Blotthrowers Dark Fantasia

[Blotthrower]

So, where to begin?

Some of you may know me from the odd occasions I've ventured down to a fantastic day of Warhammer based OG gaming. Others of you will know me as the strange individual who did that Halfling Army that one time. A few of you may know me for both these things, however you do or don't know me there are a few cast iron certainties about me:

1) I play Warhammer (the square based kind)
2) I play Orcs and Goblins at Warhammer
3) I have a slightly skewed vision of the hobby (hence the halfling army...with a cow...and chickens)

With this in mind I present to you all Blotthrowers Dark Fantasia - A 40k Daemons Blog



So Why Daemons? And for that matter why 40k?

Well its like this, since I "finished" the Halfling army project I've been a bit lost for things to paint or having any idea's for a project to carry on with. As I will have told some of you I put the hobby on hold for a few months and went off and did other things (mainly drinking and travelling to be honest!). I'd love to say I came back with a renewed focus and a desire to start a new Warhammer project, but as much as the desire was there I couldn't find the right army or more importantly the right theme to start a whole new project with. Time passed and with no new idea's brewing I just went back to playing some games that I love, Bloodbowl and Malifaux got played plenty and all the while there was this buzz about a new edition of 40k in the background, so finally after much procrastinating this last week I dipped my toe into the murky grim dark waters of 40k.

Now before I continue I should say that my history with 40k has been brief and truly horrifying for me.  I started back in this edition:

http://www.gamehobby.net/images/products/warhammer_40000_2nd_edition.jpg

Where I (rather unsurprisingly) played Space Orks. The only problem was all my friends at the time played Space Marines and so every time my beloved Orc's reached the battlefield they were destroyed utterly. I appreciate this says a lot about my skills as a general as well as the weekness of the Orks, but so be it, I maintain that those terminators were damn near unkillable! Anyway, I've played 3 more games of 40k since, all in 5th ed, 2 utter beatings playing as Chaos Marines and 1 win as sisters, which surprised me somewhat!

So with this in mind me and my friends decided to play a small 500pts each doubles game of 6th ed 40k. I took a look at my hobby collection and found that I had 2 units of Sisters of battle as the only 40k I had. So I rooted about some more and found that I had at some point in the past picked up the 40k Daemon Codex. I then remembered I had a failed Warhammer Tzeench Daemon project sat in boxes and so my 40k Daemon experience was born.

The Blog itself
So some of you may be wondering at this point when the snuff version of Disney's hit film Fantasia is going to make an appearance, sadly this is not what this blog is about, but well done if you've made it this far for me to tell you that. Ultimately this blog is going to chart my thoughts on 40k and show the progress I've made in building and painting my Daemon force. Now my 500pts list looked something like this:

1 Tzeench Herald - w/ We are Legion, Bolt of Tzeench
10 Horrors
5 Bloodletters
3 Screamers
3 Flamers

Now I won't go into detail on the battle I played (since this isn't the battle reports section) but in summary it was IG and Dark Angels vs Marines and Daemons (Still too many damn marines in this game.....) the objective was to capture...objectives, which me and my Marine toting partner won 1-0 (we only got 3 turns in as none of us had played 6th ed before). So having won my first game of 6th ed 40k my thoughts are:

-Its fun: Ultimately I've got no idea what I'm doing, if the units I pick are good, bad or indifferent or if the tactics I'm using stink or are masterful. Which I absolutely love. With Warhammer I think I've come to the point where its got a bit stale because I tend to know what I'm doing and I'm stuck with a certain set of preconceptions. here I get to learn, experiment and have some fun pushing models around the tabletop.

- Its brutal: I kept having to tell myself that that's what this game is meant to be as the IG took chunks out of my scattered forces, of course when it came to for me to shoot back it was equally as brutal!

- Flamers are utter Filth: They are so so so wrong and I will be taking lots of them (not overboard like I imagine some people will but in a big game I'm thinking a couple of units of 4).

The Painting

So if you've made it this far rejoice! There are some pictures for you. Now there is a reason I've named the blog as it is. My previously mentioned failed Warhammer Tzeench Daemon project was going to use the classic Warhammer Familiars as Horrors, with this in mind when I played  the above mentioned game I used them as horrors, but them I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have all my daemon infantry using familiars? So That's what I've started doing. First up, is my squad of 10 horrors with the herald. These aren't painted yet just primed in Shadow Grey.



Secondly I give you the unit of 10 bloodletters that I've nearly finished painting:



Now, two things will immediately spring to mind. First off some of them are on square bases. Well having played predominately Warhammer for the last few years I don't have many round ones, so I need to order some more. Secondly The height of the models, I've been told that line of sight is a big thing in 40k, so in order to bring them up to the required height I'm going to get some foam and use it as a rocky base in which to make each base scenic and to prop the little buggers up to a reasonable size. Once I get my hands on the foam and some bases I will be working on the first set of ten to complete the bloodletters.

Well that's it for now (thankfully). I'll post some more up when I've made some more progress.

Until next time!

[v3n]

I like em, using the same familiar to distinguish between the type of demon is a nice touch (even though we are talking about 40k which is inherently dirty)

[TkaiC]

Loving the Bloodletters, looking forward to seeing what bases you come up with for them!

[fatolaf]

Daemons are the new stealth filth buddy, good choice 

I am also doing the same army with the view to allying with chaos..

Loving the use of the familiars , look fwd to seeing what you come up with

[Blotthrower]

Thanks guys, I'm really enjoying painting the familiars, so full of character! I'm hoping to get the basing supplies so that I can start on the basing this weekend. I do have one query though, I'm thinking about possibly making the army dual system so that I can use them in Warhammer as well, does anyone know where I can get movement trays for round bases? I've see it done before but I'm not sure where they are sourced from.

Those new shiny chaos models are mighty tempting Ol, I may have to join you in the chaos allies idea!

I'm hoping to get the Horrors done this weekend so I should have another update soon.

[v3n]

http://sarissa-precision.co.uk/store/trays/

[fatolaf]

Or the old lord of the rings ones off ebay..

As for round bases Ben, I have tons of them how may do you need?

[Blotthrower]

Cheers for the offer Ol, I may well take you up on it, I'm going to order a sample of those Wooden bases / movement trays and see how they are and then take it from there. Though if you do have any of those 40mm round bases I could use a couple of them.

Not a great deal of work has been done to the Daemons this week. I have however finalised the colour scheme for the horrors:



My idea is that each of the units will have purple on them in some way to try and link the army together a bit more. That and the basing should hopefully tie the force together nicely whilst keeping with a bright colour scheme.

The horrors still have a fair bit of work to do on them before I'm happy so it may be another week before they are finished. In the mean time here's a sneak peak of the models I'm going to use to represent Plaguebearers:

[Blotthrower]

Just to prove I haven't forgotten about this project, here is my (limited) work in progress on my Daemons, I've based one horror...horray!



As you can see from the models in the background to this picture, I have got somewhat distracted by another project, I've decided to go back and redo my actual Orcs and Goblins, all this whilst I really should be making the final bits for the halflings to make them Beasthammer ready...too many projects so little time!

[fatolaf]

Come on sunshine, concentrate 

[Blotthrower]

Sooo......where was I? 

Its been a while, and with some work completed on the Daemons I basically wandered off and started painting something else, always the way!

After doing the poll as to what army I should take to the south coast GT I was really struggling with what to take, everyone had made some valid points about all 3 ideas and in the end I decided to go with a compromise. I decided that I would take on the challenge of getting the Orc and Goblin monster mash painted in the next 10 weeks. If that fails, I would take the Halflings. Hooray!

So without further ado here's what I've cobbled together so far:





The mark 1 Steampunk Giant (created Circa 2008)



The Mark 2 Steampunk Giant (created Circa 2012)



The Steampunk Trolls (as with all of these pictures, better ones to follow as the light today is terrible, along with my photography!)



And last but not least, my latest creation, the Steampunk Wyvern



Now since I took these photo's I've managed to undercoat most of the stuff I need to paint. Realistically I need the following items to have the whole army complete and ready to paint:

50 night goblins (on route)
Night Goblin bsb - to convert
Doom Diver - to convert (any thoughts on good steampunk ideas? I'm thinking maybe the gun on the imperial guard basalisk!)
Unit filler for the arrer boyz (this is in hand I just need to have the money to buy it!)

So 10 weeks, lots of painting and (probably) lots of distractions to tempt me along the way, hopefully I'll make it, if not then the Halflings will ride to war again!

[Blotthrower]

So not a lot of work done on this project this week, I'm going to have to step up the painting speed if I'm to have any chance of finishing the army on time... anyway, here's this weeks contribution:

Orc Shaman (Love this model!)



Night Goblin Bsb (Again, the character in the old metal goblins is something I really miss)


Some Arrer Boyz (Only 21 more and a unit filler to go....)



I think to stop myself going completely insane I'm going to probably paint the two remaining trolls next, get them finished and then move on to another batch of arrer boyz, as batch painting is my least favourite part of the army painting process.

[Blotthrower]

So, I've taken a bit of a break from the painting (for one night at least) to have a crack at making the arrer boy unit filler. I decided to go with a privateer press diretroll bomber as the base because I love the idea of a giant troll throwing flaming barrels at people and that can count as a missile weapon right?





And with the progress I've made on the arrer boyz:





You'll notice there is a space in the unit where an arrer boy should go. Well that's where I made a bit of a miscalculation with the troll as he overhangs slightly, so I will have to get creative to fill that space! i'm thinking maybe a goblin with a Spear trying to keep the troll back, or otherwise a squashed Goblin, as that's always amusing!