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Hexwraiths, black nights, same thing, eh? Horsey dead men. And yea, I feel your pain on finecast. Metal can be bad, but not THAT bad.

Great work on the dwarves, and I love what you've been doing with the undead - both the ethereals and also the black-robed and corporeal ones.

Smugglers, brigands, sell-swords and deviant scum. Seigfried and his Desperados have been called all and worse. Some of it might even be true... for the right coin, of course.

The Desperados are a motley crew of misfits if ever there was, but who would expect anything else from the city of Azyrheim? Man, Duardin and Aelf fight side-by-side, some under the banner of Sigmar, others for gold and others still for reasons unknown. And yet it is Siegfried they follow across the Mortal Realms, exploring lost tombs and crumbling cities to seek fortune and glory.



For every player making the transition from WHFB to AoS there is one decision we must all make...

Do I rebase my existing army?

Over the next few weeks I plan to move all my painted Empire models onto round and oval bases. Here we have the first 10 Swordsmen to make the transition as they will be part of my 30 model "School League" army.

I love round bases. Not only do the models look better, they also look much more imposing. 10 models standing flush on square bases doesn't have much of a footprint, but 10 on circle bases in a loose formation looks quite formidable on the battlefield.



These models were painted close to a year ago, and with a black undercoat. I think my painting has improved lots since but they don't look too shabby.

They are very much still Altdorf City Guard in appearance despite me rebranding them as the "Desperados". Again this is something that every player making the transition has to deal with too, how does my army fit into the new fluff? When I have the chance to paint some new Empire to add to these regiments I will start to play down the reds and blues in favour of natural leathers and creams to give them a more rag-tag appearance.

LeCacty wrote:Hexwraiths, black nights, same thing, eh? Horsey dead men. And yea, I feel your pain on finecast. Metal can be bad, but not THAT bad.

Oh, I disagree! Metal is fine to work with, all my Necromunda is metal and I love it. Metal doesn't have air bubbles or crumbling detail, hardly any flash and stuff that's bent out of shape can just be bent back again :-P

Azazelx wrote:Great work on the dwarves, and I love what you've been doing with the undead - both the ethereals and also the black-robed and corporeal ones.

Thanks! I have some Hexwraiths coming to join my Cairn Wraith and they will be in matching black robes to extend the theme!

Thanks for reading and for all the comments as always everyone!

More to come...

Fair enough! I like the weight of metal especially. Great work as always!

Excellent work, Bottle. You seriously tempt me to rebase all 100+ of my Night Goblins for AOS. Maybe I'll give the new rules a try first, haha. I'd love to see some action shots of the Desperados in-game. The paintjobs must look striking on the field.

Of all the races that took refuge in Azyrheim it is perhaps the Aelves who struggled to adapt the most. The feuds and rivalries of the Aelves were brought with them to the city and now play out in close quarters and behind closed doors. Political intrigue is rife among the Aelven nobility, where lands long lost from the Mortal Realms beyond are still bartered and fought for. Down the dark corridors of the Aelven palaces at night can be heard the footfall of exiled assassins as they bring plots to dark fruition.




After a bloody night of executions, Shiran-khan found herself the last in her bloodline and heir to a lost Kingdom. Fearing for her life she fled the Aelven palaces accompanied only by her loyal handmaiden.

With the Realm Gates open once more , Shiran-khan now has a chance to return to her family’s Kingdom and lay claim to her bloodright, but getting there will be no easy task.




This was my first time ever dealing with Finecast and I came to loathe it haha. The sprues arrived with so much flash I had to carve out the legs from the resin. Air bubbles a plenty, warped sections too. When I sprayed with my white undercoat I made the mistake of spraying from too far away causing a grainy finish on the models... I really wanted to throw them away at points.

I persevered though, and while I don't think this is my finest work (especially under close scrutiny) and am still happy with how they turned out in the end!



And this marks a historic landmark in the project! My 30 (+15) model army (designed under GW's School league Rules) is complete!

Here are all my heroes assembled above, making up a D&D style party. I haven't shown the final empire rebasing yet, so stay tuned for a full army showcase ASAP. What is especially nice for me is it is almost exactly a year since I got back into the hobby and painted up the Bright Wizard shown above.

Thanks for reading and commenting as always!

More to come...

great stuff as ever Bottle. One tiny thing I noticed - might try adn smooth out the transitions on the Aelvean cloaks though. Lovely looking band coming together there though

I agree with jan on the cloaks, but I think that may just be because of how damn colorful they are!
Amazing work, as usual though!

Good stuff! Is that still NMM on the elves? (if it is then well done, if people have to ask whether you've used NMM or regular metallics then it's mission accomplished!)

I'd agree about the cloaks, though, they do stick out when the rest of the model is so smoothly done.

Wonderful work as always Bottle!

youidiotkid wrote:Excellent work, Bottle. You seriously tempt me to rebase all 100+ of my Night Goblins for AOS. Maybe I'll give the new rules a try first, haha. I'd love to see some action shots of the Desperados in-game. The paintjobs must look striking on the field.

Thank you! and that's great to hear :-) actually I have 100+ Night Goblins I need to rebase too (and largely paint, haha) But that's a project I am keeping in the pipeline for now :-P

I'll try and do some battle reports soon, most of the players in my local GW field grey models though (which is a shame), and often half assembled models (an even bigger shame). But when I get a chance to play another fully painted force I am going to take many pics!

Januine wrote:great stuff as ever Bottle. One tiny thing I noticed - might try adn smooth out the transitions on the Aelvean cloaks though. Lovely looking band coming together there though

Thanks man! Yeah... I was rushing these a little by the end. I bought some paints to fill the gaps so I can smooth out those blends.

LeCacty wrote:I agree with jan on the cloaks, but I think that may just be because of how damn colorful they are!
Amazing work, as usual though!

Thanks!

Paradigm wrote:Good stuff! Is that still NMM on the elves? (if it is then well done, if people have to ask whether you've used NMM or regular metallics then it's mission accomplished!)

I'd agree about the cloaks, though, they do stick out when the rest of the model is so smoothly done.

Yeah, I tried that blue wash technique you mentioned :-) again, I don't think this NMM is my finest work by any stretch, but they look nice from 4ft away haha. All your comments have made me decide to revisit the cloaks to smooth them out.

Mymearan wrote:Wonderful work as always Bottle!

Thanks Mym!

Here is the rest of the Empire I have been rebasing:











As mentioned before this is my School League army 100% painted. I will get an army showcase together as soon as I can. Unfortunately I don't have the set up at home (all the pics you see here are just taken on A4 paper with an iphone), so I was hoping to get some photos in my local GW, but I am off sick with a cold at the moment so maybe next week :-)

Lovely stuff there Bottle. Particularly like what I'm now calling the Soju Gunner - fella on a horse blasting off rounds and packing a few bottles of the evil stuff on his saddle. Great work!

Awesome riders! I personally would have found some helmets for them but these actually look nice (I hate the default outrider heads)

Wow, very inspirational! I only wish I had a gaming group who'd be interested in something like this.

Where in the states are you, impulse?

Awesome work, really great use of colour and the freehand on the banner was awesomely executed.

Would be nice to see some more inventive basing, but it's hardly something to fault you on.

Excellent models, really characterful.

EDC

I really like your painting style. It's not the cleanest when it comes to blends etc, but it doesn't matter because you're great at putting highlights in the right color, where they belong, which is more important imo than blending.

 LeCacty wrote:
Where in the states are you, impulse?

Texas, in the north Dallas area.

Oh, nevermind then.

Januine wrote:Lovely stuff there Bottle. Particularly like what I'm now calling the Soju Gunner - fella on a horse blasting off rounds and packing a few bottles of the evil stuff on his saddle. Great work!

Haha yes! A new name for him. He has D3 shots with his gun but I should only allow wanshat!.

LeCacty wrote:Awesome riders! I personally would have found some helmets for them but these actually look nice (I hate the default outrider heads)

I like their mustachioed faces haha. The pistoliers heads are being used for an upcoming Halberdiers unit! What sort of helmets would you use?

impulse wrote:Wow, very inspirational! I only wish I had a gaming group who'd be interested in something like this.

Thanks man! Do you just mean AoS?

Winter wrote:Awesome work, really great use of colour and the freehand on the banner was awesomely executed.

Would be nice to see some more inventive basing, but it's hardly something to fault you on.

Thanks! Yeah, they do get my little pointy toadstools on bases as a personal flair but I tried to largely mirror the studio bases. I have a Mortach to paint up and hope to do something more exciting with that base!

Mymearan wrote:I really like your painting style. It's not the cleanest when it comes to blends etc, but it doesn't matter because you're great at putting highlights in the right color, where they belong, which is more important imo than blending.

Thanks man. Yeah I try to paint as quickly as I can which means not always devoting as much time as I can to blends. These Empire guys were painted close to a year ago now and from black undercoat. I can't wait to paint some empire with my new painting style (which you can see best on my undead)

Haha yes! A new name for him. He has D3 shots with his gun but I should only allow wanshat!.

ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ hahahahha - I just about spewed coffee out through my nose when I read that!!!!!

Cannon and Cavalry on oval bases... This is what Age of Sigmar was made for!

So I'm a big historical helmet nerd. I'd probably use some sallets, probably from the greatswords set.

These newly rebased figures look great. I'm definitely looking forward to some whole-force shots!

I really really like your stuff here!

Age of Sigmar needs more good press, regardless of how (if at all) you comp it.

I have one tiny wrinkle though, with your amazing battle-tome. If you aren't in the mood for a bit of grammar correction, please ignore the spoiler.




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Is there any chance you'll be doing a Nagash? I'd love to see your paint scheme on one of those.

I'll second that - paint Nagash Bottle. Love to see your take on that that guy

This thread is everything good about AoS. Loving watching you craft both the figures and story.

Great stuff. Scintillating and inspiring. It's amazing how great the old models look on round bases. I also love the "warband" or D&D adventurer (as you said) vibe of the heroes all together.

I need to bite the bullet and re-base my stuff...

This is top-notch work. Incredible paint jobs, and I really love the fluff you've given your army. I think it's really cool what you're doing with AoS and I hope to see more!