Empire Company of Honor (or Honour)

 The original unit that inspired my Projects of Shame was the Empire Company of Honor. This was one of the "famous units" presented in the Uniforms and Heraldry book that GW Published during Warhammer 6th edition.  A Warhammer take on the historical "color plates" reference books for historical wargaming (and general military history).  Sometime back in...2016(?)... I was flipping through the book and when I stopped on that page I immediately knew I needed to recreate that unit. It set me on a long odyssey to find miniatures that were reasonably close to these guys in the picture.  I ended up buying probably 8 packs of Wargames Foundry landeskneckts and other renaissance billman, just to find 16 figs that were close enough (and I bought some packs of bills and halberds).  You can see in this picture where I was trying to decide between a GW banner bearer and a Wargames Foundry banner bearer.  I went with the Foundry fig because he was holding it up in the air, like the picture.

The final completed unit

Not a great picture, but a different angle

Another angle

This picture was too dark...

This picture was...slightly better?

The order of these pictures got messed up when I uploaded them to Blogger, so try to follow along. When I looked at the banner from the artwork, I knew that banner was gonna be a problem. I have gotten much better at freehand-painting banners, but not good enough to tackle that thing.   So...Internet to the rescue! I found this banner for Stirland.  Then I found a Java web app recreation of MS Paint, where I uploaded the picture, and with some liberal use of the Fill tool turned the background from green to red.  Then I printed it out and it was "close enough."

"Triumphant" on this side of the banner

"Altdorf" on the other side of the banner

Most importantly for me, this unit, this project, is "done".  It's inspired by the artwork, and I think it's good enough.  I had to do a couple of head swaps and add a few plumes here and there. I am happy that I finally followed through and completed this unit. 

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!

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

Dwarf Longbeards

When I got that WHFB 4th edition Dwarf Army book, I would stare at the pictures for hours and hours, wanting desperately to have every unit in the book, painted the same way. One of those units were the Longbeards (in the center).  I had all of the figures, but never painted them. I distinctly remember the night before one of our "grand battles" frantically gluing the bare metal figs onto bases just to have the unit on the table (heresy, I know). They were falling down off the base as I tried to move the unit. It was terrible. 

Anyway, the past few months I've been painstakingly working on the unit. I managed to sort through my collection, match each figure, get them in the same order as the picture, and even found the same shields. I did my best to faithfully recreate the unit in the picture, only taking artistic license in extreme circumstances. 

Example of artistic license - in the solo picture of this dude, his cloak is green, but I painted him blue to match the rest of the unit.

I was rushing to take pictures so the green background is not great. Ah well - the unit is done!

Herohammer Hammerers

In my continuing quest to hammer the backlog down, I finished this unit a few years ago. I never bothered to take a picture because I planned to sell them unpainted at one of the HMGS Convention flea markets, a.k.a. Wally's Basement, but they didn't sell. Then I painted them and was going to sell them painted, but never got the chance.  So...I changed my mind and decided to keep them. The other part of the story behind these guys is that when 5th edition WHFB was released, this was one of the first of the new sculpts of the revamped Dwarf army.  Obviously, they were new and shiny and I thought they were cool so I quickly bought them.  But staring at them unpainted for so long, the "sameness" started to wear on my and I realized I didn't really like them.  So they just remained unpainted and unloved for a long time (not even prepped).

Anyway, here they are.

The Return to Herohammer

Note: This post was apparently sitting in "draft" state for 3 years and I totally forgot about it. I never really finished the thought but I figured I'd just post it now and get it there. 

When I dove back into Warhammer and jumped on board the #Oldhammer movement, I really loved the nostalgia, the atmosphere, and most of all, the old sculpts (don't get me wrong, the new modern sculpts are amazing technical miniatures, but I feel like there's just some character missing from them).

But the era that Oldhammer focuses on is Warhammer 3rd edition which was just before my time. I discovered The Hobby and Warhammer when WHFB 4th edition was released in all it's glory, and that's the game that I hold dear.  I will always love it but I also thought I was the only one that loved that version of the game.  It was a time of crazy magic and zany characters; the oft derided "Red Era" where it seems like 50% of every new kit was painted bright red.   When combined with 5th edition, the over-the-top nature of army lists with 50% special characters that dominated the game was dubbed Herohammer, and not in a "charming, nostalgic" way.

The advent of Facebook Groups, however, seems to have provided a place for us forgotten, shunned few that actually loved that era, with red paint and Goblin Green bases.

Anyway, that was a long intro to say that once I found the Herohammer Facebook Group, the nostalgia bug bit me hard and I'm going headfirst into a group of projects that I've always secretly wanted to do. 

Dwarf King Kazador and Cannons

 

Another quick post with recently completed Herohammer units.  Once again this is a combination of things I've been meaning to paint (King Kazador) and things that were "half painted" and never completed.  

First up, a Dwarf "Siege Gun", from Marauder.  The cannon and crew were originally painted up by a buddy back when we first started playing Warhammer 4th edition in high school (he was a fan of the "25% allies" rules, with mostly a High Elf army...any lots of allies). He eventually gifted the cannon to me because I was primarily a dwarf player.  Any it has remained half-painted like this for about 30 years.

I wanted to keep the original theme of "red and yellow" but maybe a little less "ketchup and mustard". 

So the red became muted and the yellow became gold.  

For the crew, I repainted them with mostly red, using yellow as the spot color. 

Next - King Kazador.  I remember he was the first Dwarf special character I purchased soon after getting my hands on the newly released Dwarf Army book.  I used him in a number of games and he was pretty powerful, but for some reason I never got around to painting him.  Probably because I quickly bought and painted Thorgrim on the Throne of Power as well as Ungrim Ironfist.   Anyway, Kazador is ready for battle now. 

Not my best work on the cloak, but better than unpainted metal!

Finally, another half-painted unit.  My other Dwarf Siege Gun.  I painted this cannon myself and it was "done", but I never painted the crew.  After finishing the red cannon, it was time to complete this one as well.   

I didn't take a close up shot, but the cannon barrel was my first real foray into blending (which, back in the 90s, all I had to go on was basic instructions in white dwarf painting articles that definitely left out steps). Either way, I was pretty proud of myself with the dark blue-to-light blue transition on this barrel. I even hand-painted some of the dwarf runes listed in the army book.  

I left the barrel unchanged here (because it was good enough and it's good to look back on what you've done and how much progress you've made) .  But the wheels and the gold trim were never shaded or highlighted, so I finished that up here. 

The crew were completely unpainted. I often just borrowed the fully painted crew from my organ gun.  But now the blue cannon has a proper crew.  I even figured out that the little wooden stool was for the guy to light the cannon. I never realized that until just now. 

I forgot to paint the eyes on these guys - forgive me. 

Not sure why I included two similar pictures here...

Anyway, I'm very happy to have these done.