The finished allied Hobgoblins for the Chaos Dwarves for Fantasy Skirmish. A squad of three wolf riders with short bows and a Hobgoblin Leader on a wolf.
I painted the models over a year ago, but never got around to taking some photos.
I haven't posted anything for over a year now. But in the background I've been doing something for my hobby and have painted a few things. With the release of The Old World I also felt like starting a small army for the game. So I started painting some dwarves and high elves. To get you in the mood, here's a short story that I wrote with the help of artificial intelligence, followed by the pictures.
In the twilight of an ancient forest, two troops stood ready for battle. On one side, the dwarves, muscular and stocky, their armor glinting in the faint light of the setting sun. They were armed with heavy hammers, sharp axes, and sturdy shields, while muskets rested on their shoulders, ready to fire the first shot.
On the other side stood the high elves, tall and elegant, their movements graceful and precise. They carried long spears and intricately crafted shields adorned with the heraldry of the Sea Guard. Behind their lines, archers drew their bows, arrowheads sharp and ready to fly into the enemy.
The forest around them held its breath. A cool wind rustled through the leaves, as if nature itself sensed the tension of the imminent battle. A dwarf, the leader of his troop, raised his hand and signaled his warriors to prepare. His eyes, cold and determined, rested on the elves before him.
The high elves also formed up, their shields creating an impenetrable wall, the spears behind them glinting in the last light of the day. Their leader, an elf with long silver hair and sharp eyes, raised his hand.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still. The sounds of the forest fell silent, as if the world itself was waiting for the first strike. A spark of determination flickered in the dwarf leader's eyes, while the elf on the other side pressed his lips together, ready for what was to come.
The complete Chaos Dwarf part of the gang is now painted.
I also made decals so I could complete the missing shields on the Chaos Dwarf Warriors.
I painted part of the Chaos Dwarf Skirmish Army.
1 Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer and 3 Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses are complete.
The 3 Chaos Dwarf Warriors with hand weapons are also finished except for the shields, because I'm still looking for decals for these.
I used the following colors to paint the miniatures:
New year, new army? Probably not..., in the last two years the real life has taken up most of the time, leaving very little time for the hobby. But a few new models would be a good start to start some time with the hobby again.
I would like to play more regularly again, but most of the rule systems are so extensive that the games always take up a lot of time, which I unfortunately don't have. When I was looking for rules for faster games I came across the rules of onepagerules - Age of Fantasy: Skirmish which I would like to test.
Since I wanted a few suitable models for this, the Chaos Dwarfs that I had printed in 3D for testing a few years ago came back to my mind.
Unfortunately, these were slightly out of scale in size. But since I found these models in a box, they were a good starting point. So I started the 3d printer again, which I hadn't used for a long time, to print some Chaos Dwarfs this time, which matched the good old models from the 90s in terms of their appearance and size.
So, after a few trial and error attempts, I had a small pile of models from which I could make an army for onepagerules - Age of Fantasy: Skirmish.
I wanted a small band of chaos dwarves supported by some hobgoblins. That's how I came up with the list below.
++ Havoc Dwarves [300pts] ++
Goblin Leader [1] Q5+ D5+ | 40pts | Hero, Tough(3), 1x Wolf(Fast, Impact(1))
Cave-Beast Companion (A2, Rending), Hand Weapon (A3), Heavy Bites (A1, AP(1))
Abyssal Leader [1] Q4+ D5+ | 45pts | Hero, Slow, Tough(3), 1x Hex Caster(Wizard(1))
Hand Weapon (A3)
Beast Riders [3] Q5+ D5+ | 60pts | Fast, Impact(1), Wolf Riders(Fearless)
3x Hand Weapons (A1), 3x Shortbows (18", A1), 3x Heavy Bites (A1, AP(1))
Warriors [3] Q4+ D5+ | 35pts | Shield Wall, Slow
3x Hand Weapons (A1)
Shooters [3] Q4+ D5+ | 40pts | Slow
3x Hand Weapons (A1), 3x Rifles (18", A1, AP(1))
2x Weapon Team [1] Q4+ D5+ | 40pts | Slow, Tough(3)
Crew (A2), Mortar (24", A1, Blast(3), Indirect)
After priming I also managed to apply the basic color for the bases.
I got an old Necron Monolith that I want to touch up and paint. Therefore I was looking for decals and informations about the Necron runes. However, there was hardly any information about this in the codexes. The codices did not have an alternate alphabet for the runes as in older versions of other armies (as for the Orc or Chaos runes).
So i first concentrated on the existing decals, of which there aren't a ton of different bows like the Space Marines. The most recent sheet I could find was from 2011. This is also the most extensive one and also includes all runes from older sheets.
The decals on the sheet can be roughly divided into 3 types:
Only the first ones are interesting for the language. The circuits (3) are only suggested lines for decoration and the dynasty runes (2) are layered symbols for the individual units, which are already described in more detail in the 8th edition Necron codex.
The circle and line runes (1) look like they contain repeating parts. When they were created, only the futuristic look was probably taken into account. but it would be nice to have an alphabet for these runes to create your own which also have a meaning.
I searched a bit further and found the Cryptic Language - Crypt by Mageek. here
He started making a substitute alphabet. The characters are not exactly the same as in the decals, but the look fits very well. Since I also like the look very much, I took the characters as a basis to create vector graphics.
If you take the central axis, which is typical for Necron, vertical, it can look like this, for example:
Two custom rune sets (left: "Conqueror of worlds", right: "Necron crypt world") alongside two original Necron rune sets.
I have continued to paint the Seaguard and I'am about to 90% finished so it takes some more time till showing some new units.
In the meantime I start build a new piece of terrain yout of some foam and cork. Its only a flat piece of maybe difficult terrain, but looks really cool even without some colors.
A mysterious machine of old days, the Arcanaorbis...
Started to paint some of my Elves because of the new 3. Edition from AoS.
I finished a 10 men unit of Swordmasters of Hoeth which I will use as Bladelords for the Lumineth Realm-Lords.
Not the best pictures, but it will show some first impressions. I will make some better ones, when I have more space and better light.
Also started with the base colors on a unit of Seaguard/Spireguard, which should reinforce my Wardens later. But more from that maybe next time.
Finished the Overloard Class Battlecruiser. That's the last ship for the 750 points Imperial Navy start fleet.
++ Gothic Sector Fleet List, Segmentum Obscurus (Imperium) [750pts] ++
Finished two cruiser for the Imperial Navy fleet, one Lunar Class Cruiser and a Dictator Class Cruiser. I also made some cardboard marker for attack craft
The first ships for the two fleets are finished.
It was pretty quiet around the tabletop hobby in the last few months of 2020. I planed to start with Man o' War, but has some problems with the proxy ships, so I'll put it off until later this year.
40k is still in pause mode, because I still wait for the fist chaos codex release, so still "more" time for some projects beside that. I build and started priming the Orc Trukk for Gorkamorka, but I didn't get any more than that.
But I'm happy that I made some progress with BFG, for which I have got my hands on some printed remastered rules and also enough ships for the start of two fleets.
Both fleets are around 750 points, so the perfect combination for some test games. I have also primed both fleets and started so paint the imperial ships, but more from that hopeful in the not so far future.
With the new edition, 40k is slipped backwards from priority, because we still wait for the first new codices and the bigger faq with a lot of changes.
So the plan comes up to start some side projects, for which we chose some older games from GW. The start makes the game where gangs of orcs fighting each other: Gorkamorka.
An other project I started is the reimagination of the Man o' War starter box, but more from that next time.