The Sable Host - Anvils of the Heldenhammer.

 

The sable armoured host of Stormcast Eternals stood in formation for address, the soil of Shyish, burned from their explosive landing upon reforging, mixed with ground up bone and Shadeglass flowed around their armoured feet as a gale blew in over them.

Rising and falling with it's owners particular rhythm of walking, the reliquary-banner reflected the pale white sunlight off of the ornate gold gilting. The ancient skeleton held aloft looking down upon the Stormcast with stern, dark eyesockets, the oiled relic blade held to bolster the deeds of the living, with the glories of the past.

A giant in black armour, lined with gold and inlaid with the icons of death and mortality strode purposefully towards the front rank. Lines of parchment, inset with Azyrite runes whipping around him in the gale.

He swept his skull helmed visage around, taking in the details of his host.

The proud, veterans disdain for danger and the enemies of the God-King in the stances of the Midnight Exemplars. A unit of Sequiturs who had been in his service for half a century, they had individual markings on their shields, but he could tell them all apart just by their body language.

Ordinator Valeris stood next to her Celestar Ballista, the remarkable machine crackling with the thunderbolt power of the Boltstorm it would fire in combat. 

The Pale Hounds clipped their beaks and stretched muscles out as the commander marched past, running a gauntleted hand over the alpha of the pack as he did so.

Above them, sweeping in to land with the crack of lightning came the Scions of the Host, the Prosecutors dispelling the glowing hammers they wielded and standing to attention.

Having taken the measure of his immediate force, Lord Relictor Eldosis crashed his fist to his breastplate and thunder rumbled in the sky.

"Warriors of the Sable Host" he began, voice resonating above the growing storm so that all the Stormcast could hear him speak.

"It appears that we have been broken by dark magick's as we reforged and headed back to Shyish after all this time. I am before you now before we embark upon this crusade to restore our broken brotherhood and stormhold".

He paused as lightning flashed across the amethyst sky.

"We lost The Keep of Cold Flame nearly a  hundred years ago when the Nighthaunt invaded Lethis and drove the Azyrite population and our parent Stormhost away".

A grumble of disapproval accompanied this last statement.

"But fear not, The Sable Host will take its place in the forefront of the Anvils of the Heldenhammer's ranks when the Stormhost is next called before the God-King Sigmar. Though the magical explosion may have sundered our numbers and scattered our warriors across Shyish, I declare now that we will account for each and every member of our warhost. I declare that we shall defend the people of the realm when they need it, wether Azyrite or Shyish by birth. We shall forge such a crusade that even the Undead King Nagash will have to acknowledge our presence let alone his more mundane slaves which he uses to wage his wars. My brother's and sister's, duty and war call, will you answer?"

With this last question thunder crashed above the Stormcast and their black armoured forms were lit by lightning flashes.

The gathered Sable Host did not roar their approval as some other more Bellicose Stormhost's may have done.

Instead each grasped their favoured melee weapon and thrust it into the air, a muted, whispered cry of exultation accompanying the raised mace's and hammer's.

With a satisfied nod, Lord Relictor Eldosis turned on his heel and began marching towards the ruins nearby, the host following him onwards, scarlet robes whipping in the wind as the pale soil blew across their landing site, covering the burn marks with a fresh mixture of bone and Shadeglass.

*****

Greetings, so recently I've been working on one of my projects from my list of Hobby Season project's around practicing and passing various tests at work for a future promotion when the line in the link becomes available.

As mentioned sometime before, when I took stock of all the various Stormcast Eternals Miniatures I had, I decided to unify them all under one Stormhost, namely the Anvils of the Heldenhammer.

I liked their black colour scheme and the Mrs liked their background, being linked with Shyish and the underworld (she reads a lot of paranormal romance novels, so I think that was playing into it).

So to start with, here is an overall picture of the Stormhost as it currently sits:

Closer up photo's now, and we being with the Prosecutor's, the Scions of the Host:

These models are some of the first Stormcast I ever painted when the first Age of Sigmar big box came out (yes they're that old) and I stripped the paint off to redo them for my current plan.

Below are a few more focused photo's of Prosecutor Prime Calyx.

I didn't want to just do flat black armour with gold trim, as that's very Black Legion Chaos, which I'm also working on.

So instead made a very dark metallic mixture of Leadbelcher and Abaddon Black, which I highlighted with pure Leadbelcher. I then contacted this with Khorne Red, Mephiston Red and Evil Sunz Scarlet for the petruges and robes of the mini's. This is something of a regret as I think I would have been better going for Barak-Nar Burgundy to keep the moodiness of the Stormhost, but I'm going to run with the red now rather then repainting them again:

Next is Ordinator Valeris and her Celestar Ballista:

The warmachine itself is a nice ornate chunk of a machine, this got a lot more normal metallic work, the ammo clips are painted with Grey Knights Steel and washed with Nuln Oil:

The crew were where I started to experiment with the robes, to contrast with the red I wanted a warm colour and went for a bone/cream coloured base, washed with Sepia and then I made a mixture a highlight with Ushabti Bone and Ulthuan Grey:

The veteran Sequiturs of the Midnight Exemplars are next:

The two Grandmace wielding members of the unit follow the same painting steps as the warmachine crew above:

The mace and shield wielding members of the unit, Sequitur Prime Vanthia in the center may well be my favourite Stormcast model:

Their individual shields, I wanted to do something more with these then the usual flat colour which the GW Studio paint theirs. As these are veterans of the host, I see Liberators as the line units, I took the step to split their heraldry vertically, half in the black of the Anvils, and half white and red for their heraldry. The colour choice keeps the shields on theme for the army and ties everything together:

The big man himself, Lord-Relictor Eldosis, again painted using the same techniques, a lot more work went into his reliquary:

The reliquary-banner, here as a close up, the bones started with Ushabti Bone, washed with Sepia, but worked back up to Ulthuan Grey to represent polished bone inlaid. The various candles go the other way, starting with Ulthuan Grey and being washed two thirds down with Sepia, then once this had dried washing the bottom half, then the bottom Thurs, finally the bottom quarter to get an old, aged candle look (I should go back and pick out the wicks with some black at some point):

The mass of Parchment which makes up his cloak, this is simply Tallarn Sand wash heavily with Sepia:

Finally we have the Pale Hounds, Gryph-Hounds are one of my favourite creations from AoS and I had to have some for the force.

I kept to the sandy, lion bodies which I had already painted, I just used Terradon Turquoise contrast paint over the feathered areas to make them more unique and magical-creature-esque:

Finally a repeat of the overall Stormhost so far:

I believe this lot comes out to 620 points, so over a third of the project completed.

The Gryph-Hounds weren't part of the original planned list, but I just wanted to get them up to snuff and they were an easy win.

When I took stock of everything I had Stormcast wise, I had three of the original big boxes worth of models, a set of models from Stormstrike (I think), the second edition big box as well as a few other bits and pieces, so plenty to be going on with.

Until next time, have nice day...