Hobby Update: Undead Display Board and 4th Edition

The snow continues, and thankfully, so does the hobbying! Continuing on, up now is a display board for the Undead! This one was also largely done up alongside the first board for the Varangur, and the second board for the Forces of the Abyss. As with the other two, paste was slapped down. Here coverage was very sporadic, as I wanted lots of spots for mud. Once the paste dried, this board too was primed in black, then painted with craft paints using black, a mix to get dark grey, and then a light grey. 

The finished board.

The mud got my similar approach with a variety of browns, applied haphazardly, because it is supposed to be mud. We used mostly crafting paints here, with a variety of browns, and then hit with a brighter Deathclaw Brown to give it some pop. This is the same idea throughout the army as well, so should blend in nicely.

Part way through the initial layer of brown.

Once this was all set, I hit it with a gloss varnish, instead of the usual acrylic glazing medium. Back in October I got a nice angled artist desk and tried rehabbing it (it's holding up most of the display boards in the pictures). I tried a glossy spray for it, but could never get a uniform coverage. Boo. Here though, it works nicely, adding a gloss to all the mud but leaving the rocky parts mostly untouched. 

Finishing up all the brown colors.

I blocked in the edge with more black paint, and then the last step was to smear the acrylic glazing medium in most of the corners, and then use polyfill to add the fog effect. I decided to keep the effect in the corners only, the thinking being that units should have the effect as well, and be able to sell the effect around the board themselves.

The floofs are all under the board's top edge, so this should be all set for now! My only complaint right now is that the floofs were attached as little balls, and you can definitely tell. They can be teased apart a bit and twisted with other floofs for a more convincing look, but my thinking is that this will probably happen naturally over time with normal wear and tear and transport.

The Undead board, with some Pathfinder units.

The board was done up essentially concurrently with the board for the Abyssals, so I chose to quickly stage this one too with my Pathfinding Undead army. As-predicted, the units do help carry the fog effect across the board, and this should look nice and spooky in larger games where the display board should be more nicely filled out.

Unfortunately, 4th Edition is set to do a big number on all of my collections. The Undead are probably the least impacted, but like the Abyssals, my go-to Undead units are taking significant hits here too. The lovely Skeleton Warriors with two handers (which I admittedly greatly over-invested in...) are no longer a thing, and the Soul Reavers are apparently getting nerfed down to just CS1. Harrumph. We'll see if the Hearthguard or Shieldbreakers get similar treatment. Fluff-wise, Mummies and Pharaohs are gone, so my AOE2 Teutonic Mummies are also invalidated, which is a bummer, but definitely makes sense fluff-wise with the Empire of Dust around. My MMU approach might be in jeopardy here as well unless I go very heavy in Skeleton Spears or Revenant infantry, which does admittedly sound appealing to explore!

I recently did up a number of Undead Champions for 4th, upgrading an assortment of individuals to 40mm squares, so we should be set there for now, with plenty more waiting in the wings to be upgraded as the mood strikes me. 

For Warlords, the Undead have lost Mhorgoth the Mandatory and the basic Liche, which is really going to free up competition for this very important slot. I think that how to fill that will be a common concern across all armies. I should be in a good spot overall for the slot with the Undead. With my various Wyrms and Vampires on Pegasi already based correctly, we'll have plenty of neat things ready to test right from the start! 

So far, I am most bullish about the Undead in 4th Edition, especially early on. While competition for hero slots have been steep in 3rd, it's really the only slot the army uses regularly. The strength of the army is units plus an assortment of heroes, and I think that will put them in a great spot for 4th. I will endeavor to get them on the table soon!

Hobby Update: Abyssals Display Board and 4th Edition

Thanksgiving was relatively quiet, and a monster snow storm afterwards delightfully slowed things down for me, allowing for some extended hobby time. I chipped away at a number of projects, including the display boards. The first board was for the Varangur, was finished in late October, and was the big test for me. I tried larger pieces of cork and spotty applications of basing paste, painted up and then covered with a snow effect. It all worked, but is a little visually busy with the high contrasts between the snow and dark rocks. We're trying to learn and improve upon things, so up now is the display board for the Forces of the Abyss!

The board, with lava.

This one used smaller pieces of cork, but still made use of many edge pieces, allowing for more interest along the board edge. Everything was painted up with cheap craft paint alongside the other dark boards, with a black prime, black paint, and then dry brushes of dark gray and then light gray. The basing has a stronger coverage here, with some untouched spots for lava pools.

Giving up and using Citadel paints.

The lava pools proved difficult to duplicate. I had used hobbying paint for all my Abyssal units, which was a little daunting for a big board. The edges got Deathclaw Brown as usual, and then I spent a few days trying to adjust yellow craft paints to be the right colors, but to no success, so the next layer for Zamesi Desert, like the units. 

Ew, too bright and jarring, not enough layering yet.

I then tried again to tweak the basic yellow craft paint into something similar, and again failed over several days. About half a bottle of Army Painter's Demonic Yellow was then used as the next layer.

Finally, the bright yellow craft paint I had could be used, covering up all the pools. It is quite bright, and actually really pops in person. The bases for most of my Abyssals stopped on the previous step with a basic, strong yellow color. Needing to mix in white for the pop previously was a little too work intensive. But now that I have a bright yellow right out of the bottle, I might be going back and touching things up.

I have not hit this one with any kind of sealer, so the last step here was to go back with a large, straight brush and repaint the boarder a nice solid black. We are good for now!

The board with some Pathfinder units.

For fun, I went and staged the board with some units from my Pathfinding army. If one looks closely, one might see that the units all lack the super bright yellow color, and some of the pools hitting the edges of the units look a little off since they go nowhere, but what can you do. I was not thinking about display boards way back when, and overall, I still really like this. The board has some nice pops of color, but isn't as busy / overwhelming as the snow on the Varangur board. The boring, empty, rocky space lets you put units where ever, which was harder to do with the Varangur board and the big pieces of cork dictating where units needed to go.

I'm feeling better about the Forces of the Abyss than the Varangur, but we'll see need to wait and see what is in store for the Abyssals in the new edition. Unit-wise, apparently my favorite Abyssal Guards are going away, and without the durable Guard, I think my MMU approach with the army is probably off the table. We allegedly have Succubi, Flamebearers, Lower Abyssals and apparently Hellhounds for our main Core options. Those are all just ok in my book, as each of them has a big drawback currently, but we'll see how any stats changes might shake out and shake things up on my opinions. A lot of the other units are getting tweaks and buffs, and it sounds like the Horsemen might be TC3, and the Nagarri might get CS2 now, along with some other buffs, so I'm sure we'll be able to run some fun lists once we figure out how we want to handle the new Core Tax. 

Hero-wise, I often used Warlocks and Despoiler Champions for my usual heroes in 3rd, which are already on larger bases and so are already ready to step up as Champions for me. My terrestrial Fiends look to be shifted over to non-inspiring Support units which is a bummer though, as they have been good performers as well. The Warlord slot for the army looks interesting, and should have plenty of competition between Archfiends, any legendary picks, and promoted Seductresses and the like. From the little spoiled so far, these Warlords don't look to be changing the unit categories at all, but I haven't been following anything closely and could be wrong on this count. Right now, without the full rules and lists, the army just feels a smidge off-balance, but that could just be to the army units feeling a bit more fragile. Regardless, with my cruch unit of Abyssal Guard voided, no builds or ideas are jumping out at me yet, so likely no hobbying on these until the full book and rules are out.

Hobby Update: Varangur Display Board and 4th Edition

I was hobbying on the other boards and writing up posts for them, and felt like I had glossed over the first board. We'll circle back before continuing on. Here is the Varangur display board, finished up in late October.

The board.

As mentioned in the WIP post that also kind of unveiled this board, this one was the original, with my trying to figure out the basics. We used big chunks of cork in the center, and then lots of flat edge scrap pieces to fill things in. It was covered haphazardly in paste, then primed black, then painted black, and then dry brushed with dark gray and light gray. The other boards utilized this darker ground cover as well, so were all painted up at the same time. 

The Northwoods Melee army, again.

The paste coverage was haphazard, as I was going to hit this with a bunch of my snow effect, and did so, over many batches. Overall, the snow stuck, but the board felt a bit visually "busy" when I took it to the Northwoods Melee. I think I am being a little too hard on myself though, and this would probably look fine with a larger army. With about half my army for the event was tied up with 50mm square-based things, the board is bound to overpower the units.

I'm backtracking here, as I am taking the opportunity with these display board posts to briefly touch on my initial 4th Edition thoughts and plans for each army. 

The rub here is that I don't actually know what 4th Edition is going to hold for the Varangur. For now, we are essentially squatted. The Northern Alliance can technically take a new, allegedly ground-only version of Magnilde, and use her to unlock Fallen and what I believe are renamed Mounted Sons unit... but that's it, and that's probably around 1000 points. The mighty Kruufnir is gone, as are Horse Raiders, Conclaves, Magi, and the very useful Draugr. While the Fallen are still around and generally fun, I feel like the Draugr and their cheap source of unlocks were a main reason to play Varangur, so this definitely hurts, both for fluff and for builds.

The Varangur are allegedly being given the Twilight Kin treatment, with the squatting only temporary, and will be revamped and spun out as a new, distinct army in the coming years, as the story for the new edition progresses. Unsurprisingly, I would have preferred them to spin them off now with a light touchup for 4th, and then getting the more intense revamp down the line, but perhaps their revisions are too drastic, like the Twilight Kin. The strength of the Northern Alliance list comes largely from it combined arms and the non-human aspects, which I lack with my older Varangur.

Thankfully, the Northwoods Melee was a pretty successful event for me. Despite failing to remember Kruufnir's rampage against many Gur Panther units over multiple games and combats, we came away from the event with a winning record and apparently 4th place. With half the attendees having been to Masters, that is not a bad personal showing, and was a nice way to see the army off. The Varangur will definitely see the table in 4th, just to properly explore them a bit and say I did, but regular appearances do not seem likely as things stand currently.

Hobby Update: Undead Revenant Horde

I've snuck in just an hour here and there for hobbying over the last few months. It's been nice, but it hasn't really felt like a significant or actual respite from anything. More just like gulping down some air while swimming hard. Thankfully, I was able to squeeze some in longer hobbying sessions over a few consecutive evenings, which has felt much better. Here are some Undead Revenants!

The horde dead-on.

I know there is a difference between Mantic's Revenants and their Skeletons, but it was never distinctive enough for me, so I wanted a completely different unit. I technically already have some GW Grave Guard for this from the multi-system undead, which works fine, but I still wanted something else and something that was multi-based. 

The horde from an angle.

The models are Oathmark Revenants, with shields from Fireforge's Russian Infantry. They aren't very imposing miniatures, but the shields help sell their defensiveness, and the older look of the soldiers suggests ancient and revered warriors raised to fight, which to me makes sense. 

A regiment.

Paint-wise, I'm starting to embrace more unique effects for my unit, and trusting in the basing and such to tie everything together for the Undead. If any army can be expected to look a bit disorderly, it's gotta be the Undead, right? All I knew going into this was that I wanted them to be pink. These were started a month or so ago, and I'd just spend an hour fiddling. They got a Pink Horror base, an Emperor's Children highlight, a red wash, and more passes with the pinks before I called that good. Skin got multiple passes and attempts as well, and is ultimately a Skavenblight Dinge base color. I tried blues as a highlight but couldn't settle on the right one. Eventually the purplish Daemonette Hide became the highlight, and they have a nice desiccated look to them. The armor was a new color for me: Warplock Bronze, which is a color I picked up from Will and his Abyssal Dwarfs. It's just a nice, dark metallic. I like it! I went with a brighter silver (Ironbreaker) for everything else, trying to make the silver stand out but not look out of place. Overall, I really like the presentation. The slow experimentation over a few weeks was rough, especially when I decided I didn't like something and had to backtrack and lose a few days, but going slow was probably good for them, as I couldn't rush anything, and I must say that I am very pleased with hos these turned out.

And the second regiment.

Basically the minis were painted over those smaller sessions, and then the recent longer hobby sessions let me do all the basing at once, and finish the units up quickly. The basing paste can be hard to work with, so I like to give myself plenty of time to spread it around nicely. The basing for these stayed the same with a mess of colors for the muddy ground, a glazing medium spread around for a glossy effect to sell the mud, and then polyfill for the fog effect.

I never quite got into Revenant infantry, but they were on my radar, even for MMU, as -/17 Regiments would be great for scenario play. If I had just a little more time with 3rd Edition, I would have liked to have dropped the Lykanises and fancy heroes and explored them a bit with the playstyle. Alas, I don't think we're getting any more 3rd Edition games in, nor has 4th arrived yet. I'm hobbying them up as I think they will be good in 4th though, as they are rumored to go up to 25 Nerve as a Horde, which with Def5, should be incredibly hard to move. Whenever 4th Edition does drop, we'll take them for a spin!