Star Wars Scenery Showcase: Sullust

The other scenery board I made for Fantasy Flight's upcoming miniatures game Star Wars: Legion was this Imperial mining facility, set among the sulfur flats and lava flows on the planet Sullust.

 

I took plenty of photos while building this table, so I can talk about the construction process a little more:

Skaven Project Queue 2017

As it happens, I collect two of the most unsupported armies in Age of Sigmar. I guess that can be said for a lot of classic armies, but Death is the only entire grand alliance to receive absolutely nothing new in the two years since Sigmar premiered. The 2017 General's Handbook offers three new allegiance factions for the undead, but each one relies on such a narrow selection of units that, even though I have over 7000 points of "Vampire Counts" undead, I am unable to pull together 1600 points of the specific models required to build a 2000 points Flesh-eater Court, Soulblight, or Nighthaunt list.

I was kind of hoping that I would never have to paint any more Spirit Hosts, and I can't get excited about spamming the Crypt Horror/Crypt Flayer/Vargheist kit over and over. There's probably something on the horizon for the Death Grand Alliance next year, but until then I'm going to focus on my Skaven:

The Boneripper

I got excited to try the Moulder monster list I came up with. I only need a second Hell Pit Abomination to field it, so I'm using Thanquol's giant Boneripper. He's the right size and "abomination-y" enough to fill the roll if I leave Thanquol off. I'll paint up the Grey Seer parts so I can add him on later.

 

 

The regular Hell Pit Abomination was a nightmare to build and paint, but Boneripper went together much more easily. I had planned to magnetize the warpstone fists and warpfire projectors, but in the end I settled on pins.

 

Boneripper is primed and ready to go. I left off a lot of the mechanical parts so I could paint the body more easily.

 

Plagueclaw Catapults

To get my Pestilens Allegiance army off the ground I need two more of these for the Foulrain Congregation Battalion. The first Plagueclaw is assembled and sprayed...

 

 

The second needs to be converted out of the Screaming Bell. I've been trying to figure out how to rearrange the chassis. I'm considering using the monks pulling the rope as though they were pulling the catapult arm into position. The large brazier will be the catapult bucket, and I'll press mold some plague-glop into it. Should be fun.

 

Plague Priests

I'll use the monk and Grey Seer from the bell to kitbash a few more unique Plague Priests. One will be modeled with the Bilious Bell and the other will be the priest commanding the Foulrain Congregation.

 

 

Plague Censor Bearers

I've got about 35 Plague Monks that need to be converted into Plague Censor Bearers. I'll build these guys in batches of five or ten until I finish the lot of them.

 

 

Clanrats

Once the other Pestilens projects are complete, I'll be able to add in some Clanrats as allies, and that's where these guys will come in.

 

 

Aside from the odd character or weapon team, a couple extra Rat Ogres and plenty of old Clanrats, that's pretty much everything I have in my collection of unbuilt Skaven models. Then it will be on to some Space Marines or maybe Star Wars when Legion comes out.

'Til next time!

Star Wars Scenery Showcase: Lothol

Over the summer, Fantasy Flight Games commissioned me to make some boards for their new miniatures game, Star Wars Legion. It was exciting to finally see the game debuted at Gencon. Here's a look at the Lothol demo board that I made for them.

 

Skaven Allegiences, Part 2: Clan Skryre

Last time, I discussed the Skaven Pestilens allegiance abilities in the 2017 General's Handbook, and laid out my plans for my own Pestilens force. I've done a little work on the models– The first Plagueclaw is assembled and ready to be primed. I added a cauldron of filth on one arm using one of the spare pieces and a simple press mold of the glop on the catapult arm. Up the opposite side, I attached some strips of card, scored with a wood grain pattern and pressed with rivets. The Catapult, wheels, and crew will all be painted in separate parts.

 

 

 

I also converted five Plague Censor Bearers. They are assembled from the Plague Monk kit, with the censor weapon arm and staves rearranged and pinned together to create a two-handed weapon. I'm hoping to work in a few of the "smoking" censors from the Plague Furnace chassis to bring a little more life and color to the models.

 

 

Now let's take a look at the Skaven Skryre Allegiance:

Skaven Allegiances and the General's Handbook

I finally got my grubby hands on the 2017 General's Handbook.

 

 

In this post, I talk about the new Matched Play rules and see how the new Allegiance Abilities will affect my Skaven army.

Something Else Wicked Also Comes This Way

For Privateer Press Grymkin commission, I also made a few buildings. These were based on the existing structures on their city table, but broken open and overgrown with creepy trees.

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Privateer Press had commissioned me to build some Grymkin-themed terrain to go with their Iron Gauntlet table. If you attended their Lock and Load convention this year, you may have seen it, or even played a game on the board. Here's a look at some of pieces I made.

 

MORE Clanrats?

And somewhere in the middle of it all, I decided to build a million Skaven Clanrats...

 

 

Sisters and Scenery

A lot of great stuff happened in the hobby community this week. The new General's Handbook for Age of Sigmar is out for preorder. It will be dropping this Saturday, but you can find leaks of the unit point values leaked online, and plenty of people have posted reviews of the book. I'll probably talk (or rant) about the Death and Skaven allegiance abilities on here at some point.

I haven't done much work on my undead in a while, but I took a moment to add a horn blower to my skeleton archers. I made the horn out of a bell from the zombie kit and sculpted the pennant with modeling putty. Then, I popped off the trooper's arm and bam, instant promotion!

 

Back In the Saddle

It's been a while since I've had a free moment to work on any personal projects or post anything to my blog. For the last two months my time has been occupied solely with finishing scenery commissions. If you attended Lock and Load you may have seen the buildings I made for Privateer Press: (More on these in an upcoming post.)

 

 

If you are going to Gencon, you'll be able to see more of my handywork– Some scenic demo boards for the Fantasy Flight booth, and a big display for Warcradle Studios. (I can't spoil these yet, but they are pretty cool.) I'll post plenty of pictures once the displays have been debuted at the shows.

In my previous post, I gave my opinion of the new edition of Warhammer 40K. Since then, the new Space Marine codex has dropped, but I have yet to get it or even even clip a single part off of a sprue from my starter set. There's also a new Path to Glory rulebook, and a new General's Handbook for Age of Sigmar, which GW just announced will be available for pre-order this weekend. They have also announced a re-release of the classic game Necromunda.

There's so much going on in just the GW hobby, (not to mention the new edition of Flames of War that I keep pretending I'll play someday) that it's nearly impossible to concentrate on any one thing. Focusing on one of those games and models with any significant level of commitment means neglecting the rest. And on top of it all, I'm still building new scenery kits for Skull Forge Scenics. Well, here are my thoughts and plans for everything: