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Building a Dwarf Army for Warhammer: The Old World

Hello and welcome back!

A while ago I procured a small box of dwarfs, more specifically, the massive battalion box that GW released for Warhammer: The old World. And a king and thane box. And a cannon box. And some 3D sculpts. Yeesh!

Funnily I got inspired by all the nice armies on reddit on r/bugmansbrewery and posted a few pictures there. These pictures are now my most upvoted post on reddit!

The Dwarfs are one of my favorite factions, along with The Empire and Bretonnia, so this was quite the no-brainer to get. I also got the fantastic King and Thane box, and managed to snag a box of cannons as well.

What you can build with this is quite spectacular. It comes with 64 infantry models (32 melee, 32 ranged) that can in my opinion be built interchangeably with another without much greenstuff. Additionally, some models on the sprue have a cloak sculpted on the miniature, and thus can be used to model one of the best units in the Dwarf range; the ranger.

This box has also another great unit up their sleeve. The Gyrocopter/Gyrobomber is a dual kit that can make either of the units. The current consensus of the rules is that the smaller cheaper Gyrocopter is far superior, but this might change in the future with rules changes or a new edition.

I have also made some 3D printed additions to the army. The Hammerers block and my Irondrakes are wholly 3D printed. Out of scale to boot. Really measure twice kids when doing this kind of stuff. At least it does not show up too much when playing, as they are a bit offset with a lower profile base.

Painting

This army is quite special to me, as I did not use any kind of washes or speedpaints. Instead I opted to use my Scalecolor 75 paints that I got in a used haul on the local marketplace. And boy do I like them.

If you like I can give you the paint recipe, as writing it all would take some time. If you find anything that pique your interest, do comment and I can tell you the specifics.

Army composition

The boxes where constructed as follows:

10 Rangers;
made from the models sculpted with a cloak and arming the with the crossbows from the quarreler sprue. On their back they have Great weapons, because why not.

16 Thunderers;
2 units of 8 with full command, one musican is from their own set and the other from the dwarf warrior sprue. This gives a little bit of variation in the unit.

16 Dwarf warriors;
Modeled with the Great weapons for that little bit of combat Oompf. As they will most often be charged and strike last in the combat anyway, the Great Weapons give them a healthy bit of AP and Strength to give the enemy a serious case of open bleeding, fatal wounds.

2 Gyrocopters;
A great cheap unit, and the fastest one in the roster, it can Fire and flee to increase its survivability and screen the rest of the line. Can also go aggressively and hunt spell-casters. Remember to make helicopter noises when they move and charge!

1 Thane/ king;
Standard Thane/king with shield. Nothing fancy.

1 King/thane;
The Shieldbearers give a chunk of Wounds and Attacks, so a recommended choice for the noble King/Thane indeed.

2 Organ guns / cannons;
The Guns are not glued together and can be assembled as either. The cannons seem to be the better choice, but it might change.

1 Thane and 1 Engineer;
The additional thane is for splitting the warriors in two groups if need be, or if I need another character on the board. The Engineer is Kitbashed together from a warrior body, quarreler pistol and mask and wrench from the cannon crew. Gives boons to the cannons and can be upgraded to multiple shots 2 and 2D3 hits on them. The Thane is considered to be a better platform for this with one better ballistic skill but is 10p more.

24 hammeres;
3D printed too big, and as such they are quite unwieldy to base and align. These are a Dakkadakka sculpt with quite a bit of modifications made by me. The Hammers on the original sculpt were too big, so only my champion wields one of them.

10 Iron Drakes;
2 units of 5 with only a champion to get the trollhammer torpedo. Again Dakkadakka body with a lot of modifications. I didn’t like their flamethrower so found a skyhook on Thingverse and modeled it to my liking. The only bummer is that I should have made them smaller and opted for the rounded helm for them all to make them stand out more to the Hammerers.

This leaves me with about 20 of spare bodies on sprue to still be able to modify the composition further as the need arise. Not bad!

Points

That’s a lot of models, but how many points is there?

Well! This clocks in at 2118p with modeled weapon choices. And funnily enough for a 2000p game, This is not enough points for the CORE requirement, by 3 points. But who takes core without shields?

All in all with Banners, runes, equipment and drilled & veterans rules this should be more than enough to go to 2500p at least.

Quite The exiting army I must say!

Which unit did you like best?

Until next time!
Cheers!

-Marc

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Ghosts of last year

I’ve been a bit lazy on uploading, not gonna lie. 2190 points of Nighthaunt to be specific.

This was the fastest I have ever painted an army. The majority was painted with speedpaints, the most prominent were Aethermatic Blue and black templar. This was used on more than 80% of all the models.

Also note, these models are really flimsy, so take heed when assembling them. Or do it like me and buy most of them second hand so you don’t need to. Really wish someone else would have had to assemble those spirit hosts tho..

PAINT

As usual, a lot of speedpaints were used:

Aethermatic blue -> White Drybrush
Black templar -> white Drybrush
Hexwraith flame -> White Drybrush -> Zealot yellow
Deepkin flesh -> Camoshade -> Deepkin Flesh
Black metal SC75 -> Fleshshade -> Mars orange SC-39 as rust
Decayed metal SC-87 -> Fleshshade -> True copper SC-88
Neutral Grey AK11018 -> Camoshade -> Drake Thooth

CHAINGASTS

Starting off with the basic ghost, the endless hordes of chainrasps. These suckers will tarpit the enemy so long, their hair will turn grey. Individually weak with a statline to match, they only cost 200 points reinforced with a 6+ ward included.

1 model seems to have made like a ghost and disappeared. Oh the IRONY!

MYRMOURN BANSHEES

The myrmourn banshees are a mixed bag, with a point cost of 120p and 240p reinforced. For this you get an reaction ability that gives the myrmourns the chance of dispelling an opponent spell targeting other Nighthaunt units, and doing D3 mortals if successful. Really niche, not really something that’ll happen often. But if you managed to snipe 3 mortals on a wizard, it’ll sting.

GRIMGHAST REAPERS

Grimghast reapers are a unit specialized in combating larger infantry blobs, getting an anti-infantry rend +1, and the combat passive critting on 5+ against units with 5 or more models. Their crit is just auto-wound, and this ability would have been better if it was crit-mortal, but still better than nothing.

GLAIVEWRAITH STALKERS

Glaivewraith stalkers are one of the first, if not the first warhammer models I painted, so I remember them fondly. These four guys are a cruise missile you point at a target and fire away, getting a longer chargeroll and having +1 damage when charging. In my only game with them, I targeted my friends Loonshrine, and he was not happy to relegate a unit of trolls to defend it when they came-a-knocking.

BLADEGHEIST REVENANTS

These guys are pretty generalist guys, having a pretty decent statline overall. good attacks, 3 to hit and wound with 1 rend and 1 damage. If they charged, they get an additional attack. Good Stuff for the low price of 180p.

SPIRIT HOSTS

First of I’m gonna echo the popular internet sentiment of these guys. They are a PAIN to build. The guy that designed these should look himself in the mirror and contemplate his actions and apologize to everyone that had to build them.

Onward,

6 attacks with 4 & 4:s, no rend and damage 1. This is not gonna do much unless you roll lucky and your opponent roll bad. Really really bad. Doing 2-5 wound against a normal 5+ save isn’t gonna win you the slugging match. Going to hero 3+ save and +6 ward i sgoing to give you 0-3 damage 68,5% of the time, so don’t.

What these are useful for is the +4 ward they grant heroes. So just babysit them with these.

CAIRN WRAITH

A fun little guy that just wanna chill with his friends the Grimgast Reapers. This will give the Reapers a nice 1+ attack in combat with him, making them even better at blending the infantry blobs they should be wrecking.

Also he’s no slouch in combat himself, 6 attacks, 4 & 3 with 1 rend and 2 Damage is gonna hurt when paired with his reaper friends. Just stay away from good save characters.

SPIRIT TORMENT

Quite a useless guy. one less attack than the Cairn wraith, and his ability gives you 3 additional D6 rally rolls. Yeah no, not gonna take him I guess.

Guardian Of Souls

My stand in for the Knight of Shrouds model for making this work as Spearhead army, this guy is a weakling statwize. only 3 attacks is going to get you nowhere.

But,

His Ability gives a 1+ to wound on Grimghasts, and on a charge they will wound on 3+. So 40 attacks with a 3 & 3 might start dealing some damage while you tarpit something. And guess who has 2 reinforced squads at his disposal? Realistically speaking, this is not always gonna swing a game in your favor, but you newer know.

LORD EXECUTIONER

Finally something that can make a dent into those pesky good save Heroes! This guy is a dedicated anti hero, getting 1+ to his already decent 2 rend characteristic. He is also able to subtract 1 from the enemy units attack characteristic, with the benefit of reducing Hero character control score by 5.

LADY OLYNDER

Finally, the Great lady herself. She has a good ranged attack, but her melee offense is abysmal. She reduces control score by 3 in a 12 inch bubble, and can basically dispel a unit to have no positive modifiers for the rest of the turn.

She also has a really good heal ability, that can return D3+3 models to all units on the board. All my bigger units have models with a health of 1, so this means I could get up to 43 units back is I would roll only 3s.. but that would be too phenomenal

I really hope I get more games in, but I’m starting to have too many armies and too many different games to play nowadays.

On the paint side, I got a GREAT haul of Scalecolor 75 paints, and I have been really blown away with them. One of the reasons why my posting on the blog has been a bit lackluster of late is, quite frankly, because I have had so much fun painting with them!

So much I can spoil, that my dwarf army is complete, my khorn army is almost complete and my stormcast army is underway.

So Pretty soon I hope I’ll post again!

Cheers!

-Marc

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The bad skincare dudes

Hello and long time no see!

The painting continues on, this time around scary models has been painted! First up the bespoke Warcry warband; The Unmade.

This team is a bespoke chaos aligned warband, which should not come to anyone’s surprise as the guys practice self-mutilation and wears their faces as fashion accessories.

The box come with 9 bodies, with only one unit being able to be assembled in a different configuration.

The warband is led by a unit called a Blissful one. The statline on him is quite good, don’t be fooled by the stilts as this unit has a whopping 8 movement. Damage is decent, though I feel that he is somewhat over costed for what he does.

This units ability for a triple gives him an extra move, and then an extra attack action. This unfortunately is only able to be used IF this unit has taken down an opposing unit, making it situational at best.

The next expensive unit is called a Joyous one. This unit has an ability where he allocates a lot of wounds to multiple targets. On a roll of 3-4 he allocates 1 wound, but on a 5+ he allocates wounds based on the dice used. Divebomb him into a pile and watch your opponents units melt. If you roll good that is.

This unit is what mini-me is to doctor Evil, a lesser copy of the original. Losing 1 movment and 5 HP, this units ability is also a lesser copy, only being able to target one unit, and dealing 1 damage on a roll of 3-4 and damage equal to the ability on a roll of 5+. This only cost a Double though, so a more affordable unit both on points and ability dice.

And at last, this warband has the option to use two different chaff units. One armed with a polearm, and the second with a flail. An interesting choice was made here, as both units have a long range weapon.

These units are in my opinion well designed as chaff though. Their longer range makes up for the movent decrease versus the more costly models, keeping them in range do to damage and not fall behind and be useless. The Warband ablility makes the unit attacking them hurt themselves when hitting and critting them, and them being only a T3 unit, this is quite welcome to be able to do even some damage back on the attacker.

The real kicker is their ability Nightmarish Visage; this ability has the chance to completely stop an opposing unit, making it unable to move or disengage for the whole turn on a 3+, for a Double. This is quite huge, as movement stopping abilities in a objective focused game can quite literally make or break a game.

The feeling when stopping a Terrorgheist or a treasure carrier with a little 65 point model would make any players blood boil.

This team has a lot of finesse to play, and as such, I obviously have not had much success with this team. The amount of planning going into each turn to keep them alive is quite daunting, and I seem to be able to yahoo my expensive models into situations that kills them quite frequently.

As all bespoke chaos warbands, the units stats, looks and abilities are all thematically top notch. In my opinion this is the peak Warcry warband, although they may not be the strongest team on the table.

Until next time!

Cheers!

-Marc

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Warcry: Vulkyn Flameseekers

Hello dear readers!

First and foremost, Happy Independence day!

Secondly, Vulkyn Flameseekers!

This box comes with 9 miniatures which 6 can be built with either a Fyresteel splitaxe or Bokaz. The big difference between the two are that the Fyresteel splitaxe has better strength and the Bokaz better crit damage. Interestingly most fighters in the warband has access to an 8 inch ranged attack (throwing axes?) mitigating some of the slowness of the warband.

WEAPONS

Weapon profile: Scalebreakers

GFyresteel splitaxe: R2 A3 S5 D 2/4

Bokaz: R2 A3 S4 D2/5

So the Fyresteel splitaxe tend to get the hits in, and the Bokaz does the damage when critting. Both are great in my opinion, but I still need to test it out in the glorious field of battle.

BUT!

This is not the case for the Vulkyn Runefather, here the bokaz has better strength and damage! It costs 5 points more, but still interesting to see that the stats flip for the hero model.

Weapon Profile: Vulkyn Runefather

Fyresteel splitaxe: R2 A4 S4 D2/4

Bokaz: R2 A3 S5 D2/5

[double] Ignite Weapons is used to great effect, turning 1 miss into a crit instead. Most effective to make damage stick with the Bokaz armed Runefather.

SPEED

Being dwarves, their speed are a measly 3 inches, on par with the Ironjaws and Cities of sigmar dwarwes. Only the monster of the warband, the kyndledroth has a speed of 4, but this warband relies a lot on their abilities to propel the warband forward.

[double] Blazing Impetus: Really a dangerous ability to catch an opponent by surprise. This makes a dwarf move one extra move (or bonus disengage) for a total of 9 inch movement in its turn.

[triple] Creed of Flame: uses the Drothmaster (wipguy) to propel a fighter outside of 6 inch bubble around him to make the fighter make 2 bonus move actions (2 bonus move actions and a free attack action for the kyndledroth)

An interesting warband for sure, meshing a +1/2 Strenght ironbreaker baseline stat range with a 2 inch weapon profile and a 8 inch ranged attack for 50% cost increase.

The models are fantastic, only gripe was that I could not find a good place for magnets, so magnetizing the weapon options was a no-go this time (probably quite good, my questor soulsworn still aren’t painted..)

Thanks for reading this little piece, and hope to see you soon again.

-Marc

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Star wars 3D(printing)

Hey and welcome back!

Lately I have been really itching to get some vehicle action into my games of Star Wars Legion, but the cost of miniatures in Finland has been prohibiting, and during this recession we’re in, the prices have become astronomical! (looking at you Fantasiapelit)

Well, I did what a cheapskate 3D printer owner would do, and found some decent looking star wars files on thingiverse, and started tinkering.

First off, as my CIS forces are severely lacking, so I got a Spider droid.

Looks pretty close to the real deal, biggest difference is the dome that is completely spherical, as the official models have some indents giving it a more detailed appearance.

Link to the model : https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4342293

And as to why I didn’t use my own model that is uploaded to thingiverse, well this is much better. (and mine is 4 years old already) And this file has additional legs to be able to make the model dynamic!

Next up, some love for the imps!

An Imperial players collection should never be without one of the most Iconic thing from star wars, The AT-ST!

This was akin to building the B1 droids; super fiddly, tons of super glue and heaps of frustration! The glue didn’t set completely and the pieces kept coming apart, so after a while I settled for a bit of an downwards tilting pose.

Link to the file: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:24451. Pleas note, that to get it to Legion scale, print it at 65%!

This is also the first time I see how bad my picture setup is. My model in real life is dark blue-grey, and in the photos it’s light grey… I really need to order one of those photo boot things from ebay.

As you can see, 3D printing makes some sense when your are trying to save a buck on models, but remember that these are not as detailed as the official models, and aren’t tournament legal. Always check with your opponent if it’s okay to bring them to your games. As such these should only be used in your games with your friends.

Until next time!

Cheers!

-Marc

Exploring the New Edition of MESBG, Gondor Style

Hello and welcome back after a small hiatus!

I’ve been using my hobby time to actually play more than hobby. So that’s a big plus!

Responding to a post on facebook, I made a new friend and a welcomed new member of our small gaming community. In the post he was asking if anybody was interested in learning the Games workshop game set in the Tolkien universe; Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. Or MESBG for short.

I know, the name is a bit much and quite frankly, old school. The game on the other side, just got a brand spanking new edition and boy have we been playing!

Well, on to the hobby side of the post.

I was incredibly lucky to have rescued a few MESBG over the years, and have barely painted them at all. This new opportunity to paint for a game gave me a drive I have rarely seen, as I now have amassed quite a lot of models, and I am still in the process of getting more commander models so I get more points on the table.

Also, I have not been slouching in the painting department.

First up, the man himself. Gandalf the white is a capable spellcaster, and in this edition and he can also dish out the pain with his sword Glamdring.

Sweet baby Frodo, just look at those special rules.

Not quite useless, but barely useful as extra Will, Fate and might points if mounted with Gandalf on Shadowfax. Only useful on foot if you really need to tag an objective as you quite literally, can throw him off the horse , or if you are running a fluffy list.

With that statline, just use him as a battery. Remember, you can throw stones with him as a shooting attack, in case you feel lucky.

Gondor Knight are the cavalry of gondor, fast and gets an additional die when they charge. Unfortunately as all cavalry, if they get charged, no extra dice for you. Also the horse can be shot out from under you, so take care lest your mighty charge suffer the same fate as a certain younger brother…

Lance is always good, as it gives your charge a bit of more oompf in combat. Shieldwall only applies when he has been de-horsed.

The meat and bone of a Gondor list, the humble warrior. Can be kitted with shields and either swords or spears. Forget about the bow, it’s not worth it. Really. There are better ways to spend the points than bow warriors. Has the Shieldwall special rule that makes them Defence 7 if in base-to-base with two other shield wielding units with the keyword, but this is mostly for one round, as the fights scatter you troops about and they lose contact with each-other.

Baseline warrior, don’t let the D 5 fool you. Your pretty much required to take a shield (no bows!) so his D value is 6. Unless you take a banner. You need one of those in this edition as banners can count for points in quite a few of the scenarios.

The sneaky ranger comes with either bow or bow and spear. This unit is the reason you should not take a normal warrior with bow, as his guy has a better SV (shooting) value, for cheaper points. Quite capable in melee with FV (fight) Value of 4, the only lacking aspect is the D (defence) Value of 4.

Best used in the GARRISON OF ITHILIEN list, as the special rule grants a 50% bow limit for the warband, instead of the normal 33%. Also quite capable in a REALMS OF MEN list as a cheap and good archer.

For all the bells and whistles this new edition of MESBG comes with, is does have its downsides. The different warbands that you can build your armies around, most often needs a named hero to lead it as a requirement. This means that to run my rangers as an army, I would need to find and buy a Faramir, Captain of Gondor, model from somewhere.

Currently I can play the list ATOP THE WALL, with Gandalf as the main hero, enabling me to use all the special rules for the ATOP THE WALL armylist. or the REALMS OF MEN army, which only has generic commanders and NO special army rules outside of the normal unit recruitment limitations.

If you are interested in starting to play MESBG, I really recommend picking up a starter box to get all the commanders you need to play one of the armies of your choice.

For example: https://www.warhammer.com/en-GB/shop/minas-tirith-battlehost-2022

This is the Minas Tirith battlehost box. It gives you the basic units to play an ATOP THE WALLS army list, as this contains the special miniatures of Gandalf and pippin on foot, and mounted. But see, there is technically one miniature missing; Gandalf mounted without pippin.

THIS MODEL IS NOT EVEN SOLD CURRENTLY AT GAMES WORKSHOP!

As always, magnets are your friend, so you’d have to magnetize Pippin to be able to play the model.

But this is my main gripe (other one being banners in scenarios!) with this edition. The hero requirement for listbuilding.

Thanks for checking out the ramblings of a serial loser of games (1W, 8L), and I hope to see you again.

Cheers!

-Marc

The bloody lads spearhead

Hello and welcome back to a new blog article!

Today we again see what great job GW has done with their new(ish) gameformat, as I have once again managed to throw a lot of dispensable cash at various ebay sellers.

Paint

Keeping up with the success of my Lumineth, I tried again to maximize the number of Speedpaints used. These speedpaints/contrast paints were used as follows:

( CGW = contrast Games workshop, S AP = Speedpaint Army painter)

RED : Fleshtearers red/ C GW
Leather : Hardened Leather Speedpaint/AP
Leather 2: Sneakbite leather / C GW
Skin 1: Crusader Skin / S AP
Skin 2: Noble skin / S AP
skin 3: Bony matter / S AP
Skeleton parts: Pallid Bone /S AP

Not too shabby!

The Warband

Now whats good in this particular warband you might ask? Well for starters they are a very save heavy army, boasting 2+ and 3+ on most types of models.

Secondly, they have a lot going for them ability-wise.

One passive and two hero abilities as Battle traits is nothing too sneeze at, even though they are all tied to the Khornate game mechanic Blood tithe.

This mechanic is used to power some of the better abilities/spells of your army.

Regiment abilities are pretty straightforward, two different passives. One will make you blood tithe points, the other will make your already tanky infantry tankier. Remember if your Blood priest dies, the first one is useless.

Enchantments are a more divers bunch, affecting how your leader performs in the battle.

Resanguination looks good at first glance, but is only useful to heal the mighty skullcrushers as the HEAL keyword removes damage tokens but doesn’t bring back models.

Unholy flames is all around good, but requires you to actually get to the damaged step. Good luck with 4+ to hit on the Blood warriors and Reavers.

The Crimson plate might be good, but you already have an ability that does mostly the same, and is army-wide in the regiment ability Blood-woken runes.

Headhunter is really situational, as the requirements lists it only getting strike first if the leader attacks another HERO unit. Being such an important piece, I would not recommend him going anywhere near a melee with other Heros.

So the Enhancment is a really dud list of things. I’d probably only go for the rend as I feel it is the most impactful of the things listed.

The leader of you little band of red clad frenzied killers, the Slaughterpriest is the only model that is able to damage the enemy from afar with his prayer Blood boil. Great to use when you haven’t got anything else to do, and MIGHT drop a weaker non-warded Hero in two turns. MIGHT.

The three mighty skullchrushers serves as the cavalry section for the spearhead. They have a formidable statline, but lacks in my opinion damage output after they have charged. Their Brass stampede ability also is super weak, one mortal on a 2+? Get out of here!

Instead what they have is pure staying power. Just point them at a target, and expect it to be locked in place until the last turn. That 2+ save and 15 health really makes the hard to shift from a unit that your opponent would like to use elsewhere. The only units that will come out from this slogging match are units with 2+ or more rend.

Blood warriors unfortunately feel like a worse unit than normal chaos warriors in the Slaves To Darkness faction. The NO RESPITE ability feel good when it hits, but there still a 50/50 chance you lose a model and nothing happens. The damage output also feels lacking, as the 4+ to hit is really reserved for more horde-like unit profile.

In my recent game against My SO’s youngest brother, I had two units of Blood Warriors go against non-upgraded STD warriors of chaos. Both lost their combat and got wiped, while the WOC units had 2 respectivly 3 models left.

Now Bloodreavers I like. A good chaff unit, with surprisingly good stat block and a terrific Ability. These go much harder than the aforementioned Blood Warriors, beeing truly expendable with TWO recursion mechanics. One brings D3 models back, the other the whole unit. Keep you Blood priest close by and they’ll survive far longer than they should.

Opinions

Having played a few games with them against a diverse set of enemy factions, these have performed acceptably. In a tier list against my other factions I play, I would place them Quite high, on par with my slaves to darkness army.

What I like about them is that they are surprisingly resilient and able to move a lot using the MURDERLUST spell. Though I feel that the resilient part should be more up Nurgles ally, and not Khornes. Not really to the theme according to established lore.

Here is a tier list of factions I play, and fight against. Not many yet, but I look forward to try a few different in the near future so stay tuned!

Here’s a little bonus unit have been working on. Speed painted ofc. I gotta get me some grey metal Speedpaints!

Also, a few pictures of our games to date:

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Hope you enjoyed this blog post, I certainly enjoyed writing it!

Cheers!

-Marc

Lumineth Spearhead for.. spearhead?

Hello and welcome back!

So as anybody not living under a tree knows, Age of Sigmar 4th edition dropped, and with it a format called Spearhead. I have been playing this a lot. A whole lot. And with a lot, I mean A LOT. And with this bold sneaky move, games workshop has burned a rather big hole in my wallet so to speak.

This has opened up so many hobby opportunities for me, as I have not had any interest in starting a lot of armies before this. Now i have simply so many that it seems that I have accidentally created a massive pile of shame.

But to tackle this gray bundle of joy got me thinking, might this be the greatest opportunity to test if speed painting an army actually is viable? And with speed painting, I mean Speed paints from army painter (and snakebite from GW, can’t really go without it)!

Off we go!

Starting out with the crappiest model stats wise, the Sinari Cathallar. Clad in beautiful speedpaint called Highlord blue, this model is a striking centerpiece of incompetence in the Spearhead.

Next up, Vanari Bladelords, who have under performed for me in every game. The dice rolling gods have been fickle, and their 15 dice critting mortals have been hitting like a wet noodle.

The wardens have done marginally better, their damage spiking when attacking after having been charged. Their ability to spawn back on the field is really good, as they have been a rather good roadblock by being expendable.

One good thing this Spearhead has up its sleeve is the two unit of archers. They have been able to plink a good deal of damage, and they have the ability to spawn back to boot!

A sizable army for being a Spearhead, pity that I can’t play Elf’s at all. My track record is 0 w, 5L currently, and I can’t seem to win with them at all. The models are AMAZING though, so although I’m winning jack, they are so nice to play with that the losses don’t hurt too bad..

And did the liberal use of speedpaints help with getting the army to the table?

That answer is yes.

One coat and done, really helps speed up the process even though this army was painted with a size 0 and size 2 brush. There is some cleanup to do when the paint goes somewhere it’s not supposed to, but that is easily fixed with white paint.

Is this Spearhead for you? If you like painting an army that has a lot of fine detail, has amazing sculpts and you won’t play Spearhead with them.

Last ones a joke, but for real. Playing Lumineth Realm Lords is really really REALLY hard.

Cheer!

-Marc

Skaven Miniature Painting: Leveraging Undercoat for color

Hello and welcome back! Time for a summertime hobby update!

SKAVEN ARE BACK YESYES (3d printed to boot)!

And yes, I can’t seem to be able to get my phone camera to do what I want, that really is unfortunate.

First off, the painting.

As you can see, I went with a dark red tone for this army, opting to go for a black spray undercoat and from there work myself up. This was maybe a mistake, as the red (Mephiston Red, GW) required multiple layers to get an even basecoat, additionally the black primer muted the red and gave it a real dark feeling. The other color I struggled with was the Rakarth flesh on the robes, that was a disaster to get even remotely good-looking. With the amount of bodies I had to paint, this turned out to be a great timesink!

But there’s not only bad take-aways with this. The red do really look good on the miniature, and the black undercoat gives the metallics a good “free” shading I really have grown fond of. Mistakes are also forgiving, as black is the color of the shadows, it matters not if some areas remain black in the folds.

The backbone of the army, 40 stormvermin in 2×20 blocks. This was a somewhat tedious process, not gonna lie.

Here you might notice a certain color difference on some Skaven. This shows you how important the base-coat is. The lighter colored Skaven are primed white! The painting process is exactly the same apart from the primmer coat.

In my opinion, the black primed look miles better, as the black has given the models a bit of recess shading, and given a certain, richness, to the model.

Also, they will have a detachment of ratling gunners tagging along. One will go with my block of 20 clanrats not pictured int the article. You might have seen half of them in my earlier warcry skaven article here: https://wordpress.com/post/goodenoughhobbies.com/1106.

The only legit model in the article! I got it from the Vanguard skaven box, and finally it is painted! This is in my opinion one of the most iconic skaven models in the lineup. Interestingly I have not seen many others building this model in any other way than this, as the frame also lets you to assemble it as two much taller model variations.

Love this Doomwheel model! Painted in parts, and super finicky to assemble.!

And at last, one battle standard bearer, and two clawlords.

I hope you gained any insight in how much a primer can impact you choice of colours, as I found out the hard way. Though I would probably opt for the black primer again if given the choice, as I really like the deep red it produces.

I’ll try to work on my cameramanship until next time, promise!

Cheers!

-Marc

Old World Chaos Army: Painted Miniatures and 3D-Printed Additions

Hello and welcome back dear reader!

If you remember, I was bitten with the Warhammer: Old World bug, as many others where. I also had a 3D printed Bretonnian army almost done, that I said I would get ready..

Turn out, this is not the case, as my birthday rolled up and my SO granted my birthday wish which turned out to be a big box of CHAOS MADNESS!

This period was then followed with ebay purchases, A LOT OF THEM.

And now I can present you a fully painted (-bases) Chaos army!

Please note that this army is still 0 of 3 in matches (goddang nehekhara skellys), but hopefully they will claim their first victory soon!

Here we have chaos warriors from at least 3 different eras. The plastic might be newer, poses more dynamic, but I still love the old plastic warriors the most. The newer one are a pain in the behind to rank up on squares, and i really can’t recommend them other than having more choice in weapons.

Here we have some blight kings, that will be my counts as Chaos chosen. This turned out to be a terrible, TERRIBLE idea. They are hard to rank up, the weapons are big and unwieldy and worst of all: They cost 10€ a piece.

I can’t understate how bad this decision was. In a rank&file game, you really can’t afford to pay this much for only 5 of them. For them to be effective I should really have a box or two more. And I ain’t doing that..

My two heroes, a Shardspeaker as my counts as Sorecerer lord and a Chaos lord as my general.

Everybody need a cheap fast chaff unit, in my case fenris wolves as chaos warhounds. My Frostgrave purchases finally paid off!

yes yes, I know it’s the wrong size of base. But really, look at them. They don’t rank up on those small 30×60 bases. I really tried, promise!

A magnetized Gorebeast/Chaos Chariot. Completely magnetized so I have both options. The Gorebeast might have sub -par movement but boy it wrecks when it lands a charge. Those Ushabties never knew what hit them!

And then to the 3D-printed portion to the army.

4 chaos spawn and a giant. The Giant is not really Chaos-y looking but I digress. I printed one for my Ork-playing friend, so I hope I’ll se them clash on the battlefield!

Well damn, that’s a lot of models!

One note, I recently changed phones, and this camera seems to have some red hues in the picture quality. I need to fiddle and see whats wrong with it. Also the focus seems to be whack. And I need a better setup for taking pictures.. Sigh.

Well, see you next time!

Cheers!

-Marc

Age of Sigmar Skaven Models: Vanguard Box Units

Hello and welcome!

Right on time for the new models to be dropped for the fourth iteration of age of Sigmar, I also have painted some skaven models!

These are models from the Vanguard box, and as such the value for both Warcry and Warhammer The old world aren’t that great. The Warp lightning cannon/Plagueclaw catapult can’t be used in Warcry, and the Stormfiends cannot be used in Old world.

A casting type character, best used to buff your other rats. Fast movement and a decent ranged attack, but will melt in melee with only T3. Has the ability [triple] Lead From The Back to add 1 Attack in a 6′ bubble, which is not such a great buff for your smaller rats, but spikes the Stormfiends damage!

First of the 3 Stormfiends you get in the box, This one is the easiest to magnetize to get some more diversity to your list. High HP, high toughness, high damage. The Ratling Cannons armed Stormfiend is more versatile, trading one attack and strenght for a decent ranged attack.

Shutout to the little dude on the back piloting the Stormfiend, you never see him in the promotional material, so I thought I’d give him a spotlight.

Two more Stormfiends, One absolute monster in melee, and one close range flamethrower. The stormfiends damage potential is 40 damage with crits, couple this with the Grey seers ability, and have a 50 damage ceiling! This unit buffed will have the ability to one-shot almost everything in the game!

The Warpfire thrower not so much, a lesser but still decent melee attack, and a decent ranged attack makes it versatile, and won’t be overrun so easily in combat.

And at last, the chaff units of the team. Lead by a clawleader, these clanrats are meant to stand in the way and take hits for the more valuable units in the team.

Another team done! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Cheers!

-Marc

Something undead this way comes

Hello and welcome back!

This time around I will showcase a little bit of the Undead side of warcry.

I’ll kick it of with my Soulblight gravlords hero characters.

First up a Vampire lord. A magnificent model, on both the painting desk and the tabletop. Lots of HP, high toughness, a whirlwind in melee, and tons of good abilities. This guy is no joke.

The Necromancer is a hardhitting glass cannon. Will die if he gets into melee, but keep him at a distance and keep hitting the enemy with his ranged attack and your golden.

As in classic undead fashion, this guy has TONS of abilities regarding skeletons.

Want to yeet them? Vanhel’s Danse Macabre

Want more of them? Summon Undead Minions

Down on Hp? Necrotic Siphon

And lastly, the humble Wight King. High wound, high toughness but really hampered with the low movement. He is only a skeleton after all.

Has the ability to spike his damage, going from a maximum damage of 20 to 32 when rolling all sixes on a Beheading strike, paying two sixes for the ability.

Situational at best, but if it hits, your opponent will not see it coming, and nor will you!

The other warband I have completed are The Nighthaunt. These models where Ebay rescues, so the warband is not competitive in the slightest!

Leading them will be a spirit torment. Who knew some old locks would do more damage than a wight kings blade? The real MVP is the lone this piece of plastic keeping the whole miniature floating!

Has the ability to heal in a AOE bubble if it takes down a model, go through walls, debuff and heal up dead models. This unit is the Swiss army caster of the team. Interestingly the second rune seem to have no ability tied to it currently. Who knows where they were going with that one?

The second leader and the cheap chaff of the team, the Dreadwarden is a cheaper Spirit torment, without the AOE ability but instead able to buff other minion units. A little on the more fragile side, the 12hp wont go far in a fight.

The chainrasp are able to increase their survivability debuffing the enemy and being able to go through walls. They also have access the excellent reaction this Factions has; Flickering Form.

This ability makes them basically preform a free teleport move away from an enemy closing in on them. Pretty useful when carrying treasure.

Stats wise slightly better than shainrasps, having 1 range, 1 crit damage and 2 hp more. They lose out on the Chilling Horde buff ability, and also cannot be buffed with the aforementioned ability.

I have no idea how to play them, or if they are any good at all. In my opinion the Chainrasps and stalkers are a bit over-costed as chaff, but my opinion might change once I get in a couple of games or to.

Until next time!

Cheers!

-Marc