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Subbed to this for sure. This is what GW should point people to to get them wanting to play Age of Sigmar!

Hey everyone, it's been a little while since I last posted so even though I usually don't post WIPs I thought I would make the exception today.

The recent coverage of SCGT really opened my eyes to how awesome tournaments seem to be, and so I quickly hunted down the next one close to me and signed up. It's the 'Bristol Smash' in June. So I am now preparing my army to be tournament legal and adding some much needed reinforcements:




1x Steam Tank,
1x Cogsmith (Grimm Burloksson)
10x Archers

All WIP so far with the steamtank and Cogsmith coming along, the others are still just basecoats on top of white undercoat.

I have learnt to magnetise so the steamtank pilot will be able to sit in the turret or go on a seperate base (he is too nice a model to stay coped up in the tank all day long). The steamtank marks one of my new year goals to tackle bigger models too.

Seems like I have enough time to get these finished for the tournament on June 4th but I am also moving into my first house this Friday! So life is super hectic!

Anyway thanks for stopping by :-)

More to come...

Bottle, you keep hitting it out of the park... keep up the amazing work!

Sweet stuff Bottle. Really lovely clean metals there. Top stuff

Nice. The Steam Tank is looking particularly grand.

EDC

Amazing work, and the pictures do you every bit of justice as well!

Thanks guys, it's all still a work in progress. The Steamtank still needs highlights, details and the base finishing. The infantry need even more work still. I will update with some more pictures once I have some more progress. Moving house this Friday so everything is in boxes now!

Once me and the wife are finally in our own place again, hopefully things will really start to take off with this blog! ;-)

Hey nice stuff in here bottle. Congrats on quick improvements as well!! Keep it up!

BB

The Ironweld Arsonal

Hey everyone! I've been moving house the last few weeks which means I've been building Swedish flat pack furniture instead of Warhammer kits. But I've had some time to work on the last few pieces I need for my tournament (The Bristol Smash) in June. Behold!


My Steam Tank is done! I'm not a 100% happy with it but it feels good to finally get a centre piece for my Freeguild army. As an Empire collector it has always been on my bucket list to get.

But that's not all:



I also got a Cogsmith/Grimm Burloksson done too. This awesome guy is going to be the leader of my Dwarf contingent in my army.

You'll also notice the Steamtank driver is out and about. I magnetised him so I could put him in the tank or on a base. I think this is one of the best Empire sculpts and it goes to waste cooped up in the tank.

I am also really happy with the paint job on this guy. In fact I think it's my best paint job to date. What do you guys think?

Sorry it's not on my clean white backgrounds. I haven't got a space set up yet to take photos on :-)

in terms of tournament preparation all that it left now are the 10 archers.

More to come...

Superb stuff! The tank is a great centrepiece, and as great as the driver is, I reckon that Dwarf Cogsmith might be one of your best yet. Excellent use of colour and tone to bring in the NMM to life!

 Paradigm wrote:
Superb stuff! The tank is a great centrepiece, and as great as the driver is, I reckon that Dwarf Cogsmith might be one of your best yet. Excellent use of colour and tone to bring in the NMM to life!

Thanks man! I wasn't actually too happy with the Cogsmith - I really like the NMM armour look you get on your models (like the neck armour plates of your general's horse), I think mine still needs some work. But it is nice to keep trying to get better each time I have some Dwarfs to paint.

Loving the Steamtank and characters . Great job!

Absolutely phenomenal work Bottle. Thatis a beautiful piece you've done there. Great to see you back at at the brushes. Hope the move went relatively painlessly!

The Steam tank, it's crewman and the Dwarven engineer all look fantastic. I need to get one of those kits before they and the rest of the Empire hit the "Last Chance" walk of doom. I missed getting my Brettonian Battalion.

Thanks guys! @Azazelx Yes, I regretted not getting any Brets in time. I think we'll see a few years in these remaining Empire just because they have so much to do before they turn their attention to regular humans again. The Steam Tank is definitely a "must-have" for any fan of the old Empire models.

@Jan, yes the move went smoothly although most of my Warhammer is still in boxes in the soon-to-be office (or "hobby room" as I call it ;-).

Just over a week to go until Siegfried marches to war at my first ever tournament - the Bristol Smash. I was hoping to play another warm up game last night, but instead had a great game playing 'The Ritual' with a guy named Dan. My Desperados stood facing an oncoming army of Death whilst the two wizards tried to jump start a Realm Gate so they could make their escape. I snapped some pics!





The Desperados won, largely due to making Arkhan the subject of cannon target practice. As you can see I am tantalisingly close to having a fully painted army!

Updates coming soon.

More to come...

That looks awasome B. best of luck in the tourney

Awesome stuff.

EDC

Always good to see such a nicely painted army in its natural habitat!

Note to self: Get some Freeguild Outriders.. Where did you get the oval bases for them? I need to add some cavalry at some point.

I'm finished!!!!!

Some big news for me today as I finish my tournament army a week ahead of the deadline! Today I finished the last 10 archers of my 20 pool army just in time for the Bristol Smash!


Freeguild Archers

I am really really happy with how these guys turned out. They are beautiful models (my favourite Empire infantry kit by miles) - they also represent some significant milestones for me:
- This unit marks the first Empire/Freeguild unit I have done from white undercoat. It might be hard to tell from the pictures, but the highlights are much smoother, the skin has much more depth than I ever reached from black. I've been painting with white undercoat for almost a year now, but this is the first human unit I have done from it.
- The colour scheme has evolved. My army was once the XIIIth regiment of Altdorf - but as all WHFB players who moved over to AoS, I had to find a place for my army in this new game world (hence the 'Desperados'). I have wanted to move away from the Altdorf colour scheme whilst keeping my original units in place with the new. This marks my first attempt to evolve the uniform colours.
- The shades have been altered firstly, the blue now comes from Stegadon Scale Green and the red from Khorne Red - after that the red is moved to a spot colour and natural gowns and whites are brought in to replace it. One of the archers has a pair of split red/blue trousers under his riding coat as homage to the other units in the army.
- I am trying to change my highlighting style too, having them reflect where light might hit rather than being straight edge highlights. Let me know if you think it is effective or not.

So what do you guys think of my Freeguild Archers?

I also snapped pics of my Steamtank in front of a white backdrop but overexposed the photos in hindsight (taking pics in my new crib is tricky).



What's next?

Expect photos from my upcoming tournament! After that I want to focus on my Death stuff, as well as putting together a board. It's slowly starting to come together now!

More to come...

Well done bottle. You never cease to amaze. Be sure to update us on the tourney though!

Bloody lovely

As a fluent german speaker, i will tell you that you may have named one of your wizard "Disgusting Old Ghost". Just maybe.

Unit looks great, Bottle. The Steam Tank certainly takes the cake, though!

Bottle's Bristol Smash Report - aka "Dumb Ways to Die"

Hey everyone, here's a quick report of my trip to the Bristol Smash. Not only my first ever AoS tournament by my first wargaming tournament ever!

My objectives for this event was to:
- Have fun - meet people
- Get some feedback on my painting
- Get better at Age of Sigmar

And in light of that, it was a resounding success. But if you were expecting Bottle to storm across the top tables, you'll be in for a disappointment! I came second to last, which whilst being better than coming last - I did actually lose to the player who came last overall! So, this bite size report will be titled; Dumb Ways to Die haha.

Here was my army:



Heroes:
Freeguild General x2
Battlemage x2
Cogsmith
Alarielle the Radiant
Handmaiden to the Everqueen

Units:
5x Outriders
20x Swordsmen
10x Archers
10x Thunderers
10x Fyreslayers Vulkite Bezerkers

Warmachines:
Dwarf Cannon
Empire Cannon
Steamtank

In each game you could deploy up to 20 "pools" (points), and I took all of the above minus Alarielle and her Handmaiden each game.

Game 1:



Game 1 was against a Death army, and it was Byron of the Facehammer podcast fame. I am a massive fan of his painting so it was great to meet him and he gave me some tips on how to improve my stuff.

His army smashed me up though! It was: Nagash, Neferata and Arkhan. On turn 1 he summoned 6 Morghast Archai and got off all the charges meaning I was fighting for my life from the word go.

Although it was a complete defeat to me (20-0), in many ways it was quite close as I almost killed Nagash.



My steamtank rammed Nagash, but alas it was ripped to shreds my the Mortarchs either side!

Game 2:

The secomd game was against George who had Ogors (led my Goddrak, the new Orc 'Maw Krusha' special character). If I thought last game was brutal it was nothing compared to this one!



This was an odd scenario, the board was split into four corners and each player had two opposite corners to deploy in. The deployment zones were really close too.

This combined with Goddrak's ability to give a formation a 3D6 charge, and that his entire army was a formation, meant everything charged into me turn 1 and I lost every scoring unit before I had even moved!

The game ended 19-1

Game 3:

Game 3 was against a great guy, Mike from the Cheltenham Warchiefs. It featured an Archaon who wasn't that scary and 6 Stormfiends who were terrifying! (Mincing my Steamtank in a single turn).



In this game I didn't get tabled. (Had one wizard still alive at the end). And got myself a few points for assassinating his general with a cannon ball, but it was off to the bottom table for me lol!

Game 4:

Game 4 saw me against Charlie who eventually came last. This game was close and ended 12-8 (IIRC) so a slight loss to me.



This was a really fun game in which my Steamtank ran over a bloodthirster and killed 40 clan rats! I also learnt from my mistakes previously and deployed and played much more tactically. But obviously still not amazingly well as I still lost and so by the end of this game was bottom and ready for my name to be immortalised on the wooden spoon they have...

Game 5:

Game 5 was against Goblins and a great guy called Carl from the Warchiefs. This game had some fun moments, including taking out 2 giants in one turn (and one was felled by a fyreslayer throwing axe).



I actually came close to winning this game, on my last turn my Steamtank only had to kill 20 goblins on an objective to stop them from scoring it, but despite shooting it with everything and then ramming it too, 5 goblins survived and the game ended up a straight draw at 10-10...

Which pushed me back above last place as my previous opponent had lost his final game quite badly. Phew!

So I had a really great time. One of the best things was to speak to Byron (in game u1) and later Les from Facehammer also came over to introduce himself and say some kind words about my painting which was amazing for me! :-)

I am gonna push my painting and do a few more centrepieces for the army so see if I can get a nomination next time for best painted.

I also need to learn to play better lol!







Oh, and I have some plans for this blog, so let's leave this here:




Automatically Appended Next Post:

WarbossDakka wrote:Well done bottle. You never cease to amaze. Be sure to update us on the tourney though!

Januine wrote:Bloody lovely

Thanks guys!

Azazelx wrote:Unit looks great, Bottle. The Steam Tank certainly takes the cake, though!

Thanks man, I have more centrepieces planned. Will be doing either a Luminark or Hurricanum for the army next :-)

EmberlordofFire8 wrote:As a fluent german speaker, i will tell you that you may have named one of your wizard "Disgusting Old Ghost". Just maybe.

Haha, yeah, most of my characters have stupid names made from Google Translate :-)

So much AOS inspiration, the army is looking excellent and that Steam Tank just takes the biscuit. Beautiful painting Bottle. It

And kudos to the Fyreslayer for bringing down a Giant with a throwing axe. At least you enjoyed your first tournament experience.

subbed,
looking forward to seeing more of your work, not only is it fantastic but it's pretty inspirational too!

Here's a finished model for a new unit I am making - a Freeguild Guard Militia unit (formerly known as the Free Company). I only have one miniature to share today but for me he's something special. I really, really tried to push my painting with this model. Hopefully it'll be a miniature that you think came out nicely too. The other 9 of the unit will follow shortly as they are almost all done.







It's coming up to two years since I have been back into this hobby. In that time I like to think my painting has come on a long way (but still has room for so so much improvement of course). Here is a comparison of the new model side by side with one from my first regiment:



I've been working on my skintones, adding red into them (a red wash in certain areas, and red on the nose and lips). I think here you can see the evolution better in my colour scheme (which started with the Archers) where I move away from the strictly red & blue of Altdorf and instead bring in white and brown to go with the blue and relegate red to a spot colour. You'll notice that my blues and reds are just a lot nicer too (at least, in my opinion). I think one of the most important parts of pushing your painting is choosing a nice shade of each colour.

Lastly, I tried to improve my basing. Black base rims recommended by Byron from Facehammer (my first opponent at the tournament I went to) really do frame the miniature nicer. I don't know why it never occurred to me to paint my Mordhiem Tufts too lol. Those grass tufts are the same but on the new model I have sapped Agrax Earthshade into the centre and then drybrushed lightly with Screaming Skull.

So what does everyone think? I would love feedback positive or negative as I want to constantly improve :-)




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thraxas Of Turai wrote:So much AOS inspiration, the army is looking excellent and that Steam Tank just takes the biscuit. Beautiful painting Bottle. It

And kudos to the Fyreslayer for bringing down a Giant with a throwing axe. At least you enjoyed your first tournament experience.

Thanks man! The Steamtank gets quite a few compliments but I don't think it came out that nicely if you look at it really closely. It did teach me the importance of a centrepiece though! I am building a Hurricanum currently and plan to add in a second Steamtank - hopefully a little better painted :-)

Glasdir wrote:subbed,
looking forward to seeing more of your work, not only is it fantastic but it's pretty inspirational too!

Cheers man!

Season of War


I thought it would be fun to quickly track the Season of War campaign in my blog.

I played my first Season of War game tonight and had loads and loads of fun. Siegfried and his Desperados were fighting for Order and the city Greywater Fastness, standing firm against the Ironjawz.

This was also my first game under the new Matched Play rules. 2000pts playing scenario 1 'Take and Hold'.

The game started well with my formidable gunline laying down lots of shots on Goddrak and his Maw Krusha. The Fyreslayers swore oaths for the finishing blow and in a blaze of glory failed to take off the remaining 6 wounds and got themselves all killed instead(pictured above).

Goddrak didn't survive past the second turn however, eventually being slain by a Freeguild Archer



Things took a turn for the worse as soon as the Weird Nob got in magic range however. Foot of Gork squashed Siegfried and instakilled him Monty Python style! This broke all my synergies (mainly the 'Hold the Line' ability and the Order allegiance bravery shenanigans) and allowed my left flank to quickly crumble and get swamped with brutes.

Foot of Gork came down again and squashed my second Freeguild Hero (although not before he slew the Orruk Megaboss!), and Foot of Gork came down later and squashed 11 Freeguild Swordsmen!

All of a sudden, instead of playing for the win, I was playing for the draw to keep my own objective safe! In the end the Ironjawz won a minor victory on kill points.

A total blast of a game and it was so great to play with both points and base-to-base measuring in a GW store. Can't wait till next week!



Currently, however, my store is in the hands of Nagash. Let's hope next week I can secure a victory for Order.

Just read through your whole log, as having only seen the a few bits in the other thread. Lovely work. The fluff for your empire troops is excellent, and very nicly put together.

Your painting has come along in huge leaps, the new skins tones are fantastic. Really like what you did with the tufts too, really adds a lot to finish the mini off.

Your work inspired me to stop painting the armies I was meant to be working on, and picked up some ghosts. Mine didn't come out any where near as nice as yours, but glad I did as they were really enjoyable to paint, and very different to the thousands of goblins I am meant to be painting!