Warhammer Forge - Monstrous Arcanum

Warhammer Forge's Monstrous Arcanum is out on the 10th of April. I've been looking forward to this book for some time, and there are 32 new monsters in here. It's a 113 page, full-colour hardback book, and the images of the inside look every bit as sumptuous as Tamurkhan, so I'll be snagging a copy as soon as possible. The new fimir warriors are in there too, I'll be interested to see if their rules have altered much from the experimental rules already published.

The one paragraph that has me very interested is this:

These are not limited to just Storm of Magic games, however, as the book contains nine scenarios and special rules to allow these deadly creatures to be fielded in regular Warhammer battles, and a helpful appendix chart to allow you to theme your monsters to your army. 

I'm super curious about how these scenarios and rules will work. Will they be sound enough to be used in tournaments? I hope so (but doubt it). It's very encouraging that all this new content pouring out of Warhammer Forge, it makes for a more varied and interesting game.

The pre-order page is here.

The Empire - New Models & Book in April

I'm a little behind the curve here, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in anyway. I've not seen much in the way of rules yet, so this post is mostly concerned with the models themselves. It does seem the Empire is getting some long-awaited models (The War Altar) and some new hotness as well.

The Imperial Griffon. Is it just me or does it's head look comically tiny? To me, it's almost a great model, but seems a bit too big, yet with a very out of proportion head. You can hardly see the rider. It looks like there's plenty of options, including other really small heads, and even a double-headed version with even smaller heads.

 

The War Altar looks good, I like the little lectern idea, but the other options, the celestial thingamy and the luminark of Hysh, aaahhh...hmm. The luminark, from one picture, looks a little bit ridiculous. Still, I'll wait till I see it in the flesh to make final judgement.

The demigryph now, I love these. Crazy creatures, but they fit in really well into the Empire army I think, and a monstrous cavalry option? I'll bet Empire players will love that, depending on stats and points, of course. A great new addition.

The finecast selection looks good, the witch hunter in particular, and the cover of the book is a marked improvement on the vampire counts one. No new infantry though, I thought we might see pikemen, but overall, I'm looking forward to seeing the new list and playing against it, small headed griffon and all.

The Last Chancers Invitational

Last weekend myself and four members of my club, The B*stards of B*stardCon fame made the journey down to Wicklow to play some friendly games of warhammer with the TLC - The Last Chancers, at The Hobby Shack. A big thanks must be given to Nigel for organising the TLC end, and to Ian who let us take over his shop all day. Also to all the TLC players who were a sterling bunch of gentlemen. Also, Elliot of the TLC was kind enough to bring treats of epic proportions (the brownies...) courtesy of his better half.

Foam cases disgorge their hosts.

It's safe to say now that all kinds of fun was had would be a reasonable statement. We had two rounds lined up using the King of the Gnoblars rules pack and the mood was relaxed in the extreme. The morning session was:

(TB) Paul C's Warriors of Chaos vs (TLC)Dave L's Spider themed goblins. (TB win)
(TB) Dave S's Chaos Dwarves vs (TLC) Paul Q's Bretonnians. (TLC win)
(TB) John's Lizards vs (TLC) Nigel's Warriors of Chaos (TLC win)
(TB) Tom's Dwarves vs (TLC) Eliiot's Wood Elves (TB win)
(TB) Craig's Dwarves vs (TLC) Ian's Ogres (TB win)
(TB - TLC turncoat) Dave H's (TLC) Dark Elves vs Lloyd's High Elves (TLC win)

I won't be going into an exhaustive reports, but just he highlights as I recall them. Paul C and Dave L's game was by far the prettiest, with a gloriously converted goblin army. Giant spiders with howdahs as chariots, featuring bait goblins hanging from the howdah as movement incentives. All manner of rickety spider driven goblin vehicles, like a pump wagon on a spring, a battery operated fanatic that actually spun(!) and all sorts of manic and genius conversions. To my shame I have no pictures. (Dave L also presented me, awesomely, with a pile of savage orc sprues which contain some very useful bits for my next fimm unit.)

Yep. Double hellcannon.

Paul Q gave me a good hiding (curse my filthy scale 4 list) with his brets, but my first outing with the new chaos dwarves was very educational. Love that K'daai destroyer. LOVE those hobgoblin bowmen. LOVE those shriekers. Not so crazy about the magma cannon.

I didn't see much of Nigel and John's game, but it was a 20-0, the most tragic event I recall being a purple sun cast by John which about turned and wiped out a hefty chunk of his own army. Again, Tom and Elliot's game passed without much chance to see it, but the elves were running for the hills by turn six. Finally, The book of Hoeth and mindrazor did for the Dark elves in Lloyd and Dave H's game.

After a break, some food and light mockery, round 2 kicked off. A few of the TLC lads had to head off, so there were only 4 games. VERY soon into round 2 a prodigious amount of alcohol arrived, so bear with me a I attempt to remember these games:

(TB) Paul's Warriors of Chaos vs (TLC) Elliot's Wood Elves (TB win)
(TB) Dave S's Chaos Dwarves vs (TLC) Ian's Ogres (TB win)
(TB) John's Lizards vs (TLC - TB turncoat) Tom's Dwarves (TLC win)
(TB) Craig's Dwarves vs (TLC) Dave H's Dark Elves (TB win)

Again, Elliot's elves weren't having a great day. In my own game, despite some pretty big tactical whoopsies, I managed to overcome Ian's ogres. This was a hugely fun game, and my first against the new ogre list. Mournfang are scary.

John was spanked raw by Tom's dwarves, and Craig, in an epic six and a half hour game, yes, you read right, eventually emerged victorious over Dave H's dark elves. This in spite of moaning for half the game about his inevitable defeat.

Strange things happen to a man after six hour of Warhammer.

At this juncture many were rather, ah, merry, with one notable casualty, who shall remain nameless...

As for the rest, it was off to the pub to declare the event a success. It appears The B*stards came away victorious, but I didn't see the final points on that one. More importantly the day was great fun. The TLC were magnificent hosts, and we're looking forward to returning the favour in the not too distant future!

Now, on a final note, there were some potential converts among the TLC to the church of Hashut (praise him) and to that end I mentioned some useful sites for up and coming chaos dwarf generals. Warhammer Forge chaos dwarf models are very pretty, but boy are the pricey. There are some alternate ranges. They are:

Ramshackle Games: The brass coffin makes for a fine Iron Daemon.
Scotia Grendel: The Leviathan dwarf range has all sorts of useful models.
Mantic Games: The abyssal dwarves are, well, pretty much chaos dwarves.

Now, time for tea.

Chaos Dwarves - The Destroyer

I have a friendly tournament coming up, and thought it might be a good time to try out the new chaos dwarf list from Tamurkhan. To that end, I took a little break from the fimir, as I resolved to finally assemble my destroyer for this weekend. It's an old Leviathan dwarf war golem, and I think it makes a perfect K'daai destroyer. (All the models from Leviathan can be gotten from Scotia Grendel.) I may need to emphasise the possessed nature of the construct in the paintjob though. I've had this fellow (and 2 more similar to him) for about twenty years, and the model did show it's age a little during assembly. The resin is like concrete, which is great for durability, but sucks when you're trying to sand or drill it. A mask is a must, as resin dust, it's bad for you, kids. There was a lot of hacking, cleaning and sanding needed, and the model is still a little off here and there, but essentially it turned out well. Some green stuff for filling bubbles and gaps, and it's ready to prime. It's pretty huge, as you can see from my daemonsmith next to it.

Hopefully it'll last long enough to make combat!

Fimir - The Banner Rises

 Finally.

Finally, I've finished the standard bearer for the first fimir unit. Man, that took an age. I must have had this guy on my table for a month. I have no idea why he took so long, but boy, am I glad he's done. He did have a pretty terrible accident while he was being painted, I knocked him off the table and he pretty much exploded when he hit the ground. This added some major repair and repaint time. I agonised over the banner design for a while too, eventually settling on a Celtic tattoo style on hide.

He sits nicely into the unit, and the raven on his banner looks good beside those on the unit filler. There is one teeny problem though, perhaps you fine folks might offer an opinion. When I was repairing him, I forgot the banner pole was positioned very specifically to avoid the musicians elbow. Now, it doesn't, so he sits a little oddly on the move tray as the pole rubs up against the model beside him. I can leave it, or cut the pole just under the wrappings under the fimm's hand. What say you?

Here's a wee groupshot of some of the finished members of the Súile na Lisaart. Half the unit is now painted. Woot!

Games Workshop - New Paints in April?

So, the long vaunted new paints from GW are almost upon us, in April, it seems. The new ranges will be base, layer, shade, dry, glaze, texture and technical. That's a lot of types. I wonder will it be something akin to the Foundry paint system, where the paints come in sets of three — shade, base colour and highlight? I'm very curious as to how the system is designed to work, and if the existing range will have some manner of conversion chart to the new one so if you're half way through an army and run out of liche purple you're not just going to have to eyeball it.

I will miss the old names and paints though, a single tear might be shed for chaos black and skull white as they amble off to join their discontinued brothers, such as tentacle pink...

Here's the info and list as it stands, taken from Stahly's Tale of Painters:

• 144 colours are in.
• lots of renaming of colours, nothing is leaving.
• All in different catagories now, Shades (washes) bases, layers, glazes (thin washes) and textures.
• Prices are staying the same.

So it sounds to me like the main thing GW is doing is reorganizing the line to make it more clear which paints/washes/etc are designed to be used in what situations.

• There are 144 paints (the current line is only 73), so the range is doubling in size.
• Broken down into Bases (foundations), Layers (normal colours), shades (washes), Dry (essentially goopy paint for dry brushing), Glaze (thinned washes for easier blending), Texture (sand + colour) and Technical (liquid green stuff).
• Bottles are not changing.
• Every color is renamed, there will be a white dwarf with a comparison guide released. Blood red is now wild rider red, ultramarine blue is Calgar blue, skull white is white scar etc etc. There is a big expansion in the greens. There are pinks again, and more purple.
• Foundation white!! Named Ceramite White
• New how to paint book that includes a 90 minute DVD
• Mega paint set available year round now, but is super expensive apparently. Prices are apparently the same (for now).

BASES

Ceramite White

Averland Sun

Jokaero Orange

Mephiston Red

Khorne Red

Naggaroth Night

Daemonette Hide

Kantor Blue

Macragge Blue

Caledon Sky

Stegadon scale green

Incubi Darkness

Caliban Green

Waaaagh! Flesh

Castellan green

Death world forest

Zandri dust

Steel Legion Drab

Bugmans Glow

Ratskin Flesh

Mournfang brown

XV-88

Rhinox hide

Dryad bark

Mechanicus standard grey

Celestus grey

Abaddon Black (the only black in the range)

Rakarth flesh

The fang

Screamer pink

Leadblecher (metal)

Balthasar Gold (metal)

Screaming Bell (metal)

Warplock brown (metal)

LAYER

White Scar

Yriel Yellow

Flash gitz yellow

Troll slayer orange

Fire dragon bright

Evil sunz scarlet

Wild Rider red

Wazdakka red

Squig Orange

Xereus Purple

Genestealer Purple

Warpfiend Grey

Slaanesh Grey

Alaitoc blue

Hoeth blue

Altdorf guard blue

Calgar blue

Teclis blue

Lothern blue

Sotek green

Temple guard blue

Kabalite green

Sybarite green

Warpstone glow

Moot green

Warboss green

Skarsnik green

Loren Forest

Straken green

Nurgling green

Elysian green

Ogryn camo

Ushabti Bone

Screaming skull

Tallarn sand

Karak stone

Cadian fleshstone

Kislev Flesh

Bestigor flesh

Ungor flesh

Skrag brown

Deathclaw brown

Tau light Ochre

Balor brown

Zamesi brown

Doombull brown

Tuskigor fur

Gorthor Brown

Baneblade Brown

Dawnstone

Administratum grey

Eshin grey

Dark reaper

Thunderhawk blue

Skavenblight dinge

Stormvermin fur

Ulthuan grey

Pallid wych flesh

Russ grey

Fenrisian grey

Pink horror

Emperors Children

Ironbreaker (metal)

Runefang steel (metal)

Gehennas gold(metal)

Auric Armour(metal)

Hashut Copper(metal)

Sycorax Bronze(metal)

Brass Scorpion(metal)

Runelord Brass(metal)

SHADES

Casandora Yellow

Fuegan Orange

Carroburg Crimson

Druchii Violet

Drakenhof Nightshade

Coelia greenshade

Biel-tan green

Athonian camoshade

Seraphim Sepia

Reikland fleshshade

Agrax earthshade (Devlan Mud)

Nuln Oil

DRY

Praxeti White

Hexos palesun

Kindleflame

Lucius Lilac

Etherium blue

Skink blue

Hellion green

Underhive ash

Eldar Flesh

Tyrant Shell

Terminatus stone

Longbeard grey

Changling pink

Necron Compound

Golden Griffon

GLAZE

Lamenters yellow

Waywatcher Green

Guilliman blue

Bloodletter

TEXTURE

Mourn Mountain snow

Stirland Mud

Blackfire Eath

Astrogranite

Armageddon Dust

Lustrian Undergrowth

TECHNICAL

Lahmian Medium

Ard coat

Imperial Primer

Liquid Green stuff

Reaper Goes Plastic - Bones

Looks like Reaper has taken the plunge in to plastic and has a new material called 'bones' which they are starting to roll out. The quality looks great, as does the price, at €2.24 for their purple worm, that's pretty fantastic. A very exciting development I'm going to watch with great interest, as Reaper have an enormous and excellent range.

You can read the promo information here, and watch the video intro below.

Fimir - The Fir Domhan

I've decided to pop up a new page dedicated to my growing fimir army, the clan of the Fir Domhan. Do take a peek, I'll be updating it pretty regularly with new pics and background.

The Fir Domhan.

Warhammer Forge - Skin Wolves

Forge World, you do spoil me of late. I must admit, I am loving the expectation of completely new creatures and units that are churning out of Warhammer Forge these days. Might I draw you attention to the latest releases, the skin wolves and arcane frogs.

The skinwolves are fanbleedin'tastic. Lanky frothing horrors, I really want to put a unit together. They are another example of the 'warhammerising' is another fantasy stable. Not werewolf, but skin wolf. Not wraith, but cairn wraith, not ghoul, but crypt ghoul etc.  For all that, though, they look the biz, and let's face it, getting warhammerised isn't the worst thing that can happen to a wolf these days. Think what might happen if it had been a poor shed, all of a sudden our humble outhouse would have had fifteen foot skulls carved into it's front door, roof, interior walls and so on. And I LIKE the warhammer scenery...

The rules are interesting, Movement 7 and WS5, and I5 are pretty good,  with fear, frenzy and a 5+ regen, upping to 4+ if you take the mark of Tzeentch. The S4 and T4 is hmeh, but W3 and the regen make them survivable.

I still wish fervently that all these new units can be taken in more than just storm of magic games when the new Monstrous Arcana book comes out, we'll see I guess.

The arcane frogs, well, wonderful. I'm still waiting to see what Mr King of Bederken Miniatures comes out with with his upcoming selection of fantastic froggies. I'll hold my whisht till then.

Arooo! - New wolves not just for 40k.

I'm very happy about a new 40k set that's just out. No, wait, let me explain.

The new Fenrisian wolves have just been released, and boy, are they fantastic. I've long hated the Games Workshop plastic wolves. I used them to make my unit of dire wolves, and they were just about acceptable with conversion. But these new wolves make the old wolves look truly dreadful. I foresee many of these wolves appearing in fantasy armies as mounts, chariot beasts, warhounds, dire wolves etc. I for one will be using them to carry my hobgoblins. They look as if there is no 40k paraphernalia on them at all, which I'm sure was a deliberate decision on GW's part.

A nice little extra as I count down to tackling my decimated fimir standard bearer this evening.

Fimir - Lay Down Your Arms

I think I'm a reasonable fellow.

Okay, I might be occasionally described as grumpy at times, and somewhat forthright in my opinions, but all in all I think I'm a pretty well-balanced guy.

However.

There are times when even I have to count to ten and pour myself a stiff drink. Last night was one such time. Picture a fellow, relaxing in front of the fire, painting the finishing touches to his latest model. It's a wonderful moment, holding the brush, checking the model over and sighing contentedly: "Aaah, that's done." The model in question was my fimm standard bearer, and I had just the base left to paint, then the varnishing.

If you are squeamish, you might want to stop now.

I lay down my tray on the wee side-table beside the sofa I hide in when I'm painting in the living room. Upon my return, I move my lamp and reach down to return the tray to my man-cave.

I only barely tipped the guy.

The sound as the model hit the wooden floor would turn your bowels to water. So much cracking and the ticking of small bits of plastic skittering away under couches and book cases. From the noise I knew there was more than a single break. At this point I just left the room for a bit. You know when you've hurt yourself badly and you're afraid to look at the wound? A bit like that.

Upon my eventual return, I peer into the shadow and retrieve the fallen fimir. The standard is gone. That was expected. I look the guy over. "Well" I think, "At least that's all the dama...oh. Where's his other hand?" More frantically now, I re-check, discovering the weapon hand is missing, the tip of the standard is snapped off also, and the raven attached to the banner is chipped in three places. For a fall of just over 2 feet, the damage was catastrophic. After moving a couch I retrieve his missing weapon  hand. More calmly than I would have expected I assess the toll of repair work, put the now multi-piece model on the tray and leave the lot in the cave.

So. He needs his hands pinned back, some paint repair to wrists and hands, the standard top needs re-pointing, the raven needs a cup of tea and a hug, and I need a drink. This time, the hands are getting pinned on. To be honest, I don't know how they weren't the first time, as my ocd leads me to pin all flat joins, be they metal, resin or indeed, plastic. This combined with  two coats of varnish on every model has meant that I have had a bare handful of casualties in all the years I've been playing, and this includes one model dropped almost a storey. Not a scratch did the zombie sustain. So, it's filing and pinning for this poor fimir later. Here's the sorry state he's in right now...

So I think I'll use this disaster as an excuse to ask the hobbyweb, what stories do you have of models suffering horrific accidents? Also, is your reaction to:

1. Finish the job with a hammer as froth boils from your rage-distorted face?

2. Carefully gather the pieces and immediately set to repairing the damage?

3. Gather it up, put it in the 'to do' pile and never look at the forlorn mini again?

I'm a 2 man, every time...

Fimir - Independant Army Book

I noticed on The warhammer armies project this morning that he's released his Fimir army book based largely on the Warpstone 25 background, the same background I'm theming my own army on. While I'm personally using the Warriors of Chaos list so I can play in tournaments and so on, the book looks interesting at first glance, and is a good repository of reference material and inspiration for fimir armies and units at the very least.

I'll probably give it a go in some friendlies, and I do like some of the more exotic units entries such as the fomorians and the boglars. I'll have to have a closer look at the army list to give a more detailed review, but it does look like fun after an initial flick through.