The New Year is here and that means new beginnings, new opportunities and most importantly new hobby projects! For this year’s Tale of Gamers we’re also going to be mixing things up a bit and running a 3 round league at the same time. At 1k, 1.5k and 2k everyone will be throwing down with their new armies for that most important reward: Bragging Rights! (and a cool custom trophy)
So good news this month we’re finally out of lockdown again! Hopefully we’ll stay that way and our league can go ahead as planned (I realise I’ve probably jinxed this now.) Before that though we’ve got more models to get painted so lets see how everyone’s got on.
Alex: The first models I got finished this month were a set of Company Veterans. These are a super cheap unit that’s perfect for holding objectives and performing actions while the rest of the army flies off to do other things. I used Assault Intercessors as the base for them with the customary gold veteran colours and some personal heraldry to make them stand out.
With those guys done it was onto the star of this month the Sanguinary Priest. Continuing my theme of Primaris for everyone I broke out the Chaplain model from Indomitus and converted him with parts from the normal Priest kit. He also got his hands on the Jump Pack of Antor Delassio from Kill Team Cassius so he should have no problems keeping up with the rest of the army.
A Sanguinary Priest is pretty much an auto take in any Blood Angels list. Not only can he put a unit into the Assault Doctrine every turn, give out a 6+ after damage save aura and heal people but if you give him the Chief Apothecary upgrade and the Selfless Healer Warlord Trait he’ll be bringing dead models back to life for 0CP.
For next time I’ll be working on a Whirlwind. These haven’t seen much play for the past few years but thanks to the new Codex they’re now making a comeback as a key utility piece.
Army Progress:
Models Completed : 20
Total Points: 645
Pledge for next month: A Whirlwind.
Si: Another month, another deadline! Boy do they come around quickly. I thought I’d have a busy month as I should have been hosting the first event of the year in the Isle of Man but sadly the Covid lockdown persisted and that has had to be postponed (sadfaces). Instead work has been fairly crazy and getting my pledge of a unit of Aggressors done turned out to be quite a challenge after all.
But another unit down and I’m starting have what looks like an army in the cabinet. Exciting times indeed!
In regards to the unit, I really like what the Aggressors brings to the Space Wolf army. With our outflank ability you can get them into the thick of it and they have a surprisingly large amount of firepower (puns for the win). 6D6 flamers with a -1 AP on the 2nd turn can do a number on my opponents base holders. They are no slouches in combat either. All for a bargain 120pts. I may add another unit in the future.
Does make me chuckle that in the new Wolves fluff they are Long Fangs though. Seems they are happy to hang up the big guns and get their paws dirty still. Show the youth how to do it.
Speaking of paws I’m putting my big puppy pants on this month and pledging a big one. 5 Thunderwolf Cavalry are now on the painting table. Let’s hope I don’t get a famous fail stamp for over committing!
Army Progress:
Models Completed : 17
Total Points: 714
Pledge for next month: 5 Thunderwolf Cavalry
Tange: As it stands I’m building an army of one of the lowest (if the not the absolute bottom) rated factions in 40K in terms of tournament performance. This month I thought I’d hard lean into that theme by building units that focus on the faction’s biggest weakness, melee combat!
First up, I’ve completed an XV86 Coldstar Commander wielding relic Fusion Blades, for the build I’ve managed to get my hands on some 3D printed Halo style energy swords which I think works well with the Battlesuit’s Gundam aesthetic.
I can’t field a Farsight Enclaves army without Commander Faright can I? As the current version of Farsight is the ‘Citadel Finecast’ kit originally released in 2013, I did consider using a standard plastic Commander kit and then Farsighting* it up a bit. In the end though I manned up and after some initial rage inducing moments with brittle resin and removing enough flashing to make a second model I managed to get over the line with this mini project. Knowing my luck I expect a new Farsight plastic kit to be released SoonTM
This brings me another step closer to my initial 1000pt list, I’ve got my suicidal close combat leaders, what I need now is some body guards to try and preserve these guys past turn one. Overall I’m pleased with the progress so far, this is the third article to be released and I’ve got what looks like the beginnings of decent looking army filling up my display shelf.
*Not sure that’s how you would turn Farsight into a verb, but I’m not a Wordsmith, so sue me.
Army Progress:
Models Completed : 20
Total Points: 705
Pledge for next month: A unit of three XV8 Crisis Bodyguards with an assortment of weapons and a futile hope of keeping my HQ’s alive.
Rhaz: I decided to take it easy this month with my three Venatari Custodians. Resin is more of a pain to clean and build than plastic minis so the models were quite time consuming a little bit rough to paint. That being said I think they have turned out pretty nice in the end, and I’m really happy with these guys.
I think they’ll do some good work on the table too. The Kinetic Destroyer Pistol and Tarsus Buckler loadout is great especially with the double shoot Stratagem. Venetari also bring some much needed mobility to the Custodes, and they look so cool with their little bucklers its a win, win situation. I’m planning on grabbing three more of these fellas at some point so I can build an extra big unit; I think it will smash some stuff!
Next month I’m planning on painting up some more chunky Allarus boys (I’ve only got two at the moment so need at least one more to have a proper unit) and a Shield Captain on a Dawneagle Jetbike. This will bring me past half way to my 2000 point goal so hopefully we can get some 1000 point games in (Covid permitting) once everyone else catches up.
Army Progress:
Models Completed : 16
Total Points: 805
Pledge for next month: A Shield Captain on Bike and 3 more Allarus.
Kev: For this month we are diving right in to my favourite Ork unit in the army, the Meganobz. One of the reasons I stayed away from Orks in the past was purely that I wasn’t keen on the models but when I found Artel-W I fell in love. To be honest I think I bit off more than I can chew with these models, they are ridiculously detailed and took a huge amount of time to complete. My only other issue was that although they come with enough parts to make two units the do still look very similar. I spent hours mixing and matching parts from both kits to make what I thought were different enough to look unique but from the same elite unit of Orks. It doesn’t look it but a lot of trimming and pinning went on to get them to this stage.
The first attempt at getting what was in my head to model was the helmeted Nob with no yellow. While I think I did a good job on the weathering and rust, using purple inks was just a bit too shiny over a metallic. As I was happy with the rust and weathering I got the rest done but switched to using thin layers of Vallejo Royal Purple which definitely fits the comic book style I’m going for more.
At this point I had hit a bit of a road block and couldn’t see the forest for the trees when it came to details. I think getting out of a painting slump is one of the most difficult things to do especially on models that in your head are much higher detail than your ability will allow. This is when being part of groups like this on The WAAAGH Studios can be a huge helping hand. I had been starting and stopping for weeks with very little progress but then I finally bit the bullet and asked for help from the group. The advice was simple but worked a treat.
1: Get your bases painted it’s simple and adds a bit of depth back to the model. 2: Have some of your painted army at hand and use it to help re highlight the sort of areas you want to stand out and just touch up the zenithal highlights, re sketching these and having the base done instantly made the models easier to visualise.
As soon as these steps were done it was back to ‘easy’ Street and things started to flow pretty quickly. Overall these models are truly wonderful but a bit daunting so I would not suggest anyone trying to do 6 of them at a time.
Army Progress:
Models Completed : 23
Total Points: 760
Pledge for next month: 2 Shokkjump Dragstas
Dean: It’s time to get down with the sickness…Uh wa-ah-ah-ah.
This month I’ve put some time into the first block of Poxwalkers. These took a little longer as they required a bit of experimentation to get the colour pallet to reflect the dead flesh in the cold vibe. I had quite a bit of fun giving them all crazy eyes and various stages of rotting flesh and seeping wounds. Ultimately, I’ve got at least another 20 to do but I think they look the business at the moment. I need to look into getting a few spares and I don’t want too many repeats of the lab coat and leather suit models so there will probably be some conversions in the future.
Now during the past few months, in fact even before this officially started, I’ve been working on the army’s center piece. Some of you may have seen the works in progress on social media.
I’ve long thought the Mortarion model, whilst stunning, is also slightly too hunched for my tastes. During the initial thought experiments for my army I’d given poor Alex and Tange a near lecture on what I disliked about the hunchbacked model with a small head.
So here’s my extensive re-sculpt of Mortarion:
I’ve ended up sculpting the entire upper left leg and 80% of the torso, as well as a complete head replacement. Some of you may noticed the head is slightly larger than you’d normally go for, but that’s a design choice on my part. I wanted to shift the design away from the small head large armour to a more character focused design
Obviously I wanted to keep the re-breather, but I also wanted to make It look like he’s become a more skeletal husk where it’s fused into the bone. Overall I wanted to have an “angel of death” rather than “flying hunchback with a cough” vibe, and I’m happy with the end result.
I also chose the base to give him the right height and a descending look to lean into that aesthetic. It’s going to take me a good while to finish this guy which is why I’m doing a preview now. I suspect he’ll be one of the last models I actually get finished.
Now I also need to build out the core army, so next month I’ll be putting down my first unit of five Blightlord Terminators.
Army Progress:
Models Completed : 14
Total Points: 585
Pledge for next month: 5 Blightlord Terminators
What’s on your painting table at the moment? Started a new army of your own recently? Let us know in the comments.
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