Age of Sigmar - Mindstealer Sphiranx

 Ever since the Mindstealer Sphiranx was released - originally as a large beast for Warcry (if I remember correctly!?) - I thought they were pretty cool and considered getting one... I didn't really have an immediate purpose for it, so I kind of held off. 

Then Louise Sugden painted one with WINGS... and my mind was blown and I knew I would have to have one at some point!?

THEN I realized there was a solo scenario for a Fomoroid Crusher in Warhammer Underworlds... AND the Fomoroid Crusher was available in a box (Hargax’s Pit-Beasts) WITH the Mindstealer Sphiranx (and a Ogroid Myrmidon) AND they could all be used in my Slaves to Darkness army.... Well that was enough for me to pick the box up... 

(Which reminds me, I STILL have not PLAYED the Solo Scenario with the Fomoroid Crusher!? Maybe I should get on that this week!) 

Somehow I cranked out the Fomoroid Crusher and Ogroid Myrmidon... but kind of got a little hung up on this one! I think I was a little intimidated by the possibilities (and the excellent paint jobs Ms. Sugden and others had done on them!). At one point I was considering tiger stripes or leopard spot!? Anyway, I had to let this one percolate a bit... 

A week or so ago I just decided pink and orange, let's DO this!!

And this is what I ended up with! 

I had to realize it wasn't going to be as good as Ms Sugden's (or any of the other amazing painters out there that have done wonderful things with this model) and just... do what I could. 

I am... mostly... happy with it... 

Hargax's Pit Beasts - could be fielded as a Regiment of Reknown in ANY of my Chaos armies!? (Blades of Khorne or Hedonites of Slaanesh or even the SKAVEN!?) 

(or Disciples of Tzeentch or Maggotkin of Nurgle... if/when I ever get around to putting together a small force!?) 

Now that I've painted the BIG BEASTIES, I just need to paint the REST of the Slaves to Darkness army - which is mostly mounted - Chaos Knights and Chaos Marauder Horse (or, Darkoath Fellriders, as they are now called)!? 

Work-In-Progress Wednesday - 21 August 2024

Wow... a LOT of stuff has ended up on the workbench this last week... 

I assembled and painted a Spirit Torment and two Chainghasts... and a Space Sloth... 

I've also finished assembling all the stuff I need for my Melusai Ironsale to command in a Daughters of Khaine Spearhead force...

Daughters of Khaine for the Spearhead force (plus the High Gladiatrix!) 

Witch-Aelves

Blood Stalkers

Doomfire Warlocks

High Gladiatrix - not part of the Spearhead force... but a hero for the Daughters of Khaine that I assembled while working on the others... 

There is ONE MORE UNIT for the Daughters of Khaine in the Arena of Shades box that I should probably just assemble as well... That way they'll ALL be assembled and primed and ready for whenever I get to finishing up the rest of the force! 

Once I'm done the Spearhead force, I'll really only have the Gladiatrix and three more units to finish up... then ALL THE STUFF would be DONE for that force... 

I also still have a BUNCH of Stormcast Heroes on the workbench and I've been slowly working away on them... 

I started listening to the Skaventide audiobook and all of these miniatures are characters in the story... except I'm painting mine as Anvils of Heldenhammer instead of the Hallowed Knights (and Astral Templars for the Knight Questor) that the characters in the book are!

I am tempted to assembled all the Stormcast needed for the Spearhead force and paint them all up... They would be quick to do, right!?

Of course, I'm getting tempted to assembled all the SKAVEN and start painting THEM all up as welll!? 

And then there is a part of me that just wants to assembled ALL THE THINGS... ALL the Stormcast and Skaven from Skaventide (like ALL of them, not just the Spearhead stuff!)... and ALL the Daughters of Khaine and Nighthaunts and Stormcast and Orrocks from the 3rd Edition Extremis Starter Set and Arena of Shadows Boxes... just so they're ALL DONE and I have a sense of what I havea to paint!

Oh, yeah... and the Soulblight Gravelords?!

There's another part of me that wants to sweep this all off the workbench and just work on the Warhammer Quest models to finish up Silver Tower and move on to Cursed City...

Aye-yi-yi... 

Other stuff still haunting the periphery of the workbench... 

These other stormcast... Castigators that I started to test out the Anvils of Heldenhammer scheme... These are SO CLOSE to being finished... I just need to say, Tonight is the night, and get them DONE!!! 

The Mindstealer Sphiranx - This sat for a bit, but I finally decided on some colours the other day and have been working on this between bits of other things and will probably have it done in a day or two... 

Blades of Khorne stuff... I seem to be losing steam on these... maybe it's time for them to go back in the box... 

There are a few Slaanesh things too... but it's been so long since I did ANYTHING with them, I couldn't even be bothered to take a picture... 

I've also been doing some work on the Warscryer Citadel - it doesn't spend too much time on the workbench propper - because it's so big and there are so many other things ON the workbench... so I forgot to take pictures of it... 

Stay tuned to see which of these I actually get DONE this week!! 

Work-in-Progress Wednesday - 17 July 2024

I kind of missed doing this last week... Did anyone miss seeing it!?

On one hand, I didn't feel like much had progressed and felt like time would be better spent painting miniatures, rather than taking pictures of the same old half painted miniatures!? (Well there has been SOME progress this past week! Not nearly as much as I'd hoped, though). On the other hand, one side-benefit of actually doing this once a week is it gives me a weekly excuse/opportunity to clear some stuff OFF the workbench!?

I'd really hoped that by this past weekend I'd have had my Hedonites of Slaanesh Vanguard/Spearhead force finished so I could IMMEDIATELY start playing Age of Sigmar: Spearhead on launch... Alas, they are STILL not completed... But there has been PROGRESS!!!

When last we checked in two weeks ago... I'd still only assembled MOST of the Hedonites of Slaanesh (still has two Slickblade Seekers to assemble). All of the assembled stuff had been primed and I'd done most of their bases!?

Since then I have finished the Shardspeaker of Slaanessh....

The Slickblade Seekers are fully assembled and a fair bit has been painted! I honestly thought these might be the LAST of the bunch to be painted, but I feel like they might actually be NEXT!

The Slaangor are part way done as well. I thought these might be next after the Shardspeaker... but I'll probably finished them up after the Slickblade Seekers.

The Blissbarb Archers are still just primed black and bases done... 

Will I push through and get these all done by the weekend!? Hard to say... 

There have been a few distractions!?

Primarily, Hargax's Pit Beasts made their way onto the table and bot assembled and primed and I've even got a fair bit along with painting the Ogroid Myrmidon and the Fomoroid Crusher... the Mindstealer Sphyranx might take a bit longer... as I want to do a really good job on that one!?

I just hope it doesn't become TOO PRECIOUS TO PAINT!?

Also... 

The only thing I took out of the Skaventide box to assemble and paint was the four little terrain bits.... 

It was VERY tempting to assemble a few of the Skaven or Stormcast Heroes... maybe just the two on mounts... or one of the smaller units of three Stormcast... But I knew it would just be MORE distractions on a table that there were already TOO MANY DISTRACTIONS!? 

A few other things have made their way onto the table, though... 

Some bonus Hedonites of Slaanesh things got on the table - before I picked up Hargax's Pit Beasts - the Infernal Enrapturess and Esske (the Daemon Prince of Slaanesh half of Syll-Esske) both needed rebasing from the 40K bases they were on.... and the Lord of Pain just made his way on because I knew I's be using a similar palette for him as the Blissbarb archers and Slickblade Seekers, so... might as well bring him to the table and work on him at the same time... 

There are a few others as well... 

The Kroot Free Minature-of-the-Month for July (which I thought was odd, with all the HYPE for the new Skaventide box, I thought FOR SURE it would be a clan rat or some kind of Stormcast Eternal...!?) 

Melusai Ironscale... because... y'know... I have SOME Daughters of Khaine... and (other than Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven) exactly NONE of them are painted and I was feeling a little embarrassed about that and thought maybe I should start with getting just this ONE Hero done... maybe that would get me excited enough to put MORE of them into the mix... or maybe it would get AMANDA excited enough to try out Age of Sigmar and THAT might get me excited enough to paint the rest of them!? 

Um... and... I kind of assembled and primed and did the bases for MOST of the Fangs of the Blood Queen!? 

THIS GUY is STILL hanging around on the workbench... at this point all I have to do is finish his patchwork pants... 

Some Darkoath Warriors (with a new recruit!?) (All free miniatures-of-the-month)

When I got it in my head that I might KEEP the Stormcast from the Skaventide box and might paint them as the Anvils of the Heldenhammer... 

I've been rethinking that... because, as I was fooling around with army options for THE PLAN section of the the Stormcast Eternals Page... I realized, with ALL THE STUFF I have, I could field a 2000 point army - at least in a funsies game that allowed Legends units... and then I started thinking I should stick with Hammers of Sigmar, as boring as they are, for a consistent look... 

But then... do I CARE about ever fielding a 2000 point army and playing a game that big!??!

(probably not...) 

Two heroes from Warhammer Quest: The Silver Tower. I had hoped to finish one or both before our FIRST GAME OF WARHAMMER QUEST last night - just to be able to offer a few more options for the players... 

And some other stuff I couldn't be bothered to take pictures of... 

Starting to see why I did not get the Hedonites done...?

Also, while not technically on the workbench, in teh last week or so I actually started assembling my Warscryer Citadel that's been sitting in a box for YEARS!? The gothic looks just screams THIS IS WHERE A VAMPIRE LIVES... and because that's the NEXT PROJECT after the Hedonites... I thought I'd start assembling it!?

The RIDICULOUS thing is, I keep thinking about OTHER armies I could get vanguard/Spearhead boxes for!? I've settled down a bit... and I've decided if (WHEN!!) I get the first FOUR Spearhead forces I have (or five, if I pick up the Doomfire Warlocks to build a Daughters of Khaine Spearhead force), I'll allow myself another - which will probably be the Sylvaneth (because it's only ten models - though a few are pretty BIG ones! and also it has Kurnothi Hunters and a Branchwych - both of which are playable archtypes in Soulbound?)

(If ever I finished THOSE... I might get the OTHER Chaos forces... Blades of Khorne, Maggotkin of Nurgle, Disciples of Tzeentch....) 

The Spearhead forces are kind of like DBA or HotT armies - small, fixed forces - it's easy to have more than one and scratch that little itch of wanting to HAVE THEM ALL (or, at least a few, opposing forces)!? 

This past week I've also been working on some new Gallery Pages of my assorted Age of Sigmar fantasy miniatures. I'm not sure how to navigate to them on a phone. On a desktop computer, they should show up over on the left, under "Pages". 

Or you can see them here:

Age of Sigmar - Hedonites of Slaanesh

Age of Sigmar - SoulBlight Gravelords

Age of Sigmar: Stormcast Eternals

Age of Sigmar - SoulBlight Gravelords

Age of Sigmar: Blades of Khorne

I also have pages in the works for Skaven (two of them, actually - one for Metal, one for plastic) and the Daughters of Khaine... and sort of one for Cities of Sigmar, maybe...?

Back to PAINTING!!!

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Hargax’s Pit-Beasts

 Goddammit... 

So, they started releasing all the rules and battle profiles for ALL THE FORCES for the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar this week... and that got me theory-crafting... and at some point I realized I was one Hargax’s Pit-Beasts box away from having a 2000 point Slaves to Darkness army... 

Do I NEED a 2000 point Slaves to Darkness army...!?

No, not really. In fact, I have very little interest in playing 2000 point games of Age of Sigmar! But I LIKE the IDEA of having a 2000 point force, IN THEORY... 

BUT ALSO... 

This would allow me to have a 1000 point, single Regiment force. I DO like the idea of playing 1000 point games... and the idea of a Path to Glory campaign with smaller forces...

Also, the Mindstealer Sphiranx is just a gorgeous model that I've been looking for an excuse to pick up since it was released... 

Also, there is a scenario involving the Fomorid Crusher in Warhammer Underworlds.