A bit of a change in comparison to what I normally do – I’m painting up some Khorne Bloodbound miniatures for Age of Sigmar! I’ve wanted to get a “fantasy” force up for years and never really managed to do it due to one reason or another, so after speaking to a few friends who all have armies that could be used in Age of Sigmar, I decided to take the plunge and follow the path of the blood god in the form of Khorne Bloodbound.
Firstly I’ve set myself some parameters. It’s an army designed to play Age of Sigmar – it’s not going to be entered into Golden Demon, it’s a side project to add some variety to what I normally paint. I’m not going to spend a fortune on it; my initial budget is £100, once that has been spent and everything painted I may do an expansion force. I will aim for a head count of thirty miniatures initially, this comes from the way Throne of Skulls tournaments are run and seems like a good basis to aim for.
Starting the Army
Now I really do like the Lord of Khorne, Blood Secretor and Khorgorath miniatures you get with the core game. Sadly you can’t purchase them on their own and looking at bits companies you’re talking between £7 and £12 per miniature – quite a lot for one-tenth of my intended model count. So after a bit of hunting I managed to pick up the entire core game off eBay, pretty much brand new and a fraction of the price. This has actually given me 29 models for under half my initial “budget” – and I could sell of the Stormcast miniatures if I wanted to recoup a bit of money.
Considering this is a starter set, the miniatures in it are actually very detailed and quite fiddly to assemble. Quite a few pieces need to be carefully trimmed or tidied for them to fit together and there has been a lot of gap filling too. I’m quite practised at assembling miniatures and I still managed to not quite snap one Blood Warrior together enough, resulting in a gap between his shoulder pad and arm.
Opening the Gates of Azyr
That said, I am very impressed with the contents of the box and Games Workshop have done a really good job with the campaign book, which covers Sigmar opening the Azyr Gate and releasing the Stormcast Eternals upon the realms. Each battleplan (the new name for a mission) has a defined army list using miniatures from the box and forms part of an overall narrative for opening the gates. What’s really nice is that it’s designed to introduce you to the Age of Sigmar ruleset gently, for example the first battleplan “No Quarter” (which they say you can play solo) only has three miniatures in total – Lord-Celestant on Dracoth, Bloodstoker & Khorgorath and is played on a 24″ x 24″ board. The second battleplan uses 3 Prosecutors and a 20 Bloodreavers but only increases the board size to 48″ x 24″. This is a really clever way of introducing not only the rules, but how a narrative style play works.
Progress on Khorne Bloodbound So Far…
I’ve managed to assemble pretty much everything for my Khorne Bloodbound with the exception of the Bloodreavers and Chaos Lord (he’s half done) and I’ve also done the Lord-Celestant as the first battleplan uses him.
I’ve started to paint a Blood Warrior and the Bloodsecretor using the painting tutorial Duncan Rhodes has done for Warhammer TV and am very impressed with how they initial couple of miniatures are looking even with just the blocking out stage done – still lots to do, but using large brushes and washes speeds things up considerably! The tutorial gives the miniatures a slightly cartoon/fantastical look which I think really suits them and certainly makes them quicker to paint.
This coming Monday is a bank holiday in the UK and I’ve got Thursday and Friday off before it! Although I’ve a few jobs to get done round home, I will have quite a decent chunk of hobby time. I do have a dilemma though as Warhammer Quest Silver Tower arrived on Saturday and I’ve got the Heroes expansion arriving this weekend… Do I crack into Quest or plough on with my Bloodbound?! The Heroes expansion will give me a Slaughterpriest for my Khorne Bloodbound too so double benefit 😉
