Pictures of the first finished Dwarfs

After promising pictures for a long time both on the blog and on a Facebook group, I really felt it was time to deliver. So here are a few pics of my finished unit of Dwarf Rangers, and some characters. The pictures are taken outside on my balcony table, as it was the only place I felt the light was good enough to show the colors.

To show off a single miniature from the unit, I took two pictures of the musician. The first is from the front and the second from the side showing off more of his horn.

Here is a picture of the unit of Dwarf Rangers. They are built from the Thunderer/Quarreller sprues, but to make them stand out as Rangers I have given everyone a two handed axe that they carry on their backs. The only exceptions are the few dwarfs carrying an axe already (musician and standard bearer), they carry a crossbow on their back instead.

The unit is painted in greens to be one with nature. Their armor and shirts are painted Elysian Green, and I used Castellan Green for their capes.
The chainmail is painted Stormhost Silver. This is a quite shiny metallic, and I think that is a good match for dwarf armor. All my dwarf chainmail will have this color, in contrast to the plated mail that for many dwarfs will be painted Warplock Bronze (same as the musician's horn). This so I can shof the details on both, as some Dwarfs wear chainmail with plates outside.
All leather (boots, belts, cuffs, etc) are painted Mournfang Brown. This is one of three brown colors used. The other two are Rhinox Hide for the garments that some dwarfs show under their chainmail. This is meant to be rougher, unprocessed leather. The final brown is the Doombull Brown that I have used for wooden parts like the crossbows.
I have gone for three hair colors for my Dwarfs: Blonde hair is Averland Sunset, brown hair is Skrag Brown and gray hair is Celestra Grey.
For the skin I have used Bugmans Glow, and the gold is Retributor Armour. I have also used some Leadbelcher for the metallic parts that aren't supposed to be processed too much.

While working on the Rangers, I also painted up two Runelords. One of them has the same cape as my Rangers, while the other is painted Caledor Sky. I see I need to do a little bit of cleanup on the details of the blue cape when I look at the picture.
The one on the far right here is a classic metal Dwarf Lord with great weapon. This is one of my many favorite dwarf figures as he looks like he is studying the battlefield. There are no special colors on this one, just the standard colors used throughout the army.

When I bought the dwarf on the left he was a special character named Grimm Burloksson, but with the new rules that came with Age of Sigmar he is now just known as a Cogsmith. To me he will always be Grimm (but maybe with another name to fit in to my backstory). Beside Grimm is the Warden King, formerly known as Belegar Ironhammer. Here I tried to use the new gemstone paints for the first time, and although I think it looks nice I am not sure I did it right...

This is the Dwarfs that are completely finished at the moment, alongside a unit of old metal Ironbreakers that has been done for a while. I also have a lot of painted figures that I either painted ages ago or that I inherited, but I would like to revisit them before I let them in to my army. Some of the ones I have painted have bases that doesn't fit in to my current plan. If possible I will remove the rocks from their bases, or alternatively cut the bases off and replace them with new ones.King Alrik with shieldbearers and a unit of miners are examples of figures that I need to give this kind of treatment. I also like to repaint the inherited Dwarfs as I would like to have painted my own army.

Hopefully it will not be too long before more Dwarfs can be shown here...

My thoughts for Armies on Parade 2017

Since I didn't get to participate in Armies on Parade 2016, I have started to think of the 2017 event that probably will take place in October 2017.
My plan (as stated earlier) is to participate with the Dwarfs that I didn't manage to finish in time for 2016.
I had planned to present the gates of a Dwarf hold with some mountains, but after seeing how the entries were for 2016 I am now thinking of making two "levels". I will make the top level as intended, but under it I will have another board with caves and tunnels of the hold.
I plan to make at least 3 storylines on the bottom level, one with some Night Goblins that have managed to breech the hold, and are being met by Irondrakes lined up to take care of them.
The second with Grudge Ponies going in and out of the mine on top level, and seeing others going down in to the mine shafts on the bottom level where miners will be at work.
Then the third will be small cave that is closed off and only visible from the front of the board, where Grombrindal dressed as a vampire hunter will take care of a vampire.

The idea with Grombrindal is just to add a little extra to the board, and it will be a very nice way to show off a lovely miniature that doesn't really fit in to a traditional dwarf army.

I plan to use four blocks of wood as support to keep the top level in place, and around these I will have the tunnels so that I get as much light as possible in to the lower level of the display. Then the blocks of wood will keep everything in place without being visible. If I do it this way then placing the miniatures on the bottom level should be quite easy and still it will give the feel of a cave.

There will be a hole in the top level where my mine shaft is, so that the Grude Ponies can pass up and down to the mines below. Originally I had just planned to make a little hole in the styrofoam up top and paint it black to indicate a mine, but now I will build the ramp down to the lower level and maybe I will put Grombrindal in a cave behind that ramp. This depends a bit on the strength of the material and how big I need to make the ramp. I plan to carve the details out and then protect it with a thin coat with plaster strips. This will both add stability and make painting a lot easier. Then I will add thin wooden strips for mineshaft support girders.
In this area I will place miners and time will show if they will be working or if they are preparing to go fight.

In the main cave I will place the Irondrakes and the Night Goblins, but how I will do this I have not yet decided. I think I need to play around with the design and see how much space I have and how things will look.

On top I will need to make some changes to the gate to be able to field two cannons on the top guarding the entrance. This is just using some plasticard to raise the stone blocks, and should be done quite easily.
Then I will see if I should add an observation balloon or two as well as the Badyear Blimp, or if the blimp will be enough. I don't know this until I have made the design and seen how much space I have available on the mountain slopes.No matter what I end up with I will make some observation balloons for the army, as I think it would fit my back story with the engineer that has made the blimp. He started with balloons but then got the idea to take the balloons to the next level and thereby creating the blimp. But I will need to have some Gyrocopters in the display as well, so time will show what there is room to place on the board.

Dwarfs progress report

It's finally been some progress to my production of Dwarfs. I have the Ranger unit of twenty Rangers all painted, washed and based, alongside four single miniatures.

I will post pictures as soon as I am home while there is daylight so I can get some nice pictures of the miniatures. I thought the washing should go real quick, but with six different washes it took some time to get it done. With the pictures I will also describe the colors and washes.

At the moment I am working on a unit of twenty Warriors with full command, they are getting along quite nicely, and they are the first time I have used bright blue on my dwarfs (I do have some Miners painted in really dark blue from earlier) and I like the look of it. A handful of them are wearing capes, and they are all painted purple with gray linings. 

These warriors will all be armed with double-handed axes, except for the three Dwarfs that are the command unit. The leader will have a big axe that he holds up in the air while the other hand is giving the command to move forward, the standard bearer and the musician will both have an axe in the hand where they are not holding the standard or the horn.

I might expand this unit to thirty or forty in the future, at the moment I'm thinking thirty is enough but time will tell where I end. After all, I will have several units of Warriors so the total amount of Warriors will be the same no matter the unit size.

I have started to re-think my Ironbreaker/Irondrakes decision as I think thirty Irondrakes might be too much. If I keep them in separate units it should be ok with Ironbreakers with different looks. So I might make one unit of twenty or two units of ten Irondrakes, and one unit of twenty Ironbreakers. They are not first in line to be finished, so I'll see where I stand when time comes to build them.

I have a unit of thirty Thunderers primed, as well as a unit of ten Longbeards and a unit of sixteen old-school Dwarfs. I have started to paint the old-school ones up a little, and they will be the next unit I work on after the ongoing Warrior unit is done.

Ï have also started on a White Dwarf subscribers only miniature, where Grombrindal (THE White Dwarf)  is dressed as a vampire hunter and standing on top of a coffin with a vampire in it, ready to hammer a stake in to its heart to kill it. This will not be a miniature that will be used in my normal dwarf army, but I will have it as a miniature on my shelves and I will use it for the 2017 Armies on Parade (more about that in a later post). This is a resin miniature, but so far I have not experienced the problems with getting the glue to stick as I usually experience with these miniatues.

At the moment I have started to prime it with Imperial Primer as there are so many small pieces I don't think using the usual spray will be the best choice this time.

The final miniature in the making at the moment is my first Gyrocopter. The Gyrocopter sets comes with the choice of buliding a regular Gyrocopter or a Gyrobomber, I will have a few of both in my army (as well as my blimp that also will carry bombs and an organ gun) but for this first build I am going for the regular Gyrocopter.

I am thinking of painting it a greyish blue as I think this will look good for a flying machine.

I have started to prime the cockpit, as this must be painted on the inside before assembly.

The pilot is glued together, and he will also be primed and painted before being glued in to the cockpit. 

For future Gyrocopter builds, I'm thinking of taking the sprues outside and priming them before cutting the parts off, as I think it will be a lot of job doing it the way I do now with manual primer all over. 

Slow but steady...

I haven't been good at finding time to paint these last few weeks, so it is just as well that I decided some time ago not to participate in Armies on Parade 2016. The arrangement was this weekend, and from what I've seen of pictures from Games Workshop in Oslo it looks like it was some great boards in the competition this year.

Last year there were just a few boards (including the winning one) that had any height to it, and this year most of the boards had height to them in one way or the other.

I might have to up my ideas a little more for my Dwarf borad next year to stand a chance in the competition. Maybe make some tunnels below ground level, and still do what I had planned for this year above ground...  

I do have lots of Night Goblins as I collect a mostly Goblin Greenskin army, so it won't be too hard to assemble a few units and field them in the caves advancing towards a section where my Ironbreakers and Irondrakes stands ready to fight them. I think I will need to start to think about this solution right away, and find out how I can place and remove miniatures from the tunnels...

Since the last update I have finished the two Runelords and the Warden King. They came with their own bases, so they just need a wash and then they are completely done.

My Rangers are still missing their axes and their crossbow bolt-pouches, but they are primed now, and the axes have one of four colors done. 

I've decided to give the Rangers the same Astrogranite bases as my other units to make the bases as unified as possible throughout the entire army, and then I will put grass turf on top of that to show that the Rangers are out in the nature. Later I will try and make the forest look the same.

The Imperial Dwarfs have gotten their chainmail painted, and I will soon start on the leather parts. I still have to decide what color to use on the wool parts of their vests though.

I have come quite a long way with my first unit of Warriors. At the moment I am painting the leather parts on them, and their chainmail, armor, clothes, skin and hair is already done. What remains after the leather parts are their helmets, and then I will have to prime and paint their weapons and the arm and hands attached to them. I have decided to go for a twenty strong unit armed with double-handed axes and with full command. Then the idea is to make a unit of the same size armed with a mix of hammers and axes and with shields.

Then I will see how many warriors I have left, and see if I should make a third unit or just add the remaining Warriors in to these two. Warrior units can be up to forty Warriors strong, so I don't have to worry about overstepping maximum unit size.

Haven't started on the blimp yet, but I have primed the pilot.

For characters this time, I am working on two Engineers, one with two pistols and one with a huge mechanical hammer of sorts. I also have an old Dwarf Lord leaning on his great-axe. I think I am about half way with them at the moment.

Mid month update

We are just a bit over half way through September and I have decided that I will not enter the Armies on Parade this year. I haven't got the time to prepare my army and the board to a high enough standard for me to be completely satisfied with it. So instead of using up my idea on a board that don't stand a chance in the competition, I will wait until next year and deliver an entry that I can be proud of no matter if it wins or not.
I will keep working on my Dwarf army though, so that I don't get the same problem next year...

The work has been slower than I would have wanted, but the Ranger unit is almost done now. I need to paint some details on the banner, and the weirdly looking horn for the musician. Then there are a few hands holding axes that still needs paint.
When this is done the unit can go in to battle as Quarrellers, then I will paint up the axes (or crossbows for the ones holding axes in their hands already) that goes on their backs to make them Rangers. I will also paint up the pouches with crossbow bolts that they all will carry.
I hope to start doing this when I get home from work today.

I will also start to paint up my "Imperial" Dwarfs today as they will be the next unit out. They are Warriors, but because of their old style they look so different that I will need to field them in a separate unit. When I start to paint them up  I will see if there are some single miniatures with the same look in the box I inherited. If so I will see if I can join them in to this unit to make it a little bigger.

The next unit to be assembled and primed is a unit of Longbeards. They come in boxes of ten and can be max thirty in a unit. I have three boxes, but I think I will make them with two full commands, so that I can either split them in one unit of ten and one of twenty, or in two units of fifteen each.

The three single miniatures I have worked on (two Rune Lords and a Warden King) are almost done. There are just a few details remaining to make them stand out a bit more. I need to paint some thin golden lines and gemstones on to their armor.
I tried to paint gemstones directly on their dark armor but that did not work as planned. Turns out I need a bright background of either gold or silver to get the right effect.  I recently saw a video of Duncan at Warhammer TV painting gemstones, so now I know how to do it correctly.

Armies on Parade 2016?

I see that time is going real fast, so at the moment I am very unsure if I will be able to participate this year. I still haven't finished my Rangers, and I only have one unit of Ironbreakers that are done apart from the Rangers.
This is not enough to compete in the event, and I would rather wait one year and deliver a very good entry, than doing something hasty and use up the idea.
But I will see how it goes, as of now I am working towards the goal of having an entry to present on October 15th.

I am starting to see the end of the Rangers build. Saturday I painted all the skin, and yesterday I painted hair on ten of the Rangers. Today I will paint the rest of them, and hopefully start painting the crossbows.

Also on Saturday I detailed the bases for the Rune Lords and the Warden King. They are now washed, and the runes on the stones of the Rune Lords have been painted in gold. On the Warden King I have painted all the intricate patterns on top of the stone in gold, as well as the runes inscribed at the front and back of the stone. I am quite happy with how that turned out, but not that happy with the trim I painted on the cape of the Warden King, so I might paint his cape again in order to get the trim correct.

Armies on Parade 2016 - Part 1

It's that time of the year again, and I now believe I have the plan for my board for 2016.
It will be a flat board this year, but I don't know if Games Workshop will sell single tiles this year or if I have to cut myself a tile from plywood.

On the board I will have the gate section from a Citadel Fortress and then I will make mountain walls going from each side of the gate and to the end of the board. What angle I will use will be decided when I see what else I want on the board and how I can get everything to fit.

Behind the walls there will be a few small scenarios. There will be a mine with two Grudge ponies going in and out of the mine. One will be on the way down with a cart that is either empty or carrying a little equipment, and one will be on the way up carrying a load of rocks of some sort.

There will also be a shaft going in to the thickest part of the mountain wall, and my unit of old metal Ironbreakers will either be on the way up or down from the shaft. These will probably only be visible if one looks at the board from behind.

On top of this section my Badyear Blimp will be placed. I think I know how to make it now. I will use styrofoam balls from Panduro and cut the ends off except from the one in front and in the back, so that it looks fairly blimpy.

Here is a picture of the original Goodyear Blimp. I am going for the sort of medieval version of this.

 This is sort of what the air balloons will look like. I found this pic on Google image search.

The plan is to use styrofoam balls and glue them together (not sure if I will use 3 or 4 yet, will have to see when the compartment underneath is done). The balls will then be coated with strips of plaster, both to add them together and to make a surface I can paint.
The balloon will be given an eye-catching color, and the compartment underneath will be dark wood (probably Dryad Bark).
Then I will make some sort of rudder and either add it to the balloon or to the wooden construction.

In front of the wall on ground level, there will be trees, and among them the Ranger unit will be placed. At the same side of the table, there will also be a small cave where one or two Goblins is hiding, spying on the Dwarfs. They will be hidden by some moss that will appear as bushes on the board so the Dwarfs can't see them.

Starting to look like something

I have managed some progress on the Dwarfs since my last update.
I am well underway with painting my Rangers. I have also started to paint up two Runelords and a Warden King.
As I see it, the Runelords and the Warden King have two layers of armor. I have chosen to paint what looks like chainmail or Gromril armor Stormhost Silver. This will be the color used for this item for all my Dwarfs to make a coherent look for the entire army.
Then they have another layer of armor on top of this, and this is painted Warplock Bronze. The reason for this is to both create a clear contrast to the silver and to the gold details and gemstones they have on their armor.
They also get capes of bright color. The Warden King has a bright red cape, and the Runelords bright green and clear blue. This will hopefully make them focal points on the board when they get there. This will be good both for the Armies on Parade and for future gaming as they are the leaders of the Dwarf community and should be seen on the battlefield.

The Rangers all get a uniformed look, where the only thing that is different is the shape of their beards and helmets and the color of their hair.
I have chosen to paint all chainmail Stormhost Silver, and their shirts and the edges of their armor is painted Elysian Green. They all have capes, and they are painted slightly darker in Castellan Green.
All boots and belts will be painted Mournfang Brown, as this is the standard color for leather in my armies. This will also later be applied to the bolt cogs they carry the crossbow ammunition in, to the cuffs of their arms and to the padding under the helmets.
For the garment they wear under their chainmails, I wanted the leather to look a bit tougher. So I went for Rhinox Hide for that. There will only be a small stripe between the chainmail and the boots that is visible, and to some extent the underside of the miniature where that can be seen, and this darker brown makes a nice contrast both to the boots and the color of the metal and chainmail.

Right now I'm in the process of painting the leather on to the Rangers, and the next step will be to paint the helmets. All helmets will be Warplock Bronze, and the helmets that have detailing will have this painted in Stormhost Silver. My unit Champions all wear the helmets with wings, and the wings will be painted Retributor Armour (gold).For the helmets with horns, the horns will be painted Stormhost Silver like the details. I strongly believe the Dwarfs use metal for their horns and not bone, as they are known for being really good at making metal artifacts.

When the Rangers are painted up, I will prime and paint the arms with the crossbows and glue them on before I wash the minis with the appropriate washes and drybrush the capes.

All bases will be made with Astrogranite texture paint, and the sides of the bases will be painted with Mechanicus Standard Gray as they match perfectly. This is the same way the bases for my Ironbreakers are done, and I plan to make a small scenario on the board with them.

progress is slow but steady...

I have assembled my unit of twenty Dwarfs with capes now, and decided they will be Rangers.
I did not like to give the musician a drum, so I found a weird looking horn in a Warriors box, and will use that instead. All of the Rangers will have crossbows that are loaded and ready to fire, the only exception here is the standard bearer and the musician, they will have an axe in their free hand, and the crossbow on their back.

Right now I am putting together the first unit of Thunderers for the army. This will be a unit with thirty Dwarfs (maximum allowed according to the new Age of Sigmar General's Handbook), and I plan to add a similar unit of Quarrellers in the future.
The Thunderers will also have a full command with a horn blower, a standard bearer and a champion. The horn blower is from the "Battle for Skull Pass" box, and he looks like no other horn blower I have seen before. I also added three regular Thunderers from the same set in to this unit. All the Thunderers from this box have the same pose, so putting three into a unit of thirty will hopefully blend them in. These three are unpainted, so I can paint them up from the start along with the rest of the unit.
So far I have glued together half the unit, and I hope to put together the remaining fifteen tonight or tomorrow.

When the Thunderer unit is glued together I will prime the units and single minis assembled so far, and start to paint them up. The plan is to paint the bodies, and then prime and paint the arms (and heads for the old Warrior unit) separately and glue it on before wash and highlights are applied.

Planning unit sizes

I was at Games Workshop yesterday, and got a peek at the new General's Handbook that is comming out in one and a half weeks time.
This book gives Age of Sigmar point values, and rules for unit sizes. I just had a quick look at the section for my Dwarfs, but the book covers the entire model range.

I found that the Warriors can be minimum ten strong and max forty. The Quarrelers and Thunderers are both minimum ten and max thirty.

So I will make my caped Dwarfs a twenty strong unit will full command. I'll see later today if I can use them as Rangers as I originally planned, or if they will be an elite Thunderer unit (elite will only count for the fluff, as there are no elite unit as such in the rules).
That leaves me twenty-eight Dwarfs already cut from their sprues (but still missing arms), and twenty-four Dwarfs on the sprues in the remaining two boxes (after I have removed eight caped ones to fill the caped unit).
But I also found some plastic Thunderers in the stash of inherited Dwarfs, so I will add them to the units I am building now.

I will have to see if I need one more box of Thunderers/Quarrelers to get enough weapons to make what I need, but I will arm the different units after I have selected the Ranger unit tonight, and then I'll see how the other units will be.

Games Workshop is running a campaign all over the world, where good fight against evil and the results from all fights in all of Europe will be added together to see how the fight has gone in the end. You can join either by playing games, or by painting units and showing them to the staff at your store, so I plan to get my Dwarf units painted up to boost the good side with painting-points.

Yesterday I assembled my second Runesmith, with a hammer and a rune so freshly forged the smoke is still streaming from it.

just a quick update

I still haven't found my box of Dwarf sprues, and I have really looked everywhere for it by now. I am sure it will pop up somewhere someday, as I know I haven't thrown it away. But luckily I discovered that one box of Thunderers/Quarrellers have the arms to make a unit of both. I feared that the crossbows used the same arms as the guns, but they come separate. This means that with one box and extra bodies, I can make thirty-two Dwarfs and not just sixteen. 

So I will try and count how many different bodies I have and decide how to arm them after that.

I will check how the old metal Thunderers look compared to the plastic ones, and if they can blend in to one unit, I will see how many units I can make. If they don't blend, then I will at least have one full unit of Thunderers in plastic, and split the rest between a Quarreller unit and a Ranger unit.

For the Rangers I will need to do something special as I would like the musician to have  a horn and not a drum, but I will see what I can manage. If arms can be swapped between Quarrellers and Warriors, then there are no problems but I suspect the Warriors are built like the Miners and if that is the case then I would need to do some chopping and then it depends on how the instrument is fixed to the arm. 

I will start to assemble the torsos tomorrow and see how  soon I can have some units ready for painting.

I have assembled the Runelord using the big beard, and the book and hammer. I think I will get one more to assemble with the head that is pictured on the box and the other arms (hammer and a freshly made rune). I also assembled the Warden King, but there were no optional parts on him.

They are both standing in a couple of pieces. The Dwarfs themselves are completely assembled, but they are not glued to the bases, and the Warden King base is in two pieces for easy painting. 

Started with the dwarfs

I have started with my dwarf army for Armies on Parade now. The entry will be a Dwarf hold getting ready for war. I will not use all my Dwarfs for this as I have lots, but I will build and paint enough to show that there is a considerable show of force and that they mean business. At the same time I will get a Dwarf army to use in Age of Sigmar after the parade is over.

A long time ago I started to cut out Dwarfs from sprues to make a unit where everyone wore capes, and this would be my Rangers, the rest of the Dwarfs on the sprues would be regular units of Thunderers or Quarrellers. I have gotten some doubts if the Rangers should have capes or not, as I will need to give them all axes on their backs and I'm not sure how this will look if they have capes. Trying to find this out, I found that I somehow have managed to misplace all the sprues with arms and equipment for these dwarfs. I have their bases, the torsos and heads, (sorted in two boxes one with and one without capes) but all the sprues have been placed in a box when I was moving everything out of my old hobby room, and now I can't find that box. I am sure it is buried deep in one of many cardboard boxes with either Lego or other Warhammer stuff, but I have not managed to find the box yet. I hope I find it this weekend.

Instead I found an old box of sixteen Warriors yesterday and have stared to assemble them. These Dwarfs are totally different from the warriors on sale now. They are just a little bit smaller than the current Dwarfs, but that is not really noticeable unless you mix them in to one mixed unit.
What makes them stand out is the way they are assembled, and how they are dressed and  armed.
These dwarfs are not assembled with a full cast body where you just add a front piece with head and beard like the usual warrior range, they are assembled more like orcs where the legs are one piece, the upper body is one piece, and then you place the head on an outstanding neck.
The regular Warriors have chainmail armor and some of them wear a cape, and that's it. These old ones have other clothes outside of their chainmails. There are a few different patterns of vests, one who look like it is made of sheepskin with the fur still on it (like it's made to be warm) and another that looks more like it is made to look nice (without the fur).
The heads look a lot different too, as they look a lot more well-groomed than the average Dwarf. They all look like they have been to the barber recently, even though I've read that a Dwarf never cuts his or her beard.
The difference in construction also makes the old Dwarfs look a lot thinner, as the traditional Dwarfs look rather bulky.

When it comes to the weapons they have axes and hammers that just look like an older design than the ones in the current boxes, sort of more bulky but this is very typical for the weapons made in that period. The crossbows have a traditional design, but instead of posing them ready to fire these crossbows are posed like they are being carried in to war by  marching unit.
The configuration I will be using is some quite long axes carried on one arm, and then I will use shields on the other arm. This will make them stand out quite a bit from my other Dwarfs.
I will only have one other type of Dwarfs using long axes and that is the Longbeards who will have axes to stand out from the Hammerers who are built from the same box (except I plan to only use old metal Hammerers in my army as I have lots of them). The Longbeards will have both hands on their axes though and I doubt they will have shields, but time will probably show...

I must make some fluff for the old Warriors, and that fluff will say that they are city Dwarfs who live above ground and trade with the humans in the area. They have taken to the human ways of hair and clothing. But facial hair and chainmail is a big part of the Dwarf identity, so they groom their facial hair and wear clothes outside their chainmails to blend in without forgetting where they come from.
So when the hold goes to war they are ready to fight just as hard as any other Dwarf in the clan.

Soon that time of the year...

I have to let the Chaos rest for a little while, but I still plan to assemble the remaining army relatively quick and paint it up.
There are only a few months before Armies on Parade is here again, so I need to get my army started. This year I am doing Dwarfs as last year didn't have any of them in the competition.
So I need to get my gameboard tile, the scenery to go on top it and the figures ready.
I am not sure yet exactly when the date of the competition is, but last year it was held in October.

I think I have talked about the plan before, but a quick recap can't be wrong...
I will use an old Warhammer castle gate as the gates to a Dwarf keep, then I will use some sort of building foam to make the mountain walls and some details.

Outside the walls I will have a forest (might be just one tree, we'll see how much room I get) and in the forest I will have a unit of Rangers.

I will check if I'm allowed to use old miniatures (I think I am as long as they are made by Games Workshop or Forgeworld), and decide what units to use when I see what I have.
There will be Quarrelers, Thunderers and Warriors for sure. If I am allowed to use old miniatures I will also have Hammerers, the old metal Ironbreakers, Thorek Ironbrow and probably also Lord Alrik and his Shieldberers.

There will also probably be a Gyrocopter, a Gyrobomber and my much talked about Bad Year Blimp.
I will also see if I manege to fit in a unit of miners and my Grudge Ponies and minecarts.

Revisiting an old box - Warriors of Chaos Spearhead

Several years ago Games Workshop released a box called Warriors of Chaos Spearhead. This was a box with all the new models that came out for a Chaos release. I'm not sure when this was, but it was several years ago when characters were released in metal.
The box included the following units: Ten Chaos Warhounds, five Chaos Marauder Horsemen and five Chaos Knights. These are all plastic minis, and it was the first release of the new plastic knights (the ones still on sale).
The box also contains a lot of metal miniatures: Five Chaos Warriors chosen, five Chaos Warriors chosen command, a Chaos Nurgle sorcerer, a Khorne Chaos Lord on Juggernaut, a Chaos Lord on Daemonic mount, a Chaos Champion of Khorne, Sigvald the Magnificent and Wulfrik the Wanderer.

I have built and painted the Chaos Warhounds a long time ago, but then the rest of the units have stayed in the box.. So I figure this is a good time to get a big box off the shelves.

The Nurgle Sorcerer didn't need any assembly, just a cleanup so he is ready for priming and painting. The mini is exactly like the current plastic one, but the details are more crisp and clean on the plastic one. I plan to use them both in the army.
Sigvald the Magnificent will lead my Slaanesh faction, and as mentioned earlier he will still be Sigvald in my army even though the official rules has reduced him to a plain chaos lord. I have cleaned him up and started to assemble him. I've gotten his torso together, and tomorrow I will attach his arms. His sword has kept up magnificently well in the box compared to other thin parts in the box.
The Khorne Lord on Juggernaut will lead my unit of Juggernaut riding warriors, so I will paint him up like them, maybe use a little more gold to show he is a Lord.
The Lord on Daemonic mount will be one of the leaders for my Slaves of Darkness faction, and I'm not sure yet what role Wulfrik will get (or the Exalted Hero of Chaos as he is reduced to) but he will also be in the Slaves of Darkness part of the army.

The Knights will be batch built along with the other Knight boxes, as I have thirty Knights in total. I'll probably build maximum fifteen a the time. I need to get new bases for a few of them as they have the small square cavalry bases in their boxes. I'm not sure if I will use those small square bases for the smaller Maruder horsemen or if I will get them cavalry bases as well. I'll chat with the guys at the Games Workshop store tomorrow and hear what they mean and see what size bases they come with in the current box.

I think I need to use the bitzbox extensively for my Chosen and Chosen command, as they seem to have several broken or very badly bent wepons. I'll salvage what I can, and then I need to find replacements for what cant be used. I plan to use them with my Slaves of Darkness.

More chaos

Feeling a little excited that Games Workshop has released new scenery for Warhammer 40K. They have released transport containers that works well as cover for normal troops, and they look quite cool. 

The box contains thee big containers, nine barrels and twelve crates of different sizes. I'm looking forward to starting to assemble these sets, but I will hold off until I have finished my AoS Chaos army.

Another release that I like a lot is scenic bases of all sizes for 40K. The bases are made to match the game board that looks like a city, I plan to get some of these for my Space Marines and Imperial Guard armies in the future, but I will have to see what units I would like to use them on first, so that I buy the right sizes. Both these armies operate in different terrain, so I will not use them for all the minis.

I'm almost done assembling the AoS starter set for my Chaos Army. The final five Bloodreavers are assembled but not glued to their bases yet. They are all standing on one leg, so if I just glue them and drop them they will fall down. So I either need to sit and hold them in position until they dry, or find something to lean them up against.
When they stand firmly on their bases, I will take all the figures from the start set and prime them black.

Not sure what the next unit for assembly will be, but I know I'll have to start painting something again soon, as the units pile up on my desk and in boxes standing around it. I thought I would see if I could rearrange the units a bit so that each box contains units of the same faction. This will give me a better overview of what is left to paint for each faction.

Chaos startset comming along

Yesterday I watched a video of Duncan at Games Workshop TV painting the Mighty Lord of Khorne, and he recommended keeping the lord and the hound separate for the painting process. If I'd only seen that video one day earlier...
But I will do my best painting it as one piece. There should be enough space to get to all parts of the miniature, even though it might be a little tight in between the two characters. But I am not going for the insane level of details that Duncan paints, so I am sure I will manage. I will try to use a few of the techniques he showed in the video though, as I think it will increase my level of painting quite significantly if I manage.
Watching that video I found the third color I've been on the lookout for to use on the Migthy Skullcrushers (and other minis where I need more than two colors), so next time I am at Games Workshop Oslo I will pick up a pot and be on my way. The third color will be Eshin Gray, it is a dark gray layer paint, and in the video it went nicely with the Khorne Red that is the main color, especially with a Nuln Oil wash.

I have been able to assemble more of the models from the startset, and progress is coming along nicely. I am rather busy the rest of the evenings this week, so I don't think I will finish everything until some time next week though.
The only thing that's not assembled now are the Bloodreavers, and that's twenty miniatures. They don't have more than two or three parts to glue together for each miniature, but it takes a little time cutting them off the sprues and removing moldlines (although the casting is quite good so there are not too much moldlines on them).

I have assembled the Mighty Lord as mentioned above, one Bloodsecrator, one Bloodstoker, five Blood Warriors and Khorgorath (Is it just me or are there a lot of blood in the names for this product line...)

Khorgorath is worth an extra mention here, as he is the AoS version of the 40K Hellbrute. I like the mini in general, but I feel there is something terribly wrong with his head. I don't feel that it matches the rest of the mini really. But it's not that easy to modify either, as the model comes in a pre-arranged pose and without spares. I would love if Games Workshop came with a Khorgorath model in a single box that could be posed and detailed like the builder would like (and with different head options), as it could be cool to have a group of these advancing over the battlefield.

In addition to the startset I have one box each of Bloodreavers and Blood Warriors. I'm not sure how to set up the units of the Blood Warriors yet, but I am thinking of having two units as one unit of fifteen might be too unbalanced in a game. I'll most likely use one unit of five and one of ten. The reason for this, is that there are some weapon options you only get to use in a unit of ten or more, and I would really like to be able to use what I can. The five man unit will be without command, while the ten man unit will have a command group with a standard bearer and a champion (doesn't seem to be an option for a musician for this unit).

The Bloodreavers will be two units of twenty each, Their stats say they are units of ten or more, so if I have to I can split them down to four ten man units, but then only two of the units will have command. I will build each twenty man unit with a command group with a Chieftain, musician (hornblower) and icon bearer. Hopefully there is a choice of icons so the units can have different ones.
The Bloodreavers really seems to me to be the Khorne version of the old Chaos Marauders, so I will try and keep that in mind when painting them up.

For both the Bloodwarriors and Blood Reavers, I plan to mix minis from the startset and the separate boxes in each unit, to make the units as dynamic as possible.

Had a productive day yesterday

I decided I wanted to take a short break from painting, and do some more building instead.
I am thinking of what to use as a third color for the beasts that the Mighty Skullcrushers of Khorne ride to war on. I 'm working on the first one now and so far I have painted it all Khorne Red. I know I will use a lot of Retributor Armour gold as well, but I think it will look nice with a third color for some areas. While I'm thinking on this, I thought I could add some more minis to the army so I found some of the single miniatures I had laying around.
So yesterday I assembled four characters for the army:
I assembled the Slaughterpriest with the two handed axe, the Slaughterpriest with hackblade and wrath-hammer, a Skullgrinder and the Exalted Deathbringer with the head that has big horns and who look a lot like a barbarian.

I also assembled the first of my minis from the Age of Sigmar starter set. I have decided to sell off all my Stormcast Eternals, so I thought if I managed to assemble all the Chaos figures from the box before I sold it, then I could give the buyer the complete assembly guide, instead of having to rip it in half to get what I need to assemble the Chaos force.
I plan to assemble much of this force during the week, as it looks like many of the figures are just two or three pieces that needs to be glued together. I will still need to clean them up before I get to the assembly part though...

I started with the leader, a Mighty Lord of Khorne with his pet hound, sort of the chaos version of Skarsnik and Gobbla. Getting to fix the Lord and his hound on the base was the most difficult part, as they had to line up exactly right in order to get the leash to fit right.Took a few attempts, but I think it worked quite well in the end though.

And speaking of Skarsnik (or Turnip as he is named in my Greenskin army), I've assembled three Goblin fanatics. I just love those crazy poses, so when I found a box of them laying around I had to build them right away. I tried out a new head that I haven't used before, a head with mushrooms growing on top of it. I hope I can paint it up to give it justice. The box left me with a few spare parts that I will try to use on other goblin figures to make them stand out a little bit from the standard one piece figures that I have so many of. There are some nice spare heads, a small Squig and some base things like a pot of mushroom stew and some mushrooms.

I was at Games Workshop in Oslo on Saturday, and collected my miniatures from The Fang, so in a few days I will post the before promised pics of the entries.

more characters added to the chaos army

Two new characters have been assembled this week, and more will follow...

I managed to sit for a few hours on Monday, and built the Chaos Lord that holds a big spear and looks like he is standing on high ground and looking out over the battlefield. He will be painted up in the traditional black and gold, and be a leader for the Warriros that is not dedicated to a special God.

The other character that I assembled was Gutrot Spume, who will lead the Putrid Blightkings in to battle. They are followers of Nurgle, but have decayed a lot more than the Nurgle warriors, so I will use more rust effects on their weapons, and generally make them seem more sick.
The Warriors doesn't show any skin at all, so I will do a little experimentation to see how I can produce a skintone that looks Nurgly. The armor plates will be painted like the Warriors, but will probably get some rust effects and dirt, as this will fit the look of the figures better than a clean paintjob. Then I will use the same skintones on the sorcerer as well.

I wasn't too happy with the bases on my Khorne Warriors that I entered in the Fang, so I have started to see if I can find a new way to base the army. I will make all Khorne warriors with the same base for consistency, but then I will try to make other bases for the rest of the army. I did a sample with Armageddon Dust, and I already use Lustrian Undergrowth for my Nurgle Deamons. As I make the remaining twenty bases for the Khorne warriors, I might get better with the bases, and if I get the cracked effect I want, the bases will be really cool, but if I don't learn to get that effect then there is better to use a technical paint to cover the base.

Status on the Chaos project so far

I have finished ten of my Khorne Warriors. They were entered in the painting competition "The Fang" at Games Workshop in Oslo as an Age of Sigmar unit entry, but did not end in the top three.
I will take pictures of them and pose them here, as soon as I get the minis home from the store. It will be some time next week probably.

I also entered Grim Burloksson, who in the current edition of Age of Sigmar has been reduced to a "Cogsmith". In my army he will be a character, the crazy engineer and inventor of the Badyear Blimp and several other wild inventions. Age of Sigmar have divided the Dwarfs in to two factions now, where the Cogsmith, cannon, organ gun, Gyrocopter and Gyrobomber has been put in a faction along with the Empire Steam Tank and cannons. The faction is called "Ironweld Arsenal". The rest of the Dwarfs that still exist in the game is called "Dispossessed". Stupid name if you ask me, it sounds more like someone that has been under a curse or something and manged to get rid of it. So in this blog, and in my mind I will keep calling all my Dwarfs for Dwarfs. I will field an army consisting of a lot of stuff that is end of sale, as I will use all the Dwarf units I have in my possession (pun intended) in my army. Might think a bit on what to do for the Armies on Parade though, as that might demand current issue minis. Grim entered in the Aos Single miniature category, and I did not believe he would stand a chance of a top three placement, and he didn't. The winner was an Empire general who was insanely painted with small and intricate freehand work (a worthy winner).

For the Aos Monster category I entered my Giant, or Aleguzzler Gargant as the AoS books now call him. The Giant (lets call him what he really is, so everybody knows what we're talking about) was painted and based a long time ago, but he recently got a new wash on all the skin parts. He didn't reach the top three in his category either, but I like him a lot anyway. It's sort of insane to see how big he is compared to an Ogre, who are the biggest minis I usually work with. I will take a pic to compare when I get him back from the store.

In the Open category, I entered my first Ogre unit (or Ogors as AoS like to call them, from the Gutbusters faction). They received their new base not too long ago, and I painted the trim of the bases to match just before entering them in to The Fang. They didn't reach the top three either, but I can only speculate that they might have done better than my Chaos warriors if I had entered them in the AoS Unit category instead. But with only one entry allowed for each category I had to choose...

As for the chaos army I have now primed all assembled minis. I will start to paint up some of the bigger ones alongside my chaos warriors in the near future, as they take up a lot of space on my table.

Ï have done a lot of the paint on the Sorcerer Lord, but I need to decide on how to paint some of the details before I go on.
I have also started on my Rotbringers Sorcerer for the Nurgle part of thee army.

A little break from chaos

On the sixteenth of May, Games Workshop celebrated the birthday of the Space Marine figure. It was first released thirty years ago this year, and a special figure was made as a limited edition to be sold just this weekend. I bought one, and it will be one of the first minis to be built when I start with my Space Marines again. I already see it on sale at Ebay and Finn for three times the price it was sold for, but since there is a rules restriction on having more than one in your army, I see no point in getting more even though it looked cool.

The Games Workshop store in Oslo had a special guest throughout the weekend, as Brother Maximus of the Ultramarines had arrived to take part in the celebrations...

Throughout the day there was an event where you should paint up a Space Marine to look like an entirely new chapter. At the end of the day the staff picked a winner. There was no real price, but the winning colourscheme would be used on a small army of in-store figures painted up by the staff. I entered a red and silver scheme, but it did not win. The winner was a sort of weird looking yellow and pink, and I look forward to see what the staff can get out of that scheme.

I wanted to sit and paint for a long period of the day, but I didn't feel it would be right to sit and paint Age of Sigmar Chaos figures on such a day. So I brought with me some Space Marines that needed a re-paint and also my Imperial Guard unit with two females in it. Here is a little pic of them...

The Space Marines in the background were originally painted up as veterans with white helmets and white trim on their shoulderguards. Then some time back I did a figure count and found I had more than a hundred minis that needed to be First company figures I believe I have about seventy terminators, and then some Sternguard and Vanguard veterans too, so I decided to make these miniatures in to second company instead. That means blue helmets and yellow trim. Most of the Second company will be assembled using Dark Angels Veterans models, as I really love their look. And by doing this, I can also field a Dark Angel successor chapter using the Dark Angels rules and these minis if this should prove helpful in a game sometime.
The way I have planned it, the different companies in the Gatekeepers chapter are specialists in fighting different foes. All companies can face all foes, but if the foe is known before troops are sent to help, then the Chapter Master will try and send troops from the company that is specialists on that kind of mission or against that kind of foe.
So far I have decided the following:
First Comapny: Veterans, moved here from all other active companies
Second Company: Xenos, many warriors from this company have served for shorter or longer terms in the Deathwatch.
Third Company: Chaos
Fourth Company: Fast attack specialists, lots of bikes in this chapter
This is as far as I have some so far.

The Imperial Guard minis I am painting up have two minis that stand out. One of them is given purple hair, while the other is blond. Most Imperial Guard soldiers are men, but there are some women in the Guard as well. Some regiments are all male or all female, but there are also examples of mixed regiments, like the Valhallan 597th where Commissar Chiaphas Caine served in most of the books written about him. And there are also both male and female troopers in the Tanith First And Only. 

My female sergeant is a tribute to a science fiction writer named Tanya Huff, and her Sergeant Torin Kerr.
I plan to add some more female troopers in the future, as I am quite happy with my conversions, and I have more Deamonettes heads to use...

But first I will paint up my AoS Chaos army.  I have painted the purple on to the Slaanesh warriors now, and I am very happy with the way it turned out. This gives me high hopes for my Daemonettes as well, as they will have the same purple on hair and details. I hope it looks just as nice after the purple wash is added.

Space Marines through the ages...

This Saturday Games Workshop will celebrate the 30th birthday for the Space Marine figures. I have not been in to the hobby that long, but I do have some old Marines in my collection that has been around for quite some time. So I guess it is fitting that I bought some old start sets last week...

I bought two old start sets, or rather what remained of them as they didn't have very much of the original content.

This is the oldest of the two, and this is the third edition start set, containing Space Marines and Dark Eldar. I think this is the only time the Black Templars Space Marine chapter has been in a start set, the Dark Eldar I'm not so sure about.

There was not very much left in the box, but I only paid hundred Kroner (about ten Pounds or twelve Dollars) for it so I got value for my money still. I got a cool box that I plan to use for keeping minis in while they are being worked on, and I got some of the tank traps, a few Marines, some Dark Eldar, and all the jungle plants along with blast templates, dice pack and measure sticks.

The Marines will all go in to my army after they have been torn apart, cleaned up and glued back together with better glue. The glue was all soggy and they could be pulled apart without damage to the minis so I will do that and paint them up as Gatekeepers. Some of the Marines were beakies and I do love those. I will make some of them as sergeants for existing squads, and see if I can't fill up some of the squads that is missing Marines at the moment. I think I have some of those in my second company.

The few Dark Eldar figures that I got I will give away to someone collecting that faction, as I will not start an Eldar army. I don't plan to have any Marines being experts in fighting Eldar, so I don't see a use for the bits either. But I'm sure someone will appreciate some free troops.

The jungle will be used as decoration on several bases, both for some Space Marines and my Catachan jungle fighters. I have a few heavy weapon bases that has been decorated with trees, and it is quite a nice effect.


The Second box I paid two hundred kroner for, and this is a rather classic box. The Battle for Macragge was the start set people talked about when I got in to the hobby. It appears it is from the fourth edition of the game. As the name gives away this box had Space Marines and Tyranids in it.

There were no Tyranids or Space Marines in my box unfortionately, but the reason I bought it was because it had the complete sprues of the crashed Aquila lander.
Some time back I bought the Aquila pilot on Ebay, so now he has a wreck to walk away from.

The crashed lander sells on Ebay from about 250 kroner and up to the double and sometimes even more. And sometimes it's not even complete. So I think I did a good deal, and look forward to painting up the crashed lander and using it as scenery on my game table.

This box also had the blast templates and dice set, and I also got a small transfer sheet with Ultramarines and squad markings.I'm not currently using transfers on my Marines, but this is something that is possible to add at any time really, so I might add it at a later time if I feel for it. And if I do, it will be the squad markings and some special details, not the chapter markings. I know I will use transfers on my Imperial Knights, so maybe after I have used them there I might be tempted to try on a few Marines depending on the result...

packing up...

I have to leave my hobby room, and all my minis are gong down in boxes to be stored at my cabin.
The plan is to do a lot of building there, and then take the minis home to paint and finish.
We'll see how it goes, but I will do my best to keep the pace up, so that I can finish my armies (I know you never really finishes, you just build what you have and then wait to buy some more).

The Chaos army is moving slowly forward. Today the weather was good enough to allow me to spray the remaining warriors Leadbelcher. So the next ting to spray now are Bloab Rotspawned, Mighty Skullcrushers, the Blight Kings and the chariot.

I have brought the remainder of the Chaos army up from the basement, and I now have a more correct list over what remains to be done..
I need to assemble and paint all the Bloodbound sets, including the Age of Sigmar start set. There are a lot of single characters in the Bloodbound series, and I have one of each, except for the three that will be released this Saturday. I'm not sure I'll be getting them later eiteher, at least not for a while.
What I might need though is more Marauders.
I thought I had a few boxes, but I only have one box of each. The old Marauder box have sixteen marauders on foot, and I think I should have at least two units of that size (the new box includes twenty). The old Marauder Horsemen box only have five horsemen, so I do need one more box to begin with so that I get a unit that will work on the table. Then I will have one unit of fifteen.

I found I had three boxes of five knights, one box of ten, and then there were five in the start collecting box. That gives me the total of thirty knights, and I am thinking three units of ten. One of the units will be sprayed silver and painted up as Slaanesh, and the remaining knights will be unmarked black.

I also have some old metal special characters, think it is Sigvald the Magnificent, Wulfrik the Wanderer and the Lord on Daemonic Mount.
Then there are ten Chaos Chosen, five command and five regular ones. These are also metal, and came in the same box as the special characters way back several releases ago...
I know some of the Chosen is damaged, and that is one of the reasons that they have stayed in the box for so long. But I will try and see what I can salvage, and if I can find good ways to fix what is damaged.

Eventually I will also bring my Chaos Hounds up and base them the same way as the rest of the army.

Bad weather today...

The rain pours down and the wind comes from all sides at once, so there will be no priming or spraypainting Leadbelcher today. At least not for a long while.
Instead I think I will sit an enjoy reading "The Last Wall" - the fourth book in "The Beast Arises" series, and later on do some painting.
I will try to get a good production line running on my Chaos Warriors as my main focus now is to get a Chaos army painted up, but I must not forget that I want to field a Dwarf army for "Armies on parade" this fall. So I have a lot of Dwarfs that need to be built and painted, and a lot of Dwarf projects in various stages of assembly that need to be finished.
I also plan to do some painting of my Slaanesh Deamonettes, as this practically can be said to be working on my Chaos army as they will be used along with the Chaos army. I am quite interested in seeing how my new purple paint will look alongside the black clothing and pale skin.

My wife and I bought us an old house in Sweden to use as a cottage, and in order to afford the loan on that house, we need to rent out the basement apartment at our original house. This means that I need to pack up all my Warhammer and Lego in boxes again, and move it to the house in Sweden. So I will probably do a bit of packing today as well.
I have found that if I pack my armies in boxes in a very organized way, then it will be possible to work like I do now with one army for a given time period. I can just collect the box (or boxes in some cases) marked with that army and bring it home from the house in Sweden, and have it alongside my workplace at home and throw the box when the minis are built.
The good thing about the house in Sweden is that in the basement there is a room where I can sit and work with things like styrofoam so I will not have to depend on good weather to work on my Badyear Blimp. And there is plenty of room, so I will get the space i need to have Warhammer armies displayed in cabinets like I do in the basement now.

The chaos army is still growing

I'm trying hard to stick to my plan of building an entire chaos army before I build other stuff. So far it's working out quite ok, but I havent been able to build and paint as much as I would have liked due to other engagements.

Since the last update I have finished the six man strong unit of Mighty Skullcrushers. They are missing the shields and the banner, but that will be glued on after I have painted the beasts and riders. Then I need to glue the beasts on to the bases, but I would like to try and do some work on the bases first.
I had planned to prime them today, but there were not room on the board with all the other stuff I wanted to prime. So they will get primed next time out.

I did prime all the remaining Chaos Warriors today though, and the next step now is to spray the two remaining Khorne Warriors and all the Slaanesh Warriors with Leadbelcher. I hope to do this on Sunday if the weather allows it. If not, I will start to paint my unmarked Warriors (or Slaves to Darkness as they call them these days). I also primed the two sorcerers that I have for the army, and I might have an idea for a third one by doing some converting. All I need is a regular chaos warrior as a start, and I'm sure I can scare one up from somewhere.

I have also done some building today. I finally assembled the last five Blight Kings, so now I have a unit of ten. I will post pictures of them just to show how different they can be assembled.

The coolest thing I assembled today was a Chaos chariot pulled by a Gorebeast. I gave the champon head to the leader of my umarked Warriors, as there were several heads on the sprues, but in the end I ended up using a head from the Knights sprues instead as they looked more commanding.

The next unit to be assembled is a unit of Chaos Knights for the unmarked faction, but it might be more than one unit as I have several boxes of knights laying around so I might do a little production line of them as I do with the chaos warriors. Then after them I will start with the Bloodbound units, and I'll probably do the units in the Age of Sigmar starter set first. If I manage to assemble all the units from that set before I find a buyer for my Stormcast Eternals I can sell the assembly booklet without having to split it between the Stormcast and the Chaos.

Small update

Yesterday I finished assembling the last members of the first unit of six Mighty Skullcrushers for my Chaos army. They will be the cavalry for my Khorne faction, but they will not be very numerous.

I think I will make two units of six Skullcrushers with full command, and one unit of three without command. This will allow me to use the boxes I currently own, one old box of three and two boxes of six.

The beasts are quite big, but still the bases look like they have space for some extra detailing, so I will see what I can think up for them. I recon some technical paint and some grass turfs at least. I am only certain of two things, and that is that there will be no nurgle's rot on the bases, and no wild splashing with blood paint.

The general idea is to paint the riders Mephiston Red. I used that color on the red armourplates on the Khorne Warriors, and I plan to use it on the Bloodbound Warriors as well. Then the beasts will be painted Khorne Red to give a contrast to the rider. I am not absolutely sure about the Khorne Red, but I think it might look good. The only alternative I can see at this time is painting them black, but I don't think that will look the best when the riders are bright red.
Then there will be a lot of gold details to paint both on beasts and riders, and also metal.

I plan to prime them at the same time when I prime all the remaining Chaos Warriors, and then I will paint them up as soon as possible. Maybe in between the Chaos Warriors as a welcome distraction.

The next units to be assembled now are the chariot from the "start collecting"-box, and the last box of Putrid Blight Kings. The Blight Kings will join the five already assembled, and they are the most Nurgly unit I have in the army. I'm not sure what part of the army the chariot will join, but I'm leaning towards using the Goarbeast instead of the steeds, and if I decide on that then the unit will join the unmarked, as a Gorebeast does not fit well with Slaanesh in my opinion.
I am sure I can find another use for the two steeds, pulling something else in the future.

The weekend in chaos...

I have been busy this weekend building Chaos Warriors. I am happy to say that all Chaos Warriors are ready for painting now. This blog post explains what has been done.
The Nurgle unit is already thirty strong, so I have not done anything with them this weekend. I had originally planned to paint up two of them to see what they will look like, but I'll start with that later.

First up in this post is the two missing Warriors to make the Khorne unit thirty strong. I will prime them and spray them Leadbelcher when I do the Slaanesh Warriors, and paint them up along with the other Khorne Warriors. I have them armed with axes and hammers, as I feel I don't have enough of those lovely hammers in my armies.

This next pic is the remaining twelve Warriors needed to make a thirty strong unit of unmarked Warriors. On the right side you can barely see a few of the six warriors that came to the unit after I split up the original Shlaanesh unit. The remaining six went right in to the Nurgle unit to get that up to number. Hopefully they will get the same deep black colour on them as the others, even though the others are sprayed black while these are silver.
The remaining twelve warriors of this unit are in a box on another table, as they were primed black on Friday afternoon.

Then we have the first of two single characters assembled this weekend. This is a Nurgle sorcerer called a Rotbringer. He is a one-piece resin figure, so saying I assembled it is perhaps a bit misleading. I did cut him off the sprue and did a lot of cleaning up to get him looking his best and fitting his base.

The second single character, I actually had to assemble. This is a Chaos Sorcerer Lord, and I have not decided what part of the army he will join yet. I originally planned to have a few sorcerers in my army, but apart from the Rotbringer above and a Gaunt Summoner, who is a powerful Tzeentch sorcerer, there are no other sorcerer models in the range. I had originally thought I might replace the staff to make different apearances with the same pose, but the staff is attached to the arm, so I'll see what I end up with.

Here are some pics of the headless Khorne Warriors that I have painted up so far. The red plates are washed as part of the priming, but the other colors have not gotten their washes yet.
The scull and the rope it hangs from is not painted yet, I will do that in the near future, so that is is done when the head is ready to be glued on. I will also correct the few spills of paint, like the red on the left hand of the figure in the first pic.
At the GW Store on Satuday I got an explanation as to why the Leadbelcher didn't get as red as I had expected. Turns out the wash is more pink than red, so that explains a lot...

And finally, this evenings work. Thirty Warriors of Slaanesh. To outfit all of them with swords I had to give six warriors swords in their left hand instead of the right (seven if you count the standard bearer, but he is the same in all units in the army). I took some right arms with weapons and cut the weapons away, and I plan to glue shields on the arms like I have done with the standardbearer from the Slaanesh unit that is assembled and painted.

That's all the pics for now.
Before I left my work table this afternon I started to assemble a box of Migthy Skullcrushers. They will be painted up all red, and used as Khorne cavalry. I figure Khorne red for the beats and Mephiston red for the riders to match the other Khorne armour.
There are six beasts and riders in the box, but I have just put together the first of them. I have not added the shield or shoulder guards yet, as I need to figure out if it is a good idea to do this before I paint the red armour or not.

Iron Priest convertion

I really love the Iron Priest model from the Space Wolves range. But I don't play Space Wolves and have no plan to start. So they (I have a few of them) will be added to The Gatekeepers in the role of combat Techmarines.

A regular Techmarine wears a big servo harness that helps him perform his tasks but it does not make him very mobile. The Iron Priest model only have one servo arm mounted on a special backpack, so I plan to use them as special combat Techmarines. They do what needs to be done to keep a vehicle working during a firefight, and making sure they get back home for more permanent repairs.

I built the first right out of the box, so I thought I would do a little converting on number two. I decided to swap his very special plasmagun (I know it really is a Hellfrost pistol, but since he won't be a Space Wolf he is not allowed to use a Hellfrost weapon, so a very special plasmagun it is then).

Before converting: 

After:

And finally a pic of the new arm glued on to the finished model. Next step is priming and painting...

chaos in the making

Here is a new update (only text this time) on the army. In the next post I plan to add some pictures, as there has been some progress.

I decided that I wanted to see what a Khorne warrior would look like, so I have taken two warriors from this unit and done most of the paint on them. I see now that the armour plates I painted red are standing out nicely, and is more than enough to show that this is a unit of Khorne Warriors. The washed amour is only visible on the shoulders arms and chest (and the helmet when that is done), and it's quite ok that it is a very pale shade of red. I showed the test model to my wife before I started adding more colors, and she didn't really notice that it was washed red at all until I pointed it out. The wash is a bit more powerful now though, as this was the test with one thin coat. But it still is very toned down compared to the green of the Nurgle warriors. I look forward to see how the green Nurgle warriors will look all painted up, and I think I will have to paint up two test models for them this weekend.

For the Slaanesh warriors I have made a final judgement that I will paint up thirty new warriors in the same way I have painted Khorne and Nurgle. I have not decided on the color to use on the armour plates yet, as the paint I thought I would use was way too pink (one should think the name Screamer pink would give it away...).
The twelve I have now will be the unit called "The Shining" and will be joined by Prince Sigvald the Magnificent (or Exalted Hero of Slaanesh as he is affectionately known as today). Well, my Exalted Hero is named Prince Sigvald and is magnificent, and that's the end of that discussion...

The twelve warriors I'd sprayed and planned to use as Slaanesh warriors have been split fify-fifty between Nurgle and the unmarked. I am missing twelve unmarked to make a unit of thirty, but I have more boxes to assemble, and plenty of spare square bases.
And typing about bases, I have decided to place the remaining thirty Slaanesh warriors on round bases as they do not have to fit in with another unit like they needed before. Also, being on round bases they have more likeness to the Deamonettes of Slaanesh who is already on round bases.

This leaves the unmarked and Nurgle warriors on square bases, but I have more that goes with them on square bases, so I think that will work out nice. The Nurgle Blight Kings are on square bases, and I think I have some heroes on square bases as well. Also all of the Marauders are on square bases, and they will go along with the unmarked.
The Chaos Knights are on both square and round bases, but as long as I keep the units on matching bases, then I don't see that as a problem.

I still need to figure out what to use on the bases, but I guess I'll figure it out sooner or later. I have some ideas for some of the bigger bases, like Bloab Rotspawned, but it depends a little on what I end up with on the small ones. The idea is to keep the bases simple for the rank and file soldiers, and do more with the bases that has more room on it.

More chaos

I have finally gotten around to prime all the Chaos Warriors I had on my workbench. There will be one more batch to prime later, as I didn't have room on the bench to assemble all at once, but that will for the most part be the black warriors with a few exceptions. I am thinking of making all armies thirty man strong, but I am doing some calculations to see if I need to buy more to do it or if it is manageable with the boxes I still have left to assemble.

I first used black primer as I always do, and then I tried the Leadbelcher spray for the first time.
I think the result was a little bit grainy, but that is probably because of the weather conditions when I sprayed as the air might have been a little to moist at the time. Still it looks more than good enough for the future plans that I have as I intend to wash or re-paint everything.

This first pic is focused on the Nurgle warrior. The green stuck really well to the Leadbelcher, and I am currently debating if I should paint the green details before or after adding the wash as I had a little clash with the green paint and wash on one of my plague drones. On this model the details were painted after, and I have not painted the shoulder clasp as I found I wanted to do that later in the process so I will go back and do it for this one.
Update: I decided to do the wash before the details, so the entire thirty man unit is now washed in Biel-Tan green.

The red one didn't come out that bright and clear, but you can certainly see a red glow on all the metals still. The thought I am working after is that these warriors have smeared their armour with blood from fallen enemies, and if that is true then I guess it would not shine bright red anyway. But that is just some fluff to be decided in the future. I am thinking about trying one more red wash to see how that will turn out.
Update: I tried one more wash but it didn't stand out more anyway. So the twenty-eight warriors are now washed with one thick layer and have their red armour plates painted on.

I also added a picture of the purple I did before, just to compare. I'm not sure I can replicate the other colors exactly, so I'm leaning towards keeping this unit as a unit of twelve, perhaps as a unit joined by Prince Sigvald hiself, and making a new unit of appropriate size.
I have some issues getting the gold and the fur exactly the same, as these paints have been replaced and rebranded by Games Workshop since the last time I painted warriors. I don't think there will be a big notable difference, but it might just be enough that it looks weird in the same unit.
I will start painting the Nurgle and Khorne and see how it looks as they will have the same capes, fur and gold as the Slaanesh ones.

And a final shot of the two new looks together. I have high hopes for this chaos army now, all it takes is the stamina to finish it as there are a lot of models to paint...

Chaos update

Yesterday I base coated all the assembled Chaos Warriros standing on my desk. The next step  is another layer of spray paint. This time it's going to be a layer of Leadbelcher to get a metal look on them. Then I will test with one warrior to see if I need to use Runefang Steel to get them shiny, or if the wash will get the right effect on the Leadbelcher.

The back row are Slaanesh, the two rows in front of that are Nurgle, and the two and a half row in front of the picture are Khorne (the ones on round bases).

After this was done, I assembled the first box of warriors for the group that does not follow any specific Chaos God. I am still debating if they also should have metal colored helmets or if they should be black. I'm constantly trying to find ways to make my chaos army look unified as one big army even though I give the different units some special characteristics. So far I have decided that the Warriros following a Chaos God are all metal with washes in the appropriate color, All warriors will have black shields (at least the ones with metal shields), and all details will be painted similarly on all warriors no matter what god they follow. I plan to do this for the Bloodbound Warriors as well, But at the moment I am leaning towards painting their armour red, to show that they are a different tribe or clan, but still fighting in the same army. But I will see how the Khorne Warriors turn out before I take a final decision on that subject.

I also opened up a box of Putrid Blightkings to see how I would like to assemble them. I have two boxes with these elite Warriors of Nurgle, so I will make them in to one unit of ten Warriors with full command. There are several ways to put the different minis together, so I will have no problem making ten unique Warriors out of them. It will be more of a problem to make sure I get to build all the coolest ones, but I'm sure I'll find a way to get the ten I want most. Nurgle isn't my favorite cup of tea, so I will keep this part of the army rather small. Still they have the biggest unit of the army (Bloab Rotspaned) and the Plague Drones as well, so they will be quite visible on the battlefield. In the future I might add some more regular chaos warriors, but not until all the models I have at the moment is built and painted.