40k - Silent Sisterhood.

****

Dust churned as the vast ranks of the Astra Militarum war machine ground forward.
Hundreds of men and machines thrown into a desperate battle against the oncoming Tyranid horde.

The vox blared with calls for orders, screams for air support or artillery fire...or just plain screams.

In the midst of the chaos of battle, one singular black tank sat in the lee of a hill rising in the centre of the defence lines.

Curiously enough, the guardsmen took pains to leave a perimeter around it, as if it was anathema to them, even as it showed the symbols of the God-Emperor of Mankind upon it's flanks.

'Ignore the vox sister, keep scanning for mentions of Psy-Craft' the tense sign language of the Superior read.

'Affirm'.

In the space of minutes they heard what they were waiting for.

"That thing just fired lightning from its head, half my platoon is down, Emperor protect us...we need artillery support".

'Psyk-Creature reported' the sister monitoring the vox signed.

'Wake the servitor, get us moving!'.

****

Greetings, tonight I present this Null-Maiden Rhino tank.

Looking for a quick project, and working towards a possible apocalypse game next year, I decided that some Sisters of Silence in a rhino would be a good bet to take.

Rather then the blingy bronze of. The sisters armour, and inspired by the cryptic mentions of the inquisitions "Black Ships" throughout the various years of 40k background, I decided to paint the rhino black.
Drybrushed with Incubi Darkness, Thunderhawk Blue and Ulthuan Grey.

I've never painted a purely black model before, on the size of this tank, so it was a good experiment.

Weathering is drybrushes of Baneblade Brown, Ushabti Bone and Flayed One Flesh.

One thing I am really proud of is the Silent Sisterhood symbol which was freehanded onto the top hatch, then worked over with Somme light drybrushing to blend into the tank a little more.

Undecided whether I'll take my Orks or guard if I can make it to the (hopeful) game next year, all depends on work see, I'll figure that out after Christmas.


Until next time...


 - Lewis.

Spooky Scary Goings On, part 3.

Well, a day late due to real life goings on, but the Big Gribbly for the Nighthaunt Dragon Rampant army is completed.

This is a Lesser Warbeast with the Undead, Flying and Flame Attack rules.
Undead is obvious as the entire army has that rule.

Flying because the model is floating, I added the ruins on the base to make it more stable and durable overall.

Flame Attack is a little confusing, but I imagine that this creature has some sort of spectral scream attack like the Banshees scream. It can stun it's opponent and then carve them up with the obsidian talons on the end of its limbs.

I kept to the same colour scheme as the rest of the army, even though this isn't a pure spirit.
Lots of ethereal blues, dirty decaying silver and such.
The bones are actually Dark Grey washed a couple of times with Nuln Oil to get a dark shadowy look to them.

I do believe that this is the first time I have finished everything for an army since I started the blog, two years isn't a long time to achieve such a thing right?...right?

Anyway, until next time...


 - Lewis.

Fantasy - Spooky Scary Goings on, part 2.

A couple of weeks ago i posted about my Nighthaunt models and changing them up to use in Dragon Rampant.

Some more for the force have been finished recently.

The chainrasp unit now have their full complement of 12 models.

 The bearer of souls (I don't know what its actual name is) was the most recently finished model.

Next up, the Grimghast Reapers, 6 models strong, led by the limited edition store birthday model from 2018.

The Cavalry, 3 models strong, this unit also includes the army leader in the form of the Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed.

And the scouts, 3 model strong Banshee unit, some of my favourite models.

Which just leaves the big gribbly monster to finish in the next two days, as i announced in the previous post that i wanted the ghosts completed by Halloween!

As a finishing touch, i cleared off a shelf in the display cabinet and placed everything finished on it, set against the Stormcast whom I am building up to face them.

Still more work to to on the Stormcast, but that's one of the best things about this hobby, always something else to do.

Until next time...


 - Lewis

Test of Honour - Sohei Warband update.

Greetings,

Tonight's update takes us back to Feudal Japan and Test of Honour.

It's been a while since I did any real progress with my Samurai game, real life commitments have impeded much hobby recently, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of it all and hopefully start posting more regularly, especially as the blog is coming up on it's second year anniversary...

Anyway, Sohei...

A while back I picked up the Sohei boxset from when Warlord Games were still producing stuff for ToH.

I've been slowly working on them as and when I felt the inspiration and here we are so far:

Hozoin In'El, the leader of the warband orders some troops through a bamboo grove, (I've done some terrain too, more on that in another post):

The Leader, along with a Companion*, Banner Bearer and a Yari armed monk:

Two more monks i finished this evening:

 A rear view showing some of the details on the quiver and the katana sheathed:

Finally, the entire warband so far:

I have another Yari armed monk and two archers to finish, and the warband will be complete, until i decide to make a sergeant or something for them.

These are painted a little more muted then my previous monks, and i may return to the other ones some day and repaint their robes to match, who knows.

Until next time...


 - Lewis

*A companion is a new term in second edition ToH. It is essentially the old Samurai who weren't leaders, therefore have slightly less stats and one less action then the main leader of the warband.
In second edition there are a lot of new companions and named warrior types.
I'll do a post about second edition soon as well....

Armies on Parade 2019, part 4... DISASTER...

Well...things could certainly have gone better recently.

Here in the UK, we have been experiencing the tail end of 'Hurricane Lorenzo' as it blew itself out in the northern Atlantic and headed westwards over our green islands here.

Lots of rain and rain and more rain, along with some wind, but mainly rain for the past week or so.

What does this have to do with Armies on Parade?

Well, I was storing my board in my utility extension when I wasn't working on it. Apparently there has been a lot of moisture around (unsurprisingly with all the rain), and it has affected the board.

I just picked it up to move it the other day and the corner where i was going to mount the corn field felt a little strange, but i went for it anyway and the MDF broke on me...

Upon closer inspection, the board itself had collected enough moisture to make the MDF turn spongy, even though I thought I had sealed it all.

The polystyrene hills also suffered from the same, not where the sand was, but around the back mainly.

This is after i had left it in the sunlight for a little:

The broken corner...

 Another view, there is also a definite warping of the board happening as well.

The ground cover has also started to peel away on the edges.

So, with Parade Day on the 19th of this month, I think I'm going to have to give it a miss this year...

Until next time...


 - Lewis

Solo RPG - Okada Sai and Hatamoto Sakuna.

In-between working on the Armies on Parade board, the Nighthaunt and some other 40k bits, i was inspired after my first Solo-RPG game the other week.

Sitting down with the paints i worked up the two principal Onna-Bugeisha characters, Okada Sai and her Hatamoto Sakuna.

Ostensibly the Warlord Takahashi Tae and an Onna-Bugeisha model, they have taken on further life then expected due to the start of the story.

Sai, the katana wielder, is a model i finished last year, and put the final touches to recently. I'm not sure whether to leave her with the poorly painted cherry blossom tree on her kimono, or just paint over it to even things out.

Sakuna is the model finished most recently. She's the only Onna-Bugeisha with a naginata who isn't wearing armour which came in the box. So i never felt she fitted the group properly.

These two will be having their story furthered soon, i just need to be a little less busy in order to make it happen.

Until next time...


 - Lewis.

Fantasy - Spooky, Scary goings on...

Hello, welcome to another project i have on the go currently, my nighthaunt army.

If you look at the tags, you'll notice that a new one has appeared, "Dragon Rampant".
This is a generic fantasy ruleset, in which you can use any miniatures you want as they fall into broad categories:

Elite Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Light Cavalry, Elite Foot, etc.

This means that everything has an equal chance on the table and there aren't any "auto-include units".
You flavour your units by adding fantastic rules for extra points per unit.

E.g. a Heavy Rider unit is 4 points to start, but you make them undead and able to fly and they are now 8 points (i think, it's late and I don't have my copy of the rules nearby).

Anyway, i decided to turn my AoS armies into Dragon Rampant armies as i like the rules, and much less faff then AoS!

So far this is everything that I have completed.

Knight of Shrouds, Bladeghiest Revenant, Tomb Banshee:

These are the leaders of various units, instead of being individual characters like in AoS.

Myrmourn Banshees:

These are a scout unit, the ranged attack represents the Banshee howl attack.

Chainrasps:

The meat (metaphysically speaking of course) of the army. These will be twelve strong and led by the Knight of Shrouds. Classed as Light Infantry, they are a big block speedbump really.

Glaivewraith Stalkers:

These models aren't actually in the Dragon Rampant list, i just had them at something like 70% completion and decided to clear them off the desk as i was working on the dead stuff.

Dragon Rampant is a much smaller set game then AoS, games are typically played up to about 30-40 points.

So here is my 30 point Ghostly undead list:

• 3 model Heavy Riders unit (leader, enchanted weapon, flying, undead) - 7 points.
• 3 model Scouts unit (flying, undead) - 4 points.
• 6 model Bellicose Foot unit (undead, enchanted weapon) - 5 points.
• 12 model Light Foot unit (undead, offensive) - 5 points.
• 1 Lesser Warbeast (undead, flame attack, flying) - 8 points.

The list is actually 29 points, but who's counting??

Most of the units are reduced model count meaning that individual models will have multiple wounds.

I am aiming to get this force completed for Halloween this year, for extra spookiness.

I may even be able to get my Stormcast up to the same level in order to have a few games.

I'll go into an overview of the game properly once i have stuff done in order to post a battle report alongside my explanation and thoughts of the game in the future*.

Until next time...

 - Lewis.

* Kind of late to the party with Dragon Rampant as it's been out for a few years now, but i like it and it deserves to be more well-known then it is!