Spider Riders still

Finally some progress on these has been made. I don't think I really like these models much but as I paint them and assemble the regiment they are starting to grow on me. Though I think everyone experiences that as they paint the large regiments in Warhammer these days. Painting the spiders is a chore. I am not sure if it is the sheer volume of the model, the fact I have had to convert almost every spider or that they just take time to do. I like to see a lot of progress on my models and armies but these few seem to have been on the table far beyond their welcome. I had planned to have a regiment of twelve but that number has been slowly diminishing as I continue painting. Just getting five done would be enough I think. I am guessing that they function best in a regiment of twelve or so as they need to outnumber the other light cavalry they will be hunting orat least holding up as long as as is possible considering their quality. The plan for these is to have them operating on a flank where they can intercept light cavalry and hopefully hold them off long enough for them to have little effect on the battle or to drive them off due to the fact that this unit can absorb a few casualties unlike other more expensive light cavalry units. They can also function to hunt down warmachines even though they will be less effective at this. They will probably just occupy the machine for a few turns.

Night Goblin Shaman

While I should have been painting some Spider Riders I instead got distracted with the Battle for Skull Pass Shaman. I don't have much painting time, less than the last time I made the same complaint but I am making some very slow progress on this army. I have recently been browsing the Give'em Lead blog and there have been a few excerpts from old White Dwarfs there. Some of these were fairly influential to me back in the day especially the Stillmania articles. Having read through them I am determined even more than ever to get this army done. I doubt I will hit my christmas deadline but I will make a fair stab at it. Nigel mentioned building the army in blocks or detachments and I will do the same. The first is a 1000pt detachment of Night Goblins. I will stick with the standard force percentages so that it can easily slot into any further developments of the army.

Basically while waiting for washes and glazes to dry on the Spider Riders I managed to complete the shaman. The Spider Riders are easy enough to paint but they can take a while to dry. I found that once I had progressed about half way with Shaman I had the momentum to complete him and so I pushed the Spider Riders to the side. The base needs to be completed much like the rest of the army but that can be done at a later date. I went with a red colour on the staff puppet thing as I thought it would offer a nice contrast to the green. Whie it is fine I don't think it had the effect I wanted. I have two more of these models and I intend eventually to convert them and paint them as a coven to use in a larger battle at some future time. The models are going to be tough to convert but it should be possible.