Paint Blackstone Fortress And It’s Expansions – 11.25% Complete
I started this resolution this month by building the Explorers from the Core game and Escalation, as well as the Chaos Space Marines and Obsidius Mallex.
I am out of whack, I am once again left without focus in life.
I won’t lie, Lindsay moving back to the studio has majority thrown me off balance just as I had things figured out and a proper schedule going on.
I love her being back in there, but I cannot deny it’s thrown me a lot. but I absolutely wouldn’t change the situation for the world.
So to try and refocus myself this next month, I am going to try and stream for at least an hour a day, starting tomorrow.
I have to get back into the swing of things and this is the way I will do it, no schedule other than Monday and Friday, just something bet it video games or painting.
Speaking of the studio, we did do some sorting out this weekend, we put up another corner shelf, moved another shelf and put up some pictures, it looks rather nice again in Lindsay corner.
The rest of the Explorers are on the table and Aradia and Espern Locarno should be finished tomorrow.
So what’s coming up next on the plan?
Zone Mortalis Terrain
Blackstone Fortress Explorers
Gazkhull Thraka & Makari
Death Korps of Krieg Infantry Swuad x 10
Stormcast Eternals Evocators on Celestial Dragoline x 6 and Lord Arcanium on Celestial Dracoline
Custodes Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought, Telemon Dreadnought and Contemptor-Aquilius
Necron Lychguard with Hyperphase Swords & Dispersion Shields x 5 & Kamoteph the Crooked
Mechanicum Vulturax
Flesh-Eater Courts Crypt Flayers x 3
Stormcast Eternals Judicators x 10 & Sylas Beast-Bane
What I Am Reading
My review of The Ming Storm was published, it’s a negative one which had me very worried, still not sure it’s the right move, but I just didn’t enjoy the book.
I am backing the Isle of Cats Kittens and Beasts campaign, although for just £1 to get access to the pledge manager as I cannot afford the game on the day it funds, but hopefully will shortly after.
What I Am Creating
The next episode of Edge of Empire should go out tomorrow, but it will be missing a section due to a schedule conflict 🙁
I am also planning what to do for the next battle report, perhaps Blood Bowl Sevens.
What I Am Cooking
I just made some Reggae Reggae Wings with microwave rice, but nowt more than that 🙁
The football I love the most is the international tournaments, simply because it feels less like its hyper-commercialised and players are all mercenaries with no love for the teams they play for.
It really does feel like the teams play with more passion and determination, it just feels more like football should be.
Perhaps I am just a plonker and fall for the excitement of a big tournament, but I just love it, there are games on the TV almost every day, all on free to air TV and it feels like players put in their all to win the games.
I watched the Scotland game yesterday and despite being English, I got right behind the Jocks and was cheering them on and getting extremly emmotional eveytime they missed a goal, and I was so happy that Wales got a draw.
I want all the home nations to do well, because if we all do well, all the UK can be happy (well apart from Northern Ireland).
The England game was special for me as I watched in my sister in laws yard as we had a BBQ (For which she made enough meat to feed several football teams) with some of my nephews, and that’s something I have never done before.
I kinda found myself wishing I could have all my nibblings in one place to see it, but it was wonderful to do it with two of them, but does make me determined to make a trip to Suffolk for the World Cup next year to do the same with my nephews down there.
Anyway, I am looking forward to the game on Friday when the Three Lions take on the Jocks, and whilst I am backing England, I do hope Scotland give us a hard time and have a positive and good run against us.
But will England win, probably not, but let me have hope for a little bit, at least until we get knocked out on penalties!
What I Am Modelling
I started the week off by painting four Castellax Battle Automata for my Mechanicum, two armed with Darkfire Cannons and two with Mauler Bolt Cannons.
And I finished listening to the audio book of The Gate of Bones by Andy Clark, which was really good, if a little less epic in scale than the first book.
The Redgrass Wet Palette 2 campaign finished and was funded, my pledge has been collected and I will be adding a second one in the Pledge Manager for Megan.
I am backing the Isle of Cats Kittens and Beasts campaign, although for just £1 to get access to the pledge manager as I cannot afford the game on the day it funds, but hopefully will shortly after.
What I Am Creating
The 8th Episode of Edge of Empires 5th year was released, although it was a very weird episode because of various illnesses and injuries.
And at long long last I finished my battle report for a game of Aeronautica Imperialis I played with Megan way back in March!
What I Am Cooking
Not much but I did help with Wing Night by making some Kansas City BBQ Sauce and then using that to make some Kansas City BBQ Wings.
In short, we failed, out of 83 pieces of terrain, only completed 64, but we did raise £160 so I am over the moon with that, and you can still donate here.
Next year will be a more achievable project, perhaps a start collecting box in 24 hours!
Saturday
We started by cracking on with the washing of the building and pipes, followed by the Munitorium Armoured Containers.
Whilst they were drying, I then put the base metal colour on the Haemotrope Reactors and the Thermic Plasma Regulators.
The Fuel Barrels got done fairly quickly, in a nice rusty look, and those were our first models finished
It has in recent days given up the ghost, I mentioned it on my stream on Friday and can only assume that someone grabbed me one, I did get the notice that something from my Amazon wish list had been bought.
It arrived today and I was utterly blown away by it.
It’s a huge improvement to the quality of the GoPro, so thank you so very much.
What I Am Modelling
I started off after a few days off by picking up my Vexilus Praetors for the Legio Custodes.
Well it’s time to unveil my secret project that I have been working on for the past year!
Its The Iron Warriors
Having resisted them for so long because Graham plays them, I decided to build and paint a Zone Mortalis force of the IVth Legion.
It’s started because I saw someone use Nazdreg Yellow Contrast over Leadbelcher and I loved the gold that it made, it just look so burnished and old, perfect for Iron Warriors and I decided to paint a test model of a Praetor, and I ended up painting a Chaplain and Praetor from Betrayal at Calth at the same time.
I then painted up a Tactical Squad using a MKII set I already had and some Iron Warriors upgrades I managed to acquire from Heresy Trading.
After this I painted up another HQ, this time a Chaos Space Marine Warsmith which fits perfectly in the army looks wise.
Next up was a Rapier with Quad Heavy Bolters which just looks so good in Iron Warriors colours.
This was followed by a couple of Legion specific units, a unit of Tyrant Siege Terminators and some Iron Havocs armed with Lascannons.
After that I had a break for a while as I needed to save foe the next lot of models.
The penultimate unit was a Contemptor Dreadnought, armed with a Chainfist with Meltagun and a Dreadnought Close Combat Weapon with Twin Linked Bolter.
The final unit I added to this army was a squad of Breachers, armed with a couple of Meltaguns and a Combi-Melta on the Sgt.
The List
So what’s the list I have built here, well it’s as follows.
+ HQ [220pts] +
Warsmith [220pts]: Artificer Armour, Bolt Pistol, Digital Lasers [15pts], Iron Halo [25pts], On Foot, Power Fist [20pts], Warlord . Combi-weapon [10pts]: Combi-weapon: Meltagun . Warsmith [50pts]: Cortex Controller [15pts], Servo-arm [35pts]
So the initial three HQs are surplus to requirements, but that’s fine.
Expansion wise, not sure if it will become a full army, but it might, probably based around The Hammer of Olympia.
Paint Scheme
The paint scheme is a lot of drybrushing and contrast paints.
I start by priming the models in black and then give them a heavy drybrush with Leadbelcher.
The trim is then painted with Nazdreg Yellow Contrast, and any areas that are getting hazard stripes or are leather are painted with Wraithbone.
Those areas are then painted with Iyanden Yellow Contrast and then the black is added using Abaddon Black.
The weapon casings are painted with Corvus Black, and then the whole model is painted with Wyldwood Contrast mixed with two parts Contrast Medium, and leather is painted with pure Wyldwood Contrast.
This gives a very dirty and grimy look to the models, just perfect for Iron Warriors.
It’s also very quick and the Dreadnought for example was painted from start to finish in about 30 minutes.
The basing scheme is Stirland Mud or Stirland Battlemire, which is then drybrushed with Balor Brown and then Screaming Skull to create a dirty but sandy mud look.
So that’s the project, and it’s been a lot of fun!
Really giving serious thought to expanding it into a full army, because I have enjoyed painting these models so much.
It’s a super easy paint scheme and they look so different to any thing else I have done before.
I have had to do a couple of hardware things, first off, we have added a PCIe USB expansion card so that I can run extra cameras, specifically one for Megan’s painting desk and for her face.
And I added an extra decent webcam, Megan’s facecam has up until now been a Creative Live Cam Synch HD720 which is an utterly dreadful camera. so this has been replaced with a Logitech C925e.
So all we have to do is crack on with it and see if we can raid the £100 we are aiming for!
What I am Modelling
I have finally gotten back to the painting desk this week, and I started by basing the Secutarii Peltasts I finished last week.
Whilst also working on the vehicles for my Early War Germans for Bolt Action, those being a Sd.Kfz. 251, usually known as the Hanomag, and a Panzer IV Ausf. d, which is armed with a 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24, which is basically an infantry support gun.
I went a little further with these, using weathering powders properly for the first time.
And this completes the resolution to paint 1000pts of Early War Germans for Bolt Action.
I then finished off the last unit for my secret project, but more about that next week!
Tonight I painted the Enduring Stormvault from Mortal Realms, which is in all honesty the worst part of the whole collection, simply because it doesn’t really work without a big piece of Stormvault terrain.
So last week the minor tear to my calf muscles means about 2 weeks of enforced rest, this first week of which has been spent upstairs in our living room.
The advantage of the set up of our house is that the living room is on the same level as the bathroom and has a fridge and tea making station here, so all my comfort needs are being met.
I have managed to get downstairs a few times, but it’s been very very painful.
Meet Douggie
We adopted a new cat, we really shouldn’t have, but when Beckie at Yarm Cat Rescue said no one had been interested in adopting him, we knew we had to.
So here is Sir Douglas T Cat, aka Douggie, who like Barrington before him, has had a very rough life.
He was beaten and kicked so badly it shattered his pelvis, which has healed very badly and given him a very wobbly walk. He will thus need extra special care for the rest of his life.
He has made himself very much at home, demanding loves, fusses and strokes quite regularly and even sleeping with us.
We are very much in love with him, and even Barrington is tolerating him, which is about as close to be long good friends as Barrington gets.
Many of you in the next week or so will be getting your premium kit with the Blades of Khorne for Mortal Realms and as such, may be thinking, can I start an army of these.
So just like with the other three packs for the Flesh Eater Courts, Sylvaneth, and Orruk Warclans, I will take a look at how to expand this pack into 1000pts and 2000pts as cost effectively as possible.
So let’s start by looking at what you get in the pack.
Bloodmaster
Flesh Hounds
Blood Warriors
Now if we plug that into BattleScribe, you get 380 points worth, which is 10 points lower than the Orruks.
Now as a Khorne Player myself, I can tell you that this is a weird start to a Blades army.
Generally speaking I would personally concentrate on either Mortals or Daemons, rather than a mix. But hey I am crap player and I do play a mixture myself.
Khorgoraths . Khorgorath: Bone Tentacles, Claws and Fangs
Getting to 2000 points means I think we need to pay attention to the Daemons side of things, so I would grab Start Collecting! Daemons of Khorne, which gives you three Bloodcrushers, ten Bloodletters and a Herald of Khorne on a Blood Throne, but I would build this as a skull cannon.
This then allows you to combine all of the Khorne Daemon units into a Murderhost, which is actually a really handy Warscroll Battalion.
And that gets us all the way up to 1510 points, so now I would now look at another Battalion, in this case the Gore Pilgrims for which we need to make a couple of purchases, specifically a couple of Slaughterpriests, for which there are two different models, the original one and one released a little bit later with Hackblade and Wrath-Hammer , and this brings us up to 1850.
At this point I personally would actually buy a box of Bloodreavers, these are very squishy and will die easily, which gives you Blood Tithe points, which you will want, and you will probably want a fair few more Bloodletters to summon with these eventually, but that’s something you can sort out later on.
And that brings you to 1990 points.
Bloodstoker: Blood Whip, Torture Blade
Mighty Lord of Khorne: Axe of Khorne, Flesh Hound
+ Other +
Khorgoraths . Khorgorath: Bone Tentacles, Claws and Fangs
I am not gonna pretend I am a tactical genius here, this list is probably very sub-optimal, but it’s what I would do personally because I think this is a nice route to 2000 points. And if purchased from Element Games, this will cost you a grand total of £155.
I would also giver serious consideration to grabbing some extra Daemons for summoning, which can be done with the Blood Tithe points, and it really can make a big difference to the game.
And the Skull Altar can be taken for free, and is surprisingly helpful in game.
In terms of painting, I would point you towards the tutorial on YouTube for the original Age of Sigmar Release.
There are also videos for the two Khorne Underworlds warbands too.
And here are a couple of ideas for your Bloodletters.
There is a cool basing guide as well from Warhammer TV that looks ace.
So let me know what you think of my ideas, and if you are gonna give them a try out, let me know how it goes!
Just a quick note, if you do follow the links to Element Games and buy something from them, a little bit of a commission is made for Edge of Empire which helps keep the podcast running.
