Assembled Alpha Legion Praetor Conversion

Following on from the unboxing of the newly released Alpha Legion Praetor in Cataphractii terminator armour, I have finally got this one assembled. 

Putting it together was relatively easy. The only snag was attaching the cape before anything else went on, and making sure that the cape slotted in to the right grooves in the back of the terminator armour. 

As can be seen in the images below, I have opted for a little conversion on the resin.

The addition of a warhammer fantasy or Age of Sigmar chaos sword is a significant development for me. Up until now, I have assembled the Alpha Legion under a few themes.

(1) Crusade era. Featuring the baseline weapons and everything else expected of the Legion in full fighting force during the glory era (or later parts of it at any rate).

(2) Early Heresy era. This is where I went slightly more themed around having some marines with the infamous mark V armour, and with more patchwork armour.

(3) Later Heresy era. Bereft of regular supply lines, I have converted a large number of marines to carry Eldar weapons that they have reversed engineered, as well as having scouts with Necron sniper weapons. They are making do in small cells basically. And possibly splintering from within thanks to the Alpha Legion civil war.

And now (4): Late Heresy and Scouring.

This is where some of their number start to turn to or generally explore chaos. Although they do not necessarily succumb in the slightest, the novel "Shroud of Night" serves as a bit of an inspiration here. The main character in that novel sports a chaos blade (daemon sword), although tries to master it rather than becoming the servant. 

The conversion clipped off the resin blade from the hand, and replaced it with a chaos weapon from the fantasy range. It was pinned in to place with a paperclip and glue and is sturdy enough. Whilst I still need to attend to the rest of the base, I'm hoping this marine will be a pleasure to paint up. Moreover, it serves as a bridge between 30k and 40k, and a miniature that I hope I can use in either game system. For the former, the blade will simply be a power weapon. For the latter, it can be used in a chaos space marines codex I think. Whilst I am tempted to convert up a few more not-quite-chaos-marines-yet Alpha Legion in the future, this will be the only one for a little while. 

Astromancer

Although not a new release, the Lair of the Astromancer will always hold a place in my imagination. When it first came out in its modern (ish) form, it was a set that I had wanted to get, despite my focus on 40k and 30k. However when I finally got together the money to make the purchase, (and remembered about it too, to be totally fair), it had pretty much sold out locally. And then it was no longer available online. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the Lair of the Astromancer was probably one of those scenery items that I could live without.

But now, the temptation is back. Re-branded as the Warscryer Citadel, the new Lair of the Astromancer contains all of the old appeal, including the telescope dome at the top (but seriously: no astronomer extends their telescope *outside* the dome as pictures, the dome protects not only against rain, but wind buffeting as well folks! What, its run by an Astromancer? Well, I stand corrected), and the background fluff that it has been built atop a crashed comet that has been hurled from the heavens by Sigmar himself.

It is certainly a big scenery piece, and a central one at that. Yet I remain unconvinced that I would get much use out of it for the attached price tag. Such a shame, as should I win the lottery, it might be on the list of things to get!

Warhammer World: Dragon and Knight

I wanted to finish off this week with a picture that I took at Warhammer World a while back. This one was in the classics section of the exhibitions. It features an older style dragon pouncing on and combating the attentions of a knight.

Interestingly for a piece like this is the wooden mount that can be seen for the base. Show pieces like this one are somewhat rare, even in the modern era. It is really pleasing to see the effort gone to for a diorama like this. 

I like the colours on the dragon as well. At first, its not clear that a cream colour for the leathery wing sections would go so well with the reds and blacks of the dragon. But then think of the Blood Ravens chapter of the space marines for whom a similar approach works so nicely. The blue and white of the knight also work well together, albeit in a starker manner. However, this would be a very reasonable choice for an historic knight to pick as well. 

The base is nicely flocked and the overall effect is a joy to linger and stare in to. 

Warhammer World: Nostalgic Bridges

Some of the remaining photographs that I have from Warhammer World don't fit snugly in to any single category. Instead, the kind of span the bridge (literal and figuratively) between Warhammer Fantasy, Role-play, advertising, and Board games.

These two images are prime examples. The first is an undead scene (close up) of a charge across a polluted moat in to a castle like fort by undead. The second, is more of a board game style image that really appealed to me. I remember the former appearing in White Dwarf (if memory serves) way back in the day. The second is relatively new to me, but I think has its origins in Hero Quest and similar games. Can anyone comment what the second one is actually from please? I failed to jot it down, embarrassingly...

Garden of Morr Statue

A small scenery item in focus today -- the statue of Morr himself taken from the Garden of Morr set sold by Games Workshop.

This piece is very easy to put together and features a high level of detailing around it. Perhaps a surprisingly high level of detailing in a number of parts in fact. The things that strike me about the statue is the roses and leaves on the front of the column upon which the statue stands, coupled with the plethora of small skulls and other ornamentation around the base. 

The statue himself is less impressive to some extent. The cloaked figure holding a shield and a sword is a standard motif, but at least there is an over-sized egg-timer at his feet as well to indicate the passage of time and death itself. 

Painting for this piece was basic and straight forward as I wanted to capture the idea of this piece being very old, perhaps somewhat neglected as well. Hence following a black undercoat, the base coat was applied in an even grey tone. I gave several washes to the grey base coat to give a suggestion of ageing -- especially around the base and the flagstones. For the upper parts of the miniature that have been exposed to (assumed) sunlight, I applied some subtle green tones and even overt greens to give a suggestion of foliage having developed and grown on the upper reaches. Highlights were conducted in a steadily increasingly light grey colour, with attention paid to the skulls to give them a slightly different tone to the flagstones. 

The roses were a slight issue as I wanted them to feel like a recent growth or addition to the monument, rather than some random part of stone work themselves (which they certainly could be painted as). Hence I went for a somewhat striking red colour that contrasts highly with the grey and dull stonework and the green verdigris that is growing elsewhere. A few washes and highlights later, and the roses stand out very well from the rest of the structure. 

Taken together, this is both a scenery item that is striking for its new growth foliage, yet retains the dullness that suggests it has been hanging around for a very long time. I regard it as suitable for using in both fantasy and 40k board games equally well overall. 

Magewrath Skull Water Tower

A scenery experiment from me today. I wanted to use the skull tower from the Warhammer Magewrath Throne set for something a bit different from the throne tower (as I've not a clue how wizards are supposed to get up there anyway). The idea of using it for a water tower popped in to my head when I made an impulse purchase of some water-like acetate sheet (usually used in fish aquarium displays). 

After constructing the tower and painting it (white undercoat, brown wash and screaming skull highlight layering), I cut up a portion of the water sheet and glued it in to place. Around the edge, I sealed in some flock and general greenery using some superglue. From the top, it really has a kind of holographic water appearance, whilst the side-on view looks convincing too and provides a solid line of sight blocking presence. 

Skeleton

For those of you with children, have you ever taken them to Games Workshops? I decided to take my eldest daughter to one a few weeks ago as I was after a few small supplies. Whilst in there, she was like "wow Dad, can I have that! can I have that! What about that, can I have that?!?". Overexcited would be an understatement. In the end, she was so excited that I caved in and bought her some miniatures. Luckily they were cheap.

But they were not 40k. They're skeletons!  Yikes! Here's the first of them -- a Dad-daugher collaboration in the making!

My only concern really was that the parts are quite small and fiddle some (unlike, say, space marines which are quite sturdy and bulky by comparison). Other than that, I'm sure we're going to have a lot of (messy) fun painting these!

Warhammer World: Nurgle Diorama

One of the earlier areas inside Warhammer World features a number of dioramas based on Warhammer and Age of Sigmar. The main one that caught my attention was the Nurgle Diorara. Featuring an old, decaying and rusted castle, various armies of Nurgle - both daemonic and mortal - can be seen pouring out of the ageing gates and marching to war. I was very impressed by the gribbly variety of the miniatures and conversions displayed and the sheer scale of the diorama!

Autilon Skorr Conversion

One of the problems with miniatures produced and available only through official conventions is that they're rare. A corresponding issue is that when they appear on e-Bay, they are invariably incredibly expensive to purchase. 

Autilon Skorr is one such example of this type of issue.

I really like the rules associated with the miniature and wanted to run it in one of my 30k Alpha Legion army lists. So, without wanting to expend a vast amount of cash on an e-Bay purchase for the miniature, I decided to create my own.

One of the features of Autilon Skorr is the power axe. For this, I followed my terminator conversion and attached a chaos space marine terminator axe to a space marine commander chainsword arm -- the one with the angled wrist. 

For the other arm, I decided against the command rod style of implement, and went for a power dagger in an inverse grip (essentially a grey knights power weapon that has been trimmed down to a shooter length). 

Shoulder pads are the Alpha Legion specific icon and the legion centurion, whilst the torso and backpack comes from the space marine range.

Legs are extended for a true scale marine (see the green stuff in the thighs), and the helmet is a cut down chaos warriors one. Since Skorr comes with a lion-esque helm for the original miniature, I wanted one here that was suitably intimidating, and thought the chaos warrior range was not a bad idea for this … and perhaps foreshadowing the Alpha's fall to chaos (or at least, some of them at any rate -- because goodness knows how many of them are loyal, traitor, or anything in-between). 

The base topper comes from Anvil Industry for the curious. And that's about it!

At the Foot of Warhound Titan 0004232

Despite some injuries, I've recommenced the assembly of my Warhound #0004232. As recommended by the instructions, I began on one of the feet. But, being me, I wanted something a bit more than "just" a regularly posed titan. Hence I hit upon this idea that the foot should be doing something. Anything. Up in the air, ready to crush an enemy in front of it in a big stomp perhaps. Legging it along at an ungodly speed. Or something else.

After scouring the internet and various images that google and others threw at me, I decided in the end to avoid the stomping pose. Not only did I not want the target of the stomp to be a given legion, or even eldar or orks, but in the end I just wanted something that communicated the terrain primarily rather than the fight. Hence, I opted to have the titan in mid-stride, crushing down on a building.

But then, I also didn't want a particular 40k building like an administratum. I therefore looked to Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar for a bit of something different. And there, lurking in my accumulated bits, was this graveyard piece from the Garden of Morr. That decided it. It was suitably heathen looking that it would blend in with a pre-heresy campaign of compliance on a backward world, as well as being appropriate for heresy-era games.

The pose, then, is of the titan advancing, and crushing the heathen building in its stride. Brutal and almost uncaring in its own fashion, yet simultaneously communicating the sheer mass of the titan crushing down all in front of it. I sliced in to the heathen building to make sure that the feet are coming down hard on the building - crushing it in stride. The building is also at an angle to the ground, implying that it has been uprooted from the ground with the stride of the titan. 

I'm a little undecided on the other foot yet. I might go for something flat, or slightly raised. The foot on the Morr Garden is effectively the leading foot (or front foot), and given its elevation, that means that the back foot must be almost on the ground, or at best have its heel slightly elevated. Suggestions welcome on how the rear foot should be positioned!

More Gaming Tables at Warhammer World

In the post earlier today, I showed a few examples of the gaming boards available to use in the events hall of Warhammer World. In this post, I'm going to show a few further examples, just for inspiration!

Khemri might be just a memory, but in Warhammer World, the scenery lives on! I really liked this eroded temple on one of the Age of Sigmar boards that was available.

More cities of death in Warhammer 40,000 provides examples of a blasted landscape filled with arcane technology buildings.

Got to love the tall towers that are on display in both fantasy and 40k settings.

And just for variation, an large Zone Mortalis (or Space Hulk?) board available to play on as well. Awesome!

Wargames Gallery: Age of Sigmar Portals

This is a picture that I took whilst at Games Workshop Manchester, but omitted to put in the said post. It features the Age of Sigmar starting set with eight portals all in a circle on a realms of battle board. I was very impressed with all the colourful portals and the set up it had. Enjoy!

Incompleteness in Age of Sigmar?

By now, many people have had a few games of the new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. I think its fair to say that it feels very much like an incomplete game (or at the very least: AoS is just a precursor boxed set -- that's a much safer statement at least). The principle thing missing is a way to build armies that are balanced. At the moment, it read like "just agree with your opponent what to use". Of course, I do not think that this can last. Warscrolls need to come with a points value. Or at least something to say to people that there is an upper size to a unit. Imagine deploying a unit of 888 bloodletters? You can totally do that in Age of Sigmar and its only one war scroll. It seems a bit on the too-hard-to-believe side.

The second thing that is apparent is the much lower level of complexity involved in playing the game compared to its predecessor. No longer a vast rules book, but simplfied rules contained on each war scroll instead. This makes for a strong move away from the traditional game, to something entirely new for Games Workshop: the provision of rules alongside the models as they're released. And indeed: the entire back-catalogue of miniatures now have war scrolls available to download from Games Workshop, as well as even scenery for the game. This could be awesome, or it could seriously put off veteran gamers. I just don't know which way its going to go at the moment. 

My personal hope is that the warhammer line survives and prospers. But to do that, they're going to need a much smarter rulebook, a balance brought to the core game, and one that caters to the older gamers in the community, not just the younger ones who may not have played anything outside of "bring everything and we'll see what happens". 

At the moment, its just Apocalypse for fantasy and a back-catalogue of war scrolls to enable older players to keep playing the models that they have in their collection (cf. the image!). At least they have caught my interest though. And if they have my interest, then they also have many other players too.

Genuinely Excited about Age of Sigmar

The title says it all. I've been reading the leaks online (I won't link to them here, you're just as capable as I am to find them). I really like what I'm seeing.

This is a complete and utter reboot. It feels gloriously new and exciting. The doors are swinging wide open on this new play style, new rules set, and new armies.

I'm particularly intrigued by the war scrolls. I wonder how plaguebearers, bloodletters and the like are going to play?

Other tid bits that I liked (in no particular order):
* bases and base shapes don't matter (hexagonal anyone?!)
* battles take place in one of seven realms (have we been told about all of them yet? I can see fire, but nothing else?). So many modelling opportunities there!
* Mysterious terrain rules are core rules.
* Magic system seems much more simplified!

Overall, it feels just like when I originally got the old Warhammer rule book all those years ago. Something incredibly new, exciting, and probably worth pursuing!

Equally: the lower complexity level and lack of army books could lead to accusations to it being too simple a game compared to its predecessor.

Age of Sigmar and Warhammer

A mini-editorial from me today. As someone who started out by purchasing a single gobbo back in the 1980's, my connection to the Warhammer World has been many decades long - although only just longer than 40k and Dungeons and Dragons.

Like others, I've been pouring over the images doing the rounds on the internet this weekend. I know some folks are sceptical and others hostile. I'm in the camp of liking what I'm seeing. This looks like a true overhaul and complete re-boot. I think this is exactly what the setting needs. The miniatures are good to see - I like the poses (even though they're snap-fit allegedly) and they seem to be very interchangeable for 40k conversions! Plus: there's war hammers everywhere! Nice!

And it does make me wonder if Warhammer 40k needs a new direction as well -- 40k seems like its getting crowded toward the end of the millennia. Whilst 30k is doing extremely well. Perhaps we could eventually explore 41k or beyond please?

I digress.

We've been seeing the withdrawal of the old Warhammer army books and miniatures (including the dryad pictured on this article). I will miss some of the army books and certainly some of the miniatures as the parts have been extremely useful for conversions. I'm sad about that. On the other hand, I'm very optimistic for the future of this line. It could be enough for me to get involved in fantasy again.

But I wonder if something else is happening here? Are we seeing the "freeing up" of the word "warhammer" in favour of "Age of Sigmar"? Does this correlate with the re-branding of the Games Workshop high street stores as being "Warhammer" stores? I'm starting to think so. Equally, I could be very off the mark here too.

Thoughts on the Re-Boot of Warhammer / Warhammer 9th Edition

There are HUGE rumours abounding about the potential future of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I'm not going to repeat them here as you're perfectly capable of googling for them.

Firstly, I can understand why the Games Workshop team are doing this. The recent court cases surrounding Intellectual Property has demonstrated that generic Elves, Dwarves and fantasy Knights are simply not copyright-able. They're in the public domain. Hence to gain the copyright over the intellectual property, they really need to remould everything apart from iconic and recognisable units such as the warhammer daemons range.

The idea that the Warhammer world gets shattered in to lots of smaller segments is a good one. That those segments then collide together and battle ensues is also excellent (but maybe not unique, cf. Ravenloft from Dungeons and Dragons). 

But what it does allow are for ever faction to be redefined in a unique way after the end times. Several hundred years on, and isolated on their island planes / pocket dimensions, the populace is bound to change and morph in to something new. More than that though, it also allows a narrative for the previous factions from 8th edition and the bridging storyline of the End Times to also be used - they're going to be remnant planes that happened to also survive the sundering (or whatever this event will end up being called). I really like this idea as it allows the older works and armies to be kept, but newer ones to be forged. As older models are retired from sale, it'll mean a gradual shift from the old armies to newer ones, and a different business model that permits balancing of the game by dynamic releases of miniatures, and the old-timers with older armies will look much cooler. The only thing I think I'm a bit miffed about is the loss of square bases. I hope that they retain the square bases for units that rank up, and perhaps only use round ones for skirmishing units to distinguish them. But that's just a wild hope. 

Overall, despite not playing Warhammer Fantasy in a long time, I'm actually really tempted to purchase 9th edition to see what they've done to the background more than anything else. I suspect that if many other people feel the same as me, then WFB is going to be a big hit for GW in 9th edition! I know the move to a new premise will split the fans, but I'm actually behind it, and it may attract me back to Fantasy for the first time in over a decade.

[Image: Pink Warp Rift Objective]

Thunder Hammer Conversion

Many space marine armies run thunder hammers in some form or other -- the most common being on terminators armed with said hammers and storm shields, but also on character models and occasionally on squad sergeants or others. 

Given how common they can be, it is worth considering a minor conversion to make them stand out from the proverbial crowd. 

In this conversion, I've attempted to do exactly this by replacing one of the heads of a terminator thunder hammer. Firstly, I've cut carefully around the front hammer head to remove it from the body of the hammer. Once filed down, I drilled through the centre of it to provide a pin that goes from the handle through to the new head. In this case, I've chosen one of the gargoyle pieces from the chaos space marine tank sprue to be the head. In between the gargoyle and the filed down edge of the hammer, I've inserted a very old plastic shield centre from the warhammer range (which can be seen in my old bits box rummage image).  This extra "spacer" ensures that the gargoyle head looks somewhat tapered to the main shaft of the hammer, rather than simply gluing the gargoyle directly on to the shaft. 

The overall effect is one that implies something of a unique thunder hammer (perhaps even master crafted) and reminiscent of some of the analogous hammers available to the Space Wolves and other chapters / legions. 

Warhammer Dungeon Floor Plans

A bit of a blast from the past today. The images below are of the old Dungeon Floor Plans that sold along side Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer Roleplay for use in games.

As can be seen from the back cover (below), the main idea is to use these printed tiles to figure out where your miniatures are and what distance they are to critical (or otherwise) points of interest.

Essentially, they are printed card stock of dungeon corridors and rooms (e.g., a Wizard's Lair, a Spiral Staircase, A room with Beds, etc.). Indeed, this set is a combination of earlier sets that were sold separately (Dungeon Floor Plans 1, Dungeon Lairs, Caverns & Dungeon Rooms). Is is printed to a (at the time) high quality standard and an array of possible layouts is easily achieved in next to no time.

Many of the corridor sections contain squares that are the same size as the regular Warhammer miniatures, enabling distance to be accurately measured quickly and ranges to be computed easily. Moreover, in games of Fantasy Roleplay, the squares can be used as "steps" to move the miniatures along with (e.g., the Elves get to move 6 spaces per turn, but Humans only go 4 …. or at least that's how we played these kind of things when using them in conjunction with rules such as Dungeons and Dragons).

When the corridor sections are appropriately cut out (with scissors!) they can readily connect up the disparate rooms and bring a dungeon to life. That said, the contents of the pack is more aligned with Fantasy Roleplay than it is with battles. Not that battles cannot be had in the dungeons. Dwarves against Goblinoids can occur very nicely. But the narrow width of the corridors can make for intense games, perhaps akin to 40k's newer Zone Mortalis sets, or the older Space Hulk rooms. Hence I mostly have fond memories of using these card sets for games of Dungeons and Dragons rather than skirmish battles using Warhammer rules. But even today, the set remains viable and usable. I'd certainly be happy to return to using them in Roleplaying games!

Snow Ghoul (WFB Vintage)

A miniature (and paint job) from yesteryear from me today. This is a very (very) old metal ghoul from Citadel Miniatures in the Realms of Chaos / Rogue Trader era. I discovered it whilst tidying up an equally old dungeons and dragons miniature related box (which contained oddities ranging from Ral Partha models through to blue plastic Space Hulk genestealers).

I painted this blue in my youth to depict a snow- or ice ghoul. Why blue? Well, the blood in its body runs cold (obviously! lol!). 

It was also an early exercise in azimuthal lighting to some extent. 

The base coat is nothing more than ultramarine blue, with several dark blue wash layers added on top to give a bit of depth. The upper surfaces on the face and chest were then picked out in ultramarine blue, and then layered up with a mixture of electric blue. I was particularly pleased with the face on the ghoul - in spite of the pure white eyeballs. The tongue is suitably snow-covered dirt flavour, but the weapon clearly needs a bit more work to bring to a good standard.

The overall tone of the blue is pleasing to my eye even today and I remember fondly some snow based Dungeons and Dragons adventures where a group of these ghouls persistently tailed and tried to eat the PCs (repeatedly) only to be chased away and scared off by large bonfire-related hijinks and fire-based magic.

Magewrath Throne Question

On either side of the Magewrath Throne are two supporters: metallic creatures that somewhat resemble beasts. My question today is what are they? To me they kind of look like Capricorn: the ancient merging of a fish with a goat that has a constellation named after it ... but with wings.  Is that the right interpretation, or am I reading too much in to it and its just a mutant griffin with an odd tail?