I got this model recently as a present and thought that it would be a nice piece to write a review article about. So let’s have a look at this futuristic Samurai and maybe the reason why he’s carrying a wheel on his back is revealed as well…

This is Ikazuchi no Tora from the Dark Messiah line of models by Kabuki Miniatures. These are high quality, highly detailled white metal miniatures in 35mm scale (so they are taller than your regular Warhammer miniatures). It somes in a nice blister along with a card showing “box art” of the finished model, name and so on. Let’s have a look at the single parts:

As you can see, this guy comes in lots of different parts – twelve to be precise, which is a lot for a model like that. You get two optional heads, one bare and one with a samurai helmet.

What’s really nice is that you get a 40mm diameter resin scenic base – a really cool one in this case – as well as a resin cast plinth into which the scenic base fits (with a bit of filing and cutting). The Kabuki Models logo on the plinth is a nice touch. The “box art” of the model displays some very nice looking and mood-inspiring bamboo stems on the base which are not included in the set. The casting quality of the parts is excellent and there is hardly any mold lines of flash to speak of. Really good quality stuff.

What’s notable about this set is that it most probaly is meant to give you more options than what head you want to go for. In my view, the shoulder pads and the additional armour on the upper right thigh are optional as well because all the underlying parts are really nicely sculpted and there are no visible connectors sculpted on (other than on the neck and wrist joints).

Once I started dry-fitting, I noticed something odd about the fur cloak:

In the second picture you can see how the back part and the right thigh armour part overlap. This is the thing that got me thinking that this part was optional as well. Looking at the back part of the cloak, it as almost as if the right end of the cloak has to be cut off to make place for the cloak part that is sculpted onto the thigh armour. Curious.

After some pondering I decided to just snip it to fit:

Now I may have just gotten the model all wrong and this was completely unnecessary but I couldn’t think of another way to have the back part of the cloak as well as the right thigh armour on the model. The cut I made was basically a clean, straight cut.

The rest of the building process was pretty straightforward. Washing the parts, assembling them with additional support via pinning and green stuff, done. The parts fit very well, especially smaller parts like hands to wrists really fit surprisingly well as those often are a bit fiddly. Speaking of which, that sword is about half a millimeter thin so watch out when handling that.

All in all this a really well made and cool miniature. It’s one of those pieces that aren’t primarily meant for gaming with them. Of course you can but due to the very fragile sword, the very dramatic pose and base and the fact that this isn’t a model that really lends itself to being used with some specific background it has much more of a showcase / display model feel to it. It’s a beautiful sculpt that really profits from the scenic base and a nice paintjob.

The perfect piece to do if you just like the model or if you’re getting bored of painting legions of models for your tabletop armies.

If you enjoyed this review or if you have any questions or comments pleasse let me know via the comments section below or via e-mail on battlebrushstudios@gmail.com

First off – I’m aware that these were released a few months ago already but I figured that it’s never too late to have a look at a product and there surely are a few people who haven’t heard of them yet and/or haven’t read a review on this plastic kit. Also, like everybody who posts reviews of stuff on the internet, part of what I’m doing here is trying to entertain you guys with this article.

In the case that you haven’t heard of Avatars of War (AoW) so far: It’s a Spanish company founded in April 2007 who since then have come out with loads of very pretty character models in 28mm heroic scale (so they’re 30mm and up in reality) from various fantasy races for gaming and collecting. AoW is one of the most well-known companies who are making character models which miraculously fit perfectly for using them in your Warhammer Fantasy armies, not only in terms of equipment (which on many of their models comes with two or more weapon options as well as optional heads and such) but also in terms of looks and style. In 2010, AoW announced their fist multi-part plastic regiment kit and people (including myself) were very excited about the first prototype models for that kit. After a long wait and an exemplary online PR campaign of AoW, the Dwarf Berserkers Regiment box was released in late June 2011.

So much for the history of the product, now  let’s have a look at that box:

Avatars of War have always had top notch presentation on their products as well as online and this box is no exception. They had themselves original artwork made for this box, which is a very nice thing to do. I prefer artwork on the box front over pictures of the models. Apart from that, there’s a big, dwarfy logo and an even bigger AoW logo. Nice. The sides of the box have a picture of painted example dwarves on them and the back of the box shows the whole unit assembled and painted and lists everything that’s in the box which we will come to later.

You may notice that the upper left part of the box is dented in my case and that there’s slight damage on the front too. Well, I guess our postman hates me.

This is how I received the box after I found the package placed in the garage. It was pretty battered and the top was ripped off. That’s the reason I took the pictures of the box while it was still in shrink wrap so in the case of heavy damage to the models I could send it back and prove that the damage had happened during transport.

Anyhow, I was relieved to see that the interior of the box was in good condition. The box contains six sprues in total, five of which are regular Dwarf Berserkers sprues and the sixth holds extra bits to build the command miniatures (one Champion, one musician and one standard bearer). Here’s the main sprue of the box so to say:

As I said, the box contains five times this sprue which holds enough parts to build 4 Dwarves. Legs, torso, head (with beard), arms and hands (including axes) are seperate parts and allow for plenty of options for mixing, matching and posing your models. Each of these sprues comes with 6 different hand weapons (all axes, 3 with left hands, 3 with right hands) as well as a giant greataxe. In addition to this, there’s a plethora of various smaller bits: 6 brooches or ancestor icons, 1 nose-to-ear chain, 1 beer keg, a tiny dragon skull, a chopped-off Orc head, 2 body piercings, 5 different hairstyles (4 mohawk variants, 1 long braid, 1 top knot) and one hand that’s giving the finger.

Now for the command sprue:

The box contains one of those so you can turn three of the Dwarves into a standard bearer, a champion and a musician. There is an extra-large mohawk for the Champion and an ornamented giant handaxe, the musician gets a carnyx (imagine using a periscope as a trumpet and you’re pretty close to what a carnyx is), a huge 6-part standard as well as a comb (cute detail considering how much time these guys must use to get their beards and hair into shape).

Apart from the sprues, there’s twenty 20mm square slotta-bases in the box (they come as single parts in a little plastic baggy). It’s a bit of a shame that AoW didn’t get non-slotted bases because these Dwarves are to be freely glued onto the bases and have no tab that would go into the slot so you have to fill that slot up somehow.

Now let’s have a closer look at the parts which brings us to a topic surprisingly many people have strong feeling about – flash. Of course these models have it because it’s as good as impossible to avoid but it’s rather tame. Apart from that, the molding looks top notch. The plastic is soft kind of bendy and pretty resistant to snapping – just like the plastic you see used by other companies like Games Workshop. In fact, the company who does the casts is run by former GW employees who used to work in the very same section at GW so they know their stuff. Also, the common heritage to these sprues is evident – they look exactly like GW sprues.

The sculpts themselves clearly follow AoW’s business strategy of emulating GW’s style or at least be compatible with their rules and looks and fit seamlessly. It’s no coincidence that these models match GW’s Dwarven Slayers, a staple in every self-respecing Dwarfs army and fan favorite which so far got no plastic models from GW, to a tee. This actually goes so far that they do things some people would have preferred not to have. The axes are very large and the blades on them very, very thick (I heard comparisons to telephone books being muttered over the past weeks). If you can see beyond that, the sculpts look beautiful if you’re okay with “heroic” 28mm scale proportions and looks.

Now for the assembly. Here’s a few things you should be careful about. First: You have to be aware that, and this is the greatest downside of this kit, there are no optional weapon loadouts in this kit. Not all Dwarves can have two hand weapons, you will have to have some with greataxes in there unless you get inventive with beer mug holding hands, multiple dwarves giving the finger and so on. But right out of the box you’ll have to have some greataxes in there. And as you could read above – there is no option to have them all equipped with great axes either. Five per box maximum. That aside, the parts fit very well, you get lots of options due to the fact that they have arms and hands with axes as seperate bitz, the hairdos fit well onto the heads and all in all you achieve quite impressive variety among the unit.

Now if you want to have these guys ranked up, you have to be pretty careful when assembling the unit. Due to the huge weapons and the rather bulky nature of the models, they can be a bit tricky to rank up, especially with these greataxes amongst the ranks and big mohawks.

One word about that monster of a standard – I suggest not putting it fully together. Assemble the stone statue holding the dragon heads, add the book and any additional bits you like but don’t put the two parts of the pole together right from the start- Paint both – the standard bearer with the lower half of the pole in his hand and the rest of the banner – seperately and put them together in the end (by the way, this will require pinning!). I put the whole thing together right from the start and it’s just unwieldy, inconvenient and very prone to snapping the banner pole while you’re handling it because it’s got this huge bulk on top.

There isn’t much to say paintingwise. It’s a very fun kit to paint up. I suggest filling the gaps between the arms and the torsi with some putty before painting.

And here we got the bad boys all finished and ready to go seek a glory in death:

Final verdict:

The quality and looks are en par with current GW plastic kits of similar types of models and the density of extra bits and use of room is very good for the first plastic product of a company. With some of the smaller stuff like the seperate body piercings and such, AoW really showed off what they can do with plastic and I’m looking forward to see how they can expand on this. This unit will fit seamlessly into any Warhammer Dwarves army but will also be a great addition to your Kings of War army, Mortheim Warbands, your Pen&Paper roleplaying game miniature collection and last but not least they will look great in your showcase as well. Oh, and at EUR 25,00 (GBP 21,84 / USD 34,22) for 20 miniatures including command the price is also very, very reasonable.

Avatars of War released a new metal Dwarf Berserker character as well. The name’s Bör Dragonbane and I’m just putting the finishing touches on the model which you will be able to see on here soon as well. Many thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the article and found it interesting. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions concerning this article or painting/modelling/conversion commission inquiries just leave me a comment below this article or drop me an e-mail at battlebrushstudios@gmail.com .

See you soon!

a bit of time went by since the last post on here but nonetheless I want to thank everybody for reading and commenting, either here or on the forums. Finecast still is being controversially discussed but at the same time eagerly bought by everybody so I guess business as usual in regards to Games Workshop. But of course there are many other very successful companies out there who especially in the recent months gained a lot of followers and presence.

But first, following up on my last article, I finally got to take some pictures of the finished Cockatrice:

You will find more pictures of it in the gallery. This one really was fun to paint. I went for a more naturalistic looking colour scheme (that also would go well with the Averland Empire army I did earlier this year) and which frankly I prefer over the very magic-y colour scheme the ‘Eavy Metal Team went for. They did a great job and I can see why they went for a rather coherent choice of colours on all these Storm of Magic monsters but we talked about all that in my earlier article on Storm of Magic.

On a completely different topic – I finally got myself some Infinity models. Breaking with the theme of mostly showcasing commission projects on here (because that’s what I do 90% of the time in relation to working on my own projects). First, let me explain how I got to this: Eversince Infinity was released I was keeping an eye on this system and often chatted with people about it because the models looked  gorgeous right from the start and are such a fresh alternative to 40k’s and Warmachine’s aesthetics. The rules also looked very solid and interactive to me so when I heard that my local gaming store was starting up an Infinity group I had the perfect excuse to finally get into the game.

After hours and hours of doing research, writing lists of pros and cons and so on I settled for Nomads albeit having visions Ariadna and Haqqislam still poking around in my head. I took a trip to my local gaming store to pick up a model to play around with before I fully commit myself (even though I know I’ll be buying lots of these figures anyway). So I went there, they only had one Nomads model present anyway so I picked that one up. One of the beautiful aspects of Infinity is that you can pretty much get any model and put it to good use because compared to other systems, Infinity really aims to be balanced and to reduce the importance of list-building considerably in favor of making success or demise depend on what you actually do with your guys on the battlefield.

So here is my first Infinity model -  a Nomads Tomcat with a Combi Rifle and Light Flame Thrower:

He’s also sporting a rather prominent missile launcher.

Let’s have a look at the blister then: It’s a plastic bubble blister you can open and close again so if necessary you can use it to store bitz or transport a model in. There is a cardboard piece that holds the thing together with a staple. It wobbles around a bit and looks a tad cheap but that’s nothing that should cause us any headaches. The backside of the blister shows a neat little card that displays a picture of the model assembled, based and painted as well as the logo of the army it belongs to as well as a logo of their unit (units have logos in Infinity which can be rather diverse with Nomads due to the fact that a.) there’s three different spaceships they live on and b.) many of those units often make their money working as mercenaries in which case an easily identifiable logo can’t be a bad thing). Underneath the card tells us exactly what army the model belongs to, what it name is and what equipment is comes with.

To my knowledge there are no weapon options coming with any of the models. The company who makes them, Corvus Belli, seem to aim to do at least one model for each configuration and go for very individual and dynamic poses which makes providing different weapon options a bit complicated.

Now let’s rip this thing open and see what’s actually inside…

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We got the torso of the model itself and we got the single parts (the model comes in five parts total) in a little plastic baggy. That’s a bit unusual but given that the blister is only held together by the carboard piece and staple it’s nice that they make sure that nothing flies out that way. Also, you can never have too many of these baggies really.

The model comes with a regular 25mm round slotted base with a slightly textured surface on top; just like we’re used to. With the blister comes a piece of grey sponge like in GW blisters in the olden days. For those of you who care: The sponge in this blister is about 25% thicker than the ones GW used last in their blisters. :p Again, something nice to have in reserve.

As for the card – I actually had hoped to see the unit’s cost and stats and all that on the back side of the card but it’s just plain matte black with an infinity logo. No biggie because you can get the army lists and weapon stats and all online from Corvus Belli’s website but I think it would have been convenient to have those on these cards as well.

Enough of that chit-chat about inane packing gimmicks – let’s talk about the model! It’s metal, the detail is amazing, the pose is very dynamic. There is very little flash and very little in terms of mold lines but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t. The thing about the detail on these models (and the whole models really) being delicate you have to take care to differentiate between mold lines and actual details on the cloth. I washed all the single parts with warm water and soap before assembly but that goes without saying.

The fit of the parts is near perfect on this one and the connections have little nubs and holes that make the gluing surface large enough in relation to the weight and centre of gravity so I refrained from pinning this time and just used a little green stuff to give the pieces a bit more support. Here’s the assembled model:

At this point it wasn’t glued into the base of course; just stuck in. As you can see, the model is much more akin to “true 28mm” scale than “heroic 28mm” but mostly in terms of proportions and slendernes. In terms of height, it’s much more going into a 30mm scale direction, especially considering how this guy is basically cowering. Here’s a scale comparison shot next to a Space Marine:

As you can see, despite the fact that he’s leaning, ducking and on a bare base, he’s almost as tall as the Space Marine. All I need to do now is to figure out a nice way to base and paint him. I looked into buying resin bases for the guys but especially when it comes to bases, I’m much more of a do-it-yourself kind of person. So let’s see what I’ll do with that.

As for various other things, my birthday happened to take place last week (what do you mean you didn’t get an invitation? Sure you were invited!) and I actually got a wargaming miniature!

A Reaper one even. It’s a barbarian type of character to get me into the mood for the upcoming (or rather here-being) new Conan film. Believe it or not, this is my fist Reaper mini and I’m pretty sure that the sculpt is rather old. Comparing it to the Infinity Tomcat, the difference couldn’t be greater. The style is completely different, the theme as well of course and pretty much everything. Which is great because of variety and all that. I got plans for this guy already, the only question is wether or not I’ll ever find the time to put these plans into practice.

On a closing note – there’s lots of new pictures online in the Gallery, mostly a large army of Space Wolves (in the Space Marines folder), pictures of the cockatrice and lots of Space Orks. Have a look if you can spare the time.

So that’s it for today. Hope you’re all being well and have stuff to look forward to this fall. If you have any comments, requests or anything concerning this article or painting/modelling commissions, leave a comment right here or drop me an e-mail at battlebrushstudios@gmail.com . See you soon!

It’s the new Cockatrice! One of the very first miniatures that are released in Finecast only and which had no metal predecessor.
Games Workshop advertised the coming of Finecast as the beginning of a new age. Let’s see if that proves to be true!In this little article I will record my thoughts and experiences from unpacking, cleaning and assembling a Finecast miniature for the first time.

First I should explain my thoughts on the old “plastic versus metal” debate which in my opinion is about 60% artificial anyway just so some people could rant on and on about. I got into touch with tabletop wargaming when basically everything was metal bar for a few kits (mostly vehicles). Working with metal miniatures is just something you have to be able to do when being into tabletop wargaming. I never got how some people find it “hard” to work with metal and dismiss the reassuring weight a metal miniature has as opposed to plastic miniatures. To me, metal miniatures feel more significant and less like toys. I won’t dismiss the fact that plastic casting progressed greatly in the past decades and it’s easier to make certain conversions with plastic parts. Still, I like the feel of metal miniatures very much and when Finecast was announced, I can not deny that I felt a little negative about the whole thing.

Games Workshop didn’t really prove much common sense with timing the introduction of Finecast miniatures and their annual price increase so a product which many people were already critical about (of course partly due to the effect that many internet  forums have on news concerning GW: generating negativity about them.). I don’t want to come across as a person who whines about the Internet Hate Machine, I just observe. The fact that there are some technical issues with the casting, negative reports of the resin-plastic-mix behaving like resin when exposed to strong and direct sunlight (softening), large amounts of mould lines/”flash” and so on didn’t help either. Combine this with a price increase timed in a way that makes some people think that it’s directly linked to Finecast made the release of this new range really problematic. Still, it seems to have sold very well so far (of course).

So, a few weeks after the initial release, I will have a look at this completely new sculpt that was directly made to be cast in the new resin-plastic material.

First, the contents of the box:

The casting detail is very good. Clearly resin-cast quality. Not much flash at all (I think that the single characters are decisively more plagued by that. Had a look at a Finecast Eldar Avatar at my local gaming store recently and the amount of flash was ridiculous. Not that it’s hard to remove with resin, it just looks weird mainly :p ), no bent parts and no visible miscasts or air bubbles. On a side note – I was really happy to see them keep the plastic containers they also use for metal miniatures that come in boxes. I really like those things because they are useful for all kinds of tasks ranging from basing containers to miniature transportation. Now let’s start cleaning and have  a look how the parts fit…

…and here’s quite an air bubble:

It’s two actually but one is simply amusingly placed where the knob that goes in the little hole on the torso should be so that’s no real problem there. The problem is the large, lengthy one in the lower left.

Next to the other wing you can see the scale of the problem and what it actually should look like:

The way the faulty wing is bent before the bubble started would indicate that this wing shouldn’t be as long to the back end as the right one but the slits on the torso into which the wings should go are equally long, thus indicate otherwise.

Apart from that, there are very little air bubbles. One smallish one on the end of the tail and two or three really minor ones on the feathers.

Cleaning otherwise was a breeze. The material really behaves like a mix of plastic and resin so it’s rather brittle and soft but also not quite as brittle as resin usually is on its own. The material is very light. Cleaning with soapy water (as usual with metal and resin) is not required but I read that it is advised to do so if a part looks really shiny.

Glueing couldn’t be easier. You can’t use plastic glue and will have to resort to super glue as usual with resin. At no point I saw pinning required, even on the wings or the tail which on a metal model I would have pinned without second guessing.

Here are some pictures of the model with all parts glued together:

The red spot is some thin red paint I painted on for testing. Some sources indicate that priming wasn’t required with Finecast (and I admit that the texture is rougher than on plastic). But after a few seconds of testing, my assumption was confirmed:

You can see that the paint even covers pretty well on exposed parts but in the gaps between the ribs the paint won’t adhere properly. Probably due to release agent residue so a bit of cleaning might be advised. Being the dashing fearnaught that I am, I will just use primer on the whole model. It’s not like paint would adhere any better on plastic miniatures when they’re not primed.

In this picture you can see the problem with the left wing. You can clearly see the gap in the torso which indicates that the wing should reach much longer on the Cockatrice’s back. To be honest, I’m almost glad to see this little problem. The assembly was way too easy up to this point. I will have to use some Green Stuff to fill this up.

Speaking of Green Stuff and filling – here is a picture to show the gaps between the single parts:

As you can see there are some visible gaps but it’s really not bad. Most basic filling will be required but nothing more grave than what we’re used to with metal miniatures.

So what’s my final verdict on this finecast miniatures and finecast as a whole? The casting quality is very good, the fit is satisfying and gluing the parts is really easy. Dropping the model on the ground from table’s height still will cause great damage of course (although I haven’t tested it obviously because I’m no loon) but the material is easy to work with. Mould lines are few and very easy to remove. Especially for those who until now viewed working with metal miniatures as a chore, Finecast is a godsent. The problem of miscasts and air bubbles is a severe one of a few models but I’m sure that GW are working on that to sort it out and at least it keeps a small challenge to modelling these things.

Material aside, I’ll echo my own words from my review article on the Storm of Magic models – I like this model a lot and I think it’s great that GW released a new Cockatrie. I’m very much looking forward to painting it and presenting the results to you as soon as it’s finished.

This model is again commission work of course and it will go with the Averland Empire army I painted earlier this year. If you liked this article, if you have any questions or ideas please let me know via the comments below. See you soon!

Be aware that I will mention Warhammer 40,000 a lot in this little article and that I will be comparing Warpath’s Beta Rules with 40k a lot due to obvious reasons.
My first impression: It’s a very clever product. Warpath is basically what Warhammer 40,000′s 3rd edition would have been in a better world. The designers had a good look at 40k, had a good look at internet forums and then went and made 40k very fast and very clear by the looks of the rules alone.

Here are a few points which to my observations make the main differences to 40k:

.) True Line of Sight is tidied up by increasing the importance of unit leaders in this regard.

.) There are no tables to memorize (like 40k’s to-hit and to-wound tables). What you need to roll to hit/wound is all pretty clearly put in the statlines.

.) If it’s one player’s turn he’s the only one who gets to roll dice.

.) There are modifiers. Not all that many but there are modifiers for hitting with fire arms as well as in melee. Again, a reason why this product seems cleverly done to me. It’s not all that many modifiers but they are there and I have no idea what devil rode GW’s designes to do away with modifiers when the glorious beauty that was 40k was wrecked by its 3rd edition.

.) Flyers are implemented. Another and much more recent mistake (in my opinion) that GW made with 40k was introducing flyers. Now we know why they probably did it (apart from the aim to sell big plastic models) – they probably worked out some nice rules for them for 6th edition 40k. But anyway, I digress. Flyers are handled interestingly – kind of similar to the Forgeworld rules for Flyers but much simpler and faster to execute. So a certain idea of “swooping by a shooting things” is kept but it works very simple and streamlined.

.) Single models don’t really represent “wounds” the squad can take and models are not being removed from play if a unit receives damage. Rather than that, “wound markers” are accumulated and each time a unit takes damage they have to roll a “Nerves” check which works kind of similarly to a Leadership check in 40k. I won’t go into further details but this check basically determines if the squad fights on, is suppressed or destroyed and the higher the number of wounds markers, the higher the chance of being suppressed or destroyed is. We will see what other miniatures ranges are in store for us with Warpath. The lists of allies indicate that we will see the following races added later: Corporation, Rebs, Asterians and “the eigth race”. I speculate that the Corporation will be human, the Rebs will be human (maybe with alien allies), the Asterians will be aliens (elves?) and “the eigth race” will be Mantic’s attempts to so something really unique.

.) There are rules for allies and they are not very restrictive which allows for quite some freedom in these regards.

Sadly, as good as nothing about the background is being revealed in these pdf files, just a few artworks of Mantic’s Space Dwarfs, the Forgefathers, (who look a lot like their Fantasy Dwarfs) and some Space Orcs, called Marauders. Seems like they very much keep in tone with 40k’s “Fantasy in Space” mentality which isn’t surprising because this is basically Mantic’s business – providing alternatives to GW’s products, be it rules or models.

+++Update: We got more information on the background now. By the sound of it it’s rather effective. The Corporation is the big bad faction, Forgefathers, true to their Dwarven ways, are much older than the human-dominated Corporation and are heavily connected to their traditions (and flame weaponry) and generally work together with the Corporation but are willing and able to defend themselves if the Corporation presses charges or tries to overreach. The Marauders were once subdued by the Corporation, trained as shock troops in case of the necessity of hostile takeover but as always with these stories, the Marauders turned against their masters and now work as hired guns/mercenary types. Alessio Cavatore described the setting as “high sci-fi”. I like that background. It’s easy to explain and to get into but has lots of potential for development. Judging from Kings of War and Mantic’s general modus operandi, the background surely isn’t a too essential aspect about the whole thing and I doubt that we’ll see the more classic approach to background as we saw it in past decades (novels, comicbooks, maybe a computer game and so on). We’re talking about a company here who act very effectively, very resourceful, very determined and who have a clear direction.

I haven’t played it yet but just by reading the rules I am fairly sure that this ruleset works pretty well and it’s designed to be simple and inviting to beginners while also being close enough to 40k to get the players from there. In terms of Sci-Fi tabletop wargaming at army level it doesn’t try to be The Other System but rather than that Warpath aims to make people feel at home right away and I am very sure that as soon as this system is being officially launched we will see lots of exchange between 40k and Warpath in terms of rules for 40k armies/units in Warpath and vice versa.

I think that this is a good thing because the market and communities will get shaken up even a bit more which is great in itself. The only problem I can see happening (and it will happen) is that some people will feel the need to start arguing what the “better” system was, 40k or Warpath. They probably do already which is kind of weird. But with Warpath around the corner and very, very promising rumours about 6th edition 40k having shown up online I think that not only classic Fantasy wargaming but also the Space Fantasy genre is in for some very welcome new additions and changes. It’s a great time to be a tabletop wargamer!

This ends my short review of the Beta rules of Warpath. I hope that you enjoyed it and maybe found it interesting. If you agree or disagree with my views and/ or speculations, please let comment!

P.S.: Warpath: “Did we mention that we have Space Dwarfs?”

Here’s a link to GW’s site so you can have a look at the tasty preorders yourself: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/home.jsp

So we got pictures and preorders on Storm of Magic models and accessories now, yay! My thoughts: The terrain is nice as in most cases of GW’s recent terrain releases. I can see it being used in many narrative skirmish-level games and pen&paper RPGs. The stairs will see much use in duel dioramas I think.

The monsters look fun. I’m really glad there finally is a new Manticore, shame it doesn’t look like a Manticore that much. I mean it’s okay and I think that with a more naturalistic paintjob it can look more appealing to me but I wished GW would go for a more toned down, classic look especially on what should be lion heads and such. Less “generic evil monster face” and more “sticking to the original concept” would be great. Being a DE player, I’m of course happy about the Black Dragon and it looks nice to me mostly (could have done with some less twisted teeth though). But overall it’s nice. The pose is neat but don’t ever think of being able to hide this beast behind anything.

And then: Holy cow, a cockatrice! When I saw that they were doing a new one I actually laughed in glee. Out of all these monsters and even though I probably would have much more use for a Manticore or a Black Dragon, I’d probably get the Cockatrice just because it’s so much fun. The model itself looks nice enough. Thanks, GW!

The wizards are very interesting little kits, mostly because they are single models on foot but still made from plastic. Seems like GW are really betting on high sales volumes with those. Apart from that, they are an amusing little throwback to the old plastic mages GW released in the early 90s (and of some of which I had the honor to paint). I really have to point out that I GREATLY appreciate not having any “spell effects” (which I always think alook terrible, especially on GW’s plastics) sculpted on to these mages, nor having any of them float around in the air or something. Again, many thanks for that, GW. What I’m less impressed with is the faces. I think that the way GW’s plastic faces look in general has taken a huge downturn around 2005 (this may or may not be connected to switching to software sculpting on plastic figures. I think it is.) to a point that putting it in the most positive way possible, GW’s plastic mini faces are very hit and miss. In most cases they seem expressionless, very, very plain and symetrical and very synthetic. There is no character in most of them what so ever. And this isn’t a thing that’s limited to human or elven faces. I’m painting some Space Orks at the moment which are mostly sculpts that were released in 1999 if I remember correctly with some bits added to the box when the sprues were recut in 2007 and it’s very easy to tell apart the older faces from the ones that were done almost a decade later – the newer ones look very bad in comparison. GW really need to fix that.

Anyway, I really like the fact that the Dark Elves Sorceress’ hair consists of three different pieces. Just entertaining and very much along the lines of what I enjoy (big hair on elves, topknots and mohawks. ).

Apart from the miniatures, GW also release the inevitable magic cards. This 64 cards deck with all special spells for Storm of Magic comes in a plastic case that’s made to look like a spell book. Nice idea, it looks nice too and the price is actually pretty good I think. Then there’s the templates that are used for some magical effects. They’re sold in packs of six and are basically the same as the Vortex grenade templates (2″ larger though). They surely are sturdy enough, but I still can’t see the point to be honest. I’m sure that there are tons of new “remains in game” spells but the little domes aren’t really my cup of tea. I guess they will sell well enough though, judging from the sales of the Vortex grenade template a few years ago. The last item that will be released along with the expansion is a paperback novel called Razumov’s Tomb (I like that title). Unfortunately they won’t tell us how many pages it’s got but I guess for €4,00 it’s okay to pick up for a train ride or something like that.

All in all, the positive impressions outweigh the negatives by far and I’m really looking forward to maybe working with these kits in the future. Ruleswise, I can’t say anything of course but judging from the whole setup it kind of looks like 5th edition WHFB to me. Leave a comment if you made some different observations yourself, if you enjoyed this little article or if you disagree completely. Make your opinion heard!

Hello and welcome to this third instalment of my Step-by-Step painting tutorial articles. During the past few months I was asked repeatedly how I painted Space Wolves and battle-damaged power armour. After some consideration I decided that now is the time to finally put this plan into action. So here is my Step-by-Step painting tutorial III and we’re painting a Space Wolves Wolf Guard Battle Leader.

If you read my earlier tutorial articles you’re familiar with the modus operandi. For those of you who are new, here is a little explaining: Basically, this is a full commentary on how I paint a single miniature to what I call elevated tabletop level. What you will find here is straight up painting with very little fancy materials and techniques involved so with a little practice everybody will be able to recreate this work. For the first few steps I am using my trusty airbrush but the same effect can be achieved with regular painting as well. Especially with the way this miniature is being painted, an airbrush isn’t mandatory at all. All you really need is a miniature, a knife, glue, some basing materials and a few good brushes. For painting this miniature, I mostly used a size 1 brush. A size 0 was employed for painting teeth and doing some very fine blacklining.

One word about paints – I am using a wide variety of paints from a wide variety of manufacturers. For this project I mainly used Citadel paints (regular ones, foundation paints and washes), Coat d’Arms (CdA) paints and Vallejo paints of the Model Colour (VMC) and Model Air (VMA) ranges. I am aware that most people who read this probably mostly use Citadel paints so I will see that I always give Citadel equivalents or alternatives when mentioning a colour from another brand.

Step 1: Assembly, basing

This model is built from the regular Space Wolves pack box which has a huge variety of options. It’s really a treasure chest of bits and especially wild, barbaric looking heads. As you can see, this fella sports a Thunder Hammer and a Bolt Pistol. There are no conversions done on this miniature. After the cleaning and assembly the miniature is glued to the base and different kinds of sand, a few pebbles and a tree stump miniature were added.

I don’t glue the shoulder pads and frontal dagger sheaths to the model because the former would be much harder to paint if they were glued to the model right from the beginning and the latter would obstruct large parts of the front of the model.

After everything is cured the model is primed black. After priming I look over the whole miniature and fill non-black gaps with black paint and a brush so the whole miniature is covered in black paint.

Step 2: Basecoating

Now the first two layers of paint are applied using my airbrush. First a layer of Vallejo Model Air Intermediate Blue (a very dark blue-grey. Can be substituted by using a mix of Codex Grey and Black). The paint is not being sprayed all over the miniature but only from the top down at an angle of at least 60 degrees so we get a natural shading effect right from the start. It also gives us a good impression on where the light falls onto the model and where the darker areas are.

After this first layer, we do another one with Codex Grey. Again, only from the top and less heavy than the earlier VMA Intermediate Blue layer.

Now we start drybrushing. For the first layer, I use CdA Shadow Grey (just like Citadel Shadow Grey)

…and then another light drybrush using CdA Lupin Grey (the equivalent of Space Wolves Grey).

Now we got a very grey Space Marine already. Not bad. For the typically Space Wolfian blue tint, I give the whole model a wash with Asurmen Blue. (A note if you don’t like the blue-ish look on Space Wolves: Last year I painted a pure grey Space Wolves army of which you can see the pictures in the gallery on my website/blog. The painting recipe was slightly different but for the grey look, just use a Badab Black wash at this point rather than Asurmen Blue.)

Now we leave the wash to dry completely. Never paint on a miniature that still has wet washes on it – patience is key.

Step 3: Secondary colours, battle damage and highlights

The basecoat of the armour is done. Now we can start first detailwork. For this we start by painting portions of the model which are going to be black or differently coloured black again just so we get an idea what we’re doing next and to get some black outlines for later.

It’s time to add another colour now and this colour is yellow. The shoulder pads are painted with Iyanden Darksun (with the great company insignia on one shoulder pad and spikes on the other shoulder pad getting painted black again) and a zig-zag pattern is painted onto the right knee pad.

After the yellow is completely dried, apply some Gryphonne Sepia Wash over it (watered down of course. Washes shouldn’t be used “right out of the pot” but always should have water added).

Now for the thing many people are curious about – battle damage. There are several ways of doing it but I found the sponge method to give me the most satisfying results.

It’s done using a piece of foam or sponge like in the picture here. I like to use either the foam parts you get in some blisters or from the pieces you push out of army case foam trays. You can also nick a piece of kitchen sponge as well though. I like to “sharpen” it a little to get a little more control. The basic idea is that with a sponge like that, you get much more random patterns and very fine dots or slashes of paint due to the sponge’s texture and depending on how you use it (“stab” it at the model and you get little holes like from shrapnel, acid sprays and so on. Lightly wipe it over the surface and you get cuts or slashes like claw marks or hits from sharp mêlée weapons).

For the colour, I use a very, very dark grey (black with a hint of grey or white mixed in). Just be sure not to make it too light otherwise you won’t see the marks on the armour later on.

You will notice that the black dots and marks have no three dimensional looks to them what so ever. It just looks like black sparkles. So now we have to give them some depth and outlines. Apart from that, we also have to highlight the armour itself of course! Both is done in one go and using CdA Shadow Grey (or Citadel Shadow Grey).

With this little picture here I try to explain the theory behind what these little “holes” and “slashes” are supposed to look like:

As you can see, “highlights” are only placed on the lower edges of the holes because this is where the light is getting reflected the most. This is how the three dimensional efffect is achieved.

The rest of the highlights are painted as usual and simply according to edge highlighting. Just keep in mind how battle damage on edges of the armour change how the edges go of course. Also keep in mind that you only have to highlight parts that are going to stay gray of course.

Step 3 – Tertiary colours

Now that the main parts of the armour are done we can proceed to the tertiary colours. First, the golden parts. This is rather simple once you got a good recipe for gold. If you read my earlier tutorials you’re already familiar with my two favourite recipes to do gold but just in case you haven’t, here’s the gist of it: People often ask me about what basecoat to use for painting gold because it’s really the thing that makes or breaks your attempts at painting gold. Simply put, gold paints don’t cover well when applied over a dark base colour. They need a basecoat that supports them. There are several colours to use for that but when it comes to dark paintjobs like on this Space Wolf, I favour Tin Bitz (that strange metallic fella I never quite knew what to do with for a long time).

After this basecoat it’s not a big problem to apply Shining Gold at the more exposed parts (leave the Tin Bitz bare at lower parts, in recesses and where no light shines in general) and get a satisfying effect. Apart from that, I also apply Boltgun Metal to the Bolt Pistol and other parts that will be silver-coloured later on and get a wash with watered-down Badab Black.

As soon as everything is dry I commence painting the final highlighting stages onto the metallics. For that I use Mithril Silver and just highlight the golden and other metal parts with it. Especially with gold you don’t have to pay that much attention to smooth transitions because you want sharp reflections rather than very samey-looking surfaces.

Larger silver surfaces like the front of the Thunderhammer need more attention and smoother painting so I use very thin layers of Chainmail, Boltgun Metal and Mithril Silver. I also use Chainmail to paint the larger holes in the armour silvery. These are the parts where some kind of impact didn’t just scratch the paint of the armour but also damaged the material itself. Technically, it would be good to also have deeper and lighter parts within these silver areas but we’re trying to keep this job within a certain time limit.

At this stage, I also finish the shoulder pads (highlighted the black parts), add battle damage to them as well and glue them in place. Now the Space Wolf is starting to take shape and we can start thinking about names and character traits for him while painting.

Now for a sip of coffee and off to the next step – adding more colour. The next largest surface to paint are browns. The Thunderhammer’s grip, the wolf tail on the backpack, the bolt pistol’s handle and the grips of the daggers given a basecoat of VMC Chocolate Brown which is a very nice brown base colour for many occations. (Can be emulated with Citadel colours by mixing Scorched Brown with Graveyard Earth and a little black I guess). I also painted some of it onto the base of the hair.

Now highlight the wolf tail with various mixes of VMC Chocolate Brown and Bleached Bone.First layer about 70/30, then 50/50, then 20/80, final highlights with the same mix as the last layer of highlights but with some white mixed in as well. Highlight the hammer’s handle and the dagger handles with CdA Mid Stone (which is a sort of a slightly lighter version of Snakebite Leather. Mix Snakebite Leather with a bit of Sand Yellow and you get something like Mid Stone).

Wash all browns with Devlan Mud and put a hint of Badab Black into the recesses where the brown meets with another colour while the Devlan Mud still is wet to get a pretty neat and smooth enhanced shading effect. Highlight the weapon handles with bleached bone.

Step 4 – The Face

Now we go for the first and usually main focal point of the whole miniature. A miniature’s face holds most of the character which is determined by the tone of skin, the look, the facial expression and so on. Tiniest differences can change the facial expression and hardly any face is the same, even with mass-produced plastic miniatures.

First, we gave the face a basecoat of a mix of CdA Tan Earth (pretty much mid-way between Snakebite Leather and Sand Yellow) and Dheneb Stone.

Now we apply a wash of a wild mix of Tanned Flesh, CdA Tan Earth, Ogryn Flesh Wash and Gryphonne Sepia Wash. Let it dry. Then I do a few layers of highlights for which I use Elf Flesh. I start out by painting the exposed parts (chin, eyebrows, nose, cheeks), then I connect these parts with the rest of the flesh by using very much watered down Elf Flesh and swipe from the darker parts of the face into the elf flesh parts. This slowly gets you a smooth transition between the very light and very dark parts. Just keep in mind that you don’t want to get any light paint into the dark recesses like those around the mouth or the deepest parts of the eyes.

To reinforce the facial expression I add a little bit of Leviathan Purple Wash around the nose, under the cheek bones, in the eye sockets and under the lower lip. Apart from that, detail has been added to the face: The tongue (mostly based on Tanned Flesh, Elf Flesh and White) and teeth (I’d never use pure white for teeth. Always use a slightly off-white colour. In this case I added a little bit of Snakebite leather and still had a tiny bit of black on the brush). Note how the fangs are worked out instead of just doing one row of teeth.

Step 5 – Details and hair

After all the fun that was painting the face I went on to do something a little less fun – black weapon casings. Nothing special, just plain old edge highlighting with mixes of black and white. As long as I don’t have to do a whole lot of the same range of greys I usually just go for using appropriate mixes of black and white.

Apart from that, I did some further detailing – the gemstones on the Bolt Pistol and backpack, the tubing between armour parts like the back of the knees, arm joints and so on. The Thunder Hammer got the details done as well – mostly tubing and cables again to add some colour to the model. On the daggers bit, I started painting the grenades.

Now let’s solve the mystery why the guy’s hair was half-painted in that weird way all the time. The hair is going to be red – appropriate for a space viking and to give us additional contrast on the mini as well as a proper frame to call attention to the face. The dark brown is now mostly covered with Bestial Brown apart from deepest recesses close to the face to have some sort of outline.

After that basecoat I proceed to place highlights. For this, I mix Bestial Brown with Bleached Bone.

Here is the finished hair now after a few layers of mixes of Bestial Brown and Bleached Bone and later with White. I really enjoy painting ginger hair like that.

After adding a tiny little more detail to the knives part it’s finally time to glue it to the model. I refrained from doing that earlier because painting the grenades would have really been more annoying than necessary that way. The frag grenade was simply painted green (CdA Russian Green but Dark Angels Green is just as fine), a little wash (Badab Black, Devlan Mud, Thraka Green – whatever you prefer) and then the single parts of the fragmentation mantle were edge highlighted. The krak grenade was painted with black, blood red and white. All silvery parts on this bit got a basecoat of Boltgun Metal.

Seems like we’re entering the final stages here. After some consideration, I decided to go for a leathery red colour on the dagger sheaths. The colour was achieved by using VMC Hull Red for the base colour and highlights of mixes of VMC Hull Red, something sandy-looking (you can use Graveyard Earth, Desert Yellow, Khaki, Snakebite Leather, … whatever you got on the table at the moment. I used CdA Tan Earth again) and bleached Bone later on followed by a wash with devlan Mud to darken down the whole thing towards the lower end. The dagger handles got the regular Tin Bitz-Shining Gold treatment and I’m sure you can guess what comes next.

In this picture you can see how the sheaths were reinforced, the metallics got highlights and the things that hold the braids together were painted in a silvery colour. The little piece of cloth and the small skull in the middle gets a basecoat and a wash (the piece of cloth is yellow-ish in colour; Dheneb Stone mixed with CdA Tan Earth again and got a Devlan Mud wash), the skull is basecoated with pure Dheneb Stone and gets a wash of Badab Black and Devlan Mud.

Some highlights on the little skull, the wolf tooth talisman on his bolt pistol arm and a basecoat on the rune stone that dangles from his daggers. Once that rune stone and the pendant are done we can have another look at the miniature overall, do the base and we’re done!

After some basing (static grass, some linden tree leaves and wet snow) and tiny little touch-ups here and there we can have a look at the finished product:

So that’s it for the third Step-by-Step tutorial article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful for your own painting. or questions, suggestions and critique, please contact me via battlebrushstudios@gmail.com. For painting/modelling commission requests, please use the same adress. Have fun!

- Sigur

All of the above material (with the exception of single titles and names that are trademarketed by Games Workshop Ltd., Acrylicos Vallejo and HMG Paints Ltd.) are ©Battle Brush Studios, 2011

tons of stuff to do and lots of new pictures in the gallery section.

Amongst them:

.) Genestealer Cult

.) various Blood Angels Terminators

.) More Averland Empire

.) Blood Bowl

Coming up:

.) Space Wolves army

.) Malifaux (which I’m really looking forward to paint)

Apart from that I’m currently in the preparing stages for another painting tutorial or two. Let me know if you have any special requests for those! (no videos yet, sorry ).

So feel free to have a look at the new pictures in the gallery section and I’m always happy about comments and feedback. See you soon!

Things have been busy again (and I’m glad when they are) so here’s a little update:

.) The Empire army is coming along fine. Painting an army that consists of black-and-yellow figures entirely is way less straining than I thought.

.) Today I finished what I think is the last two Discworld miniatures – Detritus and Dibbler. There will be pictures of those two up soon.

.) I commenced working on Maelstrom’s Chimera

…and it’s every bit as beautiful as it looks in that box art

.) More Warmaster miniatures! It’s almost been a while since I did the last bunch of those lovely fellas. Mainly more Araby.

.) Finally, the first bunch of Death Korps marched onto my painting table. These will be great as well.

So, lots of resin (got me new filter masks today before I started cutting and filing on the chimera), lots of minis in general, lots of work to do, yay!

P.S.: And I finally should have managed to connect this blog to Twitter. Go cyberworld datamatrix power!

.) Space Wolves army finished!

(see the Space Marines gallery for all pictures)

.) Participated in two painting contests!

(see the Blood Bowl gallery for more pictures of the cheerleader)

.) Painted miniatures for a videocast show about tabletop gaming!

(see the Dwarf Tales gallery for more pictures)

.) Painted Discworld Miniatures!

(see the Discworld Miniatures gallery for more pictures, featuring Luggage!)

.) Painted a Chaos BloodBowl team!

(see the Blood Bowl gallery for more pictures)

.) Commenced a new army commission – Warhammer Fantasy Empire Averland!

(see the Empire (Averland) gallery for more pictures)

So these Empire guys are what I’ll be mostly busy with the next weeks.