April Hobby

Filed Under: Hobby

Tagged: Warhammer, Age of Sigmar, Warcry, Warmaster, Kings of War, Salute, Black Scorpion Miniatures, Cities of Sigmar, Gloomspite Gitz

This month contained a trip to Salute and lots of AoS.

Games Played: 5

I had another game of Warcry in the office with my Wildercorps Hunters, in which I managed to eke out a jammy victory at the end with some cheeky canine maneuvers. Wildercorps are fun. Warcry is still good.

At Salute, Kara and I played a quick demo game of Kings of War: Champions, the new Spearhead-equivalent for Mantic’s rank-and-flank game. It seems pretty good, but I think I’ll hold off on buying any Champions stuff until the Ogre and Trident Realms companies are released. The Ogres because I already have an Ogre army and I’ll be able to add the Champions stuff to it, and the Trident Realms because their Champion is a very cute axolotl character.

Back in Edinburgh, I took my Cities army for another whirl against a local’s Gloomspite Gitz. After a few hairy moments with Kragnos, my army pulled ahead, and another victory for the Great Tree of Nuloren was won by Essentricia’s Tönkbrigäd and the aelven cavaliers. My Wildercorps also had a decent initial outing, doing a bit of shooting and grabbing an objective. It was nice to see some of the new Gitmob models on the table, like the fantastic Doom Diver Catapult.

At the end of the month we had our second Path to Glory day. My spiders fought Mark’s lizards and came out on top. Then we allied with each other and quickly homebrew’d a two-versus-one game against the current lead player Ed’s Slaves to Darkness army, the general of which is a fully-upgraded Anvil of Apotheosis lord who has been the villain of the campaign so far. Combining our might we managed to bring down the beast (finishing her off with a saurus chomp), and while we lost on points we did manage to kill the whole army and each got a good chunk of Emberstone out of it.

I’m thoroughly enjoying Ravaged Coast so far – it isn’t perfect (we’re not sure if the fully-upgraded Anvil hero is a fair fight and might have to do some homebrewing to balance things out) but if future Narrative Play content for this edition of AoS is at least this good then it’s worth looking forward to.

I couldn’t ask for a better play group for it either.

Models Finished: 17

I completed the Wildercorps Hunters warband and also finally got on with the Hydra (see above). I’m pleased with both projects and they’re great additions to my Cities of Sigmar collection.

Then, fancying something quick and expressive, I painted up the Gloomspite Gitz Endless Spells. I’m super happy about how these came out. So colourful!

I also finally got around to basing the beautifully-painted wood elf mage Rossalot sent me for Secret Santa. She will make a fine Sorceress or Battlemage in the armies of Nuloren¹.

Acquisitions

At Salute I picked up a few things:

• There was a Highlander Dwarf in the swag bag.

• …and also a Napoleonic British Soldier who apparently is a model of someone famous (Lieutenant Colonel James Macdonell?) but I can’t be made to care about Napoleonics. I’ll see if I can convert him into a Magewinds fighter.

• At the Black Scorpion booth I picked up a cool Wizard with an Orb and an Owl.

• I found a good deal on an Ogre Berzerker Bully and Boomer Sergeant, two models I’ve been hoping to add to my Ogre army for a while.

Beyond Salute I also picked up:

• 10mm Buildings: my Warmaster Ogres arrived and, while sadly they didn’t all survive the journey intact, they brought with them some houses. I’m not sure how much repair work I’m willing to do on the army, but I’ll certainly be painting the buildings up and using them in games of Warmaster.

• Maleneth Witchblade. This is a “Commemorative Series” miniature based on a Black Library character introduced in the new Gotrek series. She was fairly cheap in Games Hub and packaged in an adorably tiny box. I couldn’t say no! I’ve really enjoyed the character in her Black Library outings so far and am excited to paint her up. Perhaps I could do so while listening to her first standalone novel…

Works in Progress

• Warmaster Wood Elves

I’m away for 6 days at the beginning of May and I’ll be absolutely gaggin to do some hobby when I return. Fortunately I (as always) have plenty lined up in the form of 10mm Forest Dragon Wood Elves, printed very nicely by Mighty Minis UK and my friend Rich. I’m going to start with the most exciting model – the Forest Dragon, ridden by the Sisters of Twilight – before moving onto the low-hanging fruit: the forest spirits, who I’ve already done 75% of the work on by airbrushing them brown.

Onwards, to May!

Addendum (4/5/25): Salute

Salute was an interesting experience but not a great one. If I hadn’t happened to be in London on the day of it I wouldn’t have gone, and I don’t think I’ll go again unless a similar coincidence occurs. There were so many cool games, artists, designers, publishers, crafters, etc. all on display, selling their wares, running demos; all bustling. On the one hand, this was great to see. The industry is thriving! On the other hand, the noisiness and crowdedness of it all was hard to bear, and to top it off the lighting was abysmal – not what you want for a day of peering at tiny objects! Conventions like Salute will always be like this for me, I suppose: diversions best kept short and sweet, rather than full-day events. These frustrations didn’t matter anyway, because really I was there to spend time with friends, which I did to my great enjoyment.