Tag: Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Tomb Kings Prince Apophas – my first Finecast

I just finished this chappy tonight. I have to say, I’m pleased with the paint job (although not too pleased how the pictures came out). I painted the pumice sand up onto the bottom of the figure, to give the impression that he’s just burst up from beneath the sand (as he does in the game). This was my first foray into the world of Games Workshop’s new Finecast material. It’s a little odd to work with. It’s like working with resin in some respects, and not in others. I think that  once they work out the kinks in their quality control(?) department, it’ll be awesome. The stuff goes together well, and takes paint well. I have heard horror stories that this stuff will melt though, so don’t leave it in your car in the middle of summer…

Anyhoo, onto the mini:

I just realized I need to tidy up the blue wash on that blade a little…

The fact that this dude is made up of swarming bugs appealed to me. He sort of epitomizes the essence of what got me into fantasy gaming when I was younger.

I like the contrasts of the darker blue of the scarab carapaces and the light blue of the tilework on his gear.

 

 

I love the posing, like he’s about to grab some poor bastard before sending their soul to the Usirian depths…

While painting Tomb Kings, I find it helps to listen to these chaps:

How to… Paint Tomb Kings – max results for minimum effort

In honor of the new, and rather delish Tomb Kings release last weekend, I wanted to post up a ‘how to’ article on painting up your undead forces in double quick time in readiness for battle.

As you may have seen in the current issue of White Dwarf, they give you some ideas for different techniques for painting your skeleton warriors. They look great, but are rather in-depth, probably too much so for those of you, like me, who are not only a full time computer masher during the day, but also a full time dad and part time rock star. My point being, you don’t have too much free time to paint.

Part the first:

Once your skellywags have been assembled (arguably the most time consuming part of this) you’re going to want to spray undercoat the little buggers. I’ve used Duplicolor Sandable Primer, matt white, which costs about $6 from any auto store, and is far superior to the expensive shite that Games Workshop tout as spray paint. I leave them overnight to dry, although they are dry to the touch in a few minutes, but I’m usually doing something else, yay for multitasking.

You should be looking at a nice, white skellie, yes? Good, then we can move onto…

Part the second:

Get a pot of Devlan Mud*, insert your wash brush, or other larger brush, then liberally slap it on all over the mini. I tend to do a second coat on things like the face and ribs, as they have the most detail. Try not to pool it if possible. Set aside to dry. I have been working on a unit of horse archers, as you can see. The GW washes dry, so by the time I have washed one, moved on to the second, the first is already dry.  You’ll already start to see things taking shape, thus:

Some of you out there may choose to stop at this stage, which is fine, but they still need to pop a little bit, IMO. This leads us nicely into…

Part the third:

This is where your little creepers will come to (un)life.  Get your brush that you use for drybrushing, open your Bleached Bone paint and drybrush them. This will give that extra dimension to them (whoah! 3-D!). It’ll pick out the ribs and facial features a little more, plus give them a little more ‘dry’ and sun bleached feel. You could even add another drybrush step here with Skull White, which I did, as I do it on just the face and ribs, very lightly:

The bone parts are done! Simple, eh?

Part the fourth – details:

You’ll still need to paint your quivers, bows and other bits after this, but again I keep it simple. For the bows I use a Mechrite red base, washed with Devlan Mud. The quivers with Hawk Turquoise washed with Devlan Mud (this is to give the overall feel of wear and dirt over a couple of centuries). The quiver flap and straps are base coated in Chaos Black, and a quick line highlight of Greatcoat Grey (PP3) and then Codex Grey . DONE! You can add details like hieroglyphs and what not, but the aim of this is to be quick, right?

Part the fifth – finishing touches:

Base ‘em! I use a pumice filler for the bases, as it looks like that dry, parched desert ground. Once it’s applied then dried, it’s basecoated with Snakebite Leather, then drybrushed with Bleached Bone, then a little bit of Skull White. Add a couple of tufts of desert flock and you should have a nice looking painted unit, ready to deal some serious arrow violence on your enemy:

 

Following this should get you your mass troops done in next to no time, allowing you to spend a bit more time on your character figures.

Let me know how you get on – good luck!

*I just bought a new pot of Devlan Mud the other day, as my other pot had run out. To my dismay, I find that it’s a slightly different shade, and almost looks like it’s got either Ogryn Flesh or Gryphonne Sepia in it. Bollocks!

Preparing for war!

By the gods! where has the time gone? it seems like only yesterday that I was at AdeptiCon hanging out with Dethtron and Evan… Well, I guess a new position at work, my computer at home taking a shit and generally being bloody knackered are the reasons that I haven’t posted in a while…anyway, enough of the excuses!

AdeptiCon was great fun, and a great chance to catch up with some people from the blogging universe. I met Tasty Taste, Brent, Sandwyrm and a couple of others from the HOP network (sorry, names are escaping me right now!). I also met Papa JJ from Dicerolla who is a gentleman! he approached me and Dethtron at the convention and asked if one or either of us were with Crusader, and thus, the ice was broken! Unfortunately we didn’t get to really hang out much, what with the tourneys going on, and our impending show that night at a venue that was only marginally bigger than my 3-year old’s bedroom. But, friendships were forged and i’m sure that we’ll be seeing Papa JJ again soon for more fermented grain beverages.

My one down point from the con was Forge World. I won’t go on about it, but this is definitely their second strike in my book. They had sod all I wanted at Games Day a couple of years back, and the same thing happened at AdeptiCon. I wanted the ‘event exclusive’ mini, a rather sweet ‘boarding marine’ in pre-heresy armor, but they had sold out. Way to go Forge World. They were painfully trying to get rid of some Eldar Titan that they didn’t want to have to cart home, and from what I understand they did end up taking it home. Well thought out lads…

Forge world: see all this really cool shit here?
me: sweet! hell yeah!
Forge world: well, you can’t buy any of it.
me: >sad face<

If any of you are familiar with the ‘Cheese Shop’ Monty Python sketch, it’s pretty spot on with my FW experience.

So, new Tomb Kings are imminent, and I am super excited. It’s put me into gear full throttle with painting my WFB army, which is also another reason I haven’t posted for a while.

I saw the leaked pictures and pretty much had a nerdgasm. I’ve heard on the interwebs a lot of hate toward the Sepulchral Stalkers/Necropolis Knights, but I think they’re really cool looking, and somewhat over-the-top, which I’ve been coming to expect from Fantasy Battle, considering recent releases. I actually also really like the thought of skeleton troops harnessing them and riding them, it’s just so ‘out there’ and quite refreshing to have this unusual take on what I believe will be a heavy cavalry class for this army. (about bloody time too!). The Sphinx is great too, and the model options just look incredible! I’m super excited about the Tomb Guard though. I actually held a box in my hand at my FLGS the other day, but alas it was still shrik wrapped, but it was on the ‘coming soon’ display. The down side to these guys is that they will be retailing for $41, the same price as a Stegadon… yowch! The one thing that I did find odd about them is the choice of head dress they are wearing, which looks distinctly more Mayan than Egyptian, in my opinion:

A small thing, which I don’t really care about, I just thought it odd… I also managed to thumb through the new army book too, which is gorgeous and lavishly illustrated in full color (yes, it will cost more too). Although we haven’t seen them yet, there will be another wave of TK stuff, as we have seen with other lines, GW will do an initial release, then a second wave. The second wave will consist of what look like plastic Ushabti (3 in a box for about $40 i’m guessing) and some new character figures, including some TK that looks like he’s appearing from a mound of scarabs. I’m hoping that new Liche Priests will be on the cards. Looks like we TK players are stuck with the gods-awful Screaming Skull catapult model, and I didn’t see anything about a new Bone Giant (I HATE that mini!) Having said that, I was in a bit of a rush, and didn’t get to look as deep into the book as I’d liked.

I was also half hoping that we would get new skeleton infantry minis, but alas it was not to be. The cavalry models seem to be out of scale with current horse models they make for other cavalry, which kinda sucks. I would’ve liked to have seen TK dedicated skellie minis, instead of the VCs ones with a couple of egyptian style upgrade sprues in there. There’s a lot I don’t use from those regular sprues, and won’t be using on anything else. Oh well, the pro’s defintely outweigh the cons for the imminent Tomb Kings, and I for one am a happy camper…

The release date of May 7th has totally put the firecrackers up my arse that I needed, and as I wanted to take a much needed break away from painting the Emperor’s finest, this has been perfect! I’ll be posting up some pictures of my progress in the next few days, so stay tuned.

Cheers for now

INCOMING… Tomb Kings!

YES!!!!

This made my sullen Monday, which included missing my train to work after a somewhat surreal weekend, a lot sunnier. As a Tomb Kings player, I was beginning to think that these guys would be put on a back burner (like every other army I play) but it would seem I was wrong! This morning I received an email from Games Workshop with a little taster teaser of what is to come. A new piece of art, and a couple of little pictures which appears to be parts of  new minis!

Does this mean new plastic skeletons??? Does this mean some decent looking Liche Priests that don’t look like some shitty rip-offs of the Universal Pictures creatures from ‘The Mummy’? Will we even have mummies??? Will we have plastic Tomb Guard??? Will we have a Bone Giant that doesn’t look like a dead Care Bear? Will be have machines of destruction that aren’t a f*cking nightmare to put together?? oooh the possibilities!!!

My thoughts on the ‘teasers’ – i’m thinking one is definitely a Tomb King, possibly Settra or maybe even Queen Khalida? Not too sure on the other though…

Happy Monday(s)!

Lizardman Skink test…

I just (literally, like 10 minutes ago) finished my first mini in my Lizardmen force. I did try a test out on a Saurus Temple Guard, but it was like someone had vomited on my mini, so he was re-undercoated. So, after taking a few days off from painting, I decided to give it another shot, this time with a smaller ‘muse’. My fiancee was convinced I said that I was going to paint a ‘skank’…

skin was base coated in a 1:1 mix of Regal Blue and Hawk Turqouise, with highlights added to this mixture with Ice Blue. I’ll be varying the tones on the different models to give them a bit more individuality.

Shield was painted with a basecoat of Scab red, washed with Badab Black and highlighted with adding Vomit Brown to the Scab Red and touching up on the corners of the plates.

Back plates were base coated with Regal Blue, washed with Badab Black and highlighted with Ice Blue and Codex Grey. No particular mix ratio, this was really a ‘this feels about right’ kinda thing.

Gold plating was base coated with a 1:1 mix of Shining Gold and Scorched brown. Highlight of Shining Gold, then a final highlight of Shining Gold with Mithril Silver mixed, at about a 1:3 ratio.

Claws/nails were a Snakebite Leather base, with Bleached Bone added in for progressive highlights. A basic version of this was used for the teeth. Eyes were simply a Tausept Ochre base, then added a bit of Bleached Bone for one layer before adding the pupil.

Onyx on the weapon was simply PP Greatcoat Grey lining, followed by a Codex Grey line highlight.

Based, and DONE!

It took me a little while to paint him, but that’s probably because I was doing a test run. I hope I get the same results on an assembly line type setup.

So that’s it! Hope you like him, comments and criticism always welcome.

Cheers!

Warhammer Fantasy Battle, or ‘light the blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance…’

I had my first game of WFB in like 15 years last Saturday. I was very excited at the prospect of playing some swords and sorcery stuff again, as it’s been a while. Me and Dethtron had decided on a 1500 point list, mainly to just get used to the rules and whatnot. The battle saw my small force of wimpy looking Tomb Kings vs. Dethtron’s veritable tank of an Empire army.

I won’t bore everyone to tears with a Batrep, but we did have a good game, with some truly ludicrous things happening. Dethtron very wisely put his ordnance on hills, which already got me worrying as I only had one Screaming Skull catapult to reciprocate with. So, I was facing a mortar, an effing great big cannon and a crazy looking rocket launcher thingy that looked like a pyromaniacs dream come true.

I pretty much stayed my distance and just unleashed plenty of volleys of arrows, while my Tomb King and unit of Chariots took to the flank to try and push them all to center field to end up as more arrow fodder. They ended up against a unit of heavily armored cavalry, after routing another unit of Pistoliers off the table. I was pretty certain that my Tomb King was doomed against these guys, but thankfully held them up in combat for a couple of turns, but alas was sent back to the void after being crushed under the hefty unit. Magic was thrown hither and thither (what?) with some dispels being successful, and others farting out into nothing.

We were trading shots for a while too, whittling each side down, although we both had abilities to replenish fallen troops, but I think I had a slight edge on the frequency and amount that this was used. Dethtron scored some direct hits with artillery but then suffered the Wrath of the Ancient Ones, as he rolled successive misfires on each of his artillery pieces, resulting in them being destroyed. Not only did this make me a little less worried about my troops getting mangled, but it also took away my primary targets for my ‘deep striking’ Tomb Scorpion and Tomb Swarms. While my Scorpion’s performance was a little lackluster, the tomb swarms held up two of the Empire units, resulting in him losing his Wizard, and consequently, his army general. With no spells being thrown around (and also no dispels) I was given a little more flexibility.

All in all it was a great game. I quickly learnt some strong and weak points concerning the Tomb Kings forces and am pretty excited to have a go at a larger game with some other unusual pieces added.

After going toe to toe I only just squeaked out a victory, which I am sure was mostly due to the unlucky misfires from the artillery, but it was still a blast. Geddit? Artillery? Blast? >sigh<

While 40K is still my favorite, this was a helluva lot of fun, who doesn’t like throwing fists full of dice down?

How to… make your own movement trays.

With my first game of WFB looming rapidly on the horizon I picked up a pack of the plastic movement trays that GW produces. They’re ok, for models with bigger bases, but I wanted to create my own.  I’ll be playing Tomb Kings, and as such, will be using minis with smaller bases. Now, anyone who has seen the TK minis will see how spindly they are. This can prove to be a bit of a pain in the arse when it comes to moving them around, and I didn’t want to be wasting time arranging them properly everytime they marched around the battlefield.

Dutifully I went to JoAnne Fabric and picked up some mounting card. I already had foam card at home so I already have everything I need. Initially I was thinking of using just the foam card but realized that the skellies would practically be standing head and shoulders above the other minis. Hence the thinner and stronger mounting card.

With the mounting card, draw around your base. Do this for your frontage and your depth, depending on what size unit you’re fielding. As I will be making this for a unit of 10 skellie archers, frontage will be 5 with a depth of 2:

Once you have your base measured up, cut it carefully from the sheet of card. Keep the lines as straight as possible. This one became my ‘master’ so I can use it for making more bases whenever I needed. From here we draw around this again onto the mounting board. Then we draw a bigger box around it. This extra spacing will be where our lip runs around the edge of the base:

Cut this from your  sheet of card. You now have your base which encompasses the 10 bases, plus the lip around the edge. Everyone following this ok?

Now, to the foam board. Trace around the larger base you just cut. then, lay your original template (the 10 base one from step one) on top. Make sure the spacing around the edge is roughly equal then trace around it. Then you’ll need to cut (very carefully) this centre piece out. You should end up with something that looks like a licence plate holder:

Get some all purpose clear glue and glue your foam card license plate holder to the mounting card base. You should be looking at something similar to the picture above. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect, we’ll be messing with that in a moment. I stuck my unit in it, just to give it a test fit:

Now, grab yer scalpel, or other sharp knife. We need to trim the edges down to give a more natural appearance, thus:

You’ll see now why it wasn’t a big deal if it didn’t all look totally straight, as you’ve changed it now anyway. You can be as zealous or reserved as you like here, it’s all down to personal preference.

We need to texture it now and you can do that one of two ways. First is to mix sand and PVA wood glue and paint this all over, or, if you want a quicker solution like me, you may have some ‘pumice’ which is available from most hobby stores. So, brab a brush and liberally slap it all over the outer ridge:

And you should end up with something like this:

The final stage is simple. You paint them! Paint them whatever color you need. As mine need to look all desert like, I start with a basecoat of Snakebite Leather:

Then a drybrush of Bubonic Brown and then finally Bleached Bone yields these results:

Thats it! you are done! I made 3 straight off, so I could put 2 units of skellie archers and a unit of Tomb Guard in them. They’re looking pretty sweet, and help give the army a uniform look.

Hope you liked this tutorial. More coming soon!

Paul

Mustering the forces for Warhammer…

Next month will see myself and my gaming partner in crime Colin/Dethtron getting together to have a small slap-about with the new 8th edition WFB. We just wanted a small game, to get used to the mechanics, as we are 40K players mostly, with neither of us actually playing a game of WFB for many years. So, we decided to set a 1250 points limit. Colin will be fielding his stalwart troops of The Empire while I will actually be dropping myself, lead weights and all, in the (very) deep end and busting out my Tomb Kings.

Now, I’m not sure how Colin fared in putting a list together at this point level, but I can honestly say that there is not that much open for a TK player at this level. To be honest, the new percentages update to the new rules (ftw) are a pain in the nether regions, but I’m sure over time i’ll hate it less and less.

I tried to spread the love out as liberally as I could with the limited points available.  My initial list ommitted a Tomb King/Prince (derp!) which was just a silly bloody mistake, as I was watching TV at the time as well. It also included both light and heavy cavalry and a unit of skeleton warriors armed woth spears and shields. I did a little bit of searching on teh interwebs and discovered that TK players seem to be suffering from Warriors of Chaos syndrome, in that their cavalry suck at the moment. With a WS of 2, I’d need an effing HUGE unit to be able to actually do anything worthwhile. So, back to the drawing board. It seems that for the most part, I want to be keeping the main body of my force at arms length from the enemy, while throwing as much missile crap at them as possible. 40 skele archers and a screaming skull catapult, with ‘skulls of the foes’ should (hopefully) fulfil this role, while my Tomb Swarms and fast moving chariots can start causing some problems while I bring up my minute regiment of Tomb Guard. Add a Tomb Prince in a Chariot and a Heirophant, and i’m really hoping I can at least hold my own, although I have a feeling that I am going to get my ass royally handed to me. here is my list:

Lords:

Liche High Priest – 245
Talisman of Protection – 15

Heroes:

Tomb Prince – 100
Great Weapon – 4
Light Armor – 2
Shield – 2
Chariot – 45
Chariot of Fire – 25

Core:

Skeleton Warriors (20) – 160
Musician – 5
Standard Bearer – 5

Skeleton Warriors (20) – 160
Musician – 5
Standard Bearer – 5

Tomb Swarm (2) – 90

Special:

Chariots (3) – 140

Tomb Guard (10) – 120
Musician – 6
Standard Bearer – 12

Rare:

Screaming Skull Catapult – 90
Skulls of the Foes – 20

Total – 1256 points.

I guess we’ll just wait and see what happens… In the meantime I am frantically putting the minis together in readiness, i’m about 80% done so far.

Thats it for now, ye skallywags!

Paul

EDIT: ok, looking this over again, i’m going to get railed. Right up the arse, possibly with a big spikey glove. I’m thinking we need to expand this to at least 2500 pts. Bugger.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle is HERE!

Indeed, the new 8th edition of WHFB is now sitting on my table here at work, positively glowing with awesomeness. I picked this up on the day of release from my local(ish) game store, but as that weekend was also Godzilla-Fest I didn’t have much chance to take a peep at it. My palms were a little sweaty paying $75 for the book, and with my Fiance standing right behind me, I couldn’t make up an alternate price either. All I got after making this purchase was ‘you could have bought me some Fluevog’s for that!’

Indeed.

I have yet to actually get some time to myself to bask in the epic magnitude of the book, but I have afforded myself a few cursory glances, and I got really excited from the bits that I did see. The $75 price tag may seem a little steep (or indeed effing verticle) to some, but when you actually see what is inside, it is more than worth it. The detail and passion that it has obviously been lovingly wrought with is evident. There are some incredible pictures of ‘Apocalypse’ style battles going on, and they do take the breath away when you see it.

By the way, the book weighs an absolute ton. No, really, I mean its really heavy, man.

This version appears to be gearing more toward the ‘epic armies clashing with hundreds of minis’ more than the sort of small scale conflicts of the previous editions. I still have my hardback copy of the 2nd edition, and all those years ago, the dreams of WFB I had are what are being realized in the pages of 8th edition.  I can’t sing the praises enough of the presentation of this volume. I’ll write another post on the content as and when I can wade through it all.

I should consider myself lucky (I think?) as it would appear that there is actually a shortage of this core rule book. i’ve been forum hopping and a lot of local games stores have been told they won’t get all or any of their orders for another few weeks. Of course there are those who are brandishing pitchforks and torches to the gates of GW saying they are incompetant and are going to crash and burn for this etc etc.  Maybe all the naysayers out there should look at this in a positive light: the demand has been way above and beyond what GW expected, which can only be good, as they wanted to bring back interest to fantasy. They’ll print more, and everyone will get their books, but take a second to think about that, eh?

Thats it for now.

Cheers!

An unnerving talent….

I was spacing out the other day, wondering what was going to be next on the project table for me to tinker with when I realized that all the armies I choose to collect, painstakingly paint and game with all seem to be obsolete (pretty much) or do so shortly after my decision.

Sisters of Battle.

Well, we all know where this is right now, well, we don’t, thats actually the whole point. I started collecting my Witch Hunters force back in about 2004 when I wanted to just start collecting and painting minis again. I bought the codex too. It wasn’t until I went uber serious with gaming again (thanks Colin) that I decided to ctually get a playable force together and went out nd bought the 40K rulebook too. Double whammy on this one. No less than 6 months after me buying the rulebook, then that edition was updated to the current edition. DOH! No matter. I picked up the mini ‘rules bits only’ book from the AoBR set, which I still use. Then, all of a sudden, we find out that the Inquisitorial forces of the Imperium are slowly vanishing. Are we getting an overhaul? are we going the way of the Squats? will we actually get plastic Sisters? The last few months have seen Witch Hunters stock disappearing from shelves, including the codex, and then, in turn, the stock becoming unavailable online through GWs web portal. There’s been a lot of nay-sayers and doom bringers on the interwebs, but conversely there have also been some very positive hints and possible ‘leaks’. For the most part, it seems to be the way of GW to snipe a line from sale for it to be released further down the line. This seems positive, although I hope it’s not going to be another year or two off. 50 points for a rhino? pffft! updated codex please!

Black Templars

I decided I wanted to dabble with the Emperors finest, Space Marines. I didn’t want a vanilla force, and certainly not Smurfmarines. I saw the codex for Black Templars and fell in love (figuratively speaking). Maintaining an almost grim, medieval kvltness about them, I thought they were perfect. Well, now I hear that these chaps will be getting a makeover soon, although I also heard on the grapevine they might be axed. I’m more inclined to believe the former rather than the latter, considering the fluff, and the the fact they are a progenetor chapter of the Imperial Fists. Still, I guess we’ll see. Just as well I am putting together an auxillary of Salamanders…. 😉

Tomb Kings

I got bitten by the WFB bug again, and with Colin amassing an Empire force, I wanted to get in on some axes and maces action. I went with Tomb Kings – Skeletons =cool. Egyptian skeletons with a host of nasty stuff and something akin to the Lost ark of the Covenant = epic WIN. I have managed to score an obscene amount of stuff on Ebay for this, which is awesome, so I don’t feel too bad about collecting this army. It wasn’t until I was surfing one of my regular haunts that I started picking up on other TK players getting twitchy as the army doesn’t seem to be getting any love, apparently because of it’s somewhat ‘fringe’ status, and it not being as popular as the usual Orcs, Chaos etc. I’m hoping for a new army book, although it has just been announced that Orcs and Gobbos are to be released in May, so yet again, something else that will probably be the end of this year, start of early next year. I’m reaaaally hoping they make some new minis to coincide with this, as the Liche Priests and Bone Giant minis = f*cking awful.

With so much being up in the air, i’m wondering whether to shelve the SoBs and TKs, concentrate on my Templars see what happens. At least I can proxy the marines :p

Which leads me to my Lizardmen. A newly refurbished army, new book, new minis, and i’m collecting them! HA! nothing can go wrong with this one….