Brad Gamma

Yeah this matches my feelings. In my head I had planned for that particular grumbling to be removed entirely. The one that its replaced with, I struggle to think when I would actually use it, so pretty much the same thing. The 20 point drop is still the most significant thing for longbeards. A 75% save against 0 rend is still great. Just wish they could take a runic icon. Those spell defenses are awesome, and the FAQ confirmed that those defenses apply to endless spells too. I am however in the process of building my second batch of longbeards! Trying to decide whether to make my existing unit 20 strong or to have 2 separate units (basically, whether to build a second command squad or not). Irondrakes are a lot more tempting now! I hadn't really thought of how I would fit them in my army, but now I need to give them some serious thought. They don't quite fit the theme of my army as they are, so i'll have to think of how I would convert them. My favourite way to spend an afternoon, not actually doing anything, just browsing bits sites and thinking how to mod things ?

Looks like its coming along nicely! Looking forward to your root-king stuff. First off, the bases are awesome. Second I am loving some of the conversions I see dotted around. Especially the guy at the front, is he a warden king? or just a unit leader? The one with the ... fyreslayer plume, custom shoulder, kick ass hammer etc. He looks really unique. Seems you are putting spares to really good use. Nicely done. EDIT TO ADD: Loving the double height banner/icon too!

Wow dude thanks for this summary. Some really inspirational stuff here. That blog with the root-king concept is awesome. Definitely takes it a couple of steps further than me. I won't be going down the fyreslayers root, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how your project progresses. Just been reading your thread and things are looking great.

Thanks! I have a lot more conversion ideas in mind, so hopefully it will stay interesting. I'm starting slow so I get a feel for the theme/colours etc, but things will get elaborate. Haha, I see what you mean. They will be a tight-knit community, but with an individualistic streak. The sort of place where everybody impossibly knows the name of everyone, but do like a bit of bilbo-esque privacy.

After painting 50 ork faces earlier this year, I have to take my hat off to you. Those 2 faces look fantastic. Did you change up your formula much from what you posted before? You mentioned druchii violet around the lips, what base colour/highlight do you use? (apologies if youve answered this and I've missed it).

This x100. I have never been particular interested in Khorne, and I found the bloodbound dull, perhaps because of their prevalence in the release of AoS. However having read spear of shadows and followed Ahazian Kel's hunt for his prize, I am a convert. I will now very likely make a khorne skirmish warband at some point. Well done @JReynolds, you sneaky genius.

I have also begun writing a short story about a young duardin as a way of giving insight into these forest folk and how their society works. I will try and post a new section every time I put up another unit. Here is the first part:

Hi Guys! It feels like ages but I have finally completed my first squad of longbeards! It contains a full set of custom shields, my first ever attempt at freehand and what I think will be the base design for my army moving forward. I have tried to improve my camera set up, but its still on a three year old beat up camera phone so not perfect. Hope you like them! Few things I found really difficult making these: The longbeard/hammerers feet are annoyingly unflat. I did the bases separately, and gluing them on was a pain. Unlike the kit shields, mine have a completely flat back, which again presents some problems when fitting them on. White paint is the worst. Painting tiny bits of faces poking through helmets is horrible! I had a joy painting the drummer's head (super proud of it) and was really enthusiastic about the rest, but helmet with a little bit of flesh is so hard! Looking forward to ironbreakers having just helmet + beard on show. Next up will be a gyrocopter. Apart from sticking my spare shield on the top of it, it won't really have much in the way of conversions. Still need to figure out how I am going to design the airborne guys. Doing my first copter will help though.

Aw dude that's so great to hear. If you do have a go at anything make sure to share ? The problem with warhammer is how hard it is to collect everything you want! Do you have any of your old 2nd ed models lying around? Quick update, I've painted my test shield to show you what it looks like. Really pleased with how it came out. Also because I was asked about the green armour earlier in the thread, I noticed I had by chance painted my batch in a way that made a good step by step photo. This squad will have shields on their back.

I use Rhino 3D. I had a copy when I was at university and I can draw really quick with it, so I use it now out of personal preference rather than it being better than the competition. Its good for doing things to specific dimensions and can be entirely command line driven if you want. I've tried sketchup and blender and just can't be bothered to learn everything again. I used shapeways, using their extreme detail acrylate https://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/20516-announcing-frosted-extreme-detail-or-fxd-our-highest-resolution-3d-printed-plastic-ever.html. For me in the UK they charge in euros and take about a week to ship, so I assume they have a hub in the EU somewhere. I actually own a 3d printer that I use sporadically for some terrain. Its a prusa i3 MK2 and has an accuracy up to 50 microns, but thats not detailed enough for miniatures in my opinion. P.S. If anyone knows of a UK 3D printing supplier that can compete on fine detail quality, might save myself some shipping costs at least!

Thanks Captain! I did do the 3D files myself, I'm hoping to design some more stuff for this army. The final test shield arrived today and I'm pretty happy with it. Here is a comparison shot with a longbeard shield It was really hard to photograph, being see through and all. So I gave it a spray so you can see how good the print is. And most of the surface roughness that you are seeing there is the camera. In person its difficult to tell that it was printed at all. Hard to focus on something so small with my phone camera. Need to get a proper set up. I'll paint it up in green and gold and take another pic. Meanwhile I have gone ahead and ordered a bunch more. I primed 10 longbeards on Monday, and I'm starting to make progress on the first batch of 5.

Thanks! ? Do you know where can I find information about the Ghyran root kings and ironwoods? I find AoS lore quite difficult to navigate sometimes! The green is actually only a few colours. For the warden king it was Black undercoat (although I think a grey would be better). Warboss Green, 3 thin coats or until coverage is good. Do the base colours of any armour detail (e.g. Retributer armor on gold detail, Caledor sky on gems etc.) so it can all be washed at once. Wash all over armor with Nuln Oil. Start bring back up with super thin coats of warboss green. Start highlights with super thin coats of skarsnik green. Add white scar dots to very pointy bits (e.g. tip of shoe). So for the actual green its only 4 colours (wash, 2 greens and white). I will also some times go back with a very thin black to really define edges between green and gold. I have a lot of practicing to do to get the gold a better. I find metallics so difficult to highlight with, I can't quite get the consistency right. I'll probably experiment with NMM some time in the future, but this army will be strictly normal metallics. I don't think my army will have base quarrellers or thunderers at least not in any great numbers. I do have plans to add some converted arkanaut companies who will be the skirmish troop of the army. It is tempting to convert some quarellers though, give them hoods and things? Make them look like the total war rangers. They would look like suitable forest guardians. The slayer thing is a good idea. In the spear of shadows book there is the remains of a huge forest lodge in Gorch, who carved there tunnels through the trees with bridges between them by using heat to form the branches into sky-roads. I'll give them some thought! I have 10 long beards built and will look to get them undercoated tonight. I've spent the morning magnetizing loads of 25mm round bases and now I need to start really settling on a base design. They need to be rugged, but show signs of the forest (leaves, roots etc.). I don't imagine the forest floor to be crawling with life, with there being so little light, so they won't be like some of the awesome sylvaneth bases I have seen. Grateful for any pointers or links to things people have done or come across.

Hello Everyone, This post will be a mini-blog on the new band of Duardin that I am starting. I started collecting warhammer when I was 8 and then gave up when I was 13, with a small bin bag full of grey plastic that was subsequently thrown out by my mother. I decided to get back into things at the start of last year (aged 28). The first thing I bought was a box of dwarf warriors, which I painted up and fell back in love with the hobby. Since then I have been collecting 40k (more popular with my friends) but have been dying to expand my dwarf army and get into AoS. This community seems really friendly so I thought I would share my progress here. This is the first creative blog thingy that I have done. Since last year I had been writing bits of back story about a far flung continent in the realm of Chamon. It included ideas for several armies that I may eventually want to build. One such army is the Gharuki Duardin, who live deep inside a gargantuan forest. Their civilization is formed from many clans who fled their more traditional mountain dwellings as the forces of chaos swept through in the last age, forcing them to seek refuge in new and alien places. The forest they inhabit is comprised of copperheart oaks, thousands of feet tall and hundreds of feet wide. The canopy of the forest is thick, providing a comforting cavern-like habitat for the duardin. As well as carving extensive tunnel networks around the roots of these trees they have also built elaborate wooden towns and villages that climb the giant trunks. As well as providing a home these trees also have rich mineral veins that run through their hearts, a peculiarity owing to the realm of metal in which they grow. (NOTE: After coming up with this I then read the brilliant Spear of Shadows book by Josh Reynolds which contains a very similar forest once inhabited by dwarfs! Oh well, at the time I thought I was being clever ?) The forest has provided such a good home to these Duardin that they view the trees themselves as sacred and have an entire school of runesmiths who dedicate their life to tend to them. Each tree usually has one or two rootsmiths who carve protective and sustaining runes into their bark, make sure that that they are getting all the nutrients that they need and guard them against any overambitious kin who would build their homes in them without the proper care. About half way through the timeline of these particular dwarfs, an early Kharadron fleet crashed into the forest canopy with few survivors. Those that remained found help and sanctuary and decided to stay with the Gharuki and leave a life of profit that had brought them so much ruin. One particularly skilled endinmaster became very fond of his forest kin and did all that he could to share his technological knowledge with them. The Gharuki today have a vast and sophisticated force of gyrocopters and and other flying machines that they dock in the upper levels of the forest. They are no comparison for a kharadron force, but the canopy squadrons are impressive despite the lack of aether endrins. As well as the canopy squadrons, the Gharuki maintain a more conventional dispossessed force called the root guard. These more conventional grumblers tend to dwell in the lower parts of the forests and the root networks themselves. They tend to be older and a bit more cynical, often complaining of the ambition of duardin who are too eager to climb trees and fly about in silly mechanical contraptions. So what will these mean on the board? My plan is a mixed dispossessed / ironweld / kharadon army. I aim to make the dispossessed a little more tech-based than normal, and the kharadon a bit more traditional than normal. All while trying to keep a "forest" theme. Completed so far I have: 16 warriors, the first models I painted, back when I had no idea what direction I wanted to go in. They are green though, which is a start! A cogmsith and warden king that I have painted recently after much more practice. I have used these to experiment with a strong green colour scheme, and the warden king includes a small lantern conversion that I feel fits in with the deep dark forest idea. I hope to get more ambitious as I go along. The bases need improving, but I haven't quite settled on how they will look yet. They will almost certainly contain some sort of fallen leaves. I am now beginning on 2 units of 10 longbeards. The will have a similar green armour to my warden king. They will not have any elaborate conversions but I have designed a new shield for them all to bear. I've always wanted to do a custom dwarf shield that represented a particular clan. This shield is a 13mm across and will be printed using shapeways finest detail acrylic. I printed a test piece (slightly different design) and the detail is almost as good as GW plastic. Once my next test has arrived (design above) I will post pictures. I might have to spray it first, because the printed part is translucent and difficult to see. If all goes to plan I will the print something similar to the sprue below: Thanks for reading if you have made it this far. Hopefully this blog will keep me going and I hope I can be more active in this community ?.

I bought mine yesterday along with 2 extra ruin kits to fill out the board a little. One thing I didnt realise was that the sprues in the blasted hallowheart set are different to the seperate ruins. The ruins box comes with 2 sets of 2 sprues, each set containing a couple of double length walls, a couple of single length walls and some extra bits. Blasted hallowheart comes with one of the sets decribed above, and then another larger sprue with other stuff including a triple length wall. The walls n the larger sprue are also slightly less "ruined". As someone who wanted to use these ruins to kitbash some more functional buildings, the sprue that comes with the hallowheart box is actually the one I want most, but I can't purchase it in bulk without spending most of my money on game boards. Something to bear in mind! Other than that the kit is great, and everything looks pretty, even unpainted.