Just a quick note: Casey over at The Hammer Dialectic is helping me facilitate a major RPG book purge.
If’n you’re the sort who might be interested in profiting from my need for shelf space, you should definitely check out his listings!
That might sound overly confrontational. I dunno. It certainly turned out more of a battle than I anticipated.
I started these six Halberdiers I don’t know how long ago. More than a month ago, at least. Early April.
The new Citadel Paints had just dropped and, because I’m just starting this army, “buy up as many old paints as you can,” isn’t sustainable enough for me. So, since I’m going to have to start using them anyway, I did just that.
Yeesh.
I can’t blame the fact that it took me ~six weeks to paint six dudes entirely on the paints: a lot of real-life excitement popped off in late April and early May (though most of it lent itself to painting more and not less)… but option paralysis and result disappointment really annihilated any momentum I managed to develop.
So, here are the dudes. They’re painted mostly with new GW paints in place of the old GW paints. P3 paints weren’t changed. Notes on the original color scheme can be found here.
Significant color changes are:
| Was | Now | |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | Basecoat – GW Regal Blue Layer – GW Enchanted Blue Highlight – Reaper True Blue Wash – 3:3:2 GW Asurmen Blue Water Matte Medium wash |
Basecoat – GW Kantor Blue Layer – GW Caledor Sky Highlight – GW Hoeth Blue Glaze – Guilliman Blue |
| Yellow | Basecoat – GW Iyanden Darksun Wash – GW Gryphonne Sepia Layer – GW Iyanden Darksun Highlight – GW Golden Yellow |
Basecoat – GW XV-88 Basecoat – GW Balor Brown Wash – 1:1 GW Cassandora Yellow GW Seraphim Sepia Layer – GW Balor Brown Layer – GW Zamesi Desert Highlight – GW Ushabti Bone Glaze – GW Lamenters Yellow |
| Skin | Basecoat- GW Tallarn Flesh Layer – GW Elf Flesh Wash – 3:3:2 GW Ogryn Flesh Water Matte Medium wash Highlight – GW Elf Flesh |
Basecoat – GW Bugman’s Glow Basecoat – GW Cadian Fleshtone Layer – Kislev Flesh Wash – 3:3:2 GW Reikland Flesh Water Matte Medium wash Highlight – GW Kislev Flesh |
So, let’s compare the two paint sets. In each picture, the hapless Halberdier on the left is the old scheme, the one on the right is the new.
The yellow is more vibrant. We can attribute that, I think, to Lamenters Yellow. Unfortunately, it’s a hair brighter than I’d like. Conversely, the blue is more drab… in the old scheme the blue was matched well with the yellow. In the new, the blue’s too dark and the yellow’s too bright.
The skin is particularly bothersome: I just cracked caucasian flesh. The new scheme just isn’t nearly as good.
The bases are edged differently: Calthan Brown on the left, Mournfang Brown on the right.
(Also, what’s up with the red on the blue feather? Sloppy, Rush!)
The new paints are good, mind you. I like the way they handle. I like the additional selection. I’m extremely disappointed in how they compare to the old paints, however. I know that they (GW, GW employees) have to say they’re equivalent, but they just aren’t. To suggest that Mournfang Brown is comparable to Bestial Brown (nevermind Calthan Brown, too) is insulting.
(It looks like my standby killer Scorched Brown -> Bestial Brown -> Snakebite Leather -> Devlan Mud combo’s been broken.)
So, anyway, I’m not happy about it.
I’ve been keeping myself relatively busy with hobby stuff: painting an endless parade of Halberdiers, wrestling with the new GW paints (which are overall pretty good, but change is dang frustrating), and putting models together.
What I haven’t been keeping up with is photographing that stuff and posting it here. I haven’t been too bad about getting stuff up on Twitter, but that’s not the same (and it’s never up in time for #MiniatureMonday). So, here’s a quick catch-up post.
Just over the past couple of days, I knocked out two Great Cannons and a Helblaster Volley Gun. The crews will follow at some point: they’re extremely low-priority, and I’m hoping inspiration for a scenic base will strike.
Just looking at them, it’s clear the Musician’s lance needs to be repositioned; the glue’s already drying. After I finish the first block of Halberdiers, these guys will probably be next.
This guy was going to go in Monday’s hobby catch-up post, but I took enough pictures of him and I’m happy enough with him that he gets his own post.
As soon as I decided to start running Demigryphs, it was immediately clear that I needed to run a Warrior Priest with them. A bunch of nasty baby gryphons hit hard, but Hatred helps make sure they hit as hard as they possibly can.
I’d converted up a few Warriors Priests of Manann on foot already (here and here), and was very happy with them. The army has a disconcerting lack of conversions in it, for the most part.
Originally, I thought I’d use a special character’s horse… but it turns out that none of them are appropriate or any different from the basic knight’s horse. So, I turned to the unassembled mounted General model in my bitz tub.
It’s a bit heavy on the Sigmarite iconography, so I had to do some shaving: removed the “SIGMAR”s (to later replace with painted “MANANN”s, replaced the moon with a trident, some twin-tailed comets with fish, and a twin-tailed comet hammer with an anchor.
I can’t get enough of these Flagellant heads as Priest heads. These guys look way crazier and more dangerous than the bald Sigmarites.
The only unfortunate thing going on here is the shield. Doing that Crown of Manann the first time and such was a huge pain and I didn’t feel like going through that again. Since I’m not likely to need two Warrior Priests on foot any time soon, I just ripped the arm off the linked Priest and reused it here.
So, I’ve gotten a handful of games in with the Empire at this point: 1-2 a week since the new book came out.
I’m doing okay with it. (By “okay with it” I really mean “I’ve yet to lose with it,” but it’s not a point I’d like to swagger over, since several games have been learning-the-new-book games, and there was even a teaching game in there. That’s very different from crawling to the top of the challenge pyramid with it.)
This is basically the list I’ve been running for the past couple of weeks:
Lords
General of the Empire (General) – Armour of Meteoric Iron, Sword of Might
Battle Wizard Lord – Heavens, Lvl 4, Talisman of PreservationHeroes
Battle Wizard – Shadow, Dispel Scroll
Captain of the Empire (BSB) – Great Weapon, Shield, Armour of Destiny
Master Engineer – Light Armour
Warrior Priest – Heavy Armour, Enchanted Shield, Ironcurse Icon, Warrior Bane
– Warhorse, BardingCore
Halberdiers x33 – Full Command
– Handgunners x10
Halberdiers x32 – Full Command
– Handgunners x10Special
Demigryph Knights x4 – Full Command, Steel Standard
Great Cannon
Outriders x5 – Champion w/ Brace of Pistols, Musician
Outriders x5 – Champion w/ Brace of Pistols, MusicianRare
Celestial Hurricanum
Luminark of Hysh
Helblaster Volley Gun
Next time I play, I plan on swapping on of the Demigryph Knights for a Witch Hunter with a Brace of Pistols. I like having an ablative Demigryph, but in combat I’ve found I don’t always get him in to swing, and he makes the unit pretty unwieldy to maneuver (225mm wide). Conversely, I’ve yet to not yearn for that 4+ (Witch Hunter + Aura of Protection) Ward Save vs. unpleasant magic.
For the most part: the General and the Lvl 1 go in one unit of Halberdiers, the BSB and the Lvl 4 in the other. The Warrior Priest joins the Demigryphs, and the Engineer (obviously) hangs out by the Helblaster. Ideally, I place the Cannon near enough to the Helblaster that the Engineer can go support it if necessary.
I vanguard the Outriders up so they have a good angle to shoot at things until they get charged, stand and shoot, and die. Halberdiers hold back as long as they can. The Demigryphs hang out on a flank and either push forward really aggressively or hold back to counter-charge or, at least, disincline my opponent from charging where they might be able to countercharge.
The Hurricanum and Luminark move around enough for the whole army. I’ve had really good fortune in getting them where they need to be to support whatever needs their support just in time. Ideally, the enemy pushes towards me: once they’re within 24″ the Handgunners and Helblaster open up.
Heavens has been magnificent. The debuffs it offers goes a long way to helping out my otherwise mediocre dudes (the Wizard Wagons help a lot, too). Harmonic Convergence on the Helblaster is, frankly, bullshit. So good. I need to never not take Miasma on the Shadow Wizard.
The Cannon is a cannon. I’d love two, but I can’t afford the points. The Helblaster is soooo good. In one game I rolled one misfire (that the Engineer rerolled) total. Well before that, I rolled three 10s. It’s amazing.
I tried Pistoliers instead of Outriders, thinking that their additional mobility would help with War Machine hunting: they’re cheaper, but for a reason. The lower BS, the lower range, the lower number of shots really hurt. I love Outriders, however. Amazing BS, disgusting rate of fire. Someone at the store (John) suggested (in the last book, but just as applicable now) taking a Champion with a Brace of Pistols: this means that, when they stand and shoot, they always do so at 12″ from the Champion. Depending on positioning, this means that at least half of your Outriders should be firing at short range. This has been amazing.
The two Wizard Wagons are so good, I feel like they’re auto-includes. I don’t think I can say that one’s better than the other, though: they’re both very useful in different ways. Halberdiers hitting on 3’s (or, if Miasma’s in effect, 2’s) is really, really nice. The 6+ Ward save runs hot and cold: sometimes it doesn’t do much, other times, it makes the army (within 6″) invincible. I hate them, though, because they’re going to be nightmares to paint. :( If and when you assemble them: magnetize those suckers. It’ll make transport a lot easier.
Demigryphs are really intimidating. They hit pretty hard, and I’ve been pleased with them. Hatred from the Priest is immensely helpful. If they ever FAQ it so Hatred doesn’t affect mounts, though… I’m going to have to rethink things.