Age of Sigmar...The Empire Strikes Back!

Hey all,

So my regular gaming buddy Dan got interested in Age of Sigmar and after flicking through the Generals Handbook I decided to give it a go as a side game! I picked up a lot of second hand Empire models for very cheap as I have really been enjoying playing regular humans recently instead of super humans or other races.

After a couple of games I can say Age of Sigmar is a very enjoyable beer and pretzels game. The only thing we took exception too was the variable game turn roll off, but that is easily house ruled for our enjoyment anyway. 

I'm not planning on spending a lot of time on these models as they literally just a side project for fun and games with no expectation to ever take them to events other than local ones, so not fussed about winning any prizes and thus table top quality will do! 

Here's what I've got painted so far which has taken a sum total of about 4 hours painting. Very rewarding when not going for best quality!

Obviously the bases are still to be done, but I want to block paint them. I've also got the following bought and ready to paint:

10 x pikemen

10 x Handgunners

10 x Handgunners

1 x Wizard mounted

1 x Wizard on foot

3 x Demigryphs

10 x Reikland Knights

2 x Mortars

I'm also planning on buying Karl Franz for a proper Empire force! 

Peace out,

Rob

100'000 views Arbitrary Milestones AND a present from my Missus!

Hey all!

So today I'm just going to quickly cover a couple of milestones that have popped up recently! Some time in the last week or so I surpassed two arbitrary milestones that made me quite pleased with myself :). The first was the blog has edged over 100'000 views! This made me a very happy bunny indeed and continues to amaze me that people continue to read my blatherings, so here's to all of you!

Secondly I also crept over 300 published posts, which seems like a silly huge amount to me. It give me equal parts satisfaction and equal parts "take a long hard look in the mirror and question your life decisions" feelings :P. But seriously, I'm very pleased that I still feel this involved and hungry with the hobby. I'm spent a lot of my life jumping between things to fill my spare time, from rock climbing, running, kung fu, computer games, girls etc and I've been going back with the hobby coming up around 3 years now and that is the longest I've ever really stuck with anything since I originally collected Warhammer Fantasy back in the early 90's! So yaaay me!

Other milestones coming up, but long enough away that I don't mind pointing them out, are I am approaching 2'000'000 views on my google plus profile, but much more importantly I am approaching 2'000 comments on my blog. The engagement I get on there is a really important aspect of my hobby as it always pushes me to bigger and better (and occasionally badder) things. So cheers to all of you again!

And Finally...

I was in London the other day as my girlfriend had to collect some paperwork. Unfortunately this would take up the one day off we had together for a few weeks so I decided to go with and we'd make a day of it. We had a lovely day just wandering around and being silly together but as the day came to a close we passed a Games Workshop (or Warhammer Store as it was branded) and my girlfriend decided to buy me a present!

I couldn't see anything that would go with my current armies as I am considering phasing 40k out of my hobby to focus on 30k so told her I was OK and explained why. She shrugged and told me to get something just to paint then. Quick as a flash I had this off the shelf!

I've admired this monster for some time, but due to Age of Sigmar and all the general belly aching going on over there I had steered clear of starting a fantasy army but now I have my General...

That's all for today, more reviews and hobby progress incoming though :)

peace out,

Rob

The Knight Commander Cometh - Mounted Praetor/Company Master

Hi all,

I received my Lord Celestant mounted yesterday and I just had to put him together and convert him. Below is my work so far, chaos bits again used like in my Knights of Old Caliban conversions, but also a mortarch head swapped on to the mount and I've tried to cyber it up a bit with leg mechanics a power tube on his face as well as a cabled tail with a chain sword at the end. He's equipped with a power fist and either a relic blade or a paragon blade. I also plan to mount a storm shield on the side of the saddle so it looks like he could just un-holster it.

Thoughts always welcome :)

Peace out,

Rob

Converted Age of Sigmar Dark Angel Captain of the Lion Guard

Hi Readers,

I was all geared up to get back to painting my Death Company today until I sat down, opened the pot of khorne red and it back flipped out of my hand and all over my tshirt. So, ruined tshirt and no paint!!! So in a quandary I decided to do some idle conversion work. I'm not a massive fan of the Company Master model that comes with Dark Vengeance and which I got in my bundle buy, so I thought I would make use of the Lion imagery on the Age of sigmar models to make a cool looking HQ. 

Scale shot with dark vengeance librarian, forge world apothecary conversion, sigmarine

There is still plenty of green stuff to tidy up on the model but I really like him so far. I've started writing a little fluff to go with him that I will expand upon in a future post I'm sure. Anyway, thoughts welcome!

I'm already deviating from my to-do list.... Damn it!

Peace out,

Rob 

Converted Sanguinary guard from Age of Sigmar - Completed!!

Hi Readers,

So I have been plugging away at converting my Sanguinary Guard from the Age of Sigmar Prosecutors using all the little bits and bobs that I've had floating around and they are finally done! The unit is equipped with 2 x encarmine swords, 2 x encarmine axes and a banner and power fist, its not the most competitive build but from a modelling perspective it filled all the fun ideas I had and that ticks more boxes for me than being competitive!

I like the idea that these are personalised suits fitting and choosing the bearers over time,moulding to their fighting style and personality. This stems from a David Gemmell novel I love (Knights of Dark Renown) and also from the idea of the Sanguinary Death Masks moulding to the wearers face after death. One of my favourite pieces of Blood Angels lore if I'm honest.

Today has been very dull weather wise and as much as I try I've not been able to get some decent pictures out so I apologise for the quality in advance!

In other news I have finished off my second 5 Death Company marines which is half of a squad of 10 and I will get those posted up in the coming week. Later today I will either start on the other 5 Death Company or perhaps a vehicle being either my Baal Predator or a drop pod.

Comments always welcome,

Peace out,

Rob

Age of Sigmar - Converted Sanguinary Guard + Death Company Progress

Hello readers,

Not as much done this weekend as I would like, but with a BBQ and a day of Dungeons and Dragons distracting me I can hardly complain! I also went to a friends birthday Sunday roast today so I only sat down to my hobby desk at 4pm. But Igot in a good 3 hours of work with a fair amount of progress made to report upon! I'm also going to spend the rest of the evening going through my battle report pictures from Thursday and start organising them into some sort of narrative.

Sigmarine Sanguinary Guard

These guys are going to end up in a squad of 5 with the standard bearer and power fist (because it was the only arm that really worked with it...) and 2 encarmine swords and 2 encarmine axes. Today I knocked together 1 each of the sword and axe bearers though they need a bit of clean up. 

I'm not a particularly bad converter but neither am I particularly good! But I'm pretty pleased with how these guys turned out.

The "axe" is actually the force weapon from the Blood Angel Librarian sprue which I've been dying to use! The arms and other weapons are just taken from the regular terminator sprue that came in the shield of Baal deathstorm boxset. They work very well scale wise. I have had to weight down the bases though with a coin stuck underneath!

Death Company Progress

Finally I put all the layers of paint on my 5 Death Company required before washes and then washed the entire model in nuln oil and after that (though not pictured) I re-washed the ushabti bone bits with agrax earthshade to brown them.

I now need to do all the highlights and add all the blue for the jets and cabling and then do the brighter red for the gems and eyes.

I should get these done on wednesday in time for a post but then work will have to immediately start on the next 5! Once those are done I will move on to my Baal predator and hopefully get that done at the weekend!

I'm also hoping to get the first half of my battle report up on tuesday which will represent the battle in the tunnels to set of a distracting bomb! More info in that in my last post but I will reiterate that on tuesday.

Hope you guys enjoy and have a good one.

Peace out,

Rob