Tzaangor Management

The price increases won't effect me personally, but I think this is down to the way that I purchase models and engage with the hobby. I tend to pick an army, buy most of what I need, build and paint it. I do of course buy other things along the way, but I can tell you exactly what is in my pile of gray and also that it fits inside the Soul Wars box... because it's all (mostly) inside the old Soul Wars box... It takes me about a year to paint an army, along with distractions like Warcry Warbands, etc., so the cost is effectively spread across a twelve month period. When I compare this to my other hobbies, past and present, it is approximately the same cost. I recently gave up playing football due to advancing age and injuries. Age of Sigmar costs no more than that did and seems fairly reasonable to me in terms of the enjoyment it brings. When I got into the hobby I spent a long time researching and getting a sense of how things worked. As a result of this and the quality of the new sculpts, I have bought very few old kits. It has been clear to me, from the beginning, the direction that Age of Sigmar was going in and that it was intentionally away from the Tolkein-esque themes of the Old World. I am surprised that this seems to have been missed by so many, but I mainly put this down to nostalgia and differing tastes. Regardless, as a result, I have very few fears about units being discontinued and for those few that are, I know I have learnt some lessons from them. I am very conscious of what I enjoy about the hobby and how much I value it. I have framed my expectations based on this, as well as real world inevitabilities like price increases, and so this round of price increases, the first I remember in four years, will have no effect on my purchasing.

I don't paint areas I can't see easily. Generally I zenithal prime and then glaze my models, picking out relatively few details with a fine brush. The pre-shaded areas tend to blend into the deepest shadow colour with this technique, so hopefully any unpainted areas aren't hugely noticeable... I don't really notice them at least.

Finished the first part of my pledge, which is a massive cheat as they were nearly done for May, but I'll take it! Gorgeous models and just love this range the more and more with every model. Back to building and priming for a bit now to get the next bits ready.

Didn't quite finish last month, so this month I'll finish what I started in May: 10 x Namarti Reavers 1 x Soul Scryer Stretch 5 x Namarti Thralls

Back on track with the Idoneth and finally finished this beast. Think I might need to add a little more colour to the riders for the next one, but a great model that's definitely not going to fall of it's flying stand when I try and take it somewhere...

After an airbrush disaster I've had to leave my Idoneth half done, while I wait for a replacement to arrive. In the meantime I did a speed paint on some Skaven that I already had primed. Fantastic models and another tempter if / when GW bring out a new Skaven line.

I don't think the new painting system will stop people from trying to improve. The same people that stop at a base coat and a wash at the moment, will stop at a contrast base coat and a contrast layer if this system proves to be what GW are advertising it as and vice versa. At first blush I can't see myself using these paints, as I have moved away from using washes in general, as I don't like the 'pooling in the recesses' technique, which these build on. I'll be interested to see what cleverer folks than I can come up with though and it looks a good first step.

I'm excited about this too, as my painting had slowed down recently (stupid new job) and 1K armies are seeming much more likely for me to be able to produce. I'm wondering if it will be something to do with unit categorization. At the moment armies that can take cheap battleline and then a bunch of elites are in a good position, so I wonder if they'll make the army selection rules more restrictive.

I'm almost scared to ask, but I can't help it: why do you hate lions?

I'm not a fan of either of these factions returning, mostly because I am in no way nostalgic about them. The models don't do it for me, they're leagues behind the current plastics and I don't care that Settra doesn't kneel. I don't say that to invalidate anyone's point of view, but as a player new to the game (starting in the first year or so of AOS and not including the 90's where Settra wasn't in the game) and with new players clearly a target for GW's expansion, I think it's a point worth making. That said, if either of these two factions was remade with the current technology and design aesthetic, then they'd be amazing I'm sure. I can't say they'd be an 'insta-buy', because I'm all about the aesthetics, but I got into Stormcast for the Aquilor and the Palladors, so a human-ish faction riding fantastic beasts would probably work. That said, are the Stormcast cavalry units already occupying that space?

I think the one in the video was designed by Doug from 2+ Tough, as I'm sure they mention it a couple of times in earlier videos and Doug himself talks about it on his channel. As I understand it he produced / sourced the image and sent it to a company to make, then sold them on his webstore, which, I'm afraid, he closed about a month ago...

Missed out slightly last month due to starting a new job, so going to go small. 1. Allopex Stretch 1. 5 Namarti Reavers

Thanks very much! I start with a base of Hashut Copper (GW), give it a heavy wash of 50:50 Agrax and Nuln (like absolutely drench it), then highlight Polished Gold (vallejo), Polished Gold and Silver (Vallejo) 50:50 and then pick out the most prominent points with pure silver.

Have had a really busy month so far, so not as much time for painting as I was hoping for. I have finished the second part of my pledge with the Soulrender, but will need a huge slice of luck to get my Allopex finished... particularly as he fell off the cork he was pinned to three times today, so need to rethink how I'm going to hold him I think...

Epic and Beautiful as ever sir!

Finished the first part of my pledge, which was the half-done stretch goal from March.

It would be a massive curve ball to have no Stormcast, so I can't really see it, unless they're about to get a special Warcry Squad with all new models in the second round of releases... Champions of the Gladiatorum or something...

Didn't manage to finish my stretch goal last month, but got a lot of building done, so: 5 x Namarti Thralls 1 x Soulrender 1 x Alloplex Stretch 5 x Namarti Reavers

Eidolon of Mathalan and the Lord Aquilor. The Eidolon is the only model I've bought just to own the model, although I have since bought an IDK army and the Aquilor was the first Stormcast I really liked (along with the Palladors) and got me into that army. All three represent the best of GW model making for me and the huge leap forward from what came before.

New paint pots that don't have that terrible flip lid design is my hope! Amazing releases and I don't remember there being so many reveals for AOS and AOS related items in any preview seminar before. I'm particularly excited for Warcry, as I was all in even if it was just Chaos, but the chance to use models from other factions should make the game much more appealing to a wider market and allays my fears that this was a Necromunda release with a Kill Team-style release still to come. Never had any interest in Slaanesh before, but that Keeper is amazing and on a par with the Lord of Change, which is in my top three models GW have ever made. If they have a solid mortal line, then I think I've got my next army, before I've finished painting my first unit of IDK... The Fyreslayers release is as expected for me. I won't be buying them, despite really enjoying painting the Shadespire warband, but if you've already bought into the aesthetic, then a new book, Endless spells and terrain can't be anything but a good thing. An easy fix for these guys would be to make them two wounds each and increase their points commensurately. Less bodies on the board all looking the same, keep a portion of their staying power, which has been their hallmark and reduce the cost of fielding an army. Perfect preview for me: One thing I'm definitely getting; one thing I'm tempted by; and a number of things that will improve AOS overall.

I would much rather see a 'Free Cities' tome that includes the former High Elves than an Aelf soup tome and I think it's the much more likely outcome. Aelves don't really have anything unifying them other than the Aelf keyword, which is in use by the Daughters of Kaine and the Idoneth Deepkin, and our collective memories of the Old World. If you look at the armies that have received soup tomes they have either: built out from one faction that has given them their theme like Moonclan or Beastmen; had a common keyword that unites them like Skaven; or had a unifying theme like the Legions of Nagash (auto-correct to Legions of Natasha 🤣). The disparate Aelf factions don't really have any of these. The most obvious option here would be the Swifthawk Agents, but that model range is OOP. In the lore most of these factions (with some notable exceptions and these tend to be restricted by keyword) are part of the armies of Azyr or attached to the Free Cities in someway. There is little to no justifications for combined Aelf only armies at present. However, GW could get around this by including a the facility to create your own Free City, similar to the way that Kharadron Overlords can create Sky Ports, which would allow you to pick a number of traits, etc. and compose your army of the models that you like. Not only would this solve the Aelf problem, but it would also neatly solve the Ironweld problem at the same time. GW have already done a lot of the work here with lore writing and the Firestorm Campaign supplement, they would solve three problems at once tidying up Order in almost one fell swoop and they could move onto the things they are clearly interested in: designing brand new factions, with interesting and unique IP's. This is obviously my preference as well as what I think is the most likely outcome, but I don't really mind how they solve the Aelf, Dispossessed and Free People's problem, I just hope they do it soon. The other option is that they hang around until they can get folded into new factions and that could take a while...

Yeah, I know the feeling. I recently painted some Namarti Thralls and didn't want to use metals, for a slightly different reason, so painted the weapons black and then edge highlighted them with progressively lighter purples. The effect works fairly well and gives a sort of obsidian look. Also, if you check out Mitzy, from the Mitzy and Jimbo show, on Twitter (@EATBATSmitzy), he has a similar scheme to yours with the blue and yellow and has gone for dirty metal on the weapons and armour plates, which might give you some context.

NMM is a tough technique and will be slightly more difficult due to all of the bumps and ridges you have on the Iron Jawz weapons. I'm certainly no expert, but tried it on a Blood Warrior axe that had grooves in it and wished I hadn't 😬. That said it can look amazing if you have the time to do it across the whole army and would check out @Lysandestolpe's thread, which has some excellent tutorials on the technique doing just that. For the bone you have lots of options. I usually do a simple Ushabti base (over white), shade Agrax, restablish the definition with Ushabti and then highlight with an off white (usually off white, or Elffic Flesh from Vallejo as I have those in my box). You can take it a lot further from there and I will often blend browns (Mournfang into Rhinox) at one end of large pieces, like that on the Mega Boss' shoulder, to add some additional visual interest. Looking great so far though and loving the blue and yellow scheme you've got going on!

Wonderful stuff. Would give it more likes if I could! Keep up the good work 👌

I love Incubi Darkness. It's a great base for dark greens and dark blues, as well as being a first highlight on black. I think it's featured in too many of my projects, so I intentionally chose a scheme with no blues at all for my latest project... although maybe I could paint the mounts dark blue... or the bases...