Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Gathering of Mighty Painters - the Dark Host is ready

And so 99% of models for the Gathering of Mighty Painters and also Call of the Crown Challenge (if it will happen) are prepared. There is one snakemen missing, as the package from DieHard miniatures was incomplete, and the replacement didn't arrive yet, and the cold one battle banner rider is still missing some parts that I need before putting him togather. Still I have more miniatures than I can paint in a year probably!:P

The snakemen are really great sculpts, I feel I will proxy many different units with them, ogres, dragon ogres, chaos characters...
 


I must say I am really happy with the conversions and GS work for the black guard and executioner units, it turned out to be easier to do than I thought:P



The chariots will be made so that both snakemen and dark elves can ride them. Again for 4-5 edition, these must be proxies / dark elf allies, because the one true heir of Aenarion -  Malekith still didn't get his dragon, and so he forbade any other dark elf from ridding a chariot, like any reasonable leader would do, right?:P




Good thing is that January is not far away, and I will be able to dive into painting these:)


Sunday, October 31, 2021

The Host of Cynath Twins - the army so far

 Greetings venerable brushbearers! Today I would like to share photos of what is already painted, before next year reinforcements will arrive. The army is a pleasure to use on the battlefield, even though the newest additions are still waiting to be tried, or in the case of the chariot, failed to do anything in the last 6 games I tried to use it... :P (well I guess being killed by artillery fire or magic actually is "drawing enemy attention", not nothing;) )









First half of the army was painted in the second half of 2020, and the army had it baptism of battle on the Oldhammer Poland 2020 event. Even though the results were mixed, I had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the games much more than the previous year, when I used my dwarf army. It's not that I had a bad time using dwarfs, but playing something more mobile, casting spells, having a big flying monster - boy is it more fun!


From the two Cynath twins, only Urathion had his monster mount, and so poor Chimerion had to use his awesome magic powers to move across the battlefield. The mage "elemental magic" was one of the few dark elf models that I painted few months earlier, as a test piece, and I am not 100% happy with him. 





After Oldhammer Poland 2020, few of the participants tried to make a "Tale of 4 Painters" and even though I quickly failed to attend, the first part of it saw me painting Chimerion in his new, red dress and his mount - Rudolphia the Red Nosed Hydra ;)






Latest character addition to the army is not 100% done yet. I converted a model that I plan to use in two ways - more often, as a chaos/dark elf/slaanesh character riding a chariot pulled by steeds of slaanesh, and secondly as the illustrious Witch King himself. To finish him, I still want to add a banner (guess I should make two, and figure a way to swap them between the slaanesh and witch king versions) and obviously, Malekith needs normal cold ones to pull his chariot (even though his mom could give him these steeds as a present ;) ).









Two other character entries are a dark pegasus riding noble (still missing a shield:( ) and another test piece - old Morathi on foot.







Moving on to the units, at first I painted few scout units, mainly because I had a bunch of unreleased models, that I wanted to paint instead of normal x-bow men, but also because I regard them as the one dark elf unit from the 4 edition book, that is really cost-effective. Later I painted two additional units for the "a tale of 4 painters" sake, and the remaining models I used for them, were some 3 edition/marauder dark elves, and I think they blend well enough with the rest of the army.


The first dark rider unit, consisting the two unreleased dark riders was painted for the Oldhammer Poland event, and the second one later for the "tale". I must say I prefer the first unit much more,probably because of the older plastic horses, which are less goofy than the ones used in the second unit. 




For the sake of playing 6-7 edition WFB and 9'th age, more dark riders are necessary for a full aggressive army list. But I am bored of the normal metal dark riders, and so am in a process of figuring out how to make the next unit. The three options that are most probable are:

- using Melnibonean cavalry models

- using 3 edition darksteed riding dark elves

- the one I am most interested now - converting 3 edition dark elf assassins and/or 4 edition wardancers to make a "hair metal version" of the warlock unit, that was added in 8 edition of WFB. That way I will have a unit that can serve both roles. But it will cost a lot or time and money, as I would need to buy the wardancer/assassin models that I will cut in half for rider torsos...


My favourite dark elf unit by far are the Cold One Knights. I loved both the 4 edition version, and later the 6 edition one. For me they are the epitome of being a dark elf, wicked nobles of Nagarythe.

Unfortunately I must say that they are rarely useful on the battlefield. The scouts and dark riders are the "heavy duty" units, and they need to perform well, for the "flower of Nagarythe knighthood" to stroll the battlefield and bask in their (unearned) glory :P





Last unit/two units are the Harpies. It's funny how these models are different from the later versions. These are just "some ugly flying monster", instead of "boob flashing flying monster" and I must say that I love them that way. They are also good for adding some colour to the otherwise dark coloured army.




The two last entries for now, is the second Hydra and a Bolt Thrower. The Hydra was really annoying to assemble, but I really like how it turned out, and I don't really remember why I painted the Bolt Thrower - it is quite a strong machine, but I never fielded it, and rather spend my points or more aggressive stuff, instead of a war machine. Guess it will be useful after I painted more infantry, then I can rotate between an agressive army list, and a "gun line" army list.






Feel free to ask any questions and leave comments on what you think about them:)

Thursday, October 28, 2021

A Gathering of Mighty Painters

As  I mentioned in the previous post, I plan taking part in the painting challenge called "A Gathering of Mighty Painters", that is organised for fans of 4 edition WFB. Such events are good additional incentive for painting miniatures, and help accomplishing your painting goals.

The army of the Cynath twins is in need of infantry reinforcements, and so I composed a 2000 point army list, that will feature stuff I shall paint in the first half of 2022.

The part that is most important:

Dark Elf General (helberd, heavy armor, shield) – 160+2+3+1 = 166

Dark Elf Battle Standard Bearer (cold one, heavy armor, shield, lance) – 98+10+3+1+2 = 114

3 Cold One Knights - 126

19 Executioners (standard bearer, musician) – 336

Champion (great weapon, heavy armor) – 48+2+3=53

18 Black Guards (standard bearer, musician) – 300

Champion (helberd, heavy armor) – 48+2+3=53

2xScythed Beastmen Chariot (dark elf chariots proxy rules) – 2x106 = 212

5 Ogres (proxy rules for snakemen miniatures) (additional hand weapons) = 5x(40+1)= 205

TOTAL: 1565

The part that is optional:

Assassin – 56

 10 Crossbowman – 130

10 Crossbowman - 130

TOTAL:  316

Here are the miniatures unpainted/in need of stripping ;) The Snakemen are still missing, as I am waiting for the latest DieHard Miniatures kickstarter package to reach my destination. I added them to the roster to spice things up for myself, have a April - monster entry, and also because I want to have a "monster unit" worthy of entering a painting competition on next Oldhammer Poland event, and think that normal, 20mm based units don't make such a striking effect as ogre/troll sized ones :)



Depending on the amount of time I have for painting, I can paint the optional part, or just fill the missing points with magic items for my general, champions and banners. Using just the "sure / probable" part of the roster, the 7 months rotation could look something like that:

January: Unit - first half of the Black Guards or Executioners

February: War Machine - Chariots

March: Unit - second half of the Black Guards or Executioners

April: Monster - Snakemen Unit

May: Unit - first half of the Black Guards or Executioners

June: Character - Cold One Knights / Army Standard Bearer

July: Unit - second half of the Black Guards or Executioners

If you wonder, why I included the 4 cold one riding models in the "infantry reinforcements roster" - I have only 8 knights painted so far, and  it is not enough to field to small units, or one that is really big. Guess that with those additional knights, the cavalry part of the army will be 100% complete too. Also, I really like to paint cold ones, they are totally different than elves / infantry in general, so painting some colourful skin and scales will spice things up a bit.

Chariots were added for a similar reason - currently I only have one chariot painted, and I find them to be much more effective when used in higher numbers. Also, as the February rotation is "war machine", I needed something fitting that spot:)

Here are some of the cold one knights that I have already painted, although they still need a banner, and the "little banners on their lances thing";):




As we are not allowed to paint anything before 2 January, I shall spend the next two months on preparing all the models, removing mould lines, converting the command groups for the infantry units, the general, the army standard bearer, priming and basing. I must admit that the prospect isn't 100% exciting, but on the other side, I also plan on trying out airbrushing the basic colours on these models, so perhaps it will be a useful "mass painting" endeavour. 

Depending on how terrible my efforts will turn out, expect some WIP photos of the above mentioned process in the coming weeks :)

Friday, October 22, 2021

Introduction and what is coming next

 Greetings venerable visitor! I planned to start using this blog again over a year ago, when I decided to join the Crown of Command Challenge. Yet, it didn't exactly work out, and here we are at the end of 2021.

Still, another edition of the Crown of Command Challenge will begin next year, and I also applied to the Gathering of Mighty Painters, that shall start 2 January 2022, but cleaning/priming/basing work can commence already.

I started working on my dark elf army at the end of 2020 summer, after finishing few dwarf units that I painted after Oldhammer Weekend Poland rekindled my Herohammer interest. 



I honestly didn't expect that I will stick to the project for so long, but it turns out that podcasts and audiobooks make wonders for my painting tenacity. In the past, I felt that both reading and painting miniatures are sub optimal ways of spending my limited free time. Now thanks to podcasts/audiobooks I can combine those two activities that I liked together, and suddenly I am in love with it:)

What I have painted up until now are the things that I lacked in my dwarf army. Having played an army consisting of warmachines and infantry blocks for the last 23 years (not playing much, but aaaanyway...;) ) meant that I want to use everything else - various cavalry units, monsters, scouts, magic users. I must say that it makes quite a formidable force, that I used with quite nice results in fifth, sixth and seventh edition games already. 




Having said that, I feel that the army deserves to be completed, it is now my most cherished force, and also I like the foot models from the 4 edition dark elf range. So the plan for the next year or two is to finish it, by adding all the other roster entries. Units that are 20-25 models strong are most pleasing to my eyes, so I aim to do regiments of 20 strong. Cutting it down to 20 from 25 means I need to paint around 30 models less, so it is quite a difference...

The plan is simple, I need to paint:

20 Black Guards

20 Executionners

20 Spearmen

20 Crossbowmen

20 Corsairs

20 Witch Elves

This is the most important part of the mission, but there will be some things to spice things up a bit - up to three chariots, up to three repeating bolt throwers, cauldron of blood  and probably a manticore / another unreleased chimera model.

I think I will leave the corsairs for later, as they are my least favourite 4 edition dark elf unit - look wise. 


I will soon add some army fluff, photos of what I currently have painted and dedicated Gathering of Mighty Painters post. That's it for now, thanks for visiting!