HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! My resolutions and goals for 2017

I'm starting to write this post many weeks in advance of 2017 as I want 2017 to be my year of self-improvement, both as a person and also in my hobbies. 2016 was a not a huge year for me but it did hit me with several realisations. Not that 2016 was all bad personally, I graduated university, celebrated 4 years with my girlfriend, got a lot closer with my family and in these last few months have made a good start to losing weight. Whilst in 2016 my hobbing got more out of hand than it already was (not that this is a bad thing).

Personal Resolutions

Lose weight, become healthy

The Elephant in the room... is me. Over the last 4 years of university, I have gained a stupid amount of weight. Regrettably, from induction to graduation I had doubled my body weight and I'm horribly ashamed of it. My family have been very concerned about my health for quite some time while I just shrugged it off as nothing. I know now this was an awful decision on my part. Those that know me probably know I am a very obsessive person and get horribly addicted to things (hence the huge hobby backlog). This is the main reason for my weight gain, I enjoy drinking fizzy drinks a little too much. Throughout the past 4 years at university with the freedom to live and eat as I wanted I consumed far too much of the stuff, in conjunction with not being very active led to rapid weight gain. The past few months of drinking it in moderation and being more active through work have been wonders, losing almost 2 stone in a very short amount of time and I can only hope that continuing with this will do wonders for my health.

Find fulfilling work

Working in retail does not work for me. I have left university with a degree, I want to do something more than just stack shelves and serve on a till. 2017 has to be the year I get off my arse and find a job that I will enjoy doing. (I also want more money for hobby).

Travel Europe
Something I would love to do not only for myself but because it is something I know my girlfriend would absolutely love is to travel around Europe visiting several countries. We have talked about this many times and have agreed that it would be quite the experience.

Hobby Goals

Complete existing projects before starting any new ones

As you can see from this blog I'm constantly flitting around different projects making small amounts of progress in each but never anything substantial. I think in all honesty I need to downsize the to-do pile and sell off some things I know I'm never going to get around to doing. In 2017 I would like to finish a few of the ongoing things I'm working on such as; the boxful of LotR mini's required to play through the journey book scenarios, my half painted Age of Sigmar armies and the crazy amount of half finished scenery sitting in my closet to name a few.

Finish writing my own wargame

Back in 2014, I began writing a set of rules that I intended to be a jack of all trades rule set for fighting fantasy skirmish battles. Over the next 2 years, this would evolve to become Gods of Mana, a small skirmish wargame I have written enabling me to play one of my all time favourite PC games, Populous 3: The Beginning on the tabletop. I feel this game has a lot of potential and the few times I have taken it be tested by my friends it has been rather well received (apart from the OP swamp spell, which I refuse to nerf). A friend of my is currently designing some models to use to play this game that we can 3D print which I think is really cool.

I'll post more about Gods of Mana soon when I have more than just a poorly edited rules document. But watch this space as I think it's a game a lot of people will potentially like.

Start my own YouTube channel

Last, of all I would like to create hobby related YouTube content. After a long day at work, my favourite thing to do is lay in bed and watch a battle report of a game I don't play, an army I don't play or hobby advice. These people on these channels life is wargaming and they appear to get tonnes done so starting 2017 I am going to start by slowly creating some kind of videos to keep me on track. Very similar to how this blog functions.

I hope you all had a good 2016, and an even better 2017
WargamerEthan

Lord of the Rings SBG #3 - Fiefdom of Lamedon

This is actually a follow-up to an older blog post from a blog me and some friends ran for a brief time last year dedicated to restarting LotR SBG, Shadows Over Arda. In that blog, I explained that I was going to write rules and convert mini's for other factions not found or fully fleshed out by GW before they updated to their Hobbit set of SBG rules. Although I acknowledge that the Hobbit SBG update may have fixed several areas of the game that full-time players say improve on the LotR iteration, I just don't feel like dropping a load of money on new books anytime soon when I have the entire LotR SBG sourcebook and journey-book collection. (Plus I really dislike the Warband rules. Why does Aragorn or Sauron only have the ability to lead 12 soldiers? I prefer maybe 1 or 2 heroes per army, not armies full of named heroes with 12 guys each following them.)

Back to the subject at hand. My first attempt at writing new profiles for LotR SBG began with the southern fiefdom of Lamedon lead by Angbor the Bold. Games Workshop made a start with producing models for this any a few other of the fiefdoms of Gondor but this as with most of the other fiefdoms, only received one unit and one hero. Using these profiles as a basis I filled in a few blanks with profiles I felt fit the gaps to bring this force up to become an army of its own.

GW went the direction aesthetically of making Angbor and the Clansmen look like the traditional Braveheart Scotsman. My iteration of these models will continue this theme but also use models that would not look out of place in a 12th-century historical army to model the Men-at-Arms and other needed mini's as this is the era I feel most accommodates how I saw the armies of men in Middle Earth during the War of the Ring.

These are my rules for the Fiefdom of Lamedon;

Please leave any feedback regarding these profiles in the comments below!

Blood Bowl #1 - Pre-Season Preparation

On Friday I was lucky enough to have played a game of the new incarnation of Blood Bowl from Games Workshop. Unfortunately for me as I was entering the world of wargaming from what I remember, games such as Blood Bowl were on their way out and I only every got to play it two or three times. This is one of the many specialist games I have wanted to play for absolutely years, luckily I managed to get my hands on an unopened Battlefleet Gothic starter box last year and now I'm able to play another of these highly praised games that has been incredibly hard to find an affordable copy of. 

Blood Bowl 2016 starter box

Of that brief game of Blood Bowl, I was luckily allowed to play I was surprised to find how similar in almost 90% of the game was to the recent PC releases of Blood Bowl. I was aware they were close but not as similar as they actually turned out to be.

The Reikland Reavers (Human Starter Team)

I fully intend to get two lots of this Blood Bowl starter box as I would like to paint up the first as the intended teams from the box, The Reikland Reavers and The Gouged Eye. The second will be used to come up with my own teams.

From finishing the starter set my plan is to branch out with the Death Zone league rules and come up with some of my own teams to form a small league with. As more and more teams are released, such as the soon to be released Skaven team they can be added as they are acquired. From what I can infer from screenshots of the Death Zone contents page its looks like season 1 as GW are calling it will have a total of 8 teams which are as follows; Human, Orc, Skaven, Dwarf, Nurgle, High Elf, Wood Elf and Dark Elf which should ensure quite an exciting first run of the game.

The Gouged Eye (Orc Starter Team)

Warhammer 40k #1 - Kill Team Michaelus WIP

My 197 point Blood Angels Kill Team is made up from a 6 man Sternguard Veteran Squad.

Veteran Sergeant Michaelus

The leader of the Kill Team, Veteran Sergeant Michaelus is armed with a Power Sword to hunt down any model on the board and not allow it an armour save. If I were to a campaign with this Kill Team I would make give Micaelus the Been there, Seen it, Done it Leader Trait to allow him to become a fourth specialist for the Kill Team specialising in combat. Specialising in combat would allow Michaelus to become a Warrior Adept gaining him an extra point in Weapon Skill.

Specialist Malthus

Guerilla Specialist Malthus, armed with a Heavy Flamer will be stalking through the ruins of the board using the Move Through Cover rule to quickly get the Heavy Flamer in range.

Specialist Turcio

Specialist Turcio is armed with a Storm Bolter and is a Weapon Specialist gaining the Reaping Volley rule which allows him to fire the two shots from the Storm Bolter at different targets. Combined with his specialist Sternguard ammunition I believe this could be a useful combo.

Specialist Danton

Specialist Danton is armed with a Missile Launcher in the hope of being able to fire at closely grouped models with his blast attacks. Danton is an Indomitable Specialist and so has gained the Relentless rule to be able to manoeuvre and both fire his weapon at full Ballistic Skill.

Brother Travis

Brother Travis' role is to lay supporting fire for the advancing parts of the Kill Team, he is armed with a Combi-Melta so is able to take care of any enemy armour that may appear on the battlefield.

Brother Julius 

Brother Julius like Brother Travis is armed just with a Combi-Melta.

My first day of painting consisted of getting the red Power Armour's colour correct. I started by spraying them Mepheston Red then washing Agrax Earthshade, from here I re-layered the Mepheston Red onto the flat open areas of the Power Armour. Finally to finish the Power Armour I did an edge highlight of Evil Sunz Scarlet on any edge that you can see from directly above the model.

Specialist Turcio, Specialist Danton, Brother Travis, Bother Julius,
Specialist Malthus and Veteran Sergeant Michaelus

I just took a quick crappy photo to be able to document my first day of work on the Kill Team, more to come soon.

Lord of the Rings SBG #2 - Dwarf Showcase

Recently I got back one of my LotR armies from a friend that so kindly offered to paint for me. This force was the first one I collected after coming back to LotR SBG early last year. The basis of this army was inspired by the example 500 point army using the Durin's Folk selections from the Khazad-Dum sourcebook. It was easy to expand from that example list by adding in the few left over models from the Warriors box and some other command models like the Horn Blower and the legendary Gimli son of Gloin.

Hopefully, soon I will have my Moria Goblins finished so I can run some games pitting the two forces against each other for the dominion of some Dwarven Hold.

Command Group, Dwarf King, Gimli and Bodyguard

I have split the force up into 4 groups to use on the tabletop. The Command group will be flanked on both sides by Group 1 and 2 whilst the Support group lay down supporting fire with the Ballista from a point of high ground.

Group 1, including Dwarf Captain and Standard Bearer

Group 2, including extra archer support

Support Group, including Horn Blower

Frostgrave #3 - Skeletons and Imps!

My first lot of creatures of Frostgrave turned out nice for such simple work. The Skeletons are GW's Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors and the Imps are the goblins from GW's Escape From Goblin Town. These just happened to be mini's that I have knocking around the hobby cupboard that fortunately fits in the Frostgrave theme.

I have never liked those goblins from Escape From Goblin Town and I know it's not GW's fault that they look awful seeing as they had to design models to accompany the films aesthetic which I thought was poor the second they turned up in the film. Fortunately, I feel they work quite well as Imps / Lesser daemons due to how varied they all look physically.

6 Imps

Although I used mostly the newer Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors because they look better against most other Warhammer mini's I love these goofy Tomb Kings Skeletons mainly for their cheesy grins. They defiantly do not fit in the semi-serious Age of Sigmar aesthetic they certainly have a home in my games of Frostgrave due to the slight comicalness their outlandish poses and big grins emanate.

8 Skeletons

I'm still working on some Armoured Skeletons and they are very close to completion and next would like to work on some animals like Giant Rats, Wolves and Bears.

Lord of the Rings SBG #1 - The Mines of Moria WIP

At the beginning of the summer, I was lucky enough to find a new in box Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, Mines of Moria beginner box. I first owned this over 10 years ago and have since lost my original copy. When I saw this box at an affordable £30 I instantly decided to put on hold the hobby purchase I had been saving for that week and rushed home for a large dose of nostalgia.

Contents of Mines of Moria box game.

The Lord of the Rings SBG was always my favourite GW game growing up but unfortunately in my local club nobody ever played it, instead favouring almost exclusively WH40k. In the years since I have tried several times to restart this game and recently managed to pick up all of the old Sourcebooks in the hope that I could one day play through all of the scenarios in order and follow the adventure of Frodo and the other heroes on the tabletop from The Shire to the Cracks of Doom.

I have played through this box a few times now since purchase and as you would expect is quite simple to play and heavy in The Fellowships favour. Rather than make something up myself to change this instead I'm going to from this point play this box using the Balin's Tomb scenario from The Fellowship of the Ring sourcebook. This version of the scenario adds in 2 Goblin Captains for the Evil side, with these added heroes it gives the Goblins that little bit of added punch and dice manipulation to try and counter the 9 heroes of The Fellowship.

In regards to the hobby side of this box, I have managed to complete 6 of the 24 Goblins while the other 18 are in various stages of completion but should not take me too long if put some time aside for them.

6 of 24 Moria Goblins

I remember my original Fellowship models from this box looked just awful so I aim to redeem myself, this time around. I have for some reason two sets of the plastic Fellowship so am going to do a practice set of models then a set to use in the game with the second lot. Balin's tomb is something I'm also considering building as you get most of the terrain needed in the Mines of Moria box anyway, all I would need is a slab of wood in the correct size for the room and some polystyrene to make the walkways around the edge of the room and walls.

Frostgrave #2 - Checklist!

As a sort of side project for whenever I want to build or paint something that isn't Age of Sigmar related I'm going to be working on building a gaming kit that will enable my local group to play Frostgrave. I bought this ruleset on its release and although I've been itching to play did nothing with it which I really regret.

Before I get to creating warbands I'm going to build literally everything else needed to play Frostgrave as everybody who wargames have a handful of fantasy mini's so they really aren't the priority. After a thorough read of the main rulebook, I made myself a checklist of scenery and monsters I'll need to play everything in the book.

To-do checklist

I managed to print it off in A3 to stick up on my wall to keep me progressing. Now to start checking items off!

Age of Sigmar #9 - The Backlog

Every hobbyist has one, the dreaded backlog. Piles and piles of unbuilt, unpainted models and always so terrifyingly overwhelming when you count it up. To the left of my desk, I have a set of IKEA shelves full to the brim with rulebooks, novels, paints, dice, counters and my backlog.

I have decided to make a list of everything I have to finish in my Age of Sigmar backlog to hopefully stop the weak future me from buying anything more.

40 Skeleton Swordsmen

40 Skeleton Spearmen

40 Skeleton Bowmen

2 Wight Kings

10 Black Knights

10 Hexwraiths

1 Cairn Wraith

1 Black Coach

2 Mortis Engines

Nagash

Mannfred Mortarch

Arkhan Mortarch

2 Archai

3 Necromancers

60 Zombies

5 Blood Knights

1 Bretonnian lord on pegasus

20 Knights

40 Archers

50 Men-at-Arms

3 Pegasus Knights

Paladin

Damsel 

Shelf 3, aka the GA:Death backlog dump

1 Treelord

10 Tree-Revenants

32 Dryads

1 Branchwych

1 Branchwraith

3 Kurnoth Hunters

15 Liberators
5 Retributors
6 Prosecutors
1 Knight-Venator
1 Lord-Relictor

1 Warrior Priest

1 Mighty Lord of Khorne

12 Blood Warriors

45 Bloodreavers

1 Khorne Icon

1 Khorne Monster and handler

2 Realm Gates

1 Garden of Morr

1 Wyldwood

Arcane Ruins

DO NOT BUY MORE THINGS ETHAN!

DO NOT BUY MORE THINGS ETHAN!

DO NOT BUY MORE THINGS ETHAN!

(don't ask me about the other games I play)

Age of Sigmar #8 - How to play Deathmages? / Deathwalker? / Beasts of the Grave?

The common keywords for these units are: DEATH

These three factions, Deathmages, Deathwalker and Beasts of the Grave are very weird in regards to most other factions in Age of Sigmar, they all aren't able to legally or even effectively play as a faction on its own unlike most all other factions in the game. Grand Alliance Death obviously has a ton of holes that need filling and hopefully, we will get a new or second re-written faction to rectify this. I play this three factions as one army as each faction either by design or most likely pure chance fill the role of Leaders, Troops or Monsters.

Heroes (Deathmages)

I have not included the Mortis Engine as a part of this overview as I feel thematically it belongs in a Nighthaunt / Malignants army and so sticks out from the rest of these units.

Necromancer: Necromancers are the standard Wizard available to Death, their unique magic spell, Vanhel's Danse Macabre, on the other hand, is incredibly useful not only in supporting ZOMBIE armies but also SKELETON and MORDANT allowing the target unit to pile in and fight twice in the combat phase. Necromancers also have a rule very similar to the Warhammer 40,000 look out sir which allows you to allocate wounds they suffer to ZOMBIE units in close proximity.

Necromancer, taken from Necromancer warscroll

Troops (Deathwalker)

Zombies: Zombies work, but only in large numbers. Zombies have no armour save and awful melee stats until you begin to horde them, for each group of 10 Zombies in the unit they gain 1+ to their Hit and Wound rolls to a maximum of 3+ which if you get this bonus means you have a unit of at least 30 zombies and no matter what army you are facing, 30 Zombies is a hard unit to remove. That 3+ to Hit rolls can be boosted to 4+ to Hit rolls if within close proximity of a Corpse Cart. Although they have no save they have two ways to bolster their ranks during the game, firstly if they include a banner D6 Zombies return to the unit each Hero Phase and secondly every time the Zombies kill a model, roll a dice and on a 6 the slain model becomes a Zombie!

Corpse Cart: The Corpse Cart is the unit that allows your Zombies and Dire Wolves to get those much-needed re-rolls. If left on its own it is completely useless as it is not great in a fight and its abilities are then wasted. Each Corpse Cart has the choice of a Balefire Brazier which forces enemy Wizards to subtract 1 from their casting roll. Alternatively, it can have an Unholy Lodestone which boosts casting rolls of Death Wizards by 1. With the large number of Zombies, you should be taking and their need to be within 9" of one of these carts I would almost always take 2 of these each with one of the different options.

Corpse Cart, taken from Corpse Cart warscroll

Dire Wolves: Dire Wolves are the fast addition to this army, compared to the Zombies this unit if what you will use to zip across the battlefield to control and contest objectives or pick off vulnerable backline units. They are quite survivable with two wounds each and much like the Zombies get better if they are close to a Corpse Cart, in this case, it allows them to add one to save roll essentially making it a 4+.

Monsters (Beasts of the Grave)

Terrorgheist: The Terrogheist is in no way a bad unit but it is much better in other factions when it is acting as a mount for a hero. It does have a great shooting attack that wounds against the targets Bravery stat so against cowardly armies this unit gives this army a much needed powerful ranged attack to put pressure on the enemy while your Zombies make their way across the battlefield.

Zombie Dragon: As with the Terrorgheist the versions of the Zombie Dragon as a mount for a hero are much better than the Zombie Dragon on its own. Much like the Terrorgheist the Zombie Dragon has a powerful ranged attack that I would happily use instead of Arcane Bolt on my Necromancers to allow them to cast their unique spell.

Age of Sigmar #7 - 7 Hours to kill... Multiple wishlists!

Last night I had the pleasure of taking the overnight National Express down to London which is a gruelling cramped 7 hours on a coach that is both too hot and freezing, it was my personal hell.

With nothing to do and not being able to sleep I decided to write up a few wishlists for a couple of armies I'm interested in playing at the moment after having a thorough read of several of the Battletomes and the Age of Sigmar app. I'm sticking to 1000 points with a small tolerance above and below as with these new Age of Sigmar points values it is actually quite difficult to hit 1000 dead on.

Spiderfang Grots

What's not to like about an army of Spiders running towards your enemy with howling Grots on their backs? Ever since The Battle for Skull Pass I loved Spider Riders and now in Age of Sigmar I can field an army just of them.

Grot Big Boss on Gigantic Spider

Arachnarok Spider

10 Grot Spider Riders

10 Grot Spider Riders

10 Grot Spider Riders

Grot Spider Riders, taken from the Grot Spider Riders warscroll

Clans Pestilens

This list started as a list I wrote for a friend and though he didn't use it too well on the table the amount of models on the board is quite impressive and I really like the look of a unified Pestilen army. I have never liked Skaven but now they are part of the Chaos allegiance there should be some rats that actually have ties to the other deities of the Chaos pantheon and that's something I can get behind.

Plague Furnace

Plague Priest

30 Plague Monks

30 Plague Monks

Plagueclaw

Plague Priest, taken from Plague Priest warscroll

Ironjawz

My favourite character of the previous setting was Grimgor Ironhide. In my eyes, there is nothing better in a fantasy setting then hard as nails hordes of Orcs or Orruks that have no goal other than causing a ruckus. The expansion of the Black Orc range into the Ironjawz was something I really loved and had to really resist not dropping countless pounds on during its initial release.

Weirdnob Shaman

10 Brutes

10 Ardboys

10 Ardboys

3 Gore-gruntas

Ardboys, taken from the Ardboys warscroll

Devoted of Sigmar

Another part of the World the Was that I liked was the religious fanaticism of The Empire, in Age of Sigmar I really did struggle to see where The Empires models would fit in with this super high fantasy aesthetic till I saw the Golden armour clad Warrior Priests being flanked by uncountable Flagellants on their warscrolls just proved to me these models have a place in both Age of Sigmar and my growing collection of models.

Warrior Priest

Warrior Priest

Warrior Priest

War Altar of Sigmar

20 Flagellants

20 Flagellants

20 Flagellants

Warrior Priest, taken from the Warrior Priest warscroll

The one army I'm really wanting to play is a mortal Tzeentch cultist army lead by a Gaunt Summoner. I'm hoping that the models coming from The Silver Tower get released as their own Battletome and miniature line much like most of the models from the Warhammer 40k boxed games have in recent months.

What to do on the coach back north in a few days then?

Age of Sigmar #6 - Celestial Vindicators Lord-Celestant

I have now had bare plastic Stormcast Eternals in my to-do pile since my beginnings in Age of Sigmar. I just could not decide on how I wanted to paint them, originally I was tempted by a Hallowed Knights army led by Tarsus Bull-Heart but wanted something I had not seen in my local area.

This past fortnight there had been a painting competition in my local Warhammer store with the only requirements being that you enter one model and it is no bigger than 50mm base footprint. After finishing my Nighthaunt I have wanted to push my painting skills up a level and so chose to paint a Lord-Celestant of the Celestial Vindicators as my entry.

Unfortunately, my entry was not finished in time for entering into the competition but I wanted to finish it anyway.

Celestial Vindicators Lord-Celestant

I had a ton of fun painting this model so much I have decided to make the Stormcast my active project for an upcoming Path to Glory campaign at this same local Warhammer store. A path to Glory campaign does not require a points value but as my goal for Age of Sigmar is to collect several 1000 point faction armies as not to over-collect one faction and also that I have a great variety of armies to play with.

My 1000 (1020) point Celestial Vindicators army is as follows;

Lord-Celestant

Lord-Relictor

Knight-Venator

5 Liberators with Hammer and Sigmarite Shield

5 Liberators with Hammer and Sigmarite Shield

5 Liberators with Hammer and Sigmarite Shield

5 Paladin Retributors

3 Prosecutors with Celestial Hammers

3 Prosecutors with Celestial Hammers

Age of Sigmar #5 - Slaves of Shyish

The first ever army I collected when getting into the hobby over a decade ago was Bretonnia for Warhammer Fantasy. Growing up playing mainly Age of Empires the Knights of the Realm were the obvious choice for a young inspired newbie.

With the destruction of the world that was my beloved Bretonnia no longer exists and this leaves me with a pile of models that I have no use for. My friend rob has been pushing me into using them for Age of Sigmar so he can paint them for me but I had until this evening been hesitant as I didn't feel like they fit into the Age of Sigmar world.

I finally came up with a theme that I feel fits the fluff of AoS. The Lords, Damsels and Paladins are vampires leading a coven of humans who wish to become Vampires. The Knights are these humans wishing to become Vampires and so fight for the Coven Lord to prove their worth and right to ascension. The Peasants are organised into Herds of humans kept alive only for their blood when needed these herds are organised to fight using Longbows and Polearms. The Battle Pilgrims are now Vampires that have fallen out of favour with their lord and are forced to battle with awful weaponry hopefully trying to regain the favour of their lord. Finally, the Green Knight is now The Undying, First Vampire of Shyish an immortal warrior that is now a part of Shyish itself coming forth to destroy the foes of the Realm of Death.

Warscrolls

All of the Warscrolls are heavily influenced by the legacy Bretonnian scrolls. Let me know if you think anything is way too overpowered or if you have any cool ideas to add to the themes of these units or new units,

The Warscrolls were created using this Custom Warscroll Designer.

EDIT: POINTS VALUES

Bolt Action #1 - Returning for 2nd Edition

Bolt Action was the game that brought me back to the world of wargaming after a few year hiatus almost 4 years ago. I had not thought of anything to do with the hobby till I mistakenly found it while searching the web about the second world war.

I read up on it and liked what I saw so I ordered the Assault on Normandy box set to my student digs and got cracking with wargaming the second world war.

With a new edition of the rule set being released in September, iv'e decided to take another crack at Bolt Action but this time in 15mm. In the few games of Bolt Action, I did get to play the one thing that bugged me was the scale of it. Warlord has done a great job in creating multi-part plastic kits for tonnes of the armies but I just prefer to wargame historical games in a smaller scale.

So to be ready for this new edition I want to have ready a small US force ready to take the war to the Germans. This 750 (745) point list using the generic Reinforced Platoon is my recon themed force who are the vanguard of the Allied advance through France and Europe. I'm in no way an expert in Platoon structure but using the parameters the game allows I feel this list would work ok in a recon role.

I have had the models to do this in this scale for quite a while and it was my active project for about a week before Age of Sigmar took over my life but after the trailer for Nolan's upcoming Dunkirk being my highlight of the Suicide Squad midnight release I just got the itch to pick up the project again.

Age of Sigmar #4 - The Fell Souls of Stygzz

Well, this has been a long time coming. This is the first time in my 10+ years in the hobby that I have completed an army... You can call bullshit but if you knew me you would know how awful I am at staying on a project.

My finished army "The Fell Souls of Stygzz" are in no way Golden Demon or even Bronze Demon if such award were to exist but this really is a milestone for my hobby. Painting this army has gained Death 6 points in my store, with gaming giving me a few more too having not lost a game with them at 1000 points.

The whole army ready to battle!

Now these are done I have two more AoS projects to finish. I'm painting a Stormcast Lord-Celestant as a Celestial Vindicators for a painting competition in my local GW. I have never entered anything into a painting competition before because I know I'm not good enough to even place but I have 20 days to practice and improve my skills to hopefully stand out from the crowd of other entries.

The other project I'm undertaking with my girlfriend is a 1000 point Sylvaneth army with tonnes of the cool new models included. More to come on this project in a different post.

Age of Sigmar #3 - How to play Nighthaunt?

The common keywords for these units are: DEATH, NIGHTHAUNT and MALIGNANT

Most units in the Nighthaunt have both the Fly and Ethereal rules. Fly allows them to ignore scenery when moving and also pass over enemy units. Ethereal ignores all attacking weapons rends.

With the Season of War in full swing I'm ready to play my first games towards the global campaign.

Heroes

Cairn Wraith: I usually take about 3 Cairn Wraiths and run them into large horde units. Their Reaped Like Corn ability allows them to re-roll hits when the target has 5 or more models. The problem with Nighthaunt Heroes is that they don't have any abilities that buff other Nighthaunt units around them. 

Tomb Banshee: The Tomb Banshee is a must take against a low bravery army, essentially a little weaker than the Cairn Wraith in melee its scream has good potential to cause tonnes of mortal wounds on small low bravery units.

Black Coach: I find it very hard to find a place for the Black Coach in a pure Nighthaunt army. It relies on being close to Death Wizards in order to gain power which is something the Nighthaunt do not have. With the new leader upgrades in the Generals Handbook allowing your general to become a Death Wizard, this can be rectified but it still requires you to roll a 6 each turn to get the upgrade. Not that any of the upgrades really appear to be that useful.

Black Coach, taken from Black Coach warscroll

Units

Spirit Hosts: I like Spirit Hosts, in large numbers this unit can be devastating. It has the standard Fly and Ethereal as most Nighthaunt do but with 3 wounds each, it can be quite hard to get rid of a base of them. They have the ability to cause mortal wounds on a hit roll of 6 and when each base has 6 attacks each more often than not you do most of your damage from these wounds alone. I usually run them in groups of 6 for a potential 36 to hit dice.

Hexwraiths: Hexwraiths are best suited as fast flanking harassment units if they fly over an enemy unit in the movement phase they each have the chance to hit them with their scythes causing mortal wounds. I usually run these around avoiding combat flying over units till my spirit hosts get into combat, after one final flyover charging into the rear of units or going to pick off unsupported heroes.

Hexwraiths, taken from Hexwraiths warscroll

Monsters

Mourngul: Only earlier today did it hit me that the Forge World Mourngul looks like a giant spirit so after a quick check of its warscroll I know I have found what the next addition to my Nighthaunt host will be! Rules wise without using it in the game it seems very strong. It keeps the standard fly and ignore rend that most of the Nighthaunt have with a 3+ save, a second 4+ save against mortal wounds and then the ability to regain D3 wounds every turn it kills something. The Mourngul only has one melee attack option but at full wounds, it has the potential to throw out 16 damage at -2 rend not accounting for the extra attacks it gets if it rolls a 6 to hit. It has a nice bravery damage effect that could work well with the Banshee scream. I can't wait to get a hold of this model to just start causing some chaos on the table.

Age of Sigmar #2 - Nighthaunt Update

I hate to admit it, but I have painted more mini's this past week then I have in the past year or so. During university I really fell out with the hobby side, I just did not find painting the mini's fun. Coming out of that mindset has been very hard but the feeling of accomplishment in the hobby is something I have not felt till this past week, and I like it.

I will be the first to admit, I am not a good painter but I intend to improve from this point onwards. I managed to get to a quality I'm happy with 6 Spirit Hosts, 1 Tomb Banshee, 2 Cairn Wraiths and 10 Hexwraith Horses. I still have the Hexwraiths themselves to paint as well as 6 more Spirit Hosts but unfortunately, I'm currently out of white spray so I will need to go out and purchase some soon.

Tomb Banshee and Cairn Wraiths

 It's posted all over the Internet but in case you have not seen how to paint Spirit Hosts, its a wash of Nihilakh Oxide over a white primer then wash the recesses with the Waywatcher Green glaze. Simple.

First 6 Spirit Hosts

Age of Sigmar #1 - The Season Of War

Starting in a week or so is Games Workshops Season of War and with it 3 so called new ways to play Age of Sigmar. Now I don't have my General Handbook yet but via the multitudes of leaks I have been able to calculate a 1000 point Nighthaunt army to take part in my local GW's summer campaign.

Upon registering for the campaign you are given a small card to track your progress be it through gaming or hobby tasks. You also get a cool little badge to show which Grand Alliance you are a part of so naturally I took the Nagash badge. My girlfriend also registered and chose who I assume is an Alarielle badge.

Deciding to stay within the Nighthaunt allegiance I can make a legal army of just ghosts, which I'm quite excited for. Because of staying within the Nighthaunt allegiance Spirit Hosts become Battleline units. My 1000 points list is as follows.

1 Tomb Banshee

2 Cairn Wraiths

12 Spirit Hosts (2 groups of 6)

10 Hexwraiths

My Sigmar army since starting it in January has been neglected, I have barely painted any of it which works in my favour for gaining points in the campaign. I currently only have my Tomb Banshee and 3 Spirit Hosts close to being finished so it's going to be quite the push to finish these models at the rate I paint. Wish me luck!

This is the army as it sits today, it's not even fully built. My aim is to get it painted and based by the 7th of August for a 1000 point tournament at an LGS.

Frostgrave #1 - Custom Scenario, Imp Catcher

(Please note this scenario has yet to be tested if you play it let me know how it goes in the comments)

IMP CATCHER

The Wizard Grayzag has summoned hundreds of little imps. They have stolen a lot of things belonging to the Wizard Mizgog including his magic beads. A full set of these Beads will teach Wizards any spell they desire.

Set-Up

Lay out the table as per the rules as per the rules for a standard game. In place of treasure, players each place 3 Imps in turn on the board in the same manner as placing treasure.

Special Rules

Once an Imp is slain, roll a D20 and consult the table below to reveal the colour of the Bead the Imp was carrying. Beads are so small that they do not slow down models carrying them but otherwise act identically to treasure. Models can each carry two Beads.

D20 Result	Bead Colour
1 - 5	Red
6 - 10	White
11 - 15	Black
16 - 20	Yellow

As soon as an Imp is slain and a Bead is claimed a new Imp moves onto the board from the table edge. Roll randomly to determine which edge. Summoned Imps do not carry Beads.

Treasure and Experience 

For each full set of Beads; Red, White, Black and Yellow a Warband removes from the table its Wizard may learn one spell for free. Alternatively, Beads can be sold for 50gc each or for 300gc for a full set.