(Re)Basing Nurglings and airbrushing

I'm getting bad at doing this weekly, can't imagine how things will be during the move...
Not that I've been just sitting around, 6 more Nurgling bases are done and I redid the snow on the first few as well.

May as well do a basing tutorial thing now...

Start off with the base, sprayed white with primer.

 I then grab a suitably dirty brown colour and paint the area where the Nurglings will be sitting. Filthy Brown from the Vallejo game colour set was my base, then Dead Flesh was slopped randomly over the brown to give a bit of contrast.

 After that some teak wood stain and varnish mix (the same stuff I use for dipping) is generously applied with toothpicks. I've already made one old brush into a solid lump, no reason to do it to another.

 Aaand now I stopped taking photos. Generally speaking, I put the Nurglings onto the varnish while it was still wet (that stuff sets rock hard and holds like glue) then left them overnight. I found a few little bits of crushed rock to glue down and add some variety to the snow, then mixed up some bicarb with some PVA glue, sticking it over the rest of the base.
Bicarb gives a much better finish than the GW snow flock for about 10% of the price. It makes some very nice lumpy snow too. A coat of PVA over the top holds it together well, then some matt varnish after it's dry takes away the shine.
There were a couple of gaps between the slime and the snow that I filled in with more wood stain. That stuff is amazing. A once over with a permanent marker around the edges makes the base look much nicer in the end too.

I got out the airbrush last weekend with mixed results. Overwatering the paint was my first mistake and I managed to clog the nozzle after that. A quick clean later things sped up. I added more paint to the mix, which mostly fixed the water problem, but I'll just have to learn from that next time.

 I just did the basecoat on the Bletters with air, and I've now done some shading and detail manually. Here they are as of now, all 29 of them (really need to find that last one sometime).

 Fighting High Elves this weekend with Cyrus, facing a dragon. Balesword much? Maybe, maybe not. I rolled 550 extra points on my mines, which nudges me just above the "grand army" minimum. Fun fun. Unfortunately 24 Flamers cost 900pts with champions, so I can't get too ridiculous. Shame too, I just want be able to say that I've done it.
Never got to fight Empire, which is a bit unfortunate. I was hoping he'd bring a Hurricanum so I could annoy him by singing "Rock you like a Hurricanum" whenever he moved or used it.
Eeevil plans have been forming in my mind this week, but I can't seem to think of anything that I want to do with my Keeper. Probably ask the guys if I can swap him/her/it for Kairos, or more reasonably, my new Lord of Change. I can only think of a couple of evil plans with him, but that's better than the relative lack of interest in the Keeper.

On a final note, I've been coming up with custom rules and tournament ideas again. My birthday's in a couple weeks, so maybe I'll be able to convince people to give them a go around then.

Hopefully my next update will be within the next week, although I doubt my Bletters will be done by then. Probably do a battle report.



 "The night is calling
I have to go
The wolf is hungry
He runs the show
He's licking his lips
He's ready to win
On the hunt tonight
For love at first sting
Here I am, rock you like a hurricanum!"
 -Rock you like a hurricane, by Scorpions and bastardised by me.

Bawk bawk bawk.

So. Campaign. Nothing to report since my Empire opponent has a very different schedule of free time to me. It looks like we won't be getting our game in before the cutoff, so it'll be skipped; a bit of a shame since I was really looking forward to seeing if my crazy shenanigans would have actually worked.
I've decided to take the stance that he's stalling so that he won't have to play me. Bawk bawk bawk **does an incredibly annoying impression of a chicken**

Painting news: Larry is painted and based (finally).

A few hours were spent this weekend just on his base, which has impact craters around his hooves and flaming cracks opening in the ground.

Last weekend I had a quick 1200pt game against Beastmen. No pics were taken but I'll give a quick recap.

I took 40 Bletters, 6 Flamers, a Fiend, 10 Horrors and a Light Tzerald. And the Masque to add a bit of variety. I was facing a bunch of Gors, 3 Minotaurs (the game was basically to try them out), a Ghorgon, a chariot, and a couple of heroes (L4 with beasts).

I got 1st turn and did the usual, getting closer to charge range. Flamers picked off a Mino. Not a lot in magic.
He failed a swift reform in the Gors, which basically cancelled his movement. Minos moved unnervingly close to the Flamers. A poor roll for magic basically ended his turn.

I inched closer to be just out of likely charge range of the Gors. Flamers moved to the sweet spot between stand and shoot and long range against the Minos, which they ended up destroying anyway. Fiend went off to be alone for a while. Again, very little effective magic. Masque danced at the Ghorgon to reduce his leadership.
Ghorgon failed his frenzy and charged the Bletters. Gors and chariot moved to unfailable charge range. Wildform hit the Ghorgon, who won combat and Frenzy stacked. I passed instability.

Fiend moved to redirect against the Gors, while the Flamers moved to shoot at them. Masque danced at the Gors. Throwing 6 dice at Timewarp without a miscast lured out the Scroll. Flamers shot at the Gors, who panicked and fled, causing further panic and fleeing in the chariot. Chariot fled off the board. Bletters won combat this time, cancelling the Frenzy.
Rally failed and the Gors left the board. Ghorgon won combat and re-frenzied.

Fiend charged the flank of the Ghorgon, I got Timewarp off and the Masque danced at the Ghorgon. He was down to a single wound, so he ate a Bletter and healed by d3 (1, unfortunately for him). He broke and the Fiend caught him.


Next week we should hopefully be continuing to the next turn in the campaign. My Bletters will most likely be represented by something else because of this:

Now officially out of black spray. You may notice that they're looking a bit smaller than usual. That's because I chopped back their swords to make them easier to rank together. So goddamn sick of that.

Now they've got daggers of various shapes and sizes. I will call them... Bloodletter openers. I intend to paint them with an airbrush at least in part, which means painting outside, therefore during the day, therefore on the weekends. Hopefully shouldn't take too long.


That's all for this week, probably paint some more Nurglings before the weekend.


"Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk,
Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk,
Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk."
 -A haiku about the Empire.

Battle of the Organ Gun

Right, update. The game between me and Digh Elves happened last weekend in the snowy lands near two Settlements of Destruction. I had 2600pts and he had 2650 from our mines, and I did a couple of things with my list that I haven't before.

For starters, I took 2 Tzeralds (Life and Death), although only one of them did anything beyond intimidation. Also took a Kherald on a Juggernaut and 2 units of 6 Flamers for the first time.

My opponent took Hordemasters and Phoenix Guard for combat and Seaguard to shoot. A Heavens Archmage  took care of magic for him, while a Repeater Bolt Thrower (hm, RBT) shot at Larry a bit. This was the opponent who destroyed my organ gun first round with archers last time we played, so I was out for revenge.

My army:

 His army (Goddamn eagles!):

 I did a shocking job of taking photos, so bear with me. First round I did the usual marching up, making sure to get everyone out of range of the Haunted Mansion before the shooting phase.
With 7 dice and being out of range for Dwellers, I boosted Caress of Laniph at his mage, throwing 6 dice and casting without a miscast. It was then that the Banner of the World Dragon was revealed in the Hordemasters and nothing happened. Sigh. In later discussions we decided that he should've tried to dispel it anyway, since I had 1 die left and would have kept directing magic that way if I thought I could. I got a few shots in at the Hordemasters and killed about 3, and there was much rejoicing.

Right away he moved the Horde into the building, creating a unit impervious to magic and shooting, and that could beat me easily in combat. Sonuvabitch. Everything else stayed eerily still. A gust of wind shot out of the windows of the house, pushing my BLs 3 inches away. Harmonic Convergence went on his RBT. The RBT fired at Larry, who was over 0.05 thanks to a long island iced tea and took a wound. Seaguard managed to knock over 5 BLs with shooting.

In turn 2 I moved everyone menacingly closer, although they tangled together a bit. Forgot to move up one of my Flamer units :( Got Dwellers off on the Seaguard and he failed to dispel, but I only killed 11 of the 50 that were there. Larry regained his wound. Shooting with my Flamers knocked out 11 more, which felt pretty good.

 I told you I did a terrible job with the photos. He charged a Fiend in the flank with an Eagle (2 actually, but one failed), and the Horde moved out of their house. Eagles moved to block charges and generally be annoying dicks. I blocked Iceshard Blizzard on my Flamers, and Harmonic Convergence hit the Hordemasters. Further shooting chipped away at my BLs, and combat between the Eagle and Fiend ended in a draw.

Charges were declared all over the place, with a Fiend and Larry charging the RBT and the Hounds charging an Eagle. BLs shuffled left to get through the gap, while my Life Tzerald moved right to prevent the Hordemasters from overrunning into him. The Death Tzerald failed his marching test, but still flew a good 10" to safety. Dwellers hit the Seaguard again, killing the general and a fair chunk of the unit. I miscast regrowth on the BLs, with a net result of turning 3 Horrors into Bloodletters.
Shooting at the remainder killed a few more, while the other unit shot at the Hordemasters.
Forgetting to reform my Fiend to face the Eagle made him lose combat by 2, but not taking any additional wounds. Then he failed his reform test. Not so great. Hounds decimated the Eagle and overran into the Seaguard. Larry's Dark Insanity gave him 13 attacks on the RBT, which avenged the Organ Gun nicely. He turned to face the Seaguard, while the Fiend overran into the last eagle. Mid turn:

 Swordmasters charged the empty Horrors. Magic was spent unnecessarily buffing them and they decimated the unit in combat. Hounds won theirs by 4, but the Seaguard hung around and reformed anyway. Fiend v Eagle just kept on going.

 We called it there, with me winning. Next turn would have seen Larry charging the Seaguard and the Life Tzerald getting the hell out of there to try Dwellers on the Phoenix Guard. Both Flamer units would have torn into the Hordemasters (likely chipping them down to less than 15) to weaken them against the Bloodletters.

As a reward for winning, my Bloodletters were named a regiment of renown (the Red Envelope) and gained Devestating Charge. In post-game we put down our armies on the newly enlarged map and effectively restarted the campain from turn 2. For next round I'm facing Empire with Cyrus, which terrifies me. On the plus side, I have 2900pts and get to see his list before I write mine, so this is my one and only chance of beating him.

For the purpose of the campaign, we're considering a 4+ look out sir against spells like Dwellers. I suggested the 4+ as opposed to 2+, but I'm even a bit iffy about that now. Those spells aren't cheap to cast, and a large part of why I use them is for taking out command. They were written that way because that's how the designers intended it, and if it wasn't then it would've been changed in an errata by now.
Taking the extreme case, if a character passes a look out sir and someone else takes the hit, then there's a chance (however small) that more models than there are in the unit could die, with the character surviving.

Anyway, topic for discussion later.

For avenging the Organ Gun, Larry has earned the right to be painted. Still a work in progress, but here's what I've done so far.
Prime:

 Skin base:

 Wings cleaned up and hair painted:

 Wings base:

 Wings wash:

I'm giving him white armour to go with the theme, and when I base him it's going to be like he just landed with craters around his feet. That's the plan at least.

"There is no greater concern than knowing where the the lid for your scalpel is, but not knowing the location of the scalpel itself."