Warhammer Age of Sigmar musings and playing it with my son

Age of Sigmar...

Been following the game develop and have read commentaries and watched youtube videos of it during the past two years. They made you feel Age of Sigmar was a terrible mistake from Games Workshop and an atrocity against everyone that were playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle, which was "murdered" by the corporate vampires.

I've been playing Warhammer on and off from the beginning of 90's, mostly around 2001-2005. You could say I'm of the generation, which grew with the game (as well as with 40k), but for some reason  AoS never offended me. Maybe the "big move" didn't concern me, because of so many editions making the old ones obsolete, I dunno.

On the other hand the game didn't much interest me either. Originally I thought it would be great "rules light game" to play with kids and family, but the price's of the AoS miniatures put me off big time, so I kind of forgot about it. Then few months ago I bought the AoS basic set because... I don't know sometimes you just buy stuff :)

Another ongoing thing that has been going on for about 15 years now, is my attempting to get my wife play miniature games with me. She is very much into games (RPGs, board games, computer games etc.), but with miniature war-games I totally botched right in the beginning.

Around 2003-2004 after about a year of cajoling, I got her to play Warmachine with me. We played two games where I totally annihilated her force (you know you got to lose and learn) and she basically declined every request to play for like 12 years after that. I have made it a habit to ask at least once a month.

This fall (after I bought the AoS set) I got her to read the rules and she said YES. Apparently 2 pages of rules are somehow better than 250 pages, go figure. And then we played and I lost :( BUT she agreed to play again. So last tuesday we did. And I played with my son too, and they both liked the game.

With 2-4 units per side the game is set up in 15 minutes. With players, not experienced in war-games, it lasts for around an hour or so. The rules are simple, but you get to make meaningful choices all the time. The new miniatures are "too expensive" I think, but since I have about 1000 old citadel miniatures of various factions, it makes not big difference. I have and probably will buy the new miniatures as well because they're really sweet to paint and if you don't need to invest in a complete army, the cost is not so important.

I don't know if Age of Sigmar was a good or bad move on GW's part, but I can tell you if they would have churned out 9th edition, I would for one would not be playing it with my wife and son. In my mind this is something to do home and since I get out every once in a while, I can play "more serious games" with "serious gamers" who have read the 250 page rulebooks :)

Brave AELVES deploy to defend against the beastly beastmen

A MASSIVE melee between the Witch king's guard and the Broo ensues

AELVES spread goat blood all across the field

AELF knights finish off the remains and AELVES win

Gaunt Summoner of Tzeench - Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Miniature

Yeah I know the Descent project is still not done, but I'll get back to it right away. It was necessary to take a one night break from painting game pieces and what would be better than a miniature from the company that makes the best in the universe (at least if you ask them). What I'm talking about is Games Workshop (naturally) and their most exclusive Age of Sigmar miniature miniature collection (with rules).

I randomly chose a figure from my FLGS - Gaunt Summoner of Tzeench. Actually they sold it to me because this guy is going to participate in their painting competition (monthly I think). I never took part in painting competitions before. Lets see how it goes :)

 Its some kind of daemon mage flying on a daemonic disc. He's waving a wand and a dagger while reading a book and being a total bad ass. Even though the attempted sarcasm at the previous paragraph, I must admit that this model is amazing and I love it. I have no idea what to do with it though because I do not play the game and being plastic, it's too light to be a proper paper weight?!

And some images:

The face reminds me of the "death" character from Hellboy 2

Most painful thing to paint was the book and the feathers on his back. They had to be painted separately and were so small it was hard to hold on to them

I'm slowly improving my photography. I tried to print this grey background, but sadly my printer ran out of ink. I think the mousepad against monitor is almost professional setup

Disgusting in a beautiful way :D

I heard his name whispered to me in my dreams. I'm pretty sure Simo is going to posses the miniature and wreck havoc in the real world. I just hope I get rid of him before that happens

Descent 2.0 - almost done

Ok I got the most important miniatures done (YAY), which is all the basic box miniatures (minus the dragons) plus the player characters from "Oath of the Outcast" - box. I still have to paint the monsters from the OotOc, the dragons and the Goblin king, but I'm pretty sure that's not gonna be too much trouble to get them done before New Year.

I forgot to mention, that my paint scheme is basically from the images of the game art, I found from the net and the rest is just copying this guy. So thank you for the article, without which I couldn't have done this.

My friend came to collect the 1st patch yesterday and he seemed happy with the minis, which is a load off my heart. Here're some pictures:

Groupshot

I really liked the elementals. I know I painted the flames wrong (red in yellow out), but its just too hard to make them look any kind of good if you do them like you're supposed to. This softer plastic is kinda ok with larger minis

Backchat of the elementals. They have all 4 elements in them although the water can only been seen in the back under the flames

Ettins. Boring minis if you ask me. Just your basic 2 headed giant

I have no idea what these are, but they are by far the coolest minis in the whole patch. Some kind of Cthulhu Shark thingies. :Thumbs up:

Mandatory backshot

Descent 2 - Miniatures

Haven't been writing for a while here, because I've been busy painting miniatures. I fell into the age old trap of miniature painters which is, I begun several projects and haven't really finished any. The real reason for not blogging is the guilt I feel for not finishing the Barracuda and Dreadfleet projects.

They are on hold because a friend had an urgent need to get a load of descent 2 miniatures painted by christmas. In a weak moment I said I'd do it and now that they are halfway done it's beginning to seem like I will maybe even deliver them before the big day.

Here's some images of the minis painted so far:

The forces of E-vil

I guess these are zombies

These were called Barghests, which I recall are some kind of demons, so glowing eyes should be ok

Good guys

Good guys again

The mandatory elven archer

Elven archers - they make killing look cool

Short santa claus...

...is hiding an axe behind his back!

For some reason one of the characters is an ugly young child

"Mandatory image text"

More heroes: green shaman, red headed archer babe and elf paladin

Shot from behind

Tau Barracuda

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked, if I could build and paint the new(ish) Tau KX139-model as a reinforcement to complement his existing force. At first I got very exited about this, but since I have absolutely no experience on building Forgeworld Resin models, I consulted another friend, who does.

I was politely informed that it would be a very bad idea to venture into the wonderful world of resin models by building one of Forge Worlds largest kits. He said something like: "You could go mad."

Since giving up felt terrible, I ordered a Tau Barracuda with which I plan to practice building Forge These kits. Maybe after this project, I have a basis to estimate the building of the bigger kits. The silver lining here is that my friend generously agreed to purchase the Barracuda from me, after I'm done, so I don't have to use precious storing base for that piece of rub.... :D

I just got the package today and here're some photos of what's inside. I guess the next thing is to start cutting, filing and washing these bits. I'll post again once I got some stuff done.

I can't describe the feeling I get when I got this in my hands, but if you're reading this blog you probably know exactly what I mean

I've got no idea what the fluff text is talking about, but the image is S.E.X.Y.

After opening the package I thought it was a good thing I chose not to begin with building a titan.

SWOOOSH :D

Chaos Cultists done with a Bonus

The project I begun a couple of weeks ago with 60 chaos cultists, is finally done. Or should I say something is done, because 60 cultists turned into 30 cultists and a Chaos Space Marine Aspiring Champion.

There're only 5 different sculpts for the cultists and my friend started to think that maybe a horde of 60 guys with 5 sculpts, won't look so nice. If I am lucky, he'll buy the rest from Forgeworld, although now that I got the first 30 done I don't think they look too bad even with the limited sculpts :D

The Chaos Space Marine aspiring Champion was a bonus, because the larger cults box included one. Apparently there's some kind of formation or army option to include him with the cultist.

Anyway here are some pictures of the finished models. First some images of the Aspiring Chaos Champion:

I put somewhat more effort to this fellow. He's supposed to be Alpha Legion, but in this instance the guy goes unmarked as I do not have any suitable transfers and didn't want to spoil the mini with a halfassed freehand.

In the background you can see unfocused images of trash from my study floor.

In this image, the trash is perhaps a little better focussed, what do you think?

And here're the cultists, or the "useful idiots" as I like to call them:

I have a compulsion to write something under every image.

I just have to do this, which is kind of dumb because most of the time I have no idea what to say.

For instance this is the second image taken from behind the minis.

The only thing that comes to my mind when looking at this image, is that I need to clean up my keyboard one of these days...

Dread fleet - More Ships Required

I got this game a few years ago in a miniature swap and painted the terrain and few ships. We then played a game with my neighbour. Then the game was forgotten on the top shelf of my study. There it lay for a while forgotten and collecting motes of dust until my friend casually told me he might like to ty it again.

Sooooo….. I need to paint more ships. The first scenario, which we played, has only 2 ships and I personally think it is quite boring to play that way. You end up circling each other for a long time and taking potshots.

For the next scenario I need the Swordfish and The Curse of Zandri Here're some pictures of the things I already have painted for the game:

Random island

Skull island :D

I don't think I have to write what this is?

a VOL-CA-NO :D

It's totally reasonable to build a castle on a skeleton of a giant tortoise.

Castle black

This island is used for the summoning of Great Cthulhu

This is perhaps the most ridiculous thing GW has ever produced. It's a mountain with a Vampiric castle magically moved on a pile of shipwrecks. I'm pretty sure mushrooms were consumed during the creative process.

Yeah it's the same ship sailing on a piece of cardboard

Here's the Heldenhammer being pursued by a magical sea monster and a roll of kitchen towels

I'll post some pictures, when I get the ships done for scenario 2.

Must - Paint - 60 Chaos Renegade cultist

A few days ago I got a request from a friend to paint him a bunch of Chaos Cultists to add to his imperial guard army. The original army is just basic old school imperial guard painted in a very cool grey blue paint scheme (not by me).

As it often goes with these things, my friend has sadly turned his back on the Emperor's Grace. A group of vile people, who pose as his friends, gifted him a heretical tome as a birthday present and I'd say he was converted so fast the seeds of heresy must have been in his soul all the time.

Whatever the reasons for this tragedy a great blob of rag tag ruffians is required. The plan is to paint 60 cultists which will most likely all be built from the GW cultist boxes. An alternate plan is to spice the group up with some miniatures from other producers, but we're not sure which these would be just yet.

On wednesday I bought two boxes of cultists and set up to test how they would be done. The paint scheme should be such that it fits the original army so I thought they would have blue grey uniform with various toned down coloured rags on them.

Here're some images of the test scheme and an image of the paints used (for reference to myself :D)

I'm not sure if the level of light contrast is enough in this. I guess it's better to paint a bunch of them and see how they look in the blobby formation. You can always add light to the surfaces,later, but its hard to tone it down once you do it :)