Xenos on Crusade: Awakening the Tomb IV

Hey everyone, Tom here!

So July is now over and I just managed to fully paint the first 25PL (26PL actually) of my crusade force, just in time with the release of the #New40k rules! Here is the force crammed into my light box like errr well skeletons in a tomb!

Xenos on Crusade: Awakening the Tomb III

Hello everyone, Phaeron Tom here!

It has been a very busy weekend for my hobby with a massive amount of despruing, gluing, priming and starting to paint. As you might have already guessed, it was the Indomitus release weekend! This was a fantastic set, the rulebook looks great, and the build-up and planning for the Crusade has really excited me for the new edition of 40k (I barely played any 7th, and skipped all of 8th).

Xenos on Crusade: Awakening the Tomb II

Greetings everyone!

It is only a few days until Indomitus is with us and I can get my hands a vast legion of undying robots. Whilst waiting for new the Necrons to arrive I've made steady progress working through my existing models, aiming to finish as much as possible before 9th lands and I have many more distractions!

My focus has been primarily on assembling a Ghost Ark that I mentioned in my previous post. I had planned to assemble it as a Doomsday Ark, but I made an early mistake in assembly, committing me to the dedicated transport variant. The kit is really cool and I have long admired the novel design of the vehicle that stands apart from many other 40k tanks.

The other unit I have worked on is 9 bases of Canoptek Scarabs. A little bit of scouring eBay, and a generous donation from the seller of the Ghost/Doomsday Ark sprues, resulted in me sitting on 100 of the (soon to be obsolete) plastic scarab models. Using the current 4 per 40mm base that would be 25 bases of scarabs, many more than I would ever consider running in a game. To mix things up I decided to pile high the little critters and create some truly massive 'swarms' of these miniature robots!

Xenos on Crusade: Awakening the Tomb I

Awakening the Tomb I

Hey everyone!

So June was the first month of our Xenos Crusade preparations. The aim was to plan a 50 Power Level force of our chosen faction and to begin assembling it with the intention of painting at least one unit before the end of the month.

As I mentioned previously the preview of the Indomitus box and the new Necron models sold me on the faction and sent me scurrying around to Medge's house to pick up Forgebane. Such was my excitement I had assembled and painted virtually all of this starter set before the 10 June post we made announcing the Crusade! So I'm going to show off progress so far and feast upon the life energies of the rest of the Warlords knowing that I am out ahead in painting progress!

That said, June was not a great month for painting and I barely made much more progress, stalling with the Lychguard and getting sidetracked into painting the Lord model I converted. My main excuse was finishing and moving into a new garden office that will be serving dual roles as my lockdown working from home fortress, a hobby space and future gaming hangout. It turns out I have had a lot of models to move and unbox into my new hobby den!

Xenos on Crusade: Introductions and Kick Off

What a great time for hobby, eh? 

Games Workshop's announcement of 9th Edition 40k has come as a very welcome burst of excitement in these difficult times, and reignited the passion and interest in 40k for all our Warlords. 

There's so much great stuff coming out on Warhammer Community right now for the new Edition it really is shaping up to be the best edition of Warhammer 40k to date!

One of the new ways of playing that has really piqued our interest is the Crusade system. For those not following the community page, Crusade is a new narrative way of playing that will see your force evolve over consecutive battles. Not only does your force increase in strength from game to game (via points/power rewards that allow you to bring more to the table), your individual units are able to earn honours (bonus rules/stats) and battle scars (negative rules/stats) for the acts they commit on the tabletop. 

This RPG-style evolution of a force doesn't only sound like a great way of playing normally... but the perfect set-up for another Tale of Five Gamers! 

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 2020: Brass Rampagers III

The first month...

As I previously mentioned I am not starting a new army in 2020, instead I am using the Path to Glory as a way to get a force I have painted and onto the tabletop. So the majority of the full force I have already, and just require finishing. I have purchased a few additional units - Blood Warriors and Wrathmongers - to fill a few holes in my bloody host. Hopefully I will improve and speed up my painting along the way!

Sprues for His throne!

Path to Glory 2020: The Brass Rampagers II

"Blood for the Blood God!"

Today I have been looking at the units I will be taking in my initial warband. This is mainly guided by the models I currently have available*, rather than a burning desire to have a powerful list. The majority of the models I will be using come from the Blades of Khorne Start Collecting kit, the contents of which were in the original AoS starter.

To this end I decided against rolling randomly for my warleader's follower units...

Path to Glory: The Brass Rampagers

Hello everyone!

I'm Tom and I am the new kid on the blog and I will be using the Blades of Khorne army as part of this Tale of Five Wargamers.

I will admit right now that this is an army I have had, built up, partially painted and based, and played a few games (likely less than 10!) with since the start of Age of Sigmar back in 2015. I own a large number of the models, most of which are in the annoying limbo of "sort of done"; they are not grey plastic, have lots of base layers down, but are by no means finished to a standard I consider done, nor are they based as I want them to be. This will change during 2020!

A bleeding totem, totally normal...