On the Painting Table: Empire Great Cannons!

My friend Mike's Skaven have kicked my Empire ass several times in a row and it's got to stop! 

This requires some preplanning and army list devlopment. Here's part one of that.

My main difficulty here is with the Plague Furnace (and potentially Screaming Bell). Taking this out is priority one as it makes the huge Plague Monk unit accompanying it all but unstoppable.

 And cannons are the solution to any big problem. 

With luck I'll be able to take it out early on, delivering a blow my opponent can't recover from.

Whenever I do war machines I like to put them on a cirular base and make a little diorama out of them. This cannon was actually one I got cheaply from a stately home shop (an often invaluable source for castle-related toys).

You may recognise the two guys at the back as being old special Bretonnian characters. I can’t remember the names but they’re “inspired” by Little John and Friar Tuck.

The Robin Hood character that made up the three has long since been drafted into my Bretonnian archers as a champion.

I cunningly built my mortar so that the cannon could be swapped in as needed. I’ll experiment with this before deciding how to proceed long term.

It’ll be interesting to see if this development pays off. I love my Empire guys but they haven’t been racking up the wins AT ALL! Though I’m convinced they will do once I get my head round the army as a whole.

And apparently a new army book may not be far off if the rumours are to be believed!

On the Painting Table: Tomb Kings Ushabti

Tomb Kings Ushabti have always been some of my favourite miniatures but the price tag made me shy away. For years and years.

But there are many benefits to being married and one of these is having someone to buy me the occasional surprise present!

 

 

I’m working on an unusual principle at the moment where I’m painting about four different projects simultaneously, starting new units as old ones are completed. I painted these guys alongside some Beastmen, a Skaven Doom Flayer, my Fey Enchantress and some other stuff.

The colour scheme is Dwarf Bronze | Flesh Wash | Shining Gold and Hawk Turquoise | Ice Blue.

I’m looking forward to seeing how they do in the game. At 150 points they’re quite points-heavy but again, coolness is always the overarching factor for me.

And these guys are chuffing cool! 

On the Painting Table: Alternative Bretonnian Fey Enchantress

Well this was one of those pretty miniatures I stumbled across on eBay earlier in the year when I went a bit crazy and had to get my friend Neil to change my eBay password to stop me buying basically EVERYTHING online. 

Six months later I've actually painted her!

I'll be using her in my Tempestrian army to represent a Bretonnian Fey Enchantress. I really want to individualise the different "fronts" of the war with different characters commanding different themed armies in different locations (rather than every army unrealistically having the same characters and theme). She's probably going to be commanding the eastern front against the Chaos Dwarfs.

She's the Gamezone Mounted Sorceress with Parchment.

On the Painting Table: The Coven of Shadows

I have been busy. 

Here are three miniatures that I'm using to represent the Coven of Shadows, special characters from my Wood Elf army featured in the History of the Elves & Dwarfs above.

I'll post more about their background and stats in future but for now, enjoy the slightly pornographic nature of the miniatures. 

I'm not entirely happy with the paint jobs (which felt a bit rushed to me), but they'll do for now. 

They are all Dark Sword miniatures: The Summoner, Demogorgan & Female Black Witch. 

Actually I'm a little embarrassed about the paint jobs up close but what the heck! They look great on the tabletop. 

And they're half naked women! This is the pinnacle of the hobby!  It doesn't get much better than this!

Spotlight On... Official Arcane Fulcrums: The Balewind Vortex & Storm of Magic Review

And here's the other one! 

Man, I had trouble with this. The stone effect was easy enough using the three shades of grey. The bronze effect was laborious and fiddly but straightforward (Tin Bitz | Dwarf Bronze).

The funnel was a nightmare.

First off I filled the gaps with all-purpose filler but didn't get it smoothed off perfectly. Then I started on a blue colour scheme that I just couldn't get to look right.

Eventually I switched to yellow, starting from scratch and suddenly it started to look better. I went Blazing Orange | Golden Yellow | Sunburst Yellow | White.

So I mentioned on my other Arcane Fulcrum post that I might mention my reservations about Storm of Magic...

In principle I think it's great. The background is cool; the book is very exciting; and I love the idea of GW releasing supplements again (the General's Compendium changed my life).

I also regarded the magic system as broken insomuch as there were nowhere near enough magic dice to go around which severely limited my army lists. Suddenly having double the number of magic dice seems like the ideal solution, however I, my friend Mike and my wife have all found that the extra dice and spells REALLY slows the game down. With so many more options the game seems to descend into a lot more umming and ahing.

Because wizards are so critical to stay on the fulcrums and win the game I found after a couple of games that I was very reluctant to risk the exciting high-powered spells anyway for fear of miscasting. Which goes against the point rather...

And the Arcane Fulcrum capturing seems a bit samey game to game. 

Having said all that, it is still early days and I needto play a lot more games with it. Once I've gone beyond the point where I'm more familiar with the spells and rules tweaks it should become more fluid and easy.

And I do love the ideas and imagery. 

We'll see. Perhaps I'll comment more after I've played again.