Curs'd Ettin - Update 3

I've been a tad lax on the hobby front lately, trying to catch up on a few things and even watching the odd movie or two. (Let me tell you, The Road is a good movie, but boy, is it a downer.) Even so, I finally managed to finish the Ettin's base and attach it to the big naked guy. It still needs grasses, moss and such. He's just gotten his first coat of gloss varnish, and when that dries I'll hit him with the matt, before re-glossing the bog water and the ettin's mouths and eyes.

Once that's done I'll tackle the loin cloth. It's a little tricky, as it has to be painted before it's attached, as no brush in the world could reach all the recesses were you to attach it before painting. I've added a goat drinking skin from the giant kit to the loin cloth give him some context, scale wise. The tattoos will help give him a sense of scale too. They are small in relation to his arm, and there's a lot of them. The dead horse on the base should help too. I'm primarily going to use him in my fimir army as an athach or a fomorian giant, so the basing is the same as the rest of the fimir. The base skin tone is the same as my wyrm beasties too, so all that should help tie him into the army.

The next update will be the final one, with added ettin underpants.

Curs'd Ettin - Update 1

The ettin, or fomorian as I'll be using him as, crawls along. I've not had much time over the last week with work, but I have gotten him mostly assembled. His lion cloth is going to be a bit of a bollox to do as it hangs loosely over his groin, well, where it would be, anyway, had he one. Gluing it on first would mean you'd need some pretty bendy brushes to get paint it the back of it, so I'll need to paint it separately and then attach it, which means pins, as there's no point gluing paint to paint. Same with the big rotty animal head and his pointy rock. I was going to give him a bigger weapon, but the angle of his arm would make it look awkward.

His base is pretty much ready for primer though, I just need to smooth it off a little. Again, I'll add pins to his feet and paint the base separately. I'm continually delighted by the detail on the model, it's just a wonderful sculpt, and it needed almost no clean-up, which is a major bonus.

More soon!

Fimir - Modelling saliva and drool

Today I've been experimenting with a new method of adding drool and saliva to my recently completed marlwyrm. I've not added saliva or drool to a model in a long time, and my materials and techniques needed a little updating. After some advice from Madrab (Ciaran Bolger) from the Wargaming Ireland forums, I had a lead on a new product, UHU Twist & Glue.

Ciaran Bolger's fantastic Throne of Everblight

 I had been using Evo Stik Impact, but this was only good when mixed with an ink for blood, gore and such as it has a yellow tint, so no good for saliva. Then main difference between Impact and Twist & Glue (T&G from here on in) is that Impact is viscous out of the tube, but T&G is runny, and needs to be allowed to partially set before use. After a few minutes I used a thin steel rod to twirl some glue onto, and hence onto the first contact point on the worm's mouth. I then drew out the glue into the stringy shape I wanted, and rolled the glue from the rod onto the second contact point.

Once dry, I figured that while it looks great, it'll be soon annihilated by use on the table, so I added a coat of gloss varnish. This has two benefits, it hardens the glue to better withstand the rigour of gaming, and also thickens the strands so they can be more easily seen. I'm pretty happy with the results.

(Edit: One other little side-effect of the gloss varnish I didn't notice is that any areas where the UHU has dried white are turned clear again once the gloss is applied as it partially melts the glue. A word of caution though, too much gloss will melt your strings of saliva! Apply sparingly once the glue is TOTALLY dry. Learned the hard way there.)

Chaos Dwarves - New Taur'uk from Forge World

A new chaos dwarf models pops up in this month's White Dwarf, the bull centaur Taur'uk. I must say, I wasn't overly enamoured with the bull centaurs, as nice as they were, when they first popped up, but over time I've come to like them more, especially after seeing Ben Curry's unit for his new chaos dwarf army. This guy, I like right off the bat. Nice armour, especially the gorget. Good pose too, he's a keeper. I may pick up a few of these guys yet.

New Goblins and a Trombone

There's been a bit of a dearth of fantasy releases from Games Workshop of late with all the 40k, so when some new Forgeworld goblins showed up I was as happy as a starving man given a spam sandwich - far from ideal, but hell, it's a sandwich.

All spam-related comparisons aside, (for now) these gobbos look very nice indeed. The armoured squig and the shaman are superb, and if I played orcs and goblins I'd be super happy. Plus, this means that the Blackfire Pass book is getting closer to release.

Also, from Mantic comes the goblin war trombone. I don't know what the hell this thing is, or does, but damn, what a great idea. I may pick one up and figure out what the hell to do with it later on down the line. Every goblin army should have a war trombone.

Chaos Dwarves - The Destroyer Cometh

There's some work in progress shots out now for the K'daai destroyer from Games Day. These are from Dice and Brush. I have to say, so far I'm not feeling it. I like the head and upper arms, but the hoofyhands and little mechanical legs, not so much. I'm still unsure what it's based on. The fireborn are essentially fire elementals bound into armour, so, what's this guy? Aren't they meant to be cousins, or somesuch?

It's a sight better than the concept illustrations in Tamurkhan though, and as it's still work in progress hopefully it'll be grand once the final release it ready. Then all we need are hobgoblins. You hear me, Forge World? HOBGOBLINS.

But wait? What's this lurking at the back here, looking all very nice indeed? Lammasu baby!

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.

Chaos Dwarves - K'daai Fireborn up for Pre-Order

The new chaos dwarf k'daai fireborn are now up on the Warhammer Forge site for pre-order. They come in at £36 for a set of three, available from April 27th.

All we had previously were the photos from the Forge World open day, so it's nice to get some more close-up shots. I'm certainly leaning more toward liking these lads, the helmets are cool, and they seem to have a kind of metal skirt attached to their breastplates. I'd really love to see someone give these a good paint job, it would be quite the task with the flames to do them justice. I suspect they would look great.

I'm still not convinced to abandon my own idea of converting Warmachine jacks into fireborn, (bless you, game shop bargain bits bin) but I am casting a more glad eye on these fellows now.

Warhammer Forge - K'daai Fireborn Models Spotted!

The first pics from the Forge World open day are in, (thanks to Minudra from Warseer) and among the gems are some tantalising shots of the new models for the k'daii fireborn for the chaos dwarves. It's hard to get a good look at them from the shots taken, but from what I can see, they look like they have potential. They are tall models for a 40x40, which I like. Painting all that fire and lighting effects will be fun. I'm dying to get a better look at them. I'm still planning on using jacks from Warmachine as the basis for mine, but...we'll see.

Also, look at the size of that squig!

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.

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.

Warhammer Forge - More Monsters

Warhammer Forge have just released another new monster, this time the basilisk. It's rather a nice model, I must say, though the cursed ettin is still my firm favourite (after the fimir) I must say, I'm loving this direction for warhammer. I know the upcoming monstrous arcana has been pegged as a storm of magic expansion, but I'm hoping the monsters can be taken in regular games. I'm certainly excited about a book full of new units and beasts complete with rules. I've heard some clubs allowing a certain percentage of points on top of the army value for SoM monsters, which I like a lot. Even for custom scenarios, the units and beasts in this book could be gold.

Warhammer Forge - 3 New Fimir Revealed

So, there are three new fimir models! That's the second rank of my fianna fimm unit sorted. I love the shouting guy in the middle, but they are all excellent. I wonder are they 40x40 or 50x50? I would imagine monstrous infantry, which is 40x40.

It's hard to articulate just how happy I am about this.

Warhammer Forge - It's a Fimir!

Behold his magnificence. The new Warhammer Forge fimir. Joy. Looks like I know what my first post-Christmas purchase will be...

Christmas Mumblings - 2011 Recap

I feel the urge for a meandering end of year mumble, and seeing as I can ramble on as much as I like on this little corner of the interwebs, I shall indugle myself. It is Christmas after all.

It's been a pretty amazing year for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The new army books are  in my opinion, a real step up for the game, having taken a more balanced approach to the armies and taking us away from the intolerable power-creep of 7th edition books. More of that. The fact that the next army book out, by all account is for my own army, the vampire counts, has me more excited than a puppy in a room full of brightly coloured bouncy balls. Keeping with books, I really liked storm of magic.

Wait, hear me out. 

It's great fun. It's not a tournament friendly supplement, unless you want to instigate mass bloodshed. It's a great variant on the game that takes itself not at all seriously. I mean, a spinner? That said, you can field a shedload of different monsters, blow up buildings and generally have a laugh, which is kind of what this whole hobby thing is about. Plus, it's got a fimir in it.

On the flipside, Tamurkhan. What a book. Now that's a serious warhammer book. Beautiful is the only way to describe it, in it's production, content and the fact it has a chaos dwarf list. More of this, Warhammer Forge. More now.

On the model front, we've had some good times, and some bad times. On the plus side, GW has upped the ante once again, giving is some just wonderful plastic models. This was the year of the gribbly, with the arachnarok, warsphinx, thundertusk and so on. Some really great kits got released. The tomb guard, ironblaster, Nurgle champion, wraith, all excellent. However, stories of malformed finecast figures continue to terrify me. I am quite reticent about buying anything finecast from GW. I mean, why should it take three days to clean up one figure?! Jack from Fields of Blood shocked me with the amount of work he had to put in on his Haemonculus. Especially when I have bought many resin figures from other companies and never seen more than the teeniest of air bubbles, if anything. Why can't GW get this right?

There have been other good releases, the liquid greenstuff is legend. Finecast brush, not so much. Dreadfleet was a wonderful looking game, and actually very enjoyable. Seeing as I play vampire counts, chaos dwarves and fimir, this has been a good year, and next year promises more. A new VC army book and model releases in January (joy), the new monstrous arcana book from Warhammer Forge (more fimir) and rumours of a new version of either Bloodbowl or Necromunda,(or something else entirely). I'm pretty a pretty happy fellow.

On my own projects, I started this year planning to continue my vampire counts and start chaos dwarves and fimir (using the warriors of chaos list). Rumours of a new chaos dwarf list halted the dwarves, and as I got engrossed in the fimir I decided to concentrate on them until I had 2,400 points done. I have about two thirds of the fimir built now, with the first unit of fimm well under the paintbrush. I've been experimenting with getting decent water effects, and a goodly fimir update is not far away. For 2012, I imagine I'll stick with the fimir. It takes me a while to get an army done (vampire counts ten years and counting) but I'm planning on taking the fimir to those tournaments that will permit them, so I have to stay focused. Added to that I'm really enjoying the project.

Oh, and on another happy development, there's this.

With that, I wander off into the Christmas season. Have a good one folks, that's all from the mumblings for now!

Forge World Jigsaw - Part 2

The second part of the Forge World jigsaw is up. I'm even more sure it's a Fimir now, given the detailing on the leg armour. No sign of a tail though...

All the same, I think we're still on for a new fimir model (I wonder if there is more than one sculpt) in the new year. I've put the two pieces together for a more complete view.

Forge World - Fimir Warrior?

The Forge World newsletter popped into my inbox earlier, with a tantalising shot of an upcoming release for 2012. I was about to move on when I noticed it had three fingers. It had three toes. Am I looking at one of the new Forge World fimir warriors??

Tamurkhan - Out at Last!

Tamurkhan, the throne of chaos is out at last. Priced at a hefty £45 sterling, it's a tad expensive, but a seriously beautiful book, and I suspect one that most warhammer players will find irresistible. Certainly I'll be having one, as it features a new list for my beloved chaos dwarves. You can see it here.

I'm also avidly awaiting the upcoming monstrous arcana book, not least for the reason it has rules for fimir warriors in there.

Monstrous Arcana - Forge World Do Fimir

I mentioned a little while ago that GW seem to be releasing new products bases entirely on what have in my personal wish-list. I like: vampire counts, chaos dwarves and fimir. Can you see why I'm happy? The latest in this series of 'keep Mr Saturday happy' is the news that fimir warriors will be included in the new Monstrous Arcana book. Hot damn. I guess they will be monstrous infantry. But hell, the timing! I started my fimir army earlier this year when most warhammer players would have looked at a fimir and went "That's a what now?" and now not only does the dirach get new rules in SoM, but the fimm are due for a NEW MODEL RELEASE. Joygasm.

 Just to further spread the happy times, here's the first inkling of how the new fimir might look, and he looks good. I like the tapered snout, it looks meaner without losing the fimir head-shape, and the armour on his back is a great idea. I would guess by his gear and tail this lad is a fianna fimm. The Celtic influence looks strong too, with the swirls on the armour. One thing of note, his feet look a little more zoat - like than before. Something in that, I wonder?

The fancy of a madman, I'll warrant.