Saving the Cygor

On a recent trip to Knoxville TN, I swung by the CM Games store in Cedar Bluff where they happened to be having a 50% off sale on their used miniatures. This Cygor stood out to me as a very good bargain considering the current after-market prices for this guy, but more importantly I felt like I could save this model. 

"Save me!"

Mostly I just need to finish the basecoat, and just build up the colors from there. Except for that big boulder he is holding. That thing will be completely repainted. Don't get me wrong, I admire the original painter's attempt to make this appear molten, but it just doesn't work for me with this model. 

In the Neverness Hobbyzone being studied.

And I need to rebase him also.  And that's where I am starting this project.  I removed him from the large oval base and sized him up for his 60x100mm square  base before gritting it up and priming it. And of course, I felt compelled to go ahead and paint it prior to affixing the Cygor to his new base. 

The new base.

I used Skeleton Horde on any of unpainted bones and skulls. Volupus Pink was used on the big guy's tongue and mouth. For the big rock I used Adeptus Battlegray Foundation Paint on the rock. That stuff is still amazing. I was able to coat it in no time and get that thing looking like a big stone again. This revealed details to me that I hadn't noticed before such as the vine of ivy growing acrossed it. 

New base attached. 

I liberally applied Bloodreaver Flesh over most of the fleshy areas, which immediately began. To brighten up the model. 

Bloodreaver Fleah. 

Bugman's Glow was added over that which really started to bring this thing to life. 

Bugman's Glow.

And then I topped the fleshy bits with Cadian Fleshtone. This seemed like a good place to stop on this part. 

Cadian Fleshtone.

Stop? No way, I was having too much fun! I used white ink to fill in the recesses on the big stone (I made a mess of it really, but I tried). Then I decided to use Tesseract Glow on the recesses. 

Super glowy rock. 

After that I used Adeptus Battlegray Foundation Paint again to sort of dry brush over these groves in an effort to restore the glowy spirals. Although this turned out OK, my choice of Tesseract Glow clashed with my choice of green for the ivy. 

White drybrusbing on the hair/quils/fur areas.

The solution was to paint over the ivy using thinned Khorne Red. This kind of gives it a bit of poison ivy look which also gives it the benefit of contrast against the Tesseract Glow. 

Fur Contrast Paint over hair/quils/fur areas.

And then I worked up the leather wraps using the original Blood Angels Red as a base for Screamer Pink which was then washed in Nuln Oil and thinly highlighted with Pink Horror.

The bones (of which there is a staggering amount adorning this fella) were finished off using Screaming Skull, Wraithbone and White Scar. Pretty much the same process I used on the skellies I painted up recently. Except I was way more conservative with the use of the White Scar. 

With my final touch-ups I'm calling this Cygor done! Enjoy the next few pics of this model from different angles. 

And here is a final shot to help give those of you who may not be familiar with this model a sense of scale...

"Wow, you're a big one!" 

He should fit in well with the rest of my Beastmen Brayherd, of which, he is the first one with a finished paint job.. Actually, working on this guy has inspired me to do more, and hopefully I will do so soon. 

Maddie's Marauder

 Both of my kids have always been fascinated by my miniatures hobby to some extent. Especially the colors of all of my various paint pots and bottles. 

So on the eve of her 3rd birthday she approached me while I was sitting at my hobby table and asked me if she could "paint a guy purple". I thought about it and almost sacrificed an old 2nd edition marine for this unique learning opportunity. But I remembered I had about 40 loose Chaos Marauder Archers from the old Battlemasters game that I won in the late '90s via an auction that was on the old WH40K Mailing List. 

Corax White basecoat. 

I brushed Corax White onto the marauder to act as a basecoat. I figured the easiest way to teach a kid this young how to paint is to use Contrast Paints. So I let her pick what colors to use on what parts and we proceeded with the lesson. 

The Bow of Red Era. 

I held her brush hand while holding the model with my left hand. And I guided her application of paint over the whole miniature. And I gotta say, this turned out better than some of the 'Paint and Take' competitions that I have participated in. I particularly love that she wanted the bow painted red as it totally screams early '90s 'eavy Metal doesn't it? 

Who doesn't love a green mohawk?

Next she picked out a rok to put on the base. (you can see it in the top pic behind the guy's left leg).  Next I helped her apply the grit to the base.  She had a lot of fun shaking the model into the cup full of grit. 

Gritty. 

Next step was to paint the base which we did in two coats.  I gave her a choice in colors for the bases rim and she chose, much to nostalgic pride, Goblin Green! 

And finally, I let Maddie pick out a grass tufts and we glued it down together. 

And that's a wrap! I think she's game to do more and since I have another 39 of these things sitting in a zip lock,  I won't be running out of them too soon.  

Beastmode engaged!

During my recent move I had the opportunity to dig through a lot of my miniatures and models as I restored the Neverness Archive back to it's former glory. In particular, I got to look through my old Warhammer Fantasy stuff. I am particularly keen to build something new (even though it's really old) for the Old World game. The Dwarves were the first to interest me as I had a small force of them back in the day but I only ever managed to only paint up one of them. So the obstacle of having to rebase them isn't there, unlike my Orc & Goblins. 

But then I came across some beastmen:

"...hmmm, I wonder if I can get them to look like this?"

I bought this back in the mid '90s (when the price point for boxes of this size was just $12.50!) with the intention of using them in 40k. The 2nd edition era Codex: Chaos had rules for using beastmen and I was going to put either bolters or lasguns into their left hands. The edition changed before I could get around to that project (a fact that shouldn't surprise even a semi-regular reader of this blog) and the beastmen have only just recently returned to the WH40k game via Killteam. These miniatures did get a new lease for life on my gaming table around 15 years ago when I ran a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition campaign. My players killed quite a few beastmen! 

"Comoany, -look left!!!"

And then I stumbled upon some more miniatures for this faction. These guys are some of the original Ungors. Again, I only ever used them for WHFRP. There were five of them, including a mis-cast with no legs. 

I got these guys around year 2000 in a bulk blind-buy metal deal GW USA did after they had a shelf collapse in their old Glen Burnie location. I think it was a pound of random metal for $10? I bought two of them and found the weirdest assortment of metal bits in them. These guys were part of that as were the next lot...

"Colonel Baaa-ann"

Then I found a few metal minotaurs including a Doombull. Curious to see the in game value of what I had,, I did a quick calculation and determined that I had a good start to a decent sized Beasts of Chaos force. 

The scattered bits of a Doombull. 

The Doombull and the Minotaurs had been a project I started on in the mid-'00s for Bloodbowl. Bloodbowl had been kept alive by GW via an online "living' ruleset and my immediate gaming group was keen to get a Blood Bowl league going. We only got a few games in but I was still very inspired by it. I found the Minotaurs and the Doombull in my collection of metal bits and decided to make them usable for Bloodbowl. This ment ordering a few spare bits from GW mailorder (a golden age we were all taking for granted back then) and hacked off their axes.  The models were mounted on 25mm bases as this was the requirement at the time. Then the whole project died and they were set aside for almost 20 years. 

Which brings us to the present, and my renewed interest in these chaps. I was quite happy to see I had a good amount of 50mm square bases in my bitz bins. Why I initially got them is a mystery to me but I'm taking full advantage of their presence. The Doombull looks awesome on it, as well as having his axes back on him. Drilling and pinning the metal parts together gave me all manner of flashbacks from the turn of this century as I recall doing a lot of it back then. Sadly, one of the axe pummels has been lost but I don't think it looks too obvious. 

The assembled Doombull.

Luckily I simply had an extra arm for this next guy so the amount of drilling and pinning I would've done was minimalized. 

Minotaur #1. 

This next guy was a bigger challenge however. I couldn't find the missing axe head (I think I used it on an orc or an ork) but I had one from the old daemon prince bitz stash. So I cut it in such a way that once joined together it would look a bit longer. However I was displeased with the join and rather than using greenstuff and attempting to sculpt a repair, I had the impulsive idea to just tie a twist-tie around it. Once painted it should appear like leather banding. 

So tempted to stick on 2 googly eyes and call it. 

The other problem was that I was missing a single, very important, bit: his head. I had horns and the lower jaw, just not the head.  Desperate, I searched ebay, and after awhile I found the exact bit I needed. 

Head games. 

The seller, as you can tell from the description, wasn't entirely sure what he was selling. After I left him a positive review he reached out to me in private and wanted to know what the heck they were.  I joyfully explained that one of these heads was a vital piece I was missing and the other was a skull that likely went to a banner or something. 

There was also another metal Gor from that "by the pound grab bag deal" which I use as a unit leader. 

Leader of the herd. 

And I found another minotaur, to give me a unit of three! I think these classic late '80s Minotaurs are just the best. They had so much character and individuality. 

Does he belong in a museum or on my gaming table? 

I also dug up the old multi-part Gors and Ungors boxed set circa the early 2000s. Which I have spent a few evenings assembling, and on the current base sizes. I recall getting these guys to use with WHFRP but the campaign stopped before I could assemble them. 

The herd assembles.

In the background you can see the package for the Beastmen Great Bray Shaman, whom I've been calling Billy Bray Cyrus. Again, he was bought for WHFRP but was instead lost in the archive when we stopped playing that game. 

Cheers for Billy Bray Cyrus!

As you can see, I seem to have bit into a decent sized project here. So far it's a fun distraction from the 40k projects that have dominated my attention over the past year. Since I last dabbled in WHFB Contrast Paints have been incorporated into my painting palette and I think I can get these things painted way quicker than my approach of a decade ago would have resulted. Be we shall see in time. 

And we shall call you 'Lance'

 Get ready for a fun one! 

"Grenades for the Grenades god!"

Once again Da Masta Cheef and I got together for a 28mm scaled tussle. This time on his home tabletop at Villa La Croot. I brought 1500 points of Worldeaters. It's a similar list to the one I ran last time,  but I removed Kbarn and added a Rapier Laser Defender (Legends). I've had this model for ages and decided to give it a shot. Also joining these guys are my newly built and base-coated Exalted Eightbound and my recently battle-ready Cbaos Spawn. I also included a Daemon Prince, Bori the Bloody. Today the Worldeaters were the Attacker and their Secondary Missions were Behind Enemy Lines and Storm Hostile Objective. 

Worldeaters assembled.

And Da Cheef brought 1500 points of Black Dragons Primaris Marines (with a tac squad of Incadescent Coyotes). The Black Dragons were the Defenders and their Secondary Missions were Deploy Teleport Homer and Storm Hostile Objective. 

Imperial scum.

The Primary Mission was Take and Hold. The Mission Ruke was Minefields although I am pretty sure we completely forgot about that rule*. We pulled the Dawn Of War deployment card, and considering Da Cheef's table is a bit smaller than the standard table size, our deployment zones were packed full of models. I neglected to take any pictures of our deployments but the first picture below ought to give a good impression of it. The Worldeaters got the first turn and they surged forward with murderous glee to a cacophony of yells and chainsaws.

Opening moves.

The Blessings of Khorne results for the first turn were Unbridled Bloodlust on the Exalted Eightbound and Wraithful Devotion on the Jakhals.  This was a turn of maneuvering and rushing forward. But the Blooddumpster and a few other units threw a lot of firepower at the opposing Dreadnought, taking a lot of Wounds off of it but not enough to finish it. 

Worldeaters firepower!

Black Dragons retaliated and managed to put a dent in the Worldeater's force. The Blooddumpster was knocked down to 7 Wounds, and one of the Exalted Eightbound was eliminated with another one wounded. The Jakhals took a lot of firepower as well but they remained above half strength. 

Surging forward.

Turn 2. 

This round's Blessings of Khorne were Bloodlust of the Eightbound and Wraithful Devotion on the Jakhals.  

For the first time in this edition, I finally got the opportunity to use the Grenades Stratagem, and I did so with glee. I had a lot of firepower lined up to bring down the Dreadnought, but the grenade thrown  by the Juggerlord was able to finish off the mechanical menace. 

Big bada-boom!

During the Charge and Fight phase the Juggerlord with the Eightbound charge and wiped out a squad of Intercessors that were sitting on an  Objective. However the next closest enemy unit to them was the Hellblasters who were eager to throw some fire on their cool victory.  It was during their charge that we made a joke regarding the Juggerlord's "Lance " rule, and although I don't recall the actual joke, we decided to name this guy Lance going forward.

Target Priority unlocked. 

On the other side of the table the Khorne Berserkers wiped out a squad or Reivers, ending their reign of terror. 

Black Dragons Turn Two, and this is where the manure hits the merry-go-round. It starts off subtlety enough with the Iridescent Coyotes showing their young Primaris compatriots how to shoot. They managed to shoot the hell out of the Berserkers, who had just killed the Reivers,  putting a dent in their number. 

First born and still deadly.

The next achievement in Astartes firepower was the ATV moon-buggy that shot and killed off the Hellbrute. 

The Hellbrute falls! 

The Sternguard finish off the Exalted Eightbound, leaving the Juggerlord without a meatshield. This worked out well for the Hellblasters who were more than happy to fry Lance the Juggerlord with their intense heat weapons. 

It was the Eradicators who made the shot of the game,, who,, with a CP re-roll,  managed to destroy the Blooddumpster. The evil Landraider exploded via Deadly Demise, something that rarely happens in our games, and the explosion was brutal. Two of the Eradicators were killed by the Mortal Wounds. The Daemon Prince, Bori the Bloody, took 6 Mortal Wounds.  One of the Chaos Spawn was eliminated and the other one was wounded also. Oddly, and amusingly, the Khorne Berserkers who were embarked within the Landraider were unharmed by this mighty conflagration. 

Image a lot of fire and smoke.

Freed from the confines of the Blooddumpster the Khorne Berserkers were exposed to the blood lasting Intercessors and the Apothecary Biologis who led them. They ended in a relative draw with both units locked in combat.

 

Battle Royale! 

Hilariously**, the Assault Intercessors failed to charge the Jahkals even though the roll they needed to make was quite low.  

On the other flank, the other squad of Berserkers were actually getting socked pretty hard by the Iridescent Coyotes  in fact only three models remained standing in the unit, with geriatric Marines swarming all over them! 

Holding on for dear life.

At the end of Turn 2, this is what the VPs looked like: 

BLACK DRAGONS 

•5 VPs  (5 for Take and Hold)

WORLDEATERS 

•14 VPs (10 for Take and Hold, 4 for Storm Hostile Objective)

Turn 3

Blessings of Khorne for this turn were Wrathful Devotion on the Jakhals and Warpblades on the Chaos Spawn. 

Just about every unit I had was locked in combat except for the Rapier Laser Destroyer. That fired on the ATV but rolled shockingly low for damage. The Chaos Terminators arrived and shot up the Sternguard before charging over to assist the Khorne Berserkers who were locked in combat with the Incadescent Coyotes. Much to our surprise they didn't wipe the Coyotes out on this charge, but they sure did flip their odds the other way. 

The sprawling melee on the Worldeater's left flank continues however the Daemon Prince was now engaged, and he killed off the Eradicators and the Ancient Biologis. The Chaos Spawn with the Warpblades killed off a few as well but still they remained locked in combat with the surviving Primaris marines. 

Thinning the ranks.

The Chaos Terminators ultimately killed off the last of Incadescent Coyotes and together with the last few Khorne Berserkers they claimed the objective. 

Objective very much secured.

During the Black Dragon's turn the Assault Intercessors finally kill off the Jakhals, who had frustrated them for the last few rounds..  But the highlight of the turn was the ATV which got two hits on the Rapier, this turns Oath of Moment target, that would have  destroyed it had I not rolled the required 6s needed to keep it alive! We were both laughing at the miracle of this moment. The stubborn artillery piece that refused to roll high on damage yet refused to die also. 

The duel of dice.

Black Dragons

•13 VPs

(+8 more for Storm Hostile Objective)

Worldeaters 

•29 VPs 

(+15 more for Take and Hold)

It was getting late now and we agreed to stop here. With the Worldeaters now more than double the VPs of the Black Dragons it was looking  like a challenge for the Black Dragons to catch back up.  And we were getting  tired. It was a good game, full of those crazy random moments that we like talk about with other gamers.  The exploding Landraider was just awesome, and we got such a kick out of how much damage it did. 

I liked how well I got Lance the Juggerlord to perform, especially when he charges. The Exalted Eightbound were exceptional as well, but they weren't as resilient as I had hoped. But then, I guess when being targeted by Hellblasters few things are. 

I think the unexpected MVP on the Black Dragons side, with exception to the suicidal Eradicators, was the ATV. That thing could dish out some pain. So much so that I need to build the one I've been holding on to. 

Ok, so this report was kind of a sad one to write as it may be the last time Da Masta Cheef and I will be able to play against each other for the foreseeable future. He is relocating from the Mountains to the Coast, two states away. So until the time comes when we can arrange a game down the road, thanks Cheef for all the fun and games! 

*Or no one ever rolled a 6 on their Advance roll. 

** We laughed, but Cheef's laugh was at the irony of it all, while mine was at the strange luck of it.