Khainite Shadowstalkers – Part 1

Most of the warbands which have been made specifically for Warcry are made up of various sorts of barbarians who like to spend their days beating seven shades of shit out of each other for the glory of the Chaos gods. Most, but not quite all. Alongside these violent and generally underdressed loons we have the Khainite Shadowstalkers, elves who serve Morathi the Shadow Queen as spies and assassins. Branded with the magical shademark they can pass almost any barrier, and slip with ease into the wartorn Eightpoints to do a bit of murdering on their queen’s behalf.

I’ve been fancying the idea of painting up a warband of these shady characters lately, and have been experimenting with ways of creating the effect of shadows on their robes and cloaks. These two were painted very much as an experiment but I’m pleased with how they’ve turned out so expect to see their colleagues emerging from the gloom in the near(-ish!) future.

This doesn’t mean I’ve stopped working on my Spire Tyrants of course – as regular readers will know by now I can’t have too many Warcry warbands!

Spire Tyrants – Part 2 (Movember)

Time to add another model to my Spire Tyrants warband, this time in the form of a very angry, chaos worshipping dwarven gladiator.

This little dude glories in the title of “frenzied rager”. Note; that’s “Rager” not to be confused with “Roger”, the man who’s hosting a Mo’vember painting challenge at Rantings From Under The Wargames Table (and who may or may not be frenzied – you’d have to ask him yourself).

Movember is an annual event in which men grow (often terrible) moustaches during the month of November to raise awareness of men’s health issues. I’ve never joined in until now because my beard is just excellent I’ll have you know and I’m not shaving it off just to grow it again. Plus people who knew me before I grew it might start to recognise me and that’ll never do. However, if I can show some support to my brothers the world over by painting some hairy miniatures then I certainly will and thanks to Roger coming up with a miniatures themed spin on the event now I can. I’ve got a few more dwarves I’d like to tackle before the month is out, so watch this face!

Spire Tyrants – Part 1

Despite how much I like the various chaos warbands made specifically for Warcry I seem to have ended up painting lots of warbands from other factions instead. I don’t see any reason to stop doing that of course but I do intend to tackle a few of what I still think of as the “core warbands” as well. I even got as far as assembling the gladiators of the Spire Tyrants but never got any further until I spotted this Headtaker the other day. He was the first model I worked on for the warband but for some reason progress stalled when he was within about half-an-hour of completion and for several months he just sat there until I picked him up again and finished him at last.

As previously mentioned I intend to use Orktober to encourage myself to paint a load of greenskins so the rest of the gladiators may end up waiting a little longer but I’ll aim to crack on with them soonish.

Iron Golem – Part 5

With the winter nights drawing in I’m taking advantage of spending more time indoors and making a concerted effort to finish some of the backlog of partly painted miniatures which are currently cluttering up the painting desk. After all, whilst a well painted, or even just competently painted collection is a sight to behold displayed on the shelf or marching across the gaming table, no-one has ever stopped to admire a load of miniatures with the base coats half-done. 

Today it’s the turn of the Signifer from my Iron Golem warband. As an optional extra that wasn’t included in my initial warband, he was somewhat left behind when I painted up the rest of them back in the spring.

The kit provides enough parts to build either a Signifer or a Prefector and, after considerable thought, I decided in the end to build the Prefector to begin with. However it was a close run thing and I was still keen to add the Signifer at some stage. Rather than buy a whole other box I hunted down the model individually, by which time the rest of the warband was almost finished.  The Signifer was built by the time I finished the warband but he’s lingered unfinished ever since. Time to do something about that! 

Here he is next to his alternative build, the Prefector.

And of course here’s the entire warband, completed at last. 

For the moment I don’t plan to add anything else to this particular warband although I do enjoy unleashing them in the Bloodwind Spoil so who knows? In the meantime though there are plenty of other warbands vying for my attention!

Iron Golem – Part 4

Time to tackle the final two members of the current Iron Golem gang; the Drillmaster and Prefector. I’ve also managed to rustle up a Signifer (more on him below) but we’ll need to wait to see him painted. The other two however are complete, and with that the warband is ready to take on the violent world of the Bloodwind Spoil.

First up, the Drillmaster. If I can offer a criticism of Warcry it’s the lack of background fiction for the individuals that make up the each warband. I can see that the Iron Legionaries are the rank and file, the professional soldiers which guard the artisans (if such a word can be used) that make up the rest of the gang. The Armator is clearly a dwarf, and therefore most likely a skilled metalworker who brings his talents to the rest of the group as they ply their trade as smiths. The Breacher is an Ogre that the others have “convinced” to join them, before welding hammers to his hands and pointing him at the enemy. So far so good. But what about the Drillmaster? Is she the commander of the Iron Legionaries, fulfilling a role similar to a sergeant perhaps? Does she have some kind of specialist function away from the battlefield that I’ve yet to fathom? Is she a dab hand at dentistry? These are the aspects I’d love to know just a little more about but alas, so far, Warcry has tended to skim over them, and that’s a real pity.

Again, it’s not immediately obvious what the Prefector’s role is, but I presume they’re some kind of champion, acting as a second in command to the Dominar. Whatever his job is for my money he’s the coolest looking model in the warband, packed with attitude from top to toe.

The alternative build to the Prefector is the Signifer. Usually you can only get one or the other from a set but I scrounged around online and managed to nab myself a second one. Although I’ve built him I suspect it’ll be a while before I manage to get him painted.

In the meantime however here’s the whole warband as they stand currently.

We even managed to get a game in over the weekend, which proved to be great fun. The Untamed Beasts, commanded by my partner, romped home to victory (turns out paying attention to the rules and remembering the objectives pays dividends, although it would have been handy if a run of bad dice rolls hadn’t seen my Ogre Breacher waving his fists ineffectually at all and sundry). Of course in the cut and thrust of high-stakes combat we only remembered to take one picture!

As for what comes next I really want to get the rest of the Warcry terrain painted up, and then probably start another warband knowing me, and naturally I’m feeling the pull of Necromunda as strongly as ever, and I want to get back to my Blackstone Fortress heroes, and a dozen or so other projects as well. Watch this space!

Iron Golem – Part 3

Back to the Iron Golem and it’s hammer time! With the Untamed Beasts in the bag it’s time to turn my attention back to their adversaries. Brutal, unwavering and fiercely disciplined they may be but they still need someone to keep them in line. Enter the warband’s leader; the Dominar.

With him done, an increasing amount of terrain to play on and his rivals already spoiling for a fight I reckon I’m well on the way to getting the warband completed – indeed just the Drillmaster and Prefector are needed for my first thousand point warband, so I’ll aim to get that done soon and then break with tradition and actually roll some dice.

Untamed Beasts – Part 5

After the most recent additions the Untamed Beasts were almost complete, with only their leader – the fearsome Hearteater – needed to complete the set. Life is keeping me busy at the moment but I didn’t want to stall so close to the final hurdle so I knuckled down and got him finished, ready to lead his followers on a hunt into the wilds of the Bloodwind Spoil.

And with that the Untamed Beasts are, if not tamed, then at least fully painted. Here’s the finished warband posing for their traditional group-shot.

Being undoubtedly mighty, if not particularly magical, he’ll be my contribution to the March Might and Magic challenge being run this month by Ann’s Immaterium. Full props to the challenge as without it I might easily have let this slip as work and life pressures continue to pile up. It’s still early in the month so perhaps – and I make no promises here – I’ll find the time to tackle someone equally mighty from the Iron Golem side of things, although it may be that the best I can manage is to bash through some more terrain. Watch this space!

Untamed Beasts – Part 4

What would the Untamed Beasts be without a beast (allegedly entirely undomesticated) prowling at their heels? Having distracted myself long enough with the Iron Golems it’s time to focus on getting the Beasts wrapped up, starting with the Rocktusk Prowler (or Goat Lion Thing as its often known).

Of course, even a beast wants someone to talk to. Enter the Beastspeaker, wearing a rather fetching Rocktusk Prowler skull helm. Honestly I found her quite tricky to paint and I’m not entirely happy with how she turned out, but she’s done and on the whole I’m satisfied with that.

Alas, what with things being busy in so-called “real life” at the moment, I’ve not managed to get quite as much painted for Fembruary as I might have hoped. That said I’ve between this lady and the Iron Legionary I showed previously (an Iron Maiden perhaps?) I’ve managed a least a couple of female miniatures, and without diverting my focus from Warcry.

With these two done the Beasts are now almost complete, there’s just the savage Heart-eater left to paint so I’ll get him done ASAP then crack on with more terrain and the rest of the Iron Golems.

Iron Golem – Part 2

Of course, angry dwarves and hulking ogres are all very well but somebody still has to do all the legwork, and that means if my Iron Golem warband are going to carve out a reputation in the brutal hinterlands of the Bloodwind Spoil I’ll need a few Iron Legionaries to fill out the ranks.

I love the look of the big, heavy shields carried by the Legionaries, they look grim, brutal and unyielding. Imagine lugging that around all day!

For the third one however I decided to throw in a bola, as opposed to the other option on the kit – a second hammer, to give the group a bit of range and visual dynamism.

Grouped together I think they look even more uncompromising and forbidding – but then, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned on many occasions, I’m a sucker for a phalanx! Come home with your shield or on it…

With these done I just have three more Iron Golem to tackle, whilst the Untamed Beasts are likewise close to completion, so I’ll be aiming to keep my focus on Warcry for the next few weeks and get everything wrapped up.

Iron Golem – Part 1

With work well underway on the Untamed Beasts it’s time to turn my attention to their adversaries, those enthusiastic metal fans the Iron Golem. After all, if we’re going to be able to play some Warcry then we’ll need at least two different warbands – an Orc may be willing to beat up himself if no other adversaries present themselves but a warrior of Chaos will struggle to impress the gods if that’s all they can manage.

A few months ago I painted the Chaos Dwarf Armator so with the short angry man done I turned my attention to the big angry man instead, that most muscular of an already hench warband, the Ogre Breacher.

Originally I was wondering about trying to get my hands on another to kitbash into a Goliath ‘zerker, although since there is now an official model (flawed but fixable in my opinion) that’ll no longer be necessary. However just in case anyone is thinking of using the Breacher for something in the Underhive, here’s a size comparison anyway.

And here he is next to his little buddy.

Anyway, that’s the long and short of it – now I just need to tackle the rest!