More painted Age of Sigmar Miniatures

Seems my painting speed has slowed right down in recent weeks, though I have spent quite a bit of time assembling more miniatures and also upped my painting quality as i get onto miniatures I really like rather than things I just want to get onto the gaming table. 

I've also taken the opportunity to rephotograph some of my khorne miniatures as I had my proper camera out rather than my phone. 

This weeks big win was finishing my Putrid Blightkings, fantastic figures and I was keen to give them a really great paint job. It eventually took almost 3 weeks from basecoat to basing them last night. I'm really chuffed with them learning a whole lot of new techniques while I painted them and testing out several of the GW Technical Paint range in the process. 

I think I really managed to catch the disease ridden nature of these miniatures with plenty of sores, brusing, puss ridden boils etc.

Next up we have a Ogur Stonehorn, I actually finished this over a month ago and it just missed the last cut of figures. It was the first time I've ever painted a model this size and I found it fairly difficult with the brushes I have, it took a lot of work to get a smooth colour whilst picking out all the detail. This guy still needs basing but I'm struggling to find a base bigh enough for him that's not round, I'm hoping to find a 120mm oval DS style base at some point. 

I ended up leaving the rider off the model, so I can choose weapon options depending on my opponent. I had planned to magnetise him but it actually doesn't really need it as he sits quite comfortably on top.

Next up I have a Daemon Prince I picked up on Ebay for a tenner, unfortunately he was already assembled for 40k and appeared to have been stuck together badly with superglue so he took quite a bit of tidying up to make him suitable. 

I ended up painted him in the same colours as my Khorne force though he's more likely to be an unaligned DP and I'll build a more Khorne like one in the future. 

Finally the remainder of my bloodbound, a second Bloodsecrator, Vekh the Flayer from the starter box.

And the Mighty Lord of Khorne, in my case this is Ghorak the Despoiler, scourge of the realm of Gyhran.

Ghoraks current hoard stands as the following, though I have loads more in the queue including 2 more khorgoraths.

Finally I've finished converting up some miniatures for my Age of Chaos warband to game with my brother. My Champion of Khorne, a slaughterpriest with a Bestial Face, HAnd of Khorne and Cloven Hooves. 

And a flock of Chaos Furies, these came out very nicely in my opinion and I've another 5 to build though only these 5 will be in the warband to begin with.

Next on the painting table is a unit of Bloodletters, they should be finished this week and I'm going to book in a session with one of the guys at my local GW to learn the basics of airbrushing before tackling my Maggoth Lord. 

Age of Chaos - A Realm of Chaos adventure with AoS

When it was first rumoured that WFB may be getting a face lift as a skirmish game I got genuinely excited about it, I'm a child of the 80s and got into gaming pretty early so I have fond memories of rogue trader and Realms of Chaos. So for the first time in 10 years I kept an eye on GW rumours.

Leaping forwards several months and AoS is released, massive lore change, new miniatures and a new system. I was initially disappointed GW didn't push out a really groundbreaking skirmish system, there are plenty of good systems about already and I really hoped that GW could do something amazing and move away from their to hit, to wound, save formula.

After a couple of weeks, an intro game and watching several youtube batreps with the new rules I decided to throw myself into it and pick up the starter, then several more miniatures, then I cleared out some old OOP stuff and bought even more.

I've played more AoS in the past few months than I've played wargames probably over the past year if not 2, it's pretty good. There are a few ambiguous rules, plenty of scope for taking the piss but as a small battle/large skirmish system it really floats my boat. The new Hero phase adds a lot to the game and the combat phase makes for some difficult decisions.

Sometime later I've circled back round to where I started and fancied running a bit of good old Realm of Chaos warband games. Luckily for my my ever patient Brother fancied a bit of that too and so we set off on our path to glory. I spent the last week putting together warband creation rules and converting a lot of the flavour of Realms of Chaos into AoS rules, with over 25 pages of tables and the need for plenty of dice I have a fairly reasonable system ready. I've just got to flesh out some of the post match stuff.

With phones in hand, and a pile of dice, Phyllion and I rolled up our starting warbands last night. The system is fairly easy going, you roll up your champion race and profile, add on weapon options, then a Chaos Attribute, Physical Attribute and Chaos Gift plus any spells etc you may get. Then take 5 rolls on the warband table discarding 2 rolls. With that you're left with a champion and 3 units with a maximum of 30 wounds to spread over them, champions, standards and musicians cost 1 additional wound to take. This seemed a fairly sensible way of limiting the warband mismatches and allowing some tailoring to miniatures you wanted to buy or convert.

I selected a follower of Khorne for my champion as I already have the starter set and a few additional miniatures. So here's what I have:

Ghalen the Merciless
A Human Slaughterpriest of Khorne

Move	Wounds	Save	Bravery
5"	4	5+	7

Armed with a BloodAxe

Melee Weapons
Weapon		Range	Attacks	To Hit	To Wound	Rend	Damage
Bloodaxe		2"	3	2+	3+	0	1

and the following abilities:

Mark of Khorne

Khorne Champions are bloodcrazed, you can add 1 to all hit rolls made by this model.

Included in profile above

Bestial Face: 

Enemies suffer -1 bravery when in combat with you

Cloven Hooves: 

Cosmetic attribute only

Hand of Khorne: 

The blessing of Khorne turns one of the champion’s limbs red with might. One attack made by the champion each combat phase gains D3 damage to its profile.

Prayers:

Imbue Strength: 

Calling upon the dark magics imbued into the weapons of his kin the priest calls forth the very power chaos into every strike. Roll a dice, on a roll of a 3 or more the chaos runes on the warriors weapons glow with unearthly power. Until your next hero phase, increase the rend characteristic of the units weapons by 1.

Boil Blood: 

Roll a dice, if the result is a 4 or higher, the prayer is answered, on a Roll of a 1 the priest is seen as unworthy and suffers a mortal wound. Pick an enemy unit within 12”. That unit suffers D6 mortal wounds, its warriors screeching in agony as superheated blood jets from their bodies.

And the Warband:

5 Bloodwarriors inc Champion and Icon Bearer

10 Bestigor (Bloodgore of Khorne) inc Gouge-Horn, Bannerbearer, Brayhorn

5 Chaos Furies

After a brief bit of head scratching Ghalen gained the following background:

Ghalen, was once a holyman from a small hill tribes from the great northern hills in Ghur and worshipper of the great beast that slumbered. Under the constant threat of attacks by Orruk and Ogur warbands the nomadic tribe travelled endlessly on the backs of great beasts of burden. Following a vicious attack Ghalen fled from the village and into the Darkthorne Woods, after several days stumbling through the dangerous undergrowth he stumbled upon a clearing which contained a great stone monolith. As he approached the icon he was beset by a band of Goatheaded beasts, in a blind rage he managed to kill several of them and as he stood blood dripping down his face, waiting for the next attack the grove rumbled to life, a red glow eminated form the stone monolith embracing Ghalen filling him with vigur and hatred. Hefting one of the creatures axes he lay into them taking head after head until only a handful remained. Embracing his as their champion, Ghalen had found a new god and his first followers, thus began his path to glory.

During a skirmish in Shadyhollow Ghalen slew the Orruk chieftain Uzgub, whilst chanting battlecrys in the dark tongue he found his enemies fall to the ground as boiling blood erupted from their bodies, and thus Khorne was pleased and gifted Ghalen with a great rune of Khorne, new followers flocked to join him, powerful armoured warriors loyal to his lord. Durring a grulling pitched battle through the Ironshard hills he encountered a flock of carrion deamons, bending them to his will his warband again swelled in number. Khorne gifted him with a bestial face and cloven hooves in recognition of his triumphs. On the shores of the rust river the warband slaughtered an entire village leaving the river awash with corpses and red with blood, Ghalen, injured in the battle found his left arm knit back together, his skin turning red and thrummed with power.  

And that's where he is today, travelling the realms gathering skulls for his master. 

Modelling time

I've decided to use the Aspiring Deathbringer for Ghalen himself rather than the new slaughterpriest miniature, mainly as he's not holding onto his weapon with both hand which will make future conversions easier. 

 To represent his bestial face I'm going with a stormvermin champion head as it looked appropriately vicious.

And for the Hand of Khorne a swap out of his punchdagger/shield for a Bloodletter forearm and hand

The cloven hooves I'll just model on with some greenstuff and that's probably it to begin with, I don't want to over model him at the moment as there will be plenty of time for more attributes or gifts. 

The Bloodwarriors will come from my existing collection:

And the bestigor will be converted from some beastmen I already have, adding double handed weapons from the Bloodreaver box, bit's of additional armour, some daemonic tails and a few horn modifications. 

The furies will be conversions from Daemonettes with Tyranid Gargoyle wings, and will look something like this:

From here: 

http://simonfisherrofl.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/furious-fallen-angels-wip-furies.html

I really like the fact the wings replace the arms on these guys rather than in addition to, makes them appear more animal like to me. 

So that's it, I'm sure my brother will blog his warband as it's gets built, we're aiming for a first game around Christmas to test it out properly, no doubt I'll try and rope some local gamers into it too. 

Age of Sigmar - Hold or Die Batrep

Evening all, managed to sneak in a non GW store game tonight as phillion and my buddy Charlie popped round to grab a game of Age of Sigmar.

He's been working on some Sylvaneth so thought it would be great to get them on the table to show him how they perform and as I'd just finished up my starterset of Khorne with a few extras we were set for a reasonable sized game.

I'd selected Hold or Die from the first big book as I've seen a couple of batreps with it and it looked like a fun game, with a quick dice roll we decided that the Khorne would be the attackers and combined Sylvaneth and Stormcast force would be the defender.

Background:

The mighty Khorne Lord Ghorak the Slayer has been tracking a small force of Stormcast deep in the of Ghyran, his scouts have learned of a secret meeting between them and some kind of ancient forest spirit, the warband is summoned to break this alliance before it starts. Unknown to him a larger force of Stormcast and Sylvaneth is on route to secure the area.

Force Selection:

We used a simple selection system based on Ash Barkers of Guerilla Wargames Miniatures:
6-8 Warscrolls, max 70 wounds, 3 heroes or monsters, no more than 30 wounds per scroll.

The Stormcast:
Initial force:
Lord Relector
Branchwraith
6 Retributors

Reserve Force:
Lord Celestant on Dracoth
10 Liberators with Hammers and Shields
16 Dryads

Khorne Bloodbound:
Mighty Lord of Khorne
Bloodstoker
Bloodsecrator
Khorgorath
Scyla Anfingrimm
20 Bloodreavers
10 Bloodwarriors

Setup:

The forces of order pick a 9" circle centered on a small wooded grove and set up their Retributors, Lord Relector and Branchwraith in the wood.

The Bloodbound set up 12" away split into 2 roughly even groups.

All woods were nominated as Sylvaneth Woods and no other special terrain rules were used.

Turn 1:

After a short tactical discussion Charlie opts for first turn, dropping a mystic shield on the Retributors and then moving them back 4" away from the Khorne to maximise to distance between the forces whilst keeping their cover bonus. 

The Bloodbound warband surges forwards in response, the Bloodreavers driven forwards by the lash of the Bloodsecrator and Barking orders of the Khorne Lord forget their place and charge ahead of the main line into the Retributors, the Sylvaneth woods rattles to life killing several Bloodreavers as they enter.

The Bloodreavers literally bounced off the Retributors, a combination of a very poor dice roll and 2+ armour saves left the unscathed. The Retributors struck back with support from the Lord Relector killing 13 Bloodreavers and the rest fled the field. First Blood to the Stormcast. 

Turn 2:

The forces of Order won the initiative for the round,  Lord Relector called down Sigmar's fury onto the Bloodwrriors with a bolt of lightning killing one. On the left flank the reserve force turned up threatening the Khorne flank, luck for once was on Lord Ghoraks side and they failed to charge into combat.

Keenly aware of this new threat Lord Ghorak beseeched Khorne to aid him in battle and in a blinding flash a demonic legion arrived to bolster his forces (well it would have been a legion had I more models available, in reality I gained a unit of bloodletters and a demon prince with a mark of Khorne.

The forces of Chaos surged forwards to meet their foe. 

In the center Scyla and the Khorgorath managed to charge the retributors, The Khorne Lord and Bloodletters took on the Dryads and the Bloodwarriors veered off to tackle the retributors and Lord Celestant. The deamon prince clearly addled by his summoning failed his charge roll. 

The Bloodwarriors stuck first killing several Liberators and wounding the Lord Celestant, The Retributors in the center replied taking out the Khorgorath and wounding Scyla. The Ghorak the Mightly Lord of Khorne failed to live up to his name and managed to take out just 2 Dryads. The Dryads fought back and wounded the Chaos Lord several times and took out a Bloodletter. Scyla struck against the Retributors but failed to do enough damage to kill a single Retributor with some incredible poor dice rolls which started with just 5 attacks from 2D6+2...

The Lord Celestant struck back at the Blood Warriors killing several though they went down fighting wounding the Lord Celestant and killing another Liberator. The Bloodletters took out another couple of Dryads and we were into the battleshock phase. 

The last remaining Bloodwarrior fled the field, rolling a double 6 the Liberator unit supporting the Lord Celestant also fled the field. 

Unfortunately due to time constraints and hampered by tea being late and a powercut in battleround 2 losing us some time we had to end the game here. 

Postmatch thoughts:

I'd have loved to run a third turn as it would have been really bloody, with a number of Khorne heroes and the Deamon prince closing in on the Retributors and the Khorne Lord and Bloodletters engaged with the Dryads it could have been a close game. 

It was a really good game, a hard scenario for the attacker as you need to hit combat fast, I was hampered by some appalling dice rolling with didn't help my fight against the Retributors, in hindsight I shouldn't have charged into them as without the Meatripper Axes I was unlikely to do any damage. 

I also suffered from fairly poor deployment with all my heroes hanging about at the back and failing to make a meaningful impact on the battle. I didn't have the change to plant the banner as I realised that the Bloodreavers and Bloodwarriors would have both been out of range in the combat phase so I lost out on vital additional attack. 

I really love all the rules about calling on additional forces and in this case I could have placed an additional 6 deamon units if I'd have had the models available, though Charlie could have called on more stormcast to aid him in the following turn and would likely to have gained at least 1 unit to bolster his forces.

Lesson for the day: Retributors in terrain with Mystic Shield are dammed hard to kill if you don't have ranged attacks.

Been busier than my blog suggests... honest.

Thought I'd give a bit of an update as it's been rather quiet around here recently.

I had a few months off painting between the end of Jan and the end of May or build props for and run my annual love craft larp game.

After a little break from the stress that came along with it I've picked up the brushes again and headed off in a rather unusual direction.

Phillion if you're reading this its probably best you stop now...

I fancied a change and with the rumours of a new GW fantasy game back in June-ish I dug out a few old miniatures and started to play around with some ideas for realm of chaos type gaming.

Well Age of Sigmar finally landed and after a couple of weeks mulling it over I was finally convinced to part with some cash by the excellent youtube bat reps from Ash Barker, check out the guerilla miniature games youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbO4Vs1vlAA9hz7Ad7IMgug

Well I was still staunchly in the "I'll paint up the chaos for some small games" mentality but those stormcast are truly lovely models. I picked up the big book and had a read and some of the artwork and the new mythical based fluff really interested me.

With the summer holidays upon us and my wife and kids away for a week I managed to batter through the whole of the stormcast starter figures and a few extras. With these in hand I also headed to GW during the week and snuck a few games in.

Surprisingly it was really enjoyable, the structure and pace of the game is really good and the way troops work together means you do have to do some work on planning your move and stratagem. I've managed 5 games so far and the stormcast have only managed 2 victories, part of this is the widely publicised issues around the lack of points or a build structure, as I'm playing pick up games in GW stores (something I thought I'd never do again) there is still an element of powergaming going on with a win at all costs attitude.  I've only found a couple of players who really embrace the concept of AoS and scenario play so far.

It is not a strategic battle game, but then I didn't see WHFB as being one of those either, but it is a pretty good skirmish game and the background gets me interested in a way that Warmachine and Malefaux don't.

So I best show off my progress so far:

Lord-Celestant Vandus Hammerhand on his Dracoth

Lord Celestant on Foot

Lord Relictor

Lord Castalliant and Gryph-Hound

9 Liberators with Hammers and Shields including Prime with Grand-Hammer

5 Liberators with 2 Hammers including Prime with Grand-Blade

3 Units of Retributors with Primes

Unit of 6 Judicators including Prime with Shockbolt Bow

And onto the Chaos forces:

Bloodsecrator

Converted Bloodstoker

Unit of 10 Bloodwarriors including Chaos Champion with Gore-Glaive and Icon Bearer

Half the unit of Bloodreavers including Hornblower

A mighty Khorgorath

14 Ungor with spears including Halfhorn, Bannerbearer and Brayhorn

 That's probably more actual miniatures painted in 6 weeks than I've painted in several years, they're mainly up to gaming standard rather than my usual displace cabinet figures I use for skirmish so highlights are limited to 2 and there is minimal detailing where possible.

There is still plenty on the painting table:

3 Prosecutors (need their wings magnetising)
Mighty Khorne Lord
Second Bloodstoker
Khorne Deamon Prince
10 more Bloodreavers
10 Gors
Stonehorn
5 Liberators with Swords and Shields
5 Judicators with Crossbows
2 more Khorgorath
20 Marauders (to be converted from Bloodreavers)
2 Realmgates.

So I've loads to keep me busy and a number of upcoming releases I'm interested in.

So there'll be another update when I've finished this lot.

Wednesday night painting - 15mm hundred years war archers

 Well almost, I finished these archers on Wednesday night but didn't find the time to base them. Rather than just show them half finished I thought I'd base them and finish off a loads of basing detail as a job lot.

I spent a couple of weeks earlier in the month looking for archers that I liked, many of the 15mm ones didn't have anything that looked like a proper 6' longbow. I eventually came across these figures from minifigs. They're sold in packs of 8 of the same figure and I was after a more mixed up look so I ended up buying packs from both the Crecy and Agincourt ranges and picked up 5 packs, enough for 3 decent sized bases of archers.

In a similar way to the knights I wanted something to help identify them as English archers so I went with the majority of the miniatures having some kind of red clothing, certainly not uniform but as least distinguishing.

I'd tested some basing ideas last weekend and went for a less ranked up look, it fills the base out, gives a little room for dioramas and shows off the fronts of the miniatures a little more.

As I mentioned I'd based them as a job lot and so the knights and command stand are also finished:

I've recently moved to using graveyard earth (or what ever the new name for it is) as a base for dirt. This is mainly as its quite neutral and I can use it for pretty much anywhere in the world. European bases get more green verdant grass whilst middle eastern or African miniatures get sparcer dried grasses.

I used a spring static grass and mixed in a load of mininatur tufts to break up the ground a little. Not quite as nice as my brothers bases but will do for me.

Next up, either more archers or I may paint up a couple more pulp miniatures. Not sure yet.

Anyhow I'm off to Vapnartak show in York tomorrow, not really after anything in particular just for a wander.

Wednesday painting - 15mm Hundred Years war English Knights and Command

A bit of a cheat this week, I didn't paint these in 1 evening, more like 3. I was so keen to see how they came out i found some time over the weened and got the majority of the work done and  just finished them off and based them tonight.

My brother and I had a conversation over Christmas on possible scales and were debating the relative merits of 10mm vs 15mm, well me being an impetus bugger went ahead and ordered up some 15mm figures to see how they painted up.

First up we have 8 English knights, with the colour schemes I wanted the myriad of colours that heraldic knights come in but I also wanted something to identify the forces on the table so with the English  I went with at least half the unit in a red colour scheme with a couple of others thrown in. The French will be the same but in blue so you should be able to easily identify the two sides when the forces once a game breaks down into melee.

I tried something new this time and based the miniatures on large lolly sticks for painting and rebased them afterwards. This did allow me more freedom and access to the miniatures and made painting the heraldry much easier. I'll admit there the fine detail is all decals from Veni Vedi Vici, A coat of matt varnish should hide them well once I've finished basing them.

The knights are based on 8cm x 6cm bases mainly for impetus or sword and spear rules, possibly homebrew ones.

The command stand here represents Robert Ufford 1st Earl of Suffolk, unfortunately I mis-ordered and added a musician instead of another knight to wave his banner, so I have left a little room at the rear of his base to add a 3rd infantryman to this base so I can get a pretty banner on it. 

All in all I was pleasantly surprised at the speed and ease these painted up, about 7-8 hours work in total and the scale means that the heraldry is fairly easy to paint up without it having to be massively accurate. The miniatures are from Donnington's New Era range and are fairly good, I just grabbed a mix of knights and horses with little attention to their actual armour or armament. 

I've ordered some archers for the next unit as you can't field an English force without lots and lots of longbowmen, it just wouldn't be right.  

Wednesday Painting - More Pulp Adventurers

Another successful evening of painting, this time just the two miniatures but still in just under 3 hours I managed to knock these out to a pretty reasonable standard. 

Last time we kicked around some miniatures with pulp alley I notices a lack of random adventurer types, I've plenty of bad guys and groups of specific heroes and sidekicks but many of them were more suited to urban environments rather than stomping through the darkest jungles of South America. 

These two figures are from the Defenders of Lucknow set from Mutineer Miniatures, meant for 19th century rather than 20th I don't think they'd look too out of place even though the guy on the right has a rather antique rifle.

See you all next week.

Wednesday painting - Pulp Indians

Welcome to 2015 everyone, hope you all managed a restful and enjoyable festive period.

I've managed to start the year the way I mean to go on, slipping in a 3 hour painting session last night and managing to just about complete these 4 miniatures.

They're painted to match the rest of my pulp Kali Cult and bring some much needed ranged weaponry to the cult.

Figures are Bundalee Native infantry from Mutineers 28th Indian Mutiny range.

I noticed when packing themy away that I've not highlighted the red quite as much as the rest of the miniatures I've done to so I may pull them out 90 the cabinet tonight and add another highlight just to keep them consistent. 

Well that's it for this week, see you next Wednesday. Happy painting.

Festive Painting

Merry Christmas readers, hope you are all having a great time, enjoying your holiday, family, presents or whatever else you get up to when the world closed down for a couple of days.

Now I realise it's a couple of weeks since I last posted and I did say I would paint every Wednesday but with the festive period, shopping, wrapping and visiting family I've not painted just once a week. I have however managed to get some painting in this week whilst I'm off work and at home.

So I've not managed to paint one, or even two figures but a group of eight, pretty impressive for my rates of painting, I've probably managed around 10 hours of painting in total across 3 nights.

The figures of choice have been sat in my painting box for at least a couple of years, pretty much since they were released. I spotted them at a con and instantly saw their potential as pulp miniatures. The figures are from Empress Miniatures Spanish Civil war range (not a period I know much about), from the Republican forces sold as Assault Troops and Command, to me they leapt out as some kind of border guards.

I've kept the colours fairly muted as usual, some semblance of a uniform but with some miniatures in jackets and trousers and others in overalls I thing they've got a lovely militia like feel to them. They're not meant for any country in particular and have a couple of different skin tones in there to add to their usefulness. 

Not going to be any Wednesday figures this week either, so I should next be painting on the 7th Jan, when it's likely going to be some Indian riflemen to add to my Kali Cult for some ranged firepower so I'll see you then.

Weekly Miniature - Part 2

Well it's a day late but I managed to fit in another couple of minis this week, only managed two as my wife and kids are away overnight and so I got a decent amount of painting time in tonight.

It's yet another set of Pulp miniatures for Pulp Alley.

A Flight captain, I used Cpt Jack Harkness ish colours for this one, in keeping with my other pulp miniatures I've kept the tones quite muted and used a limited pallet.

I also managed to finish another hound miniature I found laying around, this time painted up as a rottweiler, a fearsome opponent to be sure.