It's been a busy summer without blogging though I have used my hobby time well, not only dipping my toe into Age of Sigmar with the release of the General's Handbook but completing a full 1000 point Death army in a little under two months! Controversy regarding the games system aside, I found once I knew how many models were required to make a small force I was quite happy to pick up a start collecting box and a couple of units to not only finish my first army in two years but try out a new game with painted models!
Although the photos aren't the best, neither is the army designed to win any painting awards. After a lot of deep thought I have found the airbrush to be my kryptonite when it comes to painting enthusiasm. I would get a whole lot of models assembled and base coated quickly then lose interest in finishing an army with rows and rows of flat colour staring back at me. As such all these models were assembled and painted one unit at a time, using brushes only, basic basing and no conversions.
Another big decision in getting these models to the table quickly was cutting down the number of painting steps and colours. I utilised a lot of washes and drybushing, and the small units and limited palette kept things moving along. You can see the standard bearer in the photo above looks slightly different as he was an early test model using glazes and feathering which I quickly abandoned as the other test models took half the time and looked even better on the tabletop! Instead of choosing three technical paints (corrosion,rust,oxide) I stuck with just the one oxide paint and I think it really matches the snow-like theme of the army and dulls down the metals quite well.
These Harbingers were from a friend's 40k chaos army and were being used as Daemon Princes in an earlier army list. After not seeing them on the table for quite a while due to a list change I was thrilled that he was happy for me to me to paint them up for my new Death Army. We have quite a history of swapping models back and forth, and he warned me the main issue he had with them was painting the wings - he wasn't lying! I think it took nearly four episodes of The Walking Dead to get these guys finished.
Mannfred was my first foray into large scale fantasy models from GW, and it was quite intricate to put together! My one learning experience was gluing sections and allowing them to set overnight before continuing with the model, and I used this technique when assembling the skeletons as well. Unlike a lot of larger 40k models I found this one did not need pinning as a lot of the sub-sections had generous gluing points which were quite strong. The model does bounce a little when moved and I lost one of the ghouls in transit but I'm very happy with how he looks on the tabletop (he is also a beast in game!).
It has been really refreshing to get a whole army finished so quickly, and it has really helped me to learn how to play Age of Sigmar without worrying about how a unit performs/whether it is worth painting or even buying in the first place. My local store runs a lot of events at 1000pts so it will be good to get involved in a few of these without worrying about the "meta" or boring things like that. I have already had some really close games where even the skeletons proved decisive, the rules set seems to allow for most armies to be relatively competitive from what I have seen, and I am excited to try out the new missions with my fully painted army.
It's been too long since I could say that!