New Year Preview

Good evening all and Happy New Year.

2016 was a good hobby year for me. Never before have I completed a single army, let alone two! I have always been more of a fantasy fan than sci-fi - which is saying a lot as I literally live and breathe Great Crusade and Horus Heresy - but last year was the first time I have ever really dipped into Warhammer Fantasy. I was never a fan of it on square bases as I felt I wouldn't be able to play the games and scenarios, or tell the stories that I would want to tell. Age of Sigmar has massively opened that up. 

In 2016 I completed a Stormcast army and I listened to the first five novels from the Realmgate series, Gates of Azyr and also the 8 audio dramas. I fought at the Age of Sigmar doubles tournament too (with Aveinus, where we made some fantastic new friends) and so I feel I know the game and the setting but also that I can safely decide the future of my fantasy hobby.

So, 2017 will see me moving away from the epic Realmgate Wars setting, and indeed further away from the main story in its entirety. I have been working on developing my own area of the realms which are untouched and untainted by the larger story. Where dragons and other monsters stalk the wilderness, mortal races have only the barest knowledge of the surroundings and gods have forgotten (or ignore) their subjects. Daemons are rare and lifetimes can pass with no sightings. Stormcast aren't even a rumour. In short, it will be a low to medium fantasy setting - think Lord of the Rings before the dark lord started stirring. 

I also want to restrict the way that I play to fix some of the 'problems' (my opinion) with the AoS ruleset. Where all you see is people using multi - wound base units that have loads of rules and rends and stuff. It turns the game into a real punchfest which revolves (usually) around one centrepiece model and some spamming sorcerer who benefits from the correctly chosen faction benefits and yawn. Not the way I want to play at all times (it has a time and a place in tournaments etc). 

Following the above mentality has made me over look so many models that I would love to do 😞

Looking to the future:

This year I would like to start work on an evolving campaign using the Citadel Mighty Empire tiles and a modified ruleset. This will allow for exploration and a small amount of resource management for players and factions involved. It will revolve around monthly updates instead of constant battle reports and will also mean that we can fit it in around our Heresy coverage. There is no start date for this but here is a WIP for the tiles done so far, completed by Kaelo and Danariel:

I am also working on a grass board and four sets of Citadel trees. I never really liked these in the past but saw these and really wanted to try it:

I have also spent £370 on Tabletop World buildings of various types!

I will also be working on a Wanderers army with some Sylvaneth back up in the coming months. Followed by some Disciples of Tzeench, mainly focussed around Archanites and Tzaangors. 

There will be a Flesh Eater Courts force controlled by my mate (not currently a blogger but that may change once we get going) and hopefully Aveinus and one or two of the other Bunnies will dip in from time to time. Who knows, Danariel may join in too if the release a girly army lol.

I hope to finalise the campaign rules and guidelines in January as well as the background fluff which will hopefully be done by end of February. Then we will probably kick of with a campaign and get the ball rolling. 

Enough from me though let me hand over to Aveinus:

2017 for Aveinus has been relatively disorganised year and he is hoping to bring some more structure to his hobby, so he can finish efficiently for both the age of sigmar and 30K over on the battle bunnies. 

2016 did see a lot of AoS activity has he spent the last quarter working on 1000pts of Ironjawz. He was however so busy trying to finish painting them for the doubles event with Kaelo that he didn't have enough time to post on here. He has however almost finished most of the units with just a few highlights and bits of battle damage to complete. He will then begin to post these units when completed on here.

These units consist of:

- Megaboss Gorzod or Great Zod to the boyz

- Warchanta

- x 5 Brutes 

- x 5 Brutes 

- x 10 Ardboyz

- x 3 Goregruntas

The first units of brutes should be completed first, then the Ardboyz and warchanta. Here's a look at what the brutes currently look like!

My goals for 2017 depend on when the new dwarves are released! I do have a wip dwarf army from warhammer fantasy but I am going to sell this army and just start again with the new releases. Even if it is just the battletome, although I don't think it will be after the teaser picture we've seen of something dwarvey. They have always been my favourite fantasy army so I will be trying to make them my best army yet in terms of painting standard, so hopefully I'll be able to push myself to complete a really nice looking army. So here's my 12 month plan:

January: Ironjawz finishing a unit of brutes

February: Ironjawz finishing the Ardboyz and warchanta

March: Ironjawz (although this could be where we see some dwarves)

April: Hopefully Dwarves (I am hoping to have the 1000pts of Ironjawz completed at this point.

June: Again hopefully Dwarves but I could still be completing the Gore Gruntas at this point. Lovely models but a pain to paint.

July: Dwarves

August: Dwarves 

September: if not before this point I do have a Megaboss on Mawcrusha to paint

October: Megaboss on Mawcrusha

November & December: Difficult to say this far down the line.

I will hopefully have the 1000 pts of Ironjawz completed before the Dwarf release and then it will be probably be dwarves for a while after that!

I hope you have enjoyed looking at what we are doing! What projects will you be doing this year?

Stay fluffy

Kaelo