When Games Workshop took an axe to the 'ol Warhammer Fantasy Battle and replaced it with Age of Sigmar in Space, or something, I was like a lot of jaded vets, grumpy! Mumbling under my breath about the death of my beloved game, a game in which I hadn't bought a new army for in years, no wonder GW refreshed the lore.
In fairness to myself in 2015 I'm still not a fan of the initial End Times story line, the world explodes, Sigmar is alive quite happy to ignore the vacuum of space until a dragon appears and everyone is fine again, but this time there are multiple realms for the convenience of story lines... What you don't understand it either, no worries the answer is always "because magic".
Any way getting off track. In December, approaching some time off over Christmas I knew I wanted a new project. I had pretty much touched every aspect of 40k so finally gave Age of Sigmar a go. One of the appealing things of AoS for me is the mixed armies, Humans with Dwarves etc. Similar to the core rule books 20 years ago. In the end you can field quite a varied force instead of just painting 150 Skaven in the days of WFB...
There was never a chance of me painting up stock mini's, at first I was searching for head swap ideas but the game is still young. There really isn't much inspiration at the time of writing on the old interweb.
I must have stumbled onto a picture of a World of Warcraft Stormwind guard, this got the old grey matter ticking. I still had those old lion shoulder guards from a project many years ago, I could make an instant mold of them and use it for a shield boss, yes, yes... that will work.
I took to the internet one more time to find Roman/Greek like helmets, there might very well be suitable ones out there but they escaped me.
I could sculpt them, its a lot of work i thought. In the end my impatience to start the project got the better of me and I broke out the old green stuff putty.
To save some time I raided the bitz box for bare heads and set about sculpting the helmets, the face didn't turn out as pointy as the Warcraft counter parts but in the end I doubt they would have fitted the bodies if they had.
Now i'm still an Age of Sigmar newb, so I've not got much of an idea what the units are actually known as. However for those reading I've gone above and beyond and Googled it for you.
Liberators
The ones with hammers (now swords) and shields.
For the silver armour I started with a base coat of Leadbelcher over black primer. The models are then washed with Nuln Oil. Once the wash is dry apply a dry brush of Runefang steel all over, you want to build up a heavy coat so by the end the model is mostly silver.
Then mix a small amount of Blue Horror into the Runefang Steel, you will want to apply a light dry brush again, this time just trying to hit the edges.
Then break out the Nuln Oil a second time and wash the recesses, behind the knees, under the arms etc. Lastly mix two parts Lahmian Medium and one part Drakenhof Nightshade and try to shade the armour panels, you want to pick out the parts of the armour that would be in shadow if the under a midday sun.
Any way here's how they turned out:
Castigators
The ones with big 'ol bows
These are snap fit models and they're great, what an improvement on the old starter mini's!
Retributors
The ones with two handed maces.
These were actually the last unit I painted, I knew I wanted some over-the-top Warcraft weapon for these dudes. In the end after raiding more than one bitz box I settled on the burning chalice sort of things below, I call them Ragefire Dire Mauls...
Knight-Incantor
The parties Mage.
As a spell caster I decided to paint him in the colours of the Kirin Tor. The little bottles of magic on his belt are finished with some glittery nail varnish courtesy of my wife, I have also made use of holographic nail varnish for many of the gems across the whole army.
Gryph-hounds
Well Lions...
I had a number of these models kicking around, I saved a few some years ago not really being sure when they'd come in useful. Well it turns out it was this December.
More in keeping with the Stormwind Infantry anyway. I ended up breaking out the sculpting putties for these as well, due to the fact the models are designed to pull a High Elf (now Aelf for maximum copyright) chariots.
That's whats completed so far, for those who noticed yes they are Goblin Green bases. You just can't beat nostalgia sometimes.
In turn I've started up my WoW subscription again, one game seems to keep my enthusiasm going for the other.
Enchanted Fey Dragon & Army General
So I set about sculpting one of my favorite mounts from World of Warcraft, the Enchanted Fey Dragon. A nice center piece for the army and sets my army general aside from the rank and file.
You can read up on the entire build here!
The model will count as a Lord-Celestant on Stardrake.
20th of April 2019
So I've finally got round to casting these heads up in resin. It's a little extra time in the short term but will save me heaps of time in the future. All the heads before these were sculpted on demand with every new addition.
If you would like to get hold of these heads for your own Stormcast you can. I'll normally cast up spares, to order some click here!