A Sacred Mountain Avatar rolls off the hill to proxy the Spirit of the Mountain

Considering beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I have to admit at least one of my eye stalks is not vibing with the Spirit of the Mountain model GW made for the new High Elf line (also known as the Lumineth Realm Lords). Luckily we live in an age of many alternatives. And as a recent convert to the 3D-printing community I looked and found a more suitable model called the 'Sacred Mountain Avatar' by a gaming company on MyMiniFactory called Ghamak. Here's my painted version.

This Sacred Mountain Avatar makes a nice proxy for the Spirit of the Mountain.

High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer has some grudges to grumble about

My holiday is still in full swing, giving me lots of time to splash paint on poor, neglected miniatures. Yesterday I finally finished a model that was actively adding my name to its Book of Grudges. Let's hope that by ending High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer's half-painted status, I get to have my name crossed out again...

'It says here you four are obligated to sing hi-ho while carrying me into battle, so best start singing my thanes!'

Luciana the Unwavering aka Yndrasta the Celestial Spear joins Sigmar's Children

This weekend I used a lot of hobby time to start 'halfway through' projects. More on that as (if) they are finished. One project I actually build, painted and finished over the course of two days was Luciana the Unwavering. Through sheer perfection reckoned the greatest swordmaster in the Realms as well as a stalwart companion that would never, ever, betray her friends (as opposed to old Lucius the Betrayer of course)...Others may know her as Yndrasta the Celestial Spear, but not in my stormhost!

I could've glued the stairs to one of those new chariots and made jokes about the Bluth family, but I didn't. I could have though...

Lord Celestant Eidolon of Sigmar's Children rides in, heresy and all (with another big banner tutorial)

Those of you following along with my blog may have noticed I've had a rather over-productive weekend last week. I couldn't resist sharing the more or less last model to come out of that painting fugue. It is the second Stormcast unit for my very own Stormhost of dubious originality: Lord Celestant Eidolon of Sigmar's Children.

The exemplar all other Stormcast can only look up to in envy: Lord Celestant Eidolon. The only thing tempering his perfection is his loyalty.

Finished my first Stormcast unit and it belongs to...drumroll...the Sigmar's Children Stormhost

Stormcast are the face of Age of Sigmar and I've had a lot of trouble with them from their release. Not the  regularly encountered 'they are the faceless face that killed my hobby' sort of trouble but the 'how do I paint these properly kind. I found this three year old post documenting my search. Short version of my troubles: painting them gold does not work for me, black makes them fit in a bit too well with my Undead and Skaven and Stegadon Blue made them look too much like science fiction warriors. In the end it took a bit of cynical Scifi theft to get my own Stormhost and pick my colors. I proudly present a unit of liberators from: Sigmar's Children.

I had a lot of fun experimenting with paint techniques on these guys, one of them was using blue to paint shadows (in stead of adding a wash). 

Prince Imrik rides forth again

A while back I found yet another mystery bag in my box of old miniatures. I upended the contents and out rolled an original Prince Imrik. That was a stroke of fortune (well to be honest I was looking for old High Elves to add to my Lumineth, but lets ignore that bit and focus on the sheer surprise ;) ). Long story short (yes I cut and pasted a too long intro that was originally here): Prince Imrik rides forth again. 

"I walk through the Dreaming Halls and I feel change in the wind. In the rhythm of their slumber, I see omens. Minaithnir tells me that he, too, feels his brethren swimming towards consciousness." <- hint hint GW, please make more dragon riding High Elves Lumineth

The Eagles are coming!

 Back in 2017 I got started on rebuilding the Grudge of Drong scenario for a new age. Part of my then attempt was painting up enough High-Elves to have a fully painted army that matched the one in the campaign pack. That meant I needed three Great Eagles. I got them and then never applied a proper paint job. That changed this weekend. So I can finally join Bilbo and Pippin and state: "The Eagles are coming!"

No clue why, but I think a High Elf army cannot call itself complete without adding at least a few Great Eagles.

Sword Masters of Hoeth or Vanari Bladelords? You decide!

New High Elf Lumineth models keep pouring out of GW, and my brand new army book has been rendered obsolete faster than actual play was possible. A new record. Anyway, with the new wave of models a unit called Vanari Bladelords has appeared. I have to admit I'm rather enamored by the new models, but I did have these Sword Masters of Hoeth on the paint station already. So I painted them up anyway. Bladelords or Sword Masters, they've been painted and that's what really counts.

"What are we?" 
"Sword Masters!" "Bladmasters!"
"No Sword Masters!!!" "No not at all!!!!" 
"Just shut up and wave your blades around like you mean it!!!"

Lumineth Realm-Lords Vanari Dawn Riders, Auralan Wardens and classic High-Elves

My last post ended with five Vanari Dawn Riders slowly sinking into the Biostrip-dip. This post, I'm can happily report the same five have been scrubbed, cleaned, primed and painted in more proper colors. I'll start with their new paint job and then give you an overview of a bunch of my new Lumineth models as well as some older High Elf models kicking around in my cabinets. With another unit currently on the paint station I most definitely am in a Asur Lumineth state of mind. 

The sheltering shade of the forest calling come in silence. Accompanied only by the full moon howling of a night wolf....

A Die Hard liche, some Chaos Sorcerers, an Orc and a gladiator walk into a bar...

Sorry for the awful headline. I did not get around to a lot of painting over the weekend as my brother convinced me to give Elite: Dangerous a few more hours of my life. This game balances utter boredom with the anticipation that something wonderful is about to happen (I did glob a few extra jots of paint on some Lumineth that have been standing around on the desk since forever). Anyway, I'll use this as a chance to show a few models I painted earlier this year but never shared on my blog. Lets start with more Die Hard Miniatures awesomeness: Melcor the Liche. 

I originally painted his eyes red, switching to glowing green was a very good decision. 

Bloodbath at Orruk's Drift test scenario #1 Kachas Pass

As far as I'm concerned the best wargames are narrative games. This year I planned to slap Oldhammer and Age of Sigmar together and reimagine a classic. Unfortunately grandfather Nurgle's 2020 tour made it irresponsible to host a day of group gaming. On the plus side it gave me time to actually polish my scenario. To take it up one notch (and because we can safely have limited contact again) I actually tested the first scenario. Now there's a first. Here's some ramblings about applying old school wargaming to new rulesets. 

With a roar the invading Skaven horde stormed the stockade manned by two units of Dark Elves and their commander. 

Lumineth Realm Lords Light of Eltharion

Between work and my oldest turning five and having his first party, I've had a bit of a busy month. Still in the background I am painting a number of different project. One of those are the new High Elves Lumineth Realm Lords. I am not entirely on board with the humongous horn-helmets of other troops. But the spearmen, cavalry and archers look amazing. As does the floating armor called the Light of Eltharion. I decided to ignore the painting example in the book and try something new (for me at least): a galaxy style cloak. 

I forgot to paint the scabbard when I took the picture, but remedied that at a later point (I just painted a few bits black(ish) and picked out a few details in gold to be honest).

Die Hard Chaos General, Witch & some friends

With the Townscape complete, I finally have room on my desk to get back to painting miniatures. As a starting of point I decided to give a few special models extra attention before getting back to my usual army painting shtick. Front and center where two models from an order I placed with Die Hard Miniatures. Lets get started with my brand new Chaos General. 

A wonderful sculpt by Die Hard and, thanks to the latest General's Handbook, I can make an appropriate AoS warscroll for him.

Necromancer, Balewind Vortex, Plague Drones, Festus and Waywatcher

Its been way too hot to paint recently. Add a few busy weeks and a brief 'discussion' with grandfather Nurgle to that and the blog fell silent. No longer I say! Okay enough with the dramatics, time to play catch-up. Here are some models I finished over the past month. Lets start with (in my very humble opinion) one of the coolest models ever.

Rise my minion, rise!

Gob-Lobber restored and painted

On New Year's Day I was lucky enough to spot this Gob-Lobber being offered second hand at a reasonable price. Aside from my Mighty Fortress project, I've been working on and off at restoring this war machine to its full glory (or at least as full as I can manage). I like a lot of modern miniatures GW puts out, but as far as Dwarves go, nothing beats their late eighties and (very) early nineties work.

Who knew Dwarves could be that cruel?

Age of Sigmar Campaign - The quest for the Starforge (part three)

It took a bit long to get the report from battle two out of three done, but I think I more than make up for it with this one. Last Wednesday I fought the final battle between me Legion of Blood army and the Seraphon. Having lost the previous one I was the defender of a ruined castle and all I had to do was hold out until reinforcements arrived. You can see what happened next below, or click here to download a PDF version if you prefer.

Age of Sigmar Campaign - The quest for the Starforge (part two)

With all the holidays coming to a close I had a chance to play the second part of my three part Age of Sigmar campaign. The scenario for this one was The Barrowfields from Malign Sorcery (p. 54). My Legion of Blood had to perform as many rituals as possible to discover the location of a hidden Seraphon base. A risky endeavor as failure would point the Seraphon straight at my own home base. It was a nice clash, that due to time constraints had to be decided with a role-off...You can read how it all went down (more or less) in the comic below, also available as a PDF here.

Start of my freeguild: Demigryph Wolf Knights and an Ironweld Canon

For as long as I've played Warhammer I've wanted to have my very own army of fragile fools humans. The amount of painted models required, an incapability to paint skin tone and no idea where to start always stopped me. Well the skin tone bit got solved years ago by painting lots of skin tones. My output is rather high, so I don't feel too daunted by the prospect of painting a lot of miniatures. So all that stopped me is where to start. Well I solved that creatively. Here's a shot of part of the solution.

Now these are serious Knights of the (Summer) Wolf.

Age of Sigmar background primer: Soul Wars

Between the final installment of the Realmgate wars books and the release of the new edition of the Age of Sigmar core rules a lot of background has been added to the Mortal Realms. As my last series of background primers was/is rather popular it seems an apt time to bring everybody who has not quite gotten around to reading all the background up to speed.

Undead play a rather large role in the latest part of the story.

Grot Rock Lobbers and Aelf Loremaster step up to the plate

My vacation started this week and before leaving for exotic Denmark (no plans to visit Yorick) I had some serious time to paint. I took part of this time to clean out my entire hobbyzone (King Augeas' stables had nothing on it). The rest was spent with the Silver Tower Tzaangor (mentioned here) and a lot of models and projects lounging around on the shelves. The first of these to be finished were an Aelf Loremaster and this battery of Goblin Grot Rock Lobbers.

Buying second hand models with missing pieces lowers the price, give you the chance to be creative and makes a dent in the old bits box.