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?). 

The trees are still moving!!!

So after it being nearly 5 months since my last post and after an excellent British summer consisting of the usual rain and sporting failures its back on board the painting train. Progress has continued apace with the Wood Elves with the latest completed unit being 30 dryads, to go along with my 3 kurnoth hunters presented in the last post.

For those interested the Dryads were painted the same as the kurnoth hunters, without the final layer of Ushabti bone. It makes them darker than the hunters but the variance looks good on the table (I think so anyway).

With the updated Sylvaneth rules also coming into being (finally) I've also assembled and magnetised a Treelord to lead my erstwhile band of saplings. With Treelords also being able to summon a wyldwood as well, I'll probably need to look at getting one of those at some point. Then the army really will function like the Wood Elves of the world that was.

In addition to the 30 Dryads and the Treelord I also finished a unit of 3 Warhawk Riders as well as a Great Eagle Riding Lord to lead them. Armed with the Spirit Sword (he's actually dual wielding swords) I like to think of him swooping in then leaping off the great eagle into the fray and taking names.

Lastly I've also been assembling a unit of 10 Wyldwood Rangers to support my Eternal Guard. I actually bought the box mainly for the additional 10 shields so I could fully shield up the Guard, so I've had the box for quite some time now. The Rangers are some way off being finished but here's a photo of them nonetheless, posed striding through the forest, on the lookout for Interlopers. I like to think of them as the vanguard of my battlehost, even though I think they're rules suggest they're heavy infantry.

Photos to follow for all of this when I can get everything down out of the loft.

Linked to all of this progress, the release of the new free cities battletome has got me very excited. The livig City allegiance is definitely something that needs exploring, although quite how I'll represent my Warhawk Riders and Eagle Rider in that list is anyone's guess....ah well, nice problems to have.

New Beginnings...sort of

So following on my last post I've decided to put the Wood Elves to one side for the time being. This year has most certainly been a year where I've played alot more 40k than AoS anyway, and the state of my poor Dark Eldar army has galvanized me into revisiting them.

Also handy was the release of not one, but two new army boxed sets for the Truekin, Blood of the Phoenix for Psychic Awakening and the Poisonblade Christmas boxed set, both of which I now own (purchases funded through the selling off of my Word Bearers).

In any case both boxes have arrived and I've been busting myself in assembling the mountains of new grey plastic like a madman

 First up is the Master of Blades himself, Drazhar. This model is such a great sculpt, and whilst not as iconic as the original more than makes up for it in sheer dynamism and board presence! Additionally his new rules and soon to come points drop are most welcome.

 Where would the Fallen Phoenix be without a squad of deadly fallen aspect warriors. Again, having these in plastic is great news and meant I finally made the jump to replace my original metal Incubi.

 The first of two new venoms, taking  me to four in total. I've got a vague idea of this being a "command" venom for my Archon and possibly some Sslyth to scoot around the board in. Of course if GW ever decide to up the transport capacity to 6 (please!) then perhaps it'll become a ride for Draz and Co.

 The second of the two new venoms. This is a little more inconspicuous and will probably be transporting a kabalite warrior squad.

The first of two Scourge Squads. I know current internet wisdom suggests haywire blasters, but I can't help thinking of the sheer destructive potential of 4 blasters deepstriking in! 

In any case as you can probably tell this list is going to be heavily kabal based for the moment. Rest assured though I've already got some Haemonculus Coven units in the wings I want to show off. Until next time!