The blog dedicated to the painting and collecting of Renaissance themed fantasy miniatures in the 28mm scale, including my own little private venture to commission specially made figures with that theme. The latter are not, at present, intended for a general release, but perhaps something can be arranged if you'd like a couple...
10/31/2020
Getting Some Hors Série
10/04/2020
The Abandoned Gatehouse
It's been ages since I painted anything for this project and when my lovely wife bought me a Lemax Halloween Gatehouse for my birthday, I knew I had to make this top of my list of things to rework into a wargaming model (you know, so I can still be entitled to get toys from her in the future).
As with most Lemax buildings, this had great potential but needed a little TLC to bring it up to the standards and to remove some of the out of scale bits that tend to feature on them. I'll go into that a bit more below, but first the pictures of the finished gatehouse, which I tried to paint in order to match my earlier buildings in this project.
Some Empire dwarfs are exploring the abandoned gatehouse. Looks like it hasn't been visited in a long while and small scavengers abound, but then who lit those torches? Figures added for scale.

2/10/2019
New Releases - Witchhunters and Lord Commander, Queen of Hearts and White Knight
4/19/2018
New Releases - Human Knights of the Great Bear, on foot
3/15/2018
Dwarf Knights on Landgriffons released
You can read the full announcement below, with more pics on the TAG site: http://theassaultgroup.co.uk/12624-2/ :
Added to our Dwarf Empire range of white metal miniatures today are the long awaited Land Griffon mounts for our dwarf Knightly Orders.
The original Dwarf knights we inherited from the White Knight’s Miniature Imperium are mounted on very small, sweet looking armoured ponies.
These Land Griffons are a much more serious mounts. Mixing fearsome bird beaks and claws, with the hind quarters of huge wild cats.
ABOUT THE LAND GRIFFONS
There are four variants of these fabulous beasts to mount our Dwarves on. We’ll add them randomly to the 13 codes of minis, making sure that no two similar mounts go together in the packs.
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Land Griffons |
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Land Griffon Scale Shot |
We’ve chosen to paint ours as Leib Knights, on Snowy Owls/Snow leopards, but there are also Imperial knight and Boar knight regalia for the models.
The possible combinations of birds (eagles, parrots, ravens) and big cats (lions, tigers, jaguars etc) leads to multiple mouthwatering painting possibilities.
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Boar Regalia |
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Leib Knight Regalia |
ABOUT THE KNIGHTS
The Knights are taken from our existing Dwarf Empire range.
Thirteen different packs of miniatures with two 28mm sized rider models in each pack.
Once again there is a huge variety of modeling possibilities, with four basic body types;
The three Knightly Orders; Imperial, Leib and Boar Knights, have five different heads and shields each…
…and are armed with two variants of lances for each of the Orders, or scythes or morningstars for Leib and Boars respectively.
There are also three Command groups representing the various Orders.
Full SKU and pack details
DEM075 Imperial Dwarf Knight with lance I, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM076 Imperial Dwarf Knight with lance II, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM077 Imperial Dwarf Knight Command, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM078 Dwarf Boar Knight with lance I, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM079 Dwarf Boar Knight with lance II, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM080 Dwarf Boar Knight with morningstar I, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM081 Dwarf Boar Knight with morningstar II, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM082 Dwarf Boar Knight Command, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM083 Dwarf Lieb Knight with lance I, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM084 Dwarf Lieb Knight with lance II, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM085 Dwarf Lieb Knight with scythe I, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM086 Dwarf Lieb Knight with scythe II, mounted on Land Griffons
DEM087 Dwarf Lieb Knight Command, mounted on Land Griffons
These packs retail at £20
There are also five Unit Builders, ten model sets, at discounted prices.
DEM-SB29 Imperial Dwarf Knights mounted on Land Griffons with lances unit builder
DEM-SB30 Dwarf Boar Knights mounted on Land Griffons with lances unit builder
DEM-SB31 Dwarf Boar Knights mounted on Land Griffons with morningstars unit builder
DEM-SB32 Dwarf Lieb Knights mounted on Land Griffons with lances unit builder
DEM-SB33 Dwarf Lieb Knights mounted on Land Griffons with scythes unit builder
These sets retail £90
THE PAYBACK
Thanks for reading this far down the scroll, here is the payback.
We’re quite glad that we don’t have to push all these tricky pack choices through the ‘somewhat clunky’ Kickstarter system as we have done for the last few releases.
This also saves us money… and we can pass that saving on to you… so for a 10% discount on these products, use the DISCOUNT CODE given below before the end of the month (31/03/2018)
ThankgoodnessthisisntaKickstarter10
1/09/2018
Lord Commander of the Witchhunters - Green
A close up of just the rider, with his pet raven.
I initially wanted the horse to be a singlepiece casting, but when I checked with the mouldmaker, he was of the opinion that it would be too wide and wouldn't cast properly (which I guess is why these type of barded horses in metal are usually multipart). Not wanting to go the split in the middle route I tried to work out a way to keep the naked horse body one piece and the barding separate. As the thin barding pieces from the mounted knights presented their own challenges in moulding, I wanted more solid pieces, which meant reducing the bulk of the horse body. Fingers crossed that it will all work out as planned in moulding.
1/05/2018
More Witchhunter Greens and an Update on the Human Footknights of the Great Bear
Meanwhile, I had Mick Darpa slaving away at the next set of figures which are three Witchhunter/Daemonhunters to complement the earlier Witchhunter/Vampirehunter set. I was so pleased with the first set, that I had to do a couple more and here they are.
The first character is a Daemonhunter holding up a freshly acquired trophy, the head of a large beastman champion that he has slain. The God of Death will look favourably on his servant.
The second is a female witchhunter in sensible armour (read: no breastshaped breastplates, fashionable thin waist or high heeled armoured boots). She's holding up a decree proclaiming the witchhunter's mission and powers, while casually resting a hand on a holstered pistol, implying "or else...". In my head, I call this one "We have a warrant!"
The last one is a specialised daemonhunter, going after those who would spread plague and disease in the realm. He is wearing a mask filled with herbs to keep away disease and carries a torch to burn the afflicted.
There you have it. I hope to be able to mould this soon, so you won't have to wait as long on the next update.
6/07/2017
Dwarf Knights of the Great Bear - TAG Kickstarter
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/584137481/tag-28mm-dwarf-empire-bear-knight-miniatures/description
Brilliantly sculpted by the lovely John Pickford and gorgeously painted by Paul Sanderson.
I will let the pictures of the painted figures speak for themselves:
5/19/2017
Knights of the Great Bear Greens - More pictures
The (first) 5 rank and file knights: