Age of Rebuilding: the Gaels of Albion

One of the things I really wanted to do with Warhammer: Age of Rebuilding was to bring more emphasis to the races and nations we hadn't seen much of before. With Chaos in remission and returned to the strange, episodic threat it should always have been, with the established powers all having taken a beating, the time is here for forgotten peoples to make their presence felt. 

This supplement doesn't have any new rules: Mathias Eliasson of the Warhammer Armies Project has done an excellent job of creating a full army list, and given that it is an army which has to be sourced from an eclectic mix of ranges, I don't think hobbyists will want for challenging conversion projects. 

Rather, this supplement is about introducing the Gaels of Albion to the outer world as a power. How will they change the balance of power in the Old World? We'll just have to wait and see.

Download The Gaels Gather.

Bigger and more skanky

It's at moments like this when I find myself very confusing by my own feelings towards Games Workshop. On the one hand, some of the lore they've been writing seems to me to be bad to the point of self-satire (bigly marines, holes through the universe, Age of Sigmar etc). On the other hand, there's no doubt that some of the models they're producing are off the chart brilliant, and certainty aren't afraid of shying away from some bold and unsettling concepts.

The Gellerpox Infected could have been designed for me. I love the horrific, body-horror side of Nurgle and the grimly industrialised, Blachnian visions of the 4ok universe. These encompass such ideas perfectly.

There are so many brilliant aspects to these models. The horrible jumbled amalgam of man and machine, the ramshacckle stitching an the implied loss of self expressed through the multiple faces are all spot-on. These models are grotesque. This is Chaos at its demented finest, horrific enough and nonsensical enough to send all right-minded onlookers running for an Aquila to hide behind. The vestiges of the original crew's clothing just adds to the jarring sense of the obscene living nightmarre of the Ruinous Powers.

For these models, I wanted to put extra emphasis on the infections, crusted blood and bruising. Nobody here is having a good time, even if they've convinced themselves that they are. The models are very helpful in this regard: they're covered in cuts, wounds and crude sutures, as well as ripped an creased fabric, which is easy to mess up with a few good paint smears.

I'm not sure what if anything I'll use them as in games. The Rogue Trader supplement they come in has the vaguely puzzling tyranny of insisting that all of the Nurgle lads from that set must be taken together. My friends are easy going though, as I imagine I could get away with deploying them as a single unit as long as everyone understood. Or I could use them as Ogryns. Either way, it's always good to see the Lost and the Damned in any form!

The Doctor of Damnation is back

Well, it hath been a while.

For the last few months, I’ve been caught up in my Warhammer Fantasy revival project, Age of Rebuilding. This is working out nicely and getting some feedback, but the other day I found myself hankering for some skanky body horror (very festive, I know). I think it’s because I’d just painted a bunch of models for elves and Lizardmen, neither of which have much in the way of gross-factor. So I decided that it was time to get back to one of my favourite projects, the Death Guard Plague Company known as the Synod of Suffering.

There are a bunch of reasons why I chose the Plague Surgeon: for a start, he was one of the more interesting unpainted models in my Death Guard case. For another, I liked the characterization of the Plague Surgeon in Lords of Silence. Thirdly, there’s a feeling of cyclical synchronicity: at the beginning of the year, I started this blog with a converted Plague Surgeon. I thought it would be nice to come full circle and restart the Death Guard with one of his brethren.

The thing which I probably like most about this model is how simple it is: He didn’t take more than a couple of hours in total, and there aren’t many fiddly areas. 

In an era of sometimes absurdist sculpts (Stormcasts etc), the Death Guard have generally done very well, and the Plague Surgeon is no exception. There's a nice sense of deadly restraint to him, and his slight height advantage gives him a lean, reaper-like quality. 

All in all, a really nice, quick model to paint. I've got a cold since starting on him, by the way. I'm taking it as Grandfather's blessing to paint more Nurgle during the Christmas holiday.

Druchii Cult of Slaanesh designer's notes

When I was sitting down to brainstorm new units for the Age of Rebuilding project, elves gave me relentless trouble. The reason for this is actually pretty simple: elves are highly intelligent, have a very distinct look and have been making war for thousands of years. And unlike Dwarfs, they presumably don't have a testing period for innovations which the Adeptus Mechanicus might think is a bit long. If they haven't already developed a method of making war, the odds are that it is be cause they simply don't want to make war that way, or don't think it will improve their battlefield efficiency. 

Now, with High Elves I came up with the Shadowflame Guard, based on a similarly named unit in the End Times. With the Wood Elves... treeish things can be relied upon. But with the Dark Elves, I spent a while staring at my notepad in idiocy. The answer came to me, rather bizarrely, whilst I was sitting by a fjord in western Norway.

Eidfjord. Possibly the most beautiful place I've ever been. And rather bizarrely, a good place for hobby inspiration.

The Cult of Slaanesh, of course! One of the most colourful armies to come out of 2004's much underrated Storm of Chaos campaign, the Cult of Slaanesh combined units from the Dark Elves and Hordes of Chaos books. Now, creating a coherent list in the manner of that original supplement is on my list, but I'm also mindful that armies can be expensive. So my first thought was to create units which 'plug-in' to the 8th edition Dark Elves book so that a hobbyist could, if so inspired, use these new units with their existing collection. Now, a few explanatory notes. 

General

Veteran hobbyists will note that the presence of 'forbidden units' in the rules I've created created a bit of an old-school feel (though there are no 0-1 choices). I didn't want to do this at first, but in good conscience I couldn't envision a lore-abiding army where Slaaneshi and Khainites are making friends. 

Anointed

The Druchii Anointed was always a rather cool idea to me - the idea of a warped Dark Elf so consumed by Slaanesh that they can't even pass for normal elven. I tweaked the background a little to have it that a small number of modern Druchii have metamorphosed rather than all of them being impossibly ancient. 

The model is a Black Dragon Dreadlord with a daemonette's head, a Hellstrider's shield and the Daemonic Mount from the Lord of Slaanesh. 

Rules wise, I kept the Anointed as a combat machine, but removed the magical capabilities to keep his role clear. I removed the rule where he can't be the army's general. High point Lords who can't lead armies tend to get ignored even in the most narrative games.

Painseekers

I love the look of Steeds of Slaanesh and of Cold One Knights. That's basically where this came from. I wanted them to seem more in control than Hellstriders, with the same noble arrogance as Cold One Knights. 

The models are a simple rider-swap of Cold One Knights onto Hellstrider Steeds. Warning - it's harder than it looks. 

Rules wise, I wanted them to be incredibly quick and hard-hitting, but a bit glass-cannon-y. With T3 and a 3+ maximum save, you're going to want to be careful where you strike with them.

Vicerunner

Who doesn't want a Steed of Slaanesh chariot?! I did this purely because I thought it would be visually striking and fit the idea of depraved hunters well. 

The model is simply a Dark Elf chariot with Steeds swapped in. The charioteers are: a beastmistress with one of her arms replaced with a daemonette claw, and a charioteer with a Hellstrider's head. 

I was going to give this thing some really funky rules, ut ultimately I decided that a chariot which is so incredibly fast really didn't need anything else. 

Ascendant

Straight up: in 2013, when the 8th edition Dark Elves book was on preorder, I honestly thought that the Medusa was a Cult of Slaanesh concession. It's just so perfect that I had to make a unit using her. I decided to make her a kind of preacher-figure. I've got a feeling I got the inspiration from a scene of a Slaaneshi temple in Fulgrim.

The only conversion to the piece is the Slaanesh icon. 

Rules wise, I thought about giving her the standard Hatred power, but decided that it would make more sense for her to impart Frenzy (excess and all that). 

I hope all this makes sense. And fear not, I shall be tackling the concept of a true Cult of Slaanesh as seen in the glory days at a later date!