More loyal heroes added to my Sigmar's Children Stormhost

My Sigmar's Childern Stormhost is expanding at a slow but sure pace. I keep a small number of  Stormcast assembled and primed, ready for when I just feel like splattering a lot of (pink) paint around. Recently this allowed me to finish painting (and I have to look the names up): a Lord-Castellant, a  Knight-Vexillor with Banner of Apotheosis and a squad of Annihilators. Or as I know them: knight with lantern and doggy, knight with banner and three knights in very heavy armor (there are reasons I'm not employed as a Battle Tome writer ;).

Stop! Hammertime! /obligatory opening.

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). 

Finished painting Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower...

To be sure, I finished the models from Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower, I've only played the first few missions of the game so far. I bought the game on the third of July in 2016 (so it only took two years ;)). I played The Silver Tower back in 2016 and had a lot of fun with it and I did actually finish most of the models around then, except for one familiar and five Tzaangor...man I hate the Tzaangor. First though, a colorful group shot.

My Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower miniatures all sport a coat two thin coats of paint.

Stormcast, Ministorum Priest and old lead or how to keep busy doing many things at once

Almost two weeks have come and gone without posting. Time flies when you're having fun. I've actually been kept rather busy with work by day and happily smearing paint on unsuspecting miniatures by night. I just regularly forget to take pictures. Well let's have a quick run-through of some of my projects right now.

Now this guy looks grim enough to fit in the distopia that is the grim darkness of Warhammer 40K.

Shadespire Steelheart's Champions in Anvils of the Heldenhammer colors

I'm rather busy with actual work so I have to keep today's update quick and short. By the same token I seem to be in a bit of hobby overdrive and I fear that if I don't post these now, they will be pushed into the 'to be posted queue'. That one usually ends up on 'never posted' avenue. As I've cracked and ordered Necromunda, I suspect more painting will be in the near future. So without further ado, I've painted the three Stormcast Eternals from the Shadespire set.

Steelheart and friends stand ready to do something in Shadespire (I have not read the manual yet). 

Age of Sigmar primer: The Silver Tower, Excelsis, Shadespire and witch hunters

With 8^th edition Warhammer 40K appearing tomorrow I’m getting ready to do a bit of sci-fi wargaming in the near future. Having said that, I’m going to finish my overview of the Age of Sigmar background first. This is the third and (for now) final installment of the background overview. In part one I’ve discussed theRealmgates, the transition from the Old World (the world that was) to the newand some of the other (global) changes to the realms, Slaanesh and other races. My second blog was a condensed version of the Realmgate Wars as described in the five hardcover source books (with a few bonus facts from the Black Library novels). This post will deal with the realms as they are now.

Age of Sigmar background primer: The Realmgate Wars

In an effort to give the Age of Sigmar background more love I previously madea post with a general Age of Sigmar background primer. Here you can read (a bit) about the fate of the Old World, the Mortal Realms and their gods and – most importantly – the realmgates and the setting in general. This post deals with the Realmgate Wars. These are the wars that kick off the Age of Sigmar, got us started on the current background story and are dealt with over the course of five sourcebooks.

Black Library published a number of novels and audio books on the Realmgate Wars. More importantly Games Workshop released five hardcover books telling the story, adding rules and giving rules for themed battles. I’ll be using these books as the basis for this post. In the books Games Workshop tells the story by jumping from one realm to the next, slowly following the timeline up to the finish. I’ll be summarizing in a slightly different fashion, giving descriptions of the events on a per realm basis. As with the other post here’s a ‘here be spoilers’ warning. I recommend getting the Realmgate Wars books. They are quite an entertaining read and a collection onto themselves.

I don't have any Stormcast painted up to show here, so I went with a nice old Skaven model instead. Ignoring the fact that this makes no sense whatsoever. 

Age of Sigmar background primer or: How I learned to stop worrying about Stormcast and love the setting

Sometimes I miss the Old World. I played a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventures there, read the novels (even the early ones) and fought a lot of battles over bits and pieces of it. When the end-times was announced I was slightly miffed (hands off my setting!). Having said that, the End Times was a fantastic send-off full of fascinating twists and amazing revelations. What a lot of people don’t realize, is that End Times is also a misnomer. The Age of Sigmar background continues what started in the Old World and adds to it.

Chaos warriors of Tzeentch emerge from a realmgate.