Month: February 2021

February Retrospective

Hey everybody,
Another month has been and gone, and it’s once more time for another retrospective blog! I’m quite enjoying this idea, so hopefully that’ll continue for the year ahead! It’s been a pretty productive month as well, with a lot more hobby and stuff to report!

Since last month, I’ve been making terrific progress with the Ossiarch Bonereapers, which was most recently chronicled in my update blog, here. I’ve now got 590 points-worth of the bone-boys painted up in the colours of the Petrifex Elite. It’s been a lot of fun painting these chaps, although for now I’ve taken a small break as I look at what else I have that needs attention.

The next part of my plan for the Bonereapers is to have the Necropolis Stalkers painted, although I’m not sure whether to build them as the Stalkers or the Immortis Guard. It is on my radar to get more troops, although I’m kinda waiting for the inevitable Start Collecting box, which will likely have these guys in there. Unless they go for a cavalry box? That said, with 40k moving to these combat patrol boxes, I don’t know if they’re planning to continue to do these for much longer. At any rate, for now I’m continuing to build and paint what I have, rather than branching out and buying yet more miniature men.

Quite the sea-change for me, really!

At some point in the near future, though, it’ll be the turn of this magnificent specimen, and I cannot wait to get this one built!

In the middle of getting this small army of mine assembled, I did a little work on the nascent Black Legion that I’ve been wanting to get off the starting block for quite some time now! I’ve been inspired by Martin Sivertsen on Instagram and his own burgeoning Black Legion force! It’s a beautiful force, and I think it’s about time that I got somewhere with my own. In addition, I’ve also been hard at work building up the remaining models from the Necron side of the Indomitus box (I’ve decided to sell the Space Marine portion, more money for the stuff I do want!)

I’m still not a huge fan of the new Necron aesthetic of shambling robot zombies, but the army is of course my first love, and I do find myself enjoying the look of the new Crypteks, so have picked up a Psychomancer for the list that I talked about a while back, and I’m planning to start work on painting the Plasmancer pretty soon. That juggernaut of GW painting, Garfy, posted yesterday showing the new Chronomancer mini and it’s absolutely beautiful. Probably going to be a while before this one is released separately, but I suppose it’s at least four more months before we will see the lockdown restrictions removed here in the UK, so I’ve got the time! I’ve got a lot of disparate ideas for 40k floating around, but it seems as though I’m much more likely to focus myself on Age of Sigmar right now.

Slaanesh has been on my mind of course, now that we’ve had the new range of mortals released. I’ve picked up the Shardspeaker, such a fantastic model, but have otherwise reined myself in here. In all honesty, this is a force that is a long way off just now, and I’d rather keep focusing my efforts on the bone boys to get a decent sized force finished.

In addition to the Bonereapers and Slaanesh, I’ve had my eye on the Lumineth Realm-lords, following the latest Warhammer Preview this month. There are some very beautiful miniatures in this range, to be sure, and I’m trying my hardest to resist buying anything just now! There’s definitely something Old World about these minis, that makes me nostalgic for the old days. I keep thinking I might just pick up a box of the basic infantry, just to have a go…

Lumineth Realm-lords

So far, though, I have been a good boy!

Something that I haven’t been able to resist, though, is this:

The “latest” expansion for Warcry is a few months old now of course, but I’ve been thinking on it for quite some time, vacillating over whether to get it or whether it was a bit steep for the content involved.

However, I am glad to have it, despite all the negatives floating around online! Warcry is absolutely one of the things near the top of my list right now. I’ve been wanting to get further into that game recently, although I’ve still not played it after that game back in September. I’ve got the Iron Golem models from the original core set primed and waiting, and I’ve been thinking that may well be the next project to get underway with. Of course, Warcry could be the perfect way to start with Slaanesh when the time comes, and I’m sure I’ll be exploring more of that here!

Arkham Horror LCG The Circle Undone

At least I’ve been playing Arkham Horror LCG, and have managed to get started with recording my endeavours on the blog here! With working from home more regularly during the current lockdown, I’ve found that I have the time while on my lunchbreak to get a game in, which has been quite good for getting to explore the game some more.

Taking a sharp left turn now, I watched The Phantom Menace last weekend, for the first time in what feels like an age. It’s hardly the best film in the series, of course, but it did feel quite wonderful to be watching Star Wars once again, and I did feel really quite nostalgic for the whole saga. I used to watch the prequels almost every Christmas, while reading a selection of the novels and comics set around there – to the point where I had almost developed a set scheme for “my prequel Christmas”. I do quite miss the days when I had nothing much going on, and could read a 400 page book in a day, happy times! I’d like to try and get back into that maybe someday here, revisit the old days and chronicle some of those classic tales here – though much like with the Legacy series I re-read last December, it’ll be interesting to see if these things hold up.

Something that I have finished reading this month is the Warhammer Crime anthology No Good Men. I really enjoyed the first novel in the series, so had been looking forward to reading more. Anthologies can always be a bit ropey, and I think this one is no different. Seven short stories from Black Library alums (including Chris Wraight, author of the inaugural Bloodlines), all set on the world of Alecto and around the hive city of Varanganthua. The thing is, after Bloodlines, and after a couple of stories here, things begin to sound all the same. Probators going about their investigations, etc. There are a lot of missing persons, it seems, in the hive city, and I found myself wanting a bit more variety. I’m not really that down on the book, of course, but things just tend to blur into one at the end. Individually, the stories are pretty good, and very enjoyable with that noir feeling. Some are better than others, of course, but I definitely like the change from space marines and the like.

I’ve got Flesh and Steel, the next Warhammer Crime novel, ready and waiting. But I’m also hearing such good things about the first Star Wars High Republic novel, Light of the Jedi, that I’m thinking I might have to pick that one up sooner than later.

The Circle Undone

Hey everybody,
It’s game day here at spalanz.com, and I’m back to the mythos today as I’m talking about the cycle that I’m currently playing for Arkham Horror LCG!

Arkham Horror LCG The Circle Undone

So I’ve skipped over an entire cycle here, forgetting about The Forgotten Age for now and going straight to The Circle Undone! I’ve wanted to try out Diana Stanley as an investigator for some time, so even though it doesn’t feel like all that long since I played a Mystic, I wanted to see what the whole thing was about with cancelling effects and so on. Other than that, I had no real clue as to what I was letting myself in for, but to date, this has by far been one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences out there!

The deluxe expansion is where we’re at today, and things are a bit crazy off the bat. There is a prologue before we get to the main two scenarios of the game, Disappearance at the Twilight Estate. We’re at a party, and strange things are going on. There are four “prologue investigators” included in the box, who each have a hand (not a deck) constructed from the available pool of investigator cards. The object of this prologue is simply to survive – indeed, the booklet does actually start off by telling us “there is no positive resolution for this scenario”, ending with “good luck – you’ll need it”!

The prologue, I believe, has a bearing on what happens further down the line in the cycle, though I’ve read a lot of people don’t like this prologue scenario, because it forces you into playing “investigators” and so on that you don’t necessarily want to. It’s fine with me though, as it adds another layer of the narrative to things – although I wasn’t best pleased when I discovered that I needed to use cards that had already been earmarked for my investigator decks!

I played as Jerome Davids and Valentino Rivas in the prologue, and it ended up with them both being pulled into the spectral realm. Creepy mist is hanging about – it’s all beautiful!

The Circle Undone

The first scenario proper is The Witching Hour, and begins with the investigators having their fortunes told on the breezy streets of Arkham. The tarot reading is a big part of this expansion, as Tarot cards are a new slot in the game that add a variety of effects, which can be quite interesting – though again, a few people I’ve seen discussing this expansion online seem to object to the addition! Anyway, the first scenario is all about witches, as a bolt of lightning streaks across the sky and we are transplanted into Arkham woods. This is an interesting scenario in that the investigators are at first separated, and can only investigate their own location – set-up instructs you to pass the locations around the table and place them in front of you, which does nothing for me playing solo, but I imagine for a 4-player game it would be quite atmospheric!

The object of this scenario is a bit like ‘defeat the big baddie’, but once again we have that pervasive sense of how futile victory can be.

The Circle Undone

The second scenario, At Death’s Doorstep, sees us returning to the Meiger estate, investigating some disappearances that have been occurring in the French Hill area of Arkham. I played this one a little while after the prologue, which is just as well I think, because it does feel very similar at first. Depending on who got pulled into the mist in the prologue, clues are placed at certain locations and those locations can flip over onto their spectral side as before. It’s all very weird, with the mist coming into the house, but we learn that the Silver Twilight has attempted to recreate the events of the earlier scenario in order to investigate what exactly happened. Creepy stuff!

This scenario is slightly weird also, because it includes an Interlude in the middle of the game. Following the conclusion of the scenario, there is a further Interlude, which serves to put the story firmly on its trajectory for the subsequent cycle. More so than Dunwich or Carcosa, I felt very much like this one was trying too hard to straightjacket us into the right way, if that makes sense. It’s not getting in the way of things, I don’t think, but it is noticeably there, and as such does seem to impact a little on the flow of things. The second Interlude feels a little bit overly mechanical like this, in that it is a single story chopped up into 9 pieces, and we skip over any of those that didn’t have an impact, which feels ever so slightly odd. I don’t know, it sounds like I’m purposefully trying to be difficult about this box, and I’m really not! It’s probably one of my favourites for the theme so far, as I’ve said! New England witchcraft, what’s not to like?!

So I’m at the end of the box, now, and have managed to gather 7VPs for my investigators from the scenarios, along with becoming an enemy of the Lodge – something I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but there we go! I have accepted my fate, escaped the spectral realm, and I’m on Valentino’s trail. In addition, the booklet has been instructing me to note down “mementos discovered” – I have no idea why, but I feel it might be interesting later on. For now, then, I’ve recovered a mesmerizing flute, and some ritual components. Hm.

It really has been fun, despite my small grievances I’ve mentioned – I think it’s one of those that appeals to me because I enjoy the regular-cultist trope over fantastical monsters, and it is really intriguing to think how these two elements – witches, and the Silver Twilight – might come together. It’s making me want to get back into reading some of the more spooky Lovecraft stories – Dreams in the Witch House and so on! It’s a really nice pace for the game, and I think the fact I didn’t enjoy the second scenario as much is probably more to do with wanting to have more witchcraft-y scenarios like the first one!

So there we have it – I’m firmly on the path now, though have been finding it difficult to get games in since Christmas has been and gone. Definitely been in more of a hobby mood of late, as shown with the army update blogs, but hopefully I’ll be able to get some more card games in soon. I still have a lot of Lord of the Rings to catch up on, as well!

Lords of the Mortal Realms

Another weekend, another Warhammer Preview! I don’t know about you guys, but I’m quite enjoying how these things have been going throughout the lockdown period, and I kinda hope they continue when everything else returns to normal!

The latest event was all about the Mortal Realms, and seems to have been centred around two massive reveals, with some other bits peppered in.

To begin, we’re getting MOAR Lumineth Realmlords!

We’ve only just had the first wave of these things, and already we’re seeing a massive raft of reinforcements for them! At least Slaanesh had a couple of years between releases!

I have to say, though, that I’m finding it very difficult to resist collecting these guys now. I think it won’t be too much of a surprise to anybody here if I’ve bought a box of something before the end of spring, if not sooner!! Doesn’t help that I’m on such a fantasy kick right now with the Bonereapers… and they’re in the Dreadfane box that I’ve been eyeing up for the Slaanesh warband…

So yeah… I guess we shall see!! But I do love the new scenery piece…

Looks like we’re getting a trio of heroes for Nighthaunt, Stormcast and Soulblight that will be accompanying the next Broken Realms release, which is interesting! I suppose the Soulblight release can’t be too far off, then, as we’ve been seeing a lot of scattered previews already. Interesting times are on their way, for sure!

A part of me is enjoying seeing the new releases for armies like this, because it gives us more flavour of what the old Warhammer was all about. High Elves and Vampire Counts by another name, but it does feel good to be getting back to that feel, if nothing else!

I’m glossing over the Underworlds stuff because I’m not too sure what it’s all about and find things confusing on that front, but it seems there’s a new core set (this is in addition to Direchasm?) for folks to get some of the older cards, I suppose!

The other big reveal this weekend is the full box for the next Warhammer Quest game, Cursed City!

This thing is packed with minis!

I really feel like we’re being spoiled with these boxed games. Blackstone Fortress was incredible for a starter set, and while in retrospect the expansions were somewhat hit and miss by comparison, it was still incredible when you think about it. I mean, we had plastic Traitor Guard, for Throne’s sake!! Including a plastic Traitor Commissar! Incredible stuff.

This box has got all manner of weird stuff, and I absolutely love it. Whether it forms the basis for the impending Soulblight faction or not, I really don’t care. I’ve given up on getting a full Traitor Guard army in my lifetime, but instead have learnt to enjoy the box for what it is. As a board game, Blackstone Fortress might not be setting the world alight with its mechanics, but my god, those miniatures are excellent and give a really enjoyable experience for being so weird and wonderful. Similarly, then, I’m looking at this as a board game first, and not as allies for an existing army. And it’s great!

New Army update two

Hey everybody,
My new Ossiarch Bonereapers army is coming along really nicely so far! I’ve managed to paint well over 500 points of stuff, which is quite exciting for the time I’ve been doing this! Contrast paints have definitely proven to be a big help here. I don’t think I’d be anywhere near to what I’ve got if I were painting these entirely the traditional way.

I’d talked about the first unit of Mortek Guard, on the left there, in my first update. Since painting these guys almost as testers, I’ve been able to see where I can speed things up, and make sure I’m not spending forever getting bogged-down in detail. As such, the second unit of Mortek Guard, on the right, were painted up pretty quickly, alongside the Mortisan Boneshaper, my first hero miniature!

Now, all of these models are done up to a tabletop standard, and I’m not going to be winning any Golden Daemons for my efforts, but I think they look good enough, so that I can have a painted force that is ready to play, whenever the restrictions are lifted and we’re able to meet up with other folks again! And I can always come back to these guys and add in extra detail, if I need to, in times to come. The Boneshaper in particular, I had no idea what to do with that stream of magic, or whatever it is, forming the skeleton in front of him – the box art has it as a sort of pale blue-green, but with me using teal for the cloth I don’t think that would have worked. In the end, I went for pale blue to provide a bit of a contrast, but I know I want to come back to this at some point.

Even so, I’m really pleased with how the army has turned out up to this point. I’ve been following the guide for Petrifex Elite in the battletome, and it’s working well for me so far. The skeletons are done with Basilicanum Grey, the cloth with Terradon Turquoise followed by a drybrush of Kabalite / Sybarite Green, and the armour is Flesh Tearers Red followed by edge highlights of Wazdakka / Wild Rider Red. I think this is the first time I’ve actually been edge highlighting for real, and it does produce a nice effect, given the sharpness of the armour plates.

The weapons have been a particular success, I think! It’s just Terradon Turquoise again, this time with a drybrush of Temple Guard Blue to help give a different feel to the cloth, taking the turquoise colour more towards blue than green. I think the drybrush technique helps to give the weapons a magical feel, as it’s much less precise than edge highlighting.

For any weapon hilts, I’ve gone with Skeleton Horde to help break up the model a bit. For the spears, I’ve used Snakebite Leather for the hafts, which has a beautiful coverage, by the way. The light grey armour, as different from the bone, I’ve washed with Nuln Oil so that it stands out as different.

The last detail, really, is the jewel. In the lore, I think this is a bit like an Eldar spirit-stone, it contains the essence of the warrior spirits used to recreate the construct. They’re usually black, but given the dark nature of the bone, I went for green – Warpstone Glow and Moot Green, with a Biel-Tan Green wash to help bring out a certain vibrancy. It seems to look okay, anyway, and I think the green fits in well with the teal while providing a nice contrast with the red.

For the big lad, I basically ramped this scheme up, and I’m pleased to say that it seems to work fine on the bigger models. I tried to give some visual interest by drybrushing some parts of the skeleton with Administratum Grey, while others around the cage on his back I gave a heavier wash of the contrast paint. Any bone that he’s collecting I have left as Skeleton Horde, because otherwise it could have just been a mass of grey!

So there we have it! The first steps in collecting the bone-tithe for Nagash have begun!

I’m thinking that I might have a break from these chaps, and paint either some Warcry or Necromunda. Or maybe something totally different. But it won’t be too long before I’m going to tackle the next unit, the Necropolis Stalkers!!

New Slaanesh 2021!

Wow!
I know we’ve had previews for these things doing the rounds for a while now, but the new Slaanesh units up for preorder this weekend really are quite something!! I think, more than anything else, I’m surprised the range has expanded so much because it has only been, what, two years since the last batch of Slaanesh releases. But now that the daemons have had their overhaul, with a new Fiend model and a new plastic greater daemon, we’ve got a new suite of mortals to accompany them, including the mortal avatar Sigvald the Magnificent!

I love this guy. Sigvald was the first Warhammer novel that I read, back before I really knew what all this hobby was all about, and as weird as that book was, it’s given me an eternal soft spot for the character.

The new model is wonderful, and certainly an improvement on the older one, showing the strides that we’re seeing with new Games Workshop plastic stuff when compared with the models of yesteryear.

We’ve had mortal Slaanesh models for years, of course, in the Hellstriders, but now the range has been fully fleshed out, following the release of Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm, which included the Dread Pageant as one of its warbands. The recent box set with Daughters of Khaine then gave us the Lord of Pain as a main character, which was really telegraphing the fact that Slaanesh mortals would soon be a thing.

The new range is quite splendid, in the end, with not only the Lord of Pain and Sigvald, but also the Shardspeaker sorcerer model, which is an auto-buy for me, as a trio of leaders. We then have a unit of archers, a dual-kit for mortal cavalry, a dual-kit for elites, and the Slaangors.

Oh yeah, and the big centrepiece guy…

I mean, that guy is really quite something. I doubt I’ll be rushing to get one, of course – especially seeing as how I’m in the middle of at least half a dozen other projects right now – but as far as these things go, it really is a beautiful model, in the diorama tradition of Katakros, no less! I’m very tempted to pick up some of the archers though, and I will for sure be getting Sigvald at some point, just to have. My Slaanesh Daemons army is quite hefty already, so I have no shortage of models that I need to do something with – so I don’t want to be adding to the mass of plastic that I already have, as that’ll just bum me out. But a couple of the new things would be nice, and I believe they’re in the Warcry book for Chaos, so I’ll definitely get some mileage out of them!

I really never thought we’d see so much stuff for Slaanesh, especially given the efforts made at first to sideline the Dark Prince in favour of the Horned Rat. It really is a glorious time of excess for the followers of Slaanesh, and I could not be more pleased!

Warcry: Catacombs – first impressions

Hey everybody,

So, it was inevitable really that I’d get this box. I’d been really excited about it when it was first announced, but the initial reports that came in back last November were a bit less than stellar. It seemed to be the price that caused most concern, with much less content provided here than in the original starter set, but it came at an increased cost.

In addition, the production value seemed to be a bit off, with stuff like the box being much less sturdy, no Chaotic beasts, the rule book was the same as the original, taking no account of the faq etc, the Catacombs content was confined to a slim book which felt a bit cheap (the Khainite Shadowstalkers having some content on the back cover, which feels incredibly wrong…) – and so on, and so forth.

So why did I buy it, given all of these complaints?

I suppose, first of all, it’s worth mentioning that this is an expansion for Warcry. Much like other game expansions, it brings additional content in a new and interesting way to play the game, and there is actually a lot of new content here for the Catacombs “system”. It’s not just like Kill Team Arena that pared back the rules to provide a much more balanced system – this isn’t what Catacombs is about.

Instead, we get a rule set that has elements of that competitive side of things, with players placing terrain as opposed to playing on a pre-set table, and there are real choices that can be made to your benefit while doing so. Suddenly, the lack of terrain cards here makes a bit more sense, huh?

The terrain that we get is a little sparse, consisting mainly of doors, with some obstacles of rubble. There is additional terrain, some of the ruins from the original starter set, but nothing new, and nothing that isn’t available separately. However, I do like that rubble terrain. I’m such a sucker for scatter terrain for getting the table looking really nice and atmospheric! It’s almost like I bought the box for this, and everything else is a nice bonus!

I think Catacombs is here to stay as a format, too. Several of the quests included in the Tome of Champions and the Grand Alliance books use it as a layout, with every faction (I think!) receiving at least one. I think it’s a shame that we couldn’t have had the system in a box by itself, though. All of the dungeon terrain, the boards (possibly including the two other boards that were released at the same time), and the book (reformatted with quests for all and a proper back cover) and that’s all we need. I’d probably pay more than the usual environment expansion price, too.

But we do get two more warbands in here, and I suppose at least one of them, the Scions of the Flame, do sort of belong in a dungeon setting.

They do look beautiful, of course, and I suppose it fits that GW wanted to make this something like a celebration box by including them to bump the price up. The Scions are the last of the original eight Chaos factions, and the Khainite Shadowstalkers are the first original non-Chaos warband in the game. A sign of things to come, perhaps? Personally, I hope not, as I love this game for being Chaos all the way, but at the same time, it’s good to have a more mass-appeal, so as to ensure its continued popularity and support!

When all is said and done, I am glad to have picked this one up. There’s still a lot of stuff in here, and I’m excited to at least get it assembled and try out some dungeon battles! I’m glad that I managed to get it from my FLGS at a discount though, because even with the bulk of some of the original terrain, I’m still not really sure I’d want to have paid RRP.

My plan is to continue with getting the first batch of the Ossiarch Bonereapers finished for the next few weeks, but look for more Warcry coming soon!!

Warhammer Crime: Bloodlines

Hey everybody,
It’s been more than a week since I finished this bad boy, so it’s definitely time that I got down my thoughts on the blog here! Warhammer Crime is the second subset of Warhammer novels, following the Horror imprint that made its debut in 2018. Warhammer Crime came along in 2020 with Bloodlines by Chris Wraight, which was a huge draw for me, for a number of reasons. First of all, of course, Chris Wraight is one of my all-time favourite Black Library authors, and while I do love a bit of the crime (stories, not actual crime), I thought this could be a great vector to introduce my wife into the world of 40k, as she reads almost exclusively crime fiction.

Bloodlines is, at its most straightforward, a missing persons story, following the Probator Agusto Zidarov as he follows the trail of a wealthy industrialist’s son. The search takes him into the underground pharmaceutical trade, and includes a fairly hefty dose of industrial espionage and politics along the way. That’s how I kept selling it to Jemma, but to date she hasn’t taken the bait. But you never know!

The novel is set on the world of Alecto, mainly in the hive city of Varangantua. There is a very strong Necromunda vibe here, for sure, and I had a lot of serious call-backs to the Ravenor books, which is probably the closest we’ve had to Warhammer Crime up to this point. Zidarov is basically the Warhammer version of a detective, so he’s a bit of a different breed to the Enforcers that we’ve also seen in novels. I found it interesting to see the emphasis placed on this being pretty much a police procedural, and the aspects that make this 40k were almost down-played, which makes me think this could be to allow the book to appeal to the widest possible audience. For sure, the references are there if we want to notice them – I mean, the major plot point of the pharmaceutical trade involves rejuvenat treatments, which we know of course from so many 40k novels (including those Ravenor novels), and of course we see folks armed with laspistols and autoguns. But you don’t need to know what any of these things are to enjoy the book – interestingly, I’d say we actually learn more about the rejuvenat process here than we’ve ever learnt in mainstream 40k.

There is some wonderful world-building here – this is one of those sci-fi books where none of the food or drink is familiar, you know? It weirdly helps to ground the book in the realms of the more mundane, though, and made me realise that we’ve never actually had a 40k book like this before. I suppose the emphasis has always been on the battles and the insane stuff, even with Ravenor we get those glimpses into the downtime that folks have, but here there is almost a family drama playing itself out for us in the middle of the investigation, with Zidarov and his wife worrying about their daughter’s desire to join the Astra Militarum. It was interesting, to me, because again, we don’t need to know what this means in the context of the 40k universe for it to have an impact – it was very much two parents worrying about their child getting shipped off to die on some distant battlefield.

It was very well written, with a fantastic feel of the classic noir detective story throughout. You could almost imagine Zidarov sat behind the frosted-glass door with his name on it, smoking a cigar while brooding on the case. No femme fatale here, but maybe that’s being kept for a later book, you know? Interestingly, the book is described as “An Agusto Zidarov Novel” as if we’ll be getting more, so hopefully there is something in the works for that, anyway!

Warhammer Crime

Varangantua is apparently the setting for at least a few more books in the subset, though, and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the next one, Flesh and Steel, by Guy Haley. Another Black Library veteran, it sounds like this one might be a bit more 40k-y, as it features a probator working alongside the Adeptus Mechanicus. It’s on order, anyway, so I’m sure it won’t be too long before I’m back here with my thoughts on that one, too!