2017 Year in Review

This was another good hobby-filled year. So here is a summary of 2016 for me.

T'au Empire (Warhammer 40,000)
I took my T'au to the Harvester this year. While my Index army didn't have too much success, it was fun. Let's hope they get a good codex in 2018. At least I have some newly painted battlesuits.

James' Necrons (Warhammer 40,000)
I guess you could call this a commission. Something I did for my brother so he could attend the Harvester of Souls with us. We will see what kind of codex will come out for it in 2018.

Censers & Tocsins (Nurgle Mortals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This is an army I have been trying to keep up on with painting. Compared to last year's summary, I only had some built, and none painted. My goal with this army is if I build something for it, I paint it, before building the next thing. There will definitely be more to come for this AoS force.

Forthammer Clan Throng (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I have had a ton of fun with this army. I took them to the Las Vegas Open, added some cool conversions, and am running them in a campaign, which is still ongoing. I have more on the painting table for these guys, so I am not done with them yet.

The Klad Barag (Dispossessed - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
This deserves its own entry here because I consider it quite the achievement. Still not 100% sure what I will use him as, but he will be a proxy for any big dude I want to run in friendly games. Perhaps not tournament legal due to being a proxy and all. I do plan on taking some better photos of this guy and sending them to White Dwarf. Let's hope something comes from that.

Forgesworn Eternals (Stormcast Eternals - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I haven't really added anything to this army, just got completely caught up on painting. Lately nothing has really stood out for the line to get me to want to add here. At least with being completely painted, if I do add anything, I will be inclined to immediately paint it. Like my plans for my Nurgle dudes.

Tempest's Eye Rangers (Grand Alliance: Order - Warhammer: Age of Sigmar)
I only have a couple things here for the army, for now. They are only really ever intended to be for some Grand Alliance army, rather than a start of Freeguild. I would like to paint them this coming year.

Song of Blades and Heroes Stuff
For my favorite non-Warhammer fantasy skirmish game, I have added a lot of Reaper BONES minis to it here and there. And I made some nifty ruins for it as well. But most of all I am still slowly working on the Song of the Deep Empire campaign supplement for it. More on that in the coming year.

And that sums up the year. Lot's of fun projects, and of course, lot's of plans for 2018. Stay tuned.

Merry Christmas, my fellow wargamers!

Censers & Tocsins - Nurgle Lords

If you haven't noticed, I am in a Nurgle Mortals mood right now. With the Chaos Warshrine project on pause, I got some more painting done.

My Harbinger of Decay, Gagnus the Ratcatcher on Cacodracoth (which I changed the mount name from Gluttdragon to Cacodracoth) was seen WIP here. This is the ultimate master of my Nurgle mortals army.

This is my Chaos Lord on Daemonic Mount with mark of nurgle. Dipteras the Flyborn on Gorebeast. As see WIP here. Painting the hammer head like warpstone was a last minute consideration, and I think it turned out pretty cool. I'm always looking for opportunities to portray warpstone on any of my stuff where it can make sense.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Warshrine WIP 2

I have reached a point on this warshrine where I won't be able to continue until after christmas when I can get a few more kits. But here's a progress report on the work so far.

This step was taking care of pretty much all of the greenstuff work. The worm creatures underneath are using their grasping tentacle tongue things to hold up the shrine. So I started with sculpting the tentacles, making it look like they have a pretty firm grasp on the shrine, and holding it aloft as they slither across the battlefield. Also you may notice the 2 tentacles in the front covering the unsightly pins that held the shrine to the creatures below.

Next to cover the area where the tentacles meet the creatures, I sculpted in some mouth parts. Right now they look more like flower petals than mouth pieces, but I am hoping painting will change that. Each creature has its mouth parts open where the tentacles come out.

Finally I ruined the barge a little. Nurgle is the god of decay, so it makes sense that some of it would undergo rust damage. Also I sculpted on the creeping mold and fungus of the Cultivated. Plans for the pit will actually to have some big fungus garden coming out of it, as though this is where the Cultivated fungus primarily spreads or is perfected.

I would like to have something like this to come up out of the pit.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Warshrine WIP

Thinking of other cool things I can add to my Nurgle Mortal army, I like the idea of the Chaos Warshrine. Like with anything from the Slaves to Darkness, I can give it the mark of Nurgle to fit in. But I want to try and turn the Nurgle up to 11 and do something different with it.

Luckily I do not need to buy the entire Chaos Warshrine kit. I found a bits site that sold the bits for the main body here for a fraction of the price. The rest I will make due with what I got, and what will be coming.

I have a few pins holding the front creatures a little straighter. The front of the shrine is higher up than the rear. They will be removed after mounting the shrine on top and sculpting the tentacles.

Rather than being held aloft by some mutant ogres, mine will be carried around by some tentacled creatures native to Sigmar-knows-where in the mortal realms. These are Reaper bones figures that we bought to use their heads for another project. (Here, here, and here) I glued them to the base with some extra strong E6000, and put pins in them to mount the main shrine body.

The pins stick through the floorboard. I will be clipping those off and covering them with something, most likely tentacles.

With the shrine mounted on the creatures, I can see how this thing will take shape. This project is going to use A LOT of greenstuff sculpting. I want to have fungus growing all over it, tentacles rising from the creature holding the shrine up, and I still need to figure out who I am going to use for the ritualist riding it. This is going to be a long term project, as I have plans on stuff to get with some Christmas money for my army here, some of the parts of which will be in use on the shrine.

Forthammer Clan Throng - Runelords

The Runelord is a great hero warscroll. It's cheap and has reliable useful buffing power. So far the only one I have is Bree, so I decided to add a few more. These are from Reaper BONES (this and this). They are also meant to be part of my Song of Blades and Heroes collection.

The one of the left has had nothing done to it outside of the painting. But the one on the right has had a couple bits replacements. The tongs holding the burning rune is from the original runelord kit (that sprue has a lot of good spare bits), and the hammer is a metal bit from an old GW dwarf engineer blister.

The Klad Barag - Painted!

 It's finally completed, the Klad Barag! A daunting task and one of the models I have spent the most time painting to date. It's an imposing model and makes a great centerpiece for my Dispossessed.

Amidst a Dispossessed battle line.

Liberator for scale.

One thing that is making this wieldy is how I looked into magnetizing it. There are six 1/4" rare earth magnets in 3 points on the model for easy disassemble and transport (which I am on the lookout for a good modular pistol case nearby).

For the longest time I have been intending to use him as a counts-as Drakesworn Templar, because it's a really big Order model with a lot of firepower and powerful melee that can ally with my dispossessed. But I have found another warscroll which could serve as its rules. A Spirit of Durthu. It may be weird because that is a Sylvaneth warscroll, but every rule fits this guy. Slow move, poweful but short ranged attack, absolutely brutal melee, no fly... this warscroll is speaking its language.

Regardless of what I use it for, the important thing is it will provide that big centerpiece the Dispossessed desperately need, for now. Until GW wises up and makes something similar.