2018 - towel thrown

So following on from my last post here's what Ive managed to get painted unit wise for my Wood elves over 2018 (more or less):

Heroes
Arch mage on dragon
1 x Spellweaver
1 x Wayfinder

Battleline
20 Glade Guard
20 Eternal Guard

Other Units

10 Wardancers
3 Warhawk Riders
5 Hunting Hounds
5 Way watchers

All told that lot comes to about 1300pts painted and based to a tabletop standard that I'm more than happy with.
Left to complete are the following:

Avatar of the Hunt
Nomad Prince
Glade Lord on Great Eagle
3 x Kurnoth Hunters
10 x Dryads
10 x Reavers
5 x Wild Riders
5 x Waywatchers

Finishing those off would put me over the top of 2000pts giving me some flexibility when selecting units but alas at this point this will be added to the list of stuff to paint for 2019.

Going forward i've got plans to add in a Treelord, 10 x Wildwood Rangers, a Repeater Bolt Thrower, Chariot  and maybe some Sisters of the Watch. This would take me nicely to around 3000pts and see the army finished for the time being. This I could see happening in 2020, assuming I achieve my goals for 2019 (which i now won't of course!).

All of this is assuming we don't see a major release relating to Wood Elves or Wanderers in the next two years. If that happens then may God have mercy on my wallet!

The End Times

So it's been a while since I last posted and with the end of 2018 fast approaching it's time for a final push to try to at least complete one of my goals. For those of you that have good memories those goals were:

1) Complete a 2000pt wood elf army for Age of Sigmar

2) Paint 1000pts of Word Bearers

3) Paint 1000pts of Night Goblins

As you can probably guess from the lack of posts showing completed word bearers and Night goblins, the second and third of my objeftives has fallen by the way side. The first one though....that's what still in with shout of achieving. 

Allegiance: Order
Mortal Realm: Ghyran

Leaders
Avatar of the Hunt 
- General
- Trait: Legendary Fighter
- Artefact: Ghyrstrike 
Glade Lord on Great Eagle
- Spirit Blade
Archmage On Dragon 
- Magestaff & Book of Hoeth

Battleline
20 x Glade Guard 
10 x Dryads 
5 x Reavers 
5 x Reavers 

Units
5 x Hunting Hounds 
3 x Warhawk Riders 
10 x Wardancers 
5 x Waywatchers 
20 x Eternal Guard 
5 x Wild Riders 
10 x Wildwood Rangers 
3 x Kurnoth Hunters 
- Greatbows

Endless Spells
Quicksilver Swords 
Soulsnare Shackles 

Total: 2500 / 2500
Extra Command Points: 0
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 171

The Narrative Approach

***Rant Alert****today's post is less about progress and more about an epiphany I had the other day with regards to "my" hobby. If it comes across as a little pompous and self important that's not my intention. I just thought that documenting my feelings on this on this here blog might mean I actually reflect on them and actually take them on board this time! Anyway, enough of this and onto today's post.

Like many of my fellow gamers I'm an avid reader of white dwarf. Also like many of my fellow gamers I'm also loath to throw anything out in case I need it at a later date. For those of you that can't see where this is going, this means I now have quite the stack of old White Dwarf magazines.

Anyway, the other sag I was going through some of the oldest one's in my collection and came across an article in issue 290 (old numbering before the mag was rebooted) called "The Narrative Approach" written by one Paul Gaynor. I'd actually go so far to say as this is my favourite white dwarf article of all time looking back. In it Paul talks about creating themed armies in Warhammer fantasy, using his own army of Night Goblins led by scrap collector Ma the Grub as an example (as well as showcasing some other very cool armies also). He talks about building an army around a central theme and the importance of sticking to that theme rather than just picking the best units/combos etc in a list. 

All of this got me thinking about both my own list building and also that of the rest of my regular gaming group's, when it comes to Age of Sigmar and 40k currently. I realised I've become a little obsessed lately with squeezing the best possible combos and units into my lists, reading up on the best units etc... to use in the hope of getting one up on my fellow gamers in our semi regular game sessions. This has resulted, in my opinion, me starting to lose appreciation for an element of what got me into the hobby in the first place, namely the fluff behind the armies I collect. It's also led to me being a bit more over competitive in my games than I ever used to be and perhaps even a little bit "sulky" at times when games werent going how I thought despite all the work I'd put into my lists. (Leading me on to my second favorite WD article about "The Face" written by Jervis Johnson). 

Ultimately it meant that when it came to lists building I was ending up building very samey lists that we're boring me and then subsequently not enjoying the games i was playing with my friends.

This isn't good! After reading that article several times over the last few days i think I'm ready to take it's message to heart. Starting with my wood elves I'm going to review my original list and go back to the drawing board. My intention is to come up with strong theme to base them around in the age of Sigmar and then to use this blog to document their story. 

Hopefully this will mean I can take a little more enjoyment out of my games going forward and spend a little less time trying to min/max my lists. 

Anyway, let me know what you think. Do you have a similar issue to me that's affecting your enjoyment of the hobby? 

Harnessing Malign Sorcery

Continuing the hobby butterflying (not a word?) I’ve moved away from my Necromunda chaos gang and back to my Wood Elves. An update on the Necromunda campaign will he posted eventually, let’s just say though it’s not going well for the Disciples of the Bird.

With the release of Age of Sigmar 2.0 and more importantly Malign Sorcery expanding the list of available spells (both endless and garden variety) I thought now was a good time to paint up some magical support in the form of 2 Archmage seconded from the Eldritch Council. I believe my original 2k list posted at the start of the year had a Spellsinger in it so it’s not as much of a deviation from this list as I first thought, although the fact that the second Archmage is mounted on a (now) fire breathing forest dragon is a bit left field.

Without further ado here is the first Archmage, painted over around 5 1 hour long sessions in the morning before work:

Base colours added - tallarn sand, asurmen blue, orkhide shade, chaos black

 Metals based with boltgun metal, greens layered with Loren green, boots and leather with calthan brown

 Greens highlighted with warpstone glow and moot green

 Blues hihjlighigh with enchanted blue and washed with asurmen blue.

Finished Archmage with classic green flocked base. Good thing about this guy is I can also use him as a glade captain battle standard bearer or a Shadowdancer, or a Spellsingers if I feel like playing wanderers.

Last but not least is the finished (more or less) dragon.

So the dragon is the Carmine Dragon model I posted about 6 months ago. Originally it was going to be a forest dragon and indeed it was used as such in my last game with the wood elves. With the release of the malign sorcery rules though and with my original wood elf mage needing some TLC I decided I could magnetise him to sit on top of the dragon. Looks better than the glade lord model I was going to use as well in my opinion! Rules wise this guy can either be an Archmage on Dragon or a Drakeseer. Plus if I want I can take the mage off and use it as a regular Carmine dragon. I've got plans eventually to paint up and magnetise the glade lord I originally was going to use but that's for the future.

Trials and tribulations in the Underhive

Continuing on from my last post about Necromunda Underhive......so far in our campaign we have Houses Delaque, Van Sarr and Escher represented. I myself have Cawdor gang from when my group played using the Community edition rulebook, however whilst I wait for GW to release the new Cawdor models I thought I'd make use of the Chaos Cult rules in White Dwarf.

So far I've played two games with them, both standard gang fights. The first was a hard fought draw with the Delaques. Although I forced them to bottle first and subsequently was the only one with models left on the battlefield, it finished a dead heat of 12 all in terms of model value killed. Unfortunately I'd take several casualties in the game that meant I was missing 5 of my 13 gang members (including my leader) for the second game against the Van Saar.
This quite game was, quite frankly, an unmitigated disaster for me. Although my 8 man gang was facing off against only 4 van Saar the fact they were hitting on 3s saw most of my guys pinned and then down pretty early on. Coupled with this was my Heavy stubber missing the enemy gangers and fragging two of my own cultists that I'd been stupid enough to leave in the way meant I lost in a big way. After this game I ended up with 2 dead cultists, 1 dead champion and a captured cultist. A variety of serious injuries on the rest means that in my next game I only have 2 cultists, a champion and a Witch available...should be interesting!

Anyway, here's some WIP shots of my gang of ruffians and no hopers:

Necromunda Campaign - Sector 8472

++incoming vox transmission++my lord Marduk, I have activated the cell as instructed to explore the newly accessible Sector 8472. My enlightened brothers and sisters have joined me in casting off the shackles of the false emperor and now stand ready to topple Hive Primus from within. Although our numbers are few our faith in the true Gods will see this vision become reality.
We are not without opposition however, the lapdogs of the hive houses work to counter our holy work, more out of greed and jelousy than because they perceive our true purpose I suspect. In particular the Detectives of House Delaque and the Star Fire Scorpions have recently crossed our paths in the underhive ways surrounding the Sector. We fought those meddling "Detectives" to a standstill with the faith of the Dark God's burning in our eyes, the purity of the word on our lips and the corpses of the slow and simple to aid our assault. Then, filled with renewed vigour (it should be said I and 4 of my brothers received a vision from Tzeentch advising us to be elsewhere) the Witch "Tim" led our holy warriors into battle against the hated Star fire Scorpions. Reports from Tim state our warrios were outnumbered almost 10 to 1 but that our faith shielded us from the worst of their hi-tech sorcery and that a vital mole (Brother "Wheels") has been inserted into their camp.
My Lord I beseech you to send the aid you promised, the way is being prepared for the Holy Warriors of the Mighty Lorgar to set foot on Hive Primus, we stand ready for further guidance and teachings ++ end transmission++

Bit of a while since I last posted to be honest. It's been a bit mental at work recently and that coupled with the start of the World Cup has severely impacted on my time and also motivation to paint. Anyway, the piece above is a recent bit of fluff that I've posted as part of the development of a chaos cult gang for a Necromunda Campaign my group have started playing recently. The Disciples of the Bird are devotees of the word of Lorgar and are working to bring Hive Primis down from within. In reality they're a jumped up rabble of mutants and ne'erdowells that are just about capable of causing an annoyance to the more established underhive house gangs. Still, Necromunda is a fun system and I'm enjoying painting up my rabble of Cultists. It helps also that a large band of cultists are included in my first Word Bearers list that I posted at the start of the year, so two birds one stone I guess!

From the Webway they strike....

Ah, the joy of being a hobby butterfly. So with the recent game with my Wood Elf army under my belt and with the rumours of Dark Eldar on the horizon I suddenly lost the momentum I had to finish painting my Wood Elf 2k list and revisited the True Kin. I think I mentioned in my introductory post that Dark Eldar were my favorite 40k army, indeed I've been collecting them since around 2005! I've got around 2000pts painted up for them at the moment, mainly because the release of the new range caused me to put my original models away in storage and their in various stages if disrepair at the moment. Currently I've been painting my conversion of lady Malys as well as some of her Harlequin allies to add to my Kabal.