Campaign: Beginner's Path to Glory v1.1 Update

Good morning everyone!

At your request I've updated my Beginner's Path to Glory -campaign with three new factions as well as slight rule modifications, all according to your good wishes and suggestions.

The three new factions I added are Ogors, Beastmen and Greenskinz. The Ogors-faction mainly contains models from the Gutbuster Ogors range, while the Beastmen are a combination of Brayherd and Warherd subfactions. The Greenkinz are a mesh-up of Orruks, Gitmob Grots, Moonclan Grots and Troggoths, similar to the old Orcs&Goblins faction of the Fantasy Battles. I plan on adding Ironjaws and Bonesplitters as their own entries later on.

Each of the added factions has its own Champion-, Hero- and Follower tables, as well as a Naming Your Heroes -table to generate unique personalities from.
Will your rampaging Ogor warband be lead by Orag Doomslayer or Trekig Deathseeker?
What story will you weave behind a Beastmen champion called Taalar Rusthoof or Northoz Gianthorn?
Can the motley Greenskin crew of Grug Shroombasher or Kurbag Githand ever grow into a mighty Waaagh! ?

The slight rule-modification I made was an addition to the Creating Your Warband instructions:
The rules now specify that if you roll on the Hero Followers table of your faction and get a result that you already have in your warband (either as a Champion or a Hero Follower) you must re-roll the result. This is to reduce the possibility of a player having multiples of the same Hero while adding to the fun as the diversity of your Followers increases!

Without further introduction I present you the link to the updated full version of the campaign (ie. you don't need the old pdf anymore):

Beginner's Path to Glory

Campaign: Beginner's Path to Glory

Looking for something small-scale, easy and fast to have a few games played off with mates over a weekend? Then this is something you're interested in!

Over the last few couple of days I've been working on a Path to Glory -campaign that is scaled down to be suitably fast-paced and interesting for new players, while still retaining the feeling of the original one. You follow your own personalized champion and his/her warband as they grow in strength and size, living a story that ends either in favor or disgrace in the eyes of your gods.

As I'm going to play this game type with a group of mates that don't necessarily own any models yet, I needed to focus this campaign around the models that I own myself. This may be a bit of a hindrance for some of you but trust me, I own a lot of models and you can always modify this campaign to better suit your own needs.

At the moment there are 7 factions available in the campaign:

- Free Peoples
- Slaves to Darkness
- Duardin
- Tomb Kings
- Seraphon
- Stormcast Eternals
- Wanderer Aelves

Each of these factions has its own Champion-, Follower- and Hero Follower -tables which you can roll on to determine the composition of your warband. I've also included Naming-Tables for each one, meaning that you can generate names for your heroes just by rolling a few dice!

Now let's take a closer look on some of the campaign features...

Champion and Follower Reward tables. Each time you've fought a battle against another player you make one of three choices: you roll for a new Follower, roll for a reward for an existing Follower or roll for a Champion Reward.
These Reward-tables are meant to represent the experience your models gain on the field as they fight the enemy, making existing units deadlier and more efficient than any fresh recruits.

The Champion table gives eleven possible bonuses (one of which is not an actual bonus...) for your champion, conferring in-game enhancements that reflect your warrior's growing skill and confidence on his quest to glory.

The Follower table contains 6 bonuses that represent the experience your followers gain as they progress from green recruits to hardened veterans. It is a tough choice whether to generate a new unit of followers after a battle or to enhance an existing one, as both are equally considerable options.

In the original Path to Glory each faction would have its own tables for rewards. To make things easier and faster for myself new players I put together these two generic ones that are used for every included faction.

Choosing Your Battles. As long as you have the General's Handbook (and you really really should have it) you're on a good footing with the scenarios of this campaign. Every single one of the six battles shown here can be found within the pages of that sacred book, with full explanations from how to set up your models to what you'll have to achieve to win. Just roll a dice and see which of the battles you'll dive into with your opponent!

I cherry picked the most fluffy ones I could find, while still trying to retain a certain neutrality so that the players might implement their own narratives into the battles they fight. Any of the battles can be freely modified or changed if the players wish. Come to think of it, wouldn't it be nice to suddenly declare in the middle of the campaign that every player now fights a special battle, one that isn't listed here. The special battle could also be worth some extra Glory Points. Interesting, eh?

Naming Your Heroes. Here are three of the total of seven naming tables which you can roll on to decide your hero names. I strove to include many different combinations that had a unique feeling to them, as well as a few funny/crazy ones.

Each of the seven factions has its own table. Each table requires three rolls with two dice to generate a name. First you roll your hero's forename, then the surname in two parts. Simple, isn't it?
This way there are eleven times eleven times eleven (11x11x11) possibilities for a character name on each table, meaning that one table is able to generate 1331 different names.

My aim is to help people forge their character's narrative with these tables. What cool background story will you come up with for a champion named Fauadan Mosswarrior? What about Vorax Madwit? Titus Twinbreaker?
Once a name is generated it will be a fun challenge to figure out how to explain it in the story!

By the way, I enjoyed making these tables immensely. If you have a faction in mind that you think should receive a naming table like this, just let me know and I'll make one.

Now that we've looked into the campaign in a bit more detail, it is time to publish it. Here's the link to the PDF -file:

Beginner's Path to Glory

I'll end this post with the same thought I used in my last campaign: Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.

The Art of War

Greetings, weary travelers of the internet!

Need some refreshment on your journey? Here are a coupe of set-ups I created on my living room table, using the painted part of my collection of models to turn it into a fantasy battlefield. Using the Prisma -app on my phone I then shot these pics to brighten your day.
Enjoy!

A horde of Chaos Marauders converges upon the Duardin lines under heavy cannon-fire

The Stormcast shieldwall holds firm under the pressure of the enemy attack

A small contingent of Liberators has been surrounded in the midst of the fighting

Cannons and handguns scythe down invaders as they assault the Duardin lines

Slaughterpriest duels with a Liberator-Prime for the dominance of the field

Lord-Castellant holds his lantern aloft on the steps of the embattled Realmgate

Another take on the dueling champions

"Face-off amidst the ruins", a Lord-Celestant clashing with a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch

Sigismund the Betrayer, Slaughterpriest of Tzeentch

Hello folks!

It's been hard to keep posting stuff here at a decent pace as life is busy sometimes! Today I'm here to introduce you the model I got along with the latest White Dwarf magazine (monthly once again!) and the process of painting I went through to get him to shape.

Here's a stage-by-stage guide as a collection of pics to show you how the model changes during the process. I love seeing how each stage affects the model and how different the final result looks when compared to any of the earlier stages!

In five general steps the method of painting I used was

1) Assembly
2) Undercoat
3) Base colours
4) Washes
5) Layering, highlights &detail

Now that you've briefly seen the process as a whole, let's delve into each of the steps in a bit more detail!

I'll start off with the assembly as it was here that I made the first changes to the model. As the model is originally a Slaughterpriest of Khorne I had to make slight changes to make him fit into my Tzeentchian army a bit better. The most notable (and the only change actually) was the replacement of his groin armour and leather strips by a piece of parchment loaned from a Flagellants kit.

The model came together very neatly and with little effort, a real joy to assemble. The pose is threatening yet still dynamic, with the priest clearly looking down on someone shorter than him with a murderous gaze.

A black undercoat applied with a brush. I usually use spray paints to undercoat entire units at a time, but with single models I like to get at them with a large, soft brush to really examine and explore the model and all its curves and bends.... Wait, what?

This helps me plan the techniques and paints I'm going to use for each surface, so that the painting process itself will be as smooth and fluid as possible.

The basic colours. Applied in 2-3 thin layers, each area of the model is assigned a base colour from which the later effects are easy to work up. I used:

- Slaanesh Grey for skin
- Caledor Sky for armour
- Gehenna's Gold for shiny golden ornaments
- Xereus Purple for the small cape in the back
- Screaming Skull for horns, the skull under his foot and the groin parchment
- Ironbreaker for metal
- Mournfang Brown for boots and leather belts
- Screamer Pink for the sword's handle

Then came the inks, applied with a medium brush. Bone and parchment received a wash in Seraphim Sepia while all other parts were darkened by Nuln Oil.
I don't spare inks when I wash as I really want the effects to look like something, something that creates contrast when painted over with lighter colours in the next step.

And down we are to the final step. Basically all base colours were applied again over the darkened layers, leaving any recesses and shadowed areas darker than the spots where light would naturally hit. This is something I especially love doing to areas of bare skin, picking out the muscles one by one to make them "pop up" from the model.

Finally I applied the special something of my Tzeentchian warband's theme... the extreme armour highlights!
I obediently picked up my pot of Lothern Blue and the smallest brush I own, drawing a (hopefully) thin line along the hard edges of the armour plates to make the whole model look a bit more magical and contrast-y.

He fits into my army pretty well despite his past as a servant of Khorne. He saw the greater promise of power the Great Schemer could offer over his previous deity and now lends his powers to Izazel the Twisted and his fatesworn followers!
As the Slaughterpriest has no abilities that specifically use the keyword khorne I decided to implement him in my Tzeentch Mortals -army, casting his Blood Boil and Blood Bind prayers on enemy units while hacking at them with his two weapons of choice. Of course, he cannot gain any bonuses from my other Heroes that use the tzeentch keyword but I don't usually buff my supporting heroes anyway unless the situation urgently calls for it. 
And in addition to getting an interesting character to join my warband I get to call him "the Betrayer" for a good reason!


Finally as a reward for those who've read this post all the way down here, please enjoy these pics I created by playing with the famous Prisma - mobile app:

Filters from top left to bottom right: Gothic, We Can Do It!, Electric, Udnie, each of them at ~60-70% saturation.

August Community Painting Project

Greetings everyone!

I apologize that the rate at which new posts appear here at ExtraBushyBeards has greatly slowed down during the last few weeks. I just started my university studies and they've been quite... occupying.

Now I will step up my posting rate once more, starting with this August Community Painting Project!
Hopefully I'll also get in a game or two soon to provide you with more Narrative Battle Reports to read.

The model to be painted in August had the definition of Leader. As long as the unit being painted has the Leader battlefield role in the General's Handbook it is considered fair game. I took full advantage of this by painting up my Scarlet Sentinels' Lord-Celestant on Dracoth.

And here he is, Lord Boremund atop his faithful mount, Wyllis!
The model was the hardest one ever to assemble, but painting it was a pleasure. I picked a dark red (almost brownish) colour for the Dracoth's skin to better bring out the glowing recesses of its scales. Otherwise the model followed the dark and savage look of the rest of my Scarlet Sentinels, with steel, red and gold being the most dominating colours.

As you can probably see I've done some conversion work on the model to differentiate him from the classic Starter Set Lord-Celestant. Most notable change is the axe, taken from the Minotaurs box and decorated with a comet from the Greatswords set. To add to his savage look I gave him a Minotaur shield with the skull of some slain beast strapped on. His helmeted head was also changed to a bare one, with braided black beard and a... ermmm... celestial monocle?

The shield fitted perfectly on the arm holding the reins. He is equipped with a Sigmarite Thundershield and a Thunderaxe, allowing him to passively deal out mortal wounds and gain additional attacks from nearby Stormcast units.

Some of the glowing scale recesses can be seen here, but the next pics will show them a bit better.

The other side of the model. The base is still undone (pardons!) as I'll base the army later as a whole.
An interesting thing to point out on this pic is the comet/orb on top of Lord Boremund's thunderaxe. I tried my luck in getting a star-sky/cosmos/universe look on it by liberally applying different blues as washes and thinned down paints and I have to say I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out.

The same orb from the other side. Lord Boremund's celestial monocle (now clearly visible) was a thing I didn't personally like at first... but I got used to it and now I like how it makes him a bit more "lordly" and all.

Overall I'm happy with the result. Converting and changing parts was fun, as was painting this awesome mount! I also enjoyed painting the orb as it was something completely new to me, I spent more time on it than I probably should have.

The model looks different to the one my brother has from the Starter Set and that matters the most. I only have three Decimators to go and the Scarlet Sentinels will be based and showcased as a Finished Army!

This month's Community Painting Project was a blast, as always. Looking forward to the next one!

Vengeance From Above

Hello folks!

I know there's been a slight pause in my posting lately but don't let that bother you, I've been working my arse off whole summer to accumulate some funds, mostly for studies and more plastic crack models, but also for this brand new high-tier laptop I'm currently writing on. Hell yea this thing is silent, fast and powerful!

But enough of my new shiny gear with which I can now serve you better, I've got some progress on my Scarlet Sentinels I wanted to show you.

And here are my Prosecutors with Stormcall Javelins! Yes, they're the hammer-wielding versions from the Starter Set but I made some... slight modifications.
Most importantly I cut off their hammers and replaced them with spears from the Ungors boxed set and gave them large round shields from the Minotaur kit. With this "celestial but primal & brutal" -thing going on in my Stormcast army I think those spears and shields really catch the theme for these guys. Just look at those splintered shields with all the bones and trinkets!

Their wings I kept unmodified but wanted to put something bright on them to contrast with the otherwise dark colours of this force. Basically it's just white, yellow, orange and red, all washed over with Casandora Yellow shade. I really like the delicate (although fragile) feeling of the wings, they were a pleasure to paint, not to mention that flying around with magical energy-wing projectors on your back is extremely bad-ass!

And here's the Prosecutor Prime, armed with a Stormsurge Trident and a regular Stormcall Javelin. Of course, for game purposes he's still armed with a Trident and a shield, I just didn't have any Minotaur shields left.
Some of you might notice that I painted faces on them. I think the "face" is originally meant to be a metallic war-mask, similar to the ones on Liberators, but as my force is all about the human side of Stormcasts I decided to imagine it was their face. Their expressions look grim but they've been through a lot of shit so that's understandable.

I have one last trick up my sleeve: magnetized wings!
After seeing my brother's painful attempts to transport his Stormcast army I decided I'd solve that issue already in the assembly-stage. I bought some cheap small magnets from my local gaming store and put my file and clippers to work, resulting in easily removable wings that still look good on the model!

As with the rest of my Scarlet Sentinels, these three are on blank bases. Like before, I ask you to wait patiently as I'll base them all at the same time when the force is assembled and painted.

A little bonus for those who have read this post all the way down here: smartphone art with the Prisma app!

July Community Painting Project

After some new terrain there should definitely be new models to fight over it.

Here comes my July Community Painting Project (held at /r/ageofsigmar) submission, and this time the model selection for the project was quite broad: The First Year!

This means that any model released or repackaged during the first year of Age of Sigmar is a valid submission. Luckily I had just acquired my Starter Set Stormcast Eternals and signed up with a heavily converted Lord-Relictor + any other models from the army that I'd manage to paint up in time. Here are the results!

A heavily converted Lord-Relictor indeed. So heavily converted in fact that I'll actually consider playing him as a Knight-Vexillor instead! He has that humongous banner, after all. To accompany him in the Scarlet Sentinels chain of command I acquired a Lord-Castellant with a Gryph-hound.

Let's take a closer look at each one, shall we?

Knight-Vexillor of the Scarlet Sentinels, this hulking figure goes by the name of "Mance" among his fellow Stormcasts. He bears aloft the stormhost's revered banner, depicting white open shackles on a dark red field, symbolizing the freedom Scarlet Sentinels strive to bring to the Mortal Realms while drenching the ground in blood of the tyrants.

Bonus points for anyone who recognizes the banner!

As with my other Stormcasts, Mance too goes to battle bare-headed. Wielding his trusty axe with uncanny skill, there are precious few foes that have ever gotten close to the stormhost's banner.

No helmet, armed with an axe and brandishing pitch black hair, this model was painted the same way as my Liberators. He still looks a lot like a Lord-Relictor, but with the banner, weapon and head change I think he passes for a Knight-Vexillor just fine. For a moment I considered cutting off his gorgeous spikes, but they looked so badass I just couldn't do it!

One thing I love in Stormcast Eternals are the scrolls with mysterious inscriptions in them. They're just so immensely satisfying to paint, I can't really explain it. I was happy to notice that even the Liberators had small lengths of parchment hanging from their belts, how very thoughtful of GW! 

The base is still lacking but I've already done two test pieces on empty ones to try out some cobblestone patterns. The army get its bases when the time is right.

Next up is my Lord-Castellant whom I named "Davos", accompanied by his loyal Gryph-hound "Nymeria". I was torn between him, the Knight-Heraldor and the Lord-Celestant on foot, but in the end I settled on him for his intriguing fluff: 
He is the master of defensive warfare, the healing light of his Warding Lantern guiding his fellow Stormcasts to victory while his ever vigilant Gryph-hound watches for even the slightest hint of an ambush.

I'm awed by this guy, I can already imagine him giving calm, calculated advice to my hot-headed Lord-Celestant Boremund who leads the Scarlet Sentinels on their quest to destroy evil in the Realm of Ghur. A perfect bringer of balance to my otherwise savage-looking ferocious stormhost that would surely plunge straight into many ambushes and ruses were it not for the calming words of the Lord-Castellant and the soothing light of his warding lantern!

The model is so detailed and stunning that I couldn't bring myself to modify him in any way. He has that badass open myrmidon-helmet that partially shows his face and that's human-y enough for me.
I really liked the hourglass he's carrying on his belt, gave me an excuse to use a whole different colour to bring some detail on his otherwise steel/red/gold -look. And the amount of parchment on this guy's equipment almost made me jump up and down with joy!

With all the red on the shoulders and clothing, I thought a red cape would be a bit too much. Searching through my selection of paints, I finally settled on Screamer Pink to get kind of a royal look on this prestigious figure. 

A very nice model in all, with many different surfaces to use techniques on. I hope he also does well on the many battlefields I'm sending him to!

Let's give this noble beast here a description of his very own. The example pics I've seen of this model usually showed stripes on its back, which I kind of liked. I wanted to give him a bit harsher coloring to fit the theme of my army while still maintaining an air of nobility and intellect about him.

I settled on grey body with black stripes, perfect for cold and otherwise harsh environments my Scarlet Sentinels usually scour in the Realm of Beasts. A light brown blended with Screaming Skull was the palette for the head, giving it the royal look of a great eagle or something along those tracks. Bright blue eyes were the last finishing touch.

And here are my finished Scarlet Sentinels thus far. Just by calling the units on this pic to arms (by assembling and painting them) I've accumulated 5 Season of War points to the Grand Alliance of Order!

I've still got three Decimators, three Prosecutors and a Lord-Celestant to go before they're all painted and ready to retake the Realms. Then I'll most likely get some reinforcements for them to help them on their quest which once again brings me back to the painting table, but that's just how things work in this hobby, eh?

Ruins of the Realms

Hello folks!

I promised to come up with some terrain I've made recently, and here I am. I found this excellent Youtube tutorial by Miscast Terrain on how to use this odd foam-board-fluffy-stuff (I seriously can't remember the material's name right now) to build some awesome terrain. As a theme for this bunch I chose "Ruins of the Realms" type of thing, as my current hoard of terrain pieces has precious few ruins in it, making epic battles in a destroyed city quite difficult to set up.

And here are the first ones! From left to right: Realmgate/Sacrificial Altar, Stone Totem and two generic Ruined Buildings.
The material is amazingly easy to handle and shape, all you need is scissors and a knife. I cut out pieces that were about the size I needed, then cut them into shape with scissors while smoothing some edges and picking chunks out of the sides to create a more stoney look. All the little pieces that you produce while tidying things up make very nice rubble to glue on the larger areas and create some detail, too!

I then grabbed my knife and drew the cracks on the stone, sprayed it all black and finally took up my biggest brush and drybrushed all over it with different shades of grey. As an extra touch I painted some glow on the runes. Quick, cheap and easy terrain.

These were my very first attempts at the material. I cut out "bars" of the foam, then sliced them into rough bricks. After rounding some edges I glued them together randomly to create Rock Piles, Walls and Fences. The wooden sticks are some kind of spikes you barbecue things in, they have nice pointy ends. Kind of like toothpicks, but longer and thicker.

These pieces of terrain I sprayed grey before drybrushing with lighter greys and some very light brown. The ones spayed black looked better to my eye, to be honest.

Here are the pieces before any paint was applied. The foamy board they're standing on is the material I'm talking about, you can get many boards of it quite cheap if you manage to find it somewhere. I used PVA glue to put the pieces together with a few toothpicks here and there to add some structural support (inside the Realmgate's pillars, for example). The owner of the Miscast Terrain channel explains these tips and tricks very nicely in his videos.

Here's a pic of this brand new terrain in use, representing the outskirts of the city of Phoenicium being battled over by Greenskinz and Slaves to Darkness, both striving to earn points for their faction in the Season of War.

So that's it for terrain for now, next up will be my July Community Painting Project!