Welcome to Sigmar's Storm; A #BashtheBacklog #StayHome Age of Sigmar project.
Given the title I'm sure you can all guess the content...
That's right - Sigmarines! I mean Stormcast Eternals... sorry... too much 40k content of late!
As the flagship faction of Age of Sigmar you'd be hard pressed to have missed the Stormcast Eternals. They've seen four waves of releases over the last few years (Warrior Chamber, Extremis Chamber, Vanguard Chamber and the newer Sacroscant Chamber), have a huge and diverse range, feature some stunning big kits alongside extensive Easy-To-Build and multipart ranges, and have been the go to starter faction in both first and second Edition AoS.
With the CoVID-19 lockdown in full force and GW closed we've all been turning to those neglected projects, and I thought it high time I revisited my first AoS army.
My history with the Stormcast Eternals
Back when AoS first lauched, and the only two "real" factions were the Stormcast Eternals and Khorne Bloodbound, I immediately fell in love with the Bloodbound (not what you were expecting!)
At the time I was massively into my bad guys, and wanted a huge horde of frothing madman lead by the legendary Khorgus Khul.
My partner was taking her first steps into the hobby at the time too, and as a fan of Fantasy took a bit of a shining to the Stormcast Eternals, and so we each picked up a copy of the First Edition Starter set and swapped Chaos for Stormcast, giving each other a massive starting collection.
But as anyone who played AoS during it's first release knows, the early days were plagued with toxicity; the over-openness of the game paving the way to some thoroughly un-fun games.
So we both gave up on Sigmar and moved on to other systems.
When "AoS v1.5" was released (aka the first Generals Handbook) Age of Sigmar became a lot more appealing; the introduction of points and force organisation helping to balance a lot of the issues of first edition.
Myself and fellow Warlord, Neil, decided to put forces together for a campaign weekend at Warhammer World, which gave me a hard deadline for painting an army.
With the Khorne Bloodbound in a pretty bad place in first edition (at least the style I wanted to play) I raided the backlog pile for the Stormcast Eternals and put together the army you can see below for the Kharadron Overlords Campaign weekend
The army, a full 2000 points, consisted of;
Lord-Celestant on Dracoth
Drakesworn Templar on Stardrake
Lord-Celestant on foot
Lord-Relictor
2x5-man Liberator Squads
1x5man Judicator Squad with Skybolt Bows
1x5-man Retributor
1x5-man Protectors with 2 Soulstorm maces
3-man Prosecutors with pairs of Celestial Hammers
As you can see - about half of the force was taken straight from the starter set and featured the ETB models, with a couple of extra boxes added to fill the gaps
I went to the campaign weekend, a casual gaming affair more narrative than competitive, cautiously optimistic and finished the weekend 2-3, having played some truly fantastic and fun lists.
I came back full of enthusiasm for adding to the army, bought a few extra kits (including the Lord-Veritant you can see unpainted in the pic above!) but never really got back into the army. I forget why, but the Stormcast have remained shelved ever since (to put a date on it, the Kharadron Overlords were released April 2017, so it's probably been close to three years).
Over the years I've added a few kits here and there to the Stormcast Eternals with the intention of getting back to them; the Second Edition Starter set the biggest of these purchases. But my enthusiasm never lead me back to the Stormcast until Lockdown.
With extra time on my hands, and GW firmly locked down, I turned to the backlog to find some projects to break up the monotony of painting Blood Angels.
I separated all my Stormcast into a single shame pile, had a small cry about how much I still had (!!!), and set to work!
Objective 1: Complete the Warrior Chamber!
With a few models still outstanding from the first edition Starter Set, along with a Lord-Veritant, Knight-Vexilla and Knight Azyros, I started working to complete my oldest backlog projects first.
My Lord-Veritant was up first. As a fairly stoic model I decided to go a little elaborate with base, making him a large rock to stand on out of cork. The cloak and robes were painted in a crisp red/ white colour to match the rest of my Stormcast
The Knight-Azyros came next. When I first built this model 3 years ago I chose to include the Star eagle on the kit, despite knowing the Azyros doesn't come with one. I just love the swooping familiar on the model and couldn't resist!
It also gave me the opportunity to add a splash of the blue spot colour to the model, which complements the wings of the Azyros (and Prosecutors) in the rest of the force.
The most tedious part of the project with another 10 Liberators. All ETB kits, so lots of repeating poses, these guy reinforce my existing two 5-man squads up to 10-men each.
The liberators are pretty bland kits and getting through all of these wasn't easy. Fortunately I had a well defined and easy pant scheme (thank you Leadbelcher spray!); 10 more models of the backlog done!
My first objective was completed by the Knight-Vexilla. Unfortunately a few of the details on the top of his banner pole haven't survived the shame pile, but the model was in okay condition otherwise.
All of the Stormcast models have been painted to a reasonable tabletop quality. I've definitely improved as a painter over the last 3 years, and I had to be a bit rougher with these models to make sure they match my existing stuff!
Objective 2; The Sacroscant Chamber!
Up next for the Stormcast will be my first foray into the Sacroscant chamber. I've not yet painted a model for the Sacroscant; their design has changed a bit from the Warrior Chamber, with more robes and magical paraphernalia, and so I need to redesign my paint scheme for it.
With so many projects on the go I'm not sure when I'll get round to it... but this mini-splurge on Stormcast has reminded me why I started them in the first place!
The hype is up - lets see where I go!!
'till next time! Stay safe all!
Visit my Instagram for regular updates on all my hobby activities: https://www.instagram.com/drmedge/?hl=en
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