Paint Recipe: How to Paint Stormcast Eternals

Greetings! Today I have a simple post explaining the paints I use for my Stormcast Eternals. At a glance, they appear similar to the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, but I made a couple of changes to the scheme so that the colors contrast a bit more. I'll have the full recipe further below.

Hobby Table: Dire Wolves, Necromancer, and Skink Starpriest

The last couple of days have seen 7 new models completed. For the first round we have some Legions of Nagash models, or, in my little corner of the universe, these troops hail from the ruins of Ravenmarch. This is the eastern half of Heldenmarch, and the two were once a whole country until the folly of the Amethyst Cult drove the kingdom in two. This lore is reflected in my necromancer, whose robes of purple, which once were a symbol of the Amethyst Cult, are hidden beneath tattered robes.

A necromancer wills his dire wolves to attack. 

Tutorial: Bastilodon Solar Engine

I magnetized my Bastilodon a long time ago so that I could swap out between the Ark of Sotek and the Solar Engine, and while I managed to paint the dino and the Ark of Sotek, I left the Solar Engine to languish for some time. Part of it was that I was intimidated by the crystal. I wanted it to look like all of those photos that can be seen on Instagram or Reddit. But no more! I decided to just go for it, and I don't know why I was putting this off for so long.

Read on for details of how I painted it. 

Narrative: Using Scenery to Tell a Story

Often times in wargaming we use our scenery as an ends to a means. Does it provide an even playing field so that neither side gains an advantage? Are there ample Line-of-sight blockers that give strategic advantages? Not that any of this is bad, but to me terrain can be so much more, especially in a narrative context. The terrain can help to drive the story of your games, giving players objectives beyond winning. Even if a player loses the match, the events that unfold can give them a tale to tell for a long time afterwards. 

A cemetery sits peacefully next to a shrine of Azyr. 

Hobby Table: Freeguild, Endless Spells, and More

This has been a productive week so far, seeing several units painted to completion.

The Freeguild group above consists of a General with banner, 10 Guard with Halberds, and 1 with a sword who managed to sneak in to the painting pile. They bear the uniform of my own Free City (or country I guess) of Heldenmarch. The pants are just a standard Army Painter black drybrushed with grey, the shirts are Citadel Flash Gitz yellow washed with Casandora Yellow. Metallics are Plate Metal Silver from Army Painter, and the red is Dragon Red, also from the Army Painter line. This took me a bit for all the other small details on each model, so from here I moved onto some quick little projects...

Tutorial: Converting square to round bases

Whether you still have old holdovers from Warhammer Fantasy days or you bought used models from Ebay or elsewhere, chances are there are still some of you with models on square bases that need to make the move over to Age of Sigmar. But maybe you want to preserve those lovely bases and don't want the hassle of painstakingly clipping off the top of a base to transfer it.

Today I have a tutorial for an easy conversion! Disclaimer, you'll need access to a 3D printer, which you can sometimes do at a local library or if you have a friend if you don't already have your own. 

Step 1: Print the bases

Files can be found here at Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2952975

Here you have an assortment of bases to choose from. For this example I've gone with cavalry bases for my Drakespawn Knights. I've printed them the standard 0.2 mm layer height in PLA, and a set of five only took about an hour from start to finish. I didn't bother with any brims, and it came out just fine.  Once printed, just gently slot the base into the coverter. I put dabs of super glue in to keep the model firmly in place. 

The Dreaded Hobby Backlog

During this global pandemic and forced work from home situation that many of us find ourselves in, I decided that it was a good time to return to this blog and get some hobby posts going. I intend for this to be consistent, but like always life will probably find a way and get me to drop off again. We'll see.

Behold! The detolf of shame. 

In the above picture can be found the majority of my miniatures, not including terrain and other WIPs. From top to bottom, we have: Stormcast Eternals, Nighthaunt, Slaves to Darkness, Greywater Fastness, Anvilgard, Seraphon, Legions of Nagash, Bretonnia, and on the floor level a smattering of Gloomspite Gitz and a full Skaven army that I'm still trying to find space for. As to the progress of armies...