Warhammer: Demigryph Knights wip & a Small OOP Treat!

With the Warrior Priest finished and painting I decided this week to keep the momentum up by doing some work on the troop stuff. Firstly I magnetized the halberd horde and characters; including the Warrior Priest. It is so much easier moving this unit around now, and not having to worry about the regimental standard and battle standard bearer toppling over! I am using 10mm diameter discs at 1mm thick, with a little greenstuff underneath. This weekend I am intending to work on the Demigryph Knights, as I really like the miniatures, however I have had one minor issue so far. The problem is a testament to how long it has been since I last put cavalry together; considering my last two Warhammer armies were Beastmen and Dwarfs; I made the rookie mistake during the building process of gluing the riders to the mounts. Naturally once I had undercoated them and was about to start painting the barding, I noticed the problem immediately. Needless to say after much cursing, ripping and re-gluing, the riders are now off the mounts.

I have decided to go with the blue steel plate armour and crimson barding colour scheme as per the Uniforms & Heraldry book, even though it would have been nice to see green plate armour knights, I am deciding to play it safe by going with the conventional 'modern' scheme.

Some new toys in the form of Marauder Miniatures this morning! I have seen a these figures floating about in ones and twos recently, but not a full set in original blister pack, so naturally I went all out to get hold of them; it almost seems a shame to open them. There is so much character in these sculpts, that is lost on the more generic Empire plastics of today. I will more than likely have these as the command group of a spearmen unit, but how I will make the spearmen I am not sure, I am thinking in order to keep the theme I should use the Greatsword heads with hats and plumes, but from experience and practically I know those will not rank up well using the States trooper bodies (besides who wants soldiers with no shoes!), should I just make the spearmen entirely from Greatsword kits?

So lots of Empire fun as usual this end. Lorna is sadly working this weekend so will have limited hobby time, but quite frankly she does not really need that much. All that remains for her to build is the Mortis Engine, then it is painting time for her, It looks like we are dead on schedule for an end of the month battle report!

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

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Gallery: Empire Warrior Priest with Hand Weapon & Shield

The Warrior Priests are one of the most iconic images in Warhammer, thanks mainly to the intro videos of the Warhammer: Battle March and Warhammer Online video games. The idea of one man's faith standing up to the forces of Chaos is such a great image, that I had to have one of these characters leading my fledgling Empire army. I managed a nice and quick job, taking only one evening to finish and I hope to be just as fast working my way through the infantry blocks.

I intend to include another Warrior Priest in the army at 2000+ points, perhaps the Forge World 2013 release as it is such a nice model, but I could easily see myself painting all the current Warrior Priest releases just for the sake of, since they are such great miniatures.

Warhammer: Warrior Priest WIP

After so many weeks building and cleaning my Empire army, I have been chomping at the bit to do some actual painting. At the start of this week I started cleaning the atrociously cast Warrior Priest who features in my army list. I actually had to purchase two copies of the miniature due to how poor the first cast was; but to no avail; the second cast was just as terrible, so I set to work trying to make one of the miniatures usable. Below is the second version of the figure (the one I ended up using is as bad if not worse than the one pictured), I don't know how much of the defects are visible from the photo, but I had to contend with lots of bubbles (as to be expected), lots of pink rubbery residue in the hood specifically and very deep mold lines from where the molds had slipped (probably). 

Despite the problems with the cleaning, the painting was actually quite fun. I took a simpler approach, which I intend to apply as an army standard. There are still some issues on the finished model, such as the odd mold line and bubble that I missed, but I was getting so stressed, that if I did not paint it now, I would never paint it at all. I prefer this Warrior Priest model of the ones I currently have; simply because it sits in the halberd regiment nicely and also because it looks like he is about to smack someone with the book! But the best thing about this figure: is that it only took me one evening to paint, which for me is warp factor 10. I just hope I can apply some of that speed over the coming weeks on the infantry blocks.

The above is the completed model, fully painted and based (not sure if I am adding snow yet) taken quickly via iPhone. I have already taken 'glamour shots' for a new Warhammer painted gallery that I will be adding to the blog, but be warned I am no professional, so don't be too disappointed if the photos make the figure look like something out of John Carpenter's 'The Thing'! I did learn something new today also which is always good, and that thing is: My camera does not have a manual Aperture setting...which is apparently really important for taking pictures of small subjects...

Fingers crossed, photos will be edited and up tonight, after which; more painting!

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

*UPDATE* I have just noticed a problem with thumb nail images not showing ,in the Gallery section. I am working to resolve.

*UPDATE* Primary Gallery image problems fixed, lost a few Space Marine photos though in the process.

Inspired? Reinforce today and support the 14th legion by shopping with: Wayland Games - Discount Wargames

Auctions: Lots Incoming

Greetings readers, just a quick heads up to let you all know, that I am doing the mandatory yearly figure cleanup and this year I have lots of stuff kicking around the hobby den. There will be a wide range of figures available, most will be second hand, built but never painted and in some cases completely brand new in box with original wrapping. I will be adding auctions everyday from now, starting at 7:30pm (UK time) with each auction running for 7 days.

Currently on auction are some Scibor dwarves and Warmachine Khador stuff, going up this evening, will be more Warmachine Khador figures, complete with current cards. I do have some old gems like Squats, various Rogue Trader era Space Marines, AT-43, Confrontation Drunes, Orcs etc all of which will be on auction, so please check daily to avoid missing out.

To see the what is currently available in store (and bookmark for future) click HERE

Thanks for reading and happy shopping/bidding,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Army List: Lorna's Vampire Counts 1750

Sadly work commitments meant both Lorna and myself had very little hobby time last week; however what little we did have, we made good use of. I finished building my Amber Wizard Lord on Griffon and have nearly finished the Demigryph Knights. Lorna on the other hand finished an entire unit of 30 Mantic Zombies in two evenings, which is pretty impressive, she even managed to find time to work out her 1750 list. With the big blocks of infantry now built, we are both edging to completion of building our armies completely and preparing to move to the painting phase by the start of June. Despite being new to Warhammer Fantasy, Lorna has taken her previous Warmachine (Cryx) experience and applied it to building her Vampire Counts list, I have not helped her (at her request) with the construction of the list, only with how to break down some of the more confusing magic item selections.

So here is her first list, which I think is actually pretty good first attempt and like myself she has gone with a strong theme based around characters she likes - in this case Heinrich and Krell. I don't mind special characters if they are played in a narrative sense, and even though I don't have any myself, I have no issues facing up against these two historically (Warhammer) significant characters...although I do wish I had still had my old Gotrek and Felix models to use, as that would make for a great narrative! 

Heinrich Kemmler

Krell Lord of the Undead

30 Skeleton warriors
Full command, hand weapon, light armour, shield and spears

30 Crypt Ghouls
Crypt Ghast upgrade

10 Black Knights
Full command, Barding and lance upgrades
The Razor standard

3 Vargheists
Vargoyle upgrade

Mortis Engine

Like my list, it looks very low on numbers for 1750, this is down to the character investments, she does have an almost unhealthy obsession at the moment with all things zombies that she picked up on a forum, so I can be sure that she will try and get that 30 strong unit of zombies to manifest at some point during the game. Lorna already has plans afoot to extend the army to 2500, and I am sure I saw an order somewhere for at least another 60 zombies and a couple of Plaguecarts! But for now she is content at fielding this list for our next couple of games.

I am hoping that in the future, Lorna will write her own blog posts regarding her army, if nothing more than to give her more ownership on the blog, however work does put some restrictions on how much time she can dedicate to hobby stuff at any one time - the joys of shifts and mandatory Saturdays. Perhaps we will both go the video/youtube route and make use of the 14th Legion channel as our Warhammer project rolls on.

Thanks for reading,

DiStudios

The 14th Legion

Inspired? Reinforce today and support the 14th Legion by shopping with: Wayland Games - Discount Wargames