Monday 6 December 2021

Sprat - a short story

This was a short 500-word story that I wrote for the Black Library Open Submissions in 2021. They were after something for the Age of Sigmar setting, to accompany the Dawnbringer Crusade narrative, just a 500-word excerpt to show what the story might look like. I wanted to write something from the perspective of greenskins (surprisingly), and wanted to try and make a whole story fit into the 500 words that could be expanded later. My intention was to expand on the view of this orc warband from different perspectives, should they take it forward... unfortunately, it wasn't what they were looking for, so they rejected it. But some of my friends liked it so I might see about expanding it myself in the future. Hope you enjoy it!

A Journeyman's Tale, Exploring Birch Vale - part 4

A Journeyman’s Tale,
Exploring Birch Vale

Part 4 – 4^th November 2021

The journal of Bori Ironhelm, cleric of Moradin and master of the forge.
Journeyman in the Explorer’s Guild.

Previous - Chapter 3

Ranging Far and Wide

As we sat by the fire eating the warming stew that Cydor had prepared, he outlined what he wanted us to do. He fixed us with his hard, green eyes and told us that he reckoned the necromancer must have had a cache of warm clothing and supplies somewhere nearby – how else would he have navigated the frozen wastes to the north? Of course, while that might be true, we were fairly confident that he could have made the journey simply by wearing the enchanted boots that now clad Merla’s dainty feet – the halfling felt comfortably warm while wearing them, no matter the weather. Still, it was clear that the evil wizard had travelled from the north, and after we saw that his raven had flown that way to correspond with someone it was clear that was the way we had to go whether we were looking for his cache or not.

We were given a regional map of the land north of Birch Vale, with another one that included further details of the area surrounding New Mine, a recently opened dwarf-run operation. Cydor wanted us to visit the mine and drop off a homing pigeon and some bottles of Old Stripey. Finally, a chance for Grimnir and I to get back underground and experience some true dwarvish hospitality! Cydor seemed to know these dwarfs reasonably well, and he thought it was worth asking if they had spotted the necromancer on his travels. Seemed sensible enough to me.

And, although Merla was going to be fine in her magical boots, neither Grimnir or myself would object to a warm cloak to keep out the bitter northern wind as proceeded into the wastes! Fortunately, Cydor told us that there was a Ranger Station situated not far beyond New Mine. Apparently, this Ranger Station would house a hidden cache of supplies and warm clothing – Cydor handed us a schematic that would show us how to access the stash, secreted behind a panel in the Captain’s room. He also gave us the key to this panel.

The final instructions we received were to keep the knowledge of the Ranger Station, as well as the intelligence we had gathered regarding the portal and Death Cult activities, to ourselves. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that – yes, I have agreed to follow the directions of my superiors in the Explorer’s Guild, as it seems to be the best way to secure a life for myself and my cousin outside of the Clan Hold. I won’t be able to command top dollar for my work in the forge without Guild backing, no matter how good it is. And, of course, I’m no oath breaker… and Grimnir isn’t. Not any more, at least. But, lying to fellow dwarfs? It’s not right. I decided to wait and see what occurred at New Mine before deciding how much or little to divulge. Of course, I would not reveal my true feelings to Cydor lest I jeopardise my position in the Guild, and I felt no ill-will towards the man as I understood his reasoning. But, at the end of the day, the bonds of kinship among dwarfs runs as deep as the roots of the tallest mountains. To be asked to betray that trust, even with dwarf-folk who I had yet to meet, made me feel ill at ease. I decided to put my faith in Moradin and his unerring justice to help steer my actions when the time came.

Map of the region north of Birch Vale

Detailed map of the terrain near to New Mine

Sketch of the Ranger Station interior

Day three – 14.00

We departed Spring Grove and headed north. I was still reflecting on Cydor’s final words as Merla expertly followed the necromancer’s tracks in the soft ground. What was I going to say to the dwarfs when we reached New Mine? I was further troubled by his parting comments about him providing sufficient bird seed for the pigeon because “you know what dwarves are like for having to cover extra expenses.” The cheek of it! I could feel the anger rising in Grimnir as he said it… I mean, of course, I wouldn’t want the miners to be out of pocket to look after a bird that was there to take information to Cydor. Where would they get the birdseed from up in the mountains anyway, and certainly not at a reasonable price. Really, it should be down to Cydor to provide, and it wouldn’t have even been a question amongst dwarves as it would have been stipulated in the fine print of any agreement. So, no, they shouldn’t be covering the extra expense… but… he shouldn’t really be pointing it out like that. Quite rude.

Anyway, I went back over the list of miners that Cydor had provided. Their leader was Dourhec Battlethane, an old and successful warrior. Good, strong dwarf name that. His older brother, Omratin, was apparently the business mind behind the venture. They had remained at the mine along with two of their fellows whilst the other four had visited Birch Vale. Two of them had then gone on to Island Town whilst the remaining two had remained, nursing hangovers. And Grimnir hadn’t even managed to catch up with them to show them how proper dwarfs drank!

There were eight dwarfs in total.

In New Mine:

Dourhec Battlethane
Omratin Battlethane
Broukead Darkgranite
Havromri Stormblade

Travelled to Birch Vale then on to Island Town:

Norarnaes Hornbender
Sidgraen Aletoe

Remained in Birch Vale, nursing hangovers:

Gizmat Lavashield
Durmar Bonebreaker

Merla had no problem in following the necromancer’s trail for the most part throughout the rest of the day, except for a few occassions where the prints disappeared over rocky terrain; she quickly picked the trail up again by a riverbank or in some other soft ground. We camped beneath the stars with no disturbance. In fact, all was quiet during our journey and we made good time northwards.

Day four – 11.00

Well-rested, we continued our march and arrived at the approach to New Mine during late morning. Ahead, we saw that a large pool had been created through the installation of a thick dam, some 100 yards across, which was crossed by the path up to a palisade wall. That must have been the entrance to the mine. Good, strong defensive position – very dwarfish.

The approach to New Mine

We were a little cautious about what might be hiding in the depths of the dammed pool, but it seemed safe enough, so we strode up to the palisade. It was some 30 feet high and had a large doorway built into it, 8 feet wide and 8 feet tall. Grimnir hammered on the door with the haft of his axe, the echoes rebounding from the surrounding hillsides. After a long pause, we heard the heavy tread of iron-shod boots and the creaking of timbers before a bearded face underneath a horned helm poked out over the top of the palisade. The grumpy dwarf told us that we had no business in New Mine and that we should bugger off, before turning and descending back down the unseen stairs.

Neither Grimnir nor I could believe the lack of hospitality being shown by one of our own kind – that’s not how we were raised in the halls of Khazad Dwemer! My cousin hammered on the door once more, so hard that I thought he might knock it from its hinges. We were fortunate that he wasn’t angry enough to turn the weapon and use the axe blade… not yet, anyway!

The weary steps began again and the grumpy face appeared over the parapet once more, this time accompanied by two hand crossbows pointing down at us. I was incensed at this outrage and shouted at him in Dwarvish about the hospitalities expected for dwarf travellers. He seemed to think we had done something to the “peaceful monk” that had been wandering the land outside the mine, as we had the man’s pack mule. Once I explained that this ‘monk’ was really an evil necromancer (who was suffering from a bout of axe-in-the-head, leading to a severe case of being-very-dead), his manner softened. We switched to speaking in the Common tongue so that our halfling companion could understand, and once he realised that we had been sent by Cydor he finally consented to allow us within the palisade.

We followed the wobbling rump of this dwarf – his arse was the size of Grimnir’s axe head – past several wooden outbuildings, towards a low hall with smoke coming out of a chimney. Our host led us inside where he had been stewing something that smelled delicious. It was clear he hadn’t missed any meals up here in the mountains, but now that he had welcomed us inside, he wasn’t shy in sharing his food with us. We sat down and got a proper look at him. He matched Cydor’s description of Omratin Battlethane, elder brother of Dourhec. As we shared food and ale, his demeanour softened, and he became genial. Merla recounted our tale to Omratin, which he listened to with great interest. He revealed a sharp mind when he laughed at Grimnir and me for our deception to the Explorer’s Guild – of course he could tell that we were older than we should be for the Journeyman Programme! He said that Cydor wouldn’t have been fooled either, but if he had gone along with the ruse then there must be serious trouble around Birch Vale indeed. Cydor was no fool and he must have been keen for our help to allow us to circumvent the Guild’s rules.

Omratin was also well aware of the Ranger Station, easily guessing our purpose for travelling this way. It seemed that there was no point in trying to conceal anything from his, as Cydor had requested, which was a relief to my conscience. After the brusque welcome, I had quickly grown to like this dwarf and had even less desire to deceive him than before, no matter the reason.

After another ale or two, the conversation turned towards the mine and our host. We noted that we had expected to see a further three dwarfs, but they were conspicuously absent. Omratin became more serious and told us that perhaps our visit was fortuitous and there was something we could do to help him.

It turned out that the miners had gone through a fault plane the previous day, breaking through into a series of previously unknown tunnels. Dourhec, Broukead and Havromri went to explore the tunnels but had not returned. When Omratin went to search for them, all he found was a large, fresh web blocking the way forwards before he was set upon by a grey ooze. He managed to escape the monster and return to the main mine, shutting a heavy door behind him to keep whatever else was in there trapped. His brother and two friends were stalwart warriors, so Omratin figured that whatever had taken them had to be a serious threat. He asked us if we would venture into these tunnels and attempt to rescue his fellows. Of course, we could not refuse such a plea for help! He provided us with a sketch map of what he remembered from his quick sojourn into the tunnels and handed us the key to the heavy door that would lead us into the labyrinth. He told us that he would lock the door behind us, so we would knock in a distinctive way when we returned.

Omratin's sketch of the old tunnels the dwarfs had tunnelled into

Tokens and Markers

Just a quick post of some bits and pieces I've painted up recently, for use in D&D and any other games. They've all been quick painting pieces in between doing other bits (while other things were drying), but should be useful.

Winged Serpents - Wyverns

Wyverns are the belligerent, uncouth cousins of true dragons. They're smaller, can't breathe fire or any other dangerous substances, but they have a mean streak and are always hungry. The perfect mounts for orcs. Naturally, as Orcs & Goblins were my first army and always hold a special place for me, I have collected a few wyverns over the years. These ones all have orc riders, but I have one more awaiting assembly that I am going to leave rider-less, to use as a monster in D&D.

These three wyverns really show a snapshot of my painting from many years ago. They are all old models, and one of them was the first big model I ever painted, well over 20 years ago.

I've posted about my dragons here, and compared these three wyverns to the imposing Carmine Dragon below - they're not nearly as big, but you still wouldn't want to see one dropping out of the sky towards you!

My wings a hurricane, and my breath death! - Dragons #1

Dragons. They are the archetype of fantasy monster, and I love 'em. Perhaps it's their similarity to dinosaurs that draws people in, perhaps the mixture of nobility and cruelty that they are often characterised with... they're right there in the name of the game, Dungeons & Dragons, so they've got to be special. Of course, Smaug from The Hobbit is a classic (I used part of one of his speeches for the title of this post), but I've also been listening to R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden series of books recently and the title character had this to say on the subject of dragons:

Never Look a Gift Dragon in the Mouth

We finally had a face-to-face game of D&D after almost a year of remote videocall sessions, and the players surprised me with an awesome dragon miniature (and a bottle of whisky, which went down very well! And everyone was surprised with an artist's depiction of the adventuring party too!).

The dragon is a lovely kit from Zealot Miniatures and I knew I wanted to get it painted up straight away rather than have it sit on a shelf for months on end, and I figured it would be nice to keep the group updated with the progress.

I decided she was going to be a Green Dragon - I have plans to have the full bestiary of the primary Chromatic Dragons painted up at some point in the future (3 so far, including this one!), and there was something about this one that screamed GREEN to me. I later discovered that Zealot had painted her green as well on their web site, coincidentally.

Components

All the components looked good, no obvious damage or flash or anything. Nicely casted model. Also had lots of good, long lugs built into it for assembly, so I figured it probably didn't need pinning.

Assembly

Dry-fitting the components, there were a few gaps that were going to need filling, but they were fairly minor. There weren't any instructions in the packet, but it was all self-explanatory. I liked the big column she was resting a foreclaw on and decided that an extra bit of masonry under a back foot might help with balance.

I figured the best base to put her on would be a 130mm round base (same as the GW Mega-Gargants), as she fit on it really nicely. Those spread wings made me consider something larger, but it wasn't necessary (plus I was working on another Red Dragon on the same size base, so they would look good next to one another).

Filling

The gaps were minor so just needed some liquid green stuff, no need for getting out the big guns on it. The largest gap was the right cheek, but was easily sorted.

Basing

I canvassed opinions from the group on what to dress the base with. On previous dragons, I have tended towards a lair-type scene, with piles of treasure and captured weapons from those unwitting fools who have tried to steal that treasure. The overwhelming opinion was to put some dead bodies on this base, and I agreed that the damaged stone column here lent itself towards the dragon attacking some sort of temple or building or something, so perhaps a couple of dead defenders on the ground wouldn't go amiss... I also figured that I might be able to find something that looked vaguely like at least one of the adventurers, to show them meeting their doom at the hands of the dragon!

Finding good dead bodies was a bit of an issue. I finally got one paladin-looking model, a metal one from Reaper. He was supposed to be filled full of arrows, but I figured I could fill the arrow holes with green stuff and he'd be dragon food instead. He was reminiscent of Guillerme too, so I made sure he had a glaive laid across his fallen body. The other victim was a dead dwarf that I found on Etsy, and I put him on some stairs that I already had to add a bit more height variation to the base.

After that, I threw on some more interesting masonry bits (GW large basing details), some larger rocks, and finally a mix of grit and sand to get a nice varied texture (my standard basing technique nowadays). Overall, I was really happy with the level of detail - enough to make it really interesting, without taking away from the dragon herself.

Undercoat

I bought some Death Guard Green spray to see if that could help speed-paint my Orks, and figured this was a good opportunity to use it. I put it over a Chaos Black undercoat, keeping it fairly light so that there was a bit of shading created.

Initial painting

I decided to start off by using Militarum Green (Contrast paint) on the main scales, as a sort of heavy wash. I left it off the wing membranes and the thicker armour plates as I didn't want them becoming a deeper green - weirdly, this step made them look really strange in the photo as the Death Guard Green suddenly looked much paler next to the Militarum Green on top of the basecoat.

I then went with Aggaros Dunes (another Contrast) directly on top of the Death Guard over the thick bony plates - this worked really well to get an interesting brown colour with a hint of green still coming through.

Drybrushing

The great texture on this model made it an excellent candidate for drybrushing. I went for layers of Straken Green, Orruk Flesh and Ogryn Camo. These green layers went all over the Militarum Green, and also lightly onto the wings. I then decided to add some fleshy colours to the wing membranes, using an old (properly old and beautifully hexagonal!) pot of Bronzed Flesh, then a little Army Painter Fair Skin for a real gentle drybrush. That did come out a little heavier on one wing than I wanted, so I brought it back with a bit of green over the top.

The bony scales and horns were drybrushed with Army Painter Otyugh Brown, making them a nice deep bony colour.

Overall, I liked the subtlety of the colours and gentle transitions from scales to wings, it felt quite natural.

Base and Final Details

Using my colour wheel, I could see that purple was directly opposite green, which was handy as I had already thought adding an element of purple to the base would be more interesting than doing all the stonework in grey! I used Army Painter Beholder Purple for that, then used Gryphhound Grey Contrast to dull it down significantly, before the wash that was going to be applied to the entire base (thinned down Army Painter Strong Tone). I was really pleased with that, it made the column and bits of broken masonry on the ground interesting without overpowering.
I ensured the claws and teeth were picked out in bone and painted the dead bodies up with simple colours that would, again, stand out from the grey but not be too distracting. I applied a liberal amount of Blood for the Blood God after the wash, including some around the dragon's mouth (she's a messy eater). I knew that the matt varnish was going to dull this glossy blood down, but I like the effect you get of doing that and then reapplying the blood paint over the top of the varnish - you end up with some dull, dried patches of blood as well as some glistening, fresh stuff. I also added a couple of patches of dark tufts to the outside of the base, maybe representing that she's crashed through a wall and there were some patches of vegetation just outside... mostly it just broke up the side of the base opposite the corpses.
I made sure to put pupils in the glowing red eyes and, with that, she was finished and ready for varnishing with Munitorum Varnish!

Complete!

The great wyrm complete! Overall, I think it was sitting down for seven modelling / painting sessions from start to finish, taking me just over four weeks (in between toddler watch and other things). So fairly quick compared to models I've done in the past. I was considering doing more to her - tinkering about with a little more drybrushing with even starker highlights here and there, maybe playing with a little extra shade in some of the deeper recesses. But, overall, I am really pleased with the overall effect and figured that the massive piles of grey plastic I have around the house would be more of a priority than tinkering any more on this dragon. Besides, I was concerned that I might overdo something and have to fix it, which would be a pain!

I took some nice photos and called her done. I just need to sort out a transportation solution for her (the wings are too big to fit in a standard KR case, so will have to think of something else). I took some more photos to compare her with other dragons and wyverns I've painted in the past, so will post that soon.

She just needs a name - perhaps Venomthrax, Scourge of the Verdant Plains?

Monday 15 November 2021

Stormcast Eternals Underworlds Warbands

D&D again inspired me to get a couple of Underworlds warbands painted up - they are great models for things like that! And it's good to have a bit of extra motivation.

In this case, I wanted to surprise the players with a few Animated Armours. I had already made my stormvault terrain, customising it with Stormcast statues (models from the AOS starter box that I was unlikely to use in a game; they look great on the plinths as statues). This was to be the Forge of Spells, the objective for the party to get to, and I had a couple of Spectators awaiting the party. However, as I knew they were coming in at level 5 and all pretty much maxed out after a long rest, I wanted to throw a little something extra. So I decided that it would be fun for a couple of the statues to come to life and attack them - adding an extra element to the Spectator fight (they can be very squishy when getting up close).

I didn't have long to paint these guys up. I decided to paint both warbands - I only wanted to used fully-helmed Stormcast, but getting the whole lot done in one go would be useful for Underworlds games too. I spent just a couple of hours one evening and then a couple of hours the following afternoon to get them done (after undercoating), which was record time. Almost all contrast paints, which really sped things up! I'm pleased with the finished result. Nothing fancy, I didn't want to overcomplicate it, but I think quite effective in the end.

I've got two of the undead warbands painted up, still a few more to go!