At the Court of the Silver King - Chapter IV: The Fate-Ender

The agents of the Dark Gods also turn their attention to the Court of the Silver King. Seeking to foil the machinations of the God-King Sigmar, Tzeentch calls upon one of his more unusual servants to claim the head of an ancient traitor...

The Inexorable Engine - Chaos in the Old Wolrd

Tzeentch will have his due...

I have had a long and troubled relationship with the forces of Chaos. This was never an army I really planned on having; most of it being a gift from a friend. Rather than selling it over the years I have done various things with it and previously the army looked like this: Part 1 and Part 2. However this year I decided that in tribute to the Old World I would paint this army up and finish it properly for display.

I decided to give it a major re-theme, re-paint and added a few new things like Chaos Dwarves while cutting any filler and rubbish. After being busy with uni for a year I settled down for a month of intensive painting and finally got this army where it is now.

Thoughts from my desk: Age of Sigmar, Purple Worms and batch painting

Having just gotten back into the blog I have quite a few thoughts and things swirling abut in my head that I felt like writing down. Since the end of my academic year I have hung around my university doing research for my dissertation and in my spare time doing bits of hobbying. While my desk is usually covered in odd bits of paper, books and post-it notes; it is currently swamped beneath paint pots and miniatures.

This is where we are at the moment with quite a few different things going on that provoked my train of thought...

Disappearing and returning to the hobby

As some of you might have noticed I sort of dropped off the face of the earth some time in September last year. The past year for me has been incredibly busy for various reasons and without warning my hobby was put onto the back-burner. In between commitments I did manage to paint a few things but nothing substantial and unfortunately blogging fell off of my radar altogether. I think this is something that we all do from time to time when life overtakes us and I would like to apologise that in this instance I disappeared without warning. 

My academic year however is now over and with some free time I have been able to get some serious painting done and decided it was high time I address the blog. Firstly I have reorganised some aspects of the blog in order to make newer and more interesting content more easily available while clearing out some of the digital cobwebs that had built up. 

Currently I am working on re-painting my Chaos army (a project I wanted to finish before Christmas but never got round to) and some random stuff for Frostgrave which my brother and I have really gotten into this past year. You can expect to see this, alongside a few random Kingdom Death miniatures to appear in the next few months.

WIP Twilight Knight (Reverse Pin-up)

Also this summer I am planning to do a serious re-evalutaion of what I own and will most likely be selling off some of my armies and miniatures which I don't use anymore and are just languishing in boxes gathering dust. Those models I choose to keep will receive special treatment in order to be displayed. As I don't battle very often I have decided I might as well get a glass cabinet and put what I do have on show.

As for future projects I am in fact planning on taking the plunge into Age of Sigmar. I have decided that my time for mourning the Old World is over and I can hardly resist the new miniatures and the appeal of delving into a new universe to explore. More on this to come in the Autumn when I start work on the Court of the Silver Lion and the Church of Nagash. No doubt I will soon write an editorial about my thoughts on Age of Sigmar as a follow-up to the editorial I wrote last year: Thoughts on Age of Sigmar: rage, optimism and the uncertain future...

Lord Quasdomo the Twice-Cursed

Already I have started work on this mighty Chaos Lord who will be visiting the Court of the Silver Lion as a foreign dignitary. I had an awful lot of fun converting the Forge World Praetor Tribune, which I picked up on a total whim having gone to my local GW for some paints, and I look forward to using him in the future.

I also plan on posting some more of my other art to the blog including canvas and watercolour pieces. Currently I am working on this acrylic painting which was inspired by the season finale of Game of Thrones. On this note I will leave you and I look forward to posting some more content on here in the next few weeks.

Doombringer out.

WIP: The Mad Queen

Thoughts on Age of Sigmar - Rage, Optimism and the Uncertain Future...

Well this has been an interesting few weeks. After the demise of the Old World we finally see what has come to take its place and the emergent Age of Sigmar has divided the community. Here I will attempt to gather some thoughts from across the internet as well as throw in a few of my own ramblings with regards the new release. More than anything this is for posterity's sake as I think it will be interesting to look back on the dawn of this new era of Warhammer in the months and years to come.

I will address the three core aspects of the game (as I see them): the models, the rules and the fluff followed by a lengthy conclusion. Throughout I will attempt to include both the positive and negative   though I forewarn you I shall probably tend towards the latter though I try to keep some optimism. 

The End Times: Archaon - Review

So the end has finally come. This is it, the final swan song of Warhammer as we know it. I realise it has taken me a long time to review this book since its release, this is partially due to exams and other commitments I have had, but it is also due to a profound sense of detachment. The world has ended, that is how this book ends and that is a very jarring phenomena for someone who has invested a lot in this setting. This book has not been an easy read.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you haven't read my other End Times reviews yet you can read them here:

• The End Times: Nagash - Review
• The End Times: Glottkin - Review
• The End Times: Khaine - Review 
• The End Times: Thanquol - Review

The fifth End Times volume, as ever quality and presentation remain high. The first book is 264 pages and the second is  79 pages.

I will write this review much like the other four, discussing the background then the rules before moving onto whatever random musings and comments I can think of. 

The End Times: Thanquol - Review

This End Times book managed to melt the GW webstore servers when it went up for pre-order, everyone evidently in a rush to grab one before they went out of stock like Glottkin and Khaine did after not even an hour. With hardback books not being sent to stores this meant that there was actually plenty for everyone and the book remained in stock in the UK for a few days afterwards before becoming available in soft back only. I was one of those who sat constantly refreshing for about an hour, crawling towards the checkout bit by bit between server timeouts. Whilst my efforts were ultimately a bit overzealous considering it didn't go out of stock in ten minutes, it was a very stressful evening and I was overjoyed when my order was confirmed. 

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you haven't read my other End Times reviews yet you can read them here:

• The End Times: Nagash - Review
• The End Times: Glottkin - Review
• The End Times: Khaine - Review 

The fourth End Times volume is slightly longer than the Glottkin and Khaine books and was the same price, as ever quality and presentation remain high. The first book is 233 pages and the second is  63 pages.

I will write this review much like the other three, discussing the background then the rules before moving onto whatever random musings and comments I can think of. 

Life at university - a 3 month hobby review

As you may have noticed from my occasional moaning about having no money or time and my posts on Glottkin in particular, I am a student. I started at the end of September and as I come to the end of my first semester I thought I would do a little review of what I have done in the hobby thus far.

If you haven't seen my rambling several weeks into the semester you can read them here: My Glottkin woes and hobby life as a student.

Much of this post will just be random thoughts I have had combined with the occasional self-promotion for things I have posted or will be posting in the new year. There is also a mini-review of the latest Hobbit film near the bottom which I might write up more fully when I have seen it more than just the once. As it was the Lord of the Rings films that got me into the entire fantasy genre, seeing the final film of the Middle-Earth saga was quite the roller coaster.

I still can't believe its all over...

The End Times: Glottkin - Review

As you may have seen in a recent post I had some serious Glottkin woes at being unable to get hold of the most recent End Times book. However, after some digging and the help of Rob (one of our readers), I have managed to acquire a copy for what is a hard to justify but relatively reasonable price. I have seen copies of this book for around £200 pounds (just over $300 I think) on eBay but I did manage to get one at a slightly more reasonable price. It was still expensive enough that my meals will be interesting this month, very interesting indeed...

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!

If you haven't read my review of the previous book you can read it here: Nagash - A Review

The second End Times book is a noticeably slimmer tome than its predecessor and new was £10 less expensive, the presentation though remains of the same high quality. The first book is around 130 pages and the second 65, significantly less than the 300 and 100 of Nagash respectively. 

I will review this book in much the same way as I did Nagash, starting with the fluff book before moving onto the rules and finishing with some random musings.

Army Showcase - Part 12 - Chaos Mercenaries

In this second post of my Warriors of Chaos army we will look at the various monsters that I have converted for this army. So without further ado...

Army Showcase - Part 11 - Chaos Mercenaries

This army has been years in the making. Not because it is a large army or that I have spent a long time painting it. Rather, I was given most of a Warriors of Chaos army about five years ago and have spent the last few years quibbling over how I was going to paint it, slowly adding other second-hand stuff to pad it out a bit as well. This year I finally settled on a colour scheme and spent the first half of this year working on them, finally finding the time to photograph them two weeks ago. I went a bit crazy with said photographs so this army will be spread over two posts: this one dealing with heroes and troops the second with monsters. 

Ruled by a mad Daemon Prince known only as The Radic - Prince of Tears, the Mirrored Palace is a huge floating citadel whose every surface reflects the world around it. The Radic travels across the world constantly trying to find the object of all his desires: an elven maid named Yrianna. Why he loves her he cannot fathom as they are memories long since clouded and twisted by the daemon Koreal, but none the less he leads his armies into battle hoping to one day find her and discover the truth of his past. Following him is an army of fanatics who bask in his daemonic glory and broken souls forever tied to him by blood oaths. 

Mordheim - Carnival of Chaos - Part 2

Just thought I would add a few group shots of my warband as a quick follow up to the individual shots previously posted.

Mordheim - Carnival of Chaos - Part 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Ghouls,

Step right up,

Within this tent lies a chaotic concoction 

of delight, horror, fantasy and terror.

Your every wish is our command, 

Your every murderous desire brought to life, 

But i'm warning you,

There's always a price.

Welcome to the Carnival of Chaos!

I have had some photos of my Mordheim warband on my computer for a while now and after a period of painting very little I thought now would be a good time to introduce these delightful creeps to the world. Unlike with my other armies I won't post any background on them as the carnival is inherently mysterious; appearing from nowhere and leaving only blood and pestilence in it's wake...

The Ringmaster