I have been working for over three years on my Warhammer Fantasy Battle Vampire army.  Some of the GW miniatures I am not very happy with, the Corpse Cart being one of them.
 

To remedy this, I did a little "kitbashing".

The Corpse Cart is mounted on a chariot base, so I started there.  Next I needed something menacing and "creepy"

I choose GW's Lord of Nurgle as a starting place.

The figure just said creepy to me.  The one I got was very used and had a missing hand.  I found a hand in the bits box, and after removing the branch through his head, he just needed some painting.

So, now I had my "Pale Horseman" but he looked a bit lonely on that chariot base, so I added a broken plinth and skeletal dogs (Hell Hounds?) from my bits box.

I painted them all up and the result is below (forgive the dramatic lighting).

March Forward Flames of War Tourney

I tied for 1st place in the tournament yesterday!  Sometimes things just work and they did for me!

What this has really taught me is I need to keep painting my miniatures.  I have a whole list of projects I need to finish and start.  I am going to concentrate on getting my DAK painted and my Vampire Counts for the Warhammer Fantasy League I am playing in.

-Tim, they call him...

Painter's Block (Part 2)

Earlier this month, I decided to embark on a project to paint up some of my long ago purchased 15mm DAK for a Flames of War tournament  (Painter's Block (Part 1)).

After two weeks I am very pleased with my progress.  Anyone who knows me, knows I am a slow painter.  

In the past couple of weeks I have painted:

4x Command SMG teams
3x Light mortar teams
2x Anti-tank team
4x HMG teams
4x PaK 36 gun teams
3x PaK38 gun teams
1x FlaK 36 gun team (stripped and repainted).

So now I am ready for the tournament.

Even better I really enjoyed painting these guys and am going to keep working on my Afrika Korps.

-Tim, they call him...

Painter's Block (Part 1)

Like most miniature painters, I go through periods where I just can't seem to paint.  I want to, I really do, but the "mojo" just isn't there.  

A decade or so ago when Flames of War first came out, I bought some painted Afrika Korps platoons and tanks.  I also bought a bunch of support platoons and vehicles in blister packs (unpainted).  I never painted the blisters.  I played FoW with the painted DAK troops I bought. 

 It always bugged me cause I could never have more than a few platoons of infantry, an HMG platoon and some tank, etc.  I spent a lot of time "noodling" out how I would paint them, but I never did. I decided to play in an early war FoW tournament that HMGS-PSW was putting on in late March.  I decided to take something different, a DAK MG Kompanie.

So my force would need:

Command

MG-Kompanie HQ      2 x Cmd SMG teams

Combat Platoons

MG-Platoon

                        1x Cmd SMG team

1x Light mortar team

1x Anti-tank rifle team

4x MG34 HMG team

MG-Platoon

                        1x Cmd SMG team

1x Light mortar team

4x MG34 HMG team

Weapons Platoon

Schützen Anti-tank Gun Platoon        

1x Cmd SMG team

3x 3.7cm PaK36 gun

3x Kfz 70 trucks

Divisional Support

Anti-tank Gun Platoon

1x Cmd SMG team

3x 5cm PaK38 gun

3x Kfz 70 trucks

Heavy Anti-aircraft Gun Platoon         

1x Cmd SMG team

1x 8.8cm FlaK36 anti-tank gun (8 crew)

One interesting thing about the MG kompanie is you can swap out the HMG teams for Rifle/MG teams before you deploy.  I had plenty of rifle teams, but only one HMG platoon.  I did have one 88 FlaK36, but it needed some work.  So I had a lot to paint.

I have always worked better with a deadline so with brush in hand I head off to my nerd cave.