Painting Banners

One of the hardest things to paint in the army is the banners your BSB:s and Standard Bearers are carrying. The banners is also the one of the things people tend to notice most, and taking time to paint some nice looking banners is a good time investment in my opinion. I also think that banners is one of the things most fun to paint. So in this post I will show you some of the banners I've done and some tips and ideas on how to paint them.

Here's my latest banner and It's actually not quite done yet. It's for my Empire Greatswords and as it a elite unit in the Empire army I wanted to spend some more time on this one. The design is from the Uniforms and Heraldry book for the Empire. A great inspiration for designs on banners, uniforms, shields etc. If you're a Empire player I can't recommend it enough and I hope they continue doing these books for other armies as well (I think it's only Skaven which also got one if I'm not mistaken). A lot of free hand on this one, but I just tried to follow the design from the book as much as I could. And one tip is to lay out the design very simple with a brush or pen. So everything goes where it's supposed too.

Another Empire banner I painted not long ago, this one is for my BSB. The design is also taken from the Uniforms and Heraldry book and a lot of free hand stuff. And generally, if you can paint well free hand, banners should not be a problem. And if you aren't that great at painting free hand, banners is a great way to try and learn. Because that's the only way to get better, practice and try it out more to practice even more. A simpler but just as effective method is to paint banners like the reaper one here. I loved this when it first came out, and I still think it looks awesome.

The next banners, are some of my older ones for the State troopers. I repainted the first on where the yellow where once black. Also on these kind of banners I think it's more crucial to put some time to paint both sides as both of them is showing just as much.

And now some Orc and Goblins banners, the first one is for my Savage Orcs. Really fun to paint but even though I didn't have to do anything free hand I put quite a lot of time doing highlights do get the right colours. I really love this "banner" sculpt and it looks really fitting in a Savage Orc unit. There's another one for the Savage Boar boyz with a snake and stuff which is also very cool looking will try to paint this up soon to. Maybe for a Savage Orc BSB? And then is the first Orc banner I painted for this army. And it's for the Orc boyz. Did the design free hand and is really simple to paint, Orc motifs is generally quite simplistic in nature so it's great for beginners to try out some free hand work.

Then there's one for my Night Goblins. This one was quite easy. Did some chequered pattern and the Quckshade did it's job shading the banner so it looks a bit dirty. Simple but quite effective way of painting a banner, and no free hand needed except the pattern.

And for last is my WoC Tzeentch standard bearer and for my my Undead Revenants. The WoC one I painted as with no real plan in mind except I wanted the eye in the middle. So I started with that and then thought I needed some swirly things around it. So I started to paint this around and around and did more and more highlights until I thought it was finished. I quite like the design and thinks it represents the Lord of Change quite well.

And the last banner I wanted to show you is for my Revenants. And here I did all of the banner myself. I started to cut plasticard and sculpted green stuff on top of to get some structure and a wind flow through it (I also painted the fire on top of the banner pole which isn't showing much on this pic). Then I painted the whole thing red and did the design free hand, the design is inspired from Starcraft II and I think it looks okay. It don't look that hard to paint, but actually took quite some time.

That's was all for today and I hope you liked this and maybe got some little tip on how to paint your banner. And the most important thing to remember is to plan out the design beforehand. What motif do you want? What colours? Try to paint free hand designs on paper to see how it looks, it's all worth it to take this time and you will be pleased when you get the result.

Tutorial: Speed painting 20 Mantic Zombies

I consider myself a pretty decent painter, but I don't paint stuff fast and I try all the time to speed up my painting using different techniques and one that is working pretty good for me is the Army Painter technique. So how do we need to paint these Zombies when using this technique? First of all the models, which can be from pretty much any company but the ones I have here is from Mantic Games who makes nice miniatures for a really good price. I assembled all of them which didn't take long, generally Mantic's stuff is easy to put together. Then you need some colours, a colour primer spray and Army Painters Quickshade Dark Tone.

First of all after assembling I sprayed all of them with Army Painters Colour Primer called Necrotic Flesh (can't find it any more so they have maybe stopped to produce it or something). Some of the minis stayed with this colour and some of them I washed with GW's washes like Thraka Green, Asurmen Blue, Ogryn Flesh and Baal Red. Just to get some more variate in the unit. Next step is to paint the blood, I did this with a 40/60 mix of Blood Red and Red Gore. And I painted this on all the exposed tissue, organs etc. It doesn't matter if the blood goes on places you didn't wanted because it will just look more real and the zombie will look more gory. I also painted this mix on the hands on most of them and around the mouth to represent that they recently eaten on an unlucky foe.

After this I painted the exposed bone areas (like the rib cages and knees on some of the models) with a mix of Dheneb Stone and Bleached Bone. I also painted the cloth they are wearing in browns, greys and whites using, Calthan Brown, Adeptus Battle Grey and Dheneb Stone. I also painted the hair in these colours. And finally I highlighted the bones with skull white and a mix of 60/40 mix of Blood red and Skull white as an highlight to the intestines and the muscle fibres. Then I painted the eyes and teeth with Skull White. Now on to the dipping part.

Here they are dipped in Quick Shade Dark Tone and when they have dried 24 hours I sprayed them with AP's Anti Shine Matt Varnish. Be careful with this though and don't spray to much, because otherwise you can destroy the result like I did here.

After this is was just the basing to be done, took a lot of time for me though and can be shortened quite a lot if you don't work with all the materials I used. I used, GW sand, painted it with a mix oif Vermin brown and Tausept Ochre which I then Highlighted with the same mix but with quite a lot of added Skull white. I then washed the whole bases with Devlan Mud and when dried added AP's Brown Battleground and Ash Grey flock. Then I added Green Static Grass and Citadels Dead Grass and on top of this some of the Mordheim Turfs and Middenland Tufts from Citadel. All in all this process with all twenty of them took maybe eight hours to get done, and three or maybe even four of them was the basing process. Really happy with the result though and I know there's some of you you which can make this faster but that's as fast I can get them done with this quality which is fine for me. Hope you like this tutorial and go and paint some Zombies, If you're an VC player you will need them ;)

Review: Vampire Counts Army Book

A little late with a review now maybe but now I have had an good read trough the book and I must say that GW continues doing really nice Army Books this edition. First of all it's hardback as the other 8th edition books and this makes the books pricier than before. But I for one don't mind that when the books are such better quality and they will probably last a lot longer.

One thing thing that strikes me though when looking at the book is the cover art. Which I'm not particularly fond of at all. Sure the cover looks a little bit retro which is nice but the vampire looks more like a cartoon figure and not that menacing like the rest of the book. That's not a huge deal though as all the rest of the artwork in the book looks really nice, some old used ones but quite a lot of new ones as well.

So what about the content then, the fluff from the older books are still there and there aren't many changes. There are of course some new fluff regarding the new units and also a new story with Mannfred Von Carstein. He now understand that he can't overthrow the throne in the Empire when they always are backed up by the Dwarfs and Elves when any huge threats to world is attacking (like Archaon in Storm of Chaos). So he plans to destroy the relations between them and starts with the Dwarfs and High Elves. Not a long story but well written and I hope they expand it in the future.

Rulewise I can't comment to much as I haven't played with or against them yet. But the rules looks really solid, and a lot more balanced than the 7th ed. book. For example now there's actually a choice between the main core infantry blocks. Skeletons are a lot cheaper than before, ghouls are still great but more expensive than the other choices and you can actually take Zombies now! They now have s 3 and t4 and cheaper and when using Invocation you get 2 d6 + wizard level back. So now I have to build all the Mantic Zombies and paint them :P.

The new units looks nice and should have a place in many armies. The rules for them seems nice as well, and I'm particularly interested in the Vargheists and a Mortis Engine. Won't go more into to detail than this into the rules but everything looks solid and balanced and only time will tell how they will compete against the other armies.Most seems to like the book and the new rules, not overpowered like the old one but strong and balanced exactly like every army book should be. The 8th ed. books have been great so far and this book is no exception, just hope GW continues on this route doing great and quite balanced books.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Review: White Dwarf 385

Hi, sorry this review are a little late, I also wrote the first part a couple of days ago before the VC book and the miniatures was released. Anyway here it is. This issue is mostly about the latest big realese, Vampire Counts. And first of all I must say that the new VC stuff looks great, and I will buy some of the new stuff later but right now the army book will have to do.

And of course they are showing off the new stuff a lot in this issue with all the usual stuff, battle report (a really nice one actually), showcasing the new miniatures and a lot of thext about the changes to the army. This is not a problem for me though, as VC is one of the armies I collect and really interested in. Also this was the first confirmed glimpse of all the stats and rules for the new VC stuff and some people immediately cried Powercreep. I say we wait until we all have seen the book and test played some games before judging


Anyhow there is some other stuff besides VC as well, like "official" rules for 'Civil War' games, for example Empire vs. Empire, VC vs. VC and so on. There's also two painting tutorials, one for the Ghorgon and one very useful one for the Mortis Engine. Not much for you Wh40k players, but there is a quite well made Tactica for Necrons. All in all a quite decent magazine and it was really interesting reading about the new rules for VC which I've heard so much different rumours about, if you're not that interested in the undead minions this issue may not be for you but there are some really nice pictures of the new stuff and some really good reading. Looking forward seeing what's in store in the next issue.

Rating: 3,5 out of 5

News: Pictures and info of the new Vampire Counts stuff!

At last some pictures of the the new VC stuff, and it looks great! Want all of these... damn I'm going to be even poorer in January. Anyway here's the new info taken from the first post in the Vampire Counts thread on Warseer. The pics are also from that thread.

From Harry

A summary of the rumours we had:


- VC are next army book to be released in January,
- New unit flesh golems? - something like a mix of large ghoul and zombie ... with something no monsterous infantry has had before ...wings! Dual kit Monsterous infantry ... Ogre size undead monstrocities (can't be more specific) and monsterous flyers.
- New plastic black coach mini ... Dual kit makes two 'war machines' ... big ethereal warmachines ... neither is a Black coach. One is acalled a Coven Throne the other is a Mortis Engine. Coven Throne ... 'Lamian passion wagon' ... Mortis Engine ... 'ethereal alter type thing with added ghosts'. (It runs on undeaded. :D)
- Current Black coach stays and goes finecast.
- Dual cavalry kit wraith riders? and something else ... Black knights and something else?
- New krell,
- New female vampires (Riders on Coven throne and Isabella von Carstein).
- Hints of army book cover ... Dark red of Vampire/Bluegreen tint of etherealness in background.


My understanding is the book has five new units + Lords/Heroes.
That is alot of exciting new options/builds.
Includes four different 'chariot/warmachine' options.


What we know now:


Army Book written by Phil Kelly


Release in January. On sale from the 14th January (advanced orders for the 7th January)


Release includes:
New army book (96 pages)
Magic cards


New minis will be:
Plastic Kits:
Coven Throne/Mortis engine (Dual kit)
Black Knights/Hex Wraiths (Dual kit)
Vargheists/Crypt Horrors (Dual kit)
Plastic characters
Wight King
Finecast Characters:
Krell
Isabella von Carstein


Prices will be:


£36 for the Coven Throne/Mortis Engine,
£18.50 for five Black Knights/Hex Wraiths
£3.25 for the magic cards
£25 for the army book
£25-27? (37 Euros) for the big ghouls/ flying things.
£8  for Wight King
£10.50 (15 Euros) for Krell in Finecast
£9? (12.5 Euros) for Isabella von Carstein


lbecks did the maths for US prices it looks like it will be:


Engine/Throne $57.75
Cavalry $29.00
Big Ghouls/Mini Vargs ~$45?
Wight King $13.25
Krell $18.25
Isabella $15


and finally we have some pictures.


Thanks to ZAlpha

Merry Christmas from me and the Zombie Zsanta

Merry Christmas everybody! Made a little conversion for the holidays, a zombie who looks somehow familiar. Anyway, hope everyone had a great Christmas and got a lot of Wargaming stuff! I got the Battle in the Badlands book and some Chaos Marauder Horsemen, but will buying some more stuff soon. Will hopefully post one more time before it turns 2012, so until then you can check out this Zombie Zsanta (sorry for the bad pics, Zombie Zsanta is a little bit shy).

News: Rumour Roundup, WoC, VC and Empire

Some rumours regarding the next three armies that apperas to be Vampire counts in Jan, then Empire and then in Q4 2012 Warriors of Chaos, the last one according to 75hastings69 over at Warseer which is one of the best and most reliable rumour sources on the forum. Sadly he also says this will be his final rumour post.

Here's his post, the original post and the rest of the thread can be found here.

Looks like there won't come a new Warrior kit in the near future, I would have liked to see a upgrade sprue of some sorts as the models looks good, but it need more weapons options like Halberds.

Warriors of Chaos

Post by 75hastings69:

Well you'll be seeing these guys sooner than a lot of people think

So I thought I'd give you a heads up on what to expect and when to expect them.

plastic chariot/warshrine
plastic forsaken
plastic Dragon Ogres
a Large plastic kit (that I'll leave as a surprise )
Finecrap Characters


At the moment WoC are due toward Q4 2012 (after VC, Empire and some random WFB models & waves).

This is my final rumour post as I'm hanging up my rumouring gloves/boots/other equipment. So please enjoy discussing WoC and the above kits.

Comment: Awesome stuff! Would had really liked to see a new kit for Marauders and Chaos Trolls as well and Plastic Hell Cannon and New warriors kit/upgrade kit and... well we can't get all it seems but nothing says it won't come other stuff in a wave later on. Really excited of what kind of model the Large Platic kit is, and plastic Dragon Ogres is great!

And next is VC, which got a nice summary on the first post in this thread at Warseer. The summary and some of the rumours is from one most reliable rumour posters, Harry. This post is just copy/pasted from the first post.

Will it be Skeletons or Ghouls (or both?!) as the main Core choice in the next Army Book? Here's some of my Mantic minis.

Vampire Counts

Originally Posted by Harry
I said : I had VC, Empire and Dwarves in the frame.

Originally Posted by ihavetoomuchminis
And VC come in January. Believe it or not.

Originally Posted by 75hastings69
The WD VC article should be viewed as a stop gap between books, terrorgheist will be in proper print much quicker than some people may imagine

Hastings also mentioned new Krell mini coming:

Originally Posted by 75hastings69
Wait till you see the other new vc stuff new krell anyone?

some time ago flesh golems and black coach appeared in the rumour-mill:

Originally Posted by Harry
Yeah but you wouldn't say no to a plastic black coach and some flesh Golems would you.

Originally Posted by Tonny
Ah yes, I think Hastings mentioned the Flesh Golems.
I am quite exited about a new VC book

Originally Posted by Harry
He did. The concept art for them is very cool. Half way between a big zombie and a ghoul with lots of stitching,

Originally Posted by Harry (in reply to Huan Qu'itt post ... 'unless I am reading to much into Harry post about a new black coach kit')
Nope, you are reading fine.

Originally Posted by ihavetoomuchminis
It seems that the Black Coach will be a dual kit.

Originally Posted by ihavetoomuchminis
About the Monstruous infantry unit, i've been told that they are more of Big ghouls than big zombies. Oh, and the models can have something no MI in the game have yet..... maybe something like the terrorgheist, but smaller? Don't know, just guessing.

Originally posted by Frgt/10
Heard about this a while ago but wasn't sure what to make of it. Seems there might be something to it though:

The next army to go on stock rundown in GW stores is Vampires.

This is before things like Empire which some people have been whispering about as well; so my money would be on the toothy ones being released first.

A summary of the rumours so far:

- VC are next army book to be released (Harry, 75hastings69 Frgt/10), in january (ihavetoomuchminis)
- new unit "flesh golems" - something like a mix of large ghoul and zombie with a lot of stitches (Harry, 75hastings69, ihavetoomuchminis) with something no monsterous infantry has had before (ihavetoomuchminis)
- new plastic black coach mini (Harry), dual kit (ihavetoomuchminis, Harry)
- new krell and female vampire minis (75hastings69)
- and some old rumour concerning new plastic black knights - (Riders confirmed by Harry but not "black knights").

Thanks to Huan Qu'itts for pulling all this together.

Some bits from me. The 'black coach kit' is not a straight replacement (like say the steam tank was for the Empire) and it is a dual kit. Also, we do get riders ... but they are not straight replacement for the black knights either.

Some more stuff from this thread from me:

Harry, can you confirm these riders are not surfers?
Yes ... They are not surfing.

There is a black coach that isn't exactly a black coach and it makes something else thats defo not a black coach.
There are riders that are not black knights thats another thing.
Obviously the Terrorgeist will be in.
Hastings said there is a new mini for Krell so he will be in ... so at least one new character.
The female Vampire could be seen as a return to the book of the Lahmian Bloodline.
So Yes I would say there are plenty of rumours for new stuff.
My understanding is the book has five new units + Lords/Heroes.
That is alot of exciting new options/builds.

Posted by NatTreehouse

What I know:
New Black Knights/Some other mounted stuff kit
New Dual Kit makes two war machine things, NEITHER is a Black Coach
Monstrous Infantry Dual Kit
Ghouls up to 10pts
Current Black Coach kit stays and goes finecost
February release.

But opinions vary ....

Posted by frgt/10

What I know:
New Dual Kit makes two war machine things, NEITHER is a Black Coach
Current Black Coach kit stays and goes finecost
February release.
this is all incorrect from what im hearing

Backed up by ihavetoomuchminis:

Frgt 10 is right, that info is all wrong from what i've been told.

But Harry throws his lot in with Nattreehouse:

I think most of what Nattreehouse says sounds about right.
The duel Black Coach kit in which neither is exactly a black coach Check.
The current black coach staying and going finecast. Check ... which along with the plague cart gives you a fair few 'wagon type war machines' to go at.
Duel Monsterous infantry. Check
I hadn't considered a duel cavalry kit.
I know about new cavalry ... so assumed no Black Riders ... but a duel kit is doable.

Hastings has posted to say the dual monsterous Infantry kit has the option to make winged mostrosities.

Exciting isn't it?

BRING IT ON!


Comment: Some new info other than the stuff I wrote in the last Roundup. And some really neat things as well, Flesh golems, Warmachines, a new type of cavalry (some rumours say wraith cav, much like the LOTR ringwraiths, ethereal etc. ) Some rumours also says that Bloodlines will get an return and not function as it does today, I personally hope this is right and I also want to see the return of Necromancer Lords and generally better Necromancers.

And for last some rumours about Empire, not much new and I didn't find a great sum up but here's one from Darnok over at Warseer, look at the original thread here.

Will there be a War Altar kit and rules for other deities as well in the next AB? According to rumours there is.

Empire

It seems that even though winter is fast approaching, birds are still singing:

Originally Posted by Birdy

So i understand empire will get 4 kits. Knights obviously. 2 character ones (cant properly remember which ones but if you notice the priest of morr rules i would guess WP's will get a kit). And a new war atlar. The Altar kit will be a dual kit. The second option will be a Nuln seige cannon. Massive cannon used to defend the walls of nuln.

I can't comment on how solid these are. But it's not the first - and probably not the last - I've heard over the last few weeks. It seems to me like the Empire is not too far away, meaning somewhere in the next six months.

Something more: the knight mentioned are supposedly not replacements of the current knights, but demi-gryph knights. See Warhammer Forge for reference.

Something more from 75hastings69, thanks too:

Originally Posted by 75hastings69

Empire are not getting updates of current knights, there are different cav coming though. The old crappy horses/knights remain. War altar makes something else, but afaik it's not a cannon of any kind.

And another birdy sings:

Originally Posted by Birdy #2

Plastic War alter kit which only makes a war altar, but a war altar that can be either of Morr, Sigmar or Ulric.

New Monstrous Cavalry, possibly Demigriffons, which comes with separate saddles and harnesses, so they can also be used as bound monsters in SOM without conversion.

 Comment: Yeah pretty much the stuff from the last Roundup, but there's some new stuff as well. One character kit looks to be a plastic griffon with a generic lord and Karl Franz himself! That's all I'm afraid, there's much OT and wishlisting in the thread right now and hopefully new rumours will show up soon.

Edit:  Later I saw this post as well on the Empire thread on Warseer;

Originally Posted by NatTreehouse

I just got told in this release:
Dual kit makes Warshrine/College of Magic Wizardlordmobile.

Comment: Sounds really promising, can't wait for more rumours about the Empire.