The end is nigh

Well, with it being the last weekend of the month and not having a lot of painting time left what with real life getting in the way I'm following the trend of the x gamers and making this my final post of the month.

So I set myself a challenge of finishing one of my own units and one of Andy's dwarfs and at mid-point I'd managed to finish my unit.

And to cut a long story short, I managed to finish Andy's Thunderers and then a couple of others

The Thunderers:

And from the enemy's point of view:

I found these a different challenge to what I normally do as I've had to adapt my normal style of painting to Andy's as he'd already finished a number of the dwarfs. I think I've managed it.

This left a few days this week so I decided to finish a project I'd started a month or so ago and also eat a little more into Andy's figures.

So for Andy I've painted this rune smith:

And for me, the necro-colossus/Hierotitan, depending on what I want to use it as:

With this I wanted to try and achieve the feeling of the statue just coming to life as it steps down to defend the city and am fairly pleased with the results.

You also may have noticed that none of the dwarfs are based. Well, this isn't me being slapdash. Andy has some ideas how he wants to base them and so I'm leaving it to him. From what he's told me I think they will look fantastic but woe be tide facing them on the field of battle as he's just picked up another forty thunderers as well as a variety of other shooty death.

So for me that's it for this month. Challenge met and extras done.

So to next month:

I'm keeping it simple and splitting my time between mine and Andy's stuff.

So for me I've got a couple of characters and for Andy, a unit of 12 warriors with great weapons. Not a lot, you may say but it means that it should be achievable and I've got an idea for the extra but have to get the materials before I can move forward with it.

So that's it for another week.

Craig

Mid Month Progress

Well, this month is going fast and I've only just completed the first half of my challenge. A unit of Necropolis Knights:

And the various figures, individually:

And so with these done its time to move onto the second half of my challenge this month, which will be Andy's thunderers, made somewhat easier by the fact that he had already started some of them.

Oh, and as a side note, for those that are interested. If you take a look at the Warhammer Forum you'll find a post relating to the new ogre book. Ignore the comments on how rubbish it will be or how broken WH is and just gaze lovingly at the pitures...


Till next time.

Craig

The Tomb Kings ride to war

So last night saw the first campaign game for the Tomb Kings in a fight to take the castle of
I faced Anneurin's high elves who also saw the castle as a strategic advantage. So with both of us mustering 1500 point forces we fought a capture the two scenario.

The tomb kings were made of up of the following

Level 4 hierophant with a dispel scroll, the earthing rod and a 4+ ward save
Level 2 Liche priest with the law of light,
Tomb Prince on foot
28 skeletons,
a unit of three chariots
a unit of 3 necro knights
13 archers
a hierotitan
and a casket

The elves came with a level 2 mage with the law of shadow,
a prince battlestandard on a horse
a large block of knights on horses, a large block of seagard, 10 sword masters and a lion drawn chariot.

Apart from the tower there was a hill with an elvern waystone (though we played it as non-magical as neither of us were on home teritory

The high elves won the toss but couldn't deploy anything in the building as they didn't have a unit small enough. This gave me the first turn. So I moved everything forward, the skeles toward the tower, the chariots to face the knights with the titan as support.
Magic did some damage to the chariot and the sword masters and shooting a little more.
The elves then moved. The chariot moved out to my right flank, the swordmasters into the tower and the seaguard and knights in a position to shoot and charge respectively, the archers going into two ranks to maximise shooting.
Magic didn't really do anything but shooting took down a few archers.

Turn 2
The skeles repositioned to take a charge from the chariot and the titan moved further forward in preparation of the charge against the knights.
Magic saw me get off smiting on the archers, bringing back the dead in the process and getting off light of death but the elves passed the leadership test. Shooting was nasty as I shot everything at the swordmasters, killing enough to cause a panic test, which they promptly failed and fled from the tower. Yay.

The elves retaliated by declaring a charge with the chariot on the skeles and on the chariots with the knights. The first succeeded but the second was short by an inch. The Seaguard elected to stay where they were and the swordmasters rallied. Magic saw the first of the mindrazor spells cast and fail by 1 (which is bloody horrible as it switches the unit's strenth with their leadership, making them strength 8). Shooting saw the seaguard butcher the chariots, destroying one of them.
And then combat. The lion chariot did a suitable number of wounds to the skeles who returned the favor by taking two wounds off it and leaving it with one wound. Another 7 skeles died to crumbling.

Turn 3
The chariots and giant charged the knights and everything else stayed where it was. The necro knights appeared behind the seaguard to threaten the rear. Unfortunately the giant couldn't manage the 7 needed to reach the knights which whould leave the chariots on their own. No worries, I thought, a possible 12 impact hits should still do some damage.

So I tried casting a large smiting but the elves dispelled it and the rest of my magic was pretty ineffective. Shooting saw me kill a couple of seaguard as that was the only target. Then combat. The lion chariot died to the skeles as predicted and they reformed towards the building and then the chariots. They got a measly 3 impact hits and then did nothing with them, took three wounds from the knights for zero return and crumbled to dust. This allowed the knights to reform and face the titan. Bugger.

The elves retaliated by charging the titan and moving the swordmasters back towards the building. The seaguard reformed to face the necro knights.

Magic saw the mindrazor spell cast and a withering, further hampering my giant, not that he would get to attack. The giant was killed outright to strength ten attacks. Luckily the building was in the way otherwise the knights could easily have overrun into my skeles. So they reformed to face my archers.

Turn 4

Things were not looking great. I'd lost the chariots and giant whilst not making a dent in the knights, my skeles were depleted and my archers were about the be decimated.

But the game can be won by taking the building so in I went and the necro knights charged the seaguard. Magic failed miserably and shooting knights with a 2+ armour save was a waste of time. The knights lost to the seaguard and got reduced to a single model.

The elves had the advantage and started to press it home. The knights charged the archers and the swordmasters the building. The seaguard fought the necro knights to a stand still. Magic saw another mindrazor go off on the swordmasters and into the frey they went. The skele archers predictibly died and the elves made their first mistake by reforming to face the lone liche priest. The sword master champion was challenged and needed 5s to hit,which he did with two of his attacks, the prince only saving one of them. The prince managed to cut him down and then the rest of the swardmasters butchered more of the skeles, losing another of their number. More skeles crumbled and the number left was getting dangerously low but we still held the building.

From turn 4 onwards you roll to see if the scenario ends but this time it did not. So I had at least another round to survive. Magic needed to work this round and I IFd the ward save spell, promptly losing two levels of magic but gaining back much needed forces. I tried light of death on the sword masters and managed to kill one and then bounced it to the seaguard and killed a couple of those as well. With no shooting or combat it was over to the elves

The seaguard fought and killed the necro knight and reformed towards the building The few remaining swordmasters charged the building again and the knights reformed to face the casket rather than keep chasing the liche priest. Another mindrazor spell was cast on the Swordmasters but this time the elven wizard also IFd and after the fallout, had managed to kill 4 of his companions and disappear into the warp.
Fighting saw the swordmasters cut down more skeles and more crumbling but still the tomb kings owned the tower.

The rest of the elves again butchered the skeles and after the final count and crumbling only the standard and heirophant were left. But the tomb kings still had control

Unfortunately the roll to end the game didn't go my way so another turn needed to be fought.

Turn 6

Things were now desperate. No movement meant going to the magic phase and for once I had a doozy. 6 dice thrown at the casket saw it IFd and as the spell is an inate ability there is no miscast result. This saw how powerful the light of death spell can be. The spell rolls three d6 and compares this to the unit's leadership and any points over does a wound with no armour saves. I rolled three 6s killing ten seaguard and then it bounced onto the swardmasters and killed another one of them as well causing them to panic. Another ward save on the hierophant's unit saw them regain troops and then it was the elves turn.

The knights charged the casket and the seaguard the building. With no magically enhanced attacks the fight was more even and by the end the skeles were still in the building. Albeit down to just the standard and the heirophant again. The knights predicably destroyed the casket and turned to face the building

And then the roll to end the game... and a 5 ended it.

Win to the tomb kings, all beit with only two characters and the skele standard to the few remaining seaguard and two thirds of the knights.

Continuing the game would surely have seen the tomb kings utterly destroyed but this scenerio is all about holding the objective and unbreakable units are great for that.

Anneurin played a great game and I think I'm going to really struggle against him in the future. I'm learning that the Tomb Kings are a difficult army to win with as they rely on magic to work and if that goes the wrong way you're toast.

So that's it. Next will be a painting update at the weekend.

July's End

So its crunch time. The end of the month is here and this is what I've completed.

As you will know my challenge was three units this month, a unit of charriots:

A unit of Archers:

And a unit of Horse Archers:

And so onto the extras:
I've completed one of the Necroknights which I'm really pleased with and put together two others ready to paint. Here's the completed one:

I've also painted a skull catapult but this will need basing:

and started the bone giant Kelly gave me. This needs a fair bit of work on the base as well as finishing the giant himself but this is the current position:

And finally... Some rats:

These are some Dungeons and Dragons figures I've picked up from Otherworld Miminiatures and I'll post others as I do them.

So finally here's a full shot of everything I've done. Challenge complete:

So now to August. I'm still going to stick to a unit as a challenge and as I've started them it will be the necroknights. I've also agreed to paint some dwarves for Andy from the club and will include this in August's challenge, which will be to finish off his gunners. And, as you can see, I've got the giant to finish, as well as the skull catapult which I should be able to squeeze in. We'll just have to see.

So that's it until next week.

Horse Archers - a painting guide

So another week has gone by and I've finally managed to have a couple of games with the newly minted Tomb Kings. Unfortunately, both games did not go entirely (or even partially) my way.

The first game was against a high elf army that consisted of two bolt throwers and a big block of Seaguard with a wizard and battle standard. I had a big block of skeles, 3 chariots, a casket of souls, 3 Necro-knights, a Tomb Prince and Heirophant. Basically I died crossing the table and ended up with very little by the time I reached him. Magic didn't really work and flame spells are not my friend.

I then played Kelly's skaven, and although I faired somewhat better in the kill stakes I still ended up with just the Tomb Prince and heirophant by the end.

Looks like more practice is needed.

Anyway, down to the painting.
Firstly the horse archers - as in the post title.
As mentioned earlier I said I would do a step by step guide as to what I did, so here goes.

Step one - the horses:

I painted the inside of the ribs while the parts were on the sprus as once together this would be difficult to get at.

I snipped off all the horse pieces and then used a knife and file to remove the mold lines. Once done I glued the two parts of the horse together and painted everything scorched brown.

Next I used a heavy dry brush of bleach bone over each entire model. I was reasonably careful so as not to go into the crevises but as this is the first coat I'm not trying to completely hide the brown underneath on the ereas I dry brushed. Once this is dry, which is once I've done all the horses, I put a second coat of slightly thinned down bleached bone, but this time I am very careful to mainly stick to the raised areas. This gives good coverage and means the brown is not bleeding through the bone. Here's a closer image:

The hooves have been painted black and that is just about it for the horses.

So next are the bases. As I'm matching the bases throughout all the army I repeated what I did for the other skeles.

So I painted some thin card in a variety of sandy colours - yellows, reds, browns - and once dry, cut the card into squares and rectangles.

Next, I glued the pieces of card to the bases. I did a number of bases all at once, the cavalry and the necro-knights, as its easier that way. When gluing down I was not too worried about gaps as I was going to use sand to fill these in and simulate the desert sands reclaiming the lost Nehekaran city.

Once the bases were fully dry I used a craft knife and steel ruler to cut the card to the edge of the bases. This required a few sweeps of the blade and firm pressure on the ruler to make sure it didn't slip.

I now added sand by dabbing PVA on the bases in the patterns I wanted and making sure it covered any mistakes I'd made and then pushing the stand onto the glue. Shake off the excess and then use a big brush (I used a No 5) to dab water onto the sand. This mixes with the PVA and glues the sand down more thorougly. Once dry the sand is painted bubonic brown and then highlighted with a mix of bubonic brown and bleached bone. I then added grass tufts I got from the Gale Force Nine range to add a bit of detail by showing desert grasses forcing their way through the cracks in the pavement.
I painted the base edges in dark green and that was the bases finished.

So with the horses and bases done I turned my attention to the riders. Firstly I repeated the bone painting technique detailed earlier over all the parts of the archer. I then painted all gold areas with dwarf bronze. The bows were then painted scorched brown and the horn ends, bleach bone. The head dresses were painted bestial brown so that they all matched, and the headbands different colours to not match and add a bit of individuality. The bow cases were then painted ice blue with bleached bone tops and bottoms, bubonic brown arrow shafts, and white fletching. Next I washed the bow cases with devlan mud and all the metal, bows and straps with Windsor and Newton brown ink. I've found the ink is exelent on crevices but does add a sheen. However, this was the look I was after.
Now the bow cases were carefully painted with thin layers of ice blue, bleached bone and devlan mud to give a worn appearence. This was done by drawing the brush down or up and trial and error until I got the look I was looking for. Shining gold was used to highlight gold areas.
Once this was done the horses were glued to the bases and then the riders were glued together and checked to make sure they could rank up.

And there you have it.


So now onto progress for this week. Well I finished the horse archers, as you can see above. I also painted and finished the foot archers:

And a really old screaming skull catapult I found:

This needs a base making but that will be done at the same time as I make the base for the casket of souls.

So that's it for this week and maybe for this month on the Tomb Kings. I've put the necro-knights together but may leave the painting until next month. I've recently received some DnD figures that I'm itching to have a go at and will post once they are done.

In the meatime here's a few pictures of what is done with the Tomb Kings so far all together:

This Week's Update

So a busy week of painting and I've managed to finish the small archer unit. I'll want to add to this but at the moment I only had eight models. Turning two of them into four:

I've managed to create a small unit of 10:

So that just leaves the eight horse archers as my challenge for this month. As I said earlier, I'm going to go through each step as I paint these figures from start to finish but I'll leave that for another post when I've completed them. So far the horses and bases are done and the riders are in bits as I clean them up.

I also finished the chariots but haven't taken a picture of that. What I will do is when the horse archers are done I'll take a group shot of all the units complete so far.

So that's it for this week. Some of the x gamers are going to start playing with the figures done so far and maybe one or two that aren't, to start to get a feel for how they will work. The points limit has been set at 1200, so I'll have to add a couple of things as well as the stuff I've already done.

I'll put a post up after the game of how they did.

July's Challenge

After a successful month of goal reaching and back slapping its time to pick up the brush for this month's challenge. Initially I was looking at completing one full unit a month but am revising that for July as I will have finished that challenge before this week is out.

After completing the first big block of skeles I thought I'd complete the chariot unit, consisting of three chariots with full command.... which I've just about done. Queue pictures:

And a Close up:

And single shots:

You'll see that they are mostly finished. I've got to add the standard and some bow and spear cases and they will be done.

I also painted my first character. It's fairly straight forward. I kept the basing the same to help cement the units together
Take a look:

So that's where I am to date, which leaves me with what to do for this month.

Well, as well as completing the chariot unit I'm also planning on finishing all the other models in the batallion box set I bought which will be 8 skeletons and 8 horse archers. As 8 skeletons are not a unit and the idea is to complete units I'm going to take a note out of cheaphammer's book and turn 8 into 10.

So that's it until next weekend where I'll give an update on my progress.

The bases

Right, the bases.
A couple of you have asked how I've done them.

I first tried to find some embossed plasticard but couldn't find what I was looking for. So I decided to use card. Firstly, I painted it to resembled sandstone. Once dry I cut it into squares and rectangles of a similar size. These I then glued to the pieces to the base in an irregular pattern to represent stone flags of a Nehekeran city. A bit of sand to show the ravages of time, some grass tufts and dark angels green to lift the base and done.

It takes time but I'm pleased with the results.

The Skeletons rise

Well, a week has gone by and I've managed to finish my first unit of 30 skeles. After receiving some constructive and not so constructive criticism, I made a change to the base edge colour to help elevate the bases, themselve. I've also reduced the number of models needed to complete the unit by using both 40mm and regiment bases.

The final finish will be the movment tray but I intend to make that at some point in the future.

So here are a couple of pics.

So its onto the next which will be to finish the unit of chariots I started with the test models. I might treat myself with a character model as the final 2500 point army will have 7, I think.

The first figures painted

Like I said, this is mainy to follow my exploits in building a Tomb King army.

To this end I spent more money than sence and bought the following:

1 battalion box set, the old one
1 Necropolis Knights box
1 Necrosphinx box
1 Liche Priest
1 Tomb King/Priest look-e-like

I've put together a chariot and started on some skeletons, testing out the basing idea that I had.

Here are the first images

And Here's one of he bases I'm planning on using

I'm pretty happy with the bases. Initially I was going to used plasticard but couldn't find any that matched the pattern I was after, so I decided on card instead. I've bought some A5 sheets and then painted them in random oranges, browns, reds, yellows and creams to try and created a ribbles sandstone look. I then cut up the pieces into small squares/rectangles and stuck em to the bases. A bit of filler, some brown low-lights and grass tufts has produced the look I was after, which was that of ancient streets in Nehekra. I'm planning on adding some more debris but for now this works.

Now its time to actually finish a unit.

My virgin post

Well, this is the first time I've had a crack at this.
I've been painting models since I was as wee lad and then in the last few years got into the hell that is wargaming.  Now a fully paid up member I have reached what every gamer does - the ability to never finish a project.  Well that's about to stop.  This blog is primarily to try and finish a project at last and will show what and in what order I paint.  I'll also try to articulate any ideas I manage to translate.

I intend to post whatever I'm working on at the time, which should primarily be a Tomb King's army but I'm fully aware that other shiny toys will get in the way.

Anyway.  Here goes.  I'll post some pictures on Sunday when I work out how to do it.  These will be the test models I've done for the Tomb Kings and I'll talk about my idea then.