Painting Guide - One Minute Walls

Before we begin, I have a minor confession... this isn't a guide for painting walls in one minute. I just needed a catchy title to grab your attention. However, this is a guide for an incredibly fast way to paint any stone scenery for tabletop miniatures games, including houses, ruins, statues, and pillars, so I thought the title was close enough.

And, you know... it's a painting guide... I'm allowed a little creative licence, aren't I?

This is only my second painting article, and I'm still playing with the format. My first effort was a bit difficult to follow, and the pictures weren't great. Let's see if I can do better this time, as we step through the process for painting a wonderful wonderwall.

(Dammit. Wonderwall. That's the title I should have used.)

Why are we painting a wall? Because Games Workshop's Age of Sigmar skirmish rules hit stores yesterday, and while I'm waiting for my copy to arrive in the post I thought it was time to finish off some of the old scenery bits I had lying around. This is actually a section of wall from the bloody lovely Fortified Manor kit, which I've had for years. The painting process for this component is very simple, so if you already have experience with painting miniatures, you probably won't find anything new or interesting here (sorry!).

Shadow War: Armageddon - Building a Cadian Kill Team

Having previously published my thoughts on building space marine scout and ork boyz kill teams, I thought I would make a trilogy (I'm into that sort of thing) with a piece on cadian kill teams.This is ostensibly because the rules book that came in the Shadow War: Armageddon starter box included rules for those three factions; but the main reason is I just happened to have a unit of 10 cadians lying around from years ago, which I was intending to use in Space Hulk.

Fortunately, I have a bit of a fondness for the humble cadians anyway. I think they represent Games Workshop at their satirical best. There's something darkly funny and harrowingly bleak about over-the-top heroes that look like they've stepped out of propaganda posters leading a near limitless number of cattle-like soldiers into a meat grinder with the intentions of drowning the enemy in the resulting slurry.

It's also a concept that gives 40K it's most recognisably human element. These poor bastards aren't superhuman gene-spliced warrior monks or blood-hungry aliens. They're just people.

Just us.

Shadow War: Armageddon - Building an Ork Boyz Kill Team

I know I haven't put up any new reviews on my site for a little while. I apologise for that, but I've been far too distracted with Shadow War: Armageddon to think about anything else. I'll try to rectify that in the next few days, but for now, I'm just going to keep banging on about this game. Sorry if it's getting old. Indulge me for a while...

So, Games Workshop have just announced the preorders for the Shadow War: Armageddon rules book. It's an updated version (yeah, really) of the book that came in the starter box (which they aren't reprinting). This is great news for anybody who already has a lot of miniatures and terrain. Probably not such great news for anyone looking for an easy way into the game, as they are facing a hefty price tag by the time they've purchased the rules, some terrain, and some miniatures.

Anybody lucky enough to get a copy of the starter set, probably isn't going to worry too much about the new rules book either. The extra content comprises rules for extra kill teams that Games Workshop already made available for free download, and they didn't even bother making the new edition a hardback, which would have definitely encouraged me to plonk another £25 on top of what I have already spent.

Anyway, I digress. In fact, I've digressed to the point where I realise I've completely forgotten my point. Bear with me a moment...

Shadow War: Armageddon - Building a Space Marine Scout Kill Team

Considering the amount of Games Workshop products I cover on my blog, it probably looks like I'm a miniatures gamer at heart; but I still consider myself a boardgamer first and foremost. I do paint, and I do occasionally play tabletop skirmish games such as (the sadly discontinued) Anima Tactics, but I'm usually more at home with something "complete": A game in a box.

That being said, Shadow War: Armageddon is my kind of jam.

Of course, it's not really surprising. I loved Necromunda back in the day, and as an iteration of that system, Shadow War is a fantastic slice of grimdark fun. It excels in so many ways at so many things; and includes lots of stuff I really enjoy about games in general.

I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this, but when I was a kid one of my favourite things to do was create characters for game systems. I made countless heroes for Advanced HeroQuest, and spent hours creating generals for Warhammer Fantasy Battle. I even used to create characters for roleplaying games I never played. Many of my creations never saw battle, but that wasn't really the point. The creation was key.

It's no wonder I became a writer.

Throughout my life, the things that have often "spoken" to me let me tap into that same creativity, such as video games where you create a party of heroes, equip them with weapons, and develop them over time. One of my favourite things in Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower is learning new skills and gradually evolving the way in which my hero fights.

And now there's Shadow War.

Shadow War: Armageddon - Scoping Out the Landscape

When I purchased my copy of Shadow War: Armageddon, I wasn't planning on writing a series of articles. However, the nature of the beast means that's exactly what's ended up happening. The launch of the game comes with a hell of a lot of baggage, and I felt it was all a bit too much to squeeze into a review. So, the other day I talked about the bloody mess of Armageddon's launch. Today, I'm going to talk about Armageddon's terrain.

For many people, the terrain is going to be the most important thing about the game. I certainly believe it's the most important thing about the game as far as Games Workshop is concerned. And I'll say this now: It's lovely.

It's huge, surprisingly heavy, imposing, incredibly detailed, and you can put it together in almost limitless combinations.

It's hard not to be impressed by it all: The gantries stand 5 inches tall; there's a furnace that's 4 inches across. And there's loads of it:

It's terrain to get excited about. And I never get excited about terrain.

Painting Guide - Brimstone Horrors

I have always said I am primarily a gamer. I'm not even secondarily a hobbyist. I really like painting miniatures, but I find assembling them a chore; and honestly, I have very little time for painting. Still, I do paint, and...

Yeah...

I'm not great.

I think they call it "tabletop quality."

So, if I'm not a skilled artist, why have I had the audacity to write a painting guide?

Simple really. I sort of wanted to show that anyone can do this, and it doesn't just have to involve a base undercoat and a tin of Army Painter Quickshade. (Not that there's anything wrong with dipping miniatures either.) But also, I thought it might be fun to show people how I flounder through this stuff.

I'm not so much going to guide you as I'm going to flail around wildly, leaving a broken trail to show where I've been as a warning for anyone else.

Oh, and by the way, if people are interested in this sort of thing, I'm toying with the idea of making it a semi-regular feature (not that anything on this blog is even close to regular). It's a little bit different to my normal content. Tangents and conversations about the biscuits I was eating while I painted these miniatures will be kept to a minimum.

I have to stress that this is not a guide for anyone even remotely confident with a brush. But if you're thinking about giving painting a go, this is how I painted my cute little Brimstone Horrors from Games Workshop's Silver Tower.