Foot Sloggers!

I painted these guys to get back into marauder painting. I am not sure why I should have practised on the command group but they were to hand and I did. Thankfully they match almost perfectly with the ones I painted a year ago. I don't have the standard painted yet. I am not sure what to do. I will I think use a khornate symbol as I want these to be part of the great weapon regiment. I would like to have as many attacks as possible and doubling those from the front rank would be good. The more I look at the rules the better frenzy seems to be. As re-roll from the battle standard bearer makes it a safe enough ability I can't see a massive downside. Generally if I am charging with them it will be because I want to. Now that I have these done I am eager to get into the big blocks. I have fourteen Marauders done at least.

I have been considering the same thing about my Chaos Knights. Khorne is the only option for them! That would make for a huge number of attacks coming out of just six models. The Blood Knights seem to be a very common component of the vampire army and Khorne Knights should be as effective. Its a big investment of points that could be used easily elsewhere but I have them painted so they will end up in the list. Anyway I won't be getting much done on the Chaos over the coming month as I need to prepare the Dwarves! It would seem that October is going to be a month of Dwarves.

I have been reading the Rogue Trader roleplaying rulebook from Fantasy Flight. So far I am dissapointed! I really don't get the feeling that it was well concieved. I am not yet sure why but it doesn't inspire me. The rules are based on a similar model to Warhammer Fantasy roleplay which I really like. The ship rules seem half done and very unexciting. I also can't see how a party would be formed. It reminds me of an episode of Star Trek where the most important members of the crew are always the ones leading away missions. That makes no sense in reality and just as little in this fantasy! The Dark Heresy parties seem to make it work better. All in all I am not interested in running it but I might play just to test it.

Inspiration

I am re-reading Elric of Melnibone at the moment. I read this book a long long time ago! I think I must have been around twelve when I bought it. I remember it being tiny, the book couldn't have been more than two hundred pages. It was the only book I could find at the time about Elric and I yearned to read more. Finally I remembered these books a few weeks ago. I am not sure why. I have vague memories of seeing them for sale second hand recently but not buying them because they were an incomplete set. This edition is number eight despite the fact that it starts with the first book in the series. I haven't quite figured it out but I suspect it is due to prequels. The prose isn't great. I have only read the first book completely and it was generally fine. The second book, Fortress of the Pearl, is terrible. I am not sure if it is a style issue or if it is actually bad. I guess it is style as the books have been popular. I am trying to get through the second book in the hope that the third is better. Now while the prose is bad the story is good and remarkable for having been written in the sixties(?). It is only recently that fantasy for me has matured as a genre and yet within this book I find wonderful ideas.

This book is one of the main inspirations for Games Workshop during the creation of the Warhammer Universe as far as I remember. The high elves are easiest on some levels to identify. Melnibone, home of Elric, is very similar to Ulthuan. The Dragon Princes are a direct idea taken. The gods of law and chaos were once a feature of Warhammer but the gods of law such as Soltan have more or less been ignored. I remember only one reference in recent books. The fifth god of Chaos Malal appeared somewhere in the Elric saga and was removed from the GW pantheon due to copyright issues. A lot of the seminal ideas of Chaos stem from these books and even John Blanche derived a lot of inspirations from the word within. I look forward to reading more and hopefully finding the hidden gems!

Ich möchte Chaosbrut

Yeah German is great... It is always entertaing to walk into the local GW here in Hamburg in search of something and then try to figure out what it is called. It is interesting that direct translations generally don't work. For instance the Hellcannon translates as the Deathbringer, Zerfleischer is Bloodletter but actually translates as Flesh Tearer. My attempt at the Hellcannon was Höllekannonen. At least some of the guys in the shop can figure out my terrible approximations of the names and I generally get what I am after, Its better than I managed in work when I needed to get a door for a cupboard and they ordered a goalpost. I really don't get how that happened still but at least everyone had a good laugh.

Anyway as you can see I managed to finish my spawn(Chaosbrut)! He is a nice model better than I imagined could be constructed from the kit. I thought the kit would force me to go the terrible tentacle route but their are some more decent options there. I have another kit on its way and I will see if I can keep with the theme to use these guys as Trolls. Once they are done I will be painting my Corpse Cart... ah I mean Warshrine. I still don't understand why GW haven't released the Warshrine. Well at least the Corpse Cart makes for an interesting alternative. I am having mine pulled by a team of hounds. I am not sure if it will look that good yet but thats the plan! As for anything else I have no idea just yet. Its tough to make one and not have it look like a chariot.

Kniggets

So I got the shields done. Funny how it goes... I had a whole weekend and yet I still couldn't get the Knights done! Okay the shields are done. The armour is done. The cloak needs to be finished and the details on the horses done too. So what are the chances that I get them done this weekend? Seriously it will have been more than a month... I would really like to see some more progress with theis army. I have been painting them for a year now and I don't even seem to have one regiment complete. Eighth edition came along and destroyed the plan I had for them. Basically every regiment I had planned needed to be doubled in size. Its annoying. Anyway the shields came out well. The picture is poor but I couldn't get a sharp focus with my camera. I am resisting buying a new one but maybe its time to start looking. The only problem I have with the shields is the complete split between the flesh covered ones and the standard ones. The shields seem to each have a power in mind when being sculpted. Well I can recognise Tzeentch and Nurgle but I guess Slannesh and Khorne are in there too. It is a pity as it breaks up the style of the regiment in my eyes. Now it does mean that I don't have a complete armoured wall done in one style which is nice but the flesh maybe contrasts a little too much? Anyway I will try to get some shots up soon and you can see for yourself.

I have ordered some new Dwarves however. I have to order them now to make sure that I can have them prepared for the two tournaments in August. I have memories, vague ones, thatDwarves are somewhat faster to paint than Chaos. Now I am not sure why I am thinking that but hopefully they prove to be! I don't want to have too many late nights just before the tournaments. I want to increase the number of Rangers and Miners I have. If my analysis of this edition is correct then I can see these types of troops playing a major role in Dwarven armies. I have twenty miners done already ad I would like to increase them to thirty. I would also like to have a similar number of great weapon armed Clansmen. So you should be seeing some of the short bearded guys appearing here soon. Don't worry I will be continuing with the Chaos still...

I love Spawn

I love Spawn. I don't know why but I have always had a soft spot for them. I even liked the previous metal ones which looking back at now were really terrible. As you can see I have constructed another. I wanted this guy to look more like a mutated warrior whereas the previous guy is a mutated marauder. This is simply achieved with the addition of the helmet, shoulder pad and axe. He should look like Sláine than a great tentacled beast. I also tried to model him so that he is slightly higher than normal and leaning forward. It looks a little more menacing than the standard pose. It involved chopping a leg off and green stuffing it back on but with these guys conversions are pretty simple. They are hopefully really easy to paint too.. the last fellow was dispite the problems with the washes.

I don't know if Spawn are that effective anymore though? I really see them struggling to hold up infantry as the sheer volume of attacks coming at them should on average kill the spawn in a single round. That means they are pretty unreliable for holding things up. A good charge will always smash them. Against less proficent foes I could imagine them doing well, for instance Skaven. A number of Spawn could pin a large regiment in place by charging one at a time effectively removing its threat from the game.I will have to play a few games with them as a test to seewhat they really are capable of. Hopefully they won't be relegated to rather random warmachine hunters!

Actually I have been thinking of using some of the less mutated Spawn I intend creating as Trolls. I can't see why not as they are similar enough in size and appearance. Especially if I don't overly mutate them. It's cheaper than the metal alternatives and they look far better. It also gives me quite a lot of spare pieces that can be used for a number of things. I haven't decided if this is the route I will take yet. Tournaments already seem to be out with the blanket bans for comp and that means no double rare so I am stuck with only two spawn as a maximum. Thats a pity as I really would like to field lots of them!

Beards... for a while!

I noticed that the tournament season is now here... and there is no hope that I will get my Chaos finished despite painting as much as possible. So while I will continue to paint them and hopefully get them finished within the year... well playable within the year, I will be using the Dwarves in play. Dwarves were almost the first army I collected. I say almost because it is hard to define when I finished collecting my goblins and when I finished collecting Dwarves. I wonder do we ever really stop collecting an army? I have never managed to have that first goblin army in a really playable state. Its gone through three iterations now and I really wonder if there will be a fourth! I have a huge box of goblins sitting under my painting desk and every now and then I get tempted to pull them out. This is the second attempt at Dwarves. I was much more succesful at painting these as I have a fully useable army with the older models and a useable army with the current ones. Sadly I went for completely diferent colour schemes so combining the two wouldn't look very nice!

These are warriors from the Battle for Skull Pass. I painted them quite a while ago and it shows a little. The interesting thing about these guys is that they are really really quick to paint. At least I can expand the regiments quickly I hope. I have most of the classic metal regiments too so I should actually consider buying a few more models to expand them before they are replaced with plastic alternatives. I think that Hammerers and Iron Breakers are more viable when around twenty five models with Clansmen being best around thirty. Miners would be another regiment that I consider best around thirty.

One of the things that has always found bad about the Dwarves is the low strength. As a combat army I would love to see them being a bit more combat orientated. While the high weapon skill is good the fact that a lot or armies have access to weapon skill four kind of cancels the benefit. Then in combination with a strengh of three is means that toe to toe you really are not getting much of a benefit over other combat troops such as Orcs and Elves. The armour helps for sure but still... I feel that Dwarves should be able to go up against Chaos Warriors pretty evenly though then the shooting would be a little too powerful! I am really stuck as to what direction to take the army for tournamwent play. The Anvil seems to be a must as not only does it bring some dispelling power to the table but it allows for the Dwarves to really threaten with their extra movement in the shooting phase. The elite infantry looks a little less attrractive due to the fact that their saves are now lowered. The better weapon skill and strengh though seems good and I really think I need to get some of the Iron Breakers in. I always loved those miniatures. They remind me of the Squat Hearthguard that were fantastic.

This is the Lord from the same boxed set. I am not sure why I put him on a rock. Maybe it looks better in person but in the shot it really looks terrible. I am not sure if I meant it to be an oathstone or something... I am currently designing a list without knowing exactly what I have in terms of models. The army is sitting at home on a shelf in Ireland and I really can't be one hundred percent sure whats in it. I was hoping that some of my old photographs might enlighten me but they rally are not much of a help! Anyway some educated guesswork should see me with a list I can use... though for some sneaky reason I do think most of my Clansmen are armed with great weapons... I hope not!