Clan Festerscar Rising

Hey all!  Happy to be here again, assaulting your eye holes with miniatures and words.

Things are going well with the Rise of Empires campaign - just got my second blog post up over there detailing the birth of the Vermin Crusade against the Realm of Beasts, with the initial waves being led by the rival in power to Malkk - Plague Priest Zulrot and his army of frenzied Plague monks.  There are also developments for the history of the fall of the city of Alpines and the rise in power of the Fire Mage Opstrum Painad (who knows how that will combine with the awesome power of Plaguemaster Malkk), and of course we have the introduction of new characters into the mix:

• Omer Bollen - High General of the Alpine Guard.
• Coruk the Illuminated, master of the Cult of Illumination within the army of Zulrot.
• The introduction of the one eyed doombull, who is perhaps a representative from the followers of the mighty Chlorothrax to the far East of the Realm of Ghur.

Time will tell what these characters have to add to the story of the Plaguemaster and his schemes... if they are truly his own machinations.

LINK to the new post.

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So what is next for the painting block, now that I have managed to swing through 40 plague monks, plague priest Zulrot, and the plagueclaw catapult?  Well, if rumors are true, I may be grabbing another box of fun rats within the next few days.  Rumors from Natfka say there is a "Start Collecting: Clan Pestilent" for £50 ($85) as well as something called the "Virulent Horde" for £105 ($150) coming out within the next couple of weeks. If these look like really good deals, they may or may not happen.  I am in love with the idea that I can build an entirely pestilent force for my rats in Age of Sigmar, its one of the greatest selling points to an excellent game.  

Other than that, the next phase of the painting for the Rise of Empires campaign will focus around the "Boiler Vermin" of Clan Festerscar, who are working to stoke the giant cauldrons for Plaguemaster Malkk's grand World Plague.  Led by an Arch-Warlock (name TBD) and his attendants, the forces of putrescent Skyre minions will be working to ensure that Malkk's schemes are not foiled by technical difficulties, or by enemies of the Crusade.  So that means Skyre Acolytes, Arch-Warlocks, Warlock Engineers, Weapon Teams, and of course the awesome power of the Warp Lightning Cannon will be added to the forces of Malkk.

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On other fronts, I am challenging myself to complete an entire Guildball team within a week in order to be able to play against a friend this coming weekend.  My Alchemists are getting a lovely coat of blue and brown, with cream as the tertiary color and red accents.  Still need to come up with a name for these bad boys, but so far they are a blast to paint.

They also help to satisfy one of the spaces on the year long Miniature Painting Bingo Challenge that I am trying to complete in order to further expand my skills as a painter. Here is what the challenge looks like:

I have already completed "Paint a new version of a mini you painted years ago" by painting up my Skaven Plague Monks to a higher standard than the way they were painted during my high school years.  The Guildball team will fulfill the "Paint a mini from a range that you have never painted before" which puts me at 8.4% Complete with the challenge at 2 months into the year.  I imagine that my putrescent Skyre Acolytes will fulfill the role of "Paint a Mini in a color that you don't like painting and make it work" by painting with various shades of black, mixed with the customary pale green that makes up my Festerscar Clan.  

All in all, I really am enjoying getting the hobby juices flowing.  It's been entirely too long since I put a brush to a model, and I have missed it greatly.  The narrative campaign is really getting my creative juices flowing and giving me an outlet for hobby, as the local scene here in eastern Alabama is a joke frankly.  When it gets to about May I will be able to get many more games in, which I cannot wait for, as that will give me a solid 2-3 months where I can get lots of battle reports up on the Rise of Empires blog, as well as have even more motivation to get paint on plastic or metal.

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Please comment if there is anything that you would like to see in the coming weeks and months!  Otherwise, it's full steam ahead with Clan Festerscar in the Age of Beasts, the Asset Liquidators of the Alchemists Guild, and so much more!  Here's hoping that I can stay on top of things and get everything done that needs to get done before the end of the year.  Happy Gaming!

Actual image of the "hard-working" man-creature that claims
to be writing this blog and others to the "best of his abilities"
PATHETIC CREATURE

Rise of Empires in The Age of Beasts

Hey all, just a quick post today.  Wanted to shoot all of you over to the awesome narrative campaign that covers an area of the Games-Workshop Age of Sigmar timeline that is almost completely glossed over in the books and stories.

So, Hobby Hammer and Sean H. decided to allow players to join and help flesh out part of the Realm of Ghur with as much fluff and story progression as possible.  I am helping to do my part for the rest of the year (or longer depending on how the campaign goes!) by playing my friends here in Alabama and Atlanta and writing up narrative battle reports, as well as writing up unit fluff for units that I post during the course of the narrative campaign.  I am beginning with my Skaven Clan, Plaguemaster Malkk's Festerscar Clan, but will slowly add in my Khorne Bloodbound (I'll let the story unfold as to how that happens) and possibly some Nurgle daemons and followers from the Rotbringers.  I am really looking forward to participating in this, and hope that some of my readers will too.  Here is a link to the blog as a whole, where you can find my initial posting as well as many other great examples of how this is going to unfold over the next ten months and beyond!

Thanks!

http://postendtimescampaign.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/rules

http://postendtimescampaign.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Fester

Painting in the Realm of Beasts

Hey all,

Hope you are doing well.  Its been a good bit since my last post, so I am happy to be back entering your eye holes once again.  Not much in the way of gaming lately, as school has started to pick up again.  A couple of friends got together to play a couple of rounds of Splendor, but other than that it has been a draught of tabletop gaming.  Gotta love Alabama.

What does this mean I have been doing?  I must have done something if I am writing a blog post, right?  Well, my dear intrepid readers, I have been working on painting up some Skaven for the past couple of weeks.  I just thought that I would take the time to go ahead and post them up here.

I have started experimenting with P3 Paints, and I have to say that I do adore them now. As I start to get more comfortable with painting in general again - I was off the horse for about 6 months - I will start to experiment with some of the more advanced painting techniques; wet blending, two brush blending, I may even try my hand at some nonmetallic metals.  Who knows!  I am really getting back into the painting aspect of the hobby thanks to the guys over at Garagehammer and some of the amazing work done on the Age of Sigmar Facebook pages.  I will probably make a return to painting some Malifaux models in the near future as well, as I have more than a few models left to paint for that game system.

Here is my photodump for all of my recent Skaven painting.

While it may not seem as impressive a photodump as those that have come before, this isn't the full scale of work.  I already have 25 of the Plaguemonks cranked out, and am working on another 12 before I move on to the command elements of the unit and my Plague Priest - whom needs to be rebased AGAIN on a 32mm base according to what they come with from GW's main site.  I am not complaining though, as I think the 32mm will look great on Plaguemaster Malkk.  As you can see from the last photo, I am also currently working on getting my weapons teams up to snuff again, as well as back into the new and improved color scheme of my Plague army.  I think that once I have the Plague monks all done I will most likely move on to getting my clanrat units repainted.  I need to come up with a creative way to make 2 units of 30ish into something like 3 units of 20.  OR I need to just go ahead and buy another battalion box while you can still get them and make 3 units of 30 clanrats and 3 units of 20 plaguemonks.  So many choices.

Before too long I need to get my Stormvermin brought into line with the new way of thinking, or leave them as the Asian Skaven mercenaries that they are and paint up the Katana converted models to have the same scheme as the current rats of Clan Hashiji.

Thats about all I've got at the moment.  I wont bore you with my plans for the Khorne Bloodbound until I actually start getting some paint on them, which may be a country minute still.  So, until next time - Happy Gaming!

First of a New Breed

Hey all!

Just a quick post today about how I plan to rejuvenate my Skaven in the coming weeks/months.  Looking to fit everything more in line with a Clan Pestilence Theme - even the Clanrats and the Stormvermin.  Here is the first couple of pictures of revised Plague Monks.

I wont claim to be the greatest painter of all time, but I think that these are much nicer than they used to be.  Comments/Criticisms welcome!

Comparing these new Plague Monks to the old makes it even more obvious that, if only at the very least, I have improved over the years as a painter.