Painted Gobber Chef

This is a Gobber Chef, another solo to go with my Minions for Hordes. I have never actually put the little chap on the table. I got him as part of a set of other miniatures, and it seemed like he was a perfect fit to fill up the last single point of my list at the time. Almost immediately after that, the points costs of various Warbeasts changed anyway, rendering the Chef superfluous. Still, I like the idea – Minions is the comedy faction of the game, and the Chef’s main role is to feed your own infantry models to your Warbeasts to keep them under control. I assume that the actual reason for the miniature is that one of the sculptors did it for a laugh, and it was popular enough in the office to get a release.

Painting the Gobber Chef was a pleasure. I really love the character of the little chap, and even though the barbecue theme seems a bit silly on a battlefield I don’t mind a bit. I chose a deep blue for the clothes mainly to contrast with both the green of his skin and the white apron and hat. I originally considered a slightly less ludicrous colour (probably another shade of brown) but then realised that this was not the kind of miniature on which to select the less-silly option.

Next on the painting table: Aiakos, Scourge of the Meredius

Painted Blackhide Wrastler

Here is a Blackhide Wrastler, a heavy Warbeast for my Minions army in Hordes. Perhaps not entirely surprisingly, this gigantic alligator monster is a powerful melee attack piece. I try to use it as a late game option as the Wrastler also brings the useful Rage animus, for when I want things to be dead without having the inconvenience of having my Warbeasts frenzy immediately afterwards (as is the case when Primal is used). Swamp Horrors take Rage particularly nicely in my experience, as do War Hogs for when I need to engage ludicrous hitting power.

The paint scheme is fairly simplistic but it was very satisfying to apply. The bumpy scales covering the Blackhide Wrastler make it both easy and enjoyable to paint, and I was able to overlook the slightly goofy pose. In retrospect, I think that red cloth for the Wrastler’s luchador mask might have worked a bit better… I guess I know what I’m going to be doing if I ever find myself with a second one.

Next on the painting table: Gobber Chef

Daughters of Khaine group photos

After completing the Slaughter Queen last week I finally got round to pulling the whole lot of my Age of Sigmar Daughters of Khaine out of their box for a family photo. I haven’t the slightest idea if this lot is anything like a legal army but I suppose I can worry about that if I ever start playing the game properly.

Painted Slaughter Queen

This is a (and apparently not ‘the’) Slaughter Queen, a hero choice for the Daughters of Khaine in Age of Sigmar. I have the impression that she was perhaps a Lord choice (compared to the ‘Hero’ level of the Hag Queen) in previous versions of Warhammer Fantasy but all heroes are created equal these days. Perhaps fittingly considering her attire, the Slaughter Queen is pretty easy to kill which is unfortunate since the story of the game indicates that she should be thrown into groups of enemies with wild abandon. Instead I’ve had slightly better use of her abilities when held back to use her magic to improve other units, and even better use when I use the miniature as an alternate sculpt for a second Hag Queen.

The miniature is probably the dullest of the Daughters of Khaine range as the Slaughter Queen is just standing around in the classic ‘high priestess’ pose. The lack of movement makes her outrageous 80s haircut even more amusing, possibly some of her magic is distilled into potent hair gel. I picked a light blue to make her stand out easily against the red of the Hag Queen and I think that the final effect works quite nicely.

Since the Slaughter Queen is the last of my current Daughters of Khaine miniatures I’ll dig the others out of their box and get a family photo shortly.

Next on the painting table: Blackhide Wrastler

Painted Satyxis Blood Hag

This the Blood Hag, the command attachment for the Satyxis Blood Witches in my very-slowly expanding Warmachine Cryx army. As a command attachment, it’s not actually mandatory to take her and the Blood Witches can get on just fine without her. Having said that, I almost always do bring the Blood Hag along as she has the Dark Shroud rule which decreases the armour value of enemies standing near her. This really increases the value of plinking attacks such as the Satyxis models tend to specialise in, or otherwise enables my army to bring down big, tough models more practically. She can also dispel upkeep spells on miniatures she hits; obviously this can be useful to knock an armour boost off an enemy Warjack but it can also come in handy to strip crippling de-buffs from my own side. Finally, the Blood Witch grants Side Step to her unit which allows them to get to annoying places that other beers cannot reach, either to contest scenario elements or apply Gang where it is needed most.

I felt that I had to keep to more or less the same colour scheme as her unit of Blood Witches which rather limited my scope here. On the other hand, I think that the Blood Witch somehow wears the pink and red combination rather better than the girls so perhaps it isn’t such a problem anyway. She does have an overhanging hood which, while very fitting for the miniature, makes her a pain to photograph nicely.

Here is the Blood Hag leading her unit of Blood Witches. She becomes the leader (taking over from the pointing one just behind her) if taken.

Next on the painting table: Slaughter Queen.

Painted Jaga Jaga, the Death Charmer

This Jaga Jaga, the Death Charmer. She’s a Warlock for Minions army in Hordes; the first one I’ve put paint on. As a Warlock, she is the leader of my force and losing her is game over for me. On the other hand, she’s got loads of cool spells and abilities; I’ve heard Warlocks in Hordes compared to both King and Queen for chess. For me, her main two draws are her Feat and her spell Signs and Portents. The former allows you to blow up your own infantry to (hopefully) kill enemy models; this obviously sounds counter-productive but it is an auto-hitting attack so can be quite handy for taking out high-defense annoying models like Kayazy Eliminators. My general approach has been to get the Soul Slave to case Ghost Walk on a jamming unit, have them get as deep as possible and the blow-up the ones in my way to take out key models in the other army. Signs and Portents means that every attack my models make (when within Jaga Jaga’s Control area) gets to add a die to both attack and damage rolls, then drop the lowest. This is amazing dice manipulation and means that Jaga Jaga often gets dropped for me when I’m worried about whether I can hit anything on the other side of the table; for example swarms of light infantry.

I started off rather overwhelmed by the sheer amount of detail on Jaga Jaga’s miniature as she’s very busy with jewelry, snakes and other bling. As I worked though the painting process I enjoyed it more and more as the whole miniature came to life under my brush. I had a bit of a challenge finding suitable colours for each part that didn’t either overshadow another part or clash but in the end I think that the whole thing works rather well and I’m really pleased with the result.

A bit of trivia – Jaga Jaga’s melee attack is with a poisonous snake. However, the big purple one is actually a Tatzylworm (head crest, lots of eyes) and so presumably it is kept around for decoration and she fights people with one of the smaller snakes.

Next on the painting table: Satyxis Blood Hag.

Painted Hag Queen

This is a Hag Queen, another hero choice for my Daughters of Khaine army in Age Of Sigmar. She’s a cheap support character who has mainly found success in my games by staying away from actually fighting the other side and instead by encouraging everyone else to do the fighting for her (which they do, apparently with glee, considering the number of dice rolled per model). Whenever someone has managed to pin down my Hag Queens to combat, that pretty much is the end of the story for them.

The Hag Queen was a quick easy model to paint and get out of the way (especially after how long it took me to get through the Bloodwrack Shrine). I’m not over enamoured by the sculpt but it’s an easy enough process to slap some colours on her and call it good in the name of completing a project; I will admit that this goes double for miniatures that in reality I will hardly ever use on the tabletop. In general I’ve found the Witch Aelves and their associated characters to be pretty quick to get through, though I would still pale at the thought of dealing with 3 units of 30 which I understand is a tournament staple. After the Hag Queen, I have just one more Daughter of Khaine to finish (the charmingly named Slaughter Queen) before I have finished the whole lot… for now.

Next on the Painting table: Jaga Jaga, the Death Charmer.

Painted Bloodwrack Shrine

This is a Bloodwrack Shrine for my Daughters of Khaine army in Age of Sigmar. I’ve used it as my general in the rather few games I’ve played in the system and it has done an adequate job holding the centre of my line. I consider it an anchor of sorts since it is considerably tougher than the rest of the Witch Aelves, although this is probably fitting since the army as a whole has opted for the famous ‘chainmail bikini’ approach to armour.

I didn’t spend over long painting the carriage itself, partly because I want the focus to be on the crew and bath (!) and partly because it’s not really very exciting to paint. In retrospect I would have swapped over the skin colours between the Medusa and the Shrinekeepers; the contrast between the dark brown skin and dark green scales on the Medusa doesn’t work as well as I’d hoped. On the other hand, I quite like the way that the bath of blood looks considering how simple it was to paint. Overall I’m pretty happy with the end result and it makes rather a nice centrepiece model.

Observant readers will note that my Bloodwrack Shrine is halfway between the proper build and a Cauldron of Blood, which is the other build option in the kit. This is because I got part way through assembly when I realised that the Bloodwrack Shrine is meant to have a huge mirror mounted where my Medusa sits (she is really meant to be in the bath). Even in a world where magical bikini-clad elves push baths filled with blood around the battlefield, it struck me as a bit silly to bring a mirror along – surely it would get smashed the first time they rode over a bump in the road. More importantly, I didn’t fancy my chances of painting a mirror that didn’t look awful. Even more observant readers might also spot that I’ve put the dais on the wrong way round; the central spike is supposed to be at the back. Oh well.

The blood shows up really nicely against the relatively drab skin of the snake part of the Medusa. The kit comes with another two characters (they ride the other build) so I’ll get them out of the way shortly and put up a family photo.

I deliberately kept to the same colour palette as the regular Witch Aelves for the Shrinekeepers except for using silver armour rather than bronze (which would blend in too much with the carriage).

Next on the painting table: Hag Queen.

Painted Gun Boar (part two)

This is the second Gun Boar for my Hordes Minions force. I don’t currently use two in my army (though I can imagine builds that might do so) but I got them both together as part of a set. There isn’t much to add from a gameplay perspective beyond what little I wrote for the other Gun Boar.

I did a darker colour on the skin for this Gun Boar, aiming to go with more a of a wild boar / warthog look. I don’t think that anyone is getting this mixed up with a specific real life pig but it looks different from the first Gun Boar so it works fine on the tabletop. Most of my paint work looks rather better at tabletop distance rather than these zoomed in pictures!  It’s probably worth noting that the basing is the work of the Gun Boar’s previous owner too; it seemed pointless to remove the corkboard since someone had gone to the effort of pinning the whole ensemble together.

Next on the painting table: Bloodwrack Shrine.

Painted Blood Sisters

Here are small unit of Blood Sisters, part of the Daughters of Khaine force I’m gradually building up. They’re basically the melee equivalent of Blood Stalkers, trading a fairly trivial ranged element for more close-up stabbing action. We don’t play anything like enough Age of Sigmar for me to have any strong thoughts on how best to use Blood Sisters; I’ve generally just rammed them into something that isn’t already swamped by Witch Aelves and hoped for the best.

Just like the Blood Stalkers, the Blood Sister kit is great fun to assemble and paint. Blood Sisters are actually meant to have a sort of face mask and sensible hair thing going on, but I much prefer the ridiculous flowing manes so I used the alternative heads (that are meant to go on the Blood Sisters instead). In general I tried to keep the same palette as the rest of the force but went for a dark red on the snakey-bits as I felt that would be more fun to paint at the time.

I dedicate this post to Azazel‘s Scenic and Squaddie September challenge. Many thanks to Azazel for leading these monthly blogging challenges.

Next on the painting table: Gun Boar (again).