Project Backlog - Part 16

Of Strange Creatures, Large and Small - Continued

Among the many creatures native to the Realms were the Blemmoths. Massive, stoneskinned and headless, their facial features rested on their bellies. Peaceful and somehow attuned to the magic of the Realms, they were prone to long periods of slumber in the groves growing closer to the Realms' Edges. There, they squatted in peaceful glades, arms wrapping the knees close to their faces, hiding them from view. To most travellers, they looked like boulders, shrubs growing out of their cracked surfaces.
It is unknown why, but their presence attracted tribes of Koboloids, diminuitive creatures with stubby horns and tough beaks. Not malevolent but capricious, they could as easily help or hinder travellers and nobody could quite understand why they did one or the other. They built their nests in the trees around the slumbering Blemmoths, leaving offerings of fruit and fresh water for them.
As Sigmar and his pantheon settled the Realms with their followers, the Blemmoths retreated deeper and deeper into their forests, slumbering for ever longer periods. The Koboloids always followed them, and both the folks of Order and Destruction largely ignored them. When the turmoil of the Age of Chaos engulfed the Realms, they were forgotten, and so they remained for the first century of the Age of Sigmar.

But during the Hour of Ruin mysterious strangers approached the Koboloids' nests. They introduced themselves as Emissaries of a Dark Lord, bringing the means to protect Koboloids and Blemmoths from the skaven hordes. All the Koboloids had to do, was feeding the meat and blood of slain enemies to the Blemmoths, and they would have raised from their slumber to protect the groves.
The Koboloids fell under their sway and hunted down any trespasser with spear and bow, piling bloody offerings around the slumbering Blemmoths. Slowly, the leaves on the shrubs covering them turned fleshy and blood red, and when the Blemmoth finally woke up they hungered for more.
They now stalk those cursed forests that have come to be known as Fellgroves, the Dark Emissaries leading both large and small creatures into ever extreme acts of slaughter and cannibalism.

So, I painted the Blemmoths in a simple slapchop job: GW Contrast paints over a 3-stage zenithal primer (dark brown, grey, pearl white), followed by a drybrush using GW Dry paints, plus a touch of Blood for the Blood God and a Moot Green wash on the runes carved on their skin.

I went green for the runes to tie the Blemmoths to the Dark Emissaries I painted years ago and which I just touched up to act as the leader of a Warcry warband.

Finally, I've replicated the Dark Emissary's black-brown-yellow scheme on the Koboloids (again a slapcho job), and the warband was done.
If I'll get to play some games, I can use them as Beasts of Chaos (Brayshaman, Bullgors, Ungors) or Skaven (Grey Seer, Ratogors, Clanrats, Gutter Runners). At a a push, I might even play them as Seraphon (Skink Starpriest, Kroxigors, Skins). We'll see...

Project Backlog - Part 15

Of Strange Creatures, Large and Small

Over the last few months, I haven't played any game or done much hobby. Let's just say real life interfered with it. Nevertheless, back in January, I rummaged through my pile of shame thinking about realising some strange creatures coming from the remote corners of the Mortal Realms. The sort of thing mentioned in the AoS lore but never seen in illustrations or models.

I spent a few good hours dry fitting bits and working out ideas based on mythological creatures from different traditions.
In the end, I settled for some large creature based on the Greek-Roman myth of the Blemmyes. These were humanoids lacking a head, with their facial features on their chest, that lurked in the wilds at the edge of the known world. The idea for them came from dry fitting old Glutton heads onto the chest cavity of Kurnoth Hunters bodies and imagining how various Ogor weapons would look onto the Kurnoth Hunters.

I started by making one model with two hand weapons. I filed down the Kurnoth Hunter neck joint, clipped away the hands and the Lamentiri from inside the chest, and then glued the Ogors bits in place. To further alter the shape of the Kurnoth Hunter, I didn't glue the shoulder pads on.

Finally, I filled all the gaps and covered the filed area with Green Stuff, followed by a texture paint made of PVA glue and dried coffee grounds.

I was really happy with it and decided to make two more, one with a great weapon, the other with hand weapon and shield.

The shield is made with an Ogor ironfist and Kurnoth Hunter shoulder pads glued all around it. You can also see them primed in a 3-stage zenithal going from dark brown to pearl white through grey.

Another idea that came up as I was dry fitting TOW Night Goblin bodies with Plague Mok heads, was that of some small, mischievious but at times helpful creature, like the Kobold from Germanic traditions.

Of these, I made four: two with bows from the Empire Militia, two with spear (Plague Monk staff with Plague Monk blade glued on top) and shield (TOW Goblin shield on Plague Monk arm).

I also clipped away the skaven snouts and replaced them with carefully shaved off Gnoblar noses, looking like hooked beaks pocking out of the cowl. Finally, to hide the skaven hears, I glued horns from the TOW Khemri Skeletons over them.

I've already painted all of the Kobold-inspired models and the test Blemmyes-inspired model, but let's not make this post too long. As soon as the other two large models are painted, I'll share them.

The Prowling Forest, Part 1

Prologue

"Now what, chief?" Barag asked, lazily picking a piece of gristle from his teeth and flinging it away.
Skargat's reply was announced by a thunderous belch followed by Cargo's rumbling laughter of appreciation.
"That Bleed thing has dried out all right. So no way back to Chamon. But there's plenty of loot and food to have in these Scarlands, don't you think?"
"Aye, capt'in!" came Cargo's reply, grog dripping from his chin. "And those orruk messing around are good sport too! What's their name? Cleavermaws and Swordfyshes, in'it? Poor sailors, though!"
"You tell me that, Cargo! Sailing never been my thing. Much more for a good treck myself. And treck we will! Have you heard of the Prowling Forest?"
"That hungry forest grown around some old human city?" asked Barag.
"That's the one! I sent the gnoblars to do a bit of exploring there. They've found a nice gorge where we can set up our larder, just on the edges of the Forest".
"And then? Who's there to hire us, Skargat?" Barag asked in disbelief.
"Nobody. The big cat turned into some kind of lizard, the sneaky orruk went back to his paymasters and the stunties' city has taken back to the sky. So we start our little Mawpath and grab what we want for ourselves".
"Freebooting, eh?" chuckled Cargo.
Laughters and burps came as a reply from both Barag and Skargat as the three ogors loudly resumed their feast.

After a bout of Open Play while waiting for the release of the second edition of Warcry, Saul and I are ready to start a new campaign. We decided to play it out of the book, each of us picking Quests and then building the story as we play game, rather than having a plot to flash out through the games like our previous ones. The only change we are making is locating our adventures in the Prowling Forest rather thn in the Gnarlwood. This will link our story to the aftermath of the last Animosity campaign.
I had tried both the Arcanites of Tzeentch and Ogor Mawtribes warbands in those Open Play games and really enjoyed the Ogor Mawtribes, so I painted a few gnoblars to have more list building options.
Here they are, the Ironforged, infamous ogor mercenaries from Chamon, now stranded in Ghur, and their gnoblar attendants.

Skargat Brainglut, the Tyrant. Heroic Trait: Resourceful

From the left: Cargo and Barag, the Maneaters

From the left: Growt, Hrothgur Bloodgulper, Marg: Gluttons with two clubs and Crusher

The Explorers, gnoblar scouts. From the left: Finga, Skreecha, Watcha

The Manbiters, gnoblar warriors. From the left: Poka, Basha, Sneeka

The Raiders, gnoblar plunderers. From the left: Burna, Loota

Free Companies of the Gilded Hand - 10

The Road to Armies on Parade, Part 1

After finishing the Void Phoenixes inspiration has dried out a bit. This was not really helping as I wanted to try Warcry but simply can't bring myself to play with unpainted models. Hence, I went back to my Orcs & Goblins army from the 8th edition Fantasy days. 3500 points and counting of old currency, all locked away and still on their square bases.
The first models to jump at me when I opened the army case were not the Black Orcs I was looking for. Rather, it was Ruglud's Armoured Orcs. As I hefted the metal (!) models I was reminded of my Free Companies of the Gilded Hand and the project to pay tribute to the Regiments of Renown from ages past. And then, inspiration struck me. What if I was to enter the new Themed Army category for Armies on Parade by recreating with my models the cover of the Dogs of War Army Book?

Ruglud's Orcs could take the place of the goblins. All that was needed was a bit of rebasing!

Since I've used red and yellow as the unifying colours for all the human regiments, I touched up the paint work on the orcs so that they looked coherent when put next to them. The same went for Skargat's Ironforged Ogors, the very first warband I assembled for Age of Sigmar and used during the Season of War.

As I was rebasing and painting them, I also cobbled together an Ardboyz warband, lead by none other than Badruk 'eadsplitta, glorious limited edition model from Games Day 2005.

He only needed a new base, while his boyz needed some touches of colour as they had been batch painted in a rather monochromatic scheme. After all, who cares for individuality when you can't see the details of ranked up models?

What I did was adding the splatters of blood on their weapons and picking up some of the armour plates in bronze to break up the dull metal I had painted so long ago.

As 10 Ardboyz makes for a decently varied Warcry roster and as there are exactly 10 names in the Core Book random name generator, the rest of the unit only got new bases and some licks of bronze. I'm not going to use them for Warcry, but who knows, I might play the odd big army Age of Sigmar game and one more unit is always handy!
The next models that will need a new coat of paint will be Gudrun's Grudgebreakers, my duardin privateers, and the halflings of the Kitchen Crew, which you can also see in the posts from the Season of War period. Then, it'll be just a matter of composing my board for Armies on Parade...