Sons of Behemat - first models finished

Here are the first two models I can call finished for my Sons of Behemat army. This is not a gargantuan army, but it is an army of Gargants. The finished army will consist of 2 Mega-Gargants and 9 Mancrusher Gargants and this will give me 2420 points. This army can also be played at 1940 points with only 6 Mancrushers.

The big gargant in the pic is the General of the army, Beechmast Candlesnuff, and on his left is Drumstick Truffleclub.

Let us start with our Mancrusher. Drumstick is primed with Grey Seer (all models in this army will get a light primer color), and his skin is painted Kislev Flesh and then washed with Reikland Flesh shade and then drybrushed with Kislev Flesh again. 

I plan to use different colors on the pants of the Mancrushers, and that will be colors that they would meet while wandering in the world. This one has black pants, as my gargants often fight alongside the Gloomspite Gitz so he has probably gotten fabric from them.

He has a club with swords and axes driven through it, and in his other hand he is holding a soldier he has picked up from the battlefield. 

Here you can see why his name is Drumstick, as he has a peg leg. I saw this conversion in a White Dwarf magazine and decided I wanted to do it. But I think they did it on the other leg, because I followed the instructions, but his leg got too short. Not a big problem though, as I had some rocks I had cut away from my tower walls, so I glued them on the base and made a little pile of rocks for him to rest his leg on. 

The soldier he holds in his left hand I painted with a Khorne red jacket and Averland Sunset pants, and I have decided to do that for all humans that appear as part of this army, and I might also do this for my Cities of Sigmar army that I will build eventually if I don't find a more fitting paint scheme before I start with that army.  

Every figure in this army has a bird on them. Either on the Gargant itself, or somehere on the base. The bird is painted black and drybrushed with Russ Gray.  

The Mega Gargant is a huge model, but still I wanted to make my general stand out more as I will have two Mega-Gargants in the army (you never know if the army will be tree or more some time in the future though). As he is a Gate Crasher I decided it would look good to have him walking over walls. This meant I had to make quite a tall base, as I wanted him to step on the top of one wall, so the base was filled with cork and it was quite a lot to cover with basing material. I used almost two bottles of Stirland Battlemire. I built this Gargant straight out of the box.

As one can see he has a bird sitting on the armor he has made and wrapped around his lower arm. To show how much bigger these Gargants are than the normal Gargants he is holding two soldiers in his hand instead of one. 

The base got the stone wall in front but I also placed one in the back that he could rest his back foot on.

This is what he looks like from behind. Here you can also see a little bit of the base an how it as built up with cork and covered with Stirland Battlemire. I painted the base like I do on my Sylvaneth Army with a green rim and three different greens drybruhsed over the brown of the Stirland Battlemire. 

That is all I have finished at the moment, but on my table now I have another Mega Gargant and two Mancrushers primed, and four Mancrushers that has gotten their bodies built but are still missing the bird and some other details like a club, some food or drink in the belt and some other details that I might want to add. One of them has some magical capabilities, so I would like to make something magical in one of his hands, and I am currently trying to think of a way to do this with what I have available on sprues or in bits boxes.

If you counted up the Gargants I have spoken of here, you will see that I am missing two Mancrusher Gargants. They are at Games Workshop in Oslo along with the Necron Rulebook, the new Uriel Ventris model and a few other things  I ordered. I had planned to go and get them this coming Wednesday, but today it was announced that all stores in Oslo will have to close down for at lest two weeks, so it might take a while before I can get them. But I have plenty of models to both paint and build, so I will not run out of projects in the mean time... 

I learned a bit painting up these two models, and I will bring that with me when painting up the rest of the army. 

Funny what you find when you are not looking for it...

I was at my monthly trip to my cabin yesterday to see that everything was ok, that there wasn't mice in the house and that the water and power was working as it should. 

After this was checked I decided to look through my cardboard boxes filled with Warhammer stuff to see if I could find the missing cupola for Skullvane Manse. I seemed to remember that I had started to paint it, and I had long since decided that I would not have it on Skullvane Manse but on a tower instead. And not only did I find what I was looking for, but I found so much more...

First I found the cupola, and it was sitting on top of two Deathknell watch towers stacked on top of each other. That means that somewhere I might have one more base without a tower that I can use as a Chaos Shrine. I found that the tower sits very sturdy on the base without being glued on, so I have decided to paint the tower base as a Chaos shrine (after all it is rocks on the outside with a big pool of skulls and blood inside) so I can use the base separately or it can hold up my tower (and then no one will see the shrine anyway). There are nothing with seeing inside the tower, so I intend to glue the rest of the parts together (two tower elements and the cupola) and that will be a good astronomers tower I think. 

But while I looked for that, I also found some pretty nice Warhammer 40.000 scenery that I had built and primed before (and I have lots that isn't primed as well and also quite a lot that is still on sprues) so I think that when I have finished with most of my old Fantasy and also some of the newer Age of Sigmar scenery I will start to bring home some 40K scenery to finish. It is a little bit easier maybe to do the 40K as I would like that to be in a few different colors. I paint the bunkers gray, but I would like to have my buildings in several colors. I think I will try to use some of the spray cans I have with different colors on some of the buildings, and then also paint several of them in a dark green like Dark Angels Green. Then everything will be washed with Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil.

And that's not all...

I knew I had a box of River Trolls (now known as Fellwater Troggoths) in a box where I have my greenskin stuff (along with some old human boxes like Empire generals and Bretonnian knights and archers and even a few boxes of zombies it turned out). In that box I found something I didn't even knew I had and that is regular Goblins. I think they were meant to live above ground in small villages while the Night Goblins lived in caves or under ground. I found two boxes called Goblin Regiment, each box containing 20 Goblins and I took one box with me home to see how they assemble. Being an old set I knew the instructions would be poor, but they were totally missing. Luckily it is not that hard to figure out how to assemble them.

I do not know how I would like to arm the Wolf Riders yet, but I think I will make two units of 20 with spears and shields. I was originally thinking of making one unit with spears and one with bows and arrows, but the Night goblins have units with bows and arrows too, so I think two units with spears would stand out a bit more on the battlefield. But I will make the final decision when I have built the first unit. 

I also brought with me the units I had with Spider Riders, and I look forward to building and painting those as well. They all come with square bases, so I need to see what size "round" bases that is most similar and see if I have enough of them or if I need to buy more. I will even check if it is ok to use square bases before I glue them to the bases, as the old Spider Rider bases has some nice details to them that I will loose if I switch.

 

2021 is upon us

The calendar says January 2021, the year of the Beleaguered Badger (according to Discworld). 

I have built and started to paint some of my old scenery from Warhammer Fantasy (that will be used for Age of Sigmar now) and it comes along slow but steady.
I am trying to find the best way to make the stone walls look natural and not just one color of gray, and I think I have worked out something that might work, but I will need to get more paint from the GW store in Oslo before I can complete some of the builidings. In the meantime I am trying to paint the parts that are not going to have these stone colors like the wood and natural rocks that are not cut to bricks. For Skullvane Manse I can do quite a lot without painting the stone walls. There are a lot of wood, other rocks and also some stone walls that are covered in something I could call plaster for lack of the real word for it (sort of like the concrete of the middle ages). I plan to paint that in more of an off-white color, and I got a good idea how I want it to look in the end.

I am also working on my New army for 2021, the Sons of Behemat. So far I have built and primed about half the army, and that is one Mega-Gargant and three Mancrusher Gargants. I had planned to have this army at about 2000 points, and this is 970 points. Because the Mancrusher Gargants come in packs of two I will get four more so I will get another 970 points with the Mega-gargant I have already bought but not built and three of the Mancrusher Gargants as they have a maximum unit size of three. Then I will get 180 points for one single Mancrusher gargant. I might make the last one a single Aleguzzler gargant that has only just woken up in a cave with a bad hangover. They both look the same, so I can use him as I wish. I am not sure of the rules, but this will give me either 1940 points if I don't use the last regular Gargant, or 2120 if I add him.

But it is not just only gargants I have been working on, I have also built and primed 15 Squig hoppers (and primed 15 Boingrot Bounderz), built and primed 6 Rockgut Troggoths and one Dankhold Troggboss. I know how I want to paint the Rockgut Troggoths but haven't found the colors yet I have two of the three, but need to find the darkest blue. I also have a regular Dankhold Troggoth to paint and I have planned to make him a darker blue as well, and a Mollog that will be more purple. These will all join my Gloomspite Gitz army.

Plans for 2021 - Warhammer 40.000

The main army I will work on for Warhammer 40K is my Imperial Guard (or Astra Militarum as the range is called now). They have the highest priority in this range. I have lots of both tanks and infantry built and primed and still lots to build. This is one of my two main armies for 40K, and I have all my models at home so it is "just" a matter of finding the time to work on them. Most of my color schemes are quite clear for this army, but I am still considering how to do the airborne part of the army as I haven't built any of those yet. But I think I know how I want them to look, so it is just a matter of building and giving it a try. I have another army I can use both as a separate army and as allies to this, and that is my Imperial Knights.

I have Imperial Knights that will serve on both sides of the conflict. So far I have built and painted one for the good side and one for Chaos. My plan is to have two Chaos Knights. The rest of the knights will be Freeblades, and some will have Imperial symbols while others will have the symbols of the Adeptus Mechanicus. They will fight as backup for their factions, or together as one army of Freeblade Knights.
I plan to give the knights many different paint schemes and all knights will have their own back story. I might paint some in the same scheme to be remnants of a once mighty household, but I will see what I end up doing as I work with them. All of a sudden I find a paint scheme I really love...  This army will take some time though,  the models are big and require a lot of work.

My other main army is the Space Marines. Unfortunately Games Workshop has started to face out all the old units to replace them with Primaris, so I don't think I ever will be able to field my dream of an entire chapter of 1000 Gatekeepers. I have thought out a back story to allow Primaris Marines in to my chapter though, so I will try to field those units eventually. I still would like to finish all my Marines and make an entire chapter though, but that will not be finished by the end of 2021...

Another Space Marine army is The Deathwatch. I have all my Marines assembled and primed for this army, except one little group of Space Wolves that need their shoulderguards with a wolf symbol (they are primaris marines). But I only have my Watch Master done so far, but the five commanders of the Watch companies are on my table being painted, So far I have done the base color on their capes and the silver arm, and I have also done the base color of the silver arm on four Dreadnoughts. This is an army I have some hopes of maybe finishing in 2021. They might need a little support in the future, and I have two Corvus Blackstar flyers that I would like to build, and they should probably get some drop pods and Landriders a well sometime further down the road.

If we stick with Space Marines, we get the third individual army, my Chaos Space Marines. I have no idea if I can play them as one army (but I hope so), but no matter what they will all be the same chapter, the Knights of Oblivion. I am not sure this army will be done by the end of 2021, but I sure hope I will have gotten to paint up a sizeable army. I am still arguing with myself what colors to use exactly, but I think I am getting there. I'm painting up a few test models to see how the colors I want to use will work with the marines that are originally Deathguard, and also to see if I need to change my original plan.
I have some regular Chaos Marines to do the changes on as well. The army is one part regular Chaos Space Marines and one part Nurgle. Both have a Chaos Knight to fight along side them. This is mostly an infantry based army, at least in my mind, so I am little uncertain how they will function on a battlefield.

The fourth big army is the Orks. I love the Orks for so many reasons, one of the big ones are the possibilities of doing modifications and kitbashing and make new and crazy stuff for the army.
This is an army that actually have some finished units already. One of the finished units is my monster sized vehicle that was built by the staff at Games Workshop Oslo, and I also have the units I built for the Armies on Parade in 2018 including a Stompa called Da Punisha. I have several units primed, some are painted almost to completion and some are just primed. I have lots of units to build for this army, and like the Chaos Space Marines I hope they will have grown to a bigger force by the end of 2021. Actually I am quite sure they will...

Another slightly weird army is the Adeptus Mechancus. I have some finished units for this army as well, and several units still to assemble and paint. I know how I want the paint scheme to be for this army, but I have a long way to go before I can call it an army. I hope that I might have sort of a battleforce done by the end of 2021.

My Genestealer cult army is a lot like the Astra Militarum, so I don't think that will be a full army in 2021. I will need to buy more units to field it as a stand-alone army, and I am not entirely sure where I want the army to go. But I do know I want to paint this army and play it some day, so hopefully I will finish something this year

Then I have the armies that are separate entities, but maybe too small to be fielded as separate armies. For now they will sort under the Inquisition. They are the Sisters of Battle (they might be a separate army in the future though), the Sisters of Silence, the Adeptus Custodes (might be able to field them as a small army), some Grey Knights and some Inquisition models. Some of these models are partially painted. I have a fully painted Land Raider I plan to use for them, and lots are still on the sprues. 

Then we can wrap it all up with an army I want to work on during 2021, and that is the Necrons. This is an army I want to see grow slowly but steady during 2021. I know how I want my them to look, and some minis are almost complete (just missing some basework). I hope to be able to put a lot of work in to this force, as I think there are so many great models in this range. They should not be too hard to paint up either as it is quite  simple but effective color scheme with just a few colors and washes needed. After all, they are metal skeletons. The big problem with this range is actually having enough hands to hold everything together as you attach the arms and weapons, but I guess that gets better as you build a few batches of troops. I do not have all the units I would like for this army yet, but I do have quite a good start. As soon as I get the new rule book (sold out from Games Workshop at the moment) I can start making these models in to the beginning of an army. 

As for Necromunda I have put that on the shelf for now. I do love many of the models for this range, and I have enough Escher models to make a nice gang to start with, but I just got a big turn-off when I broke several models trying to get them off the cardboard after I had primed them. I have put the starter set in my pile of models to sell, but I am not entirely sure I will stay away, so it is just in the pile for now. Maybe when I sum up 2021 it will show that I have a small band of Clan Escher models... I will paint up the Enforcers though, as they might be used in regular 40K in some way. And even if I decide to sell my Necromunda figures I will keep the Enforcers.

Plans for 2021 - Age of Sigmar

I thought I would split the post about the plans for 2021 up in to two - one for Age of Sigmar and one for 40.000. We will start with Age of Sigmar...

The biggest plan for 2021 is to build a Sons of Behemat army from scratch. I have an old Giant set that I've had for many years and it will be used in this army. So far I have bought two new Mega-Gargants and two regular Gargants (they come in boxes of two now). I have assembled the first Mega-Gargant and started to work on a base for him. I have also assembled the old Giant and glued him to a base. Inspired by an article in White Dwarf I decided to give him a peg leg. Unfortunately it was a little short, but a small pile of rocks at the base solved that problem perfectly.

The next plan will be to build my second Mega-Gargant and two normal Gargants, and then I will check how many more regular Gargants I need to make this a working army. At the moment I figure if each Mega-Gargant have three regular Gargant followers it will make quite a solid army. I have chosen three regular Garants as that is the maximum number allowed in one unit.

I have decided to add a bird to all the "miniatures" or bases in this army to give it my special touch. There are two birds in the box with the two normal Gargants, and I have some spares from earlier so I can also cover the Mega-gargants if there shouldn't be birds in those boxes. 

The next army to build is the Kharadron Overlords. I bought a lot of these models when they were released, but I have never gotten around to do anything with them. This will change for 2021. I don't know how many points this army will be, but I will start with building what I have and see how the army looks when that is done and then supplement it if needed (or not, deep down I know I will get more models for this army no matter if I need to or not).
I have built a few minis from this army before, but only one is painted so far. I have also painted one of the smallest ships. I will decide on a paint scheme for the minis,  as I am not sure of the paint scheme I have used for the one figure that is painted. For the ships I will try my best to replicate the colors I have used, as I am very happy with that.

The third army I will work with is my Gloomspite Gitz. The plan is that part of my Sons of Behemat army also will work as mercenaries for this army if I ever get to take part in a big game. I have a lot of the old Night Goblins and Forrest Goblins (Spider Riders) for this army, and I look forward to seeing it grow. Many models are already assembled and primed and some are also painted and based. I think I will cut the finished figures that are standing on square bases off their bases and mount everything on round bases instead. The army will consist of Grots (Goblins), Gargants and lots of different Trolls. There will be lots of Squigs of different kinds as I really like them. We have gotten some new Squig riders in this range, and I already have built several units of these and more is on the way. For these units I have decided to try and add plants to the bases, and I will see if that can be done on some of the regular Grot bases as well as the big spider bases.

The fourth army are my Sylvaneth, I have two more Treelords to assemble and paint, and lots of regular trees. I know that I am missing a few character models for this army, and some medium sized models but they can be added as I go along. I know how I want to paint the models in this range, and how I want the overall look to be. I am very happy with how my two existing Treelords have turned out, and since I use contrast paints for most of the basics in this army I can get a lot done over a short period of time once the minis are assembled and primed. I have several forests that I want to build for this army. Originally I wanted a mix of the old and the new, but I found out I have so many of the old ones that I think I will stick to using them if that will work. 

The fifth army are what is now called the Cities of Sigmar. I don't know if I can make this a legal game playing army, but I do want to make something of it. I have lots of scenery that I am currently working on that will look good with this army, and I have more scenery that I haven't worked on yet. One of the things I haven't worked on so far is a big castle for "the good guys" and I would love to build that in to something special. I will see how much stuff I have and how it can be assembled. Also I have lots of the old Dwarf miniatures (Duardin now) that I would love to build and paint as I generally love those figures. I plan to place these on the square bases the came with. I have some Bretonnina models as well, and I would love to build them as part of this army as well, I am sure I can find some sort of "legal" description to fit them in to the units that are accepted to use for this army.

The sixth army are my Chaos army. At the moment I don't think there are rules for building a Chaos Unlimited army, but I have mostly elements from Salves of Darkness (what used to be Chaos Unlimited), Khorne and Nurgle with a little bit of Slaanesh  in the mix. A lot of this army are Chaos Warriors and Chaos Knights that has been started a long time ago but never finished and if I just start I think I can finish quite a lot in a short time. I love the old Chaos Warrior models, and I also have a unit of the new ones that look very good (and quite similar) so I look forward to getting those done. This is apparently one of the units where Games Workshop has done a lot for gender equality in the later years and there are supposed to be many female heads with the new Chaos Warriors. I will see how they look, and maybe if I get some to spare that don't look too chaotic, I can use some of them for my Astra Militarum army.

The final army are my Ogors. I have lots of them in my storage and I think I know how I would like to paint the regular troops up. I hope I can get something done on this army for 2021 too. As far as I know they have one piece of specific scenery, and that is ordered from Games Workshop. I have used some of these models for my Astra Militarum 40K army, but there is plenty left to make up a good sized Age of Sigmar army for this faction. Lot of plastic, but also quite a lot of resin models for this range.

Today I thought I would write about how I name my armies and their characters. To me that is a big part of creating an army, as I like my armies to have a lot more history than just a bunch of random figures on a table with point values for their equipment.

I like to make up a history that fits the models,  and explain why they look the way they do and what they are doing there. For some armies it includes where they come from, how that place is governed, where it is, and other times that info is not possible to provide. Sometimes I also like to make it easy to explain why the army fight alongside another army on the same battlefield.

Let us start with Warhammer 40.000. 

The first Army worth talking about here is what I thought would be my biggest and my main army for Warhammer 40K, my loyal Space Marines. My regular Space Marine army is called The Gatekeepers. I don't really know why I chose that name, but after doing it I think it sounds like a great name for an Ultramarines successor chapter. Here I have chosen Roman and Greek names for my characters.
My chaplains and apothecaries have Greek names, while my captains and characters have Roman names (usually put together from Roman Emperors). My Chapter Master is called Otho Vitellius and the Gatekeepers have their home world of Luminus Prime. The planet got its name after some planets I saw on an old map of the known universe where they had the Luminus Cluster and I used Prime because that indicates it is the first or the biggest planet in a system.

I also have a Space Marine army of the Deathwatch. They share the monastery with the Sisters of Silence (Sisters of the Shield) that is a small army I have (just a few units really).
I named the fortress Alamo dé Bexar and the chapter master (Watch master) is named Barret Travis. This is from 1836 when Texas got to be an independent country and  broke away from the rule of Mexico. The Alamo was a little mission that they fortified and where all defenders were killed by General Santa Ana and his soldiers. Today the ruins of the mission is an important part of the city of San Antonio and is a tourist attraction (and yes, I've been there). This is the place where among others Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie died. Travis was the commander during the siege and battle of The Alamo, so I found it fitting to use his name for my Watch Master. The Deathwatch is a special kind of army as it consist of marines from other chapters, so I have decided to use names for the characters that sound like the names Games Workshop uses for the same Chapters. 

I also have a Chaos Space Marine army, and they are called The Knights of Oblivion. They used to be loyal to the Empire but during the Horus Heresy they fell to the other side. Their Chapter Master is Arch-Commodore Fallstaff. Arch-Commodore is a named that was used for leaders of the Space Marine legoins before there were split up in to chapters and the leaders became Chapter Masters, so I found that title fitting for an old Chapter. All characters here will be named after characters in Shakespeare plays as I think Chaos characters often have dramatic names.

My Astra Militarum army have all their characters named after officers in the American Civil War (mostly high ranking officers like colonels or generals).
I have used personnel from both sides of the conflict and I have named all my officers and special characters. There are a few that has gotten other names, but that is to show that they originally came from regiments that has been assimilated in to the army after they became too small to live on by themselves.
I have named the army The Walpurgian 3rd. 3 was chosen to show that the planetary system have sent large armies to fight for the Imperium before, and Walpurgia was chosen because I found out that in Sweden they light bonfires to remember a Swedish Catholic saint on the night between April 30th and May 1st. Her name in Swedish is Valborg, but in  English her name is Walpurgis. The General of the entire army of the Walpurgian 3rd are Major General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

My Adeptus Mechanicus army have their leaders named after famous explorers throughout history. They are part of the vast exploratory fleets that look for old artefacts and lost technology, and the leader of the entire fleet is Arch Magos deSousa, and the ship my forces belong to is the big exploratory vessel Gloria Inveneris. The commander of this ship, and with that the commander of my force called Cohort 9-1 Alpha is Magos Explorator de Orellana. 

My Necron army has yet to be named, but I am thinking about using some ancient Chinese Dynasty as a basis for their names.

The final 40K army that I have plans to name are my Orks. They Orks themselves are all named after actors and movie charcters. The Big Mek that is in charge of all the vehicles and war machines are named Big Mek Gyvver (McGyver) and one of the war bosses is Hazza Hof (Da Hof) (after David Hasselhof) and his pet squig Hoobie. I have not found the name for my big warboss yet, originally that was Hazza Hof as he was a big ork warboss (Grukk Facerippa), but then we got a new and plastic version of Ghazghkull Thraka and I knew I had to have him as my ultimate warboss. 

I also have a small army with Adeptus Custodes, the before mentioned Sisters of Silence, a small army of Sisters of Battle and an army of Genestealer Cultists but I have not yet decided how to name them.

For Age of Sigmar I have the following armies:

My Sylvaneth army is called The Ironroot Glade, and it is lead by Quercus Petraera. This is the Latin name for Silver Oak, and I will name all characters in this army after Latin names for trees and bushes. Since this is an army of trees I find it only fitting that they have tree names, and it's much better to be called Quercus than Oak.

I have always loved the Dwarfs, and I have lots of them, though most of them is still on sprues. I want to have a huge Dwarf army, and even though I can't play them as that anymore (at least not in a regular game of Age of Sigmar) I just want to have loads of them and they need their own back story. I can use some of them in a Cities of Sigmar army, but then I will need some Imperial troops to go along with them. I also have some Bretonnian units that I like to use as substitutes for the Imperial units in such an army. The Dwarf contingent will then have a leader called the Low King, and his name is Thorir Thorgrimsson. Thorir is an Icelanic name, and as so happens is the first name of the coach of the female National handball team here in Norway. He isn't the tallest man I know, so I thought it would be cool to make him a Dwarf king. The last name I just picked. For English speaking people it is possible to pronounce and it sounds like a proper Dwarf name. All characters in this army will have names that sound like this, Icelandic or old Norse names.

I also have an army of Kharadron Overlords, they are sort of steampunk dwarfs, and I plan to use the same kind of names for them as they are Dwarfs too. I will not use a known clan but make up my own backstory and make them my own, just like I do with my Dwarfs. Originally I also had an army of Fyreslayers, but I decided I had to choose between Kharadron and Fyreslayers and the Fyreslayers lost. I might buy a unit or two though to use as Slayers in my dwarf army as the old metal slayers are really expensive on the used market. But I am trying to scavenge some slayers here and there as they really have a special look to them that I like, and that fits very well with the rest of my army.

When starting a dwarf army back in the days (I think I started buying dwarfs as my second box of Games Workshop minis ever, and I haven't stopped since) I felt I also needed to have someone they could fight against. Back in those days dwarfs had two natural enemies, and that was Night Goblins and Skaven. I didn't care that much for painting all the fur of the Skaven rat-people, so I went for Night Goblins as they had capes and hoods and that ment not so much skin to paint. They are now the backbone of my Gloomspite Gitz army.
The Gloomspite Gitz is an army book that has come out just about a year ago, and it is perfect for me. When I started buying Night Goblins and other units from what was then known as the Orcs and Goblins range I was dead set on not having any Orcs in the army as I bought a unit of Black Orcs that was the meanest and badest Orcs back in the days. But when I assembled them they just looked like freaks with severe back-problems and they all leaned freakishly forward. So I said I wanted to have a Goblin warlord instead and started to buy Goblins. But you can never win a fight only with Goblins (or Grots as they are re-named to now) so I had to have some mercenaries. I bought two Giants, built one, and also got some River Trolls. With the Glomspite Gitz this is now a legal army, where the Grots can have trolls, giants and other monsters as allies so I plan to slowly bring home my models and get them on modern bases and ready for use in the game. The characters will be named after British names for mushrooms or words related to this. Imagine a shaman called Psilocybin, and "heroes" like Wood Mulberry, Stump Puffball, Yellow Stainer and Moss Oysterling just to mention a few. And in 2020 Games Workshop released yet another big army (big is the operative word here) called Sons of Behemat.

Sons of Behemat are giants (now called Gargants), and their big brothers the Mega-Gargants. Some  of them can go to war as mercenaries in my Gloomspite Gitz army, ut they can also be fileded in full force as an army of their own. I am currently reading their rules and trying to find out how many Gargants I need to field to have a legal army. So far I have two Mega-Gargants and two normal Gargants, but I want to get a few more of the normal ones to be followers of their big brethren and to do some fun conversions like giving one of them a peg leg. Like the Gloomspite Gitz they will have names after British words for mushrooms.

I also have quite a lot of Chaos models, and I want to have a big Chaos unlimited army, but at the moment I am not sure that this is even possible (it used to be in Warhammer Fantasy, and might come back). But I haven't decided how to name the characters in this army yet. But I need to finish some of the many models I have started for the army. And I also have Ogors, the big brutes from the North that I would like to make in to an army, I have a big box of models to assemble so I can build quite an army. 

Making scenery

I have been working on building more than on painting my scenery, but now I've come to the part where I can start to work on the painting.

I started with Skullvane Manse, and that got primed yesterday and I hope to start to paint it in just a few days.

I have completed the Deathknell Watch but I need to go over it with a mix of Greenstuff and Liquid Greenstuff to fill the cracks. That is also the status on the big Witchfate Tor and the ruin called the  Dreadstone Blight. I will begin this process after breakfast tomorrow, and when that has dried I need a day with fair weather so that I can do my priming.

I had to do some slight modifications to the Witchfate Tor to get it to stay together as all the floors were just sliding on top of each other like a hockeypuck on ice, so I installed some support struts inside to keep it together. This make the floors look weird when they are unassembled and the third floor can't sit flat on the table, but hopefully everything keeps together when the tower is standing tall.  

I have also finished the Witchfate Tor ruin, known as The Dredstone Blight. I did a few small modifictions to it from the drawings, but I think I made it look quite nice. When it is painted up I plan to add some vines to it to make it look a little overgrown and deserted, but I think I should paint the tower and the vines separately.

One of the employees at my local Games Workshop store told me about a way I could paint one or more of my towers, and I plan to give it a try with the biggest of them all. I plan to prime the inside of Witchfate Tor as I always had planned to with the light primer, then assemble the tower and seal off the windows before spraying the outside with the gray paint that is supposed to be Mechanicus Standard Gray and then use a light coat of the light gray primer on top when it has dried. Apparently I should be able to get quite a nice look on the tower with washes after that. It sounds like an interesting way of painting the stonework and I am sure it will make the tower look a little different than the Deathknell Watch.

I thought I had three Deathknell Watch towers, and had some nice plans to make one twice as tall as the original, but one box only had a few parts for the tower, and another was full of old Dwarf sprues. I still might have most of the parts for one more tower stacked away somewhere with the cupola for the Skullvane Manse, and just as I write this I think I might know when to look next time I go to check that everything is ok at the cabin. I seem to remember having built at least some of it before, and that might explain the few parts in the one box I found. So I might have a built tower in a box to take home and fix with Greenstuff and then prime and paint to add to the colection.

I have also assembled my first Mega-Gargant for my Sons of Behemat army, and it will also be used as part of my Gloomspite Gitz army from time to time. I plan to build at lest one more Mega-Gargant, and then to start with three regular Gargants and then I will have to read the rules to see how many Gargants I need to make a complete Sons of Behemat army.