Harbingers, Portents & HDR

Managed to purchase, assemble and paint the Harbinger of Death: Knight of Shrouds for Malign Portents this week to fit in with the rest of my Death forces.

At this point the focus is still very much Nighthaunts (and he provides an excellent General) for this, but now I am looking to expand into some more "generic" Death units.  Ghost Hounds have always had some appeal.

My latest photograph really emphasises that I need to go over the red eyes of my ghosts with purple (sorry, amethyst) to tie into the latest vogue.

Also, did you know phone cameras have an HDR setting? Because I didn't...

Ghouls & Ghosts

Doing more Shadespire bits

The last few weeks have mostly been concerned with Shadespire, listening to podcasts, the audiobooks and painting/modelling up some warbands to take to the Grand Clash.  So far I have come up with:

The Sepulchral Guard - painted to match the rest of my Death army.

Punk Rock Stormcast!

Spoopy Lads

Decided that my ghosts didn't look "done" after their last few outings so, fuelled by the growing Malign Portent tease, I have done a few touch ups and adjustments.  Basically drybrushed another layer of white, gloss washed them black, added blood stains and spooky red eyes.  Also added a black rim around the base rather than dark brown.

I also realised that I just do not like the more modern Spirit Host figures, all swirly and that, so switched them out for bases of figures painted all ghostly to represent the collected victims of the army.

I picked Free Company figures and a few Orruks to represent the souls reanimated from the ghost's initial foray into the Harrowmark

Spirits of the Harrowmark

Lord Radclyffe's Company

The Middoth, The White Lady & The Wraith

Warband glamour shots

I did play those games this weekend, honest. Just not blogged them yet.

For proof here are a pair of glamour shots for the warbands involved in the Age of Sigmar skirmish games.  These photos were both taken by my opponent and lovely person all round Tears of Envy

The Ordsall Host summoned once more!

Tear's incredible Stormtonnians ready for war.

Shyish is a big place...

Well summer has truly put a spanner into the regular gaming plans but they have once again picked up and so I can catch up on the campaign updates.  I did however, manage to get in a skirmish game recently with the most excellent Tears of Envy.

We both wanted to play an Arabian Night themed games and after looking through my collection I was able to piece together a brand new warband made up of a mysterious warlock, his assassin henchman and a gaggle of Ghouls.

The warband.

We played a pair of linked scenarios set around a cursed village, deep in the sandier regions of Shyish with a troupe of Trasure Hunters trying to locate as much loot as possible while my evil do'ers attempted the same thing.

 

Ghouls go a-hunting.

Sadly my luck did not hold out in these games and I was beaten twice!  My warlock tried to run for it in the last game but sadly, well, the dice say it all:

 

"You're nicked sunshine!"

When the dice play along...

A real benefit of playing in a narrative gaming mindset is how the smallest in-game event can spark a whole story line or progress one already in play.

I had already established the the mysterious White Lady is fleeing deep into the Harrowmark from Nagash.  Why? So far I haven't decided but the idea of being on the run from such a powerful being really appeals to me.

During the last skirmish with Admiral Kurgan's Ogresuns I had deployed the White Lady at the foot of a Realmgate so that she could survey the battlefield and prevent the pesky Orruks from trespassing any further into "her" domain.  As the Realmgate has been modelled with Spirit Hosts spilling out it is obviously a portal to another part of Shyish...perhaps a part under the sway of Nagash?

The Lady Awaits

Once the game began he first roll I made was for the Realmgates abilities (these change every turn due to their eldritch nature!) and promptly rolled a double on the two dice.  Game-wise this translates to anyone stood nearby taking a few Mortal Wounds but narrative wise this means a huge blast of energy had spilt out of the Gate and caught the White Lady in it. Immediately this sparked a story line idea; what if the White Lady had been at the gate to seal it from Nagash and his minions but at the very last moment the distraction caused by the arrival of the Orruk warband to the field had meant the binding ritual failed and Nagash had managed one last attempt to reach the White Lady before the gate closed for good.

Orruks on the horizon.

The battle itself was a short, sharp affair which is detailed here.  For the White Lady and her followers the consequences are clear however; The Great Necromancer now knows where she is...and no-one escapes Death...

To the field of battle!

Although taking part in a skirmish campaign is the main drive of this blog and really the army as a whole, I will be playing "full" games of Age of Sigmar with the Ordeshal Host.

Tonight was the first of these games, with the host defeating a force of Seraphon who had been caught out in the blighted plains of M'nchtyr Aran'dl. My, as yet unamed, Mourngul was pushed to the brink of destruction but rallied after defeating a Saurus Oldblood riding a Carnosaur.

The Host Arrayed

The Fyrst Tale...

“What is my name?”

The Whyte Lady looked out at the windswept clearing, which was dominated by a skull laden tower, sheathed her blade and smiled.

Her retainers had done well in scouring the humans and strangely garbed orruks from the structure although the pest Radclyffe had got himself shattered at the hands of the largest of the green beasts and his soul had needed plucking from the ether before the Great Necromancer had noticed…that fool would give them away! The Lady had not fled into the cursed Harrowmark just to be pulled back by the Lord of Undeath to have her soul consumed.  She had lost her mortal shell to his rage, she would not lose everything…

Noisy Wylliam staggered out of the forest groaning, blood staining his hands and dripping down his legs...blood…that had meant something to the Lady in her past…

“Come Wylliam! We move on.” 

The Whyte Lady turned with a practised, almost courtly flourish and headed towards the tower with William staggering close behind, moaning with every step he took.

Just Wylliam

The first game in the Harrowmark Campaign ended as a victory for the Ordeshal Host, defeating both the Ogresuns and the Free Companies of the Gilded Hand in a scramble for territory.

Warboss Kurgan has written up the report here.

The Ordeshal Host march to war...

And so, newly christened (thanks to Warboss Kurgan), the Ordeshal Host, led by the spirit of the slain Whyte Lady have fled from the wrath of Nagash, deep into the Harrowmark and in there stumbled across other warbands and ne'er do wells...

The Ordeshal Host of the Whyte Lady, Lyrd Radclyffe and Noisy Wylliam. 

Photo by Warboss Kurgan

Into the Harrowmark!

This was the first game in our Harrowmark Run Age of Sigmar skirmish campaign which was a threeway clash.  I will put up a proper write up as soon as I have better photos stolen from my adverseries.

When is a Mourngul not a Mourngul?

So of course, I need an Mourngul if my force is going to pack any punch on the battlefields of Shyish.  However, I really do not like the "official" Forge World figure, it just doesn't tally with the rest of the army for me and I hate the in-built horse at its base.

Scouring the rest of GW's range I remembered the C'tan Shard Nightbringer which, to my eyes, is a perfect towering ghostly figure. Even better I had been given the majority of a Nightbringer figure by the most excellent and generous Tears of Envy minus the scythe.  A quick weapon swap later, add my patent basic paint job and Bob's your uncle:

Change of plan(s)

Having completed one Age of Sigmar Skirmish campaign and learning a couple of lessons I have decided to rejig my starting line up from the one that I presented below.

As we starting the Harrowmark campaign with a hefty 35 renown points I decided to go for something a little different and chose a Vampire Lord.  However to fit her into the general ghosts and spooks vibe of the army I painted her identically to the other miniatures and have called her the White Lady.

I have stolen this name from the White Lady of Ordsall Hall which is just down the road from me. Seems like a perfect fit really!

To accompany the White Lady I have Lyrd Radclyffe, a Hexwraith, who is named after another spook of Ordsall Hall, Lord Radcliffe.  This ghost apparently goes around pinching ladies bums so we shall see how he behaves in game...

Lastly is Noisy William.  Basically I needed 3 models to make the warband legal. I had 1 point left and a Zombie fit the bill!  He is "Noisy" as he is the dedicated Noisemaker of the Zombie Warscroll so I can at least always rely on a 6" charge from Bill!

A year later...

Well, this has been some time but the last year has been one of the most productive of my hobbying life with the amount of painting and gaming I have been getting in.

Age of Sigmar has totally revitalised my playing habits and with the trend of skirmish games being released by GW (Shadow Wars & Age of Sigmar Skirmish) I am getting in more games than ever.

Recently I have joined up with Warboss Kurgan and Godfather Viktor to play a Shadow Wars campaign and now we are moving on to Age of Sigmar...handily set in the Realm of Shyish...specifically in the Harrowmark

Gaming will commence soon but I have got my warband together and ready to serve the undying lord...

A Warning to the Curious

Cairn Wraith - Nathaniel
Spirit Host - The Ager
Zombie - William
 
Spirits, forever held in Shadespire, defending the old family treasure from plunders who venture to the city from across the Mortal Realms.

The "list"

Well, there isn't one really.  Age of Sigmar has (in)famously done away with points and army lists to let people collect exactly what they want.  I have always found I do need a specific goal to aim for when creating an army in order to have a sense of the project progressing.

The formations provided for each army are a nice way of focusing a list to a theme with a nice game bonus but sadly one hasn't yet been created for the malignant forces.  Well, except for the one in the starter box but I'm not planning on picking this up (though I would have done if it had come out before Xmas ...grumble grumble...).

Instead I asked at my local shop how people are playing games and the manager said they aim for 50 wound games, nice and simple.  So...on to the list:

Spirit Hosts: As the bulk of the army I think I will go for 3 units of these.  At 9 wounds for 3 stands                          that is 27/50 used up.

Tomb Banshee: Something a bit more fun and a ranged attack. 4 wounds takes me to 31/50

Cairn Wraith: Brilliant model and is there anything more iconic than a floating spectre with a great                            big dirty scythe to go through the enemy? 4 wounds again. 35/50.

Hexwraiths: Ghostly cavalry always look great and the unit would give me a bit more flexibility on                          the field.  a unit for 5 figures equals 10 wounds. 45/50

Now then, I have 5 wounds remaining but I am missing a rather large piece of the puzzle.  A magic user!  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Undead were my first ever Warhammer army, back at the dawn of 4th edition and since then (and actually in earlier editions) you have HAD to have magic user in an Undead army, to keep all the bones and spirits together and also to bring more to the fight when it inevitiably goes wrong.

The magic users currently available for the Death faction are the Necromancer and the Lich Priest (disregarding Special Characters).  Neither which are malignants and neither of which have a spell relevant to malignants! There is the Mortis Engine which does also cover this but I am holding off on getting one until my force is a bit more complete.

I think I am just going to have to bite the bullet and pick up a Necromancer for the force, the only mortal on the field of battle! At 5 wounds they would perfectly round out the army to 50 wounds.

Plus, I have a plan to convert the model a bit to base them on someone...

Malignants?

So with the decision made to create a Death alliance army I wanted to give it a real focus.  When creating armies I like to limit the number of unit types to choose from to really keep the theme through it.

For this one, I wanted to do an army that was impossible in 8th edition Warhammer and do a 100% ghost army.  This was probably influenced by the fact it was winter, which is my favourite time to sit and read ghost stories (or watch the brilliant Ghost Stories for Christmas) as well as the ease I would be able to paint them

Going through the warscrolls  it appeared the units that would be most suited would be Spirit Hosts for the bulk of the force, Cairn Wraiths and Tomb Banshees for characters as well as Hexwraiths as the obligatory ghostly horsemen.  I would need a magic user to summon all of these lost souls to the battlefield but I hadn't made my mind up which one yet.

Now, I was going to call my army a "Ghost" army, but the warscrolls all seemed to have a certain Keyword; Malignant.  Ahh, so that is what I was collecting, a Malignant army!  I suppose this will cover any and all spirits, ghosts etc. that will be brought out for the Death armies and suits me down to the ground.  This was confirmed with the announcement of the Star Collecting Malignants box coming from GW.

(I realise this post has a lot of links to the GW shop but this purely to show EXACTLY what miniatures I am going to be collecting.)

The beginning

When Age of Sigmar (AoS) launched in July 2015 I was excited.  I hadn't played Warhammer Fantasy Battles for a number of years and, other than splitting the Isle of Blood Starter Set, I hadn't spent anything on the figures or rules for probably around 5 years. It was mainly 40K and many other 3rd party skirmish and historical war games.

Now, however, was an excuse to start my fantasy gaming afresh and from the very beginnings of a new system.  With half an ear on the rumours I had been collecting a Chaos Daemon army for the last year with half a mind to use them for the "new" Warhammer, if the prophesised move to round bases occured.

Well, it did, and I had an army ready to go for AoS from day zero and took them to Warhammer World on launch day to try the game out.  Well, I enjoyed it immensely, had fun pushing my figures about and went home a happy bunny.

However, then nothing happened. I didn't get another game in until around November (which again, I enjoyed despite being flattened) but I did decide to pick up the various books that were being published by Black Library as well as listen to the Mortal Realms podcast.  This brought the inspiration flooding back.

As winter drew in and Christmas approached I decided what would really get me going would be to create a brand new army from scratch, something designed JUST for AoS and collected to follow on with the story line.  I wanted to go back to my first ever Warhammer army (back in the dawn of 4th) and create an army of the Undead.

Or should I say...Death?