Legions of the Netherforge - Warstrider with Voltamaton

For now, this is the final addition to my Netherforge army, at least on new type units.

This is a new hero type unit, the Warstrider with Voltamaton, which is quite simply a Warstrider with a Voltamaton riding atop it, sort of a monster hero option for the Netherforge. I did some obvious modifications to the Warstrider by giving it some noticeable electric gadgets to facilitate the Voltamaton that's buffing it.

For now, I have no plans to print anything additional for this army, as I will be concentrating on getting a few more playtests in and finishing up the battletome, which is coming along really well.

Legions of the Netherforge - 3D printed AoS army Part 2

I finished painting my Netherforge army. I got a pretty simple and easy painting method. Some of them were painted as per my previous post. I do like that there is little variety in painting, which makes sense for an army literally made on automated assembly lines.

Furnacelord Simulacrums

Bombardiers

Siegematon Director and Diggermines

Siegematon Tunneler

Netherforge Gunners

Warstrider

Siege Maul

Vaulthammer

Tunnel Caber

Great Horn

Brawlstriders

Also, I was able to get a game in with these guys against my brother's Destruction. It was a good thing because I have adjusted a lot of the rules I had written for these guys, as well as come up with some tenuous points values for matched play. I will try to get a couple more games in against a few more guys before I finalize the Battletome.

Legions of the Netherforge - 3D printed AoS army

The Netherforge burns eternally somewhere deep in Chamon. Machines making machines, all according to the designs of their long dead designer, progenitor, and creator. A duardin known only as the Furnacelord.

The Legions of the Netherforge is a homebrew Chaos army I am building for Age of Sigmar. I had found this collection of designs on Thingiverse by a very talented 3D modeler, Arian "Dutchmogul" Croft at Illgottengames. The entire range of models he designed captured my imagination. It was all low detail, designed for 3D printing, and I think actually looks very cool. I knew I had to make an army out of these guys.

So I downloaded the models, edited them a little in Tinkercad (mostly to prepare some alternate poses and weapon options, make their feet a little bigger, and removing their bases so I could do my own). I thought about what I could run this army as, but no ideas really satisfied me. So I am making their rules from the ground up. This way I can design some cool rules that I feel reflect the feel and style of the army. This also involves making a story for them (teased above) and changing the names of the models to fit the story.

The first 2 models are the Furnacelord Simulacrum, the leaders of the Netherforge armies. Built personally by the Furnacelord and gifted with more intelligent cogminds. They used some of the same parts as other models, but sized up about 20% to stand out in the army. The last model is a Bombardier, a minor hero that improves the range capabilities of the army.

These are the Siegematon units, those responsible for mapping and making the major tunnel systems the Legions use to get around the mortal realms. The 4 small ones are Diggermines, explosive little tunnelers. The next is the Siegematon Director, a commander of sorts for the Siegematon units, and last is the Siegematon Tunneler, a hero unit that brings other units on to the battlefield through tunneling, and is formidable in combat as well.

Here is where you see the paintjob I plan for the army. I wanted to go for the steampunk brass look which I think works well. these are the Warriors, just the most basic battleline troop unit for the army. There are 2 weapon variants: Axes and shields (left) and hammers and shields (right).

More elite troops, the Guardians (left) are tasked with protecting the leaders of the army and guarding the hidden entrance to the Netherforge, and the Berzerkers (right) are just a melee focused unit that can either dual wield axes, hammers, or digging claws (as shown).

The Gunners are a small unit with a mid-range and hard hitting firepower, using what we would know now as a radioactive material for their guns for an extra effect. They rest the heavy guns on shields with wheels for added protection and stability.

The first unit is the Tunnel Caber, a slow moving deathroller, and on the right is the Great Horn. A piece of terrain that has a beneficial effect for the army when used.

Now on to the war machines for the army. The first is the Vaulthammer, a heavy cannon that shoots a devastating radioactive cannonball. Then is the Siege Maul. I wanted to experiment with making rules for a melee focused war machine. We will see how it turns out. I love the look of the model though.

These are the Construct units. The story for them is after the passing of the Furnacelord, the Netherforge continued to innovate and create new additions to the legion. The Construct units are signs of that. The big one is the Warstrider, a big lumbering behemoth that has some unique rules for dealing with units inside fortifications. The smaller ones are the Brawlstriders, just a melee focused unit with a risk/reward system in combat.

Finally for an original unit of my own design (using some existing parts as base, of course). This is the Voltamaton. I noticed the army had a lack of pizzaz in the form of magic or supernatural. So I thought of a hero that utilized an electric generator in different ways, so I designed the parts to make a sort of priest rather than a wizard.

I'm looking forward to finish painting these guys and get some games in. I will show of the rules for them I have designed and some more lore in a later post, as well as the battletome when I get it finished.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Gargant

I am introducing the latest behemoth for my nurgle army:

HURGK

It can be pronounced just "herc", but preferably fit in the hard G before the K sound. It might even be better if you can say his name with a little bit of a gag reflex. This model took me a while because I needed the bell from the Putrid Blightkings kit which I wasn't able to get until fairly recently. This model stretched my skill with green stuff. The main body of course is composed of the Aleguzzler Gargant kit, which is what this represent, but the chaos variety of course. The legs and belly are spare parts from the Maggoth Lord kit. I used greenstuff to blend everything together, and create my cultivator fungus all over.

One thing I wanted to experiment with was how the fungus consumes the head of the host and takes over its functions. I got the idea from the video game The Last of Us. Never played it, but I liked the idea of the fungus, which I know is based on a real life version.

It definitely seems like something nurgle would be all for.

Censers & Tocsins - Glutannus & The Cultivator Shrine

I am getting back to my nurgle mortals. This took a while because I needed a few kits and bits. But I got a couple things that I am looking forward to seeing painted with the rest of my army.

I wanted to add a big monster to my army. I love the Maggoth Lords, but since I don't like doing named characters, I wanted to make something with the kit, and just run it counts-as one of the lords (I really wish there was a generic Maggoth Lord warscroll though). So I made Glutannus here.

I had to do some creative cutting and greenstuffing to remove the rider and saddle, as well as repose the left arm to feed a hapless victim (from the Aleguzzler Gargant kit) into his open maw.

I finished everything I needed for my Chaos Warshrine, as seen previously. Differences on the shrine itself is I just added more molds and mushrooms, and my brother gave me a cool 'troggoth vommit' but from the Fellwater Troggoth kit that he got. Then I finished the altar and made my ritualist.

The altar has on it another hapless victim (from the same Gargant kit, so many good bits in that kit) with a fresh bunch of fungus sprouting from his belly. He is held in front of a pit that contains a slurry of mold and waste. The idea is the sacrifice is cut by the ritualist, and the cultivator liquid is poured into the wound and the cultivator fungus sprouts from the fresh wound, then the sacrifice is pulled into the pit by a tentacle to dissolve in it, and that substance is occasionally expelled from the rear of the shrine as it moves to sew the ground. The ritualist I like a lot, and got the idea since I saw the Fungoid Cave Shaman kit. It was to fit perfectly with my fungus themed nurgle stuff. I replaced his hands with the a flask of the cultivator potion, and a broken blade. Upon trying several different heads to use, I settled on one from the Maggoth Lord kit. As I looked at it I realized something, this guy is a dwarf! So I like the idea of a nurgle corrupted duardin ritualist manning the shrine. I will have to think of a name and story for him.

Now you may be thinking what I plan to do with the rest of the Gargant kit. Well that is what is coming next...

Artwork - Rotbringer Sorcerer

A very generous artist made a piece of artwork of my Rotbringer Sorcerer, the Rotpope. I love this piece and compilation. I just wanted to show it off here.

You can reach the artist on his twitter, https://twitter.com/DrRainbowhat. I don't know if he does commissions, so you may want to check with him first if he does.

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.

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.

Censers & Tocsins - Chaos Marauders of Nurgle Supplement Finished

That last time I played with my AoS Nurgle army, I found the MVP to be my marauders. So I looked into getting some more, so I can fit into that maximum 40 strong with the discount sweet spot. Luckily the starter set bloodreavers are still being sold for cheap on various bits sites. This grants me an additional 20. However, I struggled enough with the first batch to make each unique, so I decided to try something different with them, yet make it so they still fit in with the others.

I came with an idea for a fungus that slowly consumes their identity. This fungus spreads primarily over the head of the host, then consumes it, replacing it for full control of the body. This is the fate awaiting all the marauders. But they of course see it as a blessing, not a curse. A way to submit fully to nurgle's will. They call themselves the Cultivated. As you can see in the image above, I arranged them to show the various stages of the fungal growth (from top left to bottom right).

And here is the horde all together.