Dipping - The Conundrum

Over the last six months or so, I've been gradually seduced by the lure of the army painter dip. Like most I think, when I first heard of this stuff I was, to say the least, warily pessimistic as to the veracity of the claims that it was some sort of magic shading sauce. I saw some minis done with it and thought, 'Too shiny, too muddy, bleagh. Away with you.'

A few weeks later, on the excellent Carpe Noctem, I was looking through the gallery of folks recent work. I saw these guys above. I thought wow, they're nice, very nice indeed! Imagine my surprise when I learned they were done with the aforementioned army painter. I was a little gobsmacked, in fact. This prompted me to reconsider. I thought I better give this stuff a shot.

Here's one of my first minis done with the painter. I was very pleasantly surprised. With careful application (brush, NOT dip), a good matt varnish and good basing, the minis looked magic, and here's the thing: they took very little time to do. To fully understand the effect this had on me, we'll need some back-story: I am a VERY slow painter. I am fastidious. I own my own weight a few times over in miniatures that I really want to paint. This was a solution sent from on high.

Now, don't get me wrong, I still apply details and highlights over most dipped figures. It doesn't suit every mini or every colour. I won't be giving up traditional painting, far from it, I'm just getting into my stride. BUT, and it's a gargantuan but, I can see my armies actually getting finished, and looking damn good, if I do say so myself.

Warhammer - Competition VS Narrative

Most people I know don't get to play warhammer as much as they would like. Given this fact, when we do meet up, most of the time we opt for a standard scenario out of the 8th ed rules. This is all good. However, this does preclude us from indulging in some of the less travelled roads of warhammer, campaigns, story based games and multi-player battles.

I'm as competitive as most folks, and love nothing better than a gory, close-fought game. I far prefer a close game to winning by a walkover. I played a game last year against a friend's wood elves that will stay with me forever. It was the closest game I have ever played, one in which every movement, every combat seemed to be vital to victory. But more importantly in my view, both armies played as their background might intend. The elves harried the undead looking for a weak point in the line, ambushing and fleeing as necessity demanded. The undead trudged forward in a seemingly unstoppable horde, cornering and overwhelming isolated elven units. The game had a great narrative that seemed to evolve without any special rules or planning on our part. Thinking about this, how much more entertaining would this have been had it been part of a campaign arc or special scenario?

I think at heart I'm all about the story in games of warhammer. I like tournaments, love them even, but given the choice I'd take a campaign. I'm one of those fellows with a well defined back story for my army. All my characters are named. I might take a unit for fluff rather than optimising the perfect tournament list. Personally, I get much more satisfaction out of taking out Rothrend the treeman with Stephane Dreux the vampire knight than rolling to hit a generic treeman ancient with an equally anonymous vampire lord. I think all players buy into this at some level, it just makes the game more enjoyable. I've taken to producing tourney battle-reports as narratives, and it goes down well.

So where am I going with this meandering waffling? I guess this year I'll be trying extra hard to get those games in with special rules, home-brewed or taken from the general's compendium (a treasure trove of warhammer goodness) campaigns, big or small, and that hankering for naval warhammer out of my head and onto the table.

Vampire Counts - Ghouls & Gulfs

I've been having great success in 8th edition with a list I trotted out in my first game of 8th. So much so I've generally decimated my opponents, bar one almighty beating at the hands of an ogre army, which was a steamroller. Now, in retrospect, there were a few rules that weren't played correctly that game, but even so I don't know if I would have held out. However, I still haven't been able to justify changing the list much.

I field a caster lord with forbidden lore, master of the black arts and summon ghouls as well as the talisman of preservation, armour of silvered steel, biting blade and the ironcurse icon. Two units of thirty ghouls, bsb with Drakenhof banner, infinite hatred and supernatural horror leading one of the ghoul units. Twenty grave guard with wight king with sword of kings, (his most notable kill being a dwarf lord, ah delicious memories) banshee with three wraiths, fifteen skeleton spearmen with necromancer with dispel scroll and two vargulf.

I'd like a bigger unit of grave guard, but it's hard to find the points in this list. The spearmen are just to ferry the necromancer. The vargulf have proven themselves over and over again. Using two gives me a lot of manoeuvring power, and they generally stick close to each other. The bsb in the ghoul unit. Most folks field the Drakenhof banner in a grave guard unit, and this is cool, but I find ghouls with regeneration can stand up to almost anybody when they are led by a vamp. The terror from the supernatural horror for the bsb, the banshee and the vargulfs usually sends one or two units running every game. The only unit that I'd like to beef up is the lord's ghoul unit, but summon ghouls generally makes up for that.

I have been considering a new lord. Frost blade, Red fury and infinite hatred, stick him beside the bsb. Think of the possibilities...

Chaos Dwarf - Obsidian Guard

Here's the last of my three minis ready for priming. I love the old Citadel miniatures, but, by the powers, the clean-up can be murder. I'm going for a rubble and ruin kind of theme for these guys, hence the base. I'm toying with the idea of having little fires among the ruins, as if the army is moving through a town it has just torched, but I'm wary of getting into osl on so many figures. We'll see. I chose this guy as the test mini as he has lots of different surfaces to tackle, skin, armour, hair, leather, cloth etc. Also, I like him because he's a a one-eyed mutie dwarf. Now, time for some paint methinks.

Ghouls - Ghastly Ghast

Now, the second of my three fellows, the ghast. He took a little fiddling to assemble, not because of any problems with the model, more-so as I pinned his head and arms on. Call me paranoid. I love this model, indeed all the Heresy ghouls are fantastic. He's quite big, and, slightly distressingly, anatomically correct. But did they really have to give him piles? A painting conundrum to be sure. I'm looking forward to getting some paint on him, but first I'll assemble the last of my three, the chaos dwarf.

The Fimir of Albion

So, I've got the first fimir fimm warrior up on his feet. He's shaping up well, I think he might make unit champion after all. The Microart Studio base looks very groovy, so after a little green-stuffing and a some repairs to his weapon hand he's almost ready for priming, after some filing when the green stuff cures. The hide cloak suits I think, especially if he's destined for command. Once this guy is done I may start on the first six man fianna fimm unit (ogre-sized fimir).

New Year, New Armies

This year, I'm finally going to have a crack at two armies that I've been longing to do for a long time. Friends of mine I am sure are so well used to hearing me go on about them they have long since given up the idea of me ever actually starting them. They are the chaos dwarves and the fimir. I've been a long time fan of both races, and now I have enough models to begin creating viable armies.

I'm still very much building my vampire counts army, so this is going to be a busy year on the hobby front. I've already had my first game with the chaos dwarves, and got hooped. There have been some changes to the Indy GT list since then to begin getting it compatible with 8th ed, so I'm hoping the changes will help. There was also an incident with some miners that didn't help matters.

The fimir army will use the warriors of chaos list. The mark of Nurgle will simulate the fimir's protective mist, and fimm warriors, nobles, meargh and so on can all be accommodated in the list. I'll be setting the army in Albion, so there will be local Celtic style humans (shearl) and fen beasts in the army too. Issue twenty five of Warpstone magazine was invaluable for background.

So. Here is the first test model for the chaos dwarf obsidian guard and fimir fimm warrior (chaos warrior) regiments, and the ghast for my first ghoul regiment. I felt obliged to use the old Heroquest fimir as the first model, though I do plan to use Bloodmoon miniatures bog raiders and old Citadel fimir for the majority or the army. I'll post more wip shots as they come together.