Painting Journal #2: Hitting Stride

(Many thanks to my friend Matt, who was kind enough to photograph my models on an actual camera for this post.)

After a couple of productive painting sessions with Matt my painting table is a lot clearer than it was and I have (I feel) some very nice models to show for it:

First off, my nemeses, the Tomb Kings Skeleton Horse Archers. You'd think that after the endless frustration of building them the trade-off would be that they'd be surprisingly easy to paint. Well, let me be the one to tell you that you thought wrong. Oh, the skeleton and the skeletal steed are very easy to paint, especially with the use of Zandri Dust primer but...

… oh, the quivers. So many layers, so many different materials, so many opportunities for all those dark colours to spill over onto the carefully drybrushed bone. Still, they are finally done and that's what matters. Looking at the finished product I am tempted to make another five of them but I think I'll leave that for a long way off.

Next up are some good old Skull Pass Night Goblins, probably the best starter models GW have ever produced. As I mentioned before, I only painted this particular colour scheme because I needed to test out some methods and these little chappies were ideal. I really like the effect, though and so these are the first five models of the Red Caps Tribe, named in equal part for the mushrooms and the Scottish vampire legend. Lighting obscures the fact but there's not much highlighting going on with these models. This is by choice since I'm going to be painting a lot of them (having bought two Skull Pass sets back in the day I have at least 120 of these fellows) but I feel the effect will stand up in a large unit.

Finally getting a little more done on my Wood Elves with the old female Glade Lord. This will represent the Lady Tevaril, ruler of Anmyr and my general. (Her wife, Lady Delynna, will be represented by one of the female Spellsingers.)

I'm not entirely happy with how this model came out but there comes a point when you just have to power through and get a model off your painting table. You can't really see it in the photo because there's so little bare skin on the model but I am not happy with the finish of the Kislev Flesh, so a little more experimentation there. The green cloth and the bronze armour have come out okay and those methods are going to be used to unify the look of the army. A slightly patchy job on the skin is something I can live with. Plus, she's metal so I can always strip her and start from scratch if it ever really starts to bother me.

Finally, a rank of very simply painted Squigs I dashed off once I realised I had a really good red method going. These were very quick to paint since they only have a few different colours to them: skin, teeth, eyes and claws. Even the spinney one on the end wasn't too different: I did the spines the same as the claws and just added a little Mephiston Red to highlight the scales along its back. I have a bunch of these just sitting in a box unpainted and I think I might just use them whenever I want to paint something quickly just for the feeling of progress.

Speaking of, I find quantifying things help me remember I'm making headway so let's inaugurate a little Hobby Log at the bottom of these posts:

2016 Total Models Painted: 17

Orcs & Goblins: 10

Tomb Kings: 6

Wood Elves: 1

Total Points Value

368

The “points value” of the models, by the way, don't include intangibles so I won't be counting things like armour upgrades, magic items or additional wizard levels unless the model for some reason actually portrays an upgrade like the Glade Lord's spear or a Skink Priest's Cloak of Feathers.

The joys of incremental progress

I am getting dangerously close to completing Pokemon X: I've defeated Team Flare; caught the legendary Xerneas (jury's still out on that decision); beaten the final gym in Snowbelle City to get the last badge; walked the Victory Road; and, now I'm standing outside the Kalos League Building prepared to take on the Elite Four and the Champion.

I haven't completed a computer game in years. It might not be much of an achievement but it does feel nice to get further in one of these games than I ever have before. I think my record before was seven gym badges in Platinum and then I got stuck fighting the boss of Team Galactic and his damned invincible Gyarados. So at least I've proved to myself I can defeat the narrative villain, not just gym leaders.

Incremental progress is a lot more important than we give it credit for.

For instance, I've spent the last fortnight hitting my head against a brick wall with my painting. I've been having a lot of trouble painting a unit of sixteen Glade Guard for my Wood Elves. I couldn't get the highlighting right on their red tunics and was blanking on how to do the leather areas.

So last night I decided to change tac. I picked up five of the many, many Skull Pass Night Goblins I have lying around and decided to use them to do some colour tests. I painted them with red hoods and used their shoes to test out a leather method. Both look great, both will now be used on the Glade Guard and now I have five nearly finished Night Goblins and a cool new colour scheme for them to show for it!

I also finally got those damned Skeleton Horse Archers to go together. Great thing about Skeletons is that once you have them undercoated they start to look like something pretty quickly which cuts out that frustrating phase where every model just looks dispiritingly terrible.

Not a bad start to my week off. 

Oath of Moment #1

I am getting these half-built Skeleton Horse Archers off my desk! I only need to glue a few small components on and then they can go to the painting table. Hopefully once they're built I can get them painted relatively quickly but, to be honest, that's kind of secondary to not having them just sitting there any longer.

So, not even a particularly arduous one this week since we're in for some nice weather: just finish building these five models. Getting them painted would be nice but I'm not going to beat myself up over not finishing them. 

Tomb Kings cavalry (an exercise in frustration)

Building Tomb Kings Skeleton Horse Archers almost makes me appreciate the decision to cut the range. These might actually be the worst designed miniatures I've ever had to put together.

No, I'm serious. The riders aren't designed to fit on the horses; the quivers aren't designed to actually rest against the torso; nor are they designed to leave room for the skeleton's head to attach to the neck connector; and, the bows are so heavy on so small an arm connection that you have to hold it in place for ages before the glue will actually hold it in any position that looks halfway decent and even then it doesn't line up with the awkward angle the head is looking in unless you want it to look terrible.

Do I have any advice to make building these things easier. Yes! Don't! If you want any from now on you have to get them second hand anyway so just skip the twitch-inducing frustration of construction and buy them pre-build on eBay. 

Painting Journal #1: Tomb Scorpion

After some severe hobby doldrums, I finally finished my first miniature of the year and, let me tell you, just getting something finished has really energised me. So, the Tomb Kings Tomb Scorpion, one of my favourite models ever. I remember when I first got into Warhammer there was no model I wanted more, unfortunately the army just didn't grab me back then but here we are now and here he is...

Ease of Building

I cannot imagine the nightmare this would have been in metal. For all of Finecast's deservedly awful reputation (and I did have to bend a couple of legs back into shape) I don't know how anyone could stand a body that large on legs that small in metal and not have it collapse every five minutes.

As it was, working with the Finecast version of the kit, the only issue was that the legs don't really offer any obvious contact points for the gluing the Scorpion to the base. In the end I just had to hold the model down on the base and dribble superglue over the ends its feet. It isn't elegant and it is a bit visually obvious but it was the only way to go.

Ease of Painting

There are these two round... objects on the back of the model, wedged between the mummified Liche Priest and the stone body of the construct. No one seems to know what they are and no official photograph is at a angle for you to see what 'Eavy Metal did with them. So my friend Dave and I decided they were canoptic jars and I painted them as earthenware. I think that makes sense and if it doesn't then someone should have said something in an official source.

Aside from that small philosophical issue the kit is actually pretty easy to paint, being comprised of the four basic Tomb Kings materials: bone, stone, bandages and gold. Of these the biggest challenge is deciding what sort of stone to paint, the other techniques being pretty basic ones that most painters have preferred methods to achieve anyway.

Be warned, there are a lot of little chips in the stone and bone sections, as well as some hard to reach sections in the hole the Liche Priest is lying in so you might have to go over your base coat a few times.

Self-Critique

Not much to say here. The bone is the same basic technique I've used on all the bone in the army and that's most of the model. My quest for a decent gold method continues. This is Balthasar Gold washed Agrax and drybrushed Golden Griffon which is duller and “older” looking than the one from the painting guide but somehow not deep enough for my purposes. Eh, further experimentation ahead and perhaps it'll look better on smaller details with my infantry.

My crappy pictures (new house = new photography set-up = LEARNING EVERYTHING AGAIN!) doesn't show the Dark Reaper drybrush on the black stone but it looks quite cool in person, trust me. Please?

Anyway, I'm happy with how the mummified Liche Priest turned out, especially the bandages, which makes this a good test case for the Tomb Guard I'm building right now.

Overall, I think I did well.

Tomb It May Concern (Lessons Learnt)

I think I'm starting to get the hang of Tomb Kings. Oh, I got crushed yesterday but every time I roll the army out I last a little longer and a little better.

This time round I finally worked out how to use my chariots: slamming an early flank charge into a weak rank-and-file unit (Night Goblins who had already spent their Fanatics), who I broke, ran down and overran into another unit. That other unit, a 30-strong Squig Herd, smashed me up but I took half of them with me. Skeletons Of The Match, right there.

I had a good idea that didn't work, sadly, but worth remembering. I tried to bring my Tomb Swarms up between two Night Goblin units to tempt out the Fanatics. If they had emerged odds were that the Fanatics from either unit would go through my Swarms and into the other unit. Sadly, I rolled a misfire and stayed underground. In hindsight I should have stayed patient and tried the tactic again next turn rather than charging in with my ranked units and Ushabti but... eh, hindsight.

My Hierophant needs a ward save. I already pay for one for my Tomb King but I'm starting to think those points would be better spent keeping the Hierophant alive. Every one of my three defeats have come off the back of the Hierophant dying so old Crookback is getting the Talisman next time and Amanhotep can look after his damn self.

I think I need to make some economies and get some Skeleton Archers in. Right now the army has a grand total of eleven bows, which is a mighty waste of one of the armies big advantages: shooting without modifiers. Okay, without modifiers on a mediocre ballistics skill, but still.

I might get rid of the Carrion. They're actually pretty rubbish. The original idea was to have them flying along by the side of the Necrosphinx to back him up but its not working out. They aren't that resilient, they only have two wounds. They're pretty much just filler, even if their suicide charge at the first Night Goblin unit freed up a channel of assault for the chariots. Basically, they exist only for the times I need something fast and expendable.

My Level 1 Liche died relatively early on, taking the Incantation of the Desert Wind with him, thanks to which I'm starting to think it's nowhere near as essential as I assumed it to be. Upon which subject, the augments on the Lore of Light are amazing so she's earned a semi-permanent slot on the order of battle.

Now, to get some painting done so my army can be more presentable for my next incrementally less embarrassing defeat. 

On Tomb Kings and the learning curve

Tomb Kings are a difficult army to learn: they're slow, they're highly dependant on their magic, more even than Vampire Counts; and, even their strong stuff can be killed off just by being outnumbered at the end of a fight. They both suffer and benefit from a need for synergy between units that I'm just not used to, though longtime Empire players might have better luck with it than me.

Just to be clear: I love this. I love the learning curve on this army. I can usually get a bead on how an army works pretty early on but this one is giving me so many chances to experiment before I find my feet, which I hopefully will.

This afternoon I'm having my third game with the Tomb Kings and after my first two crushing loses I'm looking forward to testing out some new units and tactics on my way to probably my third crushing loss.

This will be my Tomb Kings' first 2,000 points game and with that extra space comes the confidence to use my Tomb Scorpion's Entombed Beneath The Sands rule unafraid that it'll emerge somewhere useless again. I'm taking a third Liche Priest to road test the Lore Of Light as well as a Casket Of Souls, though I admit that five magic levels and a bound spell might be too much magic even for this army. I've also finished building my Tomb Guard so I shove my Tomb King in there and keep the Necrotect with the Skeleton Spearmen so I have a buffing character in both infantry units.

And I really, really need to remember that the large constructs need support when they move in for the kill. They're strong but they're slow and that Unstable rule is a bastard, especially as I'm facing Matt's Orcs & Goblins. I'm pretty sure I'll lose. Matt has strength, speed and Fanatics on his side, not to mention experience but it will be a learning exercise and that's fun for me all by itself.

Plus, now I'm up to 2,000 points I can debut my Tomb King. After the dismal failure of my Tomb Prince Rastaph to cleanse the stone mines around Mortis Tarn of their Dwarven occupiers it is time for his honoured father Amanhotep the Intolerant to take command as a horde of greenskins bears down on Zandri from the barbarian north. At his side marches his daughter, Rastaph's sister, Zandri's Priestess of Ptra, Oili (aka my Lore Of Light wizard), his favoured child.

So Rastaph licks his wounds in Zandri, snubbed by his father, waiting to see if he will have to welcome his sire home in glorious victory or ignominious defeat. 

16 Weeks, 80 Models, the Reign of 1,000,000 Years

This was actually inspired by the Warhammer World trip I'll now not be able to make but I'm determined to salvage something from it all. You see, I had this notion of giving my Tomb Kings their inaugural game at Warhammer World. On what would have been my first visit to Warhammer World, actually. Not going to happen now but before I found that out I came up with a pretty workable army list for getting ready in time and it goes a little something like this:

Lords

Tomb King (170) armed with great weapon (6) and wearing light armour and riding a chariot (55). 231 points

Heroes

Liche Priest (70), Level 2 Wizard (35) using the Lore of Nehekhara. Hierophant. 105 points

Liche Priest (70), Level 2 Wizard (35) using the Lore of Nehekhara. 105 points

Necrotect (60) armed with two hand weapons including whip wearing light armour. 60 points

Core

3 Skeleton Chariots (165) pulled by Skeletal Steeds each crewed by 2 Skeleton Charioteers armed with spears and bows, full command (30). 195 points

5 Skeleton Horse Archers (70) armed with bows, full command (30). 100 points

20 Skeleton Warriors (80) armed with spears (20), shields and light armour (20), full command (30). 150 points

20 Skeleton Warriors (80) armed with hand weapons, shields and light armour (20), full command (30). 130 points

Special

3 Sepulchral Stalkers (165). 165 points

20 Tomb Guard (220) armed with halberds (40) and shields, full command (30). 290 points

Tomb Scorpion (85). 85 points

3 Ushabti (150) with great weapons, champion (10). 160 points

Rare

Necrosphinx (225). 225 points

Total: 2001 points

There are sixteen weeks until New Year and this army, which is pretty elite by my standards, has eighty models so that works out at five models a week. Fair declaration: I do actually have fifteen Skeleton Spearmen finished already from my last stab at this army so that's even less work to do (though I'm not too happy with them and might re-paint them if I have time at the end of the project).

Having not played the army myself and, in fact, never having played against Tomb Kings in my life I'm forced to go back to first principles: include what I seem to need and then just pick up what looks pretty. I've got the basic sort of general; the necessary wizards; a buffing character I like the sculpt of; plenty of core plastics; and finally lots and lots of pretty centrepiece kits.

The reward tree needs a little tweaking since there are things I actually need to finish now and it reads like this:

500 points: Ushabti.

1000 points: Necrosphinx

… then we'll see where we are when we get to 1500. Probably I'll start rewarding myself with minis from outside the Tomb Kings to offset boredom. The Warsphinx will be painted one day (sorry, Matt, it was a lovely present) but, to be honest, I'm kind of going off the idea of buying Nagash. It's a lovely model but not of much use to me. The Undead Legion is cool but I've never been one for special characters. I might get a Mortarch kit to make a Vampire Lord on Abyssal Steed (which is what it is for, I don't care what anyone else says). Okay, let's say that for 1500, provisionally.

Project Tracker

15 of 80 models completed.

Reward Tracker

15 Skeletons Warriors with spears, shields and light armour = 90 points (410 points to next reward). 

The Rewards of Necromancy

Okay, this one wasn't my idea, exactly. As is evident from past hobby posts I have searched for years in vain for a motivational method to keep me focused on painting. I've tried targets, I've tried doing A Tale Of One Gamer (Dwarfs were not as inspiring as I'd hoped) and other methods too boring to list and pretty much gave up on the idea.

Then my friend Matt and I read the Humbling Of Settra scenario in White Dwarf #30. The idea is simple: Nagash on his own versus the opposing player's entire Tomb Kings collection.

I've got a lot of Tomb Kings models: few are built, none are painted. I had an opportunity to pick up a whole army's worth on the cheap a few years ago and took it. They've been a “rainy day” project ever since and now the day seems to have come. Matt and I intend to play the scenario some time in January between the end of our current narrative campaign and the beginning of the next. I've got four months to paint as many Tomb Kings miniatures as I can.

As an added spur to work I'm going to set myself some rewards for the first few milestones. Another friend of mine does this and his method is that he likes tanks, he loves tanks so when he finishes a big infantry unit he'll reward himself with a tank. I like centrepiece miniatures, I like doing a real production number on something flashy so here are my rewards, my presents to myself:

500 points completed: I get to paint my Ushabti. I love Ushabti and the original great weapon ones look beautiful in Finecast.

1,000 points: The Necrosphinx, a beautiful centrepiece. I'm thinking a jade effect for the body.

1,500 points: A couple of years ago Matt made me a custom “Scorpion” Warsphinx for my birthday: a mash-up of Necrosphinx and the Arachnarok Spider from the Orcs & Goblins range. Definitely something I should paint up now I have reason and some idea of how I want to colour it.

2,000 points: At this stage I get to buy a Nagash model of my very own.

I'll set further rewards if I exceed these targets but that should be more than enough to be getting on with. 

Nine things to notice about The End Times: Nagash

It was... a dark time.

The End Times: Nagash is on pre-order, the White Dwarf is out and I have pre-ordered the slipcase edition. So what do we know from the various sources available: the magazine, the webstore and so on. This is all publicly available advertising so I'm calling no holds barred on spoilers as you could get most of this out of a £2.40 magazine or for free on the GW website.

Valten

There are, absolutely 100% confirmed in the write-up for the Nagash book, rules for Valten. I've been hoping for Valten to come back into canon since he rated a mention in Ask Grimbrindal a few issues ago. What's more, I checked the GW webstore and Valten's models (there were three) have disappeared. GW is big these days on not putting out rules for a thing unless they're going to produce the model since third parties can take advantage of that loophole so we can hope for a plastic Valten someday very soon.

Vlad

Keeping with the Vs: some of the background outlined in White Dwarf #30 mentions that one of Nagash undead lieutenants (or Mortarchs) is Vlad Von Carstein. Vlad! Von! Carstein! He's back, the big daddy of the Vampire Counts and he's heading for a face-off with Archaon.

Welcome to the Future

A box-out on page 30 pegs the resurrection of Nagash as happening in 2524 (Imperial Reckoning). That's two years after the static dateline Warhammer has maintained since the sixth edition.

Good Lord(s)

Like Storm Of Magic and Triumph & Treachery before them The End Times represents a slightly tweaked core rules set. This time around the big change is that in an End Times game you can take 50% of your army as Lord choices which makes sense since all the great lords and heroes are going to be on the field at a time like this. At 1,000 points that means Nagash can be taken in a bog standard 2,000 points army.

999

He likes nines, does Nagash. Of course there are nine Books Of Nagash, his rules allow him to know nine spells and he has chosen “nine beings of immense power” to be his Mortarchs. So far, from various sources, we know four: Vlad Von Carstein, Mannfred Von Carstein, Neferata (going to love to hear how that happened) and Arkhan the Black. Five more to go and we have to ask: was Konrad too bat-shit insane even for Nagash?

Fair Bretonnia

Call me desperate at this stage but Bretonnia gets a few mentions in the solicitations describing the new background and artwork from the Army Book cover is used in the second teaser video. Since a big civil war was going on last we checked in with them in the Wood Elves timeline where the rebel leader either was undead or in league with them I can hope for positive developments in the near future.

Body issues

Of his whole body, apparently, only Nagash's skull and a bit of spine that makes up his Pharaoh beard are original, the rest comes from “the noble body he possessed to re-enter the mortal realm”. Since this Nagash business is spinning out of last year's Sigmar's Blood campaign book could this be the fate of Volkmar, last seen being kidnapped by Mannfred as he prepared to enact a great ritual (the box-out with the new dateline mentions that it was Mannfred and Arkhan who performed the resurrection ritual).

The Golden Bastion of Balthasar Gelt

Don't know what it is but apparently its protecting the Empire from Archaon's Horde. I am very much looking forward to finding out what this is about.

The Big 1

Looking at the slipcase edition on the webstore the two books have numbers on the spines but the slipcase itself has a great big “1” on its spine. So there are more books to come. The End Times: Archaon next? Karl Franz?