#BlackstoneFortress - Amallyn Shadowguide

Afternoon #WarHamFam and #WarhammerCommunity I've been #PaintingWarhammer ... honestly I have! Just not very much and the items I have been painting show limited progress and are difficult to take pictures of, so I've had little to post about. Anyway, I haven't shared any of this since my Big Build TO DONE! and that was pre-COVID! In truth I'm not sharing much this time, just the one picture. This had been primed and basecoated for a couple of years now and somewhere among my Tyranid Warriors and Ravenwing Talonmaster I painted the white armour. I'm pretty chuffed with the results, if I'm honest. It's really odd as I know this will look awesome when I finish it but I just have zero motivation to do so.

 

We're not playing BSF and there's no rush to get it done, not to mention I do have much higher priority models on my TO DO list. Maybe it'll be something where I just do the green or the brown inbetween other jobs. The gun will be black so perhaps tack that on with some Ravenwing stuff that I'm currently working on, when I get past the metallics stage that is!

Anyway, short and sweet. I've a couple of updates to share with you when I can find time to write them. My son is back to uni next week so I should have more hobby time to push on and complete some projects with a concerted effort.

Blackstone Fortress - Stronghold 1

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity This post is so old that it didn't even come with my templated intro text! Basically, we had a game of Blackstone Fortress before COVID, and I never even wrote down what happened, just took some pics. It's been sat in draft form for so long I just can't bear to see it unfinished anymore. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can recall much of what happened but I just need to publish it to try and whittle down my 14 drafts posts that have never seen the light of day.

So, pre-COVID the five of us attempted our first Stronghold mission. Now I think this might have been the one with some shady shenanigans by Ben with the lift and where everyone was positioned meant some of us started wounded or something.

At some point there was a lengthy debate about whether you remains inspired from mission to mission, right when we were about to face or strongest ever adversaries AND having suffered some significant wounds, because of the lift debacle. I think this is finishing off the first mission in the Stronghold.

Later I would research this online and discover that we do indeed retain our Inspired nature from mission to mission. Here we are in the second mission of the Stronghold.

We clearly managed to whittle away the cultists, psykers and Beastmen. Like I said I can't really remember what went on, it's like 18 months ago now! 😂 I just needed to not see 'draft' next to it.

This is where my character was at the end of the game.

Balckstone Fortress is such a great game for us, we could get 4 of the crew gaming together, collaboratively and although the rules were a bit convoluted, there wasn't half the issues that 40k was bringing to the table with stratagems and buff upon buff. Of course since COVID, we considered trying to play it over video, but that just didn't seem workable. We had some great Middle Earth Role-Playing sessions but that's been a challenge to reconvene. More recently Middle Earth Battle Companies has been something we could do and even though it was slightly competitive again, the short games, limited figure count and ability to get in a couple of battles between friends has made it popular. 

I'm not sure when we'll get to play again, whether we'll finish up our MERP campaign or return to Blackstone Fortress, but hopefully we can do something soon.

Blackstone Fortress - Amallyn Shadowguide Big Build - TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers I've built my second character for #blackstonefortress Amallyn Shadowguide [#paintingwarhammer]. Now I'd normally feel bad about including this as a 'build' they are afterall 'easy-build' - she comes in 2 parts! But I was compelled by a vision to put her on a step and it was a number of days cogitating about how to achieve the vision that brought us to this point.

The step was made out of a used plasticard gift voucher

And the back of a 25mm slotta-base to raise her up a little more. Some Milliput to smooth it altogether and triads of plastic to help obfuscate joins between the three basing elements [base > slotta > plasticard].

So despite the easy build nature this was a good week of contemplation and avoidance before I got it done. It was a stretch despite the simplicity so I get my Big Build Galactic Stamp of Approval

And it's kind of based too, I mean not painted base which is the true criteria but... that will come at the end.

Blackstone Fortress - The Empyrean Strikes Back

The planets aligned and we managed to arrange a suitable night for my gaming buddies and fellow #warmongers to have another crack at #BlackstoneFortress. Unfortunately time did not help us in remembering the rules, it also meant we spent a considerable time discussing Star Wars - the Rise of Skywalker and various merits [and demerits] of the entire Star Wars franchise. So it was like an hour and a half before we rolled any dice in anger!

Most of us met our painting requirements, but Ben couldn't quite finish the Ratlings and his Negavolt Cultitsts are just basecoated, but they weren't needed and a lot of his paints have dried up so it was an uphill challenge. However, worth mentioning we were at his house and there was a particularly generous spread laid on so - 'swings and roundabouts'.

Liam brought some Poxwalkers and Typhus to stand in for Cultists and Obsidius, unfortunately he'd planned to bring some of his other Cultists so unit weaponry would have been more accurate but he mixed up his figure case. Regardless the game looked significantly better, if a little too dark now! 😎

On to the game and before we entered the maglev we had a pre-game encounter where we had to bash down the doors of another maglev and we would gain a discovery each. All we had to do was 12 damage on 3 attacks each. Because I was 'inspired', thanks to Liam trading my 'hidden co-ordinates' hidden agenda I managed to 8 damage on my own - not bad for a feeble sanctioned mutant. Liam finished it off and Otty and Ben gave us hearty encouragement. Liam discovered his hidden agenda item in the loot and was immediately inspired!

Having entered the Fortress everyone else got to move before me. There were 8 cultists in the middle, 6 in the top and Obsidius Mallex and another 6 Cultists on the left.

All of them were in cover and we wasted a lot of actions trying to kill them but the cover prevented any damage -we had not remembered you could 'aim' for an activation to ignore cover. The Cultists themselves knew how to aim and certainly some damage was done to us.

But for the most part because they were in cover they didn't really seem keen to leave it. I used my Mind Control power to force the Cultist leader out of cover and blasted him to pieces with my 3rd Eye. I killed another of his mob and raised my force field around Janus and I for protection. Meanhwile our Kroot friend had set a booby trap in the choke point in front of the warband at the top.

Janus managed to sprint across the board and activate all sorts of duelling skills.

Taking out half of the cultists set before him.

Dahyak Grekh also got in on the action.

And managed to wipe out the remaining foes. Meanwhile I was able to Mind Control the leader of the second band of cultists and moved him two space directly into the Kroot's previously laid booby trap. He was killed in the resulting explosion

Dahyak Grekh advanced on the remaining cultists. However, we began to see some movement on the other cultists and they swiftly followed up to support their brethren.

Dahyak, took all four wounds [and we subsequently struggled to understand how to play this part of the game]. Janus stepped forth to take revenge on the cultists...

and with the support of the Ratlings and my 3rd eye we removed them from the board.

And then we realised we'd not been giving Obsidius his two goes on the activation table, doh - well vagaries of the warp and whatnot - we'll get this game eventually. Most of the damage was put on me [randomly] and I took 4 wounds.

In return Janus did everything he could with his extra attacks and managed to take all 12 wounds of the Chaos Lord, just! Liam was mightily impressed with his feat of duelling prowess - the final double crit being particularly impressive!

With their leader gone it was nought but to clean up the remaining cultists and we would return to our respective ships for re-supply and trading.

OK, so we're still learning the rules and given the 2-3 rulebooks you keep having to flick through, granted thin ones but even so it's easy to miss something. Or, you get referred to another book which then refers you back. Not to mention it's our second game and over 6 weeks since we last played. We definitely remembered some of the rules and new things weren't quite right, it took a few turns to get on track but maybe next time it'll be error-free.

Anyway, great laugh, really enjoyed it. Bring on our next adventure.

Blackstone Fortress - Espern Locarno - TO DONE!

Now my character for  #blackstonefortress Espern Locarno [#paintingwarhammer]. I was compelled once again to add a few 40kaddict signature colour elements:

• yellow/black chevron wire to his 'recording device/Walkman'. 
• verdigris
• orange eye lenses

I also hadn't mentioned the script on his parchment bib, maybe it's like a Google map list of directions? I added the simplified Dark Angel Chapter symbol just to add further connection to my own forces. I wasn't particularly convinced about the orange lenses - so many times I do all this shading and highlighting only for me to question whether to add Tamiya Clear Orange X-26 and in this instance I know it'd be better for it and can't!

I decided the laurel wreath would be embroidered gold and I actually think it brings it all together. The cloak is less than I hoped but better than I feared half-way through. Perhaps a galactic star-field pattern might add some interference for the blends?

Having 'finished' the model I could not get past my dissatisfaction with the lenses. I saw a pretty good example and decided to just tweak them with a shadow under the pure white highlight. 

I'm much happier now - it's a bit more googly eyed but I think that's the point. The face and head should be a little exaggerated, I mean look at his hat! I've pretty much painted beyond the confines of the lens, into the surrounding frame but I'm happy.

Just a close-up of the base with the curious note that Locarno's force cane is positioned at exactly the intersection of one of the 'cracks' in the floor. Is it because the cracks move to meet the navigator or is Locarno so attuned to the empyrean he will find those power junctures naturally? Who knows? I just thought it was a nice little touch and gave me some direction in where the lines should be positioned.

Yeah, I wish his cloak looked more like this Big Galactic Stamp of Approval...

Blackstone Fortress - Beastmen - TO DONE!

I manage to finish the Chaos Beastmen for  #blackstonefortress [#paintingwarhammer]. There are definitely some compromises here. I could not fully reconcile the black armour in places. Ordinarily I'd have gloss varnished it, but as I've mentioned Liam is not a fan and ultimately they are his figures.

I was perhaps a little too uniform on the colouring, it might have been nice to mix in some different fabric colours, but that would have required decision making and from experience that causes delays. 

The bases came out soooo well. I added a little more black shading in places to smooth things out and make it more 'blackstone'

The GW tutorial does a 50:50 gloss varnish Lahmian Medium coat for a slightly shiny surface but again no gloss. I think it might have made things a little richer but even if I had been allowed to do it the others wouldn't so it would have looked a little odd.

The little trapped spy lens had a crude red OSL added. Again Tamiya Clear Red X-27 would have been the icing on the cake for me but I had to respect the 'client'.

The hooves and horns came out really well and something new. Alongside the bases this was a couple of new techniques and skills, so although compromises and less than optimal colour choices were made I think I pulled off some nifty new models and had a blast with it.

Still get a Galactic Stamp of Approval though!

Blackstone Fortress - Espern Locarno and Beastmen - bases

Now to follow the Games Workshop #blackstonefortress bases tutorial [#paintingwarhammer]. I have to say these were ridiculously easy to do, in fact the initial lines are potentially good enough in my book.

If you're new to the hobby and worried about basing this would be ideal. It looks cool, it's simple to do and the only real challenge is straight lines... however, this is ideal practice for brush control and improving fine motor skills. If you ensure you use thinned paint you can get the basic lines down and then a second coat near each junction takes it up a level. Drybrush the rubble and it's golden!

Or ramp it up to the next level with some blended slabs.

I think this was Incubi Darkness, thinned very much so your essentially glazing each section but extra coats at one end increases the gradient. Blotchy on places but I can live with that.

Additional lighter turquoise highlight on the junctions of the lines too.

And then a final lighter turquoise, followed by a dot of pure white on each junction and on the base edges [why not?].

Espern Locarno had his cloak done, it's not great unfortunately but again good enough. 

Details next, then varnishing.

Blackstone Fortress - Espern Locarno and Beastmen - next steps

Moving on with the #blackstonefortress models [#paintingwarhammer]. I added Incubi Darkness to all the clothing, painted the hooves brown and shaded them. All the metals got Typhus Corrosion

Hair and horns highlighted.

I added some further highlight to their faces. I used the first level highlight colour from my Red Planet basing paint-  mainly just to add definition and help the faces from becoming featureless red blobs.

Black armour plates got high contrast highlights. Ordinarily I'd be gloss varnishing these but Liam objects to gloss varnish and definitely when there are also highlights applied... seems my whole schtick is at odds with his 😜 still, interesting to have some restrictions, but I still got my orange grenades in...

Espern got further highlights, I'd originally intended him to be black skinned but a tanned flesh looked  little more in keeping with the whole scheme. I also committed to red shoes. I had a twisted idea that he'd be wearing sparkly 'ruby slippers' just like Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. Any time he needs directions he just clicks his heels and says 'no place like home'! 😂

The cloak isn't quite getting there but once again I shouldn't judge this until I;m finished. His ruby slippers got some sparkly stippled highlights.

Some minjor details next and bases...