A-Haunting We Will go... My Nighthaunt Warcry Warband

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

This week, I thought I'd show you my Nighthaunt warband for Warcry. Along with Kill Team, Warcry is one of my favourite games at the moment and, up until recently, I was playing it at least once a fortnight with a group of friends. I've even managed to get The Better Half to give it a go.* Like Kill Team, it's a game that's quick and easy to learn, with no complicated rules to get bogged down in. Warbands are typically less than a dozen miniatures and games take no more than 90 minutes or so to play. The fact that almost every faction in the Age of Sigmar universe has warband rules (some with multiple warbands available) and each warband has a wide choice of models to choose from makes it ideal for a hobby butterfly (like me) or someone who has access to only a few models for any given faction. It's easy to put together a viable warband from a few cheap Ebay purchases. I have had a few warbands planned for years, mostly making use of models that I already had kicking around, and the Nighthaunt was the first one that I got around to assembling as a viable force. I had loads of models to choose from, as I had collected quite a few from the Mortal Realms partwork, so I chose what I considered to be a good mix of lightweight cheap troops, medium-strength troops, and a couple of real heavy hitters. 

Having assembled my force (and given them a name- Lord Balowskyr's Retinue) I used a few test models to create a paint scheme which meant I could get the warband painted and ready in double-quick time. Here it is:

1. Spray with Grey Seer, then a zenithal overspray of Corax White

2. Then an all-over wash of a mix of Nihalikh Oxide/Hexwraith Flame/Athonian Camoshade.

3. Add in some Dark Angels Green into the previous mix and apply this in a pin wash, just around the deepest recesses, and where the different layers of cloak meet. Also apply this mix on the hands, blending it out up the arms.

4. Apply a wetbrush stipple of Grey Seer.

5. Paint all the details: 

Metal: Leadbelcher; Brass: Runelord Brass; Wood: Gorthor Brown; Leather: Mournfang Brown; Copper: Vallejo Copper; Gravestones: Mechanicus Standard Grey followed by Administratum Grey; Bone: Ushabti Bone followed by Screaming Skull. Then wash all of these areas with a mix of Agrax Earthshade, Athonian Camoshade and Nuln Oil.

6. Using a very soft brush, apply a light drybrush of Grey Seer followed by White Scar.

7. Blend Tesseract Glow around where the ghost form meets the base. 

8. Use the mix from step 3 and apply it to the tips of any ghostly flames. 

9. For the bases, I first applied some Stirland Battlemire, whish was drybrushed with Mournfang Brown then XV-88. I then applied Leaf Litter from Javis, stuck down with PVA glue. When the glue was dry, I sprayed the whole model with gloss varnish, then a spray of matt varnish. I then drybrushed Grey Seer around where the model met the base. Once all that was dry, I washed the base with Agrax Earthshade, then added Nuln Oil wet in wet around edges. And here's how they turned out:**

Lord Balowskyr, Knight of Shrouds	Lady Natasha, Guardian of Souls	The Brothers
Gwen, Edwin and Rikard	Nell, Vyvian, Mhikal

And, if you'd prefer that information in an easier format, here it is- my first one-sheet painting guide*** 

Since I started playing with them, they've fared quite well, I've won a few and lost a few. The playing style for them takes some getting used to, as they're fragile on the battlefield, but have some useful abilities, but they're good fun to play with. The next warband I need to do is to finish painting the Skaven one for The Better Half, that I started months ago****. After that, who knows? I've got miniatures for at least half a dozen other warbands, and a Stormcast Eternals one that is already half-painted (which I started for some other long-forgotten project.) To be honest, I'd happily paint up one of each of all the available warbands, there's so much character in each one. Trouble is, I'd also like to do the same with Blood Bowl, Underworlds, Necromunda...

Thanks for reading!

p.s. if you like what I'm doing here, a click on the link below and the donation of the price of a pot of paint would be a wonderful gesture. I'm thinking of adding special stuff to the Ko-fi, like competitions and prize draws, so it'd be a good idea to at least have a look there now and then 😁 

*True to form, she beat me. She beats me at every game we play...

**A gold star if you can identify the inspiration for their names...

***I realise I'm far from the first to do this idea, but I love a good bandwagon...

****She's very patient...

A Tale Of Two Kill Teams: Necron Tomb World And Heirotek Circle

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

Today I'm going to talk about my Necrons. Ever since I started collecting the Warhammer 40,000: Conquest magazine a couple of years ago, I'd been working on my Death Guard as my main 40k army. However, having amassed roughly 3,000 points worth, I got about half of them assembled and a few of them painted and...then not a lot happened, which continued to happen for quite a while. The army got quietly abandoned and have remained in a partially done state ever since, tucked away in a box. They've been there so long, in fact, that the follow-up to Conquest, Mortal Realms came and went, and another 40k partwork, Imperium, had begun. The bad guys this time were Necrons. 

Hmmm...

Around the time Imperium began, a couple of friends started making noises about starting up some games of Kill Team, and I thought this was the perfect opportunity to do something with the Necrons. I figured, if I just put together a Kill Team, I'd avoid getting bogged down with the idea of putting together a whole army, like I had with the Death Guard. Also, if I didn't enjoy putting together and painting the Kill Team then I could sell on the rest of the Necrons from Imperium and try something else. With all that in mind, I designed a Kill Team using the miniatures that had come with the first few issues of the magazine and found I could easily put together the required amount of points.

Then GW released a new edition of Kill Team, with an entirely new method of force creation...

No problem. the miniatures I had worked out perfectly** to make a decent roster based on the Tomb World force from the compendium that I could select my Kill Teams from. I put together fire teams of Warriors, Flayed Ones and Immortals, using the Royal Warden as an Immortal Leader. I worked out a nice quick and easy way to paint them, and got them done in time to start playing some games with them! 

This was more like it- instead of having an army that was half finished* here I was with a fully-playable force, fully painted! Okay, so it was only just over a dozen models but that wasn't the point. It changed my whole outlook on the hobby and I vowed that I would never get bogged down in a huge project again. From now on, skirmish forces were the way to go** It's an important thing to note when painting for the tabletop and for your own collection (and a lesson it's taken me a long time to learn) that there's a balance to be struck between the time you want to spend on the models and the level of finish you want to achieve. I've always been a painter first and a gamer second, and the urge is always going to be to paint everything to the highest level but I know that, even for only a handful of models, that's just not practical if I: a) want to ever get them finished; b) want to be able to play actual games with them, with the potential for them to get broken, worn, chipped... So, the aim is always going to be to get them good enough for me to be satisfied without spending hours and hours on them.

Skip forward a few months and, having played a few games with the force (with a fairly even rate of wins/losses) the Tomb World list gets supplanted by a bespoke list from the Shadowvault boxed set: the Heirotek Circle. I managed to secure myself the upgrade sprue for a bargain price on Ebay and, once again, I had a new Necron force to paint up. This time, I wanted to try something a little different, colour-scheme wise, and I initially played around with a sort of pale, off-white, but they unded up looking too close to my Nighthaunt Warcry warband***  I saw some miniatures online (I think they were some of the new Squats) that were painted a dark teal with a dark red shade**** and that lead me to develop the paint scheme I went with. These ones took me a little longer to get around to getting finished but, in terms of paint time on individual models, they were really quick and easy to do, yet looked good enough to satisfy my aesthetic desires. 

Fast-forward a few months again and our Kill team campaign is drawing to a fiery and dramatic conclusion. I've won a few games, lost a few and drawn a few, and had a lot of fun along the way (always the most important thing) and it's been really nice to be able to play with a mostly fully-painted force. So, where do we go from here with the Necrons? Well, when our Kill Team campaign does come to an end, I'll most likely be retiring the Kill Teams and sticking them on a shelf, where they'll sit as a proud reminder that I can sometimes finish one of my own projects and act as an inspiration for more. I have many more Kill Teams I want to have a go with and I want to shift my attention to them. I'm not completely done with the old undead robots yet, though. I have all the models I need to be able to put together a full Combat Patrol set, and a couple of the guys in my gaming group are twitching to have a go at that format for a few games after the Kill Team campaign is done. I know a change from Necrons would be nice, but it'd also be nice to have one last hurrah with them before moving on. All that remains is to decide how I'm going to paint them: do I go with the colour scheme from the Tomb World Kill Team, or the one I used for the Heirotek Circle, or something completely different? 

As for the Death Guard, well, I don't think they'll stay tucked away in a box forever...

Watch this space...

Thanks for reading!

Stu

p.s. if you like what I'm doing here, a click on the link below and the donation of the price of a pot of paint would be a wonderful gesture. I'm thinking of adding special stuff to the Ko-fi, like competitions and prize draws, so it'd be a good idea to at least have a look there now and then 😁 

*and that's being very generous. Half-started would be more like the truth...

**up until Warhammer: The Old World came along...

***I must remember to show these at some point

****I wish I could remember who did them, so I could thank and credit them for the inspiration

Warhammer The Old World: Choices, Choices...

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone!

So, Warhammer: The Old World is finally here (look at that logo-I love the colours used...) I've been eagerly anticipating this release since it was first tentatively announced years ago* and it looks like they've knocked it out of the park. I'm not one of those that have moaned ad infinitum about the death of the old Warhammer Fantasy, and the creation of Age Of Sigmar- I understand completely the reasons behind that decision and I really enjoy the new setting and the game(s) set within it but there's no doubt I have a soft spot for the old Warhammer world and all that was created for it. After all, I worked at the design studio during one of the best times in Warhammer history, when a lot of what is now taken as long-established lore, design and style was nailed down. Whether you prefer the relatively realistic, roleplay-heavy stylings of the very early days, the bright, primary colours and cartoony, heroic aspects of the 90s, the more grimdark version that emerged in the 00s, or the epic, bombastic nature of the last incarnation, Warhammer Fantasy had a rich and vibrant history and it was a shame to see it go. I'm very glad to see it return and I'm very much looking forward to where they go with it.

The initial releases of Tomb Kings and Bretonnians have a fantastic mix of old and new models in plastic, resin and even metal! It makes me wish I hadn't sold off my skeleton chariots a few years ago- there's a lesson here: miniatures are like cables, as soon as you've got rid of them, you'll find you needed them...Still, even if my Tomb Kings now only amount to one Warsphinx (which I'm saving for a special paint job- there's no way I'm going to go tabletop-ready on one of my all-time favourite miniatures) and a bucketload of plastic skeleton horses (maybe an entirely cavalry army one day...?) I know I've got a plethora** of other old Warhammer miniatures to choose from. After much rummaging and sorting I discovered I have the High Elf half of Island of Blood, most of the 6th edition starter set Orcs and Empire, and a load of Goblins from Battle For Skull Pass. None of these are really enough to make solid armies from, although that could drastically change when the starter army boxes for these are released later down the line. Thanks to the generosity of Nic Sinton, an old friend, I have a substantial collection of metal Empire centrepiece models like the War Alter and War Wagon but, like with the Warsphinx , I'd kinda like to do showcase paintjobs on these pieces and I don't really have any units to speak of anyway. Similarly, I have a small force of Chaos Dwarfs and Hobgoblins (again, thanks Nic!) but it's not enough to make a playable army (even though I'm itching to paint them up) and, as they aren't going to be one of the supported armies (at least for the forseeable future) filling in the gaps is going to be prohibitively expensive and thus completely out of the question, so they may have to be a more skirmish-sized force that I do later down the line, or maybe I'll save them for a showcase at some point***.

Which leaves me with the Dwarfs (an army with which I have a deep affinity, for some reason) of which I have a sizeable chunk: A Runelord, 2 Lords, a Battle Standard Bearer, 2 units of 20 Warriors, 2 units of 10 Handgunners, 20 Miners, 16 Quarellers, 5 Hammerers, 5 Longbeards and 2 Cannons with crew. I reckon that's a pretty goodly-sized army. All it needs is another box of Hammerers/Longbeards to fill out the units and I reckon that'd be perfect. Of course, I'd need to see the rulebook for the proper points but I reckon that'll  be enough to be going along with, and I'll be really interested to see what new and old stuff gets released when it's their turn.

About 10 years ago, I painted one of them up as a test for an army that never happened, and here he is and, y'know, I don't think he looks too bad. 

Unfortunately, either I didn't write down my process for him, or it's got lost in the mists of time, so I've had to have another go...

I reckon that's good enough for any tabletop, and I like the way he looks on the larger base (although I might go with the Rhinox Hide instead of black...) as it enables me to go with an "island" base style, which I've always rather liked. An hour from bare plastic to ready to photograph is an ideal amount of time when I've got to paint up to 150 of the little buggers, too! Painting this one has really got my juices flowing as well, and I'm super-stoked to start a project in a way I haven't been for a long time. It's serendipitous, and fits in with my thoughts of making a bit of a fresh start that I touched upon in last week's post. I've never done a New Year New Army before but this feels like the perfect time to embark on such a thing. I did try to order a copy of the Forces Of Fantasy book but my FLGS has informed me (as I was writing this) that they can't get hold of a copy, so I'm going to have to wait a while to be able to get my army list finalised properly. In the meantime, I've got a lot of prepping and basing to do. After all, I doubt very much whether the basis of a Dwarf army has changed much...  

I've never had a complete Warhammer Fantasy army before so, by hook, crook or anvil, I'm going to have one. It's going to be complete, game-legal and fully painted. I hope I'll one day get to play a game with it but, frankly, that's by the by. I just want to have a fully painted Warhammer fantasy army. Every home should have one. Ideally, I'd like to have all that I've currently got painted and ready to go by the time that they get around to releasing anything new (or re-releasing some of the old stuff) but I realise that's probably unlikely. I am going to make the promise to myself that I am not going to buy anything new for the army until I've got all my existing stuff ready and painted. Honest. 

By the way, if you want all the most up to date news on The Old World, the official website is right HERE and, of course, you can buy all your square-based need at the Warhammer website (when they come back in stock...)

I'm gonna paint me an army! 

Thanks for reading!

Stu

p.s. if you like what I'm doing here, a click on the link below and the donation of the price of a pot of paint would be a wonderful gesture. I'm thinking of adding special stuff to the Ko-fi, like competitions and prize draws, so it'd be a good idea to at least have a look there now and then 😁 

*I even set up the first Facebook page dedicated to it, almost as soon as it was announced, but the less said about that, the better

**a whole plethora, not just a half-plethora.

***maybe even an Armies On Parade entry- could that even happen one day...?

****Although, as I write this article, I've just been informed by my FLGS that they can't get hold of a copy for me.