Monday, July 26, 2021

Cities of Sigmar!

Well, I don't have any more Stormcast Eternals to add to Finnegan's force in our little narrative campaign, so I thought we could ignore the army limits for allies and just let him take Cities of Sigmar forces whenever he wants to add to the force. It makes narrative sense to do so - The Stormcast are the shock troops of Sigmar to clear the way for all the Free Peoples that had been hiding out in Azyr during the whole Age of Chaos thing. Stormcast clear the war, Free Peoples build the Cities of Sigmar in their wake. 

The Island we've set our campaign on is small, so Sigmar figured it didn't need THAT many Stormcast to clear away the Chaos inhabitants and sent in settlers as soon as the Realmgate was secured... These are some of the Free Peoples that will be joining Finnegan's forces in the weeks to come. 

Most of these are miniatures I've had for AGES. I've repainted some since I bought and originally painted them (in the late 1980s and into the 1990s). They have all be recently rebased. Some are newly painted (or newly repainted!) 

I struggled with how to paint the sides of the plastic bases. I'd painted the sides of the Duardin bases grey originally and the Aelves and Vikings were brown... but they didn't look right next to each other and neither looked good next to a lot of the other Age of Sigmar miniatures I've based - especially those from Warhammer Underworlds with sculpted bases - that I've painted black on the sides. So, for consistency, I ended up painting them all black on the sides. Still not totally happy with it... but at least they're all the same now and that's not triggering 

First the Duardin that Finnegan has already added to his roster. These are old Dwarven Thunderers that I've had since I was playing Mordheim... uh... was that the late '90s? early '00s? Regardless, no new painting here, just rebasing and some touch-ups. We'll be using them as Duardin Irondrakes - which are basically a slightly newer version of Dwarves With Guns... 

I've also rebased a swarm of old Wood Elf Wardancers.... 

I figure we'll field them as Wildwood Rangers. There are stats for Wardancers in the "Legends" but they haven't been updated in ages and I figured it'd just be easier to use these as "counts as" a current unit. The Wildwood Rangers are a bit faster moving than human foot, have more attacks with a bit more reach, are hard hitting (wound on 3+)... so... bad ass enough I think the stats work well enough. 

Unfortunately I don't have QUITE enough for a second full unit of ten... there are only seven in the second unit. I need to track down three more (or seven more - to make two units of twelve for Dragon Rampant!) 

 Leading these guys will be this Freeguild General. The miniature is actually out of a boxed set Games Workshop once sold called Eternal Champions - characters of Michael Moorcock. This model is Erekosë -  I've had the model since the late 80s, but never painted it. The only Moorcock I read was Elric and Jerry Cornelius - so those were the only ones I painted at the time. I've still not read any of the books in which Erekosë appears, but it is a cool model - from Citadel Miniatures - that looks the part of a Freeguild General, so... 

I have a bunch of other minis from the box I may paint up to use as characters or add them into units of other Freeguild forces. 

Also newly painted/re-painted are these two - so freshly painted/re-painted are then that the glue isn't dry and there is flock stuck to the chieftan's face!? Both are OLD Citadel miniatures I've owned since the 80s. The Chieftan is actually a Pre-slotta miniature Fantasy Tribe Fighters line (FTF-76 - Norse Chieftain in Horned Helm) the Horn Blower is from the later F4 series Men-at-Arms, Vikings - designed by Alan and Michael Perry (I think this one was called "Redwald" in the 1988 Citadel miniatures catalogue). Teh latter line, I think was sold to Wargames Foundry at some point (as were many early Citadel ranges - though, sadly, not ALL of the old ranges!) 

 

The two above were knocked off to finish up a unit of ten "Freeguild Guard". One of the options for Freeguild Guard is to be armed with sword and shield - we could say "HAND WEAPON and shield and then these are all, pretty much, close enough!). The front row are all pre-slotta miniature from the aforementioned FTF line, and the second rank are all from the later F4-Men-at-Arms, Vikings line. 

I do have a few more Vikings from the Citadel Miniatures Dark Ages (DA) line... but I'm not sure if there are enough to make another unit of ten... also, some of them are currently on DBA Viking bases! 

Most of the Freeguild look like old WFB Empire soldiers, but, narratively-speaking, there are a LOT of different peoples that fled to Azyr during the Age of Chaos - I thought these vikings looked like they could be rough warriors originally from some remote fjord in Ghur...  

I also have an old Amber Wizard (probably from the 90s) that I'm just finishing up. It's wearing a bearskin, so I thought it would fit right in with Erekosë and the others. Of course, Finnegan's force ALREADY had two units of wizards, so I won't be rushing to complete that one. I also thought these might make a fun  Frostgrave Warband - the Amber wizard with the Norse as warriors and Erekosë as either a Captain or Knight or whatever. Just need to find a suitable apprentice... 

This should keep Finnegan's forces growing as the campaign progresses... so, now I need to crank out some more Daemons for myself.... Or finish up another force... or start painting all the Daughters of Khaine - to entice Amanda to join... or Cursed City... or Warhammer Underworlds... or... or... 

Yeah, I don't know what will be painted next. There are a LOT of things on the Workbench - could be any of them!? 

The PLAN is to play more Age of Sigmar tomorrow - so hopefully there will be a game report in the next day or two. 

4 comments:

  1. Holy crap them is some OLD Wardancer figs! But this is a great example of repurposing older stuff, hats off to you!

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  2. Lovely collection of old school figures finding a new home!
    Best Iain

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    1. Well, most of them have been in this home for some time... But, yeah, finding a new purpose in life - new banners to fight under! Cheers!

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