John Blanche: a new beginning!

The Broken Road - John Blanche, 2016

After an illustrious career defining and shaping the world's of Games Workshop, John Blanche retired last week. It is impossible to overstate how important John was in helping Games Workshop become what it is today. His boundless creativity and vision has touched all aspects of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, epitomizing the dark style that now defines it. For the three of us, his artwork literally brought us into the hobby. A large cardboard standee featuring the central Blood Angel Space Marine from John's cover for the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40,000 beckoned to us from the window of a local hobby shop. This led to us getting a few blister packs (we recently repainted one of the first trio of models we got from that very store) and eventually the 40k boxed game, and the rest was history. His evocative artwork kept us engaged in the hobby since that time, and his Blanchistsu articles in White Dwarf helped inspire us to push ourselves beyond what is featured on the box art and create our own sliver of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. To our continued amazement, this creative journey led us to the Inq28 movement and John Blanche himself, when we participated in Iron Sleet's Pilgrym event in 2016. When starting the hobby, we would have never imagined meeting John, let alone playing Warhammer 40k (or Mordheim!) with him. We feel incredibly blessed to count John as a friend, and want to wish him a wonderful retirement and are excited to see what he does next!

Mordheim 2019: Mad Meg

Hess Poison Breath vs. Mad Meg.

In 2019 we had the privilege of meeting up with some friends in Helsinki for an event, Mordheim 2019, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of GW’s apocalyptic skirmish game Mordheim. Mike Anderson sculpted a wonderful model, Mad Meg, to commemorate the occasion based on Dulle Griet, a painting by renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel. While we converted one of the models for our Sisters of Sigmar warband, we had another unmodified version of Meg, and I decided it would be fun to finally get some paint on her!

Between the Bolter and Me: 2019, a year in review

Marching on to 2020!

2019 marked the end of the decade, and 7 full years of Between the Bolter and Me as a blog! The year was defined by the Mordheim 2019 event, with a large number of our posts detailing the creation of our warbands and the event itself. We did a lot of other smaller projects as well, including painting a host of models created by some of our favorite artists (Ana Polanscak and Helge Wilhelm Dahl). We continued to do live streaming on Twitch and YouTube, resulting in some of our best episodes of Dragged into Turbolasers with guests like Weirding Way and Modern Synthesist. With this post, we wanted to review everything we did in 2019!

Mordheim 2019: Ogre bodyguard hired sword

Welcome to the Thunderdome!

The Warcry boxed game comes with a lot of nice models, but I was particularly impressed by the ogre in the Iron Golem warband, going as far to say that it might be the nicest in the set. Due to this, I immediately started thinking of applications for the model. Having just participated in the Mordheim 2019 event with a Sister of Sigmar warband, I decided that the ogre could make a perfect hired sword with a little modification!

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 62: Mordheim 2019 with Echoes of Imperium

Mordheim 2019!

We welcome Alexander Winberg (of Echoes of Imperium) back to the podcast to discuss the Mordheim 2019 collaborative event that he organized. Time is spent discussing how the idea to celebrate Mordheim's 20th anniversary came about. Considerable time is spent talking about how you can get involved in similar events, stressing the importance of getting out there and presenting your work on social media and commenting on the work of those whom you admire. The origin of 28 magazine is commented on, with a consideration towards how it might help shape the Inq28 and AoS28 movements in the future. New collaborative projects are mentioned liked Ondroma, Gelida, and Primogenitor. Finally, we end the episode by talking about everyone's favorite moments from the Mordheim 2019 event, both in game and outside of it.

Follow Echoes of Imperium and visit the blog!

Follow Larsonicminiatures new Ondroma project!

Mordheim 2019: Using Ana Polanšćak's Witch Hunters at Mordheim 2019

In all these days will a famine lay upon all of your lands, and a plague upon all of your people.

This article was published previously on Echoes of Imperium, describing Greg's thoughts about Mordheim and the Witch Hunter warband that Ana Polanšćak built for him to use at the Mordheim 2019 event.

I started into the miniature wargaming hobby not long before Mordheim was released. Being fairly young, and lacking a disposable income, I was not able to play it at the time. That did not stop me from spending many an hour reading about it in the pages of White Dwarf magazine. Something about the setting really stuck with me, and felt very unique, even for the Warhammer Fantasy setting. It was not until much later that I finally latched on to what it was that made it so distinctive. 

Mordheim 2019: Sisters of Sigmar games

Sound the dread alarm.

The smoke has finally settled after the chaos of Mordheim 2019. We recounted the games played with the Undead and Witch Hunter warbands earlier, and now it is finally time to talk about the exploits of the Sisters of Sigmar!

Mordheim 2019: Sisters of Sigmar warband

Holy Convent of the Order of Merciful Sisters of Sigmar.

I never played Mordheim when it was released in 1999. I was a teenager and had only taken up the miniature wargaming hobby with my two brothers a few years earlier with Warhammer 40,000 and Gorkamorka. While I did not have sufficient funds to delve into another game at the time, I spent a lot of time reading White Dwarf with a keen eye on Mordheim. It was the game that showed me that the Warhammer Fantasy setting was more than just the sum of its influences, managing to rise above genre stereotypes and create something unique. A lot of this was due to the fantastic artwork associated with the game, injecting an otherworldly weirdness to everything with knightly owls and bipedal fish. That was a time when all of the imagery in GW’s books did not have to have a miniature counterpart, and it seemed like the artists had more freedom to illustrate whatever captured their imaginations, building up a world around the characters they drew, not only the characters themselves. If a world feels lived in, it helps give the whole endeavor a sense of believability and realism (even within the realm of the fantastical). Throughout the past 20 years since Mordheim was released, my approach to the hobby has changed and has moved more and more towards trying to make believable and realistic characters, something that I wanted to apply to the Sisters of Sigmar warband.

Conversion Corner: Mad Meg

Concerned only with endings, a life desires closure.

For the next installment of Conversion Corner, I focused my attention on creating another character for my Sister of Sigmar warband. Even though the Mordheim 2019 event has passed, I still have lots of ideas for other sisters to add to the warband.

Mordheim 2019: Witch Hunter games

The grim figure of the Sigmarite Warrior Priest Vieuxpont goads his pack of blood-thirsty warhounds into battle, followed by two fanatics proclaiming prophecies of impending doom.

As a follow up to Eric’s post describing the endeavors of his undead at the Mordheim 2019 event, I wanted to write about my experience using the incredible Witch Hunter warband that Ana Polanšćak created! The first game was against Johan Egerkrans' Undead Warband, and the second was against Ana Polanšćak’s Cult of the Possessed and Mikko Luoma's Chaos Dwarves.

Mordheim 2019: Undead games

Church of the Ever Burning Saint attempt to banish a vampire twisted and warped by wyrdstone.

My brothers and I played a multitude of games of Mordheim during the Mordheim 2019 event, all of them unique and filled with surprises. With this post, I wanted to describe the two games played with my undead warband, the first against Nicky Grillet‘s Sisters of Sigmar and Alexander Lunde’s Witch Hunters, and the second against Erik Blomqvist’s Sisters of Sigmar.

Mordheim 2019: Undead warband

A living death awaits us all.

It is hard to imagine Mordheim is twenty years old; it means that I have been a part of this hobby for over two decades! And while I never got the opportunity to play the game when it was first released, I remember poring over each new issue of White Dwarf, looking at the new warbands being released, battle reports, and their dedicated magazine the Town Cryer. Games Workshop’s skirmish games have always been my favorite games they release, with GorkaMorka being the first of their games we really played extensively. Games like Necromunda, Inquisitor, and Mordheim allow the player to dive deeply into the strange and morbid worlds Games Workshop has created, and actively encourage you to carve out your own unique niche within their creation. Mordheim 2019 has been a fantastic opportunity to explore the Old World like I have always wanted to, building upon imagery and models that have always inspired us. While Alex defined the basic motivations behind the major factions, Tears of Envy, another incredible hobbyist involved in the event (who made Mordheim 2019’s excellent logo), had the fantastic idea of looking at the city of Mordheim through the lens of the Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic/Stalker. This science fiction classic explores the aftermath of an extraterrestrial visitation. Despite the alien visitors abrupt departure, their presence irrevocably and mysteriously changed the environment where they visited. These “Zones” were eventually cordoned off from the wider world to be studied. Could the meteorite that hit Mordheim have a similar effect, and what would happen to the city after being poisoned by this wyrdstone for 20 years? How would its inhabitants and the city itself be affected and corrupted? And what sort of adventurers would risk their lives to find fortune by venturing into the City of the Damned? This concept really captured my imagination, leading me to start experimenting with different warband designs.

Mordheim 2019: a recap

A few Witch Hunters carefully advance through the broken streets of Mordheim.

Last weekend was the culmination of over a year of work by many talented hobbyists, who gathered in Helsinki to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Old World Skirmish game, Mordheim. This collaborative event, known as Mordheim 2019, was hosted by Alexander Winberg of the Echoes of Imperium blog. We were fortunate to be able to make the trip to Finland to take part in the event, using the warbands we have been chronicling over the last few months (as well as one created by the estimable Ana Polanšćak of Gardens of Hecate). The event was far too big and filled with all manner of excellent people and exciting happenings to ever be covered in a single post, so we plan to separate our coverage of Mordheim 2019 into multiple posts (covering all of the games we played), and maybe a few podcasts. This post is going to be a short one, showing a few pictures, and ultimately thanking everyone involved, especially Alexander Winberg for inviting us and hosting the event. It is hard to put into words how wonderful the weekend was, filled with fantastic models and even better company. It was great to see old friends and create new ones, putting faces to people we have long admired. And although the event is over now, we are more inspired than ever to keep building models, crafting stories, and connecting with the hobby community!

Mordheim 2019: Additional sisters painted

By the manner of their death we shall know them.

I am still furiously painting models for my Sisters of Sigmar warband for Mordheim 2019, which is happening in just a few weeks! I am pleased to show the next two finished sisters. They were actually the first two I built for the project and it is awesome to finally see them finished!

Mordheim 2019: Sister Superior one painted

Sigmar's Fury.

After finishing painting the first sister in my Sisters of Sigmar warband for Mordheim 2019, I quickly jumped into painting the next, this time one of the heroes, a Sister Superior. This sister was converted from one of the original Sisters of Sigmar models from 20 years ago. In homage to the original warband from all those years ago, I decided to paint the model in a scheme that was reminiscent to those models, with cream colored robes accented with red. Despite largely being a single piece metal model, the Sister Superior took much longer to paint than I had expected.

Mordheim 2019: Choir member painted

“It was a promise unasked for and it was a wall of sound, unbroken.”

With Mordheim 2019 rapidly approaching, I have finally begun painting the Sisters of Sigmar warband in earnest. I decided to paint the last model I converted for the warband first, a member of the Choir, who guards the inner sanctum oubliette of the Rock. As something of an outsider in the group of traditional Sisters of Sigmar, she was a good opportunity to try out some things and get accustomed to painting again. Having come up with the concept behind the Choir, Alex Winberg had already come up with a somber looking paint scheme of black leather and white masks (the flavor text from the first image was penned by him too!). I was excited to try my hand at the monochromatic scheme, knowing it would add a sinister element to the warband.

Mordheim 2019: Painting begins - Bases

The painting has begun!

When spending so much effort converting models and making cool characters, it can be easy to forget about the bases for the models. Anyone who has been painting models for awhile knows that a nice base can really tie a model together and make it look complete. It is important to not get too carried away with a base, lest it distract from the model as a whole. With this in mind, to ensure that the bases were cohesive and tied all of the models together, I opted for a relatively simple stone-tile theme. To do this, I used a combination of GW scenic bases from the Eyes of the Nine warband and ones I sculpted by hand. To ease into the painting process for the Sisters of Sigmar warband, I decided to paint a few of the bases, and wanted to showcase them here!

Mordheim 2019: Choir member

"In My Heart The Answer Is Yes, But I Said No."

After months of work, I was able to build 6 members for my Sisters of Sigmar warband, which is a small feat based on the speed at which I build and convert models. Despite this accomplishment, 6 members is pretty small when it comes to an effective warband in Mordheim. With the Mordheim 2019 event close at hand, I knew that I would not have much in the way of time to convert any more and still have time to paint them. “Maybe I could try to convert one more model, and do it quickly, as an entry into my Conversion Corner posts?” I thought. After seeing Alexander Winberg’s own sisters of Sigmar, with their sinister masks and overcoats, I thought that I could make a Sister heralding from his clan to assist my warband. Alexander’s warband are guards to the deepest dungeon of the Sisters of Sigmar’s Fortress-Monastery, the Rock.

Mordheim 2019: Matriarch

Pimeys Yllä Jumalan Maan

With the Mordheim 2019 event less than two months away, I have been busy finishing the last members for my Sister of Sigmar warband. The last major character required is the warband’s leader, the Matriarch.

Mordheim 2019: Wraiths

Contrary to widespread belief, the undead are not invulnerable. Bones are scattered or ground to dust, corpses are burned or rot until they are untenable, and finally, the death of the necromancer themselves cuts all motive force. Perhaps that is the true horror of Mordheim, that these inviolate laws no longer hold any sway? That these reanimated relics of a life long past persist indefinitely, with no animating force or corporeal locus. - Naewen, savant of Thrax


While we recently created a model to represent the sorry state of some inhabitants of Mordheim, and the intangible manifestation of raw emotion, months ago we created some models to look at how the corpses and undead creatures that filled the city were affected over 20 long years. Using some Nighthaunt Bladegheist Revenants as a base, I wanted to show how the rotting corpses filling the streets slowly lost their corporeal forms. Since creating the initial two, I went back and modified them slightly, adding more nails to their backs, as well as created a third. With this post I wanted to show the finished conversions, as well as the initial efforts at devising a paint scheme for them.