Darth Alec

They'll probably show up eventually. All the teams look amazing. If this is what the specialist games team is going to be pumping out, it's going to be good. Assuming it plays well, that is.

You can see the balewind skull on the left one, up top. It's likely the angle and the resolution making them look wierd. They may also have padded it at the bottom for some reason.

Quality. Next year smells like a definite maybe. Not that GW minds reboxing miniatures, but I'd prefer new sculpts. They've got a good chance of making some really AoS-ific. Several box sets with all-new minis would help that. I guess they could go for a "Bloody Tower" deal, Khorne themed. Use mostly bloodbound models, throw in one or two new character sculpts and a new Khorgorath and some new heroes. Speculating is too fun. At least its good to hear it sold well. Conversion. Looks like the Balewind Vortex + some round topper thing + the flames from the Dragonfate Dias. Looks mildly tzeenchian though, so hints towards more tzeench-themed pictures in the future.

It seems Warhammer Quest sold very well, at least initially. So with any luck, there will be new Warhammer Quest sets. Maybe not Silver Tower ones, but the WQ ruleset is generic enough to open for others. Mannfred's Lair (Death), Den of Bones (Destruction), Reign of Shadows (Ulgu) etc. It's all down to sales, really.

It works! Better troubleshooting than most professional companies. Do you mind if I use this to create my End Times warscrolls? I'll credit you, obviously. Spares me the effort of photoshopping them all.

Looks like Chaos Space Marines may be going the regular marines route, more unique factions with unique rules/models/upgrade kits. Combining Magnus and the LoC seems like a poor decision. Takes away from the uniqueness of both. Might be that they share wings and feet though, like Skarbrand and the regular Bloodthirster sharing bits. Interesting few months ahead. We even have a AoS rumour ATM.

Lahmanet, my Warrior Aspirant for the RAW: Legends event, is done! “He does not see it. Very well. I am tired of fighting a lost war. Not when there’s a cause that can be won. I need to get a message to the Lightning Men. A parley. An alliance of our might to theirs. The Order can’t fulfil its vows if every battle is lost before we fight it. With them though, there may yet be a chance. Only Ahken-Sur stands in the way. The Holy Order of the Guardian Moon is an old order, stretching back into the Age of Myth. Long has it been a sacred order of the most unusual sort, an order dedicated to the defence of mortals. The vampire-monks who made up its ranks were celibate, and drank no blood but that which was offered. Many villagers would willingly offer the tribute of blood to their betters in exchange for their protection in troubled times. As the Age of Chaos grew darker, the Order was hard-pressed to defend their charges. Still it fights a losing battle. Kingdoms and Empires have been defended by the Order, and each has been lost in turn. Though valiant, even the charge of vampiric heavy horse cannot break every army. Casualties mounted, and all that is left is a motley collection of fools, a pale imitiation of the once-glorious ranks of the Order. Now the Age of Sigmar has been unleashed, and the world is changing. The ways of the old Order may not be right for this new age. Ahken-Sur, Imperator of the Order of the Guardian Moon, sees this not. To him the endless war continues, and there can be no allies until Nagash returns once more. Lahmanet, tired of the endless, pointless wars, sees new chances in the lightning storms. She's a pretty complete conversion job. The Horse is from the Empire General kit, her body from the Coven Throne, and sword from an old elf kit. The saddle is custom made as well. She's kind of difficult to photograph. She's looking down at the enemy (she's a bit aloof), rather than straight ahead. Still, I'm quite proud of it. I wanted her to be mounted and fit with the Legendary version of her. Finding a horse wasn't easy! Going through elven, human and undead horses, I landed on this one. It's big and solid, armoured, a proper warhorse. She may not be dressed for war, but riding on that there can be no doubt. And it needed to be her. I had originally planned on making a pair of generic armoured vamps, using old Blood Dragon models. That was a bit generic though. We need more female representation, even if it's literally out to drain our blood! Thankfully the vampire models from the Coven Throne fit. Never painted cloth as complex as this before. Think I did an OK job. It's red to tie her in to all the other vampire models, with a nice white spot colour. Painting her really reminded me that I've just been painting dead stuff for a whole year! Fun, but quite challenging. The red is a simple Mephiston, with carroburg washed into the recesses and highlighted with wild rider red. Mixed some black into the mephiston for the deepest recesses. It's pretty striking, so I think she'll be visible on the battlefield! So, what is RAW: Legends then? It's an awesome narrative event being hosted in November. Check out the link below for the whole pack. The idea is that everyone has an Aspiring champion, a minor hero who has just started her journey. As we play through the event, the aspring champ gains new items, bonuses and other stuff. Eventually, she'll be upgraded to a Legendary version of herself! There will be room for all sorts of shenanigans (including a doubles battle), so it's going to be great. It's full ATM, but I highly recommend checking it out! Next up: The Legendary Champion, Lahmanet upon an Abyssal Terror!

W10, newest Firefox, Adblock plus. Appreciate the work man.

Here's a question: Did Magnus take over for the Lord of Change? I heard that the Glottkin were supposed to be the new GUO (which is why a new GUO isn't in the pipeline). This guy is definitely in that area. Or are we getting a seperate LoC?

Hey man. Been trying to use this to make some End Times warscrolls. But I've been having some issues with saving the JPG files. I press the button, a giant warscroll appears for a few seconds before disapearing. Same with the PDF, except the download actually happens.

All right, all right. Let's drop the diversion here, shall we? I know we're starved for credible rumours, but as a wise man once said "If you don't have anything on topic to say, don't say anything at all". This isn't about pre vs post 2000 models, but the rumour thread. Partly my fault we ended up here, but let's do a slight course correction here. Do we have any credible indication of when the Khorne Dominion battlemat comes out? It's clearly in production, given the state of the video. Should be a shoe-in for a holiday launch.

Ugh... I'm glad I got into the hobby after 2000...

On the other hand, it may be that GW doesn't want to leak anything new. If they're bringing out something for christmas/january, they might not want it revealed via tie-in book. It's not like this can't be incomplete. But yeah, it does hint towards a 40k-heavy fall.

And the chance of them having every mold from the late 70's onward is frankly ludicrous. I'd expect no more than from 2000 onwards, probably later.

Me right now:

Anything and Everything Tomb Kings.

They may be cast in Resin. Much cheaper and easier for small production runs. They've got the technology.

I've finished Krell, and with that Clear the Backlog: Phase 2! Krell is progably one of my favorite models. It's big, tough and looks deadly. Krell seriously looks like he'd turn any opponent into several small pieces. Fun fact, this is the last of the "classic" VC character models in my collection. Some clear evidence of progress there. I actually put him together more than a year ago, but never got around to him. Now I'm only really missing Arkhan, and I'll have all the End Times undead characters as well. He'll look amazing leading my Deathrattle hordes in future games. As far as painting goes, he's pretty standard. Purple armour as usual, gold as usual. The only interesting parts on my end were the cloak, the crest and the fur. The cloak is rakarth flesh with a wash of reikland flesh. Add short lines of rakarth over that. Don't do a full layer, just nice soft lines. Do an extra highlight of pallid wych flesh to draw the eye. I struggled a bit with the crest. Most have painted it either entirely black, or red. I didn't want it just black, because that's just a little dull. It can also look super stiff. Red is also out. Red is only used on vampiric models in my army, it's one of the few unifying elements for them. So I went with this black-and-white scheme, inspired by ancient roman/greek crests. it makes it clearer that it's a crest, whilst giving him a unique look. The white is celestra grey, ulthuan grey (remember to thing your paints), thinned nuln oil, and white. As for the fur, I wasn't entirely sure what to do. Haven't really painted fur for a long time. So I went with browns and washes. Doombull brown with a simple highlight of Gorthor brown. Wash it with agrax, then highlight with steel legion drab, IIRC. Not sure if I'm pleased with it, but it works. And to finish Phase 2, 10 skeletons. These guys are tabletop at best. I've now painted 60 skeletons, and it's getting a bit dull! As these guys are going into a unit of 40, I couldn't quite keep the motivation to paint them super well. But they are finished! Completing this phase of my backlog-clearing project. I'm nowhere near done with my Death models. However, I'm shifting gears towards a new (old) force. Expect to see some of it in the next update!

Phase 2 is running on schedule! The newest addition to the growing horde is the magnificent Warsphinx. Such a lovely model! The full thing, in all its glory. I remember the day when the Bone Giant was a large model. Now it's small, almost weedy compared to this. The Tomb Kings continue their triumphant model line with this thing. As a lover of the Tomb Kings, getting my hands on this was a triumph. They were OoP when I bought it, but @Dangermouse425 provided. A slightly frontal view. The gold is fairly standard for me. Warplock Bronze base, paint Retributor Armour over everything but the cracks, wash with Seraphim Sepia. To add detail, paint every other "thing" with Ironbreaker. The twist here was a drybrush of Liberator Gold. I'm not usually fond of drybrushing any more, but I couldn't stand the thought of line-highlighting every last edge. I would be done until christmas! So it's a slight cheat, but I feel like it's ok. The result is pretty nice either way. It's old gold, but slightly less weathered than most of the gold in the army. The eyes were painted using @Mengel Miniatures glowing eyes guide. Can't say I have mastered it as well as him, but I'm pleased. There's definitely some otherworldy energy there! Oh, and before I forget. The teeth and claws are probably my best ever. Which isn't saying much. Simple line technique, really. I've just never done it very well before. I figure that means my brush controll is ever so slightly improving. Before we get to the marble, I wanted to do the tail. It's the new Gemstone paint, but with a little work put into it. Base with leadbelcher, then do smaller and smaller circles of the lighter metals, focused towards the front of the orb. Do a thinned wash of Nuln oil to blend the colours a little and shade the edge. Then just cover with the gemstone paint. I needed two layers for a decent cover. It's really simple. I know a more cumbersome method produces better results, but I like it. Went with blue rather than green to provide that little bit of spot colour. Marble, then. Easily the biggest and most time consuming part of the model. I've used a similar technique for all of my reanimants so far, and it's worked out quite well. Nothing was on the scale of this though. Even the bone giant pales. Again I followed Mengel Miniature's guide, but with my own lazy twist. Start with an entirely Abbadon black model. Pretty important. Then I took Kabalite green and mixed some abbadon into it. Painted long and in lines like you would imagine marble does. Also add to every major edge. Then grab your Warpstone Glow and add some black into it. Paint it thinner within the kabalite lines. The thinner the better on all of these layers, really. But as you can see, I chose the safe option of not going super thin with my first layers. Then you grab the Sybarite green, your thinnest brush, and go to town. Paint it unto every sharp angle (breaks, corners etc), and in thin, irregular lines into the existing lines. They need to be broken up (to simulate depth). Be meticulous! Once that's done, I glazed the entire thing with pure Biel-Tan green. Overall, I'm super pleased with the effect. It's not winning any awards, but it looks great on the table and OK in close-ups. Nerve-wracking to do so much of it though... Last up is the crew! They're the OG crew, with breastplates from the regular VC skeletons and heads from the Black Knights. It ties them better to the rest of the army, and gives me more room to paint purple. Othewise this unit wouldn't necessarily fit in as well as the others. They're a right pain to put into the basket, I'll tell you. Decided not to glue them in case I decided to put a King into the howdah. Just blu-tacked in place. Which also allows for much safer transporting. They'd break every chance they got if not. That's it for this time! Phase 2 of the operation is going ahead smoothly. Just the skeletons and Krell left! Then it'll be a change of pace...

So I finally had a chance to do a little Battletome: End Times playtesting! For the game, we rocked up with regular all-round armies (this wasn't planned), and picked a battleplan slightly at random. It needed to fit two regular-ish armies. So for this game, we went with the Battle of the Blighted Isle (Khaine 4 IIRC)! It's a pretty big battle, fluff wise. Malekith is racing towards the Blighted Isle to sieze his fathers blade, whilst the defenders and Tyrion race to stop him. The defenders are therefor split in two, with reinforcements arriving in the third hero phase. The goal is to sieze the Widowmaker and live. In the place of elves stood the Undead and the Ironjaws. The Battletome is meant to be played with any army, after all! The undead decided to bunch up behind a unit of 40 skeletons, with spirit hosts taking up the flank. A single Bone Giant adds some combat punch, whilst a Necromancer and Wight King with Infernal Banner keeps the entire formation alive. The red marker represents the Widowmaker, in lack of anything more impressive. Looking at it from here, the defensive position is formidable, but theenemy more so... Driving home their first turn advantage, the Ironjaws charge forth! In a single hero and movement phase, nearly the entire Ironjaws force is within combat range. The defence would need to be hard-fought. The speed was unexpected, and not at all welcome! Smashing into the skeletons, the 'Ardboyz make themselves known. Only 6 skeletons die to their onslaught though, to a pair of their Orruks. The Necromancer's Cursed Book keeps much of the damage away. Choosing to take the defensive in their turn, the undead bunker up with plenty of spells. This allows the Ironjaws to pile in further. Nearly every unit in their army is now in combat, pounding away at the defenders. They hold up well though, suffering only another 6 skeleton casualties. This doesn't even reduce their attacks back, as the banner had healed enough models previously. The Ardboyz continue to suffer under the 90-ish attacks from the skeletons! Disaster strikes! Tapping into the power of the failing Vortex on the Isle of the Dead, the Wierdnob vomits forth a terrible green torrent. It kills a single skeleton, and does 6 damage to the poor Wight King. The arcane power of the banner saves him though, restoring him to his last wound. Not prepared to leave killing undone, the Wierdnob shoots him down with a simple Arcane Bolt. The defence is now crippled! As if to pile in further pain, the Megaboss takes flight! He now sits upon the Shallow Pond of Khaine, staring directly into the back of the defenders. It is a good thing the Necromancer wears dark robes this day. All is not yet lost though! Using the power of the Great Vortex, the Undead use Bridge of Shadows (The Great Vortex Weakens special spell) to transport the blood knights to the defence. The Morghasts race down the center, closely followed by the Von Carsteins. Unfortunately, the Ironjaws win the crucial priority roll! Moving quickly and with deadly efficiency they block off the attackers. Driving Brutes into the Blood Knights and Ardboyz into the Morghasts and Spirit Hosts. The effect is devastating. Nearly all the reinforcements are slain. The Undead are stuck without a chance to kill the Megaboss! In a single round of combat, the Ironjaws decided the fate of the sacred blade. With victory in hand, the Megaboss now looks to sweep the last of the defenders. There are bigger foes to slay, now that he wields the legendary sword... The game ends with a major victory to the Ironjaws! It's a difficult scenario for the defenders! You need a good defensive core that can work without command abilities, and a strong fast secondary detachment. On the attacker side, you need to not get bogged down too much. A fast army can get in, smash up and get out before the defenders can rally, which I think is useful. Had the Ironjaws not been so absurdly fast (Ardboyz moved 14" before their own movement phase!), the battle would have been very different. Having a general that can fly and get into the backfield is very useful though. A model on foot I could have held up longer. Could have done more to block the massive base of the Megaboss though. Minor adjustments made to the battleplan: The wielder of Widowmaker must charge if able, and complete charge if able. Battle length increased to 6 turns. Need to do further adjustments, including fixing the command abilities and victory conditions.

Akhen-Sur could not see it. He had always been a fool. He had always had hope. “This is where we break them”, “We draw the line here”, always, always with the speeches. For weeks and months and years, we’d fight for one kingdom or another, but they’d always fall. We’d flee. And the next little realm would accept our help. Over and over and over again. For two hundred years we have been fighting against Chaos. Hopeless battles for doomed mortals. I guess that makes me a fool as well. The lightning had changed everything Akhen-Sur could not see it. He had always been a fool. He had hope when there was none. And when hope now rides upon the lightning, he complains about the rain. I can no longer content myself to drinking the blood of fallen enemies and petty intrigue. It is time… Two converted heroes! The horse version is my Aspiring hero, whilst the Abyssal Terror is the Legendary. Both of these are custom built for the Realms at War: Legends event in late November. Hosted by EatMingsFoote, it's a narrative event. Really looking forward to it. I went to SCGT, so after this I'll have been at both a top-level tournament and a top-level narrative event. And since it's a narrative thing, it needed custom models. The horse is from the Empire General, and the vampire is from the Coven Throne. Shaved off all the Sigmar and Karl Franz stuff, hopefully did that well. Made a side-sadle for the lade, so she could sit elegantly whilst murdering fools. Basing is a ruined Dragonfate Dias pillar. The Abyssal Terror is a unit I've really wanted for a while. The old-school model is a bit funky, so I decided to make my own. It's a Dread Abyssal without any of the armour, shortened tail, converted Arkhan-Abyssal head and Morghast wings. I feel like it's different enough thanks to the wings that people won't assume it's a Mortarch once I say so. Sourcing the wings was honestly the worst. Had to buy a set of Morghasts, so now I'm down one pair of wings. Basing is bits from the GW basing kit, an old set I can't remember the name of, sand, and bricks. Love these little bricks. Nice to not have to make my own out of greenstuff! The lady herself is the vampiress from the Coven throne. If you pay close attention, you can see that he hair has grown significantly, as has her cleavage. True marks of being more powerful! Blame GW for that last one. I gave her the chalice to give her an air of aristocracy and non-chalance. Then she got a halberd from the Tomb Guard kit, just so she has a weapon that is big enough to be used from up there! Add some greenstuff to cover up the magnets and you've got a legendary vampire! Really looking forward to this event, so now I need to get painting!

Local GW managers rarely know anything we don't, IIRC. Unless it's something major they've been explicitly briefed on.

Thanks man. Trying to make these interesting.

High Queen Khalida is such a wonderful model. She's small, but so commanding. It's one of the really iconic Tomb King models for me. It's just so easy to imagine her standing in a temple, or on a sand dune, gazing across a battlefield. She looks ancient, but graceful. The model is actually quite small, a fairly realistically scaled female. She's actually smaller than the skeletons released at the same time! They weren't to scale, being as large as a man with his flesh still on. Basing her was therefor fairly hard. You can't do too much to a model like this, or you'll drown out the simple elegance of her pose. You can base Archaon on anything and it won't matter, but Khalida will drown in an elaborate basing. So I went with something ornamental, but not very complex. Two bannertops cut and glued together makes a fairly decent-looking thing. The contrast between the grey stones and the beige marble draws the eyes towards the model, so I think I succeeded there. I tried to go with the marble technique shown in the Warhammer TV advent Calender. Not really sure I nailed it. It looks more like she has a scar running down her face. It's not easy when the model is so small! I'm actually considering redoing it. For now though, it'll do. I'm trying to paint up a lot of models. There's always room for improvement, especially for new techniques. The gold is Warplock Bronze, Retributor Armour, Seraphim Sepia and Liberator Gold. Gives it an old, once-polished look. It's an easy technique which is fast and goes on really well on most models like this. The bandaging is grey in order to fit in with the rest of the bandaging across my army. I love how she has snakes just slivering around her. Each is based on a real venomous snake. I'm most pleased with the staff-snake. It's more detailed, both in painting and modeling. Makes the staff look a little plain and boring. You can really see the flow of the cape here. It's lovely. My painting was pretty simple, both because I wanted to not mess it up and because I felt like the model didn't need anything detracting from the front. Naggaroth Purple is the bae, with Xereus Purple and Genestealer purple highlights. This creates a rich purple without being much work. And I needed something to be purple on her to tie her into the rest of the army. All in all, it we a wonderful model to paint. Went quite fast, too. Not entirely pleased with the marbe result, but I'm super stoked to finally finishing a model I've been staring at for nearly 15 years!