To Bring The Dawn: A Lord Regent's Companions

 Hi all it's Neil here with another post about my Lumineth tale of five warlords force.  This post will be about both month two and three's unit as the month two unit got delayed considerably (I finished it with 3 days left in month 3).  These units are 5 Vanari Dawnriders who will be my Lord Regents compaions for my path to glory force and a Scinari Loreseeker, who in the background for my force is the brother of the Lord Regent.

To Bring the Dawn: Recruiting the Core

 Hi all its Neil here with the units for my first month of our Age of Sigmar group project, the Lord Regent to lead my force and a unit of 10 Vanari Wardens to form the core of my Lumineth.  Here are these completed units.

To Bring the Dawn: Taking the Coin Malleus

Hi all it's Neil here with a post about a new group project that we've just started here at The Cambridge Warlords.   This new project is kick started by the release of the new 3rd edition for Age of Sigmar (and by the returning ability to game).  It's a tale of four gamers style project so each month we'll be painting up 1-2 boxes/units of miniatures to build up an army and playing games of increasing scope as we paint along together.  

Path to Glory 2020: Brass Rampagers IV

Month... erm... 4?

Things went awry in February... Just a little bit. I ended up caught up in the excitement of our club Necromunda campaign, so spent most of my painting time focussing on my gangers, hired guns and a "small" amount of terrain. Then in March as came around things took a few surprising turns as the world went into lockdown. I'm now in my eighth week of working from home. This has certainly meant I have had a lot more time for painting, but I've pretty much avoided painting my Blades of Khorne during that time. Instead I have worked through a number of the Forge World dramatis personae for Necromunda, assembled "more" Zone Mortalis terrain, and worked on clearing various backlogs of scatter terrain, a few Warcry scenery bits, and a few random models I had lying around as distractions.

Well as the group approaches the centenary of blogs I thought I should catch up and do some more work on my Brass Rampagers. April saw me make some big achievements in progress - mainly determined by availability of various sprays, layers and washes that became as rare as hen's teeth during lockdown! So here we go... I've also included a few bits here that are not yet part of the Path to Glory campaign, but will likely see use in larger battles in the future (or just sit on a display shelf as lockdown perpetuates...).

Blood Warriors

A key goal for me in the Path to Glory paint-a-thon has been to up the number and quality of my battleline units. I enjoyed batch painting this unit of Blood Warriors, working from a bronze base, through several layers of gold dry-brushing, a Nuln Oil wash over the entire model before beginning to pick out details. The recessed armour plates are washed with Carroburg Crimson, giving them a nice bloody gold look that reflects the red painted armour more commonly used on Khorne models. While pretty close to being 'battle-ready' there are a few bits I will spend more time doing, picking out leather straps, detailing a few spikes and painting the numerous skulls to get them closer to 'parade ready'. I've also get to then have fun with Blood for the Blood God technical!

Path To Glory Month 2-3 - Slaves to Sigmar

We left off at the end of January with me ushering in my first slaves to darkness models, the Lord on Karkadrak along with 10 Chaos Warriors and 3 Chaos Knights. Though fun to paint (love the rhino-meets-crocodile vibe), I played three games with the fuller army (in greyor basecoated plastic) and just wasn't feeling it. They didn't play like I wanted them to, apart from the Lord on the Rhino once equipped with the -3 rend Runeblade from Malign Sorcery, who (credit to him!) was a true monster. But there  was a change of plan...

In particular, the core chaos warriors and knights didn't have that much offensive bite, the army seemed heavily reliant on its marauders pulling off long charges from deep strike to win the objective / board control game, coupled with the ridiculously powerful slapping down of full hit and wound re-rolls on tank units to do the killing (Warshrines and Sorceror Lords had a lot to answer for...). I may have won the games I played, but would have preferred to just play as Nurgle like I usually do - even though their book may be ageing, it has some more nuanced and cool tactical options.

In addition, being the hobby butterfly we all are, I found myself emerging from the cocoon of this abortive project to nestle on the varied Spring flowers of Adeptus Titanicus (new starter set, great game system, great demo game with Neil), Necromunda (our club gang war has kicked up again recently, and I've painted my Delaque to kick up some fuss across Chem Ridge) and 40k (getting my marines to their full competitive glory, as the first actually fully painted (almost, anyway) 40k army I am able to take to events. I'll try to give these guys the photographic coverage they deserve in periodic "What I've Been Up To" posts.

So, after our group rallied around a prospective AoS doubles event (once COVID-19 lets up), I decided to jump ship - my Slaves are great models and can still do good work in a Nurgle and - eventually - a Khorne army, but I wanted to try to revive my failing enthusiasm and #Bash Some Backlog (thanks Matt) by painting some of the extensive Stormcast Eternals I've amassed by buying multiple copies of the first and second edition starter sets and ruthlessly cutting up and converting (which I really enjoy) to get a unique and cheap army.

For the doubles event, we have 1,000 points each, and I'll be allying with Neil's Seraphon (the successors to the notorious "Neil's Eels" Idoneth list of the doubles we attended in Autumn 2018).

My list will probably be:

Lord Arcanum on Dracoline
3 Evocators on Dracolines
3 Evocators on Dracolines
5 Sequitors
5 Sequitors
coming to a round 1,000 points.

 I'd ideally like more of a mix of mobile units, but once I'd added one set of Thundercats + Thundercatboss and the mandatory selection of what's sadly, I think, the only really decent core unit SCE have, I had 260 points left - not enough to buy anything meaningful alongside my usual favourite unit, the Vanguard Palladors (180pts), as SCE heroes start at 100 points. So I went with even more cats!

At the Autumn 2018 doubles, I was partnered with James, and to everyone's surprise we came second out of 80 odd teams with 5 wins (mostly because Nurgle and Nighthaunt were the new hotness back then and we struck lucky not facing any hugely horrible lists or super skilled players!). So, easy record to beat, right? The only way is up, apart from down.

I've celebrated the new project by finalising a colour scheme and painting up my first Sequitors - I just love these guys in gameplay, being super dependable and useful pieces who can either zip down into cover for a 3+ rerollable save and really hog those objectives, or start dishing out pain with the stormstrike maces. I'm pleased with how the colour scheme has worked out - hopefully my savage and noble but increasingly amnesiac stormhost, the Hounds of Azr, will really project an Ultramarines style heroism with that blue, black and gold.

Till next time!

Path to Glory 2020: The Noctis Elite - The Encroaching Darkness

So then Month 2 is done and I'll be honest it's been a slow one. The general melancholy that suffuses the air this time of year, combined with a bit of waning interest in Age of Sigmar within the group has meant that all of us didn't get too much done this month. I've forged on with the Bonereapers however and do have something to add, though not quite as much as I'd like. So what's been added to the legion?

Why more Mortek Guard of course!

The next 10 Mortek Guard

Path to Glory 2020: Gorkamorka's Chosen, Part 2

February has come and gone, and with it goes another month of hobby progress.
And in all honesty - it's not been a great month for Age of Sigmar (at least for me).

A lot of competing hobby objectives coupled with a new job have drained my enthusiasm for Age of Sigmar this month, and pushing through to complete my path commitments felt a little too much like work; never a good thing...

Nevertheless complete a model I did, so say hello to the newest member of the Tribe

Path to Glory 2020: The Noctis Elite - A Shadow Cometh

January was a bit of a blur this year, in fact it went by so quickly I completely forgot to put up a post on my progress for the Tale!!

So how did January go? Did I get my models painted in time?

Path to Glory 2020: Gorkamorka's Chosen, Part 1

It's mad to think that my first solo post in 2020 is in Feb, but here we are!

Jan 2020 was pretty busy for me; I started a new job and revamped two rooms in in my house (including my office/ hobby space). With all the disruption going on it was easy to let the blogging slip (I've started about 5 posts and got approximately no-where with any of them!!), but now that the dust has settled I'm raring to go.

Month 1 of our Tale of FIVE Warlords is now over, and work Gorkamorka's Chosen have progressed well. You may remember from my Intro Post that I was struggling with exactly what army to play. 2019 was a good year for Destruction with all three factions (Ogor Mawtribes, Gloomspite Gitz and Orruk Warclans) receiving new books and a splattering of new rules. 

The question before me was a difficult one; which faction should I play?!

A Tale of Four Warlords - Path to Glory: The Brazen Harbingers

Path to Glory 2020: The Brazen Harbingers

Not to be confused with the Brass Rampagers, the Brazen Hard Drinkers, the Dingy Brass Crazies, the Hungry Brassmongers, the Brash Humdingers or the Bingy Haberdashers (they get very insulted by this last mistake), my path to glory warband will be the Brazen Harbingers.


I've made good progress in the month 1, with 3 knights, 10 warriors and a lord on karkadrak painted! These are such lovely models, though I've naturally cut them up a bit to assist with transport (losing the sticky-out axe on the karkadrak lord) and to mix up the weapon options and add standards and musicians. These switches have also given me a nice converted chaos lord on foot, who I'll paint in a future month.

The karkadrak lord seems a tad fragile and for his use at tournament level, but he's still very far from non viable once you give him the -3 rend relic from Chamon (sadly unavailable in path to glory)  and I love the model so much that he had to lead my warband. I went for a fiery theme on the mount, to contrast with the black plate and add a daemonic aspect.


In terms of background, the army is a loose, wandering confederation of tribes on occasion subdued to the will of the Daemon Prince Ba'zarek the Abyssal. Many hail from the mountains of Shyish, but the network of nearby realmgates links them also to the infernal mines of Chamon where they join in bloody worship with fearsome Khornate tribes, and to the roaming, diseased tribes of the darklands of Ulgu (read: my existing Nurgle force!).

The rhino lord, 3 knights and 10 warriors gave me my path to glory warband. I’m not 100 per cent confident in their ability to defeat the other war bands (especially  9 kurnoth hunters and a kurnoth hunter buffing character!) but thankfully James also gets a tiny warband so we weaklings can team up until we arrive at points values games - and Matts narrative scenarios should even the odds. Here we go!

Next up I'll be painting some marauder horsemen and my converted, nurglesque iron golems - watch this space :)

Path to Glory 2020 - Indaril's Hunters - Part 1

Indaril glided through the air with her zephyrspite catching thermals to keep her aloft, far below she tracked her prey who had dared to raid the glade.  She directed her hunters though the forest to stalk the prey ready to fall upon them when the opportunity presented itself.  As the prey entered a glade clearing, Indaril dove down her song turning belligerent ready to avenge the wrong done in blood.....

Hi all, for my starting Warband I decided to pick the Arch-Revenant as my hero who gives me 3 rolls to spend from the path to glory tables.  To theme my band I decided to go for a free spirit heavy start as the arch-revenant is a strong melee leader who works well with the Kurnoth Hunters so I spend my rolls on a unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunter with greatswords, a unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunters with scythes and a unit of 3 Kurnoth Hunters with great bows.

Path to Glory 2020: The Noctis Elite - Forming the Legion

Well 2020 is here and that can only mean one thing for our little blog - a new Tale of Four Wargamers! However this year there's a little twist, we've added another member to our intrepid group of gamers with Tom joining in on all the hobby blog based fun.

We've done an intro post detailing our plans for this latest Tale - a Path to Glory in the Nine Realms of Age of Sigmar. Each of us has dedicated ourselves to a faction of choice. In my case that meant once again returning to the cold embrace of Death and the Grand Necromancer Nagash. For this Tale I'll be taking command of a force of the mighty Ossiarch Bonereapers, a remorseless and unrelenting force of bone constructs created to transform the Realms into a new Necrotopia. Ever since the range was first teased I've been eagerly anticipating building up a legion of the Bonereapers. 

So then what exactly have I got planned for the Ossiarch?