colour by numbers - my fantasy hobby log

[Sylass]

After a 5 year break I'm currently trying to get back into the hobby (the playing & painting part of it...collecting never was a problem for some reason ) and I hope this log will help/remind me to get back to painting my miniatures on a (more or less) regular basis.

To get this started I'll first post a few random pictures of a gaming table/surface I started building almost 1 year ago. It's still pretty much looking the same and hasn't seen a real battle yet. However, there's a decent chance that we'll play our first game of 8th edition WHFB using this table tomorrow...

The table is meant to go together with one of these silicone based gaming mats made by Zuzzy Miniatures I bought years ago and a few pieces of common GW terrain.

I doubt I'll be able to paint the terrain (or the gaming mat not shown in the pictures) anytime soon. Likely I'll try to focus on my 8th edition army first.

[Sylass]

Speaking of an 8th edition army...

As I do not have a fully legal/working army to use yet, I'm currently trying to decide which army to start/build.

The two most obvious options would be:

• prepare my old BoC to fit the requirements of 8th edition.
• resurrect my VC army.

The more uncommon option would be:

• start a new army.

Beastmen
My BoC army is sitting in a case next to me and there's a decent number of miniatures/units to be used as the core of a new army. Because of rules changes (armybook and core rules) from 6th to 8th edition my old army list itself needs a complete redesign (my old army focused on ambush and multiple small units of herds/hounds mostly).
In addition to the already finished miniatures I have a box of new Ungors, Gors and Bestigors each. I even started assembling some of these miniatures some time ago...

Vampire Counts
Undead/VC have always been one of my favourite armies and I'd feel kinda bad not updating them.
I left a lot of old Undead/VC miniatures at my parents place but most of them would need a major overhaul (poor painting etc). It's quite likely that I'd prefer to sell them and buy new sets instead.
Here at my place I have a VC battalion and the odd box of Ghouls and Graveguard.

New army
Quite unlikely at the moment cause I already have a couple of boxes/miniatures for 2 other armies (see above). In addition we are probably going to move to a new place soonish and I heard it may be a good idea to save a bit of money...
However, if there's one new army I'd start it would be Dwarfs. Sadly (or luckily!) I don't like the current plastic sets, so -for now- that's not an option.

(Well, looking at the new IoB starter box I could go on and mention that Skaven and High Elfs look tempting too, but that's a different story...)

Decisions, decisions...

[Sylass]

I already started rebasing the Ungors of my old BoC army today. Quite a bit of a pain if you ask me. I'm praying to the Dark Gods that they'll keep using these 20mm bases from now on...I know for sure I'llot rebase them another time.

[mrtn]

At least you had shields on some of them, I only had two with shields. Your old models look good, should be nice with new basing and command models.

[Sylass]

Thanks for the comment (first reply and all that ).

@Ungors & shields
If I have to guess I'd say about 50% of the Ungors already have shields. All of them still have spears cause that was the only way to equip them when the 6th edition list was released. Guess I'll exchange a few broken spears with spare hand weapons before I start re-painting the hooves/bases.


To me the hardest part is going to be writing a new army list. After all the BoC...Beastmen army changed a lot and I'm unsure if I'm able to adapt to these changes. Relying on Gor/Ungor Raiders and Ambush en masse is pretty much dead I fear...

[mrtn]

Have you visited the Herdstone? (link in sig)
We have a lively tactical discussion going on. It seems that the book was almost flipped upside down with the change from 7th to 8th, Minotaurs, raiders and hounds are now worse, while bestigors and ranked core units are much better.
Ranked units seem to be the deal, and Primal Fury for hatred. The Beast banner and the Beast lore signature spell has a good reputation as well.

[Sylass]

Yeah, I know the herdstone. I registered an account there during my first attempt to restart my Beastmen army (around the start of the year, I think). A lot of useful advice, but I never started posting there.

[Gargobot]

Seems like you made up your mind already, but if you're still not sure my vote would have been for the BoC.
From what you're describing they're less work, and I love the bases. Bummer that you "have" to rebase them though.

What's that on the monster-sized bases, btw? Can't really make it out on the photo.

[Chicken Pig]

Great to see some of your minis Sylass. I think that given you have a reasonable start to two armies in the form of your BOC and some Undead why not see if you can do a little of both and then go from there. If one army gives you more inspiration move on to concentrate upon that army.

It seems like quickly you could have a BOC army and with the battalion and other boxes for your Vampire Counts you could quite quickly have a workable army for either race.

But overall welcome back to the painting and modelling world, good luck and I hope that this log is the start of a great new army for you.

Have you considered joining the Tale of Fantasy painters for a bit of further inspiration?

[HisBrettness]

I'm glad that you chose the Beasts....they have so much potential and somehow I rarely see a small Beast warband let alone a fully painted army of them. So I'm eager to see your Army grow or should I say "re-grow"^^.

Rebasing is a hell of work....I had to do it with my Nightgoblins (as I didnt like my old Basedesign anymore -_-). But the finished Ungors look pretty neat. I'm a huge fan of snow-themed armies...so another plus there :P.

cheers
HisBrettness

[Sylass]

Seems like you made up your mind already, but if you're still not sure my vote would have been for the BoC.
From what you're describing they're less work, and I love the bases. Bummer that you "have" to rebase them though.

What's that on the monster-sized bases, btw? Can't really make it out on the photo.

Yep, for now I decided to start with the Beastmen first. As you already said, it'll be easier/faster to make a full army from what I already have here.

The things on the square monster bases are my 2 Chaos Spawns (Mordheim "Thing in the Woods" miniatures) and a Centigor Lord conversion (based on the Shaggoth torso and Archaons steed).

The miniatures mounted on round 40mm 40k bases are characters (1 Beastlord, 1 Wargor and a Brayshaman). I'm still unsure if I'll rebase them or simply leave them sitting on these bases. Back in the days of skirmishing formations it wasn't much of a problem to place them in units...

Great to see some of your minis Sylass. I think that given you have a reasonable start to two armies in the form of your BOC and some Undead why not see if you can do a little of both and then go from there. If one army gives you more inspiration move on to concentrate upon that army.

Yep, starting with one army (Beastmen here) doesn't necessary mean that I'll stick to them. I'm easily distracted by other shiney miniatures, especially if I have a new conversion or similar in mind.

[...] But overall welcome back to the painting and modelling world, good luck and I hope that this log is the start of a great new army for you.

Have you considered joining the Tale of Fantasy painters for a bit of further inspiration?

Thanks.

Yes, I thought about it, but decided against joining the tale. As mentioned, there's a good chance that we'll move soon and then these 2 jokers probably aren't enough to make up for the "lost" time during the move.

I'm glad that you chose the Beasts....they have so much potential and somehow I rarely see a small Beast warband let alone a fully painted army of them. So I'm eager to see your Army grow or should I say "re-grow"^^.

I agree with you here, they are a good looking army with a strong theme once they are fully painted. Looking at the case full of BoC miniatures made me go all "awwwwww, what a waste if I don't get them ready for 8th edition".

However, looking at the army book leads to a similar reaction, sadly all that's left of the original feeling is the "what a waste" part...

[...] I'm a huge fan of snow-themed armies...so another plus there :P.

When I first looked at the army again yesterday I asked myself it I should maybe ditch the snow theme and rebase the whole lot. Luckily rebaing the Ungors made me rething this idea.

Not sure if it's correct, but when I painted that army in 2004 I believe I was one of the first doing a full snow themed army. When playing at Warhammer World or other tournaments, pretty much everyone asked about how I did the snow on the bases (baking soda) and commented on the snowy theme.

[Sylass]

A bit of progress...

Ungors
I assembled a few more old Ungors with hand weapons and 2 Ungor command groups. In addition I re-activated an old Ungor standard bearer & musician (the ones with the GS masks) I originally planned to use in a unit of converted Bestigors.

All these miniatures now give me the option to field either 3 smaller units of Ungors or 2 larger ones.




Ungor Raiders
Finished assembling 2 units of 10 Ungor Raiders I started working on months ago. Not sure if 10 per unit is the ideal number for them, maybe I should run 3 units of 6 instead?




Bestigors
Now that there are plastic Bestigors to buy, I'll not continue converting Gors to Bestigors (the new ones are way too good looking to be ignored and my conversion skills aren't the greatest). I guess I'll simply add the 3 or 4 already existing converted Bestigors to the back of an upcoming unit of new Bestigors (need to buy another box or two though...).




Centigors
Yep, I did it again. The moment I saw the new plastic Bestigors I knew I'd do another Centigor conversion...I simply love Centaurs/Centigors. If

How would Harry phrase it?
Bestigolds + new marauder horses = Centigolds

[75hastings69]

centigolds!!! how brilliant is that????

glad you decided on beasts as there aren't that many around, really looking forward to your updates.

[Harry]

Bestigolds. Classic.
Tell you what they look great too.
Very nice painting and basing on the older stuff too.

[Sylass]

Well, seeing that GW does not offer an overpriced box of plastic Centigors, I simply had to build my own.

[mrtn]

I think it would have been good to use the shield arms with moulded-on shields on the new ungors, so you could use the loose ones on your old ungors. Having a shield is not an option anymore, so you should have them on all your ranked ungors.

The centigold looks cool.

[Sylass]

There are arms with moulded-on shields?

The 20 new Ungors are all build to represent Ungor Raiders (no shield option as far as I remember) but I guess I'll try to replace the odd shieldless arm of the old ranked Ungors then...

Something I noticed pretty quickly was that Ungors do not seems to rank up very well when equipped with shields (and the "new" 20mm bases don't really have a positive effect here).

[mrtn]

There are arms with moulded-on shields?

Eh, yes? Did you buy bits instead of the new box or something? Since your Ungors03 pic has the new hand weapons I assumed that you had seen the sprues. Otherwise pics here. Ungors come with shields and HW, and can get spears. Ungor Raiders come with bows.

[Sylass]

You are of course correct. I bought a box of Ungors but never paid much attention to the new shields until you mentioned them.

[Sylass]

I finished assembling the box of Bestigors last night and I plan to use a unit of them in a game today. Second picture shows them next to one of the Ungor herds.



Speaking of a game...in about 1-2 hours we'll play our first game of 8th edition WHFB. The table is set up (terrain still needs to be placed properly, guess we should have a look at the rules how this is done now).



I'm currently trying to write an armylist for the upcoming game featuring 1500 points of Beasts. There's so much I'd like to try but there aren't enough points left for all the cool/big stuff. I guess I'll end up using a simple core heavy army...



(please notice the GW biro in the last picture!)