LoopyZebra

So, looking at terrain cards and the link, it seems that things like the stairs move around to different buildings. Do they slot in or just rest there?

The Stormcast are quite tanky, with high health and armor, and as the units include Vanguard Hunters and Raptors, have strong ranged attacks. The Stormcast also have more unit variety than Nighthaunt. The Nighthaunt have higher mobility than the Stormcast, especially with flight, and the ability to bring units back. Nighthaunt units are cheaper so it's easy to have more Nighthaunt models on the board than Stormcast, particularly if the Stormcast player picks expensive models. With this particular matchup, terrain and objective matter a lot. For terrain, I used the Azyrite Ruins and Stormvault sets as that's what I had ready, so there was not as much verticality as the box set terrain. This, combined with the Stormcast ranged weapons, significantly reduced the value of the Nighthaunt's ability to fly. The first game had an objective of killing the enemy leader - the Nighthaunt player was able to use his superior mobility and numbers to isolate my leader and keep his relatively safe. That said it was quite close - his leader only had 2 wounds left by the time mine died. The second game had "kill half the opposing team" as the objective. The Stormcast formed a gun line behind cover and kept firing / stabbing as the Nighthaunt resurrected. This particular objective definitely played to the Stormcast's strengths and they won. When using the cards, I'd recommend discussing with your opponent whether the draw makes sense. Our twist for the first game was an ability to deal damage to any model on the board. Given that the objective was to kill the enemy leader, we both hit each others leader once with this before we decided it was too powerful for this objective and agreed not to use it anymore.

Played 2 games of WarCry today, using Stormcast and Nighthaunt. Lots of fun - in my opinion, better than Kill Team or Shadespire. I really appreciated how quick it was and how natural the rules were. The only issue we had while playing it was potential imbalance with the non-Chaos warbands. Both Nighthaunt and Stormcast seemed highly specialized and could be strong or weak depending on the matchup, terrain layout, and objective.

I like Corvus Cabal the best, followed by Splintered Fang and Unmade. Unfortunately, I like the ones in the starter set the least - I find them a bit boring.

After doing some layers + highlighting, the Contrast skinks versus the traditional ones look identical, so I think I will keep using Contrast to shave off time in the early stages. I was also able to use some of the Contrast colors to do the feather color effect. I also used Contrast on some board game miniatures (Rising Sun) as well as on a larger endless spell model. Contrast looks terrible anywhere there's a flat surface, so I would never recommend it for use on anything other than flesh, fur, fabric, or textured materials. It made a mess of the endless spell. I would also not use it on small details like belts, ropes, or weapon hafts, as it might be easier and cleaner to just use regular paint.

I did some experiments with contrast this afternoon. I was excited for the release and played around with the demo poxwalkers at my local store prior to release. Below are 3 skinks, one done in the traditional 2 thin base coats and shade, 1 done with contrast and some traditional base colors over Wraithbone, and 1 done with contrast and some traditional base colors over Grey Seer. The traditional one (with the darker shield) took 50 minutes. In comparison, I was able to complete both contrast skinks in 47 minutes. The traditional one is definitely better looking, with cleaner colors and fewer pooling marks. However, the difference is negligible from tabletop distance. I found that the Contrast dried so quickly that I had issues touching up areas or removing pooling. Admittedly, I live in a very dry and hot part of the US, so your mileage may vary in other climates. I think this will also make it difficult to wet blend without medium and it also meant a lot dried on my palette. I plan on layering and highlighting them to see if the difference is noticable after layers and highlights. If there is no noticable difference, I will use Contrast to speed up the process but not leave the paintjob at just Contrast.

Over the past week, I had an experience with a very different but in some ways similar paint to Contrast. I've been repainting and remodeling one of the rooms in my house. The home improvement store had a new line of latex paints, called Behr Marquee, which claimed to only need 1 coat (sound familiar?). I was skeptical but picked it up for some of the colors, and got the regular paint for other colors which were a closer match to the existing paint coat. The Marquee worked beautifully, only needing 1 coat with some touchup, while the other regular paints required multiple coats, despite being a very close match to existing paint color. Obviously, Contrast paints are very different in application and chemical makeup than the Marquee house paints, but I felt that there was a lot of comparison. The Marquee still required good application - sloppy brushwork still would have produced bad results - and was not a magic cure-all for all of the different ways house painting could go wrong. But it saved me a ton of time, which I was able to put into other parts of the project. I was already excited for Contrast, but I am even more excited based on my experience with the Marquee paints, as I can see how being able to produce results faster allows for more time to be put into other finer details. I do not think I will leave many of my models at the one-coat "battle-ready" standard, but Contrast should help me get to highlighting and other detail work sooner.

I'm looking forward to trying these out on a batch project of zombies. For those that tried the new paints, do you have any tips on blending the colors for a transition on a model using these?

Thank you!

Ok - silly question. The skinks are very easy to assemble but I can't figure out how to get the bucklers on there. Are you supposed to take the arms holding weapons and cut the weapon off? Or just glue the buckler over the arm with weapon?

Thanks! That's all very helpful. I was leaning towards the blowgun and shields for the skinks - I'll build them that way.

Hello! I'm just starting a Seraphon army and picked up the last Seraphon battleforce box at my nearby store. This box will keep me busy for a while, but what would you recommend for new units to expand past the box? Also, for the skinks in the box, what weapon combo would you recommend that I build them with? Thank you for all your help!

Looking forward to the game. Do you have a planned release date?

Squark!

Has anybody purchased the Desolated Township pack? Does it have a similar issue?

As a Khorne player, I'm really excited for the new flesh hounds. As someone else said, they look the same as the other new plastic flesh hounds, but that's not a bad thing. I don't get the why the Darkoath exist. Khorne already has plenty of shirtless barbarians. These are different shirtless barbarians, and some people really like their aesthetic, but I do not think I would get them instead of bloodreavers and friends. Blackstone Fortress looks cool. I really liked Silver Tower and Shadows Over Hammerhal. I hope that they return to AoS for future WHQ.

Spoiler warning I also thought it was Slaanesh at the beginning, and had to look up Zuvass / Zuvassin after I finished. I hadn't thought about him getting pulled back in, but given the time he escapes, that would make sense and continue the loop. That would also explain why we never hear about Zuvass anywhere else.

Who else has read Shadespire: the Mirrored City? I just finished it today, and I really liked it. Definitely one of my favorite AoS novels so far! There have been a few short stories and audio books set in Shadespire, but while they were intriguing, they did not flesh it out as a full setting. I really like the full vision of Shadespire - as a prison, as a mystery, as something violently changing but also statically looping. I also like how the themes of the setting are reflected (ha) in the themes of the plot. There's mystery in characters and motivations. The narrative is an oppressive march forward - it always seems like it's going somewhere but not necessarily going somewhere good for the characters. I appreciated the multiple references to the Season 1 Shadespire warbands, some of whom are full characters and others who are cameos. It was interesting to see those warbands scattered and split, or working together. I also appreciated the references to other Shadespire short stories. I'm curious what the ending means for future AoS stories and lore. What did you think?

I don't think this is a fair matchup. Chaos has two heroes (Darkoath Chieftain and Darkoath Warqueen) to fight two Liberators with Grandhammers, and the Skaven is superior to Johann by virtue of having a weapon. But even all of those advantages do not make up for the overwhelming might, virtue, and SQUARK of Archibald, meaning Chaos has no chance.

After reading your post, I was inspired to paint an Archibald! It was quick and fun to paint, and different, since most of my other gryph-hounds are bright blue and pinks. SQUARK!