Slaves to Darkness - Choas Knight & Chaos Murauder Horsemen

         I have been playing in a Warcry narrative campaign with some other locals. I have only had 3 games since September when it started. This is mostly due to having to start after 9pm, after my daughter is sleeping. My warband doesn't have much of a story as I haven't had the will power to write something up. I was thinking it would be a scouting party made up of mostly cavalry with the members all worshiping their own gods, united to seek out artifacts of power. This is basically as far as I have gotten.

    I initially started the Scorned Anguish as a chaos murauder only warband. A chieftain as the leader, three horsemen and seven chaos murauder. The idea was to grow the warband from weak roots, acquiring supplies as they grew in power. 

    The first couple game I got knocked around hard as expected with a horde of low tier minions. I recruited a chaos knight after the first game. He hits much harder then a murauder, that's for sure.

Magnetized weapon arm for fun posing and transport

Probably could have glued the legs to the horse then magnetized the torso. I might do that instead in the future. With the knight painted, I focused on the horsemen that already had a few colours on them.

The three horsemen of the apocalypse... Tzeentch be damned!

    Yes, Tzeentch is missing, I enjoyed painting brighter colours for, probably could go a bit more experimental with Slaanesh horsemen, maybe have a body swap for a female or non binary rider. 

    These were just for Warcry. If I wanted to bring in say, a seeker of slaanesh, I would need to roll on the aftermath table for an ally or heroes. Might not be a thing that I see happen as the last 3v3 battle will be happening next Friday and I don't think I'll be able to get another game in till then.

Painted: 86 Troops, 8 Mounted, 8 Monsters/ Vehicles, 12 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased: 195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

Zombies! I should get these zombicide minis off the table! They are just a horde of bodies, I need to just get a quick paint job on them to start playing. I have 8 done as well as 2 heroes and the necromancer. I focused on what as necessary to play the game.

Arcane Cataclysm, Grave guard, Merry and Pippin! Oh my!

     Before the long weekend, Rachel and I scheduled a trip to Saskatoon to visit one one Rachel's nursing friends. Nancy has two kids, both of which we haven't seen yet! So we all went to the zoo together. It would have been smart to actually take some pictures of the zoo, but you know, toddlers and exotic animals makes me forget. 

    Fun fact, the Saskatoon zoo has zebras which were seized from some farmer. Looks like he only got a fine of $2,800? Yet the province payed $120,000 to take care of them properly? Like how do you smuggle zebras into the middle of the prairies and why!? Sure, he could have painted some horses. Miniature ones.

    We also had a stop at Dragon's Den, well, two stops, as I couldn't make up my mind if I wanted to pick up more miniatures. And the answer is always yes, just don't go looking at all the miniatures I still need to paint.

    Dragon's Den had their 3rd Edition Age of Sigmar sets marked down 40%, basically I get one half of the box for free. This box has Vanari Dawnriders and Tzaangors Enlightened on Disc, which I might trade/ sell as I am mostly interested in the foot troops. I was informed that the Tome of Champions 2020 had co-op/ solo rules, so the Tzeentch could be painted up as adversaries. 

    I played WarCry on saturday night with James, he is in a narrative campaign that I have been playing in. He was hoping to play Kill Team, I mention, like everytime that Kill Team is talked about, that he should check out Acolyte. What's Acolyte? Why it's a campaign setting which you are an acolyte with 3 followers, to start with, doing all the dirty work for an Inquisitor. It is heavily inspired by Rangers of Shadowdeep. Also solo and co-op, for those wanting to learn the rules to Kill Team without the pressure. Anyways, I traded some Sisters of Battle for the Hand of the Archon. 

    I also found a local selling some grave guard and Merry and Pippin in armour for a good price. There! Now I should be set for several more winters worth of painting. Oh, I am also changing the point system to just a model count, that way I am just painting and not pushing myself to paint specific items.

Painted: 86 Troops, 4 Mounted, 7 Monsters/ Vehicles, 11 Small Terrain, 2 Large Terrain

Purchased:195 Troops, 22 Mounted, 1 Monster/ Vehicle

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    As I mentioned before, I think I will be preparing for October, making a bit more terrain for Don't Look Back and painting up some killers. 

Droning on...

 Before Christmas I finished off three Plague Drones that have been sitting on my half finished heap of abandonment. When I first started them, I wanted to magnetize their fragile legs and rider for more easy transportation to games. At some point I broke my hand drill bit and ran out of magnets, so they languished in the miniature prison called The Heap.

 No longer, these prisoners of their owner's apathic ways have come to an end!

Despite my fussing about with magnets I decided to only magnetize the limbs on two of the drones. The one with the dynamic pose, is clearly the one I just glued. Really like the pose, but boy is it going to be tough to transport. 

Shelf of Plagues

Here is a shot of all the Nurgle Daemons I have, oh and some plague skaven behind the big fella. 

I have a few more nurgle units to paint up:

• 5? Or 10 putrid blightkings (some might turn into kitbash fodder, could see 15 work for a slaves to darkness mortal)
• lord of plague
• Gutrot Spume
• Bloab Rotspawner (might need to actually magnetize this model to make any three of the brothers) 
• 3 nurgles
• of course three MORE plague drone of nurgle

I believe that's all... at least for AOS nurgle. I do have more skaven but they are clan rats. An idea dawned on me that the clan rats could worship one of the four gods, instead of the horned rat. Could give features of their chosen god if the Island of Blood models lend themselves to kitbashing.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Couple more models left to show off from 2022, then onto hobby resolutions!

Spooky Scary Skeletons

    For October I like to paint up something suitable for the Halloween Season. I already painted up the core set of Don't Look Back in February because what's scarier then winter in Canada, am I right? So the next logical step should have been the Nighthaunt Broken Realms box I picked up two years ago? Nah, it's a horde of skeletons, most that were bought earlier this year. 30 from Oathmark's skeleton infantry range, 20 from an old GW kit I picked up awhile back and 8 from RuneWars, the reanimates. For a total of 58 miniatures.

    First pictures are of the GW range. These surprised me with how posable they can be if you aren't concerned about fitting them into a rank and flank square. They also look good with the other skeletons in the group albiet from slightly thicker bodies, maybe like a beastman or a nurgle blightlord. I also am detailed about the options for a flail and the scimitar instead of straight blade. Grave guard are on my short list of additions I would like to add to this undead army. The warcry box for Legions of Nagash contains 1 necromancer, 5 grave guard and 10 skeleton warriors. I would prefer more guard, but that might be the best option unless I want to pay $60 for 10 grave guard, which I am not that into.

    Next up is the Oathmark Skeleton Infantry. The set comes with four options for weapons, sword/axe and shield, spear and shield and bow with arrows. Axes being less numberous then swords I mixed the two together and did ten of each weapon type. Each sprue has 5 of each weapon (besides axes) so I have plenty of spare skeleton arms which can be used for base decorating or kit bashing with other Northstar miniatures, like the undead, cultists, gnolls or knights boxes that I have. Oh boy do I need to get on those! Wargames Atlantic has their own skeleton infantry box that I almost picked up instead. Their skeletons look similar to the GW models which I didn't feel like I needed to double up on as I had 20 to paint already.

It's a living!

Sometimes you pick up the wrong arm in the heat of battle.

    The Runewar aniMATES, brought back to life to share a pint at your local pub, at least that's what goes through my mind when I hear their name. The necromancer must have been lonely drinking alone. Runewars miniatures seem to be on sale most places I shop, they were picked up on my last board game bliss order at the beginning of the year. Their size and small amounts of armour would make them stand out as a hero or special in song of blades and heroes or other such games. Definitely some nice miniatures in that range, and is being phased out so there might be more joining my ranks in the future.

The animates and Oathmark Skelestons

A graveyard full of bodies

    That's my scary contribution to the month of October, I have some frostgrave zombies and the Sorrowmourn Choir Broke Realms box to add to my undead army in time. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Now that I have my painted out of the way, I feel a bit better about sharing what I have bought in the last few months....

Penticton

   In an effort to spend quality time with Rachel's mom, her family booked a trip together to Penticton. Rachel's sister has a house there with her family. I was nice to have other kids for Rosalind to interact with. Cousin One is a 4 year old with a plethora of energy (what four year old doesn't?) and Cousin Two is 6 days younger then Rosie but isn't yet walking. 

    

    We drove to Edmonton to catch the plane to BC for $50 each way, how crazy is that? I sure wish Regina had direct routes like that! Not that I'm much of a flyer. I have a fear of highs, which is all fine on an airplane as long as I am not falling out of said aircraft. I actually do enjoy looking out the window and seeing all the mountain ranges and lakes and bonkers flat prairies when we land back in Alberta. 

    Before this year and last year,  I had only been to BC once. When I was 10, my family drove to Vancouver. We spent time at the Butchard Gardens, rode a ferry to the island and rented a cabin in Ninaimo, BC. There was also some visiting of Uncles and Great Aunts throughout the trip.

    In Penticton, there are bike lanes all around! Electric bikes are fairly common on the paths. I originally thought that took away from the experience, the point of a bike is to be fit and go places right? I wasn't thinking of major health problems as you age or whatever the case. Electric bikes assist those who need it and the more bikes on the road the better the infrastructure, hopefully. Some people are opposed to the bike lanes, on the board walk, there was a lady with a bristle board complaining about the bike lanes in small print. Who are you talking to? The tourists? Like that's going to change anything!

    Anyways! Bikes are great PERIOD. Rachel and I did manage to get some board games in with some of the family. We played Five Tribes, which we both haven't played, and Wingspan. 

    Five Tribes I had hear was good, and it is. I think the "worker placement" part of the game is a great change of pace for the traditional pick what you want to do type games. Instead you pick up any group of works on a tile and spread them out like bread crumbs from the original tile. On the last tile you pick up all the same coloured meeples as the last meeple in the line. Each colour is a different action to play out. Rachel beat me by 2 points with the other players being about 20 and 40 points more, not too bad for our first times.

    Wingspan is one of the only board game that Rachel's sister will play. We had some odd end of game bonuses, like Birds looking Right. Which I focused almost exclusively on throughout the game. Rachel won, of course, but the scores were 105,106, 107 and 111, the 107 being mine. That's only one more round of laying eggs or one more bird! Crazy! The copy of Wingspan also had 3D printed token holder and bird house action selection markers, linked for the Wingnuts out there. I might've sent those files to my local library that night to be printed so they would be ready when I returned home.

    We went on hikes through the forests, one which had a stream running parallel to the path. Swam in the lakes, and took in a farmer's market as well as visited family and such. 

So proud of her stick!

Discovering puddles on our morning walk

    There was a lot of down time for me during the evening, as I would stay and watch Rosalind so Rachel could visit with her family more. This meant that I surfed eBay quite a bit, and found a listing for some Imperial Guard Sentinels. Four Sentinels for the price of one new one.... ish. They aren't in the best shape, after putting in an offer and getting it accepted, I thought maybe these were metal Sentinels not described as such in the listing. They arrived a couple days ago and wasn't the case. 

    Sentinels are one of my favourite vehicles from the Imperial Guard line. I owned one sentinel before buying this lot so now I have 5! These would make for a good combat patrol, scouting out the frontline for the heavy support. Seeing as I picked up Sly Marbo for the previous edition of Kill Team and the store reopening/ support independent model, the Catachan Colonel. I think building a small Catachan force might be in my future if new models from GW come out or I find decent 3rd party miniatures.

    The weekend I got back from BC, I was able to go to a Warcry Tournament at our local GW store. Got three games in with my Slaanesh Daemons, with an ally of Vasillac the Gifted. 

Setup all original starter set Warcry Terrain

    The first round, I was paired against a warband made up of units from the Cursed City box. The blood born vampires, the one perched on ruins on it's base, were able to keep up with Slaansesh speed wise and did some good damage. The ogre was very tanky, taking them out wasn't an option. I mainly went for the objective of getting units off the board, but should have taken out more of his warband to deny him points. Lost the first round.

    I had a buy for round two. Third round I won, as it was a game of keep away against slow orcs. Due to a poor decision of activation, I almost lost the treasure which would have costed me the round. Silly me didn't take pictures, oops!

   At the end of the day we had a battle royal with 500 pts each with five players. Victory went to the warband that was holding the treasure at the end of round four. The other Slaanesh player brought Fiends which are able to climb, unlike my mounted Seekers. Letting him escape over terrain and leaving me in the dust.

View from my starting area

    Death and order had a bit of a grudge match in the opposite corner of the map, mostly due to how slow they both were. 

    This tournament has gotten me excited to keep playing Warcry, even if there is rumoured to be another version coming out this summer. And based on the turn out, two chaos, one order, two death and two destruction warbands) I want to start a Cities of Sigmar flavoured warband. There is a lot of variety and customization that can be added to the warband. A crew from Hammerhal Ghyra might have Stormcast Eternals of the Hallowed Knight or Anvils of Heldenhammer variety or Sylvaneth to aid them, where as the Aqshy might have Ironweld Arsenal at their disposal. What about Anvilguard? Under morathi's control the Daughters of Khaine and Black Arc Corsairs would fit in nicely. Lots of choices! I picked up some Freeguild guard and Crossbowmen from Varagesale for cheap to start with, all I know is this project could get wildly out of hand! I am already looking at the Demigryph Knights longingly.....

Next on the Hobby Desk!

    I plan to join the Season of Scenery Challenge started by Dave Stone which starts on July 1st and runs to August 31st. In the last week of June, I have been finishing up miniatures that were an inch away from finish. Chaos cultists from Blackstone fortress, Metal Slaanesh Fiends and of course continuing with the Character of the Month Challenge, which I am really behind on! I have May finished, just need to post it with a story and June's character is getting close to being done too.