Category Archives: Age of Sigmar

Orruk Megaboss Gnasha Full WIP

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OrruksDespite working on my Orruk Megaboss for almost a month, I’ve not put up a decent Work in Progress blog post, so get yourself comfortable I’m going for a Waaagh!

If you don’t follow me on Twitter you’ll likely be surprised at the sudden change from Bloodbound and Ad Mech (and painting Red).  As I think I said in my BLACKOUT 2017 review, I had an urge to paint up an Orruk of some kind with the potential to paint up an army.  I’ve wanted to paint up an Orruk Megaboss since I saw it in White Dwarf, but was always put off by the price – £25 is really quite steep for a single miniature and even with a bit of discount from a third party you’re not far off a unit of ten models.

But with inspiration from the tournament (and heckling from friends) I ordered myself the Megaboss at the beginning of September…

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More Blood Warriors – the Goretide Begins to Grow

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Khorne Bloodbound - ProgressSo my Khorne Bloodbound has begun to grow from it’s small 1000 points and last Friday I began to put together a second unit of Blood Warriors, though this time armed with paired Goreaxes (which allows me to re-roll To Hit rolls of 1 in combat).

My original intention had been to assemble five of the box and pack out my original unit and then use the rest for kit-bashing chariots and similar.  However after some thought, I can’t see me adding chariots to the army anytime soon, so it just made sense to make the whole unit up for my 2000 points.

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Painting the Khorne Slaughterpriests – Part One: Pale Skin

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Khorne Slaughterpriest Painted by Games Workshop

Painted by GW

This week has seen me start of painting up two of the Khorne Slaughterpriests I’ve got, which seems to be a common theme due to the one being given away for free on the September 2016 issue of White Dwarf.  Because I’ve no real time constraints or pressures I’m spending a bit longer on painting them up rather than the fairly standard paint jobs I’ve done on the rest of my Bloodbound.

Now don’t get me wrong the Warhammer TV videos by Duncan which I’ve used are brilliant and produce well above tabletop quality models – they’ve allowed me to get a playable army painted in under six months after-all.  What I’m not keen on is the finish on the flesh, which although fine for a rank and file model lacks the depth and tone I personally like for character models.

Because I’m spending a bit more time I’m going to post a few articles on what I’ve been doing and explain what colours and paints I’m using – thought it’s a bit more interesting than my usual procrastination 🙂

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Painting the Khorne Skull Cannon – and how I’d do it better next time

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Khorne Skull Cannon Painting FinishedI’m very pleased to say that I achieved my goal of getting my Khorne Skull Cannon painted!  I’ve got to varnish and sort the base out but in principal I’ve another unit to add to my Goretide – which actually would transfer over to 40k too.

So in a change from my regular procrastination this post will be a handful of photos and some information on how I’ve painted the various bits and how I’d suggest anybody doing one could go about it (learning from my mistakes).

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Plan for the Goretide over the next few months

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Plan for the GoretideScarily we’re now a week into September and already the nights are noticeably drawing in and the temperature chilling down – autumn is well on its way and I thought it was a good point to go over my plan for the Goretide over the next few months.

Apologies that we’re a bit “picture light” too!

Imminent Plan for the Goretide

Khorne Skullcannon WIP2Regular readers won’t have failed to spot that July and August were fairly lean on posts, initially because I had too much painting to do in preparation for Seeds of Hope and then lots of real life chores to catch up on.  My Skullcannon is making good progress but it’s not really changed very much so not “post-worthy” in my opinion and I’d rather not bore people with posts that don’t contain anything particularly exciting.  However I do have a few things planned between now and the end of the year!

Firstly (and pretty obviously) I’m going to finish off my Skullcannon.  I’m now onto all of the edge highlighting so with luck may get this finished over the next week, then just need to quickly knock out the Bloodletters and base it up.

Then I think, I may have a bit of a bash at painting up some more characters.  I’ve three Slaughterpriests, a Bloodstoker, Skarr Bloodwrath and Valkia to do and the new Gorechosen game is released on the 23rd which will give me another four characters (magic eight).  My intention is to get at least one Slaughterpriest painted for entry into a painting competition being run by Ben Curry on The Grand Alliance forums due at the end of September.  The rest I’d like assembled and at least undercoated by the end of the month.

I’ve just booked off the last week of September and am provisionally planning to do some work on my Realm of Battle Boards – just some shading and drybrushing so they can be at least stored away again rather than lying on the floor.  The end of that week I’m planning some games of 40k and Age of Sigmar at home so they’ll also be sorted for that.  If one is good enough I may also pop my Bloodbound into Armies on Parade too.

With winter looming with its usual wet and cold friends I think my priority needs to be to assemble the remaining miniatures in boxes that I’ve got: six Skullcrushers, six Bloodcrushers and ten Blood Warriors.  If I can then get these undercoated it will mean that I have miniatures to paint on the numerous grey soggy days in the remaining few months until Christmas.

My plan for the Goretide also includes a custom Hellcannon conversion based on a 40k Forgefiend and some type of large creature (Bloodthirster, Slaughterbrute etc), but as with my original thought, I’m not going to purchase anything else until I’ve got more painted.

Long term plan for the Goretide

The Goretide are going to have a bit of a holiday.  For the first time in three years I’ve actually got the Christmas break off and intend to start building and painting all of the models I’ve got for an Adeptus Mechanicus army (including finishing off my Knights).  All being well Fires of Cyraxus will be released by then too so I’ll know what Mechanicum units I can pull over to 40k which would also kick off my Horus Heresy army too.

Progress on Khorne Skull Cannon

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Khorne Skullcannon WIP1After the frantic amount of painting undertaken in the lead up to the Seeds of Hope campaign, I’ve been taking things a bit easier and been painting up a Khorne Skullcannon to add a bit of ranged firepower to my Age of Sigmar army.  This “hobby light” period has been intentional to prevent any potential burn out and to catch up with some of the real-life things I’d put to one side to get my army painted.

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Age of Sigmar Open Day 2016 – Event Round Up

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Age of Sigmar Open Day 2016Well the dust has settled from the excitement of the Age of Sigmar Open Day at the weekend and I’m finally back in the land of the living.  So where to start – the beginning is probably a good place!

Firstly, here’s the link to the photos I took: https://flic.kr/s/aHskGy8eeZ

With most events at Warhammer World I tend to travel up by train on the Friday before, generally arriving late afternoon, with enough time to drop my bags off at the hotel and wander over to Bugmans for a couple of pints and burger for tea.  This event was no different really, train journey nice and smooth and grub was excellent as usual – half a cow and pig in a bun, what’s not to like (unless you don’t eat meat).  With the Age of Sigmar Open Day being on the Saturday there was a slow trickle of staff moving display cabinets into the staff canteen area.  On the way out I chatted with Alex in the store and saw the WHW exclusive Stormcast miniature painted up and in a cabinet.  The released pictures don’t do the model justice and it has a far more dynamic pose than I was expecting.

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Countdown to Completion : Khorne Bloodbound

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Khorne Bloodbound Icon“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”

I think this saying pretty much sums up my progress over the past week for my Khorne Bloodbound.  I had originally planned that from last Friday when I got home I would have a pretty clear run of hobby time with nothing to stop me simply cracking out my Wrathmongers.  Sadly real life threw the proverbial spanner in the works and resulted in me loosing a chunk of Friday afternoon, a chunk of Saturday and all of Monday evening.  I had to take a couple of hours out of Sunday too as my eyes decided they didn’t like me and I was struggling to focus.  This has then been compounded by the fact that tonight (Tuesday) I’ve also ended up having to work some of the evening (though it does mean I get this post written).

Khorne Bloodbound – Where they’re at

So what does this mean with my Khorne Bloodbound progress? Well my Wrathmongers aren’t finished and I’ve only just started to tidy up the last unit of Bloodletters.  I’ve at least another two evenings worth of work to get the Wrathmongers finished as there is quite a bit of edge highlighting to get completed.  Quite simply it’s going to be tight, but I think I’ve a few things up my sleeve that should help.

Wrathmongers WIP2

Although I’m losing time this evening I’m hoping to be able to knock off early than normal on Friday with the extra hours I’ve put in.  This will give me a nice long weekend where the only commitment is a hair cut on Saturday.  I’ve also heard on ‘the grapevine’ that the managers meeting being held next Tuesday evening is going to be moved to the day so I’ve a little bit of contingency there.  Finally I managed to pick up Mephiston Red as an airbrush paint.  This should mean that once I’ve tidied up the Bloodletters, getting them painted should be a relatively speedy job.  That said they’re bloody horrible to tidy up with quite a bit of mold slippage.

So it’s not doom and gloom for my Khorne Bloodbound, but it’s certainly going to be a bit of a challenge!  I’m also really happy with how the black has come out, I’m certainly going to be using Corvus Black a lot more when I need to paint up black armour!

Age of Sigmar Generals Handbook and Swindon Store Birthday Bash

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age of sigmar generals handbookHot on the heals of the Forge World Open Day, the next bit of excitement has been the release of the Age of Sigmar Generals Handbook!  I headed over to my closest Games Workshop store (Swindon) and managed to pick up one of only 12 copies the store received.  I’ve said it before, but I really don’t understand why the stores aren’t sent quantities based on their average footfall, Swindon is a very popular store – by the time I left (spent an hour looking round and talking to staff) they’d sold all of the copies they had…

Swindon Store Birthday

Swindon Birthday Bash HaulSaturday was coincidently a birthday weekend for the store, who had laid on cake, balloons and various events during the weekend.  Really impressed – there was a queue waiting outside for the store to open too, proving what a popular store it is.  In addition to the Age of Sigmar Generals Handbook, I also picked up a box of Wrathmongers (as at that point I had almost finished my Mighty Lord of Khorne) and a compulsory pot of paint, because of the amount I spent I got a birthday grab bag consisting of a GW bag, black Aquila pin badge, wristband and a 4Gb memory stick – really nice little surprise.

Age of Sigmar Generals Handbook

Well what can I say – it was worth the wait!  The internet has been awash with points values and battleline units for weeks now but I’m happy to say that this is only a portion of the content of the book.  The rest of the pages are full of how to play in different styles, running campaigns and how to get more out of your games of Age of Sigmar.  You also get allegiance abilities for each Grand Alliance, equipment for your heroes in the form of Artifacts and a few extra rules for tournaments.  There are also a load of new Battleplans for playing scenarios that fit particular play styles.

I’m still reading through everything but I can see this being really moving the game system forwards.  Adding points is likely the biggest change and I see old school “Open Play” going by the wayside a little, however I think points are simply going to level the playingfield when it comes to casual games rather than being a massive straight jacket.  I just think we’re no longer going to see somebody placing a load of monstrous creatures against two units of Night Goblins.

All in all I would recommend anybody serious about playing to pick up the Age of Sigmar Generals Handbook

Goretide

Mighty Lord of KhorneAs I alluded to earlier my Mighty Lord of Khorne is now finished and his hound successfully glued into place.  I took a punt and used a different colour scheme for the hound than Duncan did on WarhammerTV.  It’s actually come out really nicely but I’ve had to order the orange Edge paint for the final highlight as the ones I have are too bold in my opinion.

This has put me at 720 points in total – so 280 points off what I need for the game in August.  After a bit of questioning on The Grand Alliance forum I’ve gone for Wrathmongers as my next unit in the hope these will give me a bit of anti-monster punch.

Five Weekends until the Age of Sigmar Open Day and Seeds of Hope Campaign

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Get ready for a bit of procrastination – I’ve got a new hobby deadline!

Age of Sigmar Open Day

Warhammer Age of Sigmar Open Day 2016The 13th August is the Age of Sigmar Open Day and I’ve decided (possibly stupidly) to put my name down for the free gaming day on the Sunday.  Currently the only information we have is that it’s related to the Seeds of Hope summer campaign event and that we’ll find out a bit more at a later date.

Goretide Progress

With that date in place, it’s time have a muse and see where I am with my Goretide and how best to structure the remaining days until the Age of Sigmar Open Day.  Through a very imprecise calculation, I’ve got about three full weekends free between now and the Open Day once I take out things like the Forge World Open Day.  I generally have 3 evenings each week over the next six(ish) weeks and an odd spare weekend day too.

On the surface I’ve barely done anything on my Bloodbound, my painted model count is currently at 8 of which all need their bases done, one needs a some bits finished and another needs varnishing.  Oh and I was thinking of applying a verdigris effect too.  Not particularly impressive.  But that’s enough negativity 🙂

 

The ten Blood Warriors I’m currently working on should be finished by the end of this coming weekend (though it is a busy weekend).  I’ve finished the flesh highlight so just got onto the edge highlighting which I’m hoping won’t be too arduous.  This will more than double what I’ve got painted and give me a very solid core for the army.   After that I think I need to crack out the Mighty Lord of Khorne, who I hope I can do in a couple of weeks, possibly less (the base might be huge but it is after all only two models).  If I can get him done in time for the 23rd (Generals Handbook release day) I’ll be really chuffed.

Khorne Blood Warriors WIP8

Once he’s done I’ll have painted roughly half of the Bloodbound I’ve currently got and reckon I should be half way into my timetable.  By then I should know what I’m going to need to play on the Sunday (with luck) and have an idea if playing is feasible and if so what I’m going to need to get done.  One benefit is that at that point I’ll have two completely free weekends before the Age of Sigmar Open Day.  Given how long I’ve taken to paint the Blood Warriors, this should be enough time to crack out another unit and base all of them in one hit.  Looking at the Bloodreavers, they look simpler to paint than the Blood Warriors – a lot less edge highlighting (though more flesh) which could mean that I may be able to paint up all 20.  My back up plan is to pick up a couple of boxes of Bloodletters, who are much simpler to paint (plus the base colours can be airbrushed on in a couple of hours) and can go with another unit of ten my brother has offered to loan me.