WoC Update: Khorne Daemon Prince & Hellcannon WIP

Hi there guys, right now I have a big problem with my painting. I just can't decide what to paint, the end result? Nothing gets done :/ Currently I'm painting a whole lot of different miniatures at a time but I have to have some focus so I actually finish some of my projects as well. And I've decided to first and foremost finish two of my WoC projects, a Khorne Daemon Prince and a Chaos Hellcannon. These miniatures do take some time though and I can't just have all of my unfinished Empire minis waiting so I've also decided to actually finish my Empire Morr War Altar (more on this one in a later post). So now when that's settled take a look on what I've done so far on my WoC projects.

I have come pretty far and I thought long and hard how I wanted the armour on him. It couldn't be red as the rest of him is red and just black looked a bit dull so I made this molten lava look (inspired from one of the first lvl 60 purple sets in vanilla WoW for shamans called Earthfury I think). And I think it came out quite well, may need to tone it down on some places though. A lot of work left, for example gluing on all the teeths, horns and spikes all over the model but I think he will look really mean in the end.

Work is going slower on the Hellcannon though. I decided to remove some of the wheels again so I could get to everywhere where I needed to paint. I painted the whole cannon barrel before this though and it would probably have been a lot easier if the wheels where not in the way. And this is a tip for all you who want to paint your Hellcannons, paint as much as you can before putting it together, it will be a lot easier and save you a lot of time as well.

I'm really pleased with how the fiery barrel looks and wasn't hard at all. Just do as you normally paint with highlights etc. but do the brightest colour first in this case, yellow, then orange, then red and for last red with some black mixed in. A lot of more work needs to be done but when I've finished the brass colours and metals there isn't much more to paint on it, except to finish the base and the Chaos Dwarf Crew.

Army Lists: Empire 2500pts 8th edition x 3 lists

I'm a painter first and foremost and even if I don't play as much games as I want to I love to write down different army lists. This also helps me out when painting as I can paint towards a certain goal as many tournament gamers do before a tournament.

But with Empire it's hard to make a list where I feel 'this is the one' as much as you can feel this without even play testing. But there are some things that's are in most of my lists, cannons 1 or 2, lvl 4, more or less Demigryphs, IC Knights and Halberdiers. And this is good as my base and then I can change as I see fit with sizes of the units, what general I want etc. Anyhow, here are three lists which are similar but with some changes. I know there may be some changes I should do to them and if you spot something, just tell. And tell me what list you like the most, things I've may have missed or just what I should change.

Empire 2500 Pts - Mixed with more Infantry

Lords:

1 Arch Lector on War Altar @ 345 Pts
     Van Horstman's Speculum
     Armour of Destiny

1 Wizard Lord @ 270 Pts
     Magic Level 4
     Talisman of Preservation
     Dispel Scroll

Heroes:

1 Captain of the Empire @ 106 Pts
     Full Plate Armor, Battle Standard *Edited
     Enchanted Shield
     Crown of Command

1 Warrior Priest @ 103 Pts
     Heavy Armour, Greatweapon, Warhorse with Barding
     Dragonhelm
     Ironcurse Icon

1 Master Engineer @ 65 Pts

Core:

40 Halberdiers @ 340 Pts
     Full Command

Detachments 2 x 5 Archers
         
9 Knights of the Inner Circle @ 290 Pts
     Lance, Full Command, The Steel Standard

Special:

30 Greatswords @ 360 Pts
     Full Command

1 Great Cannon @ 120 Pts

1 Great Cannon @ 120 Pts

4 Demigryph Knights @ 262 Pts
     Lance, Full Command

Rare:

1 Helblaster Volley Gun @ 120 Pts

Models in Army: 110
Total Army Cost: 2501

Comment:  Good list for me as I don't need to paint that much. Some knights and Greatswords and it's done pretty much. The idea is to buff both infantry blocks with AL on War Altar and use the Knights and Demigryphs on the flanks. 

Empire 2500 Pts  -  Demigryph Knights List

Lords:

1 Arch Lector @ 192 Pts
     General, Heavy Amour, Shield, Warhorse with Barding *Edited
     Crown of Command
     Dawn Stone

1 Wizard Lord @ 230 Pts
     Level 4
     Talisman of Endurance

Heroes:

1 Captain of the Empire @ 135 Pts
     Battle Standard
     Armour of Meteoric Iron

1 Warrior Priest @ 72 Pts
     Heavy Armour
     Enchanted Shield

Core:

39 Halberdiers @ 334 Pts
     Full Command

Detachments 2 x 5 Archers
         

11 Knights of the Inner Circle @ 340 Pts
     Lance, Full Command
     The Steel Standard

Special:

4 Demigryph Knights @ 272 Pts
     Lance, Full Command
     Banner of the Eternal Flame

4 Demigryph Knights @ 242 Pts
     Lance, Musician

3 Demigryph Knights @ 184 Pts
     Lance, Musician

1 Great Cannon @ 120 Pts

Rare:

1 Steam Tank @ 250 Pts

1 Celestial Hurricanum @ 130 Pts

Models in Army: 78
Total Army Cost: 2501

Comment: Really low model count and I need to paint more Knights, Demigryph Knights and the Hurricanum. I like this list more and more, lot of Demigryphs and most things in the army is really hard hitting and fast. WP and BSB goes with Halberdiers, Lvl 4 with some Archers, and AL in the IC Knight unit. 

Empire 2500 Pts  -  Mixed list with Templar Grand Master

Lords:

1 Grand Master @ 259 Pts
     General
     Runefang
     The Other Tricksters Shard

1 Wizard Lord of the Light Order @ 225 Pts
     Level 4, Lore of Light
     Dispel Scroll

Heroes:

1 Captain of the Empire @ 133 Pts
     Battle Standard, Full Plate Armor, Shield
     Helm of the Skavenslayer
     Dawn Stone

1 Warrior Priest @ 79 Pts
     Heavy Armour; Shield
     Dragonhelm

1 Warrior Priest @ 85.0 Pts
     Barding, Heavy Armour, Shield, Warhorse

1 Master Engineer @ 65 Pts

Core:

38 Halberdiers @ 426 Pts
     Full Command

Detachments - 9 Archers, 15 Swordsmen

8 Knights of the Inner Circle @ 230 Pts
     Lance, Full Command
     Banner of the Eternal Flame

Special:

4 Demigryph Knights @ 252 Pts
     Lance, Standard, Musician

1 Great Cannon @ 120 Pts

1 Great Cannon @ 120 Pts


Rare:

1 Celestial Hurricanum @ 130 Pts

1 Helblaster Volley Gun @ 120 Pts

1 Steam Tank @ 250 Pts

Models in Army: 92
Total Army Cost: 2494

Comment: And one more mixed list, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Can quite easily make some changes and swap Hurricanum, Det, swordsmen and a cannon or Volley Gun for more Demigryph Knights and some Outriders maybe. Quite like the Grand Master with Runefang and Other Trickters Shard combo.

So what do you think? All comments are welcome!

Review: White Dwarf 391

Warhammer 40,000 6th edition is soon here, and this months WD covers the new rulebook and a lot more 40k related stuff. Not much else though so if you are totally uninterested in 40k maybe this months WD isn't for you. But if you just have a little glimpse of interest I think most people will find a quite nice read.

New Releases
Of course the only major release this month is the 40k rulebook and the different variants of it. And it's Dark Angels on the front cover of the new book! As a DA collector I think that's huge and the artwork looks really nice as well. Like with 8th Warhammer Fantasy there is a Collectors edition and a Gamers Edition. The first one is a more exclusive book and is limited to 4000 copies. In the Gamers edition you also get apart from the ordinary 40 k rulebook, a satchel in leather to carry your things, a limited ed. set of 12 Munitorum Dice which comes in a lasgun power pack tin. You also get  dice holders that look like Servo-skulls and two different pin badges for the satchel, one looking as the Imperial Aquila and one as the eight-pointed Chaos star. They are quite pricey but so is the original rulebook and I may order the Gamers Ed. for myself.

There are some more helpful things for your gaming need apart from the new dice and dice holders, there's Battlefield Objectives and Vehicle Markers to be mounted on the dice holders to make it easier to see what objectives there are and the status on your Vehicles. There are also some new Templates and a new Tape Measure looking like a Servo Skull. Nothing to spectacular but they all look nice if you want some cooler looking gaming aids. It seems like Psychic Powers will have a more prominent rule on the battlefield and so GW also releases a set of cards with all the new Psychic Powers, much like the Battle Magic Cards in WHFB.

There's also some new miniature releases, new Finecast versions of different miniatures for Orks (I've waited for Boss Snikrot here's as I have plans to convert him into a Savage Orc Boss), Dark Eldar, Grey Knights and Tau. And two new Special Characters for Necrons, Anrakyr the Traveller and Orikan the Diviner, both looking really nice. So only 40k this time but no surprise there.

Painting and Modelling
Not much here, they are showcasing a lot of different Wh40k armies which are really nice too see as they are made by different staffers and therefore are not the ordinary Eavy Metal armies. I especially like the Imperial Guard army with all the guardsmen having Empire Outriders and Pistoliers heads. This month painting tips show you how to paint your Tau, with the traditional yellow armour for the warriors and how to paint blue skin and how to paint Kroot. Great as always and of course also benefits people who don't have an Tau army.


There are also a little something for WHFB and that is a Showcase for Dave Taylor's great looking Nuln Empire Army for Armies on Parade. I hope GW brings more and more of these as the armies looks really nice on their display bases.

Rules and Fluff
There are of course a lot of talk about the new rules in 6th edition. I won't get much into it as I never played a game of 40k myself, and can't really say what the major changes are. But from what I can tell from what I've read GW wants the new edition to be more cinematic. Like your army leaders getting Warlord traits which is being rolled for before the battle. A new special rule for jump units called Hammer of wrath where you jump infantry leap into combat and crush their foes beneath them. Flying monstrous creatures can now make a Vector strike where they swoop down on their enemies and take their heads with them. Now you can also get a free round of shooting at BS 1 when being charged, called an Overwatch attack.

Other bigger changes is with scenarios and objectives, now you have different secondary objectives and the Force Organisation chart is changed with you being able to have a allied detachment as part of your standard army. Also you can now buy fortifications with you can use on the battlefield as a vital part of the game, with Aegis defence lines and even a whole Fortress of Redemption, a glimpse on how to utilise these are seen in the battle report in this issue.

Gaming
Yay a Battle report! Off course showing you how the different elements of the new rules works. The battle is between Imperial Guard with some allied Grey Knights and a combined army of Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Deamons. Both armies use fortifications to show you how good it can be to have on the battlefield, and they show you many of the new rules in action which is great for the likes of me who don't have full understanding of the game. Nicely written and great looking scenery.

Conclusion
As you probably have figured out by now I'm no 40k player, I do have a quite large force of Guardians of the Covenant and I have always been interested in the lore and the miniatures in 40k. So even if I maybe don't get as much out of this issue as actual 40k players I really enjoyed reading this and I really liked all the different armies showcased. So I really recommend this issue for all you who have at least a little interested in 40k.


Rating: 4 out of 5

Testing out Devlan Mud alternatives

Many are we who have used brown looking wash from Games Workshop called Devlan Mud for pretty much everything that you can put it on. All from some brown details like belts that needed some shading to whole models being washed in Devlan Mud to get a similar effect to dipping. I think it was one of the most popular of all GW paints, and now it's gone when the new GW paints showed up. So what alternatives is there? I have tried out two other washes or shades as GW now calls them. And here is the result.

WIP:s of some of my Chaos Warriors of Tzeentch.

Can you guess which is what? No? I sure can't as there actually aren't a huge difference between them, one thing I did notice though is that the Army Painter Strong Tone Ink didn't looked as it normally do, it didn't get into the recesses as good as the rest. But this was probably because I needed to fix the fur with liquid GS and more Dheneb Stone paint so the details weren't as good as on other ones. The Strong Tone model is the one in the middle and I liked how it looks on the horns especially. The left one is the normal Devlan Mud and looks like it always does. The right one is Agrax Earthshade, GW's new Devlan Mud and this was the first time I tested it out.

From the left: Devlan Mud, AP Strong Tone Ink, Agrax Eartshade

And I must say I'm impressed, it went into the recesses as it should and looked less "muddy" on the stuff that shouldn't look muddy (as Devlan Mud did). The tone is pretty much the same as Devlan Mud but It somehow look just a little more red (or something), but that is abysmal and you can't tell much difference at all. 

Conclusion
Luckily there are good alternatives out there, both from GW and other companies (I don't own any other than AP 's inks, but I'm sure Vallejo, Secret Weapon etc. also have similar washes). And we can continue to paint as we did with Devlan Mud. I can't decide which one is the best of these three, the AP one is cheaper and I really do recommend it. In this particular test though I think Agrax Earthshade looked a little better than the other two including the old Devlan Mud.

This test was just based on a Dheneb Stone painted surface, but I also painted the alternive colours on the the brown areas like the boots and belts and here the Strong Tone Ink looked darker and better in my opinion compared to Agrax Earthshade which didn't shade as much. More testing is needed but I hope this gave you some little insight. Next update hopefully these three and one more fella is finished and join the ranks of their fellow Tzeentch Chaos Warriors.

Review: Finecast Blasted Standard & Banner of Rage

The other day I got something in my mailbox, and among those things two quite expensive banner sets for Chaos armies (£12.00, $19.75, 15,50 € for each 3 banner set). These are GW Direct Only items I think, at least I haven't seen them on the usual places where I otherwise buy my GW stuff. I don't know how usual they are in peoples armies as they are quite pricy, so I thought to write a little review down and tell you what I think about it and if it's worth it. So first off, what  do we get?

I haven't trimmed or cleaned these banners except some of the bigger things. Other than that all of these are straight out of the box.

There's one set for your Blasted Standards and you get three of them in the box. Blasted Standard is an Tzeentchian standard so of course you get the Tzeentch markings and it's because of this I got them. The detail on them was really nice, was quite worried because of some of my earlier experiences with Finecast and I felt minor miscasts could be troublesome to fix when on things as standards. But luckily I could not see any miscasts at all, some minor baubles but nothing liquid greenstuff won't easily fix.

And I really like the details and overall quality of the banners. This is a type of product that is much easier to handle when being made in Finecast, a metal version would have been so much heavier and made it much harder to put on a plastic miniature and maintain balance. So awesome stuff, despise the hefty price I really recommend this product to spice up your Chaos armies. I will use one of these for my Exalted BSB with the Mark of Tzeentch, and maybe one as an actual Blasted Standard as well.

The Banner of Rage kit is awesome as well, and there is two different kits but I choose this because I thought the banner looked cooler. These are of course Khorne Banners and look as 'Khorny' as they should. Just as good in details and quality and I'm really pleased with how both kits looks and feels. I will use one of these for my yet to do Khorne Warriors and maybe my Marauders as well. As you may know I'm really into making and painting banners and feel that they add much character to the unit if done well, and this is an easy way of doing that. Another thing I tried out is how they fit on the banner poles, and they fit really well onto the ones I tried (Warriors, Marauders) May be a bit more fiddly with some other bannerpoles with the banners already attached etc. But I think most people can work this out as well.

One of the Banner of Rage is quite similar to the old metal Khorngors Banner, and nothing wrong with that as I think it looks really cool. Also some added effect with the skeleton on the top.

Conclusion
I really like both kits, they look good and the Finecast quality was really good on the ones I got. They are quite pricey, but you do get three really nice looking banners which will spice up your units a lot. So I really recommend them for you who can afford them and want some easy things do update the look of your army. Can't wait to paint them and the next one is for my BSB which I will show you WIP photos of as soon as I've started to convert him.

Trying out the new GW Glazes

One of the things I was most interested in when I first saw the list of all the new paints from Games Workshop where the Glazes. This is a technique I haven't tried out much at all before just because you had to do the glazes yourselves (at least if you only used GW colours), but now you have four Glazes to choose from, and hopefully all you need for the most common used colours, blue, yellow, red and green. In all examples I used them straight from the pot or with a little bit of water added to it, you can also use the new GW Lahmian Medium which gives them a slightly more even finish. But more about this when I try out the other colours. Anyhow, here's what I found out when I tried all the new Glazes out.  

The red one is called Bloodletter and is quite bright in colour, almost orange as you can see on the Khorne Lord below. I have just made one coat on him and this is how it looks like. On the banner I wanted more depth so I choose to paint Bloodletter first then a couple of coats of Carroburg Crimson which is the new red Shade from GW, the result you can see on this Khorne Banner. Looks quite nice and it will probably look even better when I finish up the whole banner. Maybe I want some more red in there, but we have to see when I decide to finish it up. And this is how I think you have to work with both glazes and Shades. If you want more depth in the colour, you have to give it some more coats to build up the colour. At least if you want to build it up from a white undercoat as I have done on both these examples.

Next one is yellow called Lamentors Yellow which I painted on this barrel on the Chaos Hellcannon. The Barrel where black under coated and then painted using the new Base colour Ceramite White.The goal is to paint this barrel looking like lava or magma like the Eavy Metal team did on the latest Finecast version of the Hellcannon. So I will use a reverse drybrushing technique, using the the brightest colour of yellow in the recesses and then drybrush with orange and reds further up. First time doing this so we have to wait and see how it turns out. I'm happy with how the yellow turned out though, as I wanted some white to show through the yellow. Hopefully the the end result will look nice.  

The next colour is the blue one called Guilliman Blue. I tested this out on a WoC Chosen which where undercoated with black and then AP:s Metal Primer. I then painted a heavy coat with the glaze and got this result. I'm quite satisfied and I think I may need one more coat and then some highlights to do it justice. Still don't know If I want to paint my Tzeentch Chosen like this or like my Tzeentch Warriors though.

The last one I tried on some of my quite newly purchased second hand Warriors of Chaos and it is of course the green glaze called Waywatcher Green. Don't know what colour the original model was but it some kind of light green heavy highlighted with white.Anyhow I just put on a heavy coat of the glaze and the result is the one in the middle. You can compare this to the right one which is painted using the old wash Thraka Green and the left on which is painted using the new Shade called Biel-Tan Green. Not totally happy with any of them but that might have to do with how the model was painted beforehand. But I actually went with another colour for my Nurgle Warriors instead which I will soon show you as soon as I have finished him up.


Conclusion
I'm happy with how the glazes work and I will continue using them as brighter versions of the Shades. I now there's plenty of other ways of using them as well, and I will try out other methods of using them in the future. Anyhow I think it's an nice addition to the new GW paint line and they do compliment the other colours in the range well as far as I can tell at the moment.

What do you think? Have you used them yet, or planning to use them? Any more methods on how to use them you want to share? Tell me in the comments below.

Assembling time! WoC and Empire WIP:s

With my birthday over and gone I now have additional models to assemble, so not much painting past week. As you may have seen in a previous post I got a lot of WoC models a while ago where I needed to assemble quite a lot of stuff. More to do there as I need a the large monster base for the Khorne Daemon prince before I assemble him, I have assembled some of the heroes and chosen though and god... I hate to glue together metal minis... it is a pain in the ass and is one of the reasons I prefer Finecast more and more (when they look as they should there is).

So on the subject of Finecast I bought a Finecast version of the Hellcannon like two weeks ago, and the kit looked really nice. Some bubbles and stuff but nothing I can't take care of. And I think the assembly of this kit is so much easier than the metal one. Unfortunately I also got one for my birthday (which is great as you almost need two of them if fielding them) and this kit didn't look good at all. The cannon and stuff looked okay I guess but the crew looked awful. Went to my local GW store to get a new one but the one and only they had left was bad as well so I have to wait a couple of days. I must say though, when Finecast is as it should, the details is very nice as you can see below.

I also got something nice for my Empire on my Birthday, the Karl Franz on Deathclaw kit. And damn the thing is huge. First time I saw it among the first photos of WD in late Mars I didn't know If I liked it or not. Well now I really do, it's huge and it looks badass. Really nice kit and I will put the General on him and try to make something else with the rest of the characters you get in the box.

Not much more to report at this time, I'm doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that at the moment. But I think I will paint up the Hellcannon next as I'm really eager to see how the model looks fully painted. As for the Griffon, it has to wait for a while until I paint it up. Have more pressing matters at hand on both my Empire and WoC army.

A Mordheim Witchhunter and some X-bowmen

This post was supposed to show you my latest repainted and re-based unit of Crossbowmen. Sadly taking pictures today just dosn't work these where the only ones who at last looks a little decent. Dunno but sometimes it just don't work for some reason. So it will have to do with the Witchhunter (who I use as a champion in the x-bow unit apart for actual Mordheim games) and some of the crossbowmen. Will make another update where I show the whole unit as well, just need to work out these camera problems.