I have been slowly working on creating the miniatures and terrain “infrastructure” to run a solo game called Warrior Heroes Adventures in Talomir (WHAT) by Two Hour Wargames. The game has the multitude of perks insofar as I can draw heavily from my already substantial collection of painted fantasy miniatures and terrain, and whatever I do up can be used for the larger-scale solo fantasy game Nightwatch, the two-person wargame Dragon Rampant, and of course any game of Dungeons & Dragons I happen to run. Talomir uses the smallest number of miniatures as it is practically a solo roleplaying game rather than a wargame, so it seemed to be the place to start.

Part of the kickoff of this project was to salvage some old orc miniatures from Games Workshop’s OOP Warhammer Fantasy Battles game. I picked up a gazillion of these somewhat cartoony miniatures over a decade ago and painted a fair share of them for an orc army I was building. These two archers (“Arrer Boyz” in the original vernacular) were both painted this past week using mostly Games Workshop’s Contrast Paints. The paints are promoted as a way to get highlights and shading with one coat. It is expensive and has its limitations, but a lot of people are enjoying using it and I am always looking for a way to speed up the process. These guys do not look bad, especially if I am just gunning for tabletop quality, and what are essentially minions besides.

My own real critique–the “ork flesh” is really, really viridian. I might use their plague marine color in the future, which is lighter and more natural in tone.

Two more minis painted, and quite a few to go.