be.

In the magic phase, the Skink shaman (on foot) cast Fiery Convocation on the fast-flying Harpies, killing one. We didn't think much of it at the time. But then I read the spell a little closer...."remains in play", gets stronger each magic phase, including your opponents magic phase. Oops. The chaos army didn't have a wizard to help dispel. This might get ugly.

The Harpies are now on fire...

The Kroxigors emerged from the trees, reformed and prepared to take the charge from the Dragon Ogre. By now, you can see the flaming mess that was the remains of the Harpy unit. They managed to make contact with the Four Stones objective and loosen it a bit (making it easier to activate in the next turn). But there weren't many harpies left in the unit and there was basically no way to dispel this thing until a dispel card showed up in the cards...

Stalemate in the combat between Dragon Ogre and Kroxigors

Things started to go south for the chaos army at this point. The Harpies had fled away after getting charged by the skink skirmishers, then the chaos hound pack charged the block of 30 saurus warriors - lost combat, and left. This caused a number of panic checks and the entire center of the chaos army collapsed.

Run away!

However, the giant (chaos dreadnaught model) took matters into his own hands. He charged the Shink Shaman general, and promptly ate him. Not exactly how we expected to dispel the Fiery Convocation spell, but it worked!

At this point the chaos army recovered most of their nerve and rallied. The Giant continued his MVP performance, jumping up and down in the other block of saurus warriors, smashing and stomping an entire rank and the unit broke and ran.

A last ditch attempt to turn the tide for the Chaos army was made with the beastmen unit - they charged the big block of saurus, but couldnt cause enough wounds to overcome the huge rank bonus. They lost combat and broke, narrowly escaping getting run down.

There was one last hope, though - in the 6th and final turn, chaos had two units in range to make contact with the Four Stones objective, so two more chances to activate and win. The minotaurs rolled, needing a 5 or a 6 - no luck. But that made it easier for the giant. The final roll of the game - on a 4,5, or 6, the giant could seal the deal. Would the MVP continue his amazing performance???

...no! Rolled a 2. The Lizards managed to prevent the Chaos horde from activating the Four Stones quickly and bringing Lil Rocky into the start of the next battle (he'll show up mid-way through Game 2).

What a great game. It once again showed the beauty of 4th edition WHFB. Went all the way to the final die rolls of turn 6. So much fun. Every turn was a wild swing - Chaos, then Lizards, then Chaos. Wackiness, epic combats, great tactical challenges. The #BestHammer. Can't wait for the next game in the story!

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Chaos Harpies

Got these figs at a flea market for cheap and they weee already primed and painted (not well).

Never liked these figures but definitely a good unit to bulk up the Chaos Army.

I rebased them into larger 25mm bases so that they fit a little better and their feet weren’t hanging off the edge.

Tried to speed paint them. Heavy wet-brush of a dark red...

Then a few different lighter drybrushes of various reds...

Done. Good enough for the tabletop. I try not to spend too much time on figures I really don't like.

Need to add a picture to my Chaos army background - The Crimsonblades

Return to the Romans

Trying to complete another project that stalled - To the Strongest 10mm Republican Romans

I needed to refocus the effort from my original plan of "mad dash to paint as many stands as possible" which obviously didn't work well. Part of that re-focus was to pick a specific battle, organize the forces around that, then finish painting. I decided on refighting the Battle of Trebia and found some good "To the Strongest" OOBs already defined and play-tested. With that information I was able to plan out the rest of the necessary units for the Roman army. Needed to finish some velites units, cavalry units, leaders, and additional Triarii.

Here’s some work-in-progress shots of the Velites and Command units. The cavalry are primed but haven’t begun painting them just yet.