My fantasy armies on parade

The long awaited move has almost been completed and I'm in the process of building my own hobby Walhalla. While deciding on display cabinets, workspace, lights, decorations and paint racks I took the unpacking of my miniatures as a quick opportunity to show my painted armies on (a private) parade. First up is my Fantasy collection as my 40K turned out not to fit on the table at the same time. Seeing it all together makes me rather proud of my painting production and the quality is getting better all the time too. So to shorten down a long post. Here are a bunch of (badly lit) shots of my Fantasy armies.

The entire lot as they turned up out of their boxes including my two actual Armies on Parade wins (bronze and silver) of which I am (perhaps a bit too) proud. 

Making The Unquiet Dead markers for AoS

With the launch of Legions of Nagash Games Workshop has given Death a new lease on life (har har). It also brings us the best hint of what Slaanesh has been up to so far. Good times (maybe too good) are to be had by all. In Legions of Nagash the rather wonky Age of Sigmar summoning system is replaced with something more workable and fun. An ability called The Unquiet Dead is part of this. Every army that belongs to one of the Legions of Nagash has it. It gives the player four gravesite markers that help reinforce and regenerate certain units in his army. More important than game mechanics (as far as I'm concerned): it gives you an excuse to get creative with hobby materials. In short I made these for use in my games.

As a Legion of Nagash general I get to slam down my own graveyards on every battlefield.

Orruk Ardboys can proudly (and loudly) join my Greenskin horde

When I started unpacking my Greenskin project box in September last year (end of post) I expected to put most of it back in the box by the end of the month. Now I can happily state that this didn't happen. This weekend I've managed to finish a last serious bunch of Greenskins waiting for paint. The group on the trail end of my enthusiasm was a mob of twenty metal and plastic Black Orcs Orruk Ardboys. As a member of my local gaming club organised a painting day this weekend, I decided to bring this lot. I figured that getting stuck with these boyz and nothing else to do but chat and paint would work wonders. It did (although I had to finish them up on Sunday).

Two bands of Orruk 'Ardboyz stand ready to kill, maim and destroy.

The Knight of Shrouds joins my undead horde

You've got to love a long buildup. Just before Christmas GW started hinting at Malign Portents hitting the Mortal Realms in Age of Sigmar (if you're not up-to-date on the background, I've got a primer here). Now as prelude to a worldwide campaign a new book has hit the shelves including four new models (a general each for Order, Destruction, Death and Chaos). Being an easy mark a gaming enthusiast I pre-ordered the book, dice, cards and the general for Death because, well, I think the model look incredibly cool. I've skimmed the book and it looks interesting. As I've decided to take my hobby up to 11 this year, I'm going to attempt to fill every space on the Wargame Hobby Bingo card Rob Hawkins updated this year. I used this as an excuse to go full throttle on the Knight of Shrouds.

GW managed to combine the menace of a Ring Wraith quite nicely with the ghostly appearance required for Night Haunt models. 

Landing area terrain for 40K (and other sci-fi games) finished

I'm quite sure I'm not the only one starting out projects with an enormous amount of enthusiasm, only to find it all gone halfway through. This generic landing area is an extreme example of this kind of project. It started out with me wanting to make my own space ship like in this post at Warlord Games. I changed the tune slightly when I saw two discounted Star Wars toys while doing the December shopping for the family. Now, having spend some money on it, I was committed to making a small space port. Well long story short it is (more or less) finished.

A group of Space Wolves scouts checks out the new cargo ships. Where are all the inhabitants? 

Freezing green stuff

I made the joyous mistake of purchasing a new computer game called Subnautica. Set in a science fiction background you take the role of a lone survivor crash landed on an ocean world. It basically combines survival games with a fascinating storyline. All well and good, but it does take a humongous bite out of my painting time. So a bit of a boring update this week as I waste my spare time swimming in a fictitious ocean. Green stuff, also known as Kneadite, we all know it and (some of us) love it. I buy mine in 36 inch rolls through an e-bay trader called Trolltrader. Unfortunately Green Stuff has a shelf life and with my limited sculpting ability it usually starts going a bit tough around the time I'm halfway through a roll. As tough a the forgotten (and right up there with 'sand' overpriced) pack of Green Stuff at your local GW. I usually turn my green stuff into sand bags when it starts to go. With the arrival of a new supply I thought 'time for an experiment'.

I should not have basecoated buildings quite so close to my ruler...

Orruk Brutes, ready to be unleashed

Yesterday I found myself with an unexpected day off. A pleasant surprise I used to catch up on my paintwork. As part of the 'Finish the Orruks Project' I started last year I glued these five Orruk Brutes together. To help with painting I did not glue the breastplates on (except for the one wielding the comically oversized double handed blade Gore-choppa). Over the course of the last few months one of the breastplates went missing. Luckily this weekend I found said breastplate at the bottom of a box of Vallejo paints. Taking it as a sign I decided to finish the Brutes before more parts could go missing.

My Orruk Brutes are ready to smash and kill.