Fimir - Nearly Fimished. Eh? Eh?

Sorry about the title. I should really have started at 'Fimm unit update 1' and pressed on from there, but, hmeh.

Here's the latest members of the Súile na Lisaart. I still have some water effects to add to the fimm with the stone knife, but I'll leave that until I have a batch to do. This leaves me with the last batch of four on my painting desk, so almost there...

 

 

 

Mantic - Kings of War Kickstarter

The Mantic Kickstarter has been amazing to watch go totally nuts. I backed them a few days ago, and I'm looking forward to seeing the new hardcover rulebook, I must say. With three days to go, it looks like it will hit the $200,000 mark, which means a whole lot of upcoming groove from Mantic. I'm delighted to see them do so well, as I like the company and I like what they are doing. I'll be keeping an eye out for the werewolves and mummies among others things, and the new army, the Celestians, looks interesting.

Also, kudos to Mantic for putting out concept artwork of fantasy women in proportion, wearing clothing appropriate to actually fighting someone.

They are nuns though, I guess.

Incoming - 6th Edition 40k

Usually these days seeing a 40k release promotes mild dissapointment as it means it's not a warhammer fantasy release. It wasn't always so.

I played my share of 40k back in the days of 1st - 3rd edition, and I've always loved the background. Lately I've been musing over what army I would take if I did re-enter the grim darkness of he 40th millennium. A motley crew of chaos degenerates would be most tempting, as long as I could mix legionnaires with human cultists and such. I do hear something chaosy is on the horizon too. The necrons are a bit of what I like, all that space undead business. But I think a genestealer coven is still my top choice, using whatever list I could hijack.

I've picked up all the books for 40k since rogue trader, so I will be picking up the new book, minus the associated dice, tape measures and such (which you can see here). I may pick up the psychic cards, we'll see. With everything on my desk screaming for paint it would be utter madness to start a new army in a new game.

Wouldn't it?

BastardCon 7 - LoB Invitational Post Mortem

Battling across the road.

 Well, that was fun. I arrived down at the venue Saturday morning and the set-up began. We had eight tables, (thanks to everyone who brought terrain) and with the arrival of the Last Chancers and a sprinkling of the Limerick Dice Chuckers we were off, close on twenty players in all. It was a very laid back affair, though we did keep a loose record of battle points. We had two rounds, and both my games were extremely enjoyable, despite the fact I lost both!

 Nigel of the Last Chancers (my round one opponent) wrote up a review on Wargaming Ireland which you can read here. His daemons list was quite lean and hungry, and despite some really sterling service from my artillery and sorcerer (LOVE the lore of Hashut, praise his name), the game ended in 18-2 once adjusted for SCALE. Nigel is an excellent and amiable player who knows just how to lead a K'daai destroyer on a merry dance, and I look forward to playing him again.

Paul's Bretonnians vs John's Empire

Round two saw my playing Dave Holohan of the Last Chancers and his dark elves. We drew the watchtower scenario, which is not my favourite as it requires me to advance when all I want to do is sit back and blow my opponent to paste and then pound the remains into pate with my counter-chargers. But then, battles were rarely fought in ideal locations. My destroyer performed well, rampaging through a horde of corsairs before almost sealing the deal by charging the rear of the sorceress' unit and mashing an ungodly amount of them. The iron daemon not so much, getting purple sunned as it was lining up to charge. This can't be complained about too much, as out of seven suns cast at me over two games only two caused damage, but boy, the damage. My wolf lads managed to take out a bolt thrower before being nailed to the earth by the crossbowmen. Some sneaky shades did a number on a unit of hobgoblin archers before taking out a shrieker, but my infernal guard did well, destroying a unit of black guard and almost finishing the hydra. Ash storm was again my friend in this game, what a spell.

Dave Leahy's wondrous Warriors of Chaos

With all this carnage, I couldn't make it to the tower, which was manned by a unit of crossbowmen who racked up quite a tally. I wish I hadn't forgotten my daemonsmith's look out sir from war machines. Bah! At the end, between SCALE and the points for the tower it was 15 -5, so it was back home to Zharr Naggrund for my lads to stitch up the wounds and beat the dents out of the destroyer. Many thanks to Dave for a great game.

Once round two was over, and I was the last game to finish both times, (must speed the old turns up a tad) most of the TLC had to pack for the road, but a goodly crew remained behind to talk, drink and game some more. This continued on until breakfast the next morning. Some of the events that occurred during this time must be closed to history. I just hope John's foot feels better.

Good times.

I'll be attending NWG in August, where I'm sure another grand time shall be had. I'll be shelving the sons of Hashut for that, to make way for the début of the baleful fimir of the Fir Domhan!

Boy do I have some painting to do.

So, A big thanks to everyone who came down, we had a blast!

BastardCon 7 - LoB Invitational

Tomorrow we host The Last Chancers club to play some warhammer at BastardCon 7. The lads showed us a good time in March, so now it's over to the League of Bastards to return the favour. My first game is against Nigel Kavanagh's filt...ah, competitive daemon army with my beloved Dawi Zharr. First time using an iron daemon, a skullcracker at that. We're hoping for about twenty players, so it's back to packing terrain for Mr Saturday.

More after the event!

Warhammer Forge - The Preyton

Another beast from Monstrous Arcanum is out from Warhammer Forge, the preyton. Check it out here. I was not expecting this to be coming out any time soon, but here it is. I was not bowled over by the concept art in the book, but I really like the miniature. It would also make a cracking abyssal terror (if anyone ever used them) with a little jiggery. I must say I'm really enjoying the beasties from Warhammer Forge, there are a few from Arcanum I'll be picking up if the minis are as good as the illustrations in the book.

Wishful Thinking - Top 10 Most Wanted

Having seen Thantsants top 10 most desired Citadel miniatures on Somewhere the Tea's Getting Cold, I decided to mull over my own list of the miniatures I most covet from the mists of time. I thought though, I'd include series of miniatures as well as individuals. Here we go! Oh, and thanks to all the folks whose images I may have pilfered a bit.


10.  Jes Goodwin - Hrothyogg, Ogre Captain. (C23 ogres)
I'm not an ogre player, but I've always loved this ogre. If I did play ogres, this would be my tyrant, hands down. Plus Jes Goodwin is one of my favourite sculptors.




 
9. C100 Space Marines
Not fantasy, but I've a mild impulse to build a squad of these venerable old space marines.I loved Rogue Trader, and they remind me of it a lot. I have five or six, so we'll see.




8. Zoats
I don't know why I like zoats. But I do. I'm currently hunting for one to use in storm of magic games.








 
7. Kevin Adams - Citadel Orcs
You want character? You won't find better than the goblinoids of Kevin Adams, specifically the Citadel  ranges of the 1980s. The GW orcs of today are cool, but the 80s orcs, these are the real deal. One of my long term army goals is to build an orc & goblin army from this range. I have some few, but many more are still out there...

6. Realm of Chaos Chaos Thugs
Ah, realm of chaos. What a great time to play chaos. The chaos miniatures of the time were, and are, fantastic. I loved the thug models with the crazy armour, random mutations and general madness.





5. Original Krell, Mikael Jacsen & Heinrich Kemmler
This trio have long eluded me. I have pretty much every undead miniature Citadel ever released, but these lads still manage to stay out of reach. Want.



 
4. Chaos Dwarf Hobgoblins 
1990's chaos dwarf hobgoblins. I need a stack of these, and boy are the pricey. Easy enough to come across, if one has the cash. So far I've had to skirt around ebay picking off stragglers. Still, getting there.



 
 3. Night Horrors
Citadel night horrors. Now we're talking rare. There are still a handful of these that I haven't managed to acquire, and one or two I've never even seen for sale. Sigh.





 
2. Chaos Dwarf Ass Cannon
Yes, the infamous asscannon. I would simply love one of these for my chaos dwarf army. The look on folks faces would be utterly priceless. Sadly, this is as rare as hen's teeth. Were you to put a gaggle of chaos dwarf enthusiasts into a room with one of these things, blood would flow for possession.




1. The Chaos Dwarf Juggernaut
The big one. I doubt I'll ever own this rarest of models, and the prices it commands put it well out of reach, but one can dream.

Cyanide Release Dungeonbowl

Good lord! I hadn't heard a peep about this! Fantastic! Here's the link to the GW release.

Dungeonbowl

I shall be taking a look at this for certain. For those unfamiliar with Dungeonbowl, here's the blurb:

For those of you not up to scratch with your Bloodbowl, Dungeonbowl is the subterranean version of this classic game of fantasy American football set in the Warhammer world. The premise of Bloodbowl is simple: you pick up the spiky ball, punch and kick your way through the opposition's defence, run the length of the pitch and score a glorious touchdown. You then repeat the process until you run out of time or both teams are so battered that they can no longer fight. Dungeonbowl is pretty similar, only that it is fought underground in a nightmarish dungeon and the ball is hidden in one of several treasure chests (booby-trapped treasure chests, no less) scattered throughout the arena.

Building Armies - How Long, and How Many?

It's a quiet time in Warhammer at the moment. With 6th edition 40K about to launch and the next army book a ways off, there's a bit of a lull on at the moment, bar the new orc characters out this month. (The savage orc hero is marked for conversion in into a fimir fian to lead my second fimir unit.) With no new shiny to distract me, I've been looking at what armies I'm building, and how long it's taking me, and it's taking me way too long.

I have three armies I've settled on for warhammer. The fimir, the chaos dwarves and the vampire counts. My first love was the vampires, or the undead, as they were simply called when I first started to play them. I built my first undead army back the 80's, and since then I've been a huge fan. There's something about endless ranks of the dead bearing down inexorably on the living that punches my ticket.

About ten years ago I started a new vampire counts army. It still isn't finished. Yep, you heard me, ten years. Now, I might have been less than strict about getting it done, but still. As it stands, the army still has only four units and two characters painted, which is shameful.

This state of affairs changed in at the start of January 2011, when I decided to settle down with my three army choices and get cracking. I put the fimir first, as I'd long been wanting to build the army. It was an ambitious project, with no dedicated models I'd have to convert pretty much the whole army, but it was the wow project, so off I went. It took a few months to work out what way to build the army, get the bits, sculpt parts, make moulds and so on, but it went well. Now, nearly a year in, I have half the army built, and the first unit is pretty much painted and ready. Good going for me, but still really slow. I see other folks churning out entire armies, and really nice ones at that, in the same time. I guess I would paint maybe 3-5 nights a week for about two hours, so what the hell?

Paint me human, paint me damn you!

Now, I am pretty dedicated to getting this army done. I imagine it'll take another year to see enough done to bring it to 2,500 points, and I am planning on the first tournament this September. I just can't figure out what takes me so long. The prospect of a deadline has lit the fire a little bit, but I can't really pack in any more time than I do already. I wonder, does anyone else find this, or am I exceptionally slow at painting minis?

I think three armies is plenty for now. There are half a dozen other projects I want to do, like my all Tzeentchian warriors of chaos pilgrimage army, Orc and goblin Leonardo army, Drakenhof Deadskins undead Bloodbowl team, etc etc, but I am ignoring it all for now. How do people resist distraction? I know it's a common problem getting lured away by the shiny, but I'd love to hear how folks stay on project and get it done in a reasonable amount of time.