Slayers

   There are two units I think my dwarf army is missing, beyond just generally making the army bigger, a war machine - bolt thrower especially and a unit of slayers.

   The Gotrek and Felix series of novels - even with the early ones starting to date badly now* - are a must read for every warhammer fantasy/Age of Sigmar fan and I am slowly working my way through them after giving up on Dragonslayer probably 20 years ago now. These books really got me thinking about the unit of slayers I keep meaning to add to the army.

*controversial?

   Back in 2023 with old world slayers having been discontinued and seriously expensive online I needed a different plan, so I looked for recommendations online, but none of the alternative figures quite did it for me. Then I went back to a half baked plan, the Age of Sigmar Fyreslayers, who are the spiritual descendants of the slayer, so would they work. I bought a sprue online to test the theory.

   The long and the short, they were OK, but a lot of phaff to make and the plan was never going to be cheap. Then along came the rerelease of the Old World and a box of the old metal slayers - in a box of 12 . . . The price made me upset, but eBay prices made me sadder and my initial Fyreslayer plan also wasn't cheap, so I bought a set when they went on preorder.

   I really like these old figures and while my bank account was sad for a month or so, I don't have a lot of regrets beyond why they sat half painted on the shelf behind me for a year or so at this point.

   I especially love the sad expressions on these two's faces. They may be berserkers who are atoning for perceived sins, but they are also sad about those sins.

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2nd Edition Warhammer 40k?

   One of my old 30k podcast mates started playing Warhammer 40k in 2nd edition* and has a real nostalgia for that era that he can't quite shake. He's been talking about doing a 2nd edition project for a few months now, but finally took the plunge a couple of months back, buying up figures he would have used at the time, namely Space Wolves, and painting them in the style of the edition.

*compared to my 3rd edition beginnings 

   I'm someone who is always happy to look at a new project if it won't cost an absolute bomb and there is a decent chance it will get used, so I toyed with looking into doing something similar, settling on probably just building something a bit closer to 3rd edition and calling it quits.

   Until someone who reads this blog - Phil - messaged to say he had a box of old Warhammer to get rid of, did I want it? Looking through some of the photos, I saw 2nd Edition Chaos Space Marines and my creative juices started flowing.

   This post is about the first squad plus Aspiring Champion (separate unit) for this army. I've painted them in, what I think is, 2nd edition colours for the Black Legion - so more yellow and red than you'd see nowadays. I plan to go back over the army if I find any better pictures online, but my googlefu has slightly failed me on this one.

Thanks for reading and extra thanks to Phil

Undead Wolves

   I always try and stay upbeat and positive about models and the hobby on this blog, as anyone that stumbles upon it isn't here to see me whining, but this unit have been a real disappointment in multiple ways.

   I ordered them back in February from Little Corporal and they arrived in the last couple of days of August. To be fair to the shop, the figures are from a US company and the shop thought they had stock on hand at the time of the order and only found out they didn't when they initially tried to pack them. Add in the order time from the US, the shop itself moved and didn't do any orders for a month and then the owner had a health scare and didn't send anything for a couple more months and its been a long process actually getting them.

   Then the figures turn up and as they are 15mm skeletons with spindly little legs, necks and tails, them being packed in a padded jiffy bag has meant that every single one was squashed flat. I've bent them all back up and had about a third of them being too broken to be able to fix. So, I've downgraded them from two bases and a couple of spares worth to a single horde base.

   Now, the figures. These are skeleton wolves, which I've quietly lusted over for a couple of years now, mostly successfully not ordering until a moment of weakness earlier this year. They were a test order as I wanted to see how they looked alongside other stuff before I took the plunge with a big order.

   They are simply painted up as there isn't much to do with them and I quite like them, now they are based, but they are fragile as anything and it's a unit (like the bats) that I don't think will survive more than a game or two before someone breaks one or more.

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Sanctifiers

   How do I explain this post? Really it should be the second or 3rd post in a series but it's the first, so lets give this a go. Warhammer released scenery kit a few years back of an angelic statue about 2 stories high that I always meant to buy but couldn't quite justify the price of, they then discountinued it and the second hand price went mental. A few years later, Warhammer released a Kill Team box called Blood and Zeal, which had the statue in again but I also couldn't justify buying two Kill Teams to get some scenery, so I passed on.

   I have spent the start of summer painting a World Eaters Chaos army and one of the units it can take are Goremoungers, effectively slightly improved cultists who rather helpfully come in the Blood and Zeal box. As the box is out of print now the 3 parts of it have gone on sale separately and are all about half the price of the box. It was about this point I realised that I wanted 2 parts, I had a vague use for the 3rd. 

   Luckily there is a shop around the corner from me that is actually a vape shop, but who set a board up in their shop to play 40k during the day and kept having customers ask if they sold Warhammer, so they decided to do just that. Because they don't have a website, strange boxes of things that sell out on release day sit unsold on their shelves, so it's a grab place to pick up the odd things that you missed first time around - this was one of those.

   This is very much becoming one of those units that was bought without a plan as the 'almost free' bit of a set I wanted and has quickly become my favourite bit. I now need to make sure I don't build an army around it, but I have so many projects fighting to be the first I do next, that's not too big a challenge.

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Astral Claws Scout Squad

   Is this another new project? Let me explain. 

   My old Heresy podcast group is a strange whatsapp chat where we can be completely silent for months and then we talk non-stop for a few weeks, spitballing ideas that rarely go anywhere. One idea I floated a few months back was of a meet up to play 5th edition Warhammer using the Badab War books from Forgewold. I've always wanted to play some games from this campaign but I've never had an opponent. 

   I'd worked out a 1000 point list, which was pretty normal for the time, worked out prices and was fairly surprised by how cheap the bulk of the project would be, barring two units - the dreadnought (I didn't want a venerable one and GW don't sell the old normal one anymore) and the scout squad.

   Then someone who reads this blog got in contact to say they were getting rid of their old warhammer bits and did I want them? Of course I said yes - thanks Phil! 

   I'm going to go into some of the stuff in the box properly in another post - as there is another whole new project I'm doing from this box, plus another half formed project in my head - but one thing that jumped out when I was sorting through the bits was the metal scouts.

   With excited cries, I ran to check my notebook and my 1000 point list and found I had all the scouts, plus extras, that I needed. So they duly got sprayed and put onto my painting desk - the project was go.

   I need to order some decals from my German supplier, but I'm really pleased to see this project starting up. I've got big plans even knowing that I don't expect this to ever see a table top. Sometimes it's nice to get ideas out of your head and be creative.

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584th Liumia Pegasii

   As the guy who is playing all sides in the current 40k campaign, I keep thinking about what isn't represented that probably should be*, the Imperial Battle Group is likely to include a few Space Marine chapters, at least one Sisters of Battle order, then nowhere near enough Guard.

   With this in mind, I sat and thought about what would make sense to represent another regiment but to keep the project small without it being daft that I only painted a single platoon. It was obvious that the answer is basically Kasrkin or Tempestus Scions and as I have a unit of the former to paint for my traitors, the latter made the most sense.

*the chaos side is easier, as they are just warbands pulled together, there are no rules, although, I probably need a bit more variety in traitor guard/cultists

   As an elite unit, who are trained and recruited from the same pool of orphans as Commissars and Sisters Of Battle (if I remember my fluff right), I decided I wanted these guys to reflect something from real world elite forces and use a colour scheme that might help them rather than hinder**. With this in mind, I chose a dark green armour and a beige uniform underneath.

**although it is still 40k, so of course they have a metallic trim to their armour

  This was supposed to just be a test box to see if the idea worked and to stop myself going mad and then not doing anything with the project but I ended up buying a second box once I finished it and now I have a full squad. At this point I now have a squad I can add to my guard armies but can also use for Kill Team, then look at adding another squad, a command squad and then either a Taurox (to make the combat patrol) or a squad of Aquilons for rule of cool and a 500 point army (plus they are a Kill Team themselves)

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Imperial Navy Bomber Wing 1538

   Unlike my Fighter Wing from this post*, I've gone with a much more two tone, camouflaged scheme instead of a bold one colour, matching what real bombers would have. I've figured that in the novels fighters are smaller and tend to be showier, relying on speed in the air and being moved under cover on the ground to keep the aircraft safe. Bombers on the other hand are slower in the air, and more likely to be less under cover on the ground, so need a bit more protection, plus as they are from different Wings, they don't need to match**.

*which still needs expanding by a couple of planes really

**I plan to add a 3rd different Wing in the future too

   It's quite odd that I really like the beige scheme my fighter wing is currently in and I also have a model of a plane from it in 28mm sitting on a shelf behind me, but looking at these bombers, they really do just feel 'right'.

Thanks for reading