Slaves to Darkness Progress #3

     I didn't quite finish what I had planned for last year's goal, okay, I kinda gave myself a bit of an out with painting up 1000 points of Slaves to Darkness instead of finishing off the Premium Battleforce. A Chaos Lord/Sorceror on Manitore and 10 Chaos Knights still reside in the box, both of which might turn out worshipping Slaanesh with how this month is going on my hobby desk.

    That battleforce came out in 2018, I am bit disappointed that I didn't get it finished last year. This is a common problem in the hobby for most people, that it's much easier to look at the new shiny releases and put down money. This year I am trying to hold myself a bit accountable for this, can't cloth a baby with Warhammer. It's all about taking inventory, you want a new Vaan Sar's gang? Well, you have a Escher Gang that would look lovely painted. Oh man that Legion of Nagash Warcry box looks sweet! Didn't you want a Daughters of Khaine warband last year, you have it mostly done even!? And what about the Blackstone Fortress Expansions...

    My point is that all the sets of models you picked up, be it 5 years ago or a month ago sparked joy in your hobby brain. Could be you want to paint it up because look how sweet it is in grey plastic (or metal if it's really been awhile), just think of what paint could do to it. What about this character you bought, he/she/they have such a sweet backstory it would be great to make them come to live on the battlefield. I don't like the head on this model, but really like the body, I could switch the head and arms make this model my own. The miniatures that we spend time and money on excite us, give us joy and fulfillment. Why not relive that moment of joy and paint up some miniatures that have been sitting in the hobby room for their turn, now is always the best time.

    Back to the progress on Slaves to Darkness! I have finished off my 1000 points list they are a colourful bunch soon to have every deity in the mortal realm represented... well, not Tzeentch he is always changing his mind if he will show up or not, god that guy is a flake.

    Let's start with the new entries.... the Chaos Warshrine is up first.

    The design for the ogres carrying the shrine weren't great, either you had the back one floating off the ground or it had a bit of a slant, that's alright, I doubt a shrine carried by two ogres would be all that stable.

Next is the Darkfire Daemonrift, a tear in the fabric of the Realm pouring out raw daemonic magic. This Endless Spell gets more powerful with Wizards and Endless Spells around it. This might convince me to make the Chaos Sorceror on Manitore instead of the Lord.

And the last one, Morathi, now a generic Chaos Sorceress, she is a bit out of place with all these behemoths around her.

A Slaanesh Chaos Sorceress

    With all the new additions, we have an army on our hands. Which looks like...

Leader

• Chaos Sorceress Lord - 110 pts

Battleline

• 20 Chaos Marauders - 160 pts
• 20 Chaos Warriors - 360 pts
• Chaos Chariot - 120 pts

Behemoth

• Chaos Warshrine - 170 pts

Endless Spell

• Darkfire Daemonrift - 80pts

Total: 1000 pts

For matched play at least, Narrative and Open play.... well that's a different story, add some Khorne and don't get me started on the Nurgle I could add! 

Leader

• Chaos Sorceress Lord - 110 pts

Battleline

• 20 Chaos Marauders - 160 pts
• 20 Chaos Warriors - 360 pts
• 10 Bloodletters- 110 pts

Behemoth

• Chaos Warshrine - 170 pts

Other

• Chaos Chariot - 120 pts
• Bloodcrushers - 120 pts
• Flesh Hounds - 100 pts
• Karanak - 140 pts

Endless Spell

• Darkfire Daemonrift - 80pts

Total: 1200 pts

I am sure the Nurgle I have painted up would add another few hundreds, maybe I'll figure that out later.

Next on the Hobby Desk

Well, the girls are taking their time to get ready this month. Gotta sharpen their claws, and apply their make up. You know how hard that is with crab hands!? I have added more then just seekers to the desk now, hope I can get them done by the end of the month.

    

Aspirations for 2021

     With everything changing on the fly these days, I will make these more loose goals? hopes? DREAMS!? then anything set in stone. I will be most likely focusing on a lot of painting throughout the year, getting ready for the days to come where Prairie Game Expo or Toon Con are a live event where we can gather safely and enjoy the company of like minded individuals.

    SO... what can I do to work towards this goal? This year is going to be about preparing, preparing the models, preparing the terrain, and preparing the knowledge.

Preparing the Models

    The great temptress has whispered in my ears her sweet nothings, the barbed tongue tickled on the way out. I have started painting some Slaanesh Seekers to kick off SLAANUARY! Just like the god(dess) of excess I will strive to paint all my debaucherous hedonites of She Who Thirsts. This is the list so far.....

Leader - The Masque

            - Bladebringer (got it used, might be a seeker Chariot, I'll need to check this)

            - Exalted Greater Daemon of Slaanesh

Battleline - 10 Daemonettes

Other - 3 Fiends

          - 10 Seekers (maybe more if I can't build Bladebringer)

But...... I did order a Shadow and Pain box off of Meeple Mart.... which includes a Lord of Pain, 10 more daemonettes, Hellflayer (or one of the other chariots of deadly blades), 10 Hellstriders. This whole Slaanuary is getting a wee bit out of hand already and as much as I would like to throw caution (and common sense) to the wind, embracing my obsessive tendencies, I might start with the basics for the moment. Which will look something like this. 

Jon's less crazy plan

Leader - The Masque

             - Bladebringer

Battleline - 2 groups of 10 daemonettes

Other - Fiends

           - 10 Seekers (maybe 5 seekers, 5 hellstriders)

    This will give me enough to field close to a 1k army of Slaanesh or add in allies into Age of Sigmar, or a Warcry Warband or or or a Warhammer 40k army! This is the best part of being a worshipper of Chaos! mwhahaha Oh! I guess I should also throw in the Direchasm's Dread Pageant, which might actually get bumped up in the painting queue as Rachel might be interested in playing Underworlds sooner then later.Also side note, I don't think I am fast enough to paint all this in Slaanuary, so it might bleed over to Slaanbruary or Marnesh? 

    At least that's the "plan", who knows maybe I will get fixated on smaller games like Warcry or Necromunda?

Preparing the Terrain

    A good blog needs battlefields that will dazzle and impress their readers, several thousands of dollars worth of plastic gothic architecture that will make my wallet weep for the length of the pandemic. Well, not quite, I do have a Corpsewrack Mausoleum that needs finishing and some Sector Imperialis ruins that are mostly finished. From work, I get several bottles of various sizes, great for DIY projects for 40k terrain. These projects might get fitted in between painting up miniatures (probably of the slaanesh variety.) I hope to be able to fill up a table of terrain, 40k and AOS, maybe find a gaming mat in the future.

Preparing the Knowledge

Being able to teach others to play games is an essential part of the hobby, especially with a partner that doesn't like to take short cuts. We will look it up later doesn't usually fly with Rachel. This year I will be reading up on board game and tabletop games to cement my knowledge in the hobby. This will probably include learning games like Rangers of Shadowdeep, a cooperative fantasy skirmish game that is miniature agnostic for when lockdown gets tight. Probably use Rachel's mice, once they are based, for a warband. Ronin/ Dragon Rampart, mostly Ronin as Rachel has some beautiful Test of Honor lady Samurai that we picked up a few years ago in Calgary. I haven't played either, it's much easier to BUY more rules then to actually learn ones you already have. I would also like to keep up with Necromunda, as I didn't know about the Book of Perils adding in Venators, basically the ability to add a bounty hunter gang.

I would also like to get more organized on this blog, updating painting/purchasing, keeping track of games that type of stuff. I started to use Board Game Geek for keeping track of the two games Rachel and I played. We have a hard time moving games along, one being Dominion. Rachel wanted to play it on January 1st and we enjoyed it, but my thought was that we have several other deck building games that add so much then vanilla Dominion. Star Realms and Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle add in cooperative game play with the former extending it's gameplay with solo play as well. Both of which we play more then Dominion. We also played Power Grid for the first time, definitely a game made in the 2000s, more monopoly inspired money management type games.

    But I digress, with lockdown, board game play might just be Rachel and I. However, when things open up, Rachel really wants to start a Scythe: Rise of Fenris Campaign, this would be up to 5 players, the same players for each session. For Christmas, Rachel was gifted  Root: The Underworld Expansion from my brother, Shawn. This adds an additional 2 players to the base game's 4 players. Look forward to seeing that on the table, covid willing. Memoir 44 might also make an appearance in the future, as you can see, I am not really putting a fixed value on what I play this year. We will see what April brings.....

    Speaking of April, things will be getting a bit more busy for the two of us in April. As that's when Rachel is due to have our baby girl. Yes, I have kept the biggest and best kept secret for last. We are excited and anxious about our new offspring, child? The Child? Grogu? If she ends up with green scaly skin that might become her name.

Next on the Hobby Desk

    Yes, time to prepare, lots of reading for this dad to be. On the work bench side of things, I should be wrapping up 1K of Slaves to Darkness... just need to find my gloss varnish on this desk somewhere....

Wrap Up to 2020

 What can you say about 2020 that hasn't already been said? Good riddance! Hope the door hits you on the way out! 

    It hasn't all been that bad, at the start of the year Rachel and I were able to participate in the Toon Con 2020. Which now looking back at it could have easily been one of the super spreader events that started off the pandemic. Instead, it was an amazing last weekend of socializing with new passionate gamers, learning new games that were taught by dedicated ambassadors and all around enjoying the hobby that I have come to enjoy. I really liked the live auction, hopefully an online auction happens in 2021?

    Another positive outcome of Toon Con, is that Tim invited me into the Wrath & Glory campaign that has been running with a bunch of his friends that are now spread out across Canada (oh and the USA). This has been transforming into a RPG variety night on Saturdays. It's always a fun time and good for a laugh. 

    Roll 20 has been a great addition to the social distance tool box, I have also been DMing 5th Edition's Dragon Heist  for a group of my high school friends. Nobody wanted to start in the summer when people can have fun outside and socialize with mosquitoes, eww, who does that these days?? We started late November and had 3 sessions so far. My friend Jared had to suggest a name change to one of the guilds they were chancing around as both had Z names. The Zanathar guild are now the Apple Dumpling guild and they no longer have eye tattoos (to represent their beholder leader), they have apple tattoos. This also shows how high ranked they are, you better watch out for those Ambrosia guild members that have little apple slice tears!

    The idea of supporting local business (more so now then before) has started to become more important as supply chains from other countries are strained. I wanted to support my local sculptors, creators and game designers right here in my backyard. Lucky for me Must Contain Minis already had the same idea and compiled a nice list of Canadian companies that have a wide range of miniatures, STL designs, terrain, etc. It might not be something for a GW games but there is a lot of nice work getting done on niche miniatures, like mounties. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but plan to make an order in the future.

Painting wise, I have finished off my crusade portion of Sisters of Battle as well as the Skitarii, but what is finished? I have a few more additions, Mr. Cawl, Ironstrider, Dunecrawler to name a few. I mean are armies ever really finished? God I hope that's all!

Slaves to Darkness is close to 1k, but I did say I would finish off the Battleforce box from last Christmas? Two Christmas ago!? Ugh! Okay, so I have a Chaos Warshrine as well as a Chaos Sorceress on my desk, I just need to take some pictures and make it blog official. With those two that would take my current painted total to 920, I was going to paint up a Darkfire Daemonrift to get to 1k. That said, I could ally in 200 points of Khorne Daemons that I painted this year too, so I did get more then 1k finished this year.

Next on the Hobby Desk

I'll be taking a hard look at 2021 and seeing what will be a feasible goal for my hobby moving forward.

Divine Twilight - Cawdor Gang Proxy

 Well, it's better late then never. 

Here for your viewing pleasure is my Cawdor Gang, I bought the minis from Mirliton. It's based out of Italy and they do some really good metal miniatures for sci-fi and fantasy. They also do some smaller 15mm scale sculpts if you are into that as well.

The Divine Twilight

When I ordered this back in March, while I was still riding off the Necromunda high after playing it at Toon Con, I was a bit nervous about getting anything shipped from Italy at the time, but with how long they actually took to show up. I figured 2 months on a boat was probably enough self isolation for the models.

The Divine Twilight, the religious gang is on the lips of thousands of hivers. Be it a whisper of members disappearing ("relocating" to spread the word of her coming) or devote followers let go abruptly after several years of service. All civilians have been in some way impacted by the organization or had known someone who is a follower. 

Preachers seek out weak spirited individuals among the hive, blessing them with words of faith. Reminding them that there is a way out of their poor, starving laboring lives, and it's through Him that they will find peace and tranquility. It is told that she will come again, appearing in visions of a majestic purple light in the dreams of those deemed worth of his visage. Once these misguided miscreants are recruited into the fold, they are privileged to come to ceremonies at the church after proving their worth. Followers are tasked with recruiting others to the church, where they worship, recite ancient text that time has forgotten, Each member striving to be more, desiring perfection in their work

Once a devotee has turned 19, they are now ready to take a pilgrimage out into the world, or the Sacred Mission. This holy rite of passage is how you get to see inside the Temples of Desire, where deprived screams of pleasure and pain echo throughout it's halls, fueling the imagination of the weak minded. On your pilgrimage, you will be moved off planet to ones that the High Chancellor would deem as having a "crisis of faith".

Sebastian & Mordecai

Sebastian and Mordecai have been on many missions together, despite a large number of them being on hostile planet. . Some of the other gang members often call them over achievers (which is saying a lot for a Cult of Slaanesh) as they are always sharing the same story, about how they were able to convert a Kroot. Qriaww, wasn't satisfied with the gene traits of one species, it desired more variety. A great hunger stirred in the great warrior, savaging fellow kroot and enemy a like, becoming a ravenous beast. Sebastian challenged the Kroot to a unarmed combat, and won. Sebastian promised that every enemy of the Divine Twilight were just as powerful as them, that combat would be exhilarating performance of art against those that were bred from the harshest environments. Qriaww would agree to follow the Divine Twilight as long as this was true.

Porter & Corvus

Corvus and Porter both are juves of the gang, joining the fight for a better life then hard honest work. Hoping to score big on a quick job.

Kalum & Klaudius

Kalum and Klaudius brothers that have been surviving on their own for years, the comfort of the gang life made it easier on their daily lives. Kalum was grievously wounded in battle, which forced him to wear a respirator. He hopes to acquire enough money to fix his wound with augmentations. Both believe in sharpening their own skills and one day commanding the gang themselves.

Cassius & Petro

Cassius and Petro, once enforcers that worked deep within the underhive, they now plan to secure supplies to the Divine Twilight from their connections within the force.

It might be fun to do a Kroot as one of their hangers on, but the size difference between the models would be pretty wild. So this is what I have as a list instead.

Sebastian - Leader - Krak Grenade, Fighting Knife, Sawn-off Shotgun - 195 Credits

Mordecai - Champion - Krak Grenade, Fighting Knife, Flamer - 300 Credits

Cassius - Ganger - Emperor's Wrath rounds, Polearm/Blunderbuss - 120 credits

Petro- Ganger - Frag Grenade, Photo-goggles, fighting knife, Reclaimed Autogun - 150 credits

Klaudius - Ganger - Stub gun  Dumdum Rounds, stub gun - 85 credits

Kalum - Ganger - Respirator, Sawn-off Shotgun - 75 credits

Porter - Juve - Reclaimed autopistol - 35 credits

Corvus - Juve - axe, Stub gun - 40 credits

Total 1000 credits

Next on the Hobby Desk

I will be going through my hobby resolutions for 2020, what has changed since the pandemic and what are my plans for 2021? Probably painting goals for now, till this pandemic thing cools down.

Minivember Challenge

November has come and gone. Somehow simultaneously moving at a snail's pace and also rocketing us quickly to the end of the year. I was able to get 20/30 of the miniatures done for #minivember. The one of the goals for this project was to finish off units for Warhammer 40k that originally were painted up just for Kill Team (ie groups of two instead whole units of 5). The primary goal was to get more of the Adeptus Mechanicus finished to be able to play painted robots for Crusade. I am pretty happy with the results, I'll probably finish off the rest throughout December, I do know that Rachel wants to pick up Warhammer Underworld Direchasm next weekend, so that might jump ahead in the painting queue.

I painted up the Wave Serpent with Blight Lances, not glued on so I can swap them out for something a bit less heavy. Ran out of basing, I'll finish them of once I resupply, then I can take pictures of the whole army.

Kastelon Robots and Cybernetica Datasmith from the Apocalypse box (still have another two Robots, two more Datasmiths and a Dominus from that box to paint up). The Kataphron Destroyers were from a lot, as well as Belisarius Cawl both assembled. The Destroyers were interesting to paint up, can't imagine Cawl with all his mechatendrils being much easier to get on the table. That said, Skitarii are fast becoming one of my favourite armies to paint up, great sculpts, and lots of options for magnetizing.

Kastelon Robot want hug from Datasmith!

One of the odd one out in this painting challenge, the Dewback Rider. I equipped him with a flame thrower (instead of a melee weapon or sniper rifle) as cavalry that can melt your face off is much cooler. Gotta get the Rebellion side started one of these days, I find my biggest hurdle with them is finding a colour scheme.

Used one of the Which elves? Witch Aelves! Right the copyrightable name for them, yes! I used this one as test to figured out what colours I'd like to make the WarCry Warband. Still working on a basing for them though.

 

The remaining 10 miniatures were a bit of a hodge-podge of models, the Daughters of Khaine to finish off the WarCry Warband. Truth be told, I am a bit nervous touching the Khinerai (the fragile looking winged witches), with the only contact point to the base being a slender tail, I figured one rough brush stroke and they would snap off their base. Jain Zar to lead the Howling Banshees, once again some creative block with how to tackle her base. I had a few one armed metal Dark Eldar Wyches, so one of them will be a corpse for the base. She is also pinned to a piece of ruins to add a bit of a dynamic posing to the older model. Out of print metal daemon prince that will be doing double duty as a Daemon Prince and Be'lakor for my Slaves to Darkness Army. Last but not least, Gutrot Spume, figured I could get a few more Leaders done for Age of Sigmar, as I usually start with troops and leave the Leaders for last. 

Next on the Hobby Desk

Will be working on the Daughters of Khaine Warband as it's getting close to done. Who knows what else I might get up to at this point.

October Wrap Up

October has been a bit slower for games. but I did get a few things done for painting.

With it being October, I was going to do some zombies and skeletons for the season and run some type of Song of Blades and Heroes for my friends or family. With little interest, I didn't really pursue this idea for long. 

Instead I painted up some of the Slaad I had, the bigger one is a blue slaad inspired by this picture.

These Slaad are a range of challange ratings for D&D, from 5 to 9, making them a pretty good challenge for any seasoned adventuring party. 

One of the members on Hunters of the Warp facebook page posted on a WIP Wednesday his 3rd edition Dark Eldar models. This post made me a bit nostalgic of my first "army", I didn't really have much money when I started playing Warhammer. My buddy, Pilon, picked up the 3rd edition starter set that featured Dark Eldar and Space Marines in it. He would lend me the Kabalite Warriors in the box and I bought my own wyches to paint and play. Not the most competitive force, as with modern Eldar, you definitely need some fast transport vehicles to protect your modestly dressed masochistic elves.

Eventually, Pilon did give me the kabalite warriors, but I did sell them off awhile back. A few years ago I did start buying metal wyches to make a Dark Eldar Kill Team. 

Weapon loadouts have changed quite a bit since 3rd edition.

For these five I picked out what I felt looked cool, but this doesn't make much for Kill Team (or probably not 40k) as the Agonizer is for Hekatrix only. The Shredder isn't an option anymore, but could count as a Phantasm Grenade Launcher (again Hekatrix only). I guess that gives me options for loud outs.

I'd run these wyches as such:

Leader - Hekatrix - Agonizer, Splinter Pistol - 11pts

Specialist - Zealot - Shardnet and Impaler - 11pts

Non- specialists

Wych - pistol and hekatarii blade - 8pts (as the Shredder isn't an option)

Wych - pistol and hekatarii blade - 8pts

Wych Fighter - Razorflails - 11pts.

Total: 49pts

Hope to add some Kabalite Warriors that I picked up from Ebay, once they get here.

Money shot.

I have also finished up all the Necromunda barricades & objective marks that I bought with rules and some templates off eBay earlier this year.

As with last year, I will be doing Minivember, creating a list of 30 models to finished off by the end of November. Last year, I didn't quiet complete the challenge. These year's list has quiet a few Character models, which might slow me down a bit. I hope to complete some units that I painted last year, focusing on full scale Warhammer instead of Kill Team. 

New to this year though, is that I forced convinced Rachel to finish off some of her models. When she discovered just how many mouslings she has mostly finished or finished without a base, she wanted to get them done and minivember might give her the motivation to get it done. She also has her Warcry Sylvaneth and the expansion Scythe figures to complete a 7 player Scyche set. (which we have had talk of starting a Rise of Fenris campaign in the future)

My list is mostly Eldar, Skitarii for Crusade and Daughters of Khaine for Warcry.

I'll most likely post updates on my Instagram, and any finished models on here once I get them done.

Next on the Hobby Desk

Minivember updates, if you want to join in just pick out your own figures that have been haunting your hobby desk and get them done!