Anvilgard (Army completed)

[Kierdale]

Edit: with Cities of Sigmar now out I’m making it an Anvilgard army, though heavy on the corsairs.

 

 

Khirdail’s Corsairs

The mention of Scourge Corsairs in the first article announcing Cities of Sigmar on Warhammer Community persuaded me to get myself an army of them. I had like the look of the miniatures for years but had often worried about them being Squatted.

I now have:

- 40 corsairs. I’m waiting for the book to come out before I decide on armament though I am keen to have one unit of each sword-and-dagger, and crossbow-and-dagger. 

- 1 Scourge Runner Chariot.

- 1 Kharibdyss.

- 1 Black Ark Fleetmaster.

- 10 Black Guard. Perhaps these guys are the city’s elite transported aboard the Scourge ship.

 

And in the future plan to get some Dark Riders and give them scaly-cloaks via oyumaru and greenstuff. Pirate scouts.

 

The fleetmaster has a Dragon Prince helmet (he’s either an exiled one or killed one and took it) and there are other High Elf and Wood Elf bits to be scattered through the army. These rogues will accept anyone...

 

...except Deepkin.

Any elf worth his (sea)salt fights upon the waves. Not under them. And certainly not floating above them.

#haughty sniff#

Would it be within fluff to have the general have been abducted by the Deepkin at some point and escaped rather than lose his soul, thus holding a grudge against them ever since...?

 

 

I’ll post some images soon.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Kierdale

[Kramer]

20 hours ago, Kierdale said:

Would it be within fluff to have the general have been abducted by the Deepkin at some point and escaped rather than lose his soul, thus holding a grudge against them ever since...?

 

Yeah absolutely. add in a special pendant he found while raiding a temple when the Deepkin attacked, which is why he survived and remembers, if you feel a need to have it further baked into his backstory. 

Do you have local Deepkin players? Because you could even build further on that theme, skewered fishes, diving gear or something on the basing to show he's still chasing them.

[Kierdale]

Thanks, Kramer.👍

I think Fleetmaster Khirdail’s tale of his escape from the “soul-stealing Deepkin scum” will vary depending upon how drunk he is at the time, ranging from including a beautiful elven princess who gifted him the pendant that allowed his escape, to him single-handedly taking on dozens of soulless wretches...

 

I don’t know of any Deepkin players - yet - but with each of my armies I choose a nemesis and buy a box of two of their minis: some for bitz as trophies, and some to be made properly as foes for use on the inevitable Armies On Parade board.

[Kierdale]

One of the (former wood elf) corsairs I’ve built so far. There won’t be a lot of these, but a few to show that even dirty forest-dwellers can get in.

 

Khirdail the Fleetmaster himself:

Body is from a Dark Eldar medusa

Head is a Dragon Prince (either he’s an exiled one or he killed one and stole his helmet).

Arms and weapons from the Scourge Privateers and Chariot kits.

I’ll be using Greenstuff World’s chameleon colour change paints for cloaks and my Kharibdyss. This is still work in progress. Borealis Green over gloss black. Looks far better in real life. Will be highlighting it next.

 

Privateer trumpeter. Dragon prince horn.

 

Standard bearer. I plan to move the flag so it blows to his left, following the movement of his cloak a bit better.

 

And a second standard bearer, with (ex-) Dragon Prince flag.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Kierdale

[Kramer]

6 hours ago, Kierdale said:

to him single-handedly taking on dozens of soulless wretches...

At least in his drunken mind right ?😂

[Kierdale]

On 9/11/2019 at 3:03 PM, Kramer said:

At least in his drunken mind right ?😂

Of course 😉

I’m still working on the army. Just slowly.

With Cities of Sigmar info now out I’m doing Anvilgard. I’m doing 20 corsairs with bows and daggers, and 20 with swords and daggers.

I fixed one of the standards so it’s blowing to the side rather than to the rear, but will have to weight down that one’s base a fair bit.

 

I’m still wondering about colour schemes as desert-aelves would be interesting and rare, in beiges, with some red as Anvilgard is in the Realm of Fire.

Or do something jungle-esque, fitting the terrain around the city.

Or have them as Anvilgard but base them as if they’re fighting in another realm (as we have some AoS models at home done on winter bases already. And I do like winter bases).🤔

[Kramer]

9 hours ago, Kierdale said:

Of course 

 

I’m still wondering about colour schemes as desert-aelves would be interesting and rare, in beiges, with some red as Anvilgard is in the Realm of Fire.

Or do something jungle-esque, fitting the terrain around the city.

Or have them as Anvilgard but base them as if they’re fighting in another realm (as we have some AoS models at home done on winter bases already. And I do like winter bases).🤔

What about about combining the two basing ideas? So beach transitioning to jungle? Slower element, like the karibys, with back of the base sea and transitioning into beach. Faster, like the chariots already with the front of the base into the jungle. Fleet master standing on driftwood/ dead piece of tree trunk. 

That would make the dessert elves paint scheme match the cities background I feel. And I am curious to see how that scheme would turn out. 

[Kierdale]

#blows dust off thread#
 

I’m back on my Anvilgard army now.

 

It’s swelled to (not all built);

40 Privateers (20 cutlass, 20 crossbow)

Fleet master
10 Black Guard

5 Dark riders

2 sorceresses

1 Kharibdyss

1 Scourgerunner chariot

5 Khinerai Heartrenders (allies. I just love the models. I’ll be painting them up as magically animated statues)

And some humans from the back of the hobby cupboard:

5 or 6 pistoliers

10 Freeguild guard

10 Freeguild handgunners

 

I don’t game much beyond a bit of Skirmish so don’t worry about it not being a viable army

For Armies on Parade 2020 my son and I intend to make two entries, recreating part of the Battle of Blista Bakk (Anvilgard forces assaulting a floating Orruk city). He’s doing the Orruk half, me the Anvilgard. The idea being that when the two dioramas/display boards are put next to each other they make one big scene.

 

I’m currently painting ten cutlass corsairs. Damn there’s a lot of detail on them. I plan to get all 40 to a battlefield-ready level, then go back and embellish them if and when I have time.

 

I’ll post some images when I have some worth showing.

 

 

[Kierdale]

A bit of WIP. Lovely models but so much detail. I’m getting these guy to battle-ready for starters. I can come back and add detail (gold hilts, etc) once I’ve got all 40 done.

 

The GreenStuffWorld chameleon paint (Borealis green) looks much nicer in real life. I look forward to doing my Kharibdyss using it.

 

 

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by Kierdale

[Kierdale]

Work continues on the Privateers: painting gloves and boots at the moment, which isn’t particularly interesting so no photos of that.

 

But I did make myself a sorceress from a Blood Bowl witch. Just tore out an underling’s heart to fuel her dark magic. 
she needs more stuff...more gewgaws and trinkets on the staff and her belt. Some rolled up scrolls on her left hip, pouches, for example.

 

[Ahriman]

Gorgeous conversions! Scheme looks great too

[Tommy]

Great conversion! Based on past experience I’d suggest positioning her as far to the right on the base as doesn’t look too far, to help prevent her from falling over at every opportunity! 🙂

[Myrdin]

Yarrr! There be some very nice conversions going on in this `ere thread! Makes me timbers shiver harr harr !

Keep up the good work laddie, tis not an easy task to hunt them fish smelling, water breathing, pale looking fishcakes!

Will be lookin forward to more of ya crew making their appearance! Though head the warning of this old sea dog.

Never.... ya hear me, never! must you run out of Rum, less there`ll be mutiny and soon you`ll be sleeping with the fishes. And I dont mean them bald headed webbed footed ladies of them water breathers if you catch my drift!

Edited January 15, 2020 by Myrdin

[Kierdale]

Thanks!

Indeed, I’ll position the sorceress carefully and likely weigh down her base. And keep an eye on the rum levels 😉

 

I started on the standard bearer. Have to do the hammer behind the black kraken next.

 

[Kierdale]

And the flag is done!

I’ve got to base these first ten Corsairs now.

I’m also getting my ten Black Guard ready, and realised that gives me ten Executioner’s draichs for the bitz box...

so I’m going to make a ‘Quicksilver swords Draichs’ endless spell with them.

I think I’ll use eight as I feel it’s best to keep a couple in the bitz box. Just in case.

[Kierdale]

The days of high adventure, part I.

 

https://youtu.be/5ZY2mRG5mzg

 

And so, the theme to Conan The Barbarian playing in the background, my son and I began our Age Of Sigmar Skirmish campaign. I let him choose which hex of the map we would fight over first and he chose the volcano (start there?! He has no sense of drama😅. Build up to the volcano, boy, don’t start there!🤣. Never mind).

 

His Destruction warband consisted of a Goregrunta as leader (and he chose the Cursed Tome item, so his leader could also cast spells, which turned out to be a very good move), and Ironskull’s Boys (4 special ‘ardboys).

 

My Order warband consisted of a Black Ark Fleetmaster and eight Corsairs (four with cutlasses, four with crossbows). I gave my Fleetmaster the Masque of Horror (-1 to hit him in melee, which worked out well).

 

We played Clash At Dawn (random deployment by board section) and used ‘The Dungeon’ books of battle mats (by lokebattlemats, I got in on this on Kickstarter and they’re lovely books). This was a bit small on reflection; we’ll use them plus other boards in future I expect. That and/or more terrain.

 

Anyway, my corsairs couldn’t land many clean hits and in the end all were taken out, with only one of the Orruks down. Oh dear.

Destruction took the volcano!🌋

In the end we decided that whoever won a territory got to name it, thus we now have ‘The Volcano of Doom’🙄...until I win it and rename it.

Rolling for rewards we simply both got an extra command point in the next battle.

 

My son’s picking up the rules to AoS pretty quickly (and I’m remembering the rules but by bit. I forgot a couple of things), and he thoroughly enjoyed the game (particularly as he beat me!), which is a great pleasure to see. There were a few fun and surprising moments:

• him choosing to cast Mystic Shield on one of his Orruks rather than going all-out to kill my guys, and the spell saving that greenskin’s hide that very turn, much to my chagrin and my son’s amusement.
• Me charging all four of his infantry in the first turn (one of them with four guys) and not managing to kill a single one of them. In fact one of the Orruks cut down both of the corsairs facing him in one round.
• The one elf pirate who ended up deployed on his own shot at and charged the nearest ardboy (he had nothing else to do. Better attack than be attacked no matter where he retreated to)...to no avail. And then got run down and killed by the hooves of a giant pig in the Orruk turn. A rather embarrassing end for him.
• His ardboy with the big choppa failed all but one charge roll (the one he succeeded in was basically a casual walk into combat) and failed to hit anything. It’s nice to see minis getting their own little stories like this already.
• He loved shouting “FORWARD TO VICTORY!” at the top of his voice when he used that command ability. Simple pleasures.

 

I’m not sure when we’ll get our next game in but we’ve decided that the loser get to choose the next hex to battle over. I’ve chosen the desert hex. We’ll use the sandy-yellow side of my SpeedFreeks boards and some ruins for terrain. A bigger battlefield, for one.

 

And must get our minis painted! His Orruks are all undercoated now at least.

 

 

He looked at the mountain. How the thick clouds above it glowed red in the light of the caldera beneath. Red like the blood his corsairs had shed in the dungeons beneath that accursed mountain.

Fleetmaster Khirdail hammered his fist upon the railing of his wolfship and winced as pain shot up his heavily bandaged arm. He and his men had been driven from the caverns by the Greenskin, only managing to fell one of the brutes in return.

He spat into the sea and adjusted his drake-topped helm.

The Greenskins had established a foothold but the war for the island was far from won. The sorceress Etien back in Anvilgard had told him the Blackscale Coil wanted the island taken, and he did as the organisation bid. That there were rumours of great treasures on the island too, well, that just sweetened the deal. As far as they could tell the Orruks hadn’t found anything much in the dungeons carved into the volcano - the corsairs hadn’t spied anything being hauled out. Perhaps another expedition there, into those Chaos-wrought hall, would be worth an attempt in the future. But not yet.

Returning to his cabin he unfurled the man of the island and looked it over before nodding to himself and driving a dagger into one of the southern territories. Somewhere the Aelves could make better use of their speed, where perhaps the Orruk leader could be drawn out and ambushed.

The dagger pierced an area of desert dotted with ruins and an oasis.

[Kierdale]

Some minis actually completed!

I finished my first ten cutlass-and-dagger corsairs. There’ll be another ten added to this unit, then two units of ten with handbows-and-daggers.

None are glued onto their bases yet, just pinned in place as I’ll be putting them into Armies On Parade reenacting the Battle Of Blista Bakk (so on an Orruk floating shanty town/fort. Predominantly wood) in October.

I aimed for ‘jungle’ with the bases but ended up with something more like ‘forest’. However I’ve since made the ten bases for my Black Guard and added bits of (Seraphon) ruins (GreenStuffWorld Aztec roller) and roots (careful application of hot glue), which have come out more ‘jungle’. So when I add the next ten corsairs to this unit I’ll put bits of ruins on them too to blend the unit’s bases a bit more. Not as big pieces as the Guard otherwise the unit will look weird, but small bits, as if the Black Guard are in the ruins and the Corsairs scouting the outskirts. Or something like that. I’ll probably give the squad leader a little grander base then too.

 

Anyway, the completed minis.

I put some old weapons on a couple of bases, as well as an old rusty Corsair helmet (dremmelled out the inside) and some mouldy skulls (Athonian Camoshade to make them a bit mossy and damp-looking).

With the flag repositioned to blow the same way as their cloaks it was hell to get the standard bearer to stand up, so I have him with one foot atop an Orruk skull and that worked...plus lead in his base.

 

Now to finish the Black Guard.   
 

 

...and maybe add pupils to eyes 😆

Edited February 4, 2020 by Kierdale

[hammer49]

Love what you've done. Great work!

[schwabbele]

That banner is just awesome, as is the whole unit

[Kierdale]

Thank you! The Black Guard are almost done, I’m just glossing their armour (aiming for somewhere between lacquered samurai...and Darth Vader).

In the meantime I quickly made ‘Quicksliver Draichs’.

the guitar wire upon which each sword ‘levitates’ will be painted black.

I used brass rod to give them hilts, and used skulls from the pack of skulls for pommels.

Might hit it with a spray and get started on it tomorrow when the glue is dry.

 

[Kierdale]

I’ve finished my ‘Vader’ Black Guard and hope to get some photos this weekend. And I’ve started painting the Quicksliver Draichs....

 

...and tried executioner arms on a Corsair body. It works. With a liiiittle filling in the right shoulder.

I’ll get rid of that mold line next then give him a blade.

And legs.

And a head.

[Kierdale]

My ‘Vader’ Black Guard are done. I’m painting the sorceress now, and grass is drying on the base of the Quicksilver Draichs as I type.

 

[Kierdale]

And the Quicksliver Draichs are now done!

...so I’m working on the sorceress to cast cast the spell.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Kierdale

[Kierdale]

Another 30 Corsairs are built and ready for spraying.

I’ve nearly finished the sorceress. Photos of her this week, I hope.

And I got started on the Khinerai Heartrender ally squad.  As I’m now going for jungle/marsh basing and Seraphon ruins, the Aelves ruins built into the models’ bases (and attached to their tails) would be out of place so I cut those away.

Not finished the painting but hopefully this week I will. I’m doing them as magically animated stone statues, using the GW tutorial.

 

[hammer49]

Nice work on the bases and models. Look fwd to seeing them painted.