Blackstone Fortress: Dahyak Grekh

Earlier this month, after much fanfare, Games Workshop released the latest in their series of Warhammer Quest games; the ominously entitled Cursed City. Now I enjoy a co-operative game and the thought of smashing our way through shambling zombies of an evening seems like a fine thing to do round our house so naturally I picked it up and you can expect to see a few walking corpses and their heroic adversaries showing up here in due course. However this is also the month of the “Paint the Crap You Already Own” challenge being run by Ann’s Immaterium.

I’ve already painted some models for this challenge but I particularly wanted to paint something for Blackstone Fortress – Cursed City’s predecessor amongst the ranks of the Warhammer Quest games. I have an ambition to own a fully painted set of Blackstone Fortress (and all it’s expansions – or at least all the ones with original miniatures in them, I’m not too worried about completionism here). Excited though I am about Cursed City – and I intend to ride that wave of enthusiasm wherever it takes me – I don’t want to get completely distracted and leave Blackstone Fortress incomplete, especially as we’d quite like to delve back into it’s shifting corridors and finish the quest sooner or later. Time, then, to paint some of the “crap I already own” – specifically Dahyak Grekh, the Kroot tracker from the original Blackstone Fortress boxset.

Although I enjoy a detail heavy miniature I did find old Dahyak here oddly intimidating so I used the challenge as a spur to make sure I actually painted him, rather than bottling it and popping him at the back of the desk for “another day”. With him now done I’m one step closer to completing the original Blackstone Fortress set.

Blackstone Fortress: Aradia Madellan

Last night was another evening of frantic painting and, as a result, here’s another model finished for this year’s Fembruary challenge. I must admit I’m really enjoying just powering through all these unfinished miniatures, I wouldn’t – and couldn’t – want to paint at this rate all the time but it’s fun to just crack my knuckles, break out the brushes, put on some music and make a heroic headlong charge at the painting backlog.

Anyway, today’s model is Aradia Madellan, the sanctioned psyker from the Blackstone Fortress Escalation expansion (not to be confused with the unsanctioned psykers from the original game – those are very bad lads indeed and not in any way to be confused with a valiant servant of the Imperium like this lady).

With her done I’m not only one step closer to completing the all the models for the game (although I’ve still got a fair way to go on that front) but I’ve also, very fittingly for Fembruary, completed all the female explorers. In fact we could now, and why wouldn’t we, take an all female team in search of xenotech in the weird, shifting corridors of the Blackstone Fortress.

Not only that but I’ve also painted all five characters from the Escalation expansion, so that’s another milestone achieved. At some point I should really get around to painting all of the characters from the original game as well…

Is there more painting planned for this evening? Damn right there is!

Blackstone Fortress: Amallyn Shadowguide

Despite being a painter of Games Workshop miniatures for many a long year, and despite the fact that they’re one of the most iconic of the 41st Millennium’s inhabitants, I’ve never actually painted a single Eldar. Time to balance the books, at least a little, in favour of the pointy-eared ones.

Today’s subject is none other than Amallyn Shadowguide, the Eldar ranger from the original Blackstone Fortress and the kind of arse-kicking woman who make a perfect candidate for Fembruary. Although she was one of the first Blackstone Fortress miniatures I started painting when I got the set for some reason she fell by the wayside and sat around part-painted ever since (regular readers will know that this is an all too familiar story!). 

Amallyn’s backstory has her hailing from the craftworld of Beil-Tan but I’ve never really found their colour scheme that appealing – for those unfamiliar with it, it’s a very stark white and green – so I tweaked it and toned it down a little.

I do have a few more Eldar which were given to me by a mate when he was clearing out his old collection, and which are currently lurking, either in the webway or in a box under the bed, waiting to spring out as soon as this Mon-Keigh makes some time to work on them.

Blackstone Fortress: Daedalosus

Working on the servitor X-101 got me thinking about the sons of Holy Mars once again, and the fact that I haven’t painted anything for the glorious birthworld of the Mechanicum since back in April. Despite how much I know inside I love tech-priests and their ilk I still seem to have a bit of a mental block when it comes to actually painting them. Still, whilst I’ve got Blackstone Fortress on the brain I can always kill two (servo-)birds with one (radioactive!) stone and paint Daedalosus, the wandering tech-adept who can be taken as part of the band of adventurers venturing into the fortress.

I know I’ve slowed down a bit on getting Blackstone Fortress painted since I completed the original boxset, although this last week has done a little bit towards setting that right. We’ve got out of the habit of playing it since we discovered Warcry – although I paint plenty of other things that never see a gaming table so I don’t really see why that should make any difference. Still I would like to get the finger out and get everything else painted for it (especially once the wintery weather puts me off from being outdoors more than I strictly need to!). I’m still in two minds about buying the final expansion, Ascension. On the one hand the new Guardian Drones look amazing, we’ve enjoyed the game and it makes sense to complete the collection and finish the adventure. On the other hand the price feels a little bit like they’re taking the piss – safe in the knowledge that lots of people have been hooked by previous expansions Games Workshop are charging a bit more than I, without the box open in front of me to take a proper look at its contents, feels it really deserves. I may yet save up for it but it’s not the only thing GW are trying to tempt me into buying right now. I’ll think about it…

Blackstone Fortress: Servitor X-101

As promised the explorers risking life and limb in the darkness of the Blackstone Fortress can now be joined by the servitor X-101. Of course I won’t let the occasion pass to complain that GW really ought to provide us with some more servitor models, there are few things as evocative of the 41st Millennium and the few existing miniatures for them are hellishly old. Every Imperial faction could use a few servitors and gangs of corrupted, malfunction servitors would be a wonderful addition to Necromunda.

All in all he was remarkably quick and straightforward to paint and so I’m feeling enthused about tackling some more Blackstone Fortress models, perhaps finishing off the last few heroes from the original game or turning my attention to some of the expansions.

Blackstone Fortress: Nayam Shai Murad

A few days ago I asked my partner what I ought to paint next to add to our irregular games of Blackstone Fortress, a game we’re likely to break out more often now the winter nights are drawing in and Covid-induced lockdown is once again wrapping its loving arms around the nation. The answer, emphatically, was the rogue trader Nayam Shai Murad, so here we have her –  ready to join the slowly growing collection of heroes we can choose for our games.

I’ve got a bit of a buzz for painting Blackstone Fortress at the moment so I’ve put the servitor X-101 onto the desk, he looks fairly straightforward so I’ll try to get him finished up shortly.

Blackstone Fortress: Traitor Commissar

Usually at this time of year I’m outside so long as there’s light in the sky (and often more than that) but with plague running rampant the world over, staying in and painting miniatures is the only meaningful thing I can do to fight back, so I’ve joined the ranks of those raising a middle finger to Grandfather Nurgle and locked myself indoors. With the world in lockdown I’ve been looking for things to keep me occupied and my eye fell once again on Blackstone Fortress. A while back I painted the renegade ogryn so I decided that my next target should be the traitor commissar, as between the two of them they open up the opportunity for us to tackle the Traitor Command expansion.

The first traitor guard model, perhaps even the first Blackstone fortress model, that I didn’t really like at first glance was the traitor commissar. His head looked a bit too large and that combined with his bolt pistol (always distinctly chunky on a human scale model) and power fist (again almost by definition outsized in comparison with the model wearing it) and his proportions start to look like they’re all over the place. For those readers unfamiliar with the stock model here’s a quick look at the studio version.

A very careful head swap later however, involving a very fiddly cut across the miniatures neck, and I was considerably happier. Rather than fight the odd proportions I tried to play up to them, creating the impression of a creature warped by chaos. Perhaps he’s no longer truly human, or perhaps he never was to begin with, looting the commissar’s coat he wears from a battlefield or casting off the glamour he wore to infiltrate the highest echelons of imperial command, and leading his regiment on a capering daemon dance into damnation. Alternatively perhaps he was simply lured into the embrace of the dark gods by the same strengths and weaknesses that corrupt all people. Commissars may be fiercely loyal, with absolute dedication to the Imperium stamped into the meat of their brains from a young age, but they are not entirely incorruptible. Even Primarchs fell.

Finding myself with more time than usual on my hands I took the opportunity to dig out his big buddy to accompany him.

And here we have him, leading his troops into battle against the lackeys of the Corpse-Emperor.

In the 41st Millennium there are few baseline humans as “mighty” as a commissar so naturally I’ll be counting him towards the March Might and Magic challenge being run by Ann’s Immaterium. What’s more, whilst the lockdown continues we might even find the time to get some games in and see him unleashed against the unfortunate explorers delving into the depths of the Fortress. Speaking of games I’m more keen than even to try out Warcry (especially after seeing the Scions of the Flame revealed at the weekend – those do look rather nice!) so I’ll be focusing on getting the Iron Golems wrapped up ASAP.

Blackstone Fortress: Traitor Guard – Part 3

The march of the Blackstone Fortress traitor guard reaches its long awaited conclusion as the last of the baddies from the core box are finished. Last week I finished the first four of them, now the final three come tramping in to join them. Blackstone Fortress has been a project which has dominated 2019 for me so I was hoping to get them to this stage before the New Year. I’ve still got various models from the expansions and a number of alternative heroes to paint, but if we want to play a game we’ve now got everything we need without having to fall back on unpainted models or proxies. In the meantime however here’s the final two renegade soldiers…

… and here’s their former sergeant, who now fancies himself as a (minor) champion of the Dark Gods!

Here’s the whole second squad, ready to spring out of the shadows if any explorers wander their way.

And, by way of a reminder, here’s the first squad which I completed last month.

Something I really like about these models is the ramshackle, mismatched look of them. Clearly, at one point in the past, they all wore a uniform, but as their decent into madness and treachery has proceeded they’ve found themselves scavenging more and more, patching up any gaps with whatever they can loot from the battlefield and hammering spikes to themselves in echo of their Chaos Marine masters. However, although each model in the squad is very much an individual the set contains two identical sets, without much in the way of wiggle-room to personalise them. However I really wanted to avoid ending up with both squads looking essentially the same so as far as possible I’ve tried to tweak each member of the second squad so that I ended up with one set built as per the instructions (because they are wonderful models after all) and one set converted. This wasn’t always possible, for some the paintjob alone had to do the work of differentiating them, but by tweaking enough of them I was able to create two fairly disparate looking bands of renegades. Here’s a set of comparison photos showing each pair, with the original  – built out of the box as it were – on the right and the second version on the left.

Finally, here’s both squads, ready for action and starting to look like the beginning of a proper traitor guard army. At some stage I’d like to go back to my old traitor guard collection, do some tweaking and tidying up were required, and roll the whole lot into a horde of mortal scum to accompany my traitor marines.

In the meantime however I’ve now painted all the baddies from the original Blackstone Fortress (plus the Ogryn from Traitor Command) so I’ll allow myself a quick pat on the back!

In the New Year I’ll aim to crack on with the rest of the explorers, and of course with the various additional monsters, renegades, cultists and so-on which lurk in the corridors of the fortress. For now however I’m happy to call this a major milestone completed.

Blackstone Fortress: Traitor Guard – Part 2

The march of the traitor guard continues apace. I’ve almost completed all the baddies from the Blackstone Fortress box (not including the expansions) so my current focus is rounding out the final squad of traitor guard. The box contains two duplicate sets of guardsmen but as far as possible I’ve tried to make each one unique, rather than have too many sets of identical twins. These aren’t the easiest models to convert however so in a lot of cases the paintjob ended up taking the strain. When I’ve finished the squad I’ll try to show all the pairs so you can compare and decide for yourself how well I’ve managed. In the meantime here’s the first four members of the second squad.

Only three more to go and the core of the Blackstone Fortress project will be done – all being well I’d like to get them finished before Christmas.

Blackstone Fortress: Traitor Guard – Part 1

Having painted up most of the baddies from the Blackstone Fortress, and enough of the heroes for a crew of adventurers, my attention has turned to the traitor guardsmen who make up a large part of the Chaos forces in the game. Until now we’ve been reliant on raiding my existing collection of traitor guard to represent these turncoats but the models from the Blackstone Fortress set really are impressive and I’ve been looking forward to getting to work on them properly. Each squad contains seven guardsmen and, with three already painted and shown previously, I decided to start by tackling four more to round out the first group.

First up, two guardsmen armed with the ubiquitous lasgun.

Of course, when you really need to show that you mean business, and the dark gods are watching but need some light to see by, you can’t go wrong with a flamer.

Lastly we have the squad’s champion, this sergeant who has embraced his new creed with dark fervour.

And there we have it, a whole squad ready for action and another step closer to getting the original Blackstone Fortress boxset completed.

Working on these I’m struck, once again, by the degree to which they outshine the old loyalist Cadians. Looking at them, and the gorgeous new Sisters of Battle range, we can only hope that some new regiments will be emerging to fight in the Emperor’s name in the near-ish future. Of course, I’m also still hoping for a full lost-and-the-damned/traitor guard range at some stage too.