Gentza - The Herald's Steed

Slowly getting there now...

Gentza - The Herald's Steed

A little more progress. Still very WIP but getting the barding done on the mount now.

Gentza - The Herald's Steed

So, here's a quick WIP shot of the Daemonic Mount. It's not much yet but gives you an idea of where I'm going with it:



I wanted to stick to the army colour scheme but do something a little different to the norm with it. So I decided to use the same scheme as I have/will do on Be'Lakor should I ever get round to painting/finishing him. It's particularly interesting because by the time christmas has passed you'll start seeing my Beastmen appear on here and their colour scheme is going to be very similar to this... I really enjoyed painting the steed like this and the mad part of me is tempted to go back and make the steeds my Knights are riding like this but then the lazy (and/or sane) part is saying 'they're ok, there's so much more that needs your attention.'
I've started using a wet palette for my painting and I've found it makes a HUGE difference. Really would recommend it to everyone.
Anyway please comment! Helps keep me motivated and it's always helpful to get any mistakes pointed out at this stage instead of when I think I'm done!

What's Fluff Got To Do With It?

As found on The Trading Post

I reckon that the majority of Fantasy players have a theme or background for their army. I think only the real hardcore tourney players might be excluded from this. We all theme our armies to some degree, it might not be a conscious effort but we may just put in units the we like the look or background of even though they’re not necessarily the most superior battlefield option.

Others may take this to the next step. We might consciously limit our army choices to help build a theme or background to our force. This might mean playing a mono-god Chaos army, a Khainite Dark Elf force, a Savage Orc horde or selecting troops for a provincial Empire army. Of course the added hobby bonuses really start to kick in at this point. Conversions start to present themselves as you change minis to better fit your theme or if you’re especially creative you might go all out and scratch build them! On the painting side, things can become interesting; an army theme gives you a great starting point for coming up with a unified colour scheme. Once you start playing games with your themed army you’ll have lots of fun. Your victories are dedicated to the glory of Slaanesh or to defend the city of Middenheim etc. this really adds to the background story going on in your head if nowhere else!

The next step along the fluffy-brick-road is an actual background story. This doesn’t necessarily have to be written down but you might have an idea in your head. This could be anything from; “The army is a band of mercenaries under the rogue general Rutger Koppenweld.” Or it could be anything up to a full blown story explaining Koppenweld’s deeds that have lead to him being the leader of a grizzled mercenary army. How his former home was sacked by roving Green skin hordes and his desire to exact his vengeance. Now this is the sort of stuff that I personally love. My Warriors of Chaos army now has quite an extensive back story and I’ve added to it with my minis, especially characters as they are the real heroes and villains of the Warhammer world. Inspiring men to great or terrible deeds or crushing their enemies with sorcerous powers. Characters provide a really rich opportunity to theme your army and enhance your gaming and hobby experience. A battle becomes so much more meaningful as you witness Rutger Koppenweld leading a cavalry charge into the heart of an Orc horde, screaming an anger-fuelled war-cry and slaughtering his sworn foes mercilessly. Equally entertaining is watching him get knocked from his horse by the cunning of the malicious Night Goblins and their Warboss’ rather ‘tricksy’ magic weapon! When you next add a character to your army make sure to come up with a name for him. If you’re feeling more daring, create a back story for him. It’ll make building the mini even more fun and you can try to convert something that really captures the characteristics your back story highlighted.

I’m going to leave the subject of characters there as I plan on going into more depth on this another time. The army theme subject though leads nicely into all sorts of other topics; campaigns, conversions, painting, fluff and army composition to name a few. If you have something to say on any of these get writing!

The Devotees of Elazar - The Glorious Host Goes To War

I'm absolutely loving putting together a 7000pt army list for my battle against the Skaven in just over a fortnight. I'm going to show you the army list now. It might give a few bits away about some of my upcoming projects but it's great fitting in all the characters I've created in my head and I have minis for and being able to field them in the way that I want them! The list isn't massively competitive but to be honest I'm more interested in the spectacle of a battle this huge than worrying too much about whether I will win!

Amador The Chosen of Elazar
Chaos Lord
Mark of Slaanesh
Daemonic Mount
Helm of Elazar
(Rending Sword
Crimson Armour of Dargan
Collar of Khorne
Favour of the Gods)
Shield

Elazar The Glorified
Daemon Prince
Level 4 Wizard
Mark of Slaanesh
Diabolic Splendour
Fury of the Blood God
Stream of Corruption

Aaracturious The Betrayer
(counts as Kholek Suneater)

Isidro Devante
Sorcerer Lord
Level 4 Wizard
Mark of Slaanesh
Rod of Torment
Power Familiar
Dispel Scroll
Biting Blade

Gaizka The Warped
Sorcerer Lord
Level 4 Wizard
Book of Secrets
Spell Familiar
Black Tongue

Ximun
Sorcerer Lord
Level 4 Wizard
Armour of Damnation
Dispel Scroll
Dispel Scroll

Vela The Performer
(You should know this guy by now!)
Sorcerer
Level 2 Wizard
Mark of Slaanesh
The Marionette
(Infernal Puppet
Bronze Armour of Zhrakk
Conjoined Homunculus)

Harkaitz The Herald of Elazar
Exalted Hero
Battle Standard Bearer
Mark of Slaanesh
Flail
Shield
Daemonic Mount
The Glorious Standard
(Banner of the Gods)

Endika Fleshtearer
Exalted Hero
Mark of Slaanesh
Flail
Shield
Steed of Slaanesh
Armour of Morrslieb
Blade Thrower
(Bloodcurdling Roar)

10 Chaos Warriors
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Rapturous Standard
Additional Hand Weapons
Shields

12 Chaos Warriors
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Banner of Wrath
Halberds
Shields

11 Chaos Warriors
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Great Weapons
Shields

15 Marauders
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Great Weapons
Light Armour
Shields

20 Marauders
Mark of Slaanesh
Full Command
Light Armour
Shields

3 x 5 Marauder Horsemen
Mark of Slaanesh
Musician
Flails
Throwing Axes
Light Armour

6 Chaos Knights
Mark of Slaanesh
Standard Bearer
Musician
Banner of Rage
Lances

6 Chaos Knights
Mark of Slaanesh
Standard Bearer
Musician
Blasted Standard

2 x 3 Dragon Ogres
Great Weapons

3 x Hellcannons

4 x 5 Warhounds

Now this comes in a 6565 pts (sadly not 6666pts, that would have been so Slaaneshily brilliant!). I'm unsure what to do with the remaining points. Any suggestions? I have plenty of options as I can borrow the minis I need. This is 133 models. Churning out a whopping 22 Power Dice (+2 bound spells) and 11 Dispel Dice (+3 Dispel Scrolls).
Aaracturious and his Dragon Ogres will have primary duties of dealing with the abundance of Doomwheels that will be hurtling towards my army. Their immunity to lightning spells will make them very useful in this roll and their high strengths will hopefully make fairly quick work of the evil contraptions. Aaracturious can then focus his shooting attacks on the prime targets for such things such as Plague Furnaces to help the rest of the troops out with the abundance of unbreakable plague monks they're expecting to meet in combat! Not sure how magic heavy the Skaven army will be but it will be hard pushed to counter everything the chaos army will be throwing out and I will have plenty of leadership destroying spells and also plenty of panic, fear and terror causing units to force as many of these checks as possible. My troops are going to be heavily out numbered so the fast cavalry and the Knights are going to be really essential for trying to get round the flanks of the Skaven force and hopefully I can then roll them up! Sounds so simple typed out.

Something Stirring In The Woods, Plus Other Blogginess

I have to say, I'm finding myself getting quite excited at the prospect of raising a new Beast Herd. I've started planning out purchases and even started cooking up army fluff!
Truly now, the Empire is doomed, even as The Glorious Host threatens its northern borders an evil stirs from the woods within...

Kuffeh (of Grumpy Stunty fame) has started a new blog. The Trading Post. The idea is that The Trading Post will be a hub for Warhammer Fantasy Battles blogs. I think that Fantasy is a little under-represented in the blogosphere and hopefully The Trading Post can go some way to counter this. Head over and take a look, make sure if you have a Fantasy blog you let Kuffeh know about it so it can be added to the blog roll! The Trading Post also plans on covering Blood Bowl and Mordheim.

My hobby time has been under siege this last week. I've become slightly hooked to Blood Bowl on my son's Nintendo DS. It's lots of great fun and I've played quite a few games now with Elazar's Glories (Chaos team obviously!). My Minotaur is driving me mental with his constant failed Wild Animal rolls though! Would love to see what it's like on the PC as the DS version has I'm guessing slightly simplified options over the PC one (although seems to me to be a faithful recreation of the board game). Just got to teach my son to play it now and then Elazar's Glories can have some Goblin bashing fun!

I'm probably not going to get much done on my minis this weekend but middle of next week I'll hopefully have an update for you! Fantasy players get yourself over to the Trading Post now!

Battle Standard Bearer WIP Mock-Up

Did a mock-up of the finished Battle Standard Bearer model. Lots of pinning, and gluing done but even more greenstuff and fixing of things to go!











As you can see, still lots of work to do around the arm holding the banner. Getting rid of the tentacle was a nightmare and now I have to build up again now, I'm thinking I'll put a small Marauder round shield on the arm as well. Please let me know what you think! Any suggestions etc. will be greatly received and now is the best possible time to make them so I can fix things!

The Devotees of Elazar - More BSB Work

Finished all the pre-painting work on the Daemonic Mount (apart from drilling some holes into the legs so that it attaches to the base well)





I added an hourglass and a key to two of the chains. The other two are the standard for a chaos warrior/skull collecting enthusiast. I really like the idea of an hourglass and a key, they're two very mysterious items that add a bit of depth to the character of the mini. Well I think so and hope that I'm not alone in that!

Also I've redone the banner. I tried doing press-molds but made a bit of a meal of the ones with faces so just went ahead with chopping up faces. Doing some more press molds for something else soon so will post some more on that at another point.



It might not be clear but the shape at the top is the eyeline from a giant, I'll be greenstuffing the rest of the lines for a Daemonic face there, and the hand towards the bottom of the standard will be shovelling the faces towards it (will try and go for a nice fanged, open mouth). Got lots of greenstuff to add to this yet but will post more pics when it's further along.

The Devotees To-Do List

I have a 7000pt battle against my mate's Skaven in a fortnight. Obviously this is going to be a mammoth battle with a hell of a lot of Chaos Warriors charging across the table (not to mention the obscene amounts of Skaven there are going to be!). So I was sitting working out what I had and what I would need to borrow to make my army up to 7000pts and then started doing a to do list in three categories.

To Build:
2 x Warshrines
Exalted Hero on Chariot
20 Marauders (less than this now as I have used some for the Mordheim warband)
5 Marauder Horsemen
Manticore
Chaos Lord - Amador
Battle Standard Bearer
Hellcannon
2 x Sorcerers (possibly 3rd as I have enough bits for a possible 3rd)
Shaggoth - Aaracturious
or Chaos Dragon ridden by Zorion The Resplendent

I plan on buying a second Carnosaur. I currently have 1 Carnosaur and 2 heads. I intend to build a Shaggoth (Aaracturious, the ancient Shaggoth who sold his soul to Slaanesh when his brother Shaggoths swore not to relinquish their souls and whose children are the Dragon Ogres in my army) and a Chaos Dragon (I plan on this one being a two-headed version of the one in the back of the Bretonnian army book). I plan on starting one soon and leaving the other until a later date. Just can't decide which I'd like to do most. I think I'm veering towards the Shaggoth because it might see more use in my army than a Dragon but both conversions really appeal to me.

To Paint:
12 Warriors w/Halberds
10 Warriors w/ Additional Hand Weapons
Mordheim Warband
Sorcerer - Isidro Devante
6 Chaos Knights with Lances
10 Warhounds
Giant
Be'Lakor
Movement Trays
Familiars/Tokens

A lot of these still need a little green stuff work and some of these are half painted (such as Be'Lakor!). I also want to do some new movement trays for the army so I've put them in this category as they just need painting etc.

To Repaint:
Neron
Gaizka
15 Marauders with Great Weapons
12 Warriors with Great Weapons
Sorcerer mini-diorama
Bases for most of the current army!

I want to repaint Neron (the current BSB) and he'll need fixing as he'll be losing his banner once the new BSB is built. Gaizka I'm not sure on, I'm fairly happy with the mini I'm using (although I think I could do a much better job now) but I also have another mini in mind for him so he might instead end up in the to build section.

Quite a lot to do. On top of that of course, there's the new Beastmen out February. Now, as a former Beastman player I'm finding it very tempting to start purchasing some of the nicer old minis (especially the Mordheim ones) and Beast Herd units in preparation. The Bestial followers of Elazar The Glorified will no longer skulk in the woods, but instead will go to war!

P.S. Of course this all bodes very poorly for the Angels Exemplar, 40k keeps finishing a way behind Fantasy in my priorities.

The Glorious Banner Exchange - Revisited

I started The Glorious Banner Exchange to help increase traffic to my blog whilst sharing these viewers with other like minded individuals. If you'd like to join the banner exchange the please email me at ElazarTheGlorified@sky.com with the subject line The Glorious Banner Exchange. Or click the email link in the sidebar of this blog.

An example of my banner:


This sits nicely in the sidebar on most blogs and isn't in any way imposing. Please contact me if you're interested.

The Current members:

How To Paint A Devotee - Bone Armour Tutorial

I was asked on Warseer to do a step-by-step of how I paint the bone coloured armour on my Warriors of Chaos. I wasn't going to post it on here but then I thought it could be quite handy for others, it doesn't have to be for WoC. With the multitude of 40k painters out there (I think most of my blog followers are 40k gamers first and foremost) it might be of use. Maybe for a darker, grittier Deathwing etc. I originally intended the colour scheme for Chaos Space Marines way back when and still think it'd look awesome on them.

How To Paint A Devotee


Step 1: Undercoat in Khemri Brown. Mine is very watered down so it takes 2 coats but gives a nice smooth finish.


Step 2: A drybrush of Bleached Bone. It's a fairly heavy drybrush to make sure there's plenty of paint coverage but not so much paint that it no longer has that dusty look as you apply it.


Step 3: Gryphonne Sepia wash. There's nothing fancy about this, just a wash all over the armour. As this is a rank and file mini I applied a second wash once the first had dried (second picture). For a character I'd maybe only do the one wash to keep the colour a little brighter.


Step 4: Gryphonne Sepia is used again but this time for shading instead of to alter the colour. Painted into all the recessed areas of the armour. For example: Under the cheek ridges of the helmet, around rivets, the grooves in the knee armour, where the armour meets the belt, animal skull, lapel bits, shoulders around the cloak, where the extension of the helmet that holds the horns joins joins the helmet proper. Any areas that are next to a raised edge need to be shaded and obvious areas where there'd be less light such as the back of the helmet below the level of the cloak.


Step 5: Edge highlight. Bleached Bone again here. On all the raised areas and edges of armour plates. Normally I wouldn't do this until I had painted the rest of the mini as I can easily correct any mistakes from earlier at this stage.

There you go, not a brilliant tutorial as I rushed this Warrior a little but I hope it's helpful to anybody who is interested. I'm far from a great painter so if anybody has any better methods or just general advice I'd love to hear it.

Battle Standard

I wanted to show a quick WIP pic of the Battle Standard at the minute. It's a lot of work cutting the little bits how I need them and I'm still a little unsure if it looks good enough to carry on with. So, I'm leaving it to you guys to decide. Honest opinions please!



The idea being the souls of those defeated by Elazar's armies become trapped in the banner as some kind of scary half-living (in a spiritual sense at least!) trophy cabinet and they're all obviously rather desperate to get out of Elazar's prison. If people think the idea is worth pursuing still then I'll be adding more hands and faces yet!