Warmaster: Chaos Marauder Infantry

  Finally, after sitting on my work bench or in a box for about two years, I got around to finishing a single unit of Chaos Marauder infantry!

 These are very detailed units and I had a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around painting them.  Sometimes with the really detailed GW Warmaster sculpts it feels like you're painting 28mm forces and not 10mm forces!

  My previous Chaos forces are so covered in thick armour that I never needed to paint a flesh tone.  For these ones, however, I used the new GW Bugman's Glow as a base flesh tone, then after the Agrax Earthshade wash, the old Dwarf Flesh and finally Kislev Flesh to finish it off.

  I neglected to add a design to the banner as... I forgot.  Also it is so busy with the chains and skulls I don't think I could add much detail to it!

  I am very proud of the results.  I was hoping to paint two more units this month but I was so sick of the sight of them that I veered off course to start painting my third and final Chaos Chariot unit instead!

Warmaster: Chaos Marauder Horde

Some people seem able to have a hundred models on their table at the same time, and diligently batch paint the whole lot.

Seeking to imitate that productivity, I have attempted to do the same with my Warmaster, but have met with limited success.

10mm painting is so fiddly that without the "hit" of seeing a unit finished, you feel like everything you're doing is stretching out forever when you try to paint multiple units.  At least, that's my feeling of it right now.

In any case, here are 3 finished Chaos Marauder Horsemen units, which I believe have been sat on or near my table for a good two years. :-X

Warmaster: Chaos Chariots and High Elf Eagles

Latest efforts!

My second Chaos Chariot unit, finally figured out the way to put the riders without them looking drunk and falling atop one another.

I also finished a second High Elf Giant Eagle unit.  For this one I tried to raise the central figure up by mounting it on the plastic lion head ruin piece you get with the Warhammer 28mm White Lions set.  Didn't quite work but at least it still fits in the little figure boxes I have!

I painted them up to look like Harris Hawks based on a pleasant experience I had with birds of prey at a small centre near where I live:

http://theancienttrack.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/hawk-walk-feathers-fur.html

Modelling: Vallejo Basing

I am often asked how I do the bases for my models at all scales.

When I first started getting into modelling and gaming, I made a lot of mistakes.  My first basing attempts were good old PVA glue and Games Workshop sand, with green stuff used to smooth out bumpy metal bases glued to plastic stands.

This was fine but didn't have much variation, and was quite hard to manage on smaller scale areas, with "bald" parts of the base being a problem, or sand glueing to detailed parts of models, needing careful going over with a knife to shift.

I used this as the basis of my first models for 40k, Infinity and Epic, before stumbling on the Vallejo basing materials.

Vallejo make several different colours / consistencies of this product, but generally speaking you should think of it as ground pumice/rock suspended in a wet resinous material.  It's a bit like what people have made for themselves using polyfilla and railway ballast for years in the modelling world.

It was this article from DakkaDakka that made me really want to give them a go:

Vallejo Pumice Comparison

I took a couple of pictures of what the material looks like wet on the bases of my models.  Above you can see some Infinity 40mm bases.  I glued some plastic sprue to act as ruins/girders as they are such large bases and need "filling" to please the eye.

Then I took Grey Pumice, which is my favourite material due to the thick, sculptable texture, and used a Games Workshop plastic Texture spreader to ladle it out and spread it evenly over the bases.

It's a bit tricky to tell how it's going to dry, so making deliberate peaks and troughs is not very intuitive.  However, it works much better than any sand or grit on PVA in terms of being able to shore it up to chunky based models, making a smooth transition between the plastic base and where the model is glued, making it look more natural.

The stuff is so thick that you can actually drop little plastic, resin or stone basing parts on top of it, give them a little tap so that they are buried in it and leave them to dry.  I use bits of slate to give the surface some variety, and here I've used a couple of Warhammer 40k bits like grenades or ammo clips just to add some interest.

It takes a while to dry, so I usually pop them in the airing cupboard overnight.  If you want to do something really thick, you can wait until it dries then put another layer on top, but once you get the hang of it, you probably won't need to do that on normal bases.

I have used it on my SAGA, EPIC, Infinity, Warmaster, my terrain, and I'm really glad I did!

Warmaster: Chaos Reinforcements!

At last!  A unit I bought two years ago sees the light of day, and the business end of a paintbrush!

Chaos chariots are really a "no-brainer" in a Warmaster Chaos list.  For only 5 points more than Marauder Horsemen they get a plus 1 bonus in attacks per stan; the same as Monster unit types, and a lot cheaper than a magic item that accomplishes the same feat.

At first I thought it was surprising that I didn't see more of them, even before The Great Dying of 2013, when official production by Games Workshop ceased.

Then I tried glueing and painting the bleeding things!

I have never had so much trouble with a warped piece of metal.  The chariot space is barely big enough to include both riders, who have such tiny bases they are near impossible to keep upright.  The chassis is warped and the heights of the horses are off so that it needs a firm hand and lots of superglue to ensure it doesn't look like it's hovering in mid air or veering drunkenly off to one side.

They ideally need to be painted separately then glued together, otherwise your paintbrush will find it impossible to get to the nooks and crannies on the horse army and chariot faceplate.

All that said, they are essential, so I'm glad I've painted one.  Have another one half way through painting, and one in pieces which will be a project for later.

In the meantime, I finished off my third Dragon Ogre unit!  Now, Dragon Ogres are 250 points each, and exist alongside other expensive units like Chaos Knights (200 points) and Chaos Warriors (150 points).  The fact is that I think I won't ever use these as they are in a normal game, so my idea is that the 3 units I've painted will be proxies for Chaos Chariots.

In a 2000 point list, the maximum amount of Chaos Chariots I am allowed is 6 units.  If I have 3 official ones and 3 Dragon Ogre ones, that seems like the most efficient use of the models I have, as Chaos Chariots are pretty rare to find at decent prices, much like Chaos Marauder Horsemen.

Warmaster: High Elf Spearmen 2

Hurrah!

Another Warmaster unit finished, this time my 2nd Spearmen unit.

I'm still hand painting the shields, but a star is a lot less work than the calligraphy style of an Elven Rune. 

The one on the banner is a lot easier to do as there's enough space to be forgiving to mistakes.  According to the Warhammer: Uniforms & Heraldry of the High Elves, the rune is Edra, which stands for "Laughter, the cruelty of Fate".  This feels appropriate considering my dice rolls...

Warmaster: Chaos Command

I have been using this blog mostly to post recently finished things, but that is never as often as I'd like

I thought that I'd start posting things that I've finished over the past year or two for Warmaster, as I am very proud of what I have accomplished so far.

Most Warmaster armies have about 1 Hero and 1 Wizard per 1000 points, or a near equivalent.  My dream for Warmaster has been to have 2000 point armies for as many factions as possible, so you can see, just like the High Elves, two Wizards and two Hero stands!

The Chaos command blister has some wonderful models in.  There's a minotaur or demon like figure bursting out of the ground as though he is being summoned, but it's very low to the base and I couldn't figure out how to make it look good so I've put that one on ice.  There's also a beautiful gibbet figure, which is very grim, but my idea for that was to use it as an Empire town or Vampire Count graveyard scenic piece.

Warmaster: High Elf Command, Heroes & Mages

After a long time ignoring my poor High Elves, they finally have a command group for 2000 points to match my Chaos!

Two mages and two Hero stands.  My General is represented by the Dragon stand I completed a while back, because even if he's not riding a Dragon in the rules, I refuse to allow my General to be anything less than the most impressive model on the battlfield!

These Hero stands were inspired by one of the lovely fiction/"fluff" stories in the original Warmaster rulebook.  In this story, a commanding officer and his cohorts see from a distance a comrade being chased down and slain by enemy forces.  Before this scout dies, he shoots an arrow directly at the feet of the officer, wrapped with an important message that could change the tide of the battle.

The idea of the High Elves being such exceptional shots that they could use bows and arrows to telegraph each other messages seemed to me too good to pass up.

On each Hero stand you can see the officer listening to their scribe reading out a scroll (or taking dictation, maybe?) as the archer prepares to fire the message to their peers down the line.  The archers were a spare normal archer strip I got with odds and ends on eBay.  I clipped it in half and trimmed the base to fit it on here.  The Hero figures and scribes are normal figures found in the original Warmaster High Elf command blister.

Warmaster: First steps with Dark Elves

The kin of Malekith arise!

I found myself burnt out trying to polish off some High Elves, so decided the most logical course of action was to START A NEW ARMY.

I've gone with some unusual paint scheme ideas for my Dark Elves.  For the basing it's pale grey with snow rather than blue grey with grass that my High Elves have.  For the main troops it's pale gold and a range of blue-greens.

The first finished units are a Hydra and a Bolt Thrower, but I won't add the snow until I have several ready to be varnished and polished off all at once.

The hydra was a real pig of a model to put together and needed artistic license with mold lines and green stuff.  Finally though, I think it looks good enough to put on a battlefield.

I finished the base of the Manticore before anything else.  It is meant to come on a single moulded 40mm by 20mm base with the rock and some detritus as standard.  I like my Generals to be on a 40mm round and a bit more dramatic, however, so I trimmed it to fit, then used High Elf spares to make it look like he was triumphant over his goody two shoes brethren!

The part on the right is a High Elf hero on a horse I had spare, the one on the left is a High Elf Chariot archer I had spare.

This bolt thrower was the test bed for my colour scheme.  Whilst the old GW paint pots have awful lids that drive me crazy and waste a lot of paint inside the rim - I have still been buying a few of the more unique ones to try out and fill gaps in my collection.

The new Retributor Armour and Liberator Gold are expensive at £3.50 each, bust boast a very high pigment level which means that a single layer seems to work even over a black undercoat.  Compared with more watery metallic offerings from the earlier ranges these really do shine even in small quantities.

For the greens I've got Incubus Darkness as a basecoat and I am really pleased with it.  It is very matt, not glossy or too vivid like the Orkhide base colours.  Then I've had Kabalite Green and Sybarite Green to play with.  The latter is too bright so I've used Vallejo's Jade Green as the brightest highlight so far.

Warhammer Art: Harry the Hammer

I was at a friend's house as he hosted an Oldhammer weekend, and I was enthralled with the old Warhammer sourcebooks; Realm of Chaos and Slaves to Darkness.  I'd also come across a 25th anniversary of Warhammer piece of artwork by John Blance of "Harry the Hammer".

Harry was the original Chaos Warrior on the front cover of the 1st edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and has had a couple of models made in the time since which follow the archetypical Chaos Warrior formula.

I thought I'd have a go at something nicely embellished and covered in skulls so I cracked out the sketchbook as my friends played 3rd edition WFB!