Mortal Realms Progress 8 - Knight Questor

The next addition to the Astral Templars is complete:

Knight Questor "Arinos Wolfsworn" joins the ranks. Once again the name is from the Realm of Plastic AoS name generator (as will all my characters names).

This model was much simpler to paint up as it's not one of the Sacrosanct chamber and covered in robes. Choosing where to put the green spot colours was a little bit of a challenge, however I think they work well where they are and tie in the model to the wider army. 

In the lore Knights Questor are on a mission given to them by Sigmar, so to represent the fact he's on a quest I've tried to paint his armour in a more worn down fashion to show he's been on campaign for a long time. Rules wise they're not the best, however I look forward to trying him out soon, and perhaps keeping a tally of any champions/heroes he kills amongst my group. 

Next on the list is another unit of Sequitors. As I've painted 6 of these already I'm just adding another 4 so I've got the option of 2 small units or 1 big one. 

At the same time I'm also adding some artillery to the army in the form of a Celestar Ballista. The addition of a model from yet another chamber means I really need to get reading up on how the organisation works within the Stormcast...

Hopefully I'll have those done in time for the arrival of the Lord-Arcanum which will round out the first 1000pts!

Mortal Realms Progress 7 - Knight Incantor

Introducing the latest addition to my Astral Templars Stormhost - Vora Suremane - The Warden of the Howling Gale. 

This is the exclusive Knight Incantor that comes with the mortal realms subscription. I must say I prefer this model to the slightly more static pose of the regular Incantor (though I'll be painting up at least two more at some point!), Plus she was great fun to paint with lots of small details to pick out. 

Ive tried to get a glowing effect working on the staff as well as adding progressive blue highlights up to white on the outstretched left hand, as if she was building up power to smite the enemies of Sigmar (at least that's how it looks in my head). 

Painting wise i stuck to pretty much the same method as I've been using to paint the rest of my Stormcast so far. The exception being that I based the bone coloured robes in tallarn sand as opposed to Wraithbone:

Personally I find it looks much better and serves as a much more natural base to build up highlights from than Wraithbone ever did, so will be using that going forward.

Next on the list of things to paint is a Knight-Questor. Whilst the rules for it might be lacking the model itself looks awesome, plus the lore behind it is even better! After that ive got a Celestar Ballista to paint up and another unit of 5 Sequitors, to finish by the end of July, just in time for the next delivery which for me will have the first of the big boys - A Lord Arcanum on Grpyh-Charger, which should round out my first 1000pts of Astral Templars.

So lots to do between now and the end of July but if I can keep up my current progress I should stay on target! 

Mortal Realms Progress 6 - Castigators

Continuing on from my last post the next unit from the Mortal Realms magazine has been completed:

Castigators provide ranged support in a Sacrosanct army, very much counterparts to the Judicators in a strike chamber. That said the opinion of their performance on the battlefield according to the internet is lukewarm at best....

Still, the units was good fun to paint with alot of detail on the models allowing for a bit of variation from the scheme I used for the Sequitors. 

Being as these are the easy to build miniatures that I got through multiple copies of the magazine there's a fair amount of repetition on the poses. The latest issue though contains some multipart Castigators I think, so once I get round to assembling the 4 of then I should add some variety that way whilst also rounding out the unit to 12 in total. 

Realistically I can't see myself fielding more that 1 unit of 6 in my future lists, possibly as part of a hailstorm battery but it's nice to have the option if I ever do decide to go infantry heavy!

Anyway, with these 8 completed this brings the tally up to:

Mortal Realms - Stormcast Tally of Completion!

6 x Sequitors - COMPLETED

8 x Castigators - COMPLETED

1 x Gryphound - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Knight Incantor - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Celestar Ballista - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Knight Questor - ON SPRUE

I need to revisit this tally business at some point, perhaps tracking completion against what I should have from the magazine as opposed to what I actually have. If only to make myself believe I'm keeping up with release schedule a bit! 

In anycase, after painting all that infantry (I know it's only 14 models but that's alot for me!) I figure I'll reward myself by painting a character next to lead my erstwhile band:

This is my as yet unamed Knight-Incantor with some base colours on so far. Hopefully if i can keep up the progress here and there as I did with the Castigators I'll have her done by the end of June, that's the aim anyway.....

Mortal Realms Progress 5 - Checking in

As the title says, just checking in. The arrival of my second daughter has put a brake on the progress I was making as most of the free time I have is being spent with the first born to make sure she doesn't feel left out. Between that and the sleep deprivation it does make you wonder how anyone in our hobby gets stuff done with very young children on the scene.

Still, wouldn't change it for the world. Well maybe id like more sleep...

On the hobby side of things despite everything progress is being made on the Castigators from my last post. With the mobile set up I've got for them (I'll explore this in a future post), I've been taking any opportunity to break out the brushes, even if it's only for 10 minutes. Whilst progress has been glacial as a result, it does mean I'm inching closer to completion of my second Stormcast unit. 

Of course during this time and in spite of the global pandemic we're currently in the middle of Hachette are still getting deliveries of their mortal realms magazine out. 

Luckily for me the Stormcast element is relatively low in the latest delivery, consisting of 1 Knight Questor. For anyone wondering, this isn't the case with the Nighthaunt, and my mate in this mortal realms endeavor is currently drowning in ghosts and terrain!

With the latest delivery the tally is as follows:

Mortal Realms - Stormcast Tally of Completion!

6 x Sequitors - COMPLETED

5 x Castigators - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED & 50% PAINTED

1 x Gryphound - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Knight Incantor - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Celestar Ballista - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Knight Questor - ON SPRUE

So I'm still behind but not by as much as you'd think or I'd thought I'd be at this point. I've also updated the numbers of Castigators and Sequitors as I got more in the delivery before last. 

Hopefully by next delivery in 4 weeks I'll have finished the 8 Castigators and be into the characters, which I'm really looking forward to doing!

Anyway, that's it for now, there's a funny smell which I think means someone needs changing again....sigh....

Mortal Realms - Progress 4 - Castigators

Progress continues to be made in clearing the back log of Stormcast from the mortal realms magazine. The next delivery lands any day now so it's all hands to the pump so to speak. 

I've pretty much put the base colours on the collection of Castigators I've got. Now the eagle eyed amongst you will have picked up on the fact that by issue 10 (the issue I'm currently up to on deliveries), I should only have 5 Castigators, whereas I have 8. Either way the extra ones dont help too much as the units are taken in multiples of 3 in matched play anyway. 

Here's the progress so far on them:

Base colours are as follows:

Armour - Screamer Pink

Robes - Wraithbone

Tabbards - Caliban Green

Greatbows - Boltgun metal, Retributor gold and Abbadon black

Armour trim - Retributor Gold 

Its onto the washes next, which I've already started on the robes using Agrax Earthshade. 

There's another 2 Castigators to come in a later issue of Mortal Realms (Issue 15?), so if I can get two copies of that I'll have an even 12 Castigators, enough for two units of 6 which appeals to the collector in me even if they're not in a great place rules wise about now. 

Mortal Realms Progress 3

Finally finished the first unit of Sequitors and I've got to say, I'm pretty pleased with them, if I do say so myself! 

These are all easy to build ones and I'll be honest and say I've not bothered to change the poses, I'll leave that to future units I think. To be honest I'm just aiming to paint them up the best I can and try to keep up with the pace of release of the mortal realms magazine. In fact I might try and keep a tally, more for my own sanity than anything during these lockdown times. 

I'm a subscriber and with how Hachette work with the deliveries am currently up to issue 7.

Mortal Realms - Stormcast Tally of Completion! (I might think of a better name for this...)

3 x Sequitors - COMPLETED (5 done!)

3 x Castigators - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Gryphound - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Knight Incantor - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

1 x Celestar Ballista - ASSEMBLED & UNDERCOATED

Mortal Realms Progress 2

Up to issue 7 now of the Mortal Realms magazine and as expected im falling behind. In fairness I started out with more copies of the first issues than I should have, 4 in total! I've also actually completed the first unit of Sequitors now (technically more than 1 as there's 6 models in this 5 strong unit). A photo of the completed unit will follow for my next post, when I can take a decent one.

In the meantime the recent good weather here in the UK, coupled with our virus lockdown, has resulted in a push to catch up. So here's the next lot of models all assembled and undercoated:

Next squad of Sequitors, 2 more great maces as well as a few conversions of the standard easy to build models to try to keep things interesting. 

The first set of Castigators. Being a 3 person unit I'm actually painting almost 2 squads worth here. I think I've got another couple of them somewhere....

The final unit is the Celestar ballista, one which I'm really looking forward to painting. I'll probably do it as a reward for completing the Castigators as I'll have painted quite alot (for me) of Infantry by then!

Anyway, I'll leave it here for now and get back to painting! 

Mortal Realms progress 1

So the first delivery of the Mortal realms magazine has come. I'm splitting this with a friend and will be painting the Stormcast half whilst he has the Nighthaunt. 

Between us we actually got two copies of the first 3 issues so that gives me 6 Sequitors, 6 castigators and 2 Gryphounds to paint. The aim is to try and stay on top of the deliveries by painting what comes before the next one arrives. At my usual pace of painting that's going to be hard. 

In any case, here's the progress so far:

These are being painted as Astral Templars, Stormcast hailing from the Realm of Ghurr (Beasts). Still got a few stages to go on these before they're done. Then it's onto the Castigators.

Plastic fantastic Drukhari and venturing into the Mortal Realms

So January was quite a productive month. I assembled all of the Drukhari from Blood of the Phoenix (ok not the hellions...), as well as all of the stuff in the Poisonblade boxed set, except the reavers. As you can tell there's definitely a swing towards bulking out the kabalite wing of my army. At least I'm more or less sticking to the 1500pt list I built up this time (which I'll post another day). 

In any case in addition to all the foot soldiers and skimmers I also found some time to assemble a new Archon for my erstwhile raiders

No name for this guy/gal yet, but I figure the whip will be handy to get the message across to the Ravager crews the game seems to be pushing in the direction of archons hanging out with. 

In case the enemy decide they want to cut off the head of my force I also built up some Sslyth bodyguards to take some bullets for the new guy.

The conversion is nothing new and one I've seen online a few times. Basically it's using the khymerae kit for the snake bodies, then some spare kabalite and scourge parts I had in my bits box. I'm happy with how they've come out and they should prove a handy addition to the force, being decent in melee and shooting, as well as keeping my new Archon alive.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll leave you with this for next time though, my first delivery of the Mortal realms magazine arrived yesterday. The nighthaunt are going to a friend but I'm slowly building a stormcast army to go with my Wood Elves for AoS

That's 3 castigators, 6 sequitors and a Gryph- Hound (in a pear tree?).