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Stevewren

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  1. Stevewren

    Hero Bases Review

    By Stevewren,

    I picked up the Hero Bases to have a look at at the weekend. I made three of them up. Generally they come in two or three pieces and there are no instructions, but its pretty easy to assemble them based on the pictures on the back of the box. For my order force I went with the three most generic ones. There is a fairly broad range - some of the bases would definitely look better with chaos models on (luckily I have a few of those knocking around...). 
    The detail is generally better than the shattered dominion base sets - its more defined and the fact that it is made up of multiple parts seems to give a better finish. As usual they paint up well too. I think if you are after an introduction to scenic bases for characters you could do a lot worse than these. They also make excellent starting points to add extra details too. I added skulls to these, and am also going to add tufts and snow to match my army. 

  2. 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
  3. 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!





     
  4. 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
     
  5. Stevewren

    Floating Islands!

    By Stevewren,

    Since I finished the Oak of Ages I decided I wanted two more large pieces to go on the table top. Inspired by this piece of art from the Realmgate Wars book I decided to try and create my own freestanding islands with waterfalls. I've been playing around with realistic water a lot so I think it will work well for  the waterfall, however its the constructional elements that will sell these pieces and whether or not I can successfully hide the supports. 

    I started out with three basic components - some 15mm think MDF which I want to use to support the base. Thinking about it now I should have routed out the pool, but instead I am going to build that up with cork bark. It will give the pieces some height and may even work as a bit of a line of sight blocker which could be interesting. The top will be plywood with blue foam underneath so it is lightweight. The trick here will be not making the top section too heavy, so some artistic license will be needed. To join the two pieces together I have used 3mm perspex, glued together and then bent to create brackets which I have screwed to the two wooden pieces.


    Each island is about 45-50cm high, so they are pretty sizeable. In the drawings the water pools off the edges of the islands, but I think to make it work I will have to have more of a pool at the top for he water to flow from. This will make the building easier. 

    I ordered two aquarium ornaments to go on the top. Both needed cutting down to fit the space. I then glued them down using mitrebond. I'm now at a stage where I have filled all the gaps to make the pools watertight and I am going to sand the first one and add the details for the underside. Hopefully painting will not take too long. 

     

  6. Stevewren

    Drycha WiP

    By Stevewren,

    I've bought some of the new kits for the Sylvaneth - basically I got one of each except for Allarielle with a goal to get them all painted for Alliance, @Ben event at the start of August. My Sylvaneth have always been a fairly fast army to add to as I tend not to spend a great deal of time on them, although with these new models I will be trying to make sure that I focus on some of the details as the models are too nice to just rush through haphazardly. 
    I started with Drycha as she was the main character in the army that I will be running. The model went together OK, although there were some pretty tricky assembly parts. I'd give it the usual 8/10 for how cleverly it is engineered, but probably a 6/10 for speed and ease of assembly. I really like the pose she is in now that I have the model assembled after not being a fan in the photos that I had seen. 
    I started out with a black and white undercoat before busting out the airbrush to do the first few layers. I base coated the whole thing in Vallejo Air Mahogany and then started hitting spots with lighter browns and camo green. Then it was a case of quickly dry brushing everything and doing plenty of washing to get the variation in colour. I've gone in and added some line highlights to the claws and tidied up things like the head dress and the loincloth, but otherwise I'll be leaving it as it is. Next up was the honeycomb. This was done in Troll Slayer Orange before being washed heavily with carrouburg crimson. I made sure to get the wash in all the holes. I then went back over with the orange followed by Firedragon Bright. 
    For Drycha herself I just base coated her with a couple of layers of Palyd Wich Flesh and then washed her with Drakenhoff Nightsade. She then highlighted up quickly. I need to get some of the Green gem paint to do the eyes. And that is her pretty much done. I just need to base her and finish the bugs off which shouldn't take too long. After that I'm going to crack on with my Kurnoth Hunters
     



  7. Stevewren

    Stag Do!

    By Stevewren,

    Ive had these Sisters kicking around for ages, and even though I haven't played my Wanderers for a while I spent a bit of time this weekend getting the mounts completed so i can get them off my painting table and into the 'completed' draw. As always with the Wanderers they were done fast, with a little bit of sponging and freehand to add some quick simple textures to elevate them slightly. I think I have one or two riders already completed, so I just have three left to do. 
     
  8. Stevewren
    After Blood and Glory last weekend I came home pumped up for some new and exciting Hobby challenges. The first thing I decided to do was create my very own Oak of Ages to be the centrepiece of a new set of Sylvaneth terrain. I've purchased a Grassy Plains 2 FAT mat and I realised I didn't have any 'green' terrain to go with it. So I started raiding the terrain bin.... 
    A while ago I'd bought a big piece of Aquarium terrain to make a realm gate with, and I knew that my son had collected some twigs and sticks recently that were drying on the porch outside the house. With these as a basis I started gluing things together. I had an old 6" base from my free wood elf wood from 8th edition which was the perfect size for a base so I mitre bonded the tree stump down. I then Dremmelled some bits off half a realm gate to make it roughly fit the gap that was in the wooden piece. I added some random playbark to hide some of the gaps and then started applying cheap air dry clay to add texture. To make it look like bark I used a piece of playbark to texture it and push it into the gaps. This was much faster than using a sculpting tool. 

    When the clay was dry I went over it all with watered down PVA as the clay doesn't always stick as well as you would like. The next job was to stick on some big sticks to the stump to start making the canopy. I just mitre bonded them in place, trying to find places that had gaps and grooves tap they fitted in to. 


    Once these dried I used a pack of Woodland scenics tree armatures to make all the smaller branches. I just went round the tree drilling small holes in and pushing in the tree armatures. Once dry these need twisting and shaping. Even after this they don't look too realistic at this point, but hopefully foliage will help cover this up...
    I then attacked the whole thing with spray cans. I just sprayed it in bursts with all sorts of browns, greys and whites and then dry brushed areas. I'm going to come back to add more detail later so I wasn't too worried about how this all looked. I just wanted it all blended together and all the air clay covered up. The only thing I tried to do was make sure that the realm gate part was lighter than the rest of the tree. 

    All of my Sylvaneth have a lot of foliage and plants on them, so this was always going to be a very green, summery looking tree. I couldn't use my usual stuff though (Woodland Scenics fine foliage) as it is £17.00 a pack, and I'd need quite a bit for the tree, making it prohibitively expensive. Instead I ordered some wire wool. To start with I piled it on, but after some Twitter feed back from @Bishmeister and @Painted by G I teased it all out a lot more so that I ended up with a much more natural look. I then used an entire can go green spray paint to undercoat the wire wool. 
    Before feedback: 

    After Feedback:
     


    When that was dry I went out into the garage, got a big mixing bowl and started making a bowl of tree flock, pretty much exhausting my clump foliage stocks! I used quite big clumps and a variety of sizes and textures. I then went round the tree a bit at a time covering it with spray glue and tipping  the clump foliage on. Once the whole tree was covered I gave it a good shake, turned it upside down and went over any patches that I had missed. Once I was happy I then sprinkled over some fine turf mix as well to even up the coverage and fill in any small gaps. 
    Once this dried a bit I mixed water and PVA together and poured it into a spray bottle and generously coated the whole tree. This should make it fairly durable. I'll also add some matt varnish as well as I want to eliminate any shine from any PVA glue that has ended up on the tree itself. 





  9. Stevewren
    I bought a bunch of Tzeentch models from a friend of mine a few months ago, and three of the models were Exalted Flamers. I have sprayed and undercoated the thereof them about nine times so far, and I have not been able to find a scheme or style that I like. The models have a lot of flat detail that doesn't wash well and is tricky to dry brush too. I tried fades from bottom to top of similar colours, colours that contrast, and different tones of the same colour. None of these particularly inspired me, or if they did I found it hard to get a good highlight or shade onto the model. In the end I went with a contrast from a light brown to yellow. I then used purple as the contrast colour for the flames - no particularly inspiring, but it works well. I did the flames all with washes and then quickly highlighted the tops with a white. 

    I really wanted the model finished and in the end I just called it done as I didn't want to continue working on a model I wasn't enjoying. It will look fine in my Tzeentch force, but I really didn't enjoy the sculpt or the painting experience. The pale yellow highlights were easy to bring back using the Lamentors yellow glaze, which I really like for working on yellow. Because I didn't enjoy the model I didn't spend much time picking out details like teeth and more on the flames. I'm not sure spending time on the flames would really make much difference, and I think it would be annoying to try and layer them up. 
    I wonder if I had put the model together there might have been a way to keep the flames separate which may have allowed me to do a better job. This may have made the painting experience better too. 
    I think the two spare flamers may find their way onto ebay in the near future! 

  10. Stevewren

    The Lords of Change

    By Stevewren,

    This weekend is the South Coast GT and I have finally managed to complete all of the models for the Omniscient Oracles Battalion. 
    It was a fun painting challenge and I developed quite a few cool tricks to help get through them in the time span and keep the models to an acceptable quality level. I used a lot of spray can work to get the base coats done and then dry brushed and washed a lot to get the variation in texture. I then went over the top with the brush to pick out specific details, but only in key areas. 
    I discuss the techniques a lot more with Ben and Mark on Ep 153 of Bad Dice if you want more details. Link is here
    As ever if you have any questions put them in the comments and I'l be happy to answer them!


  11. Stevewren
    I was lucky enough to play a game of Gorechosen, GW's new boxed game last Thursday. We played a couple of games and I thought I'd pop down my first thoughts.  I played with Ben and I'm sure you've heard or watched his review on the Bad Dice YouTube Page.
    The Good
    Firstly the game is extremely good value. The four models are excellent sculpts and if you buy them individually you'd pay considerably more than the rrp for this game. The game itself is quite simple - the rules are clear and unambiguous. Everything is powered by the cards that you have one your hand, allowing you to move and fight. The turn mechanic is cleverly done by shuffling the initiative cards and randomly determining players turns. You can increase your chances by making sure you keep your rage up on the wrath tracker. This means that you have more turns the more angry you are. The actions that you take can increase or decrease your rage, killing an opponent can increase your rage, and the critical injury cards can affect the wrath tracker as well. Critical Injury cards are a nice addition which speed the game along. The ability to use cards to block and dodge hits or injury cards that force you to discard cards means that your hand management requires some thought. 

    The Bad
    This game relies on players playing the game within the spirit of the theme. I could easily see the game generating into two 1 on 1 battles, and then the two winners duking it out  rather than a swirling melee of action. You could also have a scenario where one player stands aside and lets the other three fight it out and then swoops in for the win (not something we experienced, but could happen). Or you could have three players gang up onto one and eliminate them quickly. There is a nice mechanic that allows you to carry on playing once you are dead, but it isn't that exciting. There is also the possibility of sudden death, no matter how many wounds you are on, which isn't a great mechanic in a game and could switch off players that aren't invested in the GW/AoS world. I know if I played this with my regular board gaming group these issues would hamper their enjoyment of the game. 

    Final Thoughts
    Overall I would give the game 6/10, with a caveat that this is based on its sole merits as a stand alone game. It is quick, the models are terrific (but probably overly complicated for a non miniature gamer) and the theme and production values are really high. I particularly liked the care taken with the insert tray and small touches like the Khorne logo on the inside of the lid. There are some fiddly mechanics with the wound tracking, and the fact the game can degenerate into mini battles rather than a big scrum of fluid fighting is an issue. It would be better if there were more ways to fight, move and then fight a different opponent, rather than being stuck fighting the same one unless you choose to retreat away. If you are a GW and AoS fan in particular however, I would be inclined to say that this game would be a very good purchase (essential if you are a Khorne Bloodhound player!). It would work well as a filler at club nights and the value you are getting for the four models is outstanding. I enjoyed the game and would definitely play it again, but I'm not sure I would pick ups copy as I don't have a an army to use the models in. 
    Let me know what you think of the game in the comments below. 
  12. Stevewren
    My Empire army in 8th edition was a pretty solid tournament army and I knew at some point I was going to have to rebase it all. When the Shattered Dominion bases were released from GW I decided these would be perfect as a starting point. However there were a number of things I wasn't happy about. When I got the bases I started off by sanding and texturing sections, and also obscuring a lot of the skulls as they are a bit too flat and comical looking for my liking. Instead I glued actual resin skulls over the top of the moulded ones. I then undercoated the whole sprues with GW brown spray. 
    Painting wise I just went over them fairly quickly, doing standard ground and metals. I used Blood for the Blood God mixed with nun oil in the cracks, and then added the GW tufts on the ground bits. The models themselves were just super glued in place. After this was done I had my first go at snowballing. I used the new Valhallan Blizzard paint from GW, which i just applied in scoops and brushed into piles and mounds. Its a very light paint so you can put it over the foliage and it looks like snow cover. One of the things that I have always found odd about snow on miniatures is how you apply it - do you do it all over the base, or is it just random melting clumps? I tried to do something in between, so once the whole thing had dried I got some Secret Weapon Mini crushed glass and  mixed it with water effects to create quite a runny mixture. I then painted this all over the snow and remaining base to make it sparkle and look more like a melted snow effect.
    I like how it has worked out, but I'd be interested in other peoples thoughts.  


  13. Stevewren

    Marauders of Tzeentch

    By Stevewren,

    For my Tzeentch force I need some foot troops. The cheapest battle line in the warriors army are Chaos Marauders at only 60 points for 10 models.
    However there are a couple of problems. Firstly, the models are really old, very poorly posed and they have a whole load of annoying mould lines. Secondly they are very much of the Old World frozen north aesthetic with the cloaks and beards. All the new Tzeentch models have a very different feel to them. So what is the solution? Clearly to do a ridiculous amount of conversion work on foot troops no one will pay any attention too! I decided that the basis of the conversion would be a box of Kairic Acolytes. I also had 15 of the silver tower Acolytes which add some variation. 

    The heads were taken from all the blood reavers that I had left over from the starter set that I haven't done anything with. I chose all the ones with helmets as I decided these guys would be trying to emulate the Acolytes by hiding their faces, but without the magic they had to settle for the normal versions. When I ran out of heads I started raising my bits box and was able to use some Maruader heads as well as taking a gamble that Space Marine heads would also look OK. 

    Weapons and shields came from the Tzangor kit as well as the Marauder kit. 

    Sticking everything together was pretty easy, but if you want to do this conversion then the neck needs some work as the acolyte heads kind of fit on the front. If you try and stick a normal head on then it looks down at the feet, so the neck area has to be cut and trimmed down, but its not overly complicated. 
    Painting was the usual Tzeentch base coat of brown, and all the armour this time is blue. As ever edging all the gold is the really time consuming stuff, but I have got 10 done so far out of the 30 that i need. 
    As always let me know what you think in the comments below.  

  14. Stevewren

    Tzangor Shaman

    By Stevewren,

    Earlier on I posted an image of the original Skyfire model I painted. I have finished the Shaman to go with them now as well. This was a super cool model to paint. Came together really quickly and I was really happy with it. I cut a few corners to speed up the painting so areas like the robes are just the undercoat with no touch ups, just a few edge highlights, and there are a lot of areas that are deliberately not painted (under the disc, underside of the robes etc. As this is a relatively quick gaming army I am trying not to get caught up on all the details, but I still want it to look neat and tidy. 
    One of the things I did was to paint the disc in sections this time which was an awful lot faster and easier than trying to paint them once they were all glued together. 
    I enjoyed using one of the Shattered Dominion Hero bases for it as well as I have a few still lying around. 
    I am most pleased with the feathers on this guy. I think they came out really well and hopefully it can be utilised on the Lord of Change which is up next...


     
     
     
     
     
     
  15. 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. 


  16. 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

  17. Stevewren

    Sky Fires

    By Stevewren,

    I had planned on taking the Sylvaneth to the South Coast GT this year and doing a display board to compete against Mat Lyons and Stev Foote for the Coolest Army award. However a couple of things have scuppered that plan. Firstly my wife gave birth to our second child and, despite us purchasing a nice little SUV for transportation, there is no way that we can get a display board, two children, an army and and a pram. Therefore I decided I could do a new army! Its February right? SCGT isn't till April! Thats loads of time....

    My list for the South Coast GT will hopefully be a Tzeentch army. I'm going to keep the exact build under wraps here for a bit (Sorry), but there were a few things I wanted to include. A lord of change is a must with the new model, and I also wanted to have some of the new Sky Fire models as everyone seems to be singing their praises. So I hopped onto the Element Games website and ordered a few boxes. 
    Now for some advice - paint the discs in pieces before gluing them together! This would have been soooooooo much easier and would have given me a better  result. I'll know for next time if I decide to add some of the Tzangor Enlightened. The Tzangors themselves, although they look complicated, actually go together pretty well and paint up fairly easily. I kept all the gold parts straight gold to save time, and I also checked out Vince Venturella's speed painting guide for doing Tzangors (relatively) quickly
    Here is the test model that I have done so far...

    You'll notice that the disc is horrendously the wrong colour. I did the discs first and get the colour tone all wrong. These should have been much paler or a completely different colour all together. The purple and blue do not work complement each other at all. Otherwise I am a fan of what I have done so far and I'm looking at the getting the next two done this week at some point so keep your eyes peeled. 
    Let me know what you think of them in the comments below. 

  18. Stevewren
    For each table at Warhammer Achievements I want to have a map on each table that shows the scenery rules and the secondary objective for that table. Here is the first example that I have put together. To set it up I laid out a board on the living room floor and then stood on the chair with a selfie stick to get the aerial shot. After that it was just a case of importing into photoshop and adding in all the rules and fancy graphics stuff to make it look professional. Hopefully the players will appreciate the work! 
    In the end it has taken 6 months to do all the tables and the maps, and its been a bit of a grind in places. However I am now very excited about getting the tables all laid out on the Friday of the event to see how it all looks.







     
  19. Stevewren
    I built Horticulux Slimux as soon as I got the Blight War box when it was released, but he's been undercoated and sat on the painting desk since then. However with the release of the excellent Maggotkin battletome I decided he should be the next model (no.31) in my painting challenge. I have to say that he has been fun to paint so far, but I have also spent more time on him than I expected to. I started off working on Horticulux himself. Normally I'd go for a dark green as he is supposed to be an old plague bearer, but I knew that I was going to paint Mulch quite dark so he needed to be a bit brighter to stand out. I used a base coat of Ogryn Camo for the highlights along with Palyd Wych Flesh. Once id done all the highlights I glazed the whole model with Waywatcher Green and then Lamentors Yellow which gives a really vibrant bright green. Because I'd done the zenithal prime I had a lot of the darker areas already done so I could just glaze and shade over these sections with dark green and purple glazes to get some depth into the recesses. Once I'd finished the skin I went in and quickly picked out the details on the bone, wood and the eyes (I left the pupils out as the GW one looks a bit bonkers with the pupil!)


    Once i'd finished the rider I started working around him with the rest of the details. One of the things that its important to be aware of on this model is that there are a lot of different elements, and it would be easy to get carried away and have everything painted in lots of colours. What I tried to do was keep the pallet of colours limited, but that then makes it hard to  get variation unless you vary the tone of the colours. I also wanted to play around with the finishes. I started with the shell which is a very dark purple that I made from black and Naggaroth nightshade. I then dry brushed up the details with straight Naggaroth and then added in some Palyd Which Flesh (PWF). once it was dry I could highlight the extreme points with PWF and then covered it with And Coat to get a shiny reflective effect. On the tree I worked purple into the brown so that it would tie in with the overall scheme as well. 
    That just left all the details around the tree (there are a lot!)
    All of these were either yellow (to match the eyes), purples or greens. The only bit I'm not sure with at the moment is the tongue in Audrey2 - the red may need to be glazed with more purple, or maybe repainted green. 
    I'll hopefully finish the painting this weekend, and I still need to add a base...

    Speaking of which I managed to make a start on this tonight. I had a large piece of play bark which I was going to use, but the curve on either side were too extreme for the model to fit on - Mulch is quite wide and has a very flat base. So i grabbed a saw and cut the piece in half so that I would have a large flat surface to position the model on. I superglued this onto the base and then added filler and a second piece. Once this was dry I sanded the base in sections and then left it in the drying cupboard for a few hours. Once the PVA had set I then superglued a selection of skulls under the lips of the rock to. I'm not sure what to do around the area where the plough will go. I think the plan might be to have natural vegetation and tufts towards the front of the base and then some more natural aquarium plants at the back where he has been plowing the earth. I also think that there could be some space for a fe Nurglings to go on the base in a few areas if I decide I have the time. 

    I had time the other evening to finish the model off. To keep the scheme going I used the same light green on the top half of Mulch. I did this fairly quickly using dry brushing and a bunch of washes. Once this was all dry I was able to go in and add some mottling to the skin. I then glazed in the green and yellow to get the bright green look. The bottom half was done in Kabalite Green, which I washed down with a lot of blacks and green shades. I picked out a few of the muscles quickly and then mottled the skin again. I like this technique because you can focus the patterns on the raised areas and it works as a highlight that draws in the eye. I then picked out the details of the mouth which was a fun job. 
    The base was painted separately. I sprayed it Rhinox Hide and Zandri Dust, then picked out the skulls. The whole thing then got drydrushed with Terminatus Stone before I picked out all the skull highlights. I then glazed these with some greens to tie it all together. I then applied all the tufts and grasses around the base to blend the whole model together. 
    Its been a fun model to paint and I hope you've enjoyed the write up. 



  20. Stevewren
    After my trip to Warhammer world for the AoS open day i was flicking through photos and came across this shot of the Ironweld Arsenal. 

    So inspired by this I have decided to start my own warmachine host. So far I have a mortar, a hell blaster volley fun and and Organ Gun with crew completed. 

  21. 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. 

     
  22. 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: 
     
  23. 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. 
     
  24. Stevewren

    Nurgle guy.

    By Stevewren,

    I've had a Maggoth Lord sitting on the desk for a while now and over the last few evenings I've been painting up a few armour panels at a time to try and get him completed. I'm looking at trying out different greens for all the armour plates and also use it as a good exercise for practising blending and such like. I've been using the loaded brush technique, with the greens rather than white at the moment and its kind of working, but I think it needs more practise. The blends between the shades are still looking pretty rough - you can easily pick out the boundaries between shades in places. I suspect that I need to work with my paint consistency a bit more as when Ben Kommets does it he uses a thicker white than the colour. Anyway, as I was short a blog post I thought these would do as a little WiP. 
     
     

  25. Stevewren
    I played my first game with the Sylvaneth recently against my friends Iron Jaws. I only took painted models for this game, so I was a little limited, but I could easily do the 2000 points we had decided on. We also played the comet scenario from the Generals Handbook. 
    My list consisted of: 
    Tree lord Ancient (Oaken Armor, an extra spell) Drycha (the spell that generates woods) Branchwych (regrowth) Branch wraith (Acorn of Ages, The Reaping Spell) Spirit of Durthu 3 x 10 Dryads 2 x 6 Kurnoth Hunters (Great Bows) Firstly the army felt small, although my opponents Ironjaws looked similar. He had: 
    Godrak Mega Boss Orc Shaman Warchanter 2 x 5 Brutes 2 x 10 Ardboyz 3 x Goregruntas Deployment: 

    Turn 1
    Pete went first and roared across the table. The move in the Hero phase that Destruction units get made the army super fast. Everything moved up and allowed Gordrak to attempt to charge, but he failed. In my turn I popped out a couple of woods and fired a few arcane bolts doing minimal damage. I ran Drycha up to attempt a turn one charge (which she failed - this was an error as you'll find out later). I moved the Kurnoth Hunters to allow them to shoot the Ardboyz on the right flank and the Spirit of Durthu moved into the Acorn of Ages Wood ready to charge Godrak. I thought that this was my chance to get him off with Durthus mighty sword. However I failed the charge (its important to note I also forgot the Spirit Paths rule that could have allowed Durthu to move and charge on the roll of a six). Still, there was the chance of the double turn....
    ...which I didn't get
    Turn 2

    When Pete measured for his spells Drycha was in range for Foot of Gork, which Pete got off due to the proximity of being near orcs and some arcane scenery. He promptly stomped Drycha three times and killed her dead. Gordrak tore into the son of Durthu, bellowed at him for 5 wounds, and then killed him easily with the attacks that multiply out to D3 on a 6 vs monsters, heroes and wizards. He also charged the Kurnoth Hunters. The comet came down in the square on my right flank which was good as it was uncontested, meaning I had a shot to get it with the dryads or the hunters if they could finish off the units they were fighting. He also charged my ancient who killed a Brute whilst taking two wounds in return.

    In my turn I found that I couldn't escape from the Brutes with the Ancient due to the rule of being 9" away from models. This has been an issue in all my games with the Sylvaneth since AoS dropped - its really hard to move around if your opponent pops a model or two in the middle of a wood. The new rules allowing up to three woods to count will help, but then it becomes very difficult to place them. Anyhow, I'm digressing from the game, which was spiralling out of control fast! The Treelord missed with all his attacks (standard fare), and the Kurnoth Hunters did minimal damage with the bows. The Dryads failed their mystical terrain test for the second turn in a row and got wiped out. The unit in the centre stood and moved to contest the comet the had landed in the middle of my lines. The Branch wraith and Branchwych took up station to try and stop Godrak charging the ancient, knowing full well they were being sacrificed for the greater good! 
    Turn 3

    I lost the dice roll for turn three, but we were still drawing at this stage. The orcs continued to pour forwards. Gordrak went into the Branchwych, killed her and then charged again into the Branchwraith and killed her too. I was pretty sure Pete could have got into the Ancient, but I think at this point he was easing off the gas and didn't do it. This didn't matter as the Ancient went down to the two units of Brutes. I had successfully failed 12 3+ armour saves over 4 rounds of combat. This is a solid effort, even by my standards. The gore gruntas finally removed  one unit of Kurnoth Hunters, and the Megaboss got into combat with the others to help out the Ardboyz. The Hunters had proved to be surprisingly resilient with the preroll on the saves, which made up for the fact they couldn't hit a barn door with their shooting! 

    Turn 4
    Turn 4 I lost the roll off again and the Gore Gruntas claimed the objective on Petes side of the board. Gordrak smashed my Dryads in the centre allowing him to claim that too. With only a Kurnoth Hunter and 10 Dryads left we called the game. The Ironjaws had been victorious! 

    Conclusions
    1. Man, I could not roll dice today! However I also forgot a lot of rules and I'm not sure I considered my army combos well enough. By my own admission I've spent a lot more time painting than I have reading the rules! 
    2. Kurnoth Hunters were very resilient, and would have been better with hand weapons in this game. Saying that I think that the bows are still a good option. 
    3. I'm not sure what I could have done against Gordrak other than run away and arcane bolt him. He was horrendously destructive. The fight with Durthu would have been better if I had remembered the rules and I think there may be ways to get him closer and make the charge more viable. I also played Drycha wrong. She would have been better being held back, although I didn't realise the potential of Foot of Gork. This meant I had lost my two best combat pieces before my second turn which really left me on the back foot. 
    Overall there are a lot of things I learnt. Hopefully we'll get a game in next week and I can try out a few more things. 
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