Warmaster: Complete Wood Elf Army

This is what I've been working on the past few months. A 2,500 pt Warmaster Wood Elf Army (or thereabouts). It can be divided into two 1,250 pt armies (one forest spirit/Sylvaneth and one elf/Asrai) fairly easily, so I can use it for games with my kids, where I need to supply both sides. It includes a small Wood Elf village.

I don't really want to go into how most of this was painted here ... a lot of different things were tried and there are better guides out there. Most of the heavy lifting on this project was done with Contrast paints. Aggros Dunes followed by spots of Aggrax Earthshade works surprisingly well.

I tried something a bit different, by adding some scenery, with the pictures. Now onto the pictures:

 

Graveyard

A Spooky Graveyard!

When I printed the Warmaster Graveyard (see previous post), I also printed all of the elements at their normal 25mm scale (sometimes multiple times). I was always a bit disappointed that my Gardens of Morr WHFB/AoS set never had many gravestones (there are a few along some of the wall sections). Now I have a bunch to add to that kit to make even larger graveyards!

I had originally printed a single weeping statue, but after I finished printing the Warmaster city, the printer wasn't doing anything (and I had the filament), so I cranked out a few more. Mainly these could be used in scenarios that require multiple statues, some of the Frostgrave scenarios require a bunch. I recollect thinking "who has that many statues?!?!" ... now I do!

• 8 Weeping Statues
• 8 Single Gravestones
• 15 Based/Double Gravestones

 

Warmaster: City and Graveyard

I'm calling this project complete. I think my family thought I'd gone a little mad with this one (well ... more so than usual).

It's a modular 3d printed Warmaster city (i.e. 10mm scale), complete with graveyard and city walls. I don't even own an army yet that would call this thing home ... although the Skaven would probably like invading it. So at some point I should probably get a Empire or Bretonnian army (or Vampire Counts).

The pictures show one possible layout. There's not enough walkways for all of the walls, but there are enough for 6+ Warmaster infantry units worth, which seemed like plenty for a reasonable army. Not everything is pictured here (there were a number of bits I didn't setup in this photoshoot ... mostly extra ruins, barrels, and fieldstone walls). I could also set this up on one side of a table to imply a much larger city off screen.

Only the graveyard pieces were painted this month.

• 17 Gravestone Bases
• 3 Small Mausoleums
• 2 Large Mausoleums

I ran my 3d printer until it finally broke down. So that makes me sad. I was trying to print rivers and bridges to add to the city. I'm still trying to troubleshoot it, but this seems like a bad break. It's not heating either the print bed or the filament and the reason isn't obvious, the fact that 2 parts seem to have broken at the same time suggest to me it might be software related (although it happened when I was trying to print a river piece that had a particularly bad scaling down attempt).

Now onto the pictures:

 

Warmaster: City & Ruins Work in Progress

This is primarily what my 3d printer has been doing for the last few months. Printing a small walled city for Warmaster.

This entire project came about when I was looking at some 25mm field walls I'd bought a couple decades ago. Some were resin from a company call Armorcraft (iirc) and some were from Pegasus (I think you can still purchase these). The Pegasus ones were pre-painted. I use these mostly for skirmish games, but also as a quick way to setup dungeon rooms when playing D&D. At the time, I was thinking they might work as an old city wall for Epic games since there wasn't anything about them that defined their scale.

Fast forward to a few months ago. I was looking for themed terrain for my Warmaster Skaven army and found some ruins I could 3d print. Along with those, the modeller had made some non-ruined houses. I started printing, found more stl files that would work, printed more. Then I remembered my 25mm field walls and the idea that they'd work well as city walls. The scope kept increasing, I kept printing. Printed and assembled guard towers for the wall, and walk-ways for the walls (not pictured since they aren't painted yet). I'm about 1/2 way done with painting and about 90% done with printing. At some point I need to call it and move on to other things.

 

Man O' War Sea Forts & Castle

I printed these at the same time I printed the other Man O' War fleets. They aren't quite as nice as the ships, and the rules for forts and castles aren't as fun as the ship rules. My printer particularly failed at printing the cannons. They look a bit lumpy. I've seen some well printed ones and they look pretty good ... so it might be more an issue with my printer and less with the stl models.

Dead simple to paint though. Start with a Grey Seer undercoat. Then Basilicum Grey (1:1 with Contrast Medium) with Admin Grey drybrushes and Agrax washes (around the base and any "floors") does most of the work. Then snakebite for any wood and runesteel for the cannons (with some washes of Nuln Oil) for finishing touches.

 

Blackstone Fortress: Terrain & Objective Markers

 

Might as well start off 2021 with a bang! After finishing Hammerhal, I picked up Blackstone Fortress to play with the kids. I poked around on Thingiverse looking for ways to spice it up and found some 3d print files for walls and objectives and gateways. My print bed was too small for some of them, but using a bit of ingenuity (cutting up and gluing together smaller shapes to make the bigger shapes), I have enough for a full table. There are 34 pieces here (14 "crystaline" walls, 6 stalagmite walls, 3 techno walls, 4 objectives, 3 cube like things, 4 gateways (1 with a removable door)).

Warcry Starter Terrain

Finally finished the Warcry Starter terrain.

There are 6 pieces, the other 3 pieces not pictured look pretty identical to the first picture. I like these, they painted up pretty fast, and I think they look pretty good. The wood is Wyldwood Brown over admin grey, followed by a drybrush of Mournfang Brown and an even lighter drybrush of Admin Grey. The other bits I followed my standard formula for ruins.

The only bit I'm not happy with these models is the two skeleton's hanging from the side of the bell tower. Those things are pretty fragile, and will likely break off during storage. I doubt I'll keep gluing them back on, once that happens.

The Bad Moon Loonshrine

I thought this would be quick to paint. Just a bunch of washes and drybrushes ... right?!?!? Every-so-often I'm wrong like that. It took longer than I expected (about a week+ of my painting time). Vertically, it's probably my largest piece of terrain, it's really quite big. I guess the Night Goblins are compensating for their small size or something.

BTW, I do like it, it's a good "miniature" and fits right in with my various Night Goblin/Moonclan/Gloomspite Grots.

Awakened Sylvaneth Wyldwoods

They're awake!

These are the Awakened Sylvaneth Wyldwoods. Okay, at first I didn't like them. I thought they looked "off" for trees. Then I assembled some, and took a look from 3+ feet. It turns out GW's official pictures really don't do them justice. The angle makes them seem "top" heavy with all the foliage at the top. From a normal viewing angle, they look really nice. In addition, they are 1000% stronger and easier to use than their previous iteration. These things have really "grown" on me, my opinion has flipped 180 degrees.

Tardis

I picked this up a while back. It's a Police Box from the Reaper Bones line. It feels a bit small, but then again, the Tardis is small on the outside. I figure it's the one piece of "Universal" terrain I have. Hills don't even look right in every setting (say in a Necromunda Underhive), but this thing can be dropped anywhere and it still makes sense :-).

I have to admit, if you look at photos of the "real" Tardis, it says "Police Public Call Box" (where the "Public Call" portion is written in a smaller font). That was way beyond my ability to free hand, so mine just says Police Box on the placard. It was mostly painted with Guiliman Blue Contrast Paint (and some drybrusing, highlighting and various bits detailed).

Timeworn Ruins

Not brand new ruins ... timeworn ones!

These were fun to paint. I relearned a lesson to not use the last of a Nuln Oil pot (or mix it with water). It left a slight film in some of the recesses of the "bust" piece. Last time this happened, it went away once I hit the piece with an overcoat.

Nothing particularly fancy about the color scheme. The only real difference from previous pieces of terrain was the use of Skeleton Horde contrast on the various skulls & bones.

Cart

Run ... it's a ... cart!

It's an odd day to post this.

I have a fairly large (6,000 pts worth) WHFB Beastman army. At the end of WHFB, large units were king. To do that, many people built unit fillers. Basically little dioramas that made moving the units around a little easier and took up a large chunk of space in the unit. I had plans to make a unit filler that consisted of cart being pulled by ungors filled with the spoils of war (namely a bunch of extra shields and weapons I had from the Gor sprues). It would take the space of 10-15 ungors in a unit. At the time, I searched high and low for a good cart. I never found one. Then I saw this one for Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures line, I bought it immediately. When I was painting this (over the last few days) I had no intention of making the unit filler, since WHFB is effectively dead.

Well, to finish off the story (and why the timing is odd), GW just (like 6 hours ago) announced they are revisiting WHFB. Maybe more carts to come in the future?!?!?

Pillory

Another impulse purchase while looking for that stupid Beholder! This time it's some Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature's Pillories (I always thought they were called Stocks). Painted using the same method (and time) as the previous cannons. They should be a fun little "terrain" piece for battles taking place in the town square.

Cannons

I have a bunch of Pirates that I painted for GW's Legends of the High Seas games. I saw these (while looking for that elusive Beholder) and realized, I have no ship's cannons! How could I live with myself without ship cannons! I haven't played the game in forever ... but these seemed like they'd be fun to paint. Painted these in maybe 15-20 minutes.

Wood: Undercoat Mournfang Brown, drybrush Deathclaw, wash Agrax, light drybrush Admin Grey (to make the wood look slightly distressed/aged). Barrels/Metal bits: Undercoat Iron something something, rings: Gold something something, wash Agrax, highlight Iron & Gold again.

Cage & Chains

Another Nolzur's Marvelous Miniature from Whizkids. This time it's the Cage & Chains.  It was also painted last month, and only pictured recently. It was also really simple to paint, just lead belcher with nuln and agrax washes followed by a dry brush of ironbreaker. The wooden base of the cage was mournfang with some admin grey drybrush.

The cage pops off the base and there's room to fit a smallish miniature within. They are nice atmospheric pieces. The Nolzur's stuff is proving to be easy to paint.

Everchosen Display Board: "To the Victor..."

July hasn't been a great month for getting miniatures painted. So I'm going to count the display board I made for the Everchosen Open Event as single miniature! Woot!

I took the picture as I was dropping it off, so it's not against the usually white backdrop. All of the miniatures on it have already been seen on this blog, but not in this format.

The original plan was to pit all the Underworld's Stormcasts (Farstriders, Steelharts, & Cursebreakers) against all of the Greenskins (Zarbags, Ironskulls, & Mollogs), but I couldn't fit them all on the board I made. So I jettisoned the Trolls and the Varanguard.

Iconoclast Axe

This is probably my favorite objective from the Shattered Dominion Objective pack. It's a giant marble head with a magic axe stuck in it. Did someone kill a Stone Gole? Did some Chaos Lord just leave his axe in a convenient location? It was fun to paint and I think it looks good.

Nightvault Arcane Hazard: Broken Statue featuring an Icon of Nagash

After finishing this piece, I like it more than when I started. It's nothing particularly fancy, but it should look pretty on the Shadespire game board.

Nightvault Arcane Hazard: Throne

This is probably one of my least favorite Arcane Hazards. The seat isn't deep enough, the back of the throne is just weird (it looks like it was never finished). I guess all of the skulls embedded in the seat are kinda cool ... if you like sitting on that type of thing. It's a weird miniature.