A Call to Order (& now death) - my painting blog

[Orange]

Been having a bit of a painting holiday at the moment, with one thing and another (one of which is Horizon Zero Dawn!) but I'm getting back in the saddle now.

And this is my next project:



I love models from this era, and I've wanted this one since I was a kid. It should fit in nicely with some of my older models.

And a few shots from my last game--my opponent likes mixing order armies as much as I do!

[Orange]

A bit of progress...

Got the big guy painted. Used the original colour scheme, along with the more modern one, as inspiration. Just wouldn't be a 4th ed-era model without some garish colours!





And I realised I needed some more battleline, as I want to combine my two units of 10 Dryads into one unit. They're not really cutting it in units of 10.

I've had these models for ages, especially the old metal standard and musician. The plastic glade guard are still a great kit, especially with the hooded heads.



I want to do some cavalry next, I've got some cold one knights, or some dragon princes to choose from.

[Orange]

Been a bit slow of late and not getting much painting done.

But came across 3 waywatchers second hand and thought they'd be a good addition, so I got them done:



Should hopefully fill an 80 point gap here or there, or be a cheaper battleline option. Still tossing up what my next unit will be, getting a bit distracted by Shadow War and 30k!

[Orange]

Still plugging away, now I've got a good sized army to play with in just adding stuff I feel like painting.
So I did these guys:



I've wanted this since I first saw it, it's a beautiful model. But I forgot how painful white is, so I don't think I'm going to rush out and get many more stormcast! Though the ranged unit that comes with more of the birds is very tempting.



A friend had a spare one of these, only the second high elf model I've painted and it's made me want to paint more. Also found out the rules for this guy are pretty good!

Trying to get some terrain done at the moment but I've got a massive list of order things to paint:
--Phoenix guard
--old metal iron breakers
--dragon princes
--cold one riders
--witch elves
--corsairs
--a bunch of dark elf characters

[stato]

Lovely collection. The common base theme really ties them together.

[Orange]

Cheers stato. Definitely the idea with lots of different models, but I'm trying to use the blue and orange for that too.

I realised I hadn't put this guy up yet, I finished him ages ago.



I usually use him as Durthu, who is really scary, but I use him as the other types occasionally too. I'd like to get and paint and ancient as well, but they're a lot of work!

[Mordeus]

Beautiful army! Great to see those old slayers, they really had a lot of personality. Fyreslayers are better kits for sure in a lot of ways but they lack that thing that hand sculpted models used to have!

[Orange]

Ironbreakers!



Haven't been able to play much later but really enjoying painting all the different models.

I've got a unit of Dark Elf Cold One riders that have been wanting paint for a long time, so I think they'll be next, some speed would be useful in my army.

[Orange]

I started working on my Cold One Knights, and even finished one that I was using as a test run. They're still amazing models.

However, the opportunity came up for me to go to a tournament, and I decided to go another way with the list and not include any dark elves. So I'll be painting my Dragon Princes instead!

Tournaments used to be my painting motivation years ago, and it's so rare I get to go to one these days, so I've designed a list of models that I really want to use, and models I want to get painted (along with some I already have).

It's a 1000 point tournament, and we've been told to make lists that "will be fun for everyone," so I decided not to take any behemoths. I also get to take more units this way.

So this is it:

Dragon Noble (likely the general) with lance, shield and elven steed

Runelord

Knight-Venator

Glade Guard x 10

Waywatchers x 3

Dragon Blades (apparently not princes any more) x 5

Ironbreakers x 10

Miners x 10 + mining cart

Slayers x 5

 

There are some things I would have like to have added, like a giant eagle, which would have contributed to a very "Battle of 5 Armies" feel, and which I may do as a straight swap for the slayers if I get around to buying some.

A loremaster also would have been great, as I feel like my damage output isn't all that spectacular, and Hand of Glory would have been very useful on the Noble or Venator. But I just couldn't fit him in without losing too much.

I need to paint the Noble, Dragon Blades and Miners in 3 weeks, so I'll need to get moving! 

[BasetheRuin]

Cheers stato. Definitely the idea with lots of different models, but I'm trying to use the blue and orange for that too.

I realised I hadn't put this guy up yet, I finished him ages ago.



I usually use him as Durthu, who is really scary, but I use him as the other types occasionally too. I'd like to get and paint and ancient as well, but they're a lot of work!

Wow, the moody colours you used are just lovely on this beast. And great highlighting/shading too. Love it.


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[peasant]

magnific color elections! Just an idea I think more orange leaves will do good contrast, specially on the.right.shoulder



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[Orange]

Thanks guys.

Peasant--you make a good point actually, a bit of orange over there might be a good contrast. I originally decided to paint types of leaves different colours--the big ones orange, and the little ones blue. But a few orange little ones could be cool.

[Chillpill]

Wow... are you doing commissions by any chance?? These look amazing! Have ALLLLL my likes!

[Orange]

Haha thanks man

But no, barely get time to do my own stuff, let alone anything else.

[Orange]

Finished the test model for the Dragon Princes, shown with the test model I did previously for the Cold One Knights.



The Cold Ones are such great models, I'm looking forward to finishing them.

The Dragon Princes have a little tribute to the old school colour scheme, as well as to the colour scheme of my dragon lord.

I finished assembling the miners and their cart last night, just need to get cracking on the painting now.

[MrCharisma]

Any chance of a photo with your combined force?

I really like your painting style and you've done an amazing job to bring the older models back into the current meta. The slayers are exceptional

[Orange]

Thanks man. I'm really enjoying painting the old models and wheeling them out against younger guys who haven't seen them before.

I haven't got a current group shot, I will try and do that at some point soon.

So I had planned to do both the Dragon Princes and Miners for a tournament this coming weekend, but I drastically underestimate how long the Dragon Princes would take. Very drastically. They ended up taking a good 5-6 nights of long sessions. I don't think one unit has ever taken me so long!

They still feel a little unfinished but I had to stop. High Elves are really tricky to paint. I like them, but man, they're complicated!





I did the Dragon Noble at the same time, but he was much more straightforward. You can really tell the difference between the latest generation of sculpting tech and the one before it. The Dragon Noble is nice but the Prince kit is so much better. This will be my General for the tournament.



And the last thing to do was an eagle. I've been wanting one of these since they came out, the plastic LotR ones are the best GW have ever made. I was originally just going to do it in realistic eagle colours, but decided to make it more interesting and go a more fantasy colour scheme. Having done a fiery bird for my Knight-Venator, I thought I'd continue the theme and match some of the rest of the orange in my army.



I can also probably get away with using it as a Flamespyre Phoenix if I really want to, which also may become necessary if compendium units like great eagles disappear.

So sadly I won't have time to do the miners, though they're next on the list. Thankfully the slayers will take their spot in my army list with the same point value. I was looking forward to running the miners, but never mind!

Will try and get lots of pics at the tournament.

[Tommy]

I'd definitely let that pass for a phoenix. Good luck in the tournament!

[Orange]

Thanks Tommy

Tournament was overall pretty good. I thought it was a fairly friendly-list tournament, but really it wasn't, so my list was outclassed most of the day. My wins came from the right match up in the right mission--having fast units against a guy with only four units in one of the four objective missions, and having more heroes in the Places of Power mission.

I got well smashed by Fyreslayers, Ironjawz and Beastclaw Raiders, so if nothing else it was impressive to see what they were like when good lists are used by good players.

Didn't remember to take many photos unfortunately.

The best thing was winning the best army award, which was made even better by the fact it was judged by local guy who is one of my favourite painters. I lot of the older players around loved all the vintage models.

Plus I got a Stonehorn kit as a prize, which I great seeing as I'm planning to update my old Ogre Kingdoms army.

Looking forward to painting my miners now, I think they would have been a good addition at the tournament.

[Orange]

Was a bit hard to get started on these guys, the Dragon Princes burned me out a bit. But once I got started I raced through, this vintage of dwarfs is such a pleasure to paint.



I decided to varnish the banner, which was a mistake as it made it all cloudy. I'll have to redo that at some point.

But it's funny, between starting and finishing this unit, their rules changed. Nothing massive, but they're no longer dispossessed so I can't put them in a dispossessed army if I want. I was probably not going to do that anyway, but it just goes to show that it happens sometimes. It's possible one day GW will no longer write rules for miners.

There's been a bit of rage about these changes, and I can understand it. I've been playing GW games for over 20 years so I've seen a lot of things come and go, and a lot of models or armies become useless or irrelevant. Though to be fair to GW, other companies have done it too. About the only miniatures wargames you don't have to worry about are historical wargames, as if the models change drastically for one rule set (which is rare) you can use the models easily in another.

I came in to Age of Sigmar after a period of avoiding GW games for this reason--40k burned me out, and I grew to actively dislike the game at the end of FB 8th ed. Before getting back in to it, I had to decide whether I was willing to take the chance that any models I bought and painted for AoS could get made obsolete. In the end, I decided I would do so for the following reason:

--I wanted to paint a bunch of models I really liked, either that I already owned or wanted to seek out, and play them in one army. Mixed order AoS allows that and it's great. And no matter what happens to the rules, I'll still have these great models and I'll have painted them, and that's an end in itself.

--if the rules really are (or become) terrible and not worth playing, or no one I know plays it, there are other games I can use them for. There are heaps of cool games out there that just need generic fantasy models, and with this army, I've got a big pool of models to play with. I might use them for Song of Blades and Heroes or Dragon Rampant between AoS games.

So with those two things in mind, I'm completely at ease with whatever happens to the AoS rules. I understand that other people might not get what I do out of building and painting armies. It must be frustrating for competitive players having to change their armies all the time, or for someone who loves a particular theme to have their theme suddenly unusable in anything other than very friendly games.

But this is non-historical wargaming--it's happened before, and it's happened again. It might be worth considering that before you start your next project. As someone said in another thread, Nintendo don't cater to SNES players anymore. They wouldn't exist any more if they did, which would be a shame. But that doesn't stop you from playing and loving your SNES if you still have one, like I do!

Anyway, that's my rant, I've been reading everything over the last few days and it seemed the best place to put it

And speaking of starting new projects, I'm sitting pretty comfortably with my order force and am looking at branching out in to another faction. As I mentioned before I've still got a bunch of old ogres, so I'm looking to both spruce them up and add some new models to it. Ive still got more order models to paint and that I really want to paint, but I'm going to put some destruction in to the mix!

[Orange]

Been a bit quiet on the AoS front, concentrating a bit on my 40k at the moment.

But I took the army to a convention at the weekend as part of a display for my club, and got a chance to do a group photo.

So here they are:

[awcamawn]

The army really does look fantastic all together, it's so cool to see all those disparate pieces unified so well. Amazing work, looks like it would be a very fun army to play!

[Greyshadow]

Wow, what a stunning army. Got to say I love Grand Alliance armies, especially when painted so well and coherently as this. Brilliant stuff!

[Orange]

Long time no see...

Not been idle, but I wanted to share what I was doing with my Nighthaunts as it was inspired by a post from here. 

I originally tried to paint in a similar style to the official colour scheme, but it just wasn’t working for me, and was taking a long time to paint.

But remembering @polarbear‘s quick paint colour scheme...

I had another go:

 

 

 

and I’m much happier with it! So thanks for the inspiration polarbear

i picked up a box of reapers yesterday so they’re next so I can have a full unit, need to work out what will be in my list after that. 

[Orange]

And this is all the other stuff I’ve done:

 

i kept the Stormcast half of the starter box too, and my plan is to build up that side of my Order army. The beauty of that is I can take a Stormcast army and ally in any of my other Order models very easily. They’re just at the complete opposite end of the painting difficulty spectrum, and are going to take a bit longer to paint.