KnaveOfScribes

I know what you're thinking - "So what exactly is this all going to be about then?" At least, I hope its that and not just "oh, another boring story-project. Meh." Be gentle with me folks. In all seriousness, I am working on an actual army. I've kinda done a 180 on Age Of Sigmar over the last few years - when it came out I didn't buy into the look or feel of it at all. The Stormcast looked like swords-n-sorcery Astartes, the background and personalities of the Old World that I loved and had grown up with were all gone, and the new game seemed to be all about fielding the biggest monsters with little thought towards the theme or feel of an army. But. But. Over the last couple of years, the expansion of the ranges and the background have shown me a different point of view. It's a new setting, not an update, a new setting with a lot of loving nods to the old game. There's actually a hell of a lot more room and freedom to create our own stories and pocket-realms and so forth, and its constantly evolving. That's pretty damn cool. And GW are going great guns on the models themselves. Ok, so the Sigmarines and Khorne stuff leaves me cold (with the exception of the Vanguard Palladors because hello beautiful) but the Orruks are good, the Fyreslayers decent and the Sylvaneth ****** lovely. Even the Kharadon Overloads look pretty boss and I never thought I'd say that about dwarves. So I'm taking the plunge. And by plunge, I mean I spent an obscene amount on this little lot to get the hobby-ball rolling: Paints and tools yes, but also importantly - Sylvaneth. Yes, despite what the opener above might have suggested, I am doing a Sylvaneth force. Albeit with a twist. Now, I haven't played anything for a while, so I'm not fussed about the gaming side (although one of my Hobby Resolutions for this year is to play some AOS and Blood Bowl) but I love the Sylvaneth models and aesthetic. With the exception of the Dryads and the Branchwych model, I think every model is great. Course, I'm not going to end up using half of them but hey ho. I have got a plan of what I'm going to do in total and it is about 2000pts in Matched Play terms, but with a firm emphasis on story over game-winning potential. First up, I've got 10 Dryads, a Treelord, 5 Tree-Revs and 2 converted Branchwyches to get on with, which should keep me going for a month or two at least. Story and theme-wise, I don't want to give away too much yet, but the general idea of the project is based around a dying exiled Sylvaneth Grove stuck in the borderlands between the Realms of Life and Death. Cold, wintery, and snowbound dead forests populated with ghosts, forgotten spirits and old witches, with a deep hit of Russian and Slavic folklore. Basically, its the nightmare wood you were told never to go into as a child. Anyway, that's probably enough blather from me. I'll leave you with a few character sketches I'd knocked up while planning and a promise that once I finish the bases on the Dryads and the first Branchwych, I'll get some pics up. So probably over the weekend. Also, if you are on the Instagram, please come and say hello - knave_of_scribes is me and there's some early pics of stuff for the Darkwood Court up already. Comments and anything else you guys want to say are always gratefully received. Cheers all, Knave

"People forget. That’s what they do. It’s easier to forget, to ignore things, to pretend that we were never scared in the first place. But in forgetting, we let those things slip back in, unnoticed and unheeded. And the important point is this - just because we forgot about them doesn’t mean that they forgot about us..." Follies; Everard Hemp of Hammerhal. "...the Goddess took her eye, long ago, and so much of her leaked out of that hole that she is almost faded out of the worlds now and has to live beyond the thrice-nine lands in the kingdom of the Grey Marches. She’s a poor thing now, a shadow of what she used to be. No more the Three-in-one, now the hag alone." Stories of the Realms; traditional. Her missing eye ached, but then it had ached for years untold now and it especially ached when the cold drew in. And here in the thrice-ten kingdom, it was always bleakest midwinter. She had lost so much through that missing eye, that hole in herself, when the Everqueen had plucked it from her and cast it away. The pain and the sense of diminishing, of lessening, had become commonplace. Still, she had survived. That was what she did, survive. Hoarding scraps of power, scraps of herself, watching the Realms move on from the depths of the forest and the snows with her one remaining eye. Watching. Surviving. Waiting. She turned the skull over and over in her wizened ancient hands, long fingers moving like spiders over and into it, exploring every crevice and aspect of the gleaming bone. She muttered under her breath as she inspected the skull, nonsense words and rhymes flowing into hexes and prophecy and back again. The winds whispered around her and her head tilted, grey hair spilling as she seemed to listen. Nodded as if hearing something to her satisfaction. She raised the skull to her face, cradling it as she would a lover, brought it closer. A grey and withered tongue crept like a worm from behind teeth the colour of old iron and gently, obscenely, began to probe an eye socket. Her tongue drew back behind those ragged iron teeth and her sole eye narrowed as she contemplated what she had tasted in the skull’s death. She crooned into the empty gaze of her skull, singing under her breath as she reached up with long arms and hung the polished globe of bone from her crooked staff. Smiling to herself, still singing in a ragged low voice, Mother Aldwynter shuffled off into the snowbound and skeletal black trees around her. Above her, swinging from her crooked staff, the skull began to whisper its secrets. "Gorgo, Mormo, moon of a thousand forms..."