Category Archives: Archive

An update on the last crazy five months!

Summary of a Crazy Five MonthsThought I was well overdue to do a catch-up post on what a crazy five months I’ve had since the last time I wrote anything. Without a doubt, this year has been one of the best hobby years I’ve had in over 25 years and I’ve achieved things that I wouldn’t have even believed possible. Sadly, one thing that has lost out is this blog, I started off really well but limited time and the despicable “real world” have kicked me in the nuts for getting anything new written. Thankfully the rest of the year does seem like it should be quieter – though time will tell!

So, let’s do a catch up on what I’ve been up to over the Crazy Five Months

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Tutorial: Magnetising Knight Armiger Weapons

The Imperial Knight Armiger is the smallest addition to the Imperial Knight family.  As with it’s bigger brother, future weapon variations are highly likely, so I’ve created this tutorial detailing how to magnetising Knight Armiger weapon arms.

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#52wkhobby – Week 12 – Watchtower & a little break

Warhammer Age of Sigmar WatchtowerI had a bit of a realisation on the weekend as I was finishing off my Watchtower over the weekend that I’d really been pushing myself to churn models out since Christmas, already clocking in well over 200 hours worth of hobby so far.  That’s pretty insane so this week I’m taking a little break and going “hobby light” with the focus being a bit of long overdue edge highlighting on 3 Mighty Skullcrushers.

This also means that on Saturday my hobby desk should be pretty clear for when the new Forgebane boxed set arrives.  My intention is to assemble everything in the box, so I don’t need to find somewhere to store it (and ultimately not touch it for months).

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Tutorial – Painting Scenery – Drystone Walls

Tutorial - Painting Scenery - Age of Sigmar Walls Welcome to my first Painting Scenery Tutorial, this tutorial will focus on painting walls or brickwork in a fairly natural grey stone effect.  Ideal for painting drystone walls or similar pieces of scenery.

I hadn’t actually thought of writing a tutorial for this so unfortunately I’ve only got a picture of the finished wall pieces.  However the steps are pretty straightforward so hopefully you can follow them through.

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#52wkhobby – Week 11 – Scenery and Skeletons

Neferata Mortarch of BloodAnd another three weeks have vanished but I’ve clocked up a whopping 89 hours worth of hobby!  Project wise I’ve finished my Legions of Nagash army and now taking a break by painting up some old Warhammer scenery pieces that I’ve had for ages.  Since my last post, we’ve had the “Beast from the East” sweep across the UK, bringing Siberian temperatures which promptly dumped down substantial quantities of snow.  Sadly one of the casualties of this freak weather was the Age of Sigmar Open Day which was cancelled (but will be re-scheduled) and due to the poor travel conditions also meant that I wasn’t able to get to the Season of Sowing tournament up at Warhammer World.  Very sad that we had to make that call, but it was a case of better safe than sorry.  I still got to give my Legion of Nagash an outing with a three-way game on Monday 5th, so it wasn’t a complete loss.

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#52wkhobby – Week 8 – Nagadron!

Nagadron, Dread Abyssal of NeferataWell the last three weeks have flown past in a flurry of hobby.  I’m pleased to say that I’ve clocked in over 64 hours and well underway on Nagadron, Neferata’s Dread Abyssal.

Because there has been a few weeks since my last post, I’ll go over my last lot of hobby targets and what I’ve managed to get done in addition, suffice to say I feel more confident that I’ll get everything painted in time for the event in ten days time.

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#52wkhobby – Week 5 – Deathrattle Skeletons

Deathrattle Skeletons WIPI may have underestimated quite how much time 60 Deathrattle Skeletons were going to take to pick out the belts and random bits of cloth and other details that festoon these models!

I’ve managed to clock up a massive 27 hours this past week, despite not having much time over the weekend.  What I have manage to achieve though will allow me to field the three units of Deathrattle Skeletons on the tabletop once I’ve done the bases (and shields), so although I was hoping to be further forward, I’m not as far behind as I almost was.  Most importantly it means I can park the Deathrattle Skeletons for the time being and move my focus onto the other 1060 points I need to paint up!

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Legions of Nagash Warscroll Leaks (Updated)

Legions of Nagash BattletomeIf you’re an Age of Sigmar Death player, you won’t have failed to notice that we’ve a new Battletome on our way – Legions of Nagash!  We’ve started to get a few leaks of the warscrolls that we’re going to see, so I’ve created this post to collate them together.  Most have come from DakkaDakka (via TGA) and aren’t the best quality – as they improve I’ll update the images here.

Update – Now includes the majority of warscrolls

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#52wkhobby – Week 4 – Deathrattle Skeletons

Deathrattle SkeletonsSo week 4 has come and flown past in a flurry of bones as I’ve worked on the Deathrattle Skeletons horde for my Death army, with the aim of fielding them as part of a new Death army I’d like to run in a tournament the beginning of March.

Because I’m pretty tight on time, I decided that it made sense to bolster my unit of Deathrattle Skeletons from 30 up to 40, so I picked up another box of 10 and added these to the proverbial pile of models I’m working on which has impacted on what I had originally planned for last week.

Last weeks progress

  • Pick out details on skeleton warriors
  • Get 34 skeletons ready
  • Paint bone on 34 skeletons (2 x batches of 17)
  • Final drybrush on Bloodthirster wings
  • Horns on wings and hooves

Yeah, not very impressive really despite clocking up 22 hours worth of hobby.  Now in reality what I actually got done was to get the bone done on 44 deathrattle skeletons and 10 black knights, including assembling the additional 10 skeletons and 10 black knights (neither of which were on the list).  I have also started picking out the details on the first 20 skeletons (more on this shortly), so despite not achieving many of my goals, I did achieve quite a bit and most importantly made progress on my March deadline.

Black Knights

Just to forewarn you, I’m about to vent about the 10 black knights I assembled over the weekend.  These have to be the most frustrating kit that I’ve assembled for years.  I appreciate that they’re not new models, but the deathrattle skeletons box set goes together far more efficiently (and I’d hazard those molds have had more usage).  The hooves on the horses don’t end up square, the armour on the horses has to be glued on (complete with rider legs) before the head resulting in a tricky and awkward paint job and it’s insanely fiddly.

Yes I did get them assembled and the bone completed, however the amount of detail on them is telling me that finishing them for my tournament in March isn’t going to happen if I want them to look good.

Details on the Deathrattle Skeletons

First off I did something a bit different on the additional box of deathrattle skeletons that I purchased.  Instead of using the skulls that came in the box, I used some from the massive box of skulls that Games Workshop produces – and would thoroughly recommend everybody does this!  You’ve a good dozen and a half different skulls and the casting is superior to the ones that come in the deathrattle skeleton warriors box.  Well worth the money – plus some of the skulls will fit on the banners so you could have a plaguebearer skull being carried round 😀

The bone I managed to knock out in about 6 hours or so in total which I felt was pretty decent.  I’m keeping the details pretty simple, Rhinox Hide belts, Leadbelcher Swords (with a brassy colour for the spear heads) and purple for the cloth – or at least that’s what I planned.  Upon painting the first model using the Naggaroth Night, I realised that it just doesn’t stand out at all, because it’s so dark.  I didn’t really want to go much lighter as Naggaroth Night wasn’t happy at coverage over the bone undercoat let alone a lighter colour.  Sadly what this has meant is that I’ve accepted that Red is the best colour to do the cloth for my deathrattle skeletons.  The coverage is superior and they really pop from a distance.  A light Agrax wash and Evil Sun Scarlet should make them look super vibrant (appropriate for Age of Sigmar).

This Weeks Hobby Targets

  • Details on all 60 Skeletons

OK, that doesn’t look particularly adventurous!  This week I’m much lower on hobby time than I have been the past couple of weeks.  Both days this weekend are largely busy leaving me with a bit of the evening if I’m lucky, so I’m largely constrained to just a few evenings and Friday afternoon.  My ideal goal would be to have the above done by the weekend, but I know that painting 60 tassels of cloth and 60 belts over a light undercoat, without going onto the bone isn’t a task that can be rushed particularly.

If I can get the skeletons done, then I’ve a few choices – I could assemble Neferata (and some Spirit Hosts) or start on painting some characters.  Ultimately it depends on when I finish as next week I’ve next to no hobby time as it’s the Horus Heresy/Necromunda Weekender and I’m travelling up on the Friday!