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The Empire On a Budget - Moonduck | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Took a break from commissions and to-do lists and the like, and decided to let my mind and hands wander where'er they willed. Wound up kitbashing a few empire minis. I decided to share them, as I figured there's probably an Empire player or two hereabouts. Even if not, well, I felt like posting. First up is a pistolier:  Just about any Empire player will tell you how useful these boyos are. Fast Cav, 2 attacks on the charge at S4 and Armour Piercing, what's not to like? Well, the big thing not to like is the price. They're not cheap given the point cost and how many we'd like to field as Empire players. The second thing not to like is the lack of poses. The current pistoliers have been the same since 1990 or so. Yeah, you people out there that gripe about minis not being updated for a few years can take a look at the 15 year old pistolier sculpt sitting on the shelf. Now, I'm not complaining, much. I like the pistoliers. I think they're dead good looking minis. But there's only a whopping 3 upper bodies to choose from. So regardless of how fond I am of the sculpts, I want more variety. Well, that's where a good bitz box and judicious ordering comes in. As an Empire player, you will have a load of bitz sitting about from the militia boxes you've doubtless put together. The militia box is a dream from a modeller's perspective, as it is insanely flexible, can produce all sorts of troops, and has a lot more parts than you need. Among those parts is a pair of arms with pistols. The right arm ain't so hot, as it is pointed straight out from the shoulder sideways. It's possible to use it by twisting the torso quite a bit, but it doesn't look good. Still, it's a pair of pistols, can't beat that with a stick. Next comes the Empire Command Sprue. You get one of these beauties with a number of Empire kits, the swordsmen/halberds box comes to mind. This excellent sprue contains enough parts to make 1 full command for foot, or 1 mounted command and 2 foot. There's, again, tons of options and extra bitz. Boy howdy do I love bitz. One bit is a pair of legs for making the mounted command model. This is yer buddy, yer pal. There's also a torso, and a coupla really useful heads with nice plumage and good, characterful expressions. So you take your spare militia arms, your command legs/torso/head, and put em together. Not bad, right? Not great though. Those arms look a tad off. Not quite poofy enough for a young noble proving himself on the battlefield. Drag out that command sprue again and check out the drummer's arms. Poofiness? Check. The left arm is easy. Snip it at the wrist, and the left gun arm at the wrist. Join with your favourite adhesive. The right arm is only a tad more work. Snip the gun arm behind the cuff, not the wrist. Nip the drummers arm at the same spot, but make sure you do it from the inside, and don't cut all the way through. If you end your cut shy of the ribbon, it will seperate without cracking the ribbon. A second cut saves the ribbon, and allows you to both keep the cool ribbon (ribbons are cool on an Empire army), and helps hide your messy, clumsy join. Well, mine was clumsy at least. Yours might look grand. At that point, you've got a perfectly functional pistolier that looks just fine ranked with his fellows, yet isn't the same three blokes. The best part? Ah yes, the price. Uncle Moonduck is cheap, so price is always the best part.
(I'm assuming that, as a fellow empire weeny, you've got militia bitz sitting about. If not, shame on you. Go buy a militia box, they make great detachments and provide endlessly useful bitz.) "But Uncle Moonduck", you say, "$2 isn't much savings for all that work!". Pshaw says I. If you make 5 pistoliers, you've saved $5, and that's nothing to sneeze at. But it gets better. Keeps your militia bitz handy, and read on, gentle modeller.  Hey, those look like Greatswords, don't they? Yup, they do, and if you look closely, you'll see that they are comprised of familiar bitz. Greatswords are another unit dear to Empire hearts, and, like pistoliers, expensive in dollars and limited by the poses available. Not counting command, there's a mighty 4 poses, and one is just a head swap, whee. So, again, variety is handy. From left to right: 1) Militia head, armoured torso from command sprue, armoured legs from command sprue, armoured arms from the command sprue. Now the sword attached the armoured arm is really long-bladed, as long as a greatsword, but needs a handle. Nip the bottom of a banner pole off, and you've got a perfect handle complete with pommel.  Here's a side on shot that compares length. You'll note that it really is as long as the other greatsword. Handy that. Posed that way, it ranks up just fine too. 2) Next is the one piece body w/ legs, command sprue head, and militia arms w/ great sword. In this case, the arms are cobbled together from 4 different arms. I just wanted a bit of a different pose than the normal militia arms. The one piece body is sculpted with a steel BP. That is enough for me to call it heavy armour, at least as long as it is a back rank guy. If you add armoured arms, it's definitely heavy armour. 3) Militia head, one piece body, banner bearer left arm from the command sprue, a zweihander from the Mordheim accessories sprue, and the left arm from a white wolf accessory sprue. Okay, you might not have these, but they're out there, and you get the point as to how the bitz go together. So, we have three great swords there. Think about it for a sec though. The first two great swords were made from unrepeated bitz from the command sprue. Yeah, that command sprue you paid $5 for just produced a pistolier and two greatswords, with the addition of some militia extras. So for that $9 cost and some bitz, we get a $10 pistolier, and two Greatswords which would cost $9 for the pair. So $9 (or £6.60) and bitz bought us $19 (or £10) worth of minis. Now do ya see why yer good ole Uncle Moonduck is smiling? Here's another pic of a few more greatswords I did:  From left to right again: 1) The left most is using all command sprue bitz. He's basically a banner bearer with the banner nipped off and a huge axe-head attached. There'll be attendant fluff that talks of the Duke's headsman joining the greatswords for battle, and I'll paint him in all black. Prolly use him as a unit champ as well, depends on how he looks. I think I need a better head. I'd love a headsman's mask, and may GS one up. 2) Next we have the same body with base militia arms. No idea where his helm comes from. It's some ancient GW mini head, probably a Reiksguard. *shrug* 3) Last is a white wolf head, same old body, and banner bearer's arms with the banner pole nipped off, and another Mordheim zweihander. When I saw how the fist is posed on the left arm, I knew I had to have a yelling head on this one. A short while back, I realised the potential of the Empire Command sprue when combined with militia bitz, and ordered 5 of them. As a result, I now have 5 more pistoliers and 10 more greatswords for a whopping $50 ($25 for the 5 command sprues, $20 for the 5 horses). It would've taken me $90 to get that many minis, and they would've had far less individuality and character. That said, I have picked up an actual Greatswords command blister, as I think they look better than what I would make with another command sprue. I also managed to pick it up for $8, but a command sprue works just fine, gives you a champ, banner, and drummer, and is nice and cheap at $5, right? I hope that this is useful to you Empire players out there. Empire armies are not petite things like chaos armies. They are massive sprawling, expensive beasts, and any money that we can save as Empire players is more cannons on the field. Er, more money in our pockets. Yeah. | |||||||||||||||||||||
Want to discuss this? Or anything else? | |||||||||||||||||||||