Warriors of chaos army book

With the warriors of chaos release a couple of months ago, I finally scraped together enough pennies to get the new rule book. I'm very disappointed. Despite the new hard cover and full colour illustrations, its a let down.
Imagine for a moment that you go to the bookshop to pick up the latest cover of a favourite book, because the last one fell apart at the spine only to discover that it has been re written by Stephanie Meyer.
It has gone from a good book with fantastic imagery and beautiful if disturbing illustrations to a overpriced shoddy "book of the film" merchandise tie in with painted over box photos.

The Marks of chaos have been nerfed, Nurgle has lost the -1 to hit on shooting, Tzeench lost the +1 to casting and got a +1 to channelling. All the magic items full of character have hit the cutting room floor, replaced by 9 that seem to be as likely to blow up in your face as turn the tide of battle.
Trolls have lost the mutant regeneration. Nurgle palanquins no longer poisonous despite nurglings in the demons of chaos list being poisonous.

It feels like it has been written to maximise profits. The new eye of the gods table means you need at least a daemon prince £25 and a couple of spawn £25. The shiny new units are very cool but need several boxes to make them work on the battle field and the Slaughterbrute that comes in at £50 that you have to buy twice.

All in all, I'm very disappointed and I'm going to be going back in time to play Oldhammer where the rules are imaginatively written and the whole game is designed to be a game rather than a mangle designed to get the most cash from your pocket. Once I've had a game with the new rules I'll post again with how they play but I'm not holding out much hope.

Reaper Bones

Having some spare funds sat in my pay-pal account I decided to treat myself to some of the Reaper Bones range from Tim at 

Miniature Heroes. 

I must say that I am really pleased with them. For £10.35 I got 6 miniatures. 

The cave troll I have had my eye on since it was released. I thought it would make a good base for a unit of trolls to add to a Throgg list. It matches the Bfsp troll hight wise quite well once it is mounted on a 40mm base

The Ogre cheiftan is a nice model with plenty of detail. It has been well moulded with an interesting design adaptation for the bones line. It uses a 3 part mould to get the depth of sculpt available from a 2 part silicone mould for white metal. Here it is stood next to a bfsp troll

The Dwarf warrior is a fantastic sculpt that I plan to use as a chaos dwarf hero. It is a touch larger than the bfsp dwarf but I plan to mount him on a rocky outcrop base to make him look more heroic. Hopefully it will make the size difference less noticeable.

The Bathalian I plan to turn into a Tzeentch sorcerer possibly on a disk. It matches the chaos warriors nicely for size and is very detailed. I am probably going to drill and pin the staff because it is a little floppy.

The young dragon and giant spider were bought without a plan in mind. I will probably just paint them up for fun although I might turn them into a mount and a drider

Here is a group shot with a true 28mm doctor I sculpted from an armature from ebob miniatures

I hope all of this proves useful to someone. I'm really pleased with the Reaper bones line and can't wait for all the miniatures they developed for the kickstarter to go on general sale. I was completely skint when they were running it but there looked to be some fantastic miniatures in there. In the mean time pop over to Miniature Heroes for all sorts of fantastic figures including their range of Pre Owned Citadel miniatures. 

Painting a chaotic evil warrior

I sat down with my latest project, the chaotic evil warrior and decided to get it painted. I'd started once before with a black undercoat and building up red from the previous mega paint set. This failed, utterly.

so after a soak in Fairy Power spray and a quick scrub with an old tooth brush I was back at the beginning.

I thought as it was a classic style figure I would use a classic style and dig out my vintage paints. I got these when I had just started playing and painting games workshop in the late 80's early 90's. 

These paints have done a major tour of duty the little plastic tabs to help open the pot went a long time ago but they are still liquid even after decades. It was fun to get the characteristic inverted V on your thumb again.

I started with a white undercoat then used a base coat of Blood Red then a Blood Angel Orange highlight and a Terracotta shade. I then used a Baal Red ink wash to add to the depth of shade

I had to resort to more modern paints for the spear, leather and chainmail. Metal was painted with a gunmetal with a mythril silver highlight and a Agrax Earthshade wash. For leather I used a bestial brown then a black ink wash. The gold studs were painted with Shining gold and the base got a traditional goblin green for that true retro look. It isn't perfect but I am very pleased to say that I made it from scratch- sculpted, cast, painted and based.

Casting a Chaotic Evil Warrior

The First Cast from my new Chaotic Evil Warrior mould.

I am really pleased with how this has come out. 

The Grey stuff master

Mould layout prior to silicone

That waiting game while the silicone cures.

First cast straight out of the Mould. There are still some issues I need to sort out in the mould like the back of his head and the gut plate.

Coming soon: Painting a Chaotic Evil Warrior

Sculpting a Chaotic Evil Warrior

With the release of the new WoC book and miniatures I decided to dust off my WoC army and add to it but I fancied a more old school look to my figures. I can't afford classic 3rd Edition lead and don't enjoy the hassle of eBay; So I thought I would sculpt and cast my own.

The sculpting process.

I started with an armature made from plastic coated copper wire that I found next to the phone junction box. It was offcuts from phone connection repairs. It is very bendy and wraps easily meaning I have to use less putty and the putty has a good surface to adhere to.

Basic covering of the armature using Gale force 9 Grey stuff. A two part epoxy putty like green stuff but a lot less sticky and much easier to work with. here is the armature stood next to one of my GW chaos warriors for size comparison

Starting to add the details, here the figure has its boots on. I'm learning to mix grey stuff in smaller quantities and let bits cure before doing the next stage. It leads to fewer fingerprints in the finished surfaces 

Up to its waist with Armour plates on the thighs and a Chain mail loin cloth. also shown are a gut plate and a skull because I had some grey stuff left.

Nearly finished, I've just got to sculpt his halberd and put his head on

One chaos warrior helmet ready for ridiculously oversized horns. I've used old dressmaking pins as a starting point for the heads. the un helmeted head will have a beard and some eyes when I next have the grey stuff out.  I might sculpt some more heads after I have cast this so I can have some more variety

A shield with rivets and a skull, I will probably add a wood grain to the back of the shield as it will be visible when assembled

Tzeentch Lord of Change

I received this model as a trade and I was trying to think how I could improve the 1998 sculpts. I went with changing the pose and using both heads. 

The tree was left over from the heresy dragon and I thought it would make a nice perch for the old bird.

Its a nice model but the pictures on the box and GW's website do it no favours. Hopefully I can do a good job on it. 

It was a swine to put together. I started at about 8 and finished three and a half hours later with much drilling, pinning and super gluing fingers together.