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The night is dark and full of Chaos Spawns

Part 3

Outside the boundary of the firelight, the night seems darker than ever. Survivors tremble and cower as the men who still have their strength patrol the periphery, trying to hide their fear as howls echo in the surrounding forest. A snap of branches and a horned figure staggers into the light, bleating through multi-rowed teeth. ‘Hooknose’ Neumann scrambles for his halberd but the beast is upon him already. As it lunges for him and tears at his face, an axe lands in its spine, splitting the beast open. The wielder helps Neumann to his feet and examines the wound.

“A mercy, there is only the stench of death here. Come follow, for you cannot tarry here and it is dangerous on these roads. There is much for us to hunt.”

My militia has no nose.
How does he smell?
Awful!

So not sure if this is a worn/damaged piece or the previous owner disfigured this guy, but he doesn’t appear to have a nose so now he is ‘No-nose’ Neumann. No matter, I figure he’s a veteran and lost it in a battle as per above vignette. His friend is missing an eye. Made good use of reddish shading on the white cloth to keep them looking thematic and not too clean, while keeping the high pass with pure white for contrast. I want the Free Company to be plain-clothes as much as possible.

W.I.P. old gray mare she ain’t what she used to be

The first of my Hunters of Sigmar order is represented by the Freelance Knight – not only does he have the janky, ad-hoc equipment typical of the Hunters, but he also comes sculpted with an Ostland shield (although there’s something fishy about it…). The horse armour is designed to look like it was once painted a bright colour but has been stained and rusted by the elements. Transitioning through ochre tones and tying it all together with a sepia wash has gotten me the closest to J.B. artwork so far. I’m also trying out small brushtrokes for the horse’s coat to give it a greying, grizzled look for a rickety old nag.

One thing I’ve found while working in this palette is that adding orange paint colours doesn’t seem to gel with the rest of the spectrum – I’m going from earthy red to earthy yellow to dirty white and when I try to include orange it either looks fluorescent and over saturated, or it has the wrong…temperature? Not as hot or cold. So Bestial Brown is acting as a mix-in to ease red into yellow.

The Spearmen from the old starter set are lacking a bit of variety in their sculpts and poses so I went for some different patterns on the shields to add some interest. You can’t get better contrast than black and white, so can get away with some more intricate patterns and still have them readable at small scale (as opposed to blue on purple for example).

If all the glue joins on this steam tank failed, the old paint would still hold it together. Really doesn’t matter though since once I finish the detailing, I’m offroading this ride with an assortment of mud, soot and pigment effects. Considering options for a toot of steam. While it’s always tempting to do a lush freehand triptych on the flat panels, Ostland is about restraint.

To cap off the weekend, I threw together this mess: a Mordheim Witch I will use as a Wizard of Death/Shadows. A good model for a messy paint job. The Forest of Shadows has many wise women, herbalists and healers…it also has horrible hags, häxen, whores of Satan etc. Which one is this? Who’s to say…

A light in the darkness

Part 2

LORE

Wolfenburg is in ashes, set ablaze during the onslaught by gouts of coruscating flame spewing forth from lesions in the night sky. Sinister conjurations were followed by a throng of beasts from the id, their changeling forms silhouetted against the flames as they crossed the threshold from nightmares to reality.

The cruel hordes of the Kurgan had already laid waste to much of the city a year past, crossing the frozen river boundary and turning the fresh snowfall crimson. Surtha Lenk turned his forces toward Kislev however as the final confrontation drew near, and the denizens of Wolfenburg set about collecting the dead. They had only begun to bury their dead in the spring thaw when, in 2522IC, the walls fell to the mutant abominations from the Forest of Shadows.

Now the Storm is over and the first bonfire is lit. Bruno Hauptleiter, mercenary captain of the Star of Victory company, was sent by Count Valmir (paid by promissory note) to relieve Wolfenburg – although arriving too late to save the town, his men evacuated the remaining defenders and as morning broke, drove the remaining monstrosities back into the shadows.

The survivors crowd into makeshift encampments, seeking shelter from the encircling darkness…but too frightened to venture back into the ruins of the town, where screams human and non-human still echo in the night. With few left of sound body and mind, Hauptleiter has assumed responsibility for these refugees. Unwilling to stay in one place too long, but unable to cross the threshold of the forest, they are seeking a place of refuge where a fire can be kept burning until help comes. If it comes.

PAINTING

WORK IN PROGRESS – Who goes there, friend or foe? Probably foe.

Day 1 of the Waaaaaagh painting challenge – I have blocked out the colour scheme and done a ton of metals at once so I can change the paint water. The model above is one of the Mordheim warband which I will probably field as templars. Trying to distribute the three main colours (B, W, R) evenly over the model while keeping him dimly lit by the lantern.

WORK IN PROGRESS – Mercenary Captain Bruno Hauptleiter

Bruno is represented by the Griffin-riding Elector Count model. A wealthy entrepreneur in the military imperial complex, he is more ornate than the Ostlanders. Hauptleiter translates to something like Figurehead Leader – I didn’t come up with this, he’s from WHFRP. His coat of arms was chosen to reflect his regiment’s name: Stars of Victory. A stylised star painted with the wings of Nike. This will be going on a shield later.

WORK IN PROGRESS – Free Company – town militia

These halberd guys are the remnants of townsfolk who have taken up arms to defend their homes, surviving being cornered by a swarm of leechlike mutant creatures (think bloedzuigers from The Witcher) that were driven off by a wave of flame from Bright wizard Bart Zweispitzig – but not before many were drained of their precious bodily fluids. To keep these models distinct without resorting to adding colours, I am focusing on materials techniques i.e. rust, frayed cloth, faded dye, wrinkled and scuffed leather. Time to re-watch some Vince Vinturella. Thankfully, all human hair colours are available to use in this colour space, and individual facial features or expressions can make each model unique.

The wizard is lighting the fires. This posed an interesting challenge as Bright wizards usually stand out from an army due to being coloured Red/Orange/Yellow and lit by flame…but everyone in this army will be coloured that way, so I focussed on contrast of value. The OSL from the firelight is meant to be evocative rather than photorealistic (this is a cope, I am just bad at it).

The first flame is lit, will it burn out or fade away?

Ostland Carries the Flame

Part 1

After 20 years of Warhammer Fantasy, I will be painting my first ever full army of The Empire. Until now I was paralysed with indecision, both on the colour palette and on the story I wanted to tell with them. What if I rolled out the finest batteries of Nuln’s artillery corps only to find I missed the simplicity of the common man with a sharp stick? Would Knights of Morr look out of place alongside the defenders of Middenheim? Can I face painting a whole army of lemon yellow uniforms?

Eventually I will probably have a bit of everything – I can’t help myself. All the better to run a civil war campaign with. But the time has come for me to commit to a project, and I intend to make up for all those years ignoring the heart and soul of the Old World. On this Warhammer Fantasy discord server, community elder NXL is running the second iteration of a grand army painting contest – evoking the spirit of the legendary Tale of Four Gamers series. The perfect opportunity to lean hard into a theme in a way you can only do if you’re painting an army all at once.

This is my submission for the contest:

The Wanderers of Wolfenburg are a band of defenders and refugees who survived the ravages of the Storm of Chaos in Ostland. Led by a hardened mercenary captain, they are guarding a relic rescued from the destruction by the cult of Sigmar who have vowed to carry it through the scorched landscape and chaos-haunted forests in search of a safe place. They are guided along this bleak road by an Imperial Roadwarden, and offered protection by the Order of the Hunters of Sigmar. This is taking place in the timeline of WFRP 2nd edition, which chronicles the aftermath of the Storm of Chaos canon.

Some of the models I’ve tracked down for this project range toward the obscure. The thematic heart will be the Ostland warband for Mordheim, who epitomise the rough and rugged, suspicious and superstitious nature of the province. Armed primarily with pistols, they will be fielded as the Knightly Templars of Sigmar Order (using supplementary rules from Warhammer Armies Project).

Also joining us from Mordheim are the Roadwarden and the Freelance Knight, whose shield already bears the bull emblem of Ostland. The Mordheim Witch is making an appearance too, as a Baba Yaga type of figure (perhaps the Beastmen ate her gingerbread house).

The original steam tank from 4th edition suits the scale of a warband type army better than the larger renditions which feel like they belong in a grandiose parade. At night, the Wanderers will gather round its boiler for warmth as the winter closes in.

The Hunters of Sigmar (originally styled on the old GW website) are armed with shoddy equipment, and often favour great weapons and woodsman’s axes to the standard lance. Famous Beastmen hunters, they will be adorned with the paraphernalia of the hunt and the trophies of their catch.

Most expensively, I have found a use for some rare models in my collection. This unit will be run as Greatswords (with a Unit Filler), however the models are actually a Warrior Priest unit – an unreleased sculpt by Games Workshop for the Empire that I suspect was planned for release in the late 90s. The holy relic they are transporting is a prototype Empire War Altar, also unreleased, and sculpted I think by Marauder. Far smaller than its later editions and lacking rules, I felt the best use for it was a thematic component of an infantry unit.

These will be backed up with a rag-tag band of irregulars, armed with bows and pointed sticks and torches, dragging the last of the artillery they could salvage from the town.

Finally, I have challenged myself to paint this army in a limited colour palette such as that employed famously by OG Warhammer artist John Blanche. Ostland’s provincial colours are already black, white and red, and the burnt, brutalised landscape will have no green left. I also will try my hand at lighting some of the models as if they are illuminated by torchlight and campfires, although this runs the risk of everything being too dark and dingy to make out details. Part of the challenge.

NXL’s Great Waaaaaagh challenge runs from 1st July through the end of September. Updates will be posted here as well as in Discord.

Realm of Imagination #1 – Converting Beastmen Characters

The 6th edition of WHFB dropped most factions down to two, perhaps three special characters, at the same time rebooting most of the model range – sometimes just ’cause (Teclis?). This trend started to reverse in 7th with many fresh faces joining the rogues gallery however many who made it into the rules were left behind on the sculpting-room floor due to time constraints or market viability. Here we shall explore how you can bring these characters to life on the tabletop with a few nips and tucks.

The Beastmen added stacks of new characters in their 7th edition book with the possible intention of releasing the missing models with their next refresh…which sadly never came. As they are mostly uncompetitive on the battlefield there was little interest in them from tacticians, but the concepts are cool enough to demand representation on the battlefield.

Moonclaw

“Moonclaw, son of Morrslieb” is the man in the moon. Shot out of the chaos moon in an egg/chrysalis, he radiates a warm warpstone glow and talks in backmasked satanic messages. His abilities sound bonkers but in practice he is bogus. The artwork for Moonclaw is so vague and scribbly that it could have been drawn by Mr. Squiggle (also from the moon), so it is hard to tell exactly what he should look like.

Little monster man on a big monster dog? The general idea is he should be twisted and crazy enough that everyone nearby suffers Stupidity. I personally interpreted the character’s mutant mount Umbralok using the very feral and beastmen-like ‘Thing in the Woods’ from Mordheim:

The rider is made of various chaotic bitz draped with putty tendrils to emulate the fur(?) in the art. Pick some Ungor legs with a wide stance and they should be able to fit on a mount.

The landscape around him changes and twists with flames in a colour out of space as it is pulled into his upside-down dimension.

A conundrum with this guy is that the rules imply he’s cavalry-sized, but nothing much suits this scale for mounts – Beastmen don’t really do mounts. I have seen a conversion that used a plastic wolf as the basis and another with a Chaos Warhound. I think a Dark Eldar Warp Beast has suitably bizarre looks for this purpose (I’m talkin’ about the googly eyed metal ones of course). The newer (Khymera?) version is sized better if you run him on 50x50mm as above.

Going back to the artwork, the heads all have a slightly beaked appearance – the Tzaangor kit is perfect if you want to emulate this.

Ungrol

Ungrol Four-Horn is a two-headed changeling consumed with horn-envy. His artwork is a little clearer:

It is a near-effortless conversion (Gor heads on an Ungor body 4horns1gor) but I’ve never got around to making him because I know that I could any time I want. Ideally use the more lengthy and impressive horns from the Bestigor kit.

Molokh

Molokh Slugtongue is a festering beastie who makes the enemy army fungry. This aura (D3 wounds no saves on T test) has the potential to be very valuable against some lineups so he’s a surprisingly rounded choice for a wizard.

Slugtongue – Beastmen 7th edition Army Book

Another easy conversion, you can take the skull from various Orc or Ogre banners and jam it on any necromancer, Chaos Sorceror etc. you have spare. There are one or two examples of this online. To complete the picture, the staff he holds in the artwork looks very much like Morghur’s:

I was going for ‘glowing ember’ and got ‘baked potato’

I could also see Ethrac Glott making a good base for this guy, with a bit of fur added here and there:

Ethrac Glott currently employed as a Fimir

Taurox

Taurox enjoyed the most popularity of these characters since all it took was a pot of Brazen Brass to get a 1+ save for your Doombull. He was finally rewarded with the Daemonic Gift of an official design when released as a legendary lord in Total War: Warhammer II after years as only a headshot:

But the TWW design is nowhere near as fun as what we can do with our imagination.

The plastic minotaurs with their smooth Blender3d muscles already look like cast bronze statues, so all they need is a coat of metallic paint. If the traditional bare-arsed bovines are more your bag, armour plates can be fashioned from Chaos kits such as Skullcrushers and applied on top of an old sculpt for a metallic aesthetic.

The Doombull (F-L) and Bloodbowl Mino (F-R) are begging to be brassed up

Replacing the cow head with the head from the Juggernaut of Khorne (particularly the lord mount) is a good touch. My own plan for a Taurox conversion is clipping the wings off a classic Bloodthirster:

This conversion will also allow me to run him as Ograx the Beastfiend, a lore-only character from the Archaon novel. Ograx is an Australian beastman who achieves the favour of a Bloodthirster and is gifted with a brass body.

From out of the lore-forest come some other characters who could spice up your herd:

* Ragush of the Bloody Horn is a XXXL Doombull who likes his steaks rare.
* Kha’rak Stoneheart is a Bray-Shaman’s ghost possessing a minotaur’s body. (Buy the Wizard Hat on a Doombull, you know you want to)
* The Harbinger, a wizened shaman who sells out to Nurgle in the end times.

If you have converted one of these characters for your own army, I’d love to put together a compilation of inspiration – leave a comment or email me below:

What End Times?

Welcome to my page. I have set this up as a space to celebrate the classic Warhammer Fantasy game/setting and hopefully see it through to a bright new future in The Old World when it comes to fruition. No AOS allowed in the clubhouse.

On top of being a showcase for my assembled armies, I will be adding content such as tutorials, batreps and articles.

I hope to include the capacity for other WHFB fans to add their own army galleries and submissions. Please get in touch if you would like to be involved: Connect