The Magmahold

 It's time to look back at how I did against last month's hobby goals, and what I'm planning for the next month. I've had quite a productive month, and have finished or am close to finishing a few projects. Last month's goals 1.   Finish the Bloodbowl starter set: done. I've painted everything except Griff Oberwald, who is getting a new career as a freeguild general and thus I've decided doesn't count towards this goal. I'm happy with the Bloodbowl set, I painted it up pretty quickly but I think both teams came out well. 2. Paint Khagra's Ravagers, the new Underworlds warband that came out in February: done. I'm really pleased with these, the models are superb and I think my colour scheme worked well. I've also got quite a few games of Underworlds in with them, with mixed success so far but they're a fun warband to play with. 3. Build all of and ideally paint some of the Ossiarch Bonereaper stuff in my shame pile: done. I got everythi...

I thought I’d do a quick blog on how I’m finding Season 4 of Warhammer Underworlds so far. I’ve been playing at least once a week via webcam since it came out in December, mainly using the Dread Pageant warband. I’ve not played in any tournaments, so these reflections are going to be based on experience from fairly casual play. What do I like about it? The models are great. I really enjoyed painting the two starter set warbands, and the Ravagers are on my painting table at the moment. The warbands they’ve previewed all look good too, especially the vampire models. This isn’t a surprise, the quality of the models has always been a strength of the game, but I’m particularly enjoying the painting this season. The warband specific mechanics/playstyles are interesting. Each of the warbands released so far has felt quite technical, with either distinct mechanics (aetherquartz, desecration) or an inspire condition with interesting trade-offs (the Dread Pageant need to have 6 wound counters ...

Yesterday I played in the Hammertime 7 Age of Sigmar (AoS) event using Tabletop Simulator (TTS), so I thought I’d do a blog on how I got, and what it was like playing in a virtual tournament. The Hammertime TTS tournaments have been running for a while now during the UK lockdowns, and as the name suggests, this was the 7 th one. I watched some of the coverage of the previous one and it looked pretty fun, and since Christmas I’ve been playing a fair bit of AoS on TTS, so I thought I’d give it a go. It works much the same as a real life tournament would, except that all the players are in their own homes, so it’s organised over Discord and the games are played on TTS. My list I ran Kharadron Overlords, using a list based on my real life Kharadron force. I didn’t have a huge amount of experience with it – I’ve played one real life game and three or four TTS games prior to the tournament – so I didn’t expect to do very well. My list was as follows: Allegiance: Kharadron Overlord...

  I've not been great at blogging this month, but let's do a quick review of the last month's hobby, and what I'm hoping to get done next month. I didn't set myself any specific hobby goals for January, but I've ended up getting quite a bit done. I've painted a steam tank and a treelord for my ghost dwarf army. I'm really happy with these, I think they do a good job of conveying the army narrative, and also look cool. I've painted two thirds of the Bloodbowl starter set: all of the black orc team except the star player, and half of the human team. Nothing fancy here, but I think the colour schemes work well, and I'm pleased with the bases. What am I planning to do in February? I have an ambitious three goals for February: Finish the Bloodbowl starter set (ten minis remaining). Paint Khagra's Ravagers, the new Underworlds warband that's due out next week. Build all of and ideally paint some of the Ossiarch Bonereaper stuff in my shame pile...

It's time to look back at how I did against my hobby goals for the last month. Since I'm writing this on new Year's Eve, I'm also going to do a quick reflection on the year as a whole, and my hobby resolutions for 2021. Last month's goals 1. Paint three more Kurnoth Hunters for my ghost dwarf/Sylvaneth army: done! I got my ghost dwarf force up to 1000 points, which was a nice milestone to have reached. 2. Paint ten more Mortek Guard: done. I also painted 3 Kavalos Deathriders, as a bonus. 3. C onvert and paint Jakob Bugmansson XI, the GW Christmas model this year: done!  4. M ake a start on painting the Direchasm starter set, once it comes out: done! I've managed to get both Direchasm warbands painted already, and I'm really happy with how they came out. I got the new Bloodbowl starter set for Christmas, so in January I want to focus on painting up that set. So far I've only painted one model, the elf referee. Overall in 2020, I painted 293 models which ...

I've written before on the blog about my ghost dwarf army, this post is going to cover my lore for them.  The short version is: they are the ghosts of dwarves and Sylvaneth who died fighting each other in the Age of Myth, and now their ghosts have risen up to defend the forest their bodies lie in against the encroaching forces of Nurgle. Read on for the longer version! I'm hoping to develop their story further by playing games with them once it becomes safe to play games again in the UK. Ghost dwarf lore Long ago, the duardin of the Zhalgrad Hold waged war against the Sylvaneth of Rhweandryn Thicket. The hold was set into a crag on the outskirts of the Wildroot forest, and the duardin mines ran deep under the wood, cutting through roots and scarring the ground. Many were the trees felled to fuel the duardin fires, and the smoke of their industry was smelt throughout the forest. But in the heart of the forest stood the Rhweandryn Thicket, and there the duardin dared not go. Th...

 Let's see how I did against last month's goals, and plan what I'm going to work on this month. Last month's goals 1. Finish my Kharadron Overlords army: done! I did a whole blog post on it and everything. I'm really pleased with this project, and hoping to get a lot of games in with them once it is safe to meet up with people again. 2. Work on my display board: complete! I blogged about this last week . It was nice to try something a bit different, and I'm happy with how it came out. Because I've left it slightly more than a month between these posts, I had some time to spare so I also painted ten Mortek Guard as a test project for a possible Ossiarch Bonereaper army. I haven't fully made up my mind yet whether I want an army of them, but I'm definitely leaning that way.  And I also finished off ten Irondrakes who were left over from last month, and painted this dwarf thief from Bad Squiddo Games. This month is going to be about a few small project...