Witch Hunters on the Workbench

Things have continued to be hectic these past few months but I have managed to squeeze in some time for painting and modelling. I have principally been working on the miniatures of the Triumvirate of the Imperium box and some of their associated models as well as a few other odds and ends. 

This is my army of Battle Sisters and Ecclesiarchy units as it currently stands. I'm going for a darker and subtly metallic version of the Order of the Bloody Rose colour scheme while trying to capture an element of Blanch-ian grim-darkness that inspired me to begin 40k in the first place. After the summer I shall have to take some better photos of Saint Celestine herself who is currently giving me plenty of grief with her wings which I just can't seem to get quite right. 

In the background there are also some Kingdom Death miniatures and their art cards which I am using for reference. I am a big fan of the miniatures produced by Kingdom Death and I wish I had a greater level of skill with which to do them justice. While boutique nightmare horror with all manner of violent and sexual themes is not to everyone's taste (not to mention the issues surrounding pin-up miniatures), they are undoubtedly some of the most technically stunning and amazingly detailed miniatures on the market and I hope to get around to painting more of them.

I've also managed to do some work on Inquisitor Greyfax and my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers. I have all of the base colours on and a few highlights though I think there is a way to go with them yet. I really like Greyfax's miniature and I've thoroughly enjoyed painting her thus far. I managed to get some of the old metal Kasrkin minis cheap off of eBay (though they required some new backpacks and a little converting) which I thought would make the perfect bodyguards for her.

Belisarius Cawl has been a fun miniature to paint thus far even if he doesn't really fit with my Witch Hunters as a single Mechanicus miniature. Rather than going for a traditional red-robed look, I decided to go with scarlet armour plates and monochrome robes I will later adorn with the Mechanicus gear pattern. I have one or two ideas as to what exactly I'd ultimately like to do with him but we shall have to wait and see whether I ever manage to assemble the time or funds for any of my half-baked ideas. 

This past month or so has also seen me pick up my pencils again after a lengthy absence from sketching. This was the first thing I doodled to try and get used to a range of different pencils again and its likely that if I do any more hobby-related sketches they will turn up on the blog.

I currently have a bit of free time during which I hope to not only do some more work on my Witch Hunters but also on my Age of Sigmar projects which have been steadily developing in the background. Above is a bit of a teaser for my AoS project which I am currently titling: At the Court of the Silver King, which I am very excited about. I'm also planning on doing something with my guardsmen for Shadow War Armageddon as my brother has already assembled a Chaos Marine war band and is itching to kill anything that isn't wearing power armour. My Menites are sat waiting in the background as are my Tomb Kings which I'm re-painting, not to mention my Dark Angels who are in a sorry state so I think I've got a busy summer ahead of me!

Hobby Goals 2017

Well 2016 wasn't a particularly productive year in the hobby for me (being an all-round bad year for many), though in the last few months of it some painting and modelling did get done in the form of some Warmachine miniatures and my Flesh-eaters, respectively. With the start of 2017 (after an incredibly busy January) I have decided to take stock of my current hobby situation and actually write down what I am doing, rather than just having a nebulous idea of what projects I am working on in my head. This is largely for posterity and I look forward to seeing how successful I have been at achieving these things by the end of the year!

Earl Grymtyde of Gravenport
Currently a permanent feature of my desk telling me to get on and do some painting

Current

These are my current main projects which I am working on and should hopefully feature most prominently on the blog if this year goes as planned. These are listed roughly in the order of priority I have given them though is subject to change:

- Flesh-eater Courts - This is my current lead project with loads still to do. The fact that practically everything is WIP right now is why they haven't appeared on the blog yet beyond my Mournghoul. I am hoping to visit them in the next few weeks and get some troops done to put on the blog.

- Witch-Hunters - My old force of Sisters of Battle and Inquisitorial stuff has undergone a few dozen different iterations over the years and with the release of Saint Celestine and rumours of plastic Battle Sisters on the horizon I have decided to re-paint and re-vamp this army. More on this coming soon.

Test scheme for my Battle Sisters

- Lich Warband - My brother and I are working on a skirmish project for which I am building a small force centred around a character who has appeared in several projects of mine. Originally being my first Dungeons and Dragons character: the Sun Elf necromancer Avrilar Amalith, self-proclaimed Lord of Corbalan and Dark-Lich, is finally getting a small army to boss around. This project is very WIP at the moment but is slowly going places.

- Menoth - I am continuing to work on my Menites whom I unfortunately didn't manage to finish before Christmas. In fact I have elected to take a small break from them and focus instead on the three projects listed above as I wont have the opportunity to battle with them until Easter anyway.

Ongoing

I also have a few ongoing projects which I am working on intermittently. These are admittedly projects I have started and not finished due to fatigue or getting sidetracked, mostly being army re-painting and other stuff that keeps getting put on the back burner. These aren't listed in any particular order.

- Tomb Kings - I am in the middle of re-painting this army for display purposes, other things however keep getting in the way of me moving beyond base colours. Painting the whole army in stages as well is exhausting. Painting all the gold on 100+ miniatures takes a long time and is quite an insane thing to undertake now that I think about it. 

- Imperial Guard - I am also in the middle of re-painting this army to sit alongside my Sisters of Battle. They are on hiatus for now while I work on my Witch-Hunters. I am currently entertaining notions of breaking this army up a bit and returning it to its roots as allies to my main Witch-Hunting force. Possibly converting some superfluous miniatures into a Necromunda war band if I ever get around to it. 

- Kingdom Death - I have a backlog of various KD models I have picked up over the past two years. I use these miniatures to experiment with different painting styles so I usually only work on them when I feel like breaking up batch painting. Something that hasn't happened a lot this past year as I haven't really been painting at all!

3 WIP minis I am working on at the moment

- Misc. Age of Sigmar stuff - I have some random Elves and some Sisters of Sigmar I would like to do something with, even if they just end up as small war bands that sit alongside my main Death Alliance stuff. Will just have to wait and see what happens with them.

Possible

These are ideas that I have had, but possess no current plans to pursue. I have written them down in rough order of how likely I am to actually do them though it is unlikely any of them will get done while I still have ongoing projects.

- Tzeentch - I have been thinking of re-basing my chaos army onto round bases and picking up some the new Arcanites. The new Lord of Change in particular is making it really hard not to want to, especially the Kairos Fateweaver configuration. My main problem is that my current AoS army is still in the works with several miniatures I still need to buy bases for.

I need this in my life!

- Adeptus Mechanicus - Always loved the miniatures and I will be getting Belisarius Cawl in the box with Saint Celestine so he may end up with some friends at some point depending on if I decide to re-visit Tzeentch or not.

- Space Marines - I have a small force of Dark Angels Space Marines I am not particularly happy with who might receive some attention. Have been thinking about repainting them as Blood Angels and adding some of the miniatures from that range I really like. Depends on how my other Imperial projects go. 

- Blood bowl - for a long while now I have contemplated putting together a team, most likely of Dark Elves. While this would be a relatively low-cost project I always seem to have other things going on.

- Infinity - I have been considering this for quite some time. I was going to pick up an ALEPH starter box a few years ago but got distracted by Warmachine instead. If my other projects are a success I might start nearer the end of this year.

- Sisters of Silence - I absolutely love the miniatures and I am not sure whether to just add a squad to my Witch Hunters or if I should actually start a small 30k force of them. I suppose it depends on if Forge World announce any plans to expand on them in a meaningful way like they are doing with Custodes.

If Forge World could make these that would be fantastic

- Busts/large scale figures - I have often fancied trying out painting resin busts or larger scale miniatures. Alas, the smaller stuff always seems to win my wallet.

- Historical - As a student of history and a miniature war gamer I probably ought to have done something that combines the two by now, even if it is just a handful of English Civil War regiments.

So those are my current thoughts on what I am doing and thinking of doing in the hobby this year. As ever projects I want to do or have abandoned in favour of shiny new stuff outweighs what I am actually working on at the moment. While this is the final year of my undergraduate degree I am on top of my work (in some places well ahead) and I hope this should free up some time to paint the ever-increasing stack of unpainted miniatures I own. 

Every hobbyist I have met has a habit of stacking up a lot of projects, unpainted miniatures, and unfulfilled ideas. I hope to burn through as many of mine as possible in 2017 which is already shaping up to be an interesting year in the world of miniature wargaming. 

This year I am hoping to try out some new things, improve my painting skills, and have a lot of fun with some unusual modelling projects. I plan on putting much of this on the blog to help motivate me and I hope those of you who are following enjoy what I put out. 

- Doombringer

Project: Sisters of Battle - Assessing my Collection

The Ecclesiarchy

1. Adepta Sororitas - Sisters of Battle
2. Astra Militarum Allies - Representing the Frateris Militia
3. Inquisitorial Detachment - Representing a Cardinal and his guards 

Until I have the funds necessary to buy the models I require for my Inquisitorial Stormtroopers I will be focusing on my Ecclesiarchal half of my Witch hunters. Here I have assembled my current collection and assessed how each unit will be used according to the current army-plan as laid out above. This post is meant as only a rough outline of my thoughts so expect it to jump around a bit in places.

My Glottkin woes and hobby life as a student.

For a while now the blog has been largely running on pre-prepared posts I have scheduled in advance due to the fact that I am now at university and do not have time during the week to do much hobby stuff. This will therefore be a slightly unusual post for me as it will largely just be ranting and random thoughts: a bit of a vague general update on my hobby life more than anything else. 

First I will rant a bit about Glottkin. Getting hold of this book has been an absolute nightmare and ultimately I have failed to procure myself a copy. As you may have seen a few months ago I bought the Nagash book and wrote a review of it; praising the design team for such an excellent product. I have no doubt that Glottkin is just as impressive but has been much harder to get a hold of. 

I managed to miss the book when it went up for Pre-Orders on the webstore due to being a student and actually having a Friday night social life. I was then unable to reserve any copies from any of the local suppliers and on the day of release the woefully few copies my local GW had were sold out in literal seconds. I even called in a range of favours people owed me, ringing friends across the UK and telling them to run to their local warhammer shop to buy me a book. None of them; from York to Oxford, Chesterfield to Aberystwyth, were able to get a copy for me. 

Nooooooooooooooo!

New 40k Project: Witch Hunters

++ Burn the Heretic, Kill the Mutant, Scourge the Unclean ++

It's been too long since i've had a good Witch-hunt...

Over the next year as I start university I will be undertaking two new projects: one fantasy and one 40k. My 40k project will be an attempt to recapture my first and favourite 40k army: Witch Hunters. When 5th ed. first came out I decided it was time to start a 40k army but few of them were of any interest to me. I eventually narrowed it down to three armies and in the end it was the baroque aesthetic and fanatical zealotry of the Sisters of battle that won me over. The chance to field an army of enigmatic Inquisitors with their eccentric war bands and the faithful legions of the Battle Sisters was too good to pass up. Exploring the darker aspects of the game I was enthralled by the art and background, but unfortunately support for them dried up and I was forced to leave my beloved Witch-Hunters half-worked upon as I picked up new fantasy and 40k armies. 

The Codex cover that convinced me to play 40k

Now, having largely finished with my current armies, I have decided to return to my favourite 40k army with renewed vigour. The new allies rules and new forms of Force Organisation have opened up fresh avenues for me to explore. I intend to build a Witch Hunters army full of John Blanche inspired models that call up some of the gothic pieces of art from the 2nd and 3rd editions of 40k. I want to create an army that is a veritable toolbox of righteous madness for an Inquisitor to build his forces from that covers all the goodness of the 3rd ed. Witch Hunters Codex with everything from Battle Sisters to Stormtroopers; as well as adding things like the Frateris Militia from the 2nd ed. Sisters of Battle Codex and elements from the deeper background like the Cardinals Crimson. 

The Blanche- inspired 'mood' I want to capture

I have broadly divided this force into two halves; further divided for force organisation purposes and presented below:

The Ecclesiarchy

1. Adepta Sororitas - Sisters of Battle
2. Astra Militarum Allies - Representing the Frateris Militia
3. Inquisitorial Detachment - Representing a Cardinal and his guards 

Witch Hunters

1. Inquisitorial Detachment - Ordo Hereticus Warbands
2. Militarum Tempestus - Inquisitorial Stormtroopers

Whilst this may sound overly ambitious this is a project I intend to take slowly over the next two years and is intended as an army designed to look great together but can be easily split up into detachments I can field in any combination with one another and with my Astra Militarum army or my Dark Angels army. 

I will be posting further plans as well as concept art sketches soon and models in the near future as and when I am able to get round to it. Like, share, comment, follow, etc. to see more from this project as well as everything else happening on Eyes of the Snake and I will see you again soon.

Doombringer out.

Burn the Heretic!

Allies for Sisters of Battle - The Faithful of the White Cathedral

With it looking unlikely that Sisters of Battle will be getting an update any time soon I have decided that rather than buying very expensive metal models for them I would convert up some allies for them using spare models I have had lying around. Using some old artwork and background I cobbled together this group of glorified zealots who I felt looked great next to my existing Battle Sisters. 

Army Showcase - Part 10 - Sisters of Battle

My first 40k army was the Witch Hunters, incidentally starting at the same time The Euphemism began his Demon Hunters. Time moved on and whilst his army was resurrected as Grey Knights; I got a few pages in some White Dwarf Magazines. As my army previously contained some Inquisitorial units I have since had to take out, I cannot field this army as an independent force of its own. Now they are part time allies to my Imperial Guard and Dark Angels until a new codex is released for them.

I was drawn to the Witch Hunters because of their baroque and over the top grimdark aesthetics, this coupled with their fanatical devotion to the emperor and unique models made them an interesting faction all round. When starting I decided to make the army as eccentric and crazy as possible whilst sporting a holier than thou paint scheme. Apologies in advance for some of the blurry pics.