After the Test.

Wow. What a crazy time.

SeerK's Test of Khaine tournament went into full swing this past Saturday at Evo. I will admit, I am a little slow on the report here, but I had a paper to write, sorry. School trumps gaming.

Anyhow, I lent a hand to SeerK, mostly helping with odds and ends and keeping him sane. I had to jet before the tourney started, because I had to work, but I did return in time to see round 3, the final results, and the painting competition.

Fist of all, this was the largest wargaming tournament that Evo has ever had. SeerK capped the attendance at 32 due to space, but if everyone could have played that showed up, it easily would have been in the 40's. I am in full admiration of those who dropped out of the tournament, and stayed to help out instead. That shows a lot of character. :)

 The shop has more tables in it than pictured, my camera ran out of battery before I could get photos of everything I wanted. :( But the store is about 2x what you see pictured, and the place was packed.

The winners were......

1st Mike Couchard (orks)
2nd Steve Krohn aka "Lord Solar Steve" of DFG ( Imperial Guard)
3rd  Bill Kim (Daemons)
4th Eric Gibbs (Blood Angels)

The painting contest had some fabulous entries, however, there was one piece that stood out over the rest. Bob Murphy had an absolutely AMAZINGLY painted Eldar force. I want to show pictures, and I think OldSchool from DFG got pictures. I'll post them as soon as I get them. What amazed me about his forces was that he was painting them in a direction that I never even would have considered doing.

He had a Wraithlord that he hand painted scales on the armor, and a mural across the head. Absolutely amazing.

Well, here's the pic I got before my camera died, it is of Matt's Orc BattleWagon, amazingly painted.

That's it for now, I'll post more when I get more pics!

Craftworld Lansing presents the Test of Khaine

Today, starting at around 11am at Evolution Games in Lansing, Craftworld Lansing is hosting the Test of Khaine Warhammer 40K tournament. Unfortunately, due to work I will not be able to bring the Necrons for an outing, but I will be able to catch the end of the tourney.

Hope to see lots of 40K players out there, and I'll post what the outcome is!

This does not help my Bretonnians....

Oh, Forgeworld, why do you taunt me? Straight outta the Warhammer Forge, the second release for the Empire Army. This massive Landship looks so cool!

If it wasn't for the massive price tag, I'd entertain the idea of modding one out, even though it really doesn't fit the Bretonnian scheme.




The construction of Witchfate Tor continues, and I will be posting an in depth review of the kit when I'm done. I also primed one of the "old" Fighter knights, and started painting that.

That's the quick updates for now, more to come.....

... in which it has been too long since my last post, and current projects.

It's been too long since my last post, but "Spring Break" will do that to you. I saw "Spring" because we had a snowstorm yesterday, nothing major, just enough to be obnoxious.

The other day I couldn't help myself. I bought an Araknarok. I'm still in awe of the sheer size of the thing. I'm very anxious to get at it, but I am using it as motivation to knock out some of the other projects I've been working slowly on.

The Araknarok's base, in comparison to a Questing Knight

I blame Old School from Dark Future Games for making the Araknarok so appealing. He did quite an awesome conversion of one into a Tervigon for his 'nid army.

Other than that, I've been knocking out scenery like a champ. I used some variation to do a fall and winter piece. I don't want to go into much detail about them here, as I want to write a full article on building custom terrain. Still, here are the finished products:

I have also began work on Witchfate Tor, pics to come as it is completed.

On the painting side, I finished off the Necrons I picked up before Xmas, and now have that 100% ready to go.

What I put the most energy into lately has been my Bretonnian Trebuchet. I put a alot of detail into it, including rust on the riveting and bronze statues. There are so many tiny pieces to this, my camera can't do it justice.

I'm going to do a custom base for it as well. While it can stand just fine without one, I think I'd like it there to protect the bottom of the model from wear and tear.

Well, back to work on Witchfate Tor! My glue has dried and I am ready to prime. See you all soon for an article on doing custom scenery and effects!

... in which I dicuss a rare eBay treasure.

Ok, so I may be exaggerating. I only spent $15 on it, so it may not exactly be a "treasure" but I am thrilled with it. I found a listing on eBay for "Old Bretonnian Questing Knights x4" and it was going for $6 at the time. I figured, why not? I can always use more nights.

The package arrived after about 4 days, and enclosed was a strange box. It was a hard plastic shell, the type you would see on collectible cases.

At first I was concerned I got ripped off with some bootleg mini's, since the horses looked like they were made out of white plastic resin. Upon closer inspection of the package, sure enough, this was made by Citadel Miniatures, and the GW logo was at the bottom of the card.

About this time was when just how "old" these knights were. The foam padding inside the box had long since deteriorated, leaving some stuff behind on the minis. Upon inspection, it was no big deal, scraped right off. Inside was 2 different knights, with 2 different weapons, so a combination of 4 knights could be made. When I removed the spears (They didn't actually come with lances), the metal immediately felt different. I can't be sure, but I am pretty confident these guys are actually lead. The metal is extremely pliable, and the horses are a sturdy plastic.

The horses aren't the barded warhorses either. They look like regular horses, similar to the ones the damsels ride.

The coolest part about this set, in my opinion, is the shields. They have 4 sheilds, each with a different shape. The shields have a hole in the center, so that they can fit over a peg on the knights arm. I'll have to use some green stuff to even out the shield, so I can have a smooth surface to paint the heraldry on.






The torsos look really good. Two have crests like knights of the realm, and the other two have the flat tops like the knights errant. I figure I'll put one with a sword, and one with a spear, so all four knights are as different as possible.

The crest on top of the helmet is the lady holding a sword. Very unique look to them.





Overall, I'm really excited about these minis. They may be old, but unlike the other "old" Bretonnians I've seen, these look like they would fit into the modern army, and the crests aren't too flamboyant. I'll post pics as I paint them up.

.... in which I have an idea for a new Bretonnian unit.

So I've been browsing all of the WFB army lists since the announcement of the new Tomb Kings units. I've also been oogling the new Orcs and Goblins Arachnarok.

Not only does thing look incredibly evil/awesome, it comes on a 100mm x 150mm base.  That's freakin' huge!!! I wants one, and I don't even play Orcs & Gobbos!

Anyway, while I was oogling all these huge and monsterous units, all these Dragons, Spiders, Daemons, War Machines, and Giants; I realized that Bretonnia was the only army without something truly huge.

I know what you're thinking, but they have Hippogryphs! Yes, that is true, but a Hippogryph (and even my monsterous sized mod Hippogryph) still fits on a 40mm base. I'm talking something BIG. Hippogryphs can't match a dragon. They can't take on a Stegodon, and I'm sure they won't be able to go toe to toe with the Arachnarok.

Maybe I just have giant envy. The actual Giant and Skeleton Giant aren't on that large of a base, but their height is what makes them impressive. This got me to thinking.... what could you put in a Bretonnian Army to "beef" up its models?

It came to me real quick. Just look at the army theme already. Sure, you have the noble knights riding into battle, backed up by their peasant foot soldiers, trebuchets, and even a King on a Hippogryph. None of this really lends itself to "BIG", but the Arthurian legend roots (heh) that run through the army does. The Green Knight is a living embodiment of the Forest spirits. The Fey Enchantress is herself a spirit of nature. The Prophetesses of the Lady are similar to druidic priestesses. They use the Lore of Life and the Lore of Beasts.

In my opinion, Treants (or Ents, whatever you wish to call them) would fit the bill perfectly.

Being another extension of the living forests and their spirits wanting to protect the balance of nature, these behemoths of wood and lichen would add some much needed brawn to the forces of Bretonnia.

To be clear, I am not talking about importing the Wood Elves' Treeman. While the Treeman is a cool model and it fits right into the Wood Elf army, I want something more the size of a Giant, like the Ents from GW's LOtR line. The Treeman is slightly taller than Beaquis, King Louen's Hippogryph.

Army's don't have a monopoly on creatures either. Dragons are present in many armies, as are Giants. A lot of the "greenskin" armies share the giants for heavy support.

I haven't yet given much thought to what the stats would be like for these Treants, but I shall ponder this idea over the next bit, and see what I come up with.

In the mean time, I did pick up the generic Ent from the LOtR line, and depending on how well he goes together, I may just pick up a few more and see what I can do to further my tree-huggin' hippy of a cause.

Maybe even Treebeard will make an appearance on the field of battle with the Lords of Bretonnia... We shall see.

... in which I discuss an Incoming! e-mail...

When I awoke this morning and checked my e-mail, I got a very unexpected surprise. A little note from GW talking about new releases for the Tomb Kings.

According to the Newsletter, coming this May, the Tomb Kings will be receiving new models and a new Army Book.



A new Army Book for them is desperately needed. Now, it is no secret that I will grab cool looking mini's just to paint, and I have long considered picking up some Ushbati or a Tomb Scorpion. After looking at their current Army Book, I actually decided to pass. To call them the "red headed step-child" of the WFB universe would be a step up. Not  single area of their book could be used to make a viable and cohesive army. Sad.


I really did dig the undead Egyptian theme too. So, I put aside my Tomb Kings aspirations, and started working on Orcs and Goblins for a secondary army.


Great. Now GW has to tell me this, and make me want to expand back out into the sands.
I really do dig the Ushbati (a few pictured here), and they do have a really cool skeleton giant. I do want to put together a giant for an army, and since the Bretonnians don't have anything of the equivalent, I'm kind stuck.



We shall see what the new Army Book holds, and perhaps the Bretonnians and the Tomb Kings may form a wicked alliance.....