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Stevewren

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Blog Entries posted by Stevewren

  1. Stevewren
    Painting and Modelling: 
    February is over and its been a bit of a mixed bag. I missed my painting target of a model a day, ending up with 24 completed models. Most of these got done in the first half of the month and then there was a bit of a lull. I managed to do some consistent work, but I didn't really finish everything. As the end of the mon th rolled ever closer I had ten warriors that were almost done (just the weapons and the bases to go), and I also completed a Blightlord fly, but haven't done the rider or the wings yet. They should be done soon. I didn't have a model that I thought was worth submitting to the PMP this month either. However I did enter the first part of the Malign Portents painting competition at my local GW in Rotherham and was voted as the winning army which was pretty sweet. For me though it was just nice to be able to support the store and get involved in the event.  
    Gaming
    I've entered the South Coast GT in May and the NEO Coalescence event on the 17th March that will be themed around the Malign Portents. I will be using the  Nurgle army for this. I managed one game which was against the Legion of Nagash using the Nurgle army. I had the Glottkin out for this, and the game started well, but I got undone by the sheer resilience of the Undead force which kept regaining wounds and models despite me killing off the characters quickly. I was impressed with the Nurgle speed and resilience, once again the Glottkin died super fast and I struggled to redeploy the army after a strong initial first two turns. In the end the Legion of Nagash was a strong victor. I was really amazed at how good 40 skeletons
    Aquisitions
    I bought the Legion of Nagash book as well as the Malign Portents book and cards. I also managed a good bit of selling on ebay, getting rid of a lot of older models I didn't want to use any more. This all went fairly smoothly - I had to refund one guy who bought a Helldrake that he wasn't impressed with, but I was just pleased to get rid of it. I am certainly in the green for hobby spending so far this year which is good! I also had a successful birthday haul - three boxes of Pusgoyle Blightlords, an Ogroid Thaumuturge and a Darkoath Warqueen.  
    Personal
    On the plus side I have been feeling a lot better after my illness at the start of the year. I had a great birthday (the wife took me away for the weekend without the boys!), have got back to playing basketball and even managed a few running sessions! I'm nowhere near back to where I was, and of course the snow has hit at the end of the month and stopped a lot of training. It also forced our lease deciding basketball fixture to be postponed which was annoying as I was back and had been picked in the team. Hopefully that will be rearranged soon. The snow was awesome for the kids though and we were able to build an epic snowman as well as take   William sledging for the first time. Turns out sledging in Yorkshire is a completely different animal to sledging in Essex when I was a boy! 
  2. Stevewren
    Painting and Modelling:
    January has ended and its been an interesting month. First off I've hit the target of a model a day, painting 46 models so far in 2018. These have been a mix of units and a character. Horticulux Slimux has been by far the most interesting of the models I've done. He was really fun to paint, and there is a lot of detail that gives the model character. I was pleased with the final outcome so he will be the model that I will submit to the PMP End of Month review run by @Vincent Venturella to see what they say about it. I decided not to put everything I do up as some of the things I intend to paint will be done quickly. The units were for my Tzeentch and Nurgle forces. I managed 10 more plague bearers, which gives me 30 now, and I finished some Pink, Blue and Brimstone Horrors. I also made good progress on getting models built and undercoated ready for next month, as well as getting some thinking into my army for the South Coast GT this year where I want to do something for the Coolest Army Award that they do. It will be a Maggotkin Army of some description. 
    Gaming
    I had two tournaments planned for January, Heat 1 at Warhammer and the Sheffield Slaughter, my local GT. The Heat was great fun and also very successful. I managed to qualify for the final with a 3-2 record combined with some good soft scores. In the end I finished 13th, which is probably my best finish ever at a large two day event. I was also fortunate enough to take the Best Painted award at the event with the Lords of Change Tzeentch list. I was hoping this good run would continue into Sheffield, but unfortunately I had to pull out from the event. 
    Aquisitions
    I bought the Maggotkin book when it came out along with the cards, and I picked up Sloppity Bilepiper, the Scrivener ad the Lord of Blights. I also purchased a Pusgoyle Blightlords Kit. I managed to sell the Stormcast Host from the Blightwar Box, so the money from this and the refund I got from the Slaughter covered the costs of what I bought. As usual l also had to stock up on 32mm bases and Tajima 1 got some business from me as I ran out of a few tufts and grasses. 
    Personal
    Bit of a rough one. I got ill before Christmas and haven't recovered throughout January. I've had several days off work, which is unusual, and in the end it got quite serious as I was admitted into hospital at the end of the month suffering from what turned out to be Pneumonia. This has led me to another week off work. I have also missed an important basketball game, and I was also training  for the Manchester Marathon which I have now deferred until 2019 as I will not have done the training required to run a time that I would be pleased with. Overall this has been really disheartening as I enjoy sport and being active and not being able to do things has left me feeling a bit down. I would rate January about 3/10 in terms of a good start to the year. Lets hope things improve in February!  
  3. Stevewren
    Update: 28/02/18
    Number of models completed = 70
    February
    Worked on a unit of Nurglings (tidied the hobby room a bit and got some models ready to Ebay) Completed 3 Nurgling Bases Prepped 6 Screamers (undercoated), built and undercoated bases for 3 Plague Drones, 2 Blightlords, 10 Blue Horrors, 6 Screamers, Built 4 Objective Markers, Assembled 3 Plague Drones.  Worked on the Screamers Completed 6 Screamers


    Finished a Feculent Gnarlmaw and 5 Chaos Hounds. Played first game with the new Nurgle Battletome - lost to Death! 
    Finished 5 Pink Horrors
    Started working on Plague Drones Completed 3 Plague Drones
    Bought Malign Portents Book and Card and entered the GW Malign Portents competition Undercoated some shields Holiday! Holiday! Holiday! Holiday! Holiday! Worked on some Chaos Warriors and an Exalted Flamer Finished an Exalted Flamer
    Nothing done Nothing done Worked on some Chaos Warriors Birthday - received 4 boxes of Pusgoyle Blightlords, an Ogroid Thaumurturge, and a Darkoath Warqueen Assembled two Blightlord flies Nothing done Worked on Chaos Warriors Worked on Chaos Warriors Nothing done Snow Day! Did some Chaos Warriors (again!) January
    Worked on 2 blue horrors (not based yet), assembled 10 pink horrors Spray primed 6 pink horrors Spray primed 4 pink horrors and zenithalled the first 6 Nothing done Completed 5 Blue Horrors Nothing done Completed 5 Blue Horrors
    Nothing Done Completed 20 Brimstone Horrors and 10 Plague Bearers


    Started working on Horticulux Slime More work on HS No painting, but I did get my list written for the Warhammer Age go Sigmar Heat 1 3 games of Warhammer at Heat 1 (bought the Maggotkin Book, cards, and Tzeentch cards) 2 games of Warhammer at Heat 1 - finished 13th and won best army
    Nothing done Nothing done More work on Horticulux Slimux More work on Horticulux Slimux More work on Horticulux Slimux (I'M SEEING A PATTERN HERE...) Worked up the base for HS Completed Horticulux Slimux
    Built 3 Nurglings Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done - Hospital Nothing done - Hospital Nothing done - Hospital Nothing done Worked on 5 Pink Horrors, Primed 16 Chaos Warriors, Built a Lord of Affliction and Blight Lord Primed 3 Nurglings, 10 Blue Horrors, 8 Chaos Warriors, Built some bases, Finished 5 Pink Horrors
     
  4. Stevewren
    Painting and Modelling: 
    March has been a bit of a painting disaster - is it possible the wheels are falling off the challenge...? I have dropped off my model a day target so I need to claw it back somewhere. I managed another 10 chaos warriors for the Nurgle force, as well as the Darkoath Warqueen to act as their leader. She has come out really well and I am super happy with the conversion. I also finished a couple of the Pusgoyle Blightlords. And finally I managed to get through Horrors 20-25, meaning I only need to complete another 5 to have my three units of 10 completed. Lets hope they get done in April! I need to pull myself back on track, or at least get through some bigger models. At the moment I am finding it hard to get the painting time in due to being back at work and also watching the Commonwealth Games!   
    Gaming
    I managed three games this month, all at the Coalescence Malign Portents event run by Steve Fotte and Jimbo at Warhammer World. I took the Tzeentch, and it was probably a little towards the tougher end of the builds at the event. Even holding back some of the models the Tzeentch are still so strong, particularly in a narrative event. I enjoyed the games a lot however, and the army managed to win the best army award at the event so i got a rather nice GW certificate which is up on the wall. I think if I di another narrative event with the tzeentch force I think it will be more appropriate to roll out the horrors, chariots and warriors rather than sky fires and a lord of change! 
    Aquisitions
    This month I picked up the Daughters of Khaine book as well as a Changling, but that is all. A good month....
    ...however as you can see from the image at the top the Deepkin are coming, and I have my eye on these guys as the next Order army
    Personal
    We had a rather fun personal holiday over Easter, taking the boys to Linclonshire and visiting Tattreshall Castle as well as doing a few fun play areas and farms. The boys had a great time swimming and playing in the hot tub too. School is going OK, its getting hectic now that GCSE's are creeping up, but summer hopefully is just around the corner. We managed one basketball game, but we got beaten and finished tied for first on points, but ended up in third due to points differential. I have to say I had a shocker in the final game! I also picked up a rather annoying calf strain that kept me out of running action again. However some regular physio seems to be sorting it out nicely. 
  5. Stevewren
    Update: 11/04/18
    Number of models completed = 89
    March
    Worked on the Blightlord Flies and Warriors Assembled 20 bases for warriors and next horror unit (undercoated the warrior ones) Worked on Chaos Warriors (all done except weapons), finished and based one fly, but no rider yet Built the Dark Oath Warqueen with some Rotbringer Conversions added Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Started work on second rot fly. Finished painting the warriors. Glued the warriors to bases 10 Warriors finished
      Worked on a yellow pink horror test model  Nothing Done Built the riders for the Pusgoyle Blightlords  Undercoated the Pusgoyle Blightlords, built a base for a Tzeentch Demon Prince More base work More base work Painted he base and used it to rebase the Demon Prince Played three games at the Coalescence Malign Portents event at Warhammer World. Went 3-0, met my narrative goal and managed to win Best Army with the Tzeentch. Got a rather nice certificate Nothing Done Finished the bodies of the Pusgoyle Blightlords Finished a Horror Test model
    Nothing done Finished the two Blightlords (no wings, but they will all be done as a group when everything is completed as I need to bust out the airbrush)
    Nothing done - lost basketball game, finished third in league instead of top Assembled two more Pusgoyle Blight Lords Started painting the Darkoath Warqueen Worked on Darkoath Warqueen Worked on Darkoath Warqueen Worked on Darkoath Warqueen Base  Finished the Darkoath Warqueen
    Nothing done Nothing done April
    Nothing done Holiday - Nothing done Holiday - Nothing done Holiday - Nothing done Holiday - Nothing done Holiday - Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Worked on 5 horrors Completed 5  Horrors
    Undercoated Ogroid Thaumaturge Worked on more Pusgoyle Blightlords Nothing done Nothing done Worked on more Pusgoyle Blightlords Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Started blending up the skin on the OT Carried on with Skin Went to watch the London Marathon Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Nothing done Completed red section on OT Completed the blue on the OT
  6. Stevewren

    2016 Painting!

    By Stevewren,

    So this was the sum total of my painting for 2016 models wise. All in all I was a little disappointed that I hadn't done as much as I would have liked, but I did do four big monsters as well as Drycha, a Maggoth Lord and the Forest Dragon (not shown here) and that did account for a fair chunk of time at the start of the year in particular. 
    I finished off the Chaos Army for the South Coast GT this year, but I didn't really finish the army to a cohesive standard due to some personal issues that came up, which was a shame. I had to do quite a bit or rebasing for this project. I still have a number of Chaos models which I still need to rebase. 
    I finished off the Sylvaneth which was great so I have a full faction of these guys now. They were a lot of fun too do and picked up a couple of painting trophies at Alliance and the Leeds Last Stand later in the year, as well as getting a nomination at the Facehammer GT. I want to add a few more Kurnoth Hunters and some Spites and Tree Revenants, but I think this will be a project that I come back too as there are a lot more exciting things coming along this year  by the looks of things
    My other big win was the amount of rebasing that I got through. I repurposed quite a lot of models from older armies during the year and I had a lot of fun with the new GW Bases, both the normal ones and the Hero bases. I used these for the Order army that I took to Blood and Glory that won the Judges Choice award. 
    I tried my hand at Golden Demon this year for the first time as well, and managed to pick up two finalist pins. I was really pleased with that, but it really showed me that the single figure/competition painting is a completely new ball game. I'm not sure that I would enter again, but I'd certainly attend to see the models as its great looking at such fantastic models. 
    Tournaments were the usual debacle, ranging from the disappointingly mediocre to the shockingly awful. However I always enjoy the social side of the events and meeting new players. I never have to worry about playing friends or people I know as they are all an awfully lot better than me at the game. I did have some excellent narrative games during the year though, including playing Steve Foote on the Saturday of the South Coast GT, and playing Mark Wildman in a terrific Everchosen vs Ironjaws/Orrruk game. 
    Overall I feel like my AoS year has been good, if not spectacular, and I'm hoping that I can have a better year in 2017. I certainly hope to paint more, and I'd like to do a little better in some events, although I know that I won't be attending too many the year. If you want to see moe of my resolutions there is a video up on the Bad Dice YouTube page. 
     
  7. Stevewren

    A cheeky Video!

    By Stevewren,

    I watched a few videos by @Vincent Venturella where he shows off his armies and it inspires me to produce my own. It's much easier to talk about the models than write about them! You can find the video here: 
     
  8. Stevewren
    I wanted to get a few units done over the holiday period and so far I have completed some more Plaguebearers which is convenient timing looking at the new models that are coming out in a few days time. I quite enjoy painting these guys as green is a colour I enjoy doing due to the amount of variation in tone you can achieve. Plus spray cans do a lot of the work for the scheme that I have been using. I like dry brushing on some paler green to lighten these guys up. I'd like to add a couple of the new great Unclean one models and do them in a nice pale green scheme. 

    Now on a different note I painted 10 brimstone horrors and I'm not sure that the paint scheme is quite as successful as I would have liked. I got some great feedback from a friend on Twitter who's painting I have always admired. He said that they sat too much in the arrange midtone range so lacked contrast. On the next ten I'm looking to bring back more of the yellow and also highlight the faces in a more traditional way to bring out some of the detail. I think that I tried to keep the fire too realistic in the scheme I picked, and that clearly hasn't worked, so next I'm going to take Mikey's advice and bring a bit more of my own thinking into the models. Stay tuned to see how they turn out.  
  9. Stevewren
    Two weeks before the Facehammer GT I decided that I could probably add Alarielle to my army list. The model is very impressive, and I basically worked on her in three separate stages - The Base, the Wardroth Beetle and Alarielle herself.
    Basing Alarielle 

    For the base I followed my standard Sylvaneth basing style. I've written about it so much on this blog I imagine anyone could follow it now with ease! The first step was to glue down a nutella lid onto the so I knew where my water effects were going to go and also so I knew that they had something to be contained in. Once that was done I built up the base using the lots of playback and polyfilla. Again I left space for a channel that I made from plasticard that came out from above the rocks - this would be the starting point of my small waterfall. I also superglued on all the branches and skulls at this point and sanded it. This was all left to dry before being undercoated black and then brown over the top. 

    Once the base was dry I could start painting it properly. Again I used a range of different browns and greys to try and vary the contrast as the base is so large. I used the traditional grey at the back and then brought more browns into it at the front. Colour was added through the very bright toadstools, and I also undercoated the pool and stream areas in a dark blue. You can see in the image above that I had done the first two resin pours as well. This took about 48 hours as the resin needs 24 hours to fully cure. 

    Unusually I decided to go back to static grass for this base as I had a large area to cover. I then added the tufts and bushes at the end. The Waterfall is done using a combination of water effects poured out onto a non stick baking tray and left to dry. You can then peel them off and cut them to shape. I use the Woodland Scenics water effects for this and you can also use that to glue the waterfall down. The pool still needs some ripples added which I'll go back and do, but at this stage I knew I needed to get cracking on the Beetle. 

    The Wardroth Beetle
    I put the Beetle together pretty quickly - Its very big, easy to assemble pieces, although if you look closely you'll see I missed off part of the wood on the top! Once built I undercoated the beetle grey and white. 

    I used a base coat of Dark Reaper mixed with Palyd Whych Flesh to cover the model using the airbrush. I also used it to get the fade on the horns. I knew I was going to want to get green onto the model to tie in all the foliage and plants that cover the beetle sculpt so I tried to get that fade as bright as possible. I used quite a lot of dry brushing and washing on the model because of its size, and then went in and used a lot of edge highlighting to finish it off. The underside was also a very bright green so it had  that kind of insectoid two tone look to it. Once this was finished it was just a fairly simple task of going round and picking out all the small details and finishing these off.  

    Alarielle the Everqueen
    In contrast to the beetle Alarielle herself was an absolute pain to put together, particularly getting the wings in the correct position. I also undercoated the model White which was a really bad idea. I'd have been much better undercoating black and then using a white top coat as the model is difficult to paint in certain areas and there was a lot of white areas I struggled to get too. I started off again with the airbrush getting the wings done as I knew this would be the most annoying bit (not the most time consuming though) but it actually dry brushed up beautifully. I finished it off with glazes of yellow and way watcher green which really brightened the model up. Using lots of different green tones helps to break up such a large model nicely and I think its quite important. 

    I then pretty much followed the Duncan video on the rest of the model. I gave her some quite scary pupil-less eyes to carry over the sylvaneth theme. The skin technique that Duncan shows in the video was very simple but remarkably effective. I just followed that step by step! I changed some of the colours from the GW video as I needed the blue of her robes to tie in with the rest  of the army. I managed to finish the model off with a couple of days to spare, was really happy with it, and she was great fun to play at the tournament. I also think she helped secure a best painted nomination, although I didn't manage any awards this time. 
    The Finished Model

  10. Stevewren
    This is just a quick work in progress post. I've decided I really want to get some more varied terrain for my games so I invested in some second hand craters off Ebay. They are quite damaged, but I have based them on some hardboard and I plan to go in and fix the gaps and holes with filler and play bark. Once undercoated I have a few ideas for different fillings. Three will be lave pits for a Realm of fire table, one will be a Nurgle Swamp and the other will be a Tzeentch themed piece of dangerous terrain. 

  11. Stevewren
    My first model finished for this month is more of an experiment in a new basing style. I saw some really cool basing on some Stormcast by Dave Roberts at Call to War this weekend. One problem I've encountered is undercoat paint being pulled off polyfilla when the texture paint goes over the top. This time I varnished the base before applying the Khorne red which went under the Martian Iron Earth and this seemed to stop it lifting which was good. I tried a different  colour palette on the rocks which I was happy with and also some new tall grasses to add interest. I was pretty pleased with the bones and skull on the ground at the front too. 
    Hope you like the pictures  

     
  12. Stevewren
    This is the current state of my Lord of Change, I have chosen a very different colour scheme that will match some of the details on the next lot of Marauders. I started with a Mephiston Red undercoat and then sprayed on the purple to the wing tips and the feet using a spray can rather than trying to blend it or worry about the airbrush. This made the initial base coat a lot faster to do. 

    The details were dry brushed up with wild rider red and Kislev flesh on the red which works nicely as a top highlight. My intention was to go in and highlight the face carefully as this will be the stand out part of the mode. There doesn't seem to be any real benefit in terms of time vs quality achieved to highlight all the individual feathers, although I have gone round the wing tips with Palyd Which Flesh to give a nice bright highlight on the edges of the purple. 
    I am currently working through the gold and the blue armour and I have been using the Duncan video to try and see how it turns out. I am currently pretty happy with the whole thing. The only thing that I am really not a fan of is trying to paint the tabard as the detail is quite flat and the complexity of the folds and position makes this a very tricky piece to paint with any real quality. Fortunately it is hidden away and will probably not be that visible on the final model when it is based. 
    Overall I think this is a great model and its been a lot of fun to paint so far. 


  13. Stevewren

    Blightwar all Done!

    By Stevewren,

    After my bout with real life disease I have actually finished the whole of the Nurgle half of the Blightwar during my recovery. I managed Horticulux, the ten Plaguebearers, three Nurglings and three Plague Drones, and I have managed to throw in a Feculent Gnarlmaw as well just for fun. I'm going to take them down to the Rotherham GW store tomorrow for the Malign Portents painting competition. As part of my #365challenge I was wondering how close I have been getting to having at least one of each Maggotkin Unit. I'm well on the way to achieving this, although my issue will be finding the funds for two Great Unclean Ones and also getting two more of the Maggot Lords. 
    Here are the Plague Drones in their finished state: 



     

    So I took these down to the Games Workshop in Rotherham today for the first month of the Malign Portents painting competition. I was impressed with the quality of the other entries. Having been down for Armies on Parade and other events I haven't been blown away by the standard, but this seemed to be a little better. There was a very nice Moonclan Grot force, some good looking Khorne and Ironjawz forces.
    Month 2 is a Harbinger so I'd better pick up the Darkoath Warqueen!





     
  14. Stevewren

    Bonkers Basing 2!

    By Stevewren,

    I've been doing bits and pieces on this base for the last few evenings. It always takes time with water effects as they take quite a while to dry, and also need to be built up in layers. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the effects, although I still feel like the white water rushing up to the sides and making waves looks good in places, but in others could be better. I chopped the feet off the ghouls and the running away man so it looks like they are running through a bloody pool, which I think is a very AoS type of terrain. My next job will be to add in some more graveyard terrain and then snow flock the whole thing. 
     
  15. Stevewren
    Continuing the wood elf theme for another month or so I have been working on the Eternal Guard. I only want to do 10 of these guys just so I can use them for fun. I've finished the seven regular guys. I've just got the command group to go and add in the foliage and flowers to decorate the base. 
     

  16. Stevewren
    As you know I have been taking part in the Warhammer Weekly Budget of Sigmar 2 challenge. 
    This month I had to assemble, convert and paint a unit and a hero. I cheated a bit with the hero and used my Nurgle Lord of Plagues conversion that I had already done. For this months unit though I used a Beast of Nurgle conversion that I had in mind for a while. It basically involved using the Plague Drones bodies and putting them on the ground. I removed the wings and rolled out some Green stuff to make tentacles for them instead. I also had to cut the bottom third of the bodies and switch them round. I think they looked pretty cool as conversions. Painting wise I sprayed them white, airbrushed on some greens and purples and then washed with Athonian Camoshade. I dint really do much more other than pick out the boils and details so they actually painted up pretty fast which was good, although I missed the somewhat flexible end of the month deadline due to rebasing units for Blood and Glory. Overall though I think these guys are a good addition to the growing Nurgle Army. 

  17. Stevewren
    In my last post I talked briefly about the Budget of Sigmar 2 challenge that is being run by @Vincent Venturella from Warhammer Weekly. I have completed my month 1 submission now and I am also starting to flesh out the rest of the projects to make up the army. You can see the layout of the challenge here: 

    I have broken it down into the models that I have and that I can easily convert, as the key point of the challenge is to get some level of conversion into every single model. To achieve this I have decided that I want to use a mix of Nurgle demons and Mortal units. The models I have chosen so far are:  
    Leaders
    Month 4: Rotbringers Sorcerer (100)
    Month 2: Lord of Plagues (100)

    Units
    Month 1: Chaos Warriors x 10 (180)
    - Halberd & Shield - COMPLETED
    Month 2: Beasts Of Nurgle x 3 (180)
    Month 3: Putrid Blightkings x 5 (180)
    Month 4: Chaos Marauders x 10 (60)
    Month 5: Chaos Marauders x 10 (60)
    Month 6: ??

    Behemoths
    Month 3: Soul Grinder (280)

    War Machines
    I still need to make a decision on my final month unit and also a war machine/behemoth for month 5. I'd quite like to do something from the Monstrous Arcanum, but I don't know anything about what is available yet. 
    For my month 1 submission I went with something simple - a unit of 10 Chaos Warriors. I want to make the units be a little savage and barbaric, so to show this I have used the Bonespitterz shields and halberds for the weapons. I think this is a nice easy theme to run throughout the rest of the army. For the marauders I will use the rest of the hand weapons along with plague bearer heads. These should go nicely onto the existing Marauders that I have got. 
    I have made a good start with a number of the other months submissions as well. I think I need to work in this way as otherwise I will not get it done. For example the Soul Grinder is a model I have had lying around for ages in bits that has not been finished. I have also got 6 plague drones which I have used to make the blight kings and the Beasts of Nurgle. I am quite excited about how the army will look and also how it will make a good dent into my unpainted pile of chaos stuff. I also like the enforced time line. It means I can work on other models and armies at the same time as the hobby challenge is progressing, 




     
     
  18. Stevewren
    One of the things that I have wanted to make ever since the South Coast Grand Tournament was my very own Silver Tower as the centrepiece terrain feature or my Tzeentch  table. I wasn't sure what to use as the start of the model though, until I came across this cheap (£6.99) lighthouse from The Range. I thought with a bit of tweaking it would work as the base for the model. 

    The first thing that I did was remove all of the shells and nautical decoration. It had al been attached with a glue gun so a quick go at it with the hobby knife allowed me to remove a lot of the detail and then I could sand down some bits that were a little rough.

    However the lighthouse now needed to be AoS'd a little bit. To start with I designed a Tzeentch pattern that I got from the floor tiles from the silver tower game. I scaled them so they were larger at the bottom than the top and then I cut them out carefully. I needed three patterns to go round the tower as well as a couple of extra bits to hide the window and door openings. Once they were cut out I used spray glue to attach them to the lighthouse. I had to go round some of the designs with superglue to get them to stick securely. 
     
    The next step was to cut away the central pillar at the top. I drilled two holes in the top section and the main piece that could be joined by some wooden dowel. I then drilled a hole through a table tennis ball which was going to act as the eye of Tzeentch. I then used the laser cutter to cut out the nine Tzeentch spikes that would go round the top section. For final decoration I glued on some of the bits and pieces left over from the Lord of Change kits to add some more flavour to the design. 
    I
    I then made a new Tzeentch disc style base which I attached to the original wooden base. I drilled a 20mm hole into the bottom using a Forstner bit and glued a piece of clear acrylic tube into it. To make it look magically powered I used expending phone around the bottom and stuck a load of the spare Lord of Change heads into it. At this point I also made a base from MDF and lots of filler to give it some weight. I covered the pole with masking tape so that  could paint the base. 

    With all the building now finished I was able to get on with painting the model. I painted it in four sections - the base, the tower, the base of the tower, and the eye.
     
    The base was painted brown and grey, then dry brushed and flocked. I used a lot of blue and white spray paint to paint the magical cloud at the bottom, then sprayed the top silver. Some of the silver went onto the blue but I really wasn't concerned by this as it added to the mystical appearance. I then gloss varnished the cloud. I also edge highlighted all the silver parts as well. 

    The eye was sprayed with shades of blue and then I quickly picked out a nebula pattern with white on the eye. Again this was given a glossy finish. 

    I sprayed the tower with leadbelcher and then hit it with a silver spray to pick out details. I used the light blue to do the lighting effects on the tower. I used a little bit of gold on the top just for some contrast. Everything was then glued together using mitre adhesive. All I need to do now is to create some exciting game rules to go along with the piece....

     


  19. Stevewren

    Change is coming...

    By Stevewren,

    Like the rest of the Age of Sigmar community I was really enthused and excited by the new Disciples of Tzzeentch Battletome. I was lucky enough to get hold of some of the Kairic Acolytes which I painted up for my new force. A couple of things that I think are worth noting - the basing plans are to tie in with the rest of my Chaos force rather than having their own unique basing scheme. I'd love to have done a desert themed basing scheme for them as they have a really cool egyptian style look to them. 
    The kit is great - you can make the models up pretty quick and they go together beautifully as you would expect. 

    I used a really simple skin recipe of mourning brown spray, sandro dust spray and a wash of sepia or Reikland flesh shade. It gives quite a nice dark, sun kissed type of skin tone. As these are supposed to be quick I have really focussed on not going back in and adding extra detailing to the skin. I will try to spend the time on the characters and monsters in the list. The shields I kept separate so that I could quickly airbrush on the fade and get them done quickly. I find my airbrush to be a very fickle beast, but when it works it is a real time saver for this kind of effect

    Once the skin was all done the detailing was finished and kept simple. I used a lot of bright blues combined with purples and whites. As you can probably imagine the biggest time sink on these models is doing the gold trim. There is absolutely no way that these can be speed painted. you have to take care to keep it neat. I have seen on the Warhammer TV that Duncan does the gold first and then paints in the panels, and I can see how that would work, but at the moment I'd rather keep the gold as the final stage. 

     
  20. Stevewren
    These guys are quite fun to do. I have 20 now, and another ten that are base coated. The shields and weapons are taken from the Bonesplitterz kits. 
    Armor is just a couple of green spray paints and then chipped with silver paint and a sponge. I tend to just paint the rest of the models as quick as possible. The warrior models are old, but they have a certain chaotic charm to them, especially with halberds rather than hand weapons. 
  21. Stevewren

    Cheeky Nurglings

    By Stevewren,

    These were a fun little speed paint. The Nurglings were primed Caliban green and then zenithal sprayed with Deathguard green. I then dry brushed them quickly with a mix of Organ Camo and White before glazing the whole model with Waywatcher Green. This gives a really nice vivid green colour. I then went back in and washed the recesses with Athonina Camo Shade and Nuln Oil. I did all the eyes, mouths etc at this stage too. Once this was dry I painted the tongues with screamer pink and then watered down a mix of screamer pink and wild rider red which I used for all the sores. All of these got washed with Drucji Violet. Blood for the Blood God went on all the sores and they were highlighted with white to make them look glossy. Horns were Rakarth Flesh and a quick highlight with Palyd Whych Flesh which I also used for the teeth (just a careful dry brush with very little paint on the brush). The most time consuming part was dotting all the eyes with yellow. 

    One thing I did with these was not to base them. I usually use the cork  bark for the bases, but because of how these models are made I didn't want to do this as they wouldn't sit flat on the bark well, so I went back to the traditional way of sanding afterwards and then brush painting the base. This is very annoying! I will try not to do this again. It is much easier to make the bases first and then attach the models to them. When you get a somewhat dubious looking join you can just go in with the foliage and use this to cover up any of the gaps that you may ave left. 
  22. Stevewren

    Coalescence review

    By Stevewren,

    (note, this is kind of a retrospective post as I forgot to post it originally!)
    This week i am attending the Coalescence event at Warhammer World hosted by Steve (@tinracersteve) and James (@jimbo9jimbo), part of the NEO network. For those of you that aren't aware of the event it is a narrative event being run at numerous locations around the world on the same day, and all feeding into a single narrative. I've chosen to take Tzeentch to the event, which gave me a bit of a dilemma as the Tzeentch book is pretty strong, so finding a narrative list that isn't ridiculously over the top was a bit of a challenge. One of the things I have noticed with narrative events is the different ways that people approach the narrative - some people pick a 'softer' army, which I have done before, and I didn't find that much fun. The solution I have gone for is to pick what I think is a strong list, but one that isn't ridiculously over powered, but I have decided to give myself a story and some goals for the days gaming. 
    I have written a little bit of narrative based on one of the armies (or fairly shamelessly stolen) in the Tzeentch book: 
    My plan is to use this as a kind of secondary objective for the games where I have to kill any magic users in the opposition army. I've played against someone before who had a goal for his army which he tried to achieve at the expense of the overall objective, and this was a game that I didn't enjoy at all as he basically let me walk away with the game as he made no attempt to stop me, and I just let him achieve his objective. We basically played two different games and I cant imagine it was overly satisfying for him either. I think its important that both players have the game objective in mind, but a fun secondary narrative goal is also a nice idea. 
    My main aim of course is to have three excellent games and a nice slap up lunch in Bugmans though! 
    So, how did it go....? 
    Well, the event itself was really well run by Steve and James. From my point of view I had three fun games, although the first two were a little one sided for various reasons, but the third game was very good. I played James (the TO) first with his Seraphon. The game started off badly as I did hardly any damage to James's force, but I did manage to get my Harbinger into the Warscryer Citadel which allowed me to really start utilising the Malign Portent options. I had picked the Falling Star option as the narrative was all about seeing the future, which suited my backstory. I then found that for five prophecy points I could give the Skyfires plus one on their hit roles....
    ...at this point we broke for lunch, but when we returned the three sky fires went mental and smashed their way through a whole unit of Saurus Guard. I shot the Skink Starpriest to achieve my narrative goal, and that was pretty much the game. 

    The Skyfires go into battle as Zyclaw looks on from the Warscryer Citadel...
    Second game I played the Ironjawz, and  the gentleman I played was a newer player so we spent quite a bit of time discussing how rules interactions worked, and talking through the intricacies of piling in and how to do it to maximise attacks etc. Once again the Skyfires went ballistic, and I also found out the an Exalted flamer does have some uses. The Screamers killed the war chanter early on to keep the narrative going, and after that it became a slug fest. In the end I had 10 Kairic Acolytes left who managed to survive the game due to being so out of position as to be virtually useless, and a single pink horror who managed to cast Bolt of Tzeentch and do the remaining five wounds needed to remove the last two brutes in the opposing force, thus carrying the day for the forces of Tzeentch. 

    The battle lines are drawn...

    The Screamers assassinate the Warchanter...
    My third game was against Steve's son Ben who I've known for a while but never played. He had a tough Nurgle force with 20 Blightkings (we both thought James and Steve paid us up !) and a Great Unclean one, and for this battle I had a Lord of Change who had arrived to oversee Zyclaws quest and report back to the Changer of Ways. This game didn't look good to begin with, but I managed to send the screamers on an assassination run to kill a herald and a little bit of clever placement meant the Blightkings got pulled backwards away from my lines, and allowed me to get into them with the Lord of change and the Skyfires. It was a solid game, but eventually the Tzeentch force carried the day once again, however it was not enough to stop the Focus of Death from claiming the overall narrative victory. 

    The Lord of Change goes into the Blight Kings...
    The guys had done a few awards for the weekend, and Matt Hinton took the Narrative prize. He was rocking a unit of custom Lion knights with their own war scroll which was something I realised I could have done with the War Wagon and the Free People - definitely an opportunity missed! I was lucky enough to take the best painted award for the event. Overall it was great fun day, and I hadn't played in a long time so I was happy to have the three games. I think the army was too strong for the event in all honesty - the three Skyfires were just ridiculous all day long. This is still the hurdle I think has yet to be fully cleared with narrative events - how do you balance the games as people have very different views about what the narrative game should be. To be able to devise a story and battle plan that allows a variety of army compositions is still the holy grail, and I hope the NEO group continue to push the envelope of narrative gaming so we can see how far it can go. 
     
  23. Stevewren

    Completed Maggoth Lord

    By Stevewren,

    I've finished the first model for my Rotbringers army. I had a maggoth that was being used as a demon prince, but I decided to put the rider on. I took quite a bit of time working on the riders armor, and then realised that the bone I'd done didn't match the bone on the maggoth. I went in and repainted these from black to cream, and I also had to rebase the model as it was on a 50mm square for 8th edition. Overall I'm pleased with how it came out and he will make a nice addition to my army that I want to do for the PMP challenge. One thing I did do was base the model to match my Sylvaneth rather than my chaos force as I'd like to play some of the scenario games from the realm gate wars books. 


  24. Stevewren
    For the Budget of Sigmar 2 painting challenge I need to do a character and a unit. The unit is going to be my three beasts of nurgle, which are converted and undercoated now. For the character I have my Plague Lord, which was an older model that I have rebased to fit in with the theme of the army. Its converted from the excellent Nurgle Lord kit and the Nurgle Herald kit from the Demon range. 

     
  25. Stevewren
    To fit into my budget of Sigmar army I had to do a conversion of some sort on this model. I chose to create my own Shrinemaster figure. I took some of the leftover parts of one of the Maggoth lords as the top half. I glued some plastic sprue inside the body to act as a support post. I then cut the Shrinemaster figure in half and glued the pillar to his waist. The Maggoth Lord top half was quite a bit wider so I had to green stuff some more skin around the join to merge them all together, but I am happy with the result.
    For the painting I just used the usual Nurgle colour scheme of Greens and Purples. I was pleased with the metals on this as well. 
    Once he was finished I just superglued him down. With hindsight I should have made him removable so that I could use different sorcerers on top, but that is a lesson for another day!  

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