A Reikland Warband by RorSchenck

I have been away from Mordheim for a bit and recently decided to start painting again.  The following minis are from my growing Reikland warband.  For this group I decided to go with a somewhat limited palette of colors and basic techniques to speed this project along. (I am actually so ridiculously slow at painting it hurts my heart.)  Ultimately shooting for nice simple arms length minis was the goal.  I also wanted to go with some colors that I rarely use in my other projects.  Orange and white are the main colors of these Reiklanders along with a few different shades of brown for the leather bits.  I am very happy with how the colors came out.  

I also decided to use 30mm round lip bases with very basic basing techniques.  I really prefer the round lip bases, for some reason I think they really look great compared to the standard GW bases.  As for the basic basing I wanted these models to blend in with darker tables or cobblestone tables equally.  (Also it's EASY!)  I may add a little brown grass at some point but that's still undecided.

Most of the miniatures I used for this project are stock Empire characters or simple kit bashed parts from a few various Empire sets.  I really love most of the Empire character models and was delighted to be able to actually use them for something.  Although I really like the background fluff and style of the Marienburgers I decided to use the rules for Reiklanders as I plan to have tons of black powder weapons.  I do prefer the foppish appearance of the Marienburg models though, so you will see that influence in the warband with all the puffy sleeves, silly hats and bright colors.  I also settled on a little backstory for my warband.  Most of the members and all of the starting heroes are all from the same family.  That is the reason many of the models have the same hair colors and skin tones.

So over the next few weeks and months I will be adding to this with new models and conversions.  I have started with the heroes and will be moving on from there.  I am a little disappointed with my photos, I tried to take some clean pictures but it seems something is bit off and some of the shades don't show through as nicely as they do on my desk.  Nevertheless I wanted to share them and get some feedback.  Please enjoy and thanks for looking!

The von Drake family




Captain Victor von Drake





Champion Hector von Drake





Champion Donovan von Drake





Youngblood Caleb von Drake





Youngblood Trevor von Drake





More to come...

Nice looking warband! Great choice of miniatures, though this lot are missing the signature crossbow...
I really like using the Empire Archer set for Mordheim. Those minis are so versatile.

Very nice start for a warband. Adding some grass or something to the bases later is probably a good idea. Also could you probably be convinced to try and paint the eyes at least a bit? It would certainly improve the overall appearance.

Great job on these guys, very clean and cohesive warband! I look forward to seeing them progress.

EXCELLENT choice of colors & minis! With a little attention to the eyes, & possibly some static grass & the minis will reach a new level. Another thing to consider is drilling out the pistol barrels...a #62 drill works wonders. Other than that, GREAT WORK!  

Thanks for the feedback guys.  I do plan to add some grass in the future, that's simple enough.  As for the eyes, I have painted eyes in the past and ended up with some google eyed minis.  I suppose I could give it a go, now that I look at the youngbloods they do kind of look like they have pink eye!

Okay so i painted the eyes.  Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out although the super close up shots do make a few of them look a little googley.  But from an arms length they look just fine.  My hands get quite shaky on super fine detail but I totally agree with everyone that it enhances the minis quite a bit.  Thanks for the advice!








Next up will be some Marksman using some older Empire handgunners.

I struggle with eyes too. But yours look just fine, especially on the last guy.

TERRIFIC! The eyes add character to the faces...love the second & fourth in particular. That close up, there are few painters that have great looking eyes. VERY NICELY DONE!  

Great looking Reiklanders!! I really like that captain model, I was eyeing it for my own Reikland warband!
The eyes came out well! I refuse to do eyes myself as I have never got them to come out how I like them.

Will not have much time to paint this weekend so I decided to knock out a real quick mini today.  I finished this dog to go with my captain at some point.  He is one of the dogs from the Farmer Maggot set  in the Lord of the Rings range.  I painted him using a rottweiler as reference.  There is also a picture of him with the captain for scale.







More to come...

That is a SPLENDID looking War Dog...EXCELLENT brushwork & color choices. You see how much nicer the Dog's eyes look in comparison to the Captain's; re, the Dog eyes are edged in black. If you do the area for the eyes in black or a dark brown, then do the white keeping a line of black/dark brown surrounding it; AND finally a line of back from top to bottom in the white you'll avoid the google eye effect. You are coming along nicely; keep up the GREAT WORK!  

Thanks for the advice about the eyes. I think I'm going to give them another shot.

Good for you...I'm glad you took that in the way it was intended. If you use the dog's eyes as a model, you'll do well.  

No worries Deaf. I decided to put these pictures up for real feedback and I'm really glad I'm getting it. Because I don't have many people to bounce my work off of I knew this site would be a constructive place to get the truth.

Just a few new pictures with repainted eyes.  Thanks to DeafNala's advice I think they really came out good and improve the mini.  Thanks, Deaf.

That is quite an improvement.They all have more expressive faces because of your FINE brushwork.  

Glad to be of some small assistance.  

Oh yes, much better!

Finished these four Marksmen this weekend.  Unsure of what edition these Empire Handgunners are from but I really liked them because of the puffy sleeves and feathered caps.  I think they fit in with the warband nicely.  The four different poses give them some individualized character but they also are quite similar in dress which was perfect for my theme.

Marksmen 1 and 2


Marksmen 3 and 4



Next up will either be some swordsmen or an Ogre!

Those are sixth edition Hand Gunners; they, along with other foot, knights, & a cannon, came in the box set with a nice array of Orcs & the Rule Book. That aside, the Lads painted up in FINE FASHION..GREAT brushwork & color selection; the orange is quite striking. VERY NICELY DONE!  

Great work on the wood stock for the gunners! I really like these older print empire gunners too! The most current ones handguns just look to big to me for some reason. Amazing work on the eyes aswell!

I LOVE the shot of Hector with his eye just peeping out under the brim. I don't paint eyes I can never get them to look good. I always just paint them white for humans and red for evilly stuff so good work i say.

Hey bad, I never painted eyes either. After posting here and getting all the positive feedback and advice I decided to give the eyes a go. As you can see mine are not perfect either but it really adds so much to the finished figure. Plus the more I do the better I will get...should get.

Just finished this Swordsman today.  I really loved this model to begin with but after the pistol swap to fit in with my heavy black powder theme...I love this model even more.  The pose with the sword up and the pistol behind the back portrays an old time duel perfectly in my opinion.  He is for sure one of my favorites so far.






I have been spending time working on a sweet gaming table including the board itself, buildings and lots of scatter terrain.  This may be my last mini for a while until I make some headway on the table.  Although I have an Ogre I'm excited to paint that may get the brush treatment soon.  Will make a new thread with table progress soon.

More to come...

Nice pyintjob, you keep improving with the eyes. I also own and love the swordsman (though mine is keeping a dagger behind his back).

Nice work on the swordsman.