Red Kaya, whats up?

Red for me is a terrible colour! I can't seem to get a nice transition in any direction with it. I have been doing it a few different ways on individual models for my Hordes forces for a while hoping that eventually I would hit on the right formula. I still haven't. I painted this model a little while ago and for the cloak I started with Hull Red from Vajello's Panzer Aces series. It is a lovely deep dark red and it is the colour I use for the basecoat of all my reds now. I gave this a purple wash and then I shaded it with some Rhinox Hide(GW). It is really easy to shade and doesn't need much effort. For the inside of the cloak I just added back the hull red and then one more highlight and that was that. I wanted it to remain dark. In the picture you can definitely see the brown shading and a hint of the purple wash.

For the back of the cloak I wanted a much warmer and brighter colour. I ended up with a lighter colour and quite muted. I know why and I should have thought of it at the time. I used for the final few highlights Rotten Flesh(VJ) and as this has a green tint it muted the red considerably. I shaded the cloak the same as usual and built back the original colour quickly. From there I added Blood Red(GW) to brighten everything up. That went fine and I got more or less a colour I was happy with. For the final highlights I added the Rotten Flesh. As you can see here it quickly muted the red. It even seemed to kill the previous brighter colours somewhat. I am happy enough with the end result even if it isn't exactly what I intended. I think I will use this colour if I ever manage to return to the Blood Pack I bought. I just hate the PP plastic and I can't be bothered putting in the effort required to assemble the last half of that unit.

A shambling pile of stones

I finally finished Megalith. I have wanted the model for ages and even though I bought him in March I only got around to painting him the other day. I haven't varnished him yet or finished the base. Still he is looking fine and eventually I may get him onto the table top! I have tried to play him a little on VASSAL in Baldur 2's tier list. I haven't met with much success but that is down to my own uncompetitive level of gameplay combined with a somewhat sub-par list. I think it can be good but needs a higher calibre player than I. I haven't tried out Baldur 1's tier list. I haven't even tried him out of tier with Baldur yet. At least he toughens up my stable of Circle models.

I don't like the stock pose of Megalith and so I converted him. It wasn't the most excellent conversion work but it came out fine. The only problem I really have is that his shoulder things are pitched really far back where they should sit more squarely on the model. I also accidently repositioned the legs I think. To me thats how they went together but looking afterwards at the studio model they are really different. I think I captured Megalith taking a stroll! I added an armour plate to the base just for a little variety, I sculpted it up to see how it might look and stiking it on the base is about as good a use as I can think of. Sculpting this wasn't too difficult and I may get a little more ambitious in the future.

Angry Half-wolf

As I painted Epic Morvahna recently I also was obliged to paint her best friend the Warpborn Alpha.. I would love to complain about how hard this model is to actually assemble but I won't as I am thankful that it simply is not made in Privateer Press plastic. That stuff is the bane of my painting career. So far the Alpha has withstood the rigours of transport so it seems I did a decent enough job of pinning him everywhere I could. He is an impressively heavy model almost the equal of soime of my heavy Warbeasts. He definitely needs a lot of attention during assembly if you want him to stay that way. On the table he is a revelation. He has performed excellently in every game I have used him in and he tunes the rest of the unit right up. With Epic Morvahna this is multiplied via her feat. Bringing back nearly the entire unit is as good as it was hyped up to be.

I of course painted him to blend in wit the rest of the unit. His model is impressive enough to stand out without too much effort. I am slowly running out of my stockpiles of standard colours I used on these so I will soon have to look for equivalents. I don't relish that. I have enough of everything to finish my last two Tharn units but once they are done I am going to have to play with the vajello game colour to see if I can get what I need there. I noticed Rob Hawkings complaining about the range recently so maybe I should look further afield. He used them on his awe inspiring Sedition Wars display boards. I haven't had a problem with them but then again I don't think I was paying that much attention to how they dried.

Epic Morvahna revealed!

Enough of the Orks for today at least. I bought Epic Morvahna when she came out first and painted her soon after. Here finally she is revealed: I didn't deviate from my standard scheme too much. I had been trying to get more contrast into my reds and this model was one of the first I really tried. I think I failed. The cloak is still very muted and while it goes from a deep red up to a fairly strong tone it never really pops. The colours on the goat worked well though and I am happy with them. I used English Uniform from Vajello. I love that colour despite the fact that it always comes out too green at the start. I have to shake the hell out of the bottle and after the first few drops it comes out in the nice brown colour. I have no idea what is up with the bottle but those first few drops are terrible. I have at least managed to get a few games in over the last few months with her and she is great. I finally feel like I have a top grade Warlock in my circle force and she will be very much prominent in my tournament lists for a while to come!

Tharn Ravagers, what to do?

I just don't get them. I played in the Irish Masters last weekend and I used these in every list. Aa full unit with the attached chieftan. The package comes in at eleven points for the nine models. In most games I deployed them forward in front of my army and ran them forward to jam the objectives and zones. They also form a decent threat. In most games I was down to two or three models by the time I activated them again. The only thing I can think of is that I am using them in a completely bad role for them. Almost everything my opponent puts on their front line can deal easily with the Ravagers. With a standard defence stat they are easily hit and with an average armour they are easily damaged. Eight boxes help for sure but POW 12 weapons are easily able to remove them from the game. For what can I use my medium infantry?

The first thought is to place them out on a flank. It subjects them to less direct firepower in the early turns but allows them to threaten towards the centre. They are not so fast that they really become a threat out there but they can tie up and possibly defeat a lot of other flanking forces. These should leave a few models by the late game to effectively flank the opponent. However for eleven points, basically a fifth of your entire army you really want them to have some dominating prescence on the battlefield. I played a little yesterday and tested this. I found that the Ravagers are very effective against other medium to heavy infantry. These are also often deployed off centre and the advance deployment rule allows you to pick your match up in most cases. Having a MAT of nine when charging means even defence fourteen isn't too hard to hit and with a POW of 15 on the charge even armour twenty models need to be worried. Curse of Shadows gives them an effective POW boost of two meaning that even Khador 'Jacks will go down to a charge.

Having said that is there anything else I would use them for? I am tempted to use them as a second wave. I have no idea if this would be effective at all but it strikes me as a decent possibility. Having advance deployment always makes me think these guys should be up front and in the mix as often as possible. However that has rarely paid off! Putting them behind an annoying tarpit would ensure that the opponent has to commit something decent to remove the tarpit and allows me to countercharge in relative safety. Thinking a little further I am really tempted to use the Ravagers in conjunction with the Skinwalkers. They are a much more effective tarpit and removing them is no easy matter. Having them spread out allows for lanes where the Ravagers can charge into and deal with the engaging models aloowing the Skinwalkers to move up and repeat the tactic. It is expensive but I am really tempted to try it. Has anyone else tried this?

The Shadowhorn Satyr

I wanted this guy for a while. I am assuming the Shadowhorn and Gnarlhorn Satyrs will be going plastic when Gargantuans is released. I don't like the new plastic models that much for the Warpwolves and so I thought I had better get the Satyr while I could. I never liked the model until I saw it on the table. It is actually quite taller than all the other Warbeasts, even without the horns. He dwarfs the old metal Feral Warpwolf and even the Gnarlhorn Satyr. Putting him together was easy though he didn't want to stay on the base. I pinned him on of course but with such a tall metal model there is a lot of force on the join with the base. Some greenstuff firmed this up nicely and stopped him from rocking his way off as I painted him. I had this problem with the Warpborn Skinwalkers before and I wish I had done this. They were heavy enough that they began to rock slightly as I moved them while painting. This eventually caused two of them to come free of he base in a shower of curses!

I went with a two brush blend on the skin of the Satyr. It worked out fairly well but muscle tone is a little bit more difficult than metal plates. I also didn't go for enough of a contrast. I find I am generally really conservative with my contrast. In future I really have to actively go for it all out. Still the skin came out fine and he fits in with the other Satyr. I went with darker horns similar to the stock model and these came out well. I only highlighted the ridges on the horns. I think they look good. As far as I understand he is a relatively underused beast in Circle. He sits between a heavy and a light in terms of cost and abilities. He isn't that strong are well protected. At seven points though he is cheap. His animus is useful but I prefer the Gnarlhorn's Bounding animus. The Shadowhorn has Vitality which allows a free power attack and some extra movement on slams and throws. What is interesting is his leap ability allowing him to get into places that the opponent doesn't expect and also sometimes getting himself out of trouble! Tramples are generally better than leap as they at least have the possibility of killing some models during the movement but leap is free and allows you to jump over medium and large bases. It is very rarely going to get you into a position to assassinate but it can often help in taking out some key solos. I still have to figure out a good Warlock to use him with.

Tharn Ravager Archers

It is not often that I post twice in one day. These lovely Tharn Archers were previewed by Matt Wilson on Twitter and I felt I had to share. I have been playing a lot with the Tharn recently and I am slowly coming around to just how good they can be. I am really excited to se what the archers will bring to the mix. Hopefully something good...The original link the the picture is here. I just can't wait!

Fly, my pretties fly!

I picked up the Scarsfell Griffon last week. It is a great model and the plastic doesn't suck too much. He was much easier to clean than the Man O' War's I had to do. Hopefully more of the plastics are like this. The arms on the griffon can be posed a little differently and I guess with some sclading hot water the wings could be bent a little. That would allow for some variety which is nice. I am somewhat tempted to get a second one as I think they could be really awesome, especially with pKaya. Their extended control range and the ability to teleport them right back to her makes for some interesting hit and run tactics at extreme range. I lost fairly badly last week with this but I wasn't playing Spirit Door properly. My opponent, Owen from Farfaraway.org, showed me the last line of that spell and from then on it was game over. I do still think there is some potential there but it would be an uphill battle!

I don't really like painting wings. They are hard to get looking convincing and they are often really detailed. I checked a few places online for inspiration and I came up with this picture. I wasn't brave enough to copy it exactly but I took a good few elements from it. As is usual I am unhappy with how the painting of the Griffon went. I guess I am never happy or maybe satisfied with my painting. I over did the dark grey/brown on the underside. It is fine on the outer feathers but it is too intense I think when it gets closer to the body of the griffon. Next time I would have kept it to mybe two rows of feathers and then I would have darkened the inner rows more in keeping with the picture here.

I am a good bit happier with the back of the wings. They are a little dark despite what I felt was an extremely light highlight. The orange pieces break up the monotomy of the wings a lot and there isn't much I would change overall. Lightening up the feathers towards the head of the 'beast light have been better but the feathers there are so small and lack a lot of definition and I thought that changing the colour of them might make them look like fur. Anyway he is done now and can be put onto the display shelf with the rest of the Circle army. I just need to paint a Winter Aargus and that is all the light warbeasts done for the army. Incidently the griffon is the 100th model painted for Circle by be.

Steamroller Flags finished

I managed to get these done over the weekend despite aching muscles. Moving furniture is not something I do eagerly or particularly well. I think the flags came out fairly well although the colour of the internal wood isn't exactly as I had intended. I sculpted a few more little details such as Dryad's Saddles onto them to break up the surface of the wood. The colour scheme fits in nicely with the rest of my Circle Orboros army and I think these will be a nice addition to scenario play. I just need to think of what appropriate objectives I can make now. I think larger stumps wouldn't be quite right!

I am still tempted to make up some more of the stumps to use as a terrain piece. It is a lot of effort for some terrain but I could cast them up to save some time at least. I have a few half completed terrain projects that would cast up nicely I think. The train tracks for instance would be really excellent to cast as would a trench piece I have. Maybe I will research it and see.

Circle Flags

I have been wanting to make some 'flags' for my Circle army for a while. I wasn't sure what to do as flags aren't really defined except for their rules. In Steamroller they are pieces that need to be captured generally to win the game. The Circle isn't really an organised military force and has really low technology. I wasn't sure what I could make to represent an objective/flag. I have been playing a lot recently with Gallows Groves and they get killed in every game. The thought came to me that the stumps would make cool flag markers. I had been thinking of using some corpses on bases but I wasn't too inspired by this. It could really represent any army. Using some form of flag or standard isn't really that interesting either.

The stumps were easy enough to sculpt. I built the body out of normal modelling clay and then I made the top. It was just a small lump of greenstuff smoothed out and then I carved small rings into it. A few cracks were added to make it look a little decayed. Once all this was dry I added the sides. The sides were quite uneven as I wasn't too careful about shaping the base lump of clay. This is good as it stops the stump from being too regular. I still want to add a few small details like fungi. I have already added a few skulls to tie the stumps in with the Gallows Grove.

I think these came out fairly well and I am actually considering making some more to use as terrrain. I think they could easily be used to represent a harvested forest. Basically it would just be an interesting piece visually on the board but would otherwise count as a forest. I still have quite a few terrain projects to finish first though...

Grayle Farstrider

I am disappointed with how Grayle turned out. He is mainly armour with some leather detailing. I thought I would get him painted to a much higher standard but I really wasn't able to get a good effect on hs armour. I checked him against some of the other models I have painted. Baldur for instance has really excellently done armour, in my eyes at least. I got some good contrast on the metal and the green recesses came out better. I am wondering though if the varnish I use is having an effect. On my older Circle stuff I used Testors Dullcoate, the old poisonous stuff! It really gives a great matt effect, especially on metals. Maybe this is why Baldur's looks so much better?

I am glad I finally managed to pick up Grayle. I have been eyeing him for a while in the store and I finally gave in and grabbed him last week. I don't as yet think he is that good in the game. He really seems to operate as a super solo rather than as a support piece. With a good charge and side step he can deal a lot of damage reliably to infantry. Storm Rager helps out a lot with this. Sprint then gets him out of trouble. I think that this leans heavily to one style of play and it is one that can be countered easily by a canny opponent. I will get Grayle to the table soon and see what I can figure out for him. I have no idea what a good list for him would be...

Wild Druidess

Solos are great to paint. I think that must be the mantra of the blog. I have played without the help of a Wilder for far too long and I got one last week. I kept with the autumnal colours for this model but I wanted to see how the red might work as a more dominant element. I usually go for a warm brown but I wanted something a little different. She came out fine even if the combination of the red and gold look more like Skorne than Circle. I will experiment with the combination elsewhere in the army as I think it helps bring out the autumnal theme a little better. The camera did wash out the skin tones here almost completely. There is quite a lot of effort on the skin but it just didn't get picked up in the shot.

This Solo seems great and will fit into almost all of my lists. I don't know what I will have to drop but something will give. I usually play at thirty five points and points in the lists are incredibly tight. I have also been experimenting with getting some Bog Trogs into the list. Ambush seems really powerful and I wonder why it doesn't get used more.

Bloodtrackers

I am finally done with the Bloodtrackers. That is a good feeling. These models are so detailed that they are a little bit of a pain to paint. I only had four to do, five with Nuala, but they seemed to take ten times longer than any other model. Having finished these also means I have no more Circle Orboros models left to paint at the moment. I know this state won't last long so I am savouring it a little. I want to get the Blood Weavers and some more Warbests so I imagine I have a week or two before my resolve breaks and I buy some.

How do I pronounce Nuala?

I listen to a lot of american podcasts about Hordes and Warmachine. One of the funniest things to note is the varied pronunciation of names, especially Khador despite the pronunciation guide in the rulebook! Another in Nuala. It is an irish name and we certainly pronounce it differently from what seems to be the standard way. It is actually infectious as I always find myself saying it wrongly. However I have her painted now and maybe she will get to a battlefield soon. I am not sure if she is that good though and I wonder what other peoples thoughts are.

She grants quickwork and reform. Reform is good but the range of the javelins are short. That means if they shoot at something and reform they will be only ten inches away at the end of the turn. That is well within a normal threat range. What seems better is quickwork. It allows them to shoot once they have killed a foe in melee. As I learned in my last game that is only a good ability against non reach troops! I look forward to trying them out I am not sure which 'lock they go with to best benefit. They really would like a speed boost most of all. They have no trouble hitting and not much trouble killing. Moshar dropping some salt pillars infront on them might be nice too.

Moshar musings

Moshar is an enigma. I really don't get him. I guess if you visit here regularly you will notice I don't get a lot of things, Ravagers especially! I think Moshar is one of the most powerful Warlocks that the Circle has. I just don't see exactly what he works best with. He doesn't boost his army immensely unlike some of our other Warlocks. His feat is only effective against Hordes, which in my local playing group is a massive disadvantage. We have far more Warmachine players than Hordes.

• Crevasse seems a good spell. With Fury of eight Moshar can reliably hit defence fourteen. The cost is affordable and with a Gallows Grove  channeling this can be cast with little risk to Moshar.
• Curse of Shadows is also fairly good. It too needs a Gallows Grove to really be effective. I like the idea of being able to bypass the effected unit without suffering free strikes. Having it as an upkeep is nice but I don't see it being that important as generally if the models are close enough to be hit by this spell they are in my threat range. If I am not killing them the turn I cast this on them then I am doing something wrong.
• Mirage is another upkeep. It gives a short move in the control phase. It is useful when models are engaged the only problem being is that you have to do this the turn before to benefit from it in the control phase. It is nice to give a boost to the forward momentum of one of my units effectively giving a small increase to the threat range. For a cost of three it is only something I would consider casting on the first turn and then upkeep if needed for the rest of the game.
• Pillar of salt is really where Moshar begins to shine. It is his signature ability and something that nobody else in the game can do. The pillars count as a stucture meaning they are really difficult to get rid of. A base POW of fourteen with ranged weapons (or fire/corrosion) and the fact that you can't charge them means a beast or 'jack needs to deal with them. They block LOS including eyeless sight making them great for annoying legion players. After the first turn I guess I will be dropping three of these on the table and this is where Moshar can really benefit his army.
• Sans of Fate is a get out of jail free card for Moshar. He can charge something get his attacks in and then teleport back to replace a friendly warrior model. While Moshar isn't great in combat with wither he can damage undead and constructs fairly well meaning that the speel could be useful. It certainly isn't an assassination vector. Moshar is just too bad in combat for that to be realistic.
• Sunhammer is a nice upkeep to cast on turn one and keep up for the rest of the game. It isn't going to do much damage to anything but how many times have you left a beast on one or two points just to see them heal a little and have their revenge in the next turn? This spell stops that from happening.

From all the spells in the list it is Pillars of Salt that needs to be considered in army composition. Ideally You want to be casting the Pillars every turn preventing the enemy from closing with key pieces. I see lightning strike having a lot of use with this.  Sending a Warpwolf Stalker forward to wreck havoc amongst the enemy lines only to have it move backwards is excellent. Combining that with a garunteed structure sitting between the Stalker and the enemy is amazing. This also works nicely with the Tharn Wolfriders. The light cavalry move gets them back out of danger and the pillars mean that the enemy is really going to have to dedicate something to take out the pillar before it can even consider getting anywhere near what is behind it. If possible doing this over a sequence of turns will attrition the enemy down to a pint where the pillars aren't needed any longer. Then using a Gallows Grove it is possible to throw out a few crevasses to really turn the attrition to your favour.

Moshar can support the Circles movement tricks better I think than any other Warlock as he provides a direct defence against any retribution. I guess therefore the best things to have in his list are those that play to this strength. Stalkers and Wolfriders immediately jump to mind. There aren't that many other Circle units that really benefit as strongly as they can't move after activation. Puting the Stalker's animus on other beasts helps a lot and so Wilders should be considered so that Moshar doesn't have to do it himself. Reform on the Bloodtrackers is also good. My list is theoretically looking like this:
Mohsar the Desertwalker
* Feral Warpwolf
* Warpwolf Stalker
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
 Nuala the Huntress
Tharn Wolfriders (Leader and 4 Grunts)
Druid Wilder
Gallows Grove
Gallows Grove
I am really unsure as to how this might preform. I desperately want another cheap light beast in there but that would mean reducing the Tharn Wolfriders to a minimum unit reducing their overall effectiveness. With the Pillars and the lightning strike animus I think I can keep my beasts safe long enough to make trading them worthwhile.

On a minor note I think the Celestial Fulcrum plays well with Mohar. Reducing anythings armour really helps the Fulcrum as it is assured getting kills then. Behind the pillars the Battle Engine is really well protected. Any guns that can really damage the engine should be the ones used against the pillars. If they don't shoot the pillars that blocks access for combat troops to the Fulcrum. If they do shoot the pillars then they aren't damaging the engine. A good trade for two fury.  I believe that the pillars don't block LOS to huge based models. If that is correct then you can sit behind them all game long blasting away and not be too worried about any retribution!

Tharn Ladies

There seems to be no end to the Tharn models that I need to paint and Lock and Load hasn't helped. It looks like one or maybe two new units for the Tharn. The first is a bow armed Ravager unit which would be cool. Hopefully they suck a little less than their axe armed brothers. I still haven't managed to use them properly though more and more people have been recommending them to me. Also one of the pictures of the Mountain King showed a nice silhouette of two axe armed Tharn. They didn't have the same axes as the Ravagers so maybe they are something new? For now however I have to get the last of my Bloodtrackers done.

I have the minimun unit of these painted since they came out. I think they were the second unit painted after the Wolves of Orboros. I did them in the purple skin tone I eventually used on the Ravagers. It works much better on smaller models. I matched these in pretty well so far though the blending on the flesh is so much better on the recent ones. It also doesn't take as long from what I remember. I have Nuala also to do. I decided to throw her in with these and at least get the base coats and initial highlights down at the same time. It saves mixing the same colours over and over again. Hopefully I can get these done quickly. That would be the last of my Circle models painted, at least of those I have bought so far. I am itching to get a Shadowhorn Satyr and the Bloodweavers are also calling to me. Seeing what is coming in Gargantuans I need to keep up with my Circle if I intend to get the entire faction painted... or I could start my Khador finally. Even getting a thirty five point list done would be nice for them.

Salty Pillars, no thanks!

I am looking to play a little more with Moshar the Desertwalker and as such I needed something to represent the Pillars of Salt he can summon. Some 3" card are most defintely not enough so I went about making my own. I made these using some plaster, cork and the lids from a sandwich spread. It was pretty cheap to make I just had to put up with a lot of Apfel-Zweibel sandwiches. I didn't want to make the pillars to look like salt. I always envisaged them as a massive chunk of rock bursting up from below at the whim of Moshar. I know he has a desert theme but this is a little bit more in keeping with my army theme.

I used a few pieces of cork to represent the rock itself. The inside of the model was hollow and wouldn't stand up to the rigours of gaming. To fix that I put plaster into the gap and then covered over the top of the cork with it to make the soil area. This took a while to dry but the piece is really heavy now. There is no chance that it will be moving anywhere due to a careless or clumsy hand during the game. A lot of times I have knocked a template around and it never goes back in the same place. These shouldn't do that. I flocked the top and sides to match the army and started painting.

I have a lot of rocks painted in my terrain collection and I did these to match. A progressively lighter drybrush of grey on the cork really brings out the detail. I give a green wash in places to break up the tone of the piece. Over the top of everything I add a black wash this time with Nuln Oil(GW). This corrects any rough bits in the drybrushing and defines some of the features better. I then just painted the soil areas the exact same way as my army and added the flock to match. The black base shows that it isn't a terrain piece which is pretty important. I don't want these getting mixed up in my opponents mind when I lay down a few amongst the rocks I will also be using. Hopefully the base shows them as a gaming piece rather than a board piece. I haven't manage to use these yet but I brought them to last weekends Steamroller where a few people noticed them sitting in my bag. I got some good feedback so I guess the effort was worth it. Now I just need to figure out Moshar and what to bring with him so I can use these!

Cassius the Oathkeeper

This has been a bad week for painting. I am finding it hard to keep up my motivation at the moment. I don't have much left to do with my Circle Orboros and I would really like to get the last few models done. I was the same when it came to the last few menites. Maybe it the fact that the lead pile is geting smaller and I don't have the pressure to keep me going? I did manage to get through Cassius and so I have nearly all of the Circle Oboros' Warlocks done. I just have Grayle and the epics left. If Gargantuans doesn't come out too soon I might be able to get them all done. I would like to have the entire faction collected and painted. I think I have three heavies, two lights and two units to do... The units are discouraging especially the Reeves. Twelve models would take me a long time.

Cassius was easy enough to paint and I didn't do anything special with him. I maintained the standard brown colour for the robes. I should probably have changed it around as the colour is really coming to dominate my army and it is a little boring. A good autumnal red will have to be the used on a 'lock in the future. This would have made some nice contrast for Cassius and the tree branch around his body. Next up for me is finishing the Tharn Bloodtrackers. I finally sourced the last two miniatures I needed to finish the maximum unit and so I can get them done next week hopefully. I haven#t used them much as the short 7" range means I get a semi decent attack against an opponent and in return they get wiped out!

Roots of the Earth

Roots of the Earth is a great spell. I intend using eBaldur soon and I want an easy way to mark what his signature spell effects. To that end I started making some tokens. I have never bought tokens for my Hordes faction and I don't intend to. The Gale Force Nine Warmachine tokens set a realy high bar when it came to quality and until I can get Hordes tokens of the same quality I won't be buying any. So that leaves me with the need to make some tokens. I use glass beads for the most part but that isn't brilliant either. So when I saw that I would need a fair few Roots of the Earth tokens I sat down and made them myself.

These are really simple to make. I use a little piece of cork as a rock. This also supports the roots and provides some contrast for them as otherwise they would blend into the similarly coloured earth underneath. I greeenstuffed the roots. To do this really easily just roll out a piece of greenstuff. Then with a knife start spliting the end. keep splitting the ends with the knife until you are happy and then your roots are done. I attached them to the base and allowed them to cure. Wwhen splitting the green stuff it will adhere to the blade unless you wet it somehow. I usually use a little bit of cooking oil but water will also do the trick. The finer you do the roots the more important this becomes.


I then just flocked the bases and thats that. Some paint and basing materials and they match the army. I vanished them a little over zealously and they are a little shinier than I would have liked! However I guess they will have to stand up to a lot of punishment so thats fine.

However I couldn't just stop there and while I have shown this before I think it is worthwhile showing here again! Epic Baldur can also summon a rockwall unto the battlefield. This is also a really important ability and as such it needs some attention too. I couldn't just use a card or paper template so instead I made one using some cork.

I cut a coaster up and glued the pieces together. I made the two outside pieces a little lower so the magical wall looked a little more natural. The next step is to rip the cork up in such a way to make it look like stone and having the two outside pieces a little lower allowed me to make the piece a little less monolithic. I also added a smaller broken piece at the end to aid the effect. I should probably have done this at both ends as I think it would have looked better.

The final step it break the flat sides up and disguising as best as possible the joins in the cork. I guess using a thicker piece would have been better as I then wouldn't have had to disguise the line quite as much. I only had the thin piece to hand however. Breaking the cork is simple and I use a sculpting tool. Digging that in not too deep allows me to pull the flat surface away in little chunks giving a very rough texture. I did this all over the model. I then glued it to the proper sized base for some stability and flocked the piece. That's it complete. Baldur can now benefit from having a full set of tokens and templates. I just wish I could fiure out how to make appropriate Fury tokens!

Wurmwood

I recently picked up Cassius and Wurmwood on a whim. I have played him once before on VASSAL and I wasn't impressed. It might not be the 'locks fault, instead the fault probably lies with me. I can't get him to work. I just don't see the effectiveness anywhere. The tree gets easily shot and yet needs to be far the field up to be effective. Now that I own the model and have half of the pair painted I can try him out a little more. I went for an old decayed wood look. I didn't want a warm vibrant brown. I think I got the colours right. The problem is the green. The lighter inner wood seems to blend in a little which is disappointing. A darker green might contrast better but wouldn't evoke the glowing effect! I will have to remember this when it comes to painting the Gallows Grove.