Piney's Fantasy Carousel: Cities of Sigmar/Old World Dark Elves

[PineyPhantom]

After too long, a bat rep! It was late and we decided to finally try out Ambush for Kow. Rather than a grand campaign, this one is more the day-to-day for the Second Songs, patrolling the area around Westwall to try and keep their few peasant retainers beyond the walls alive. It was anyone's game until the last two rounds when my opponent seemed unable to roll anything double ones to break my units.

[PineyPhantom]

Another small update. I found a really cool tree root and decided I needed a big runestone to put next to it, turned into 3 runestones, which turned into making another batch of trees out of materials I forgot I had (the Captain and a peasant in bad need of touch-up for scale).

Happy with the results of this break, as I now have enough quality trees that I officially no longer need to rely on hobby store® trees for games. This year's goal of "Have good terrain" coming along nicely!

[PineyPhantom]

For my next big terrain piece, coming this summer, The Company is venturing into the Veltewald. This is going to possibly be even more involved than Westwall was.

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Had to go back and find your thread. I missed the terrain! I LOVE it - really thematic and those runestones are incredible. Amazing work.

Got to say though, I'm especially curious to see what the Veltewald turns out to be - that's a good and gnarly bit of wood!

[PineyPhantom]

Got to say though, I'm especially curious to see what the Veltewald turns out to be - that's a good and gnarly bit of wood!

Unfortunately, the Veltewald project is off. Found some termite damage in my home, so now my hand is turned to practical skills instead of terrain. I CAN show you what happened to the root, however. It got drafted into the growing Necromunda league we're putting together as my Ash Waste Nomads' camp.

[PineyPhantom]

I'm essentially done with working on the Second Songs. They were my first real passion project, which elevated my hobby to the next level: backstory, basing, terrain, and kitbashing, all woven together. KoW has lost its luster for me recently and I find myself looking toward both the past and future. The game is plenty fun, there's simply better out there.

With the coming of the old world, new newly found love for Saga, and reignition for the Cities of Sigmar (my original Age of Sigmar army) I am pivoting toward collecting a force of the new line. Unlike with the Second Songs, this army will incorporate all of the above elements from the beginning. In the Songs' case the terrain was added as an afterthought as I realized what I was capable of making. This time I plan to start with terrain made bespoke to actual game systems instead of created willy-nilly, as fun as Westwall and the Chapel were.

This new army theme simply must be autumnal. Love painting in reds, oranges, yellows, and browns and have been stuck in a blue phase for entirely too long. My terrain inspiration is the mountains of Virginia in autumn: grey stone and fog providing islands of darkness in seas of damp, fiery leaves, with bells and muddy towns aplenty.

We've had noblebright knights. Now it's time for grim survival.

[PineyPhantom]

No paint, but some kitbashing and a little intro to some of the characters you'll surely meet in this little bedraggled regiment of little renown (name and color scheme pending). Bad picture quality, these were quick joke snaps I made!

[Freddy]

Nice characters, but my favourite is Alphonse.

[PineyPhantom]

Since poring over the new book, I've had a blast writing up lore for my Cities of Sigmar. I wanted to do something that wasn't just Hammerhal, and while I wound up painting myself into a blue corner again, I'm very excited to get painting and should have my first models done soon! I took heavy inspiration from my favorite Glen Cook book, The Silver Spike, for my Freeguild regiment. Some names will be familiar to old-time dark fantasy fans! Enjoy! Also soon to come: art mockup of the "forest of tombs" that surround Crowhaven. I have some ideas but I need to chew on them!

In the Realm of Death lies the free city of Crowhaven. Built in a forest of tombs where it is eternally autumn, the site was secured some years before by a crusade out of Lethis and gained ground rapidly thanks to its location in a relatively secluded and stable area of the Prime Innerlands of Shyish.

The region was desirable thanks to a soulwell that staved off the depredations of Nagash using some unknown magic. This portal to a quiet afterlife has the unfortunate side-effect of consuming the souls of all those within proximity to it, locked away, safe, forever. By the time the Midnight Hunt stormhost sealed the well, only one warrior of the whole host remained, the mightiest of their number: the haunted being known only as the Nightstalker.

Driven mad with grief, this lone stormcast eternal haunts the woods and fens around Crowhaven, killing indiscriminately, its shrieking wails betraying its loneliness and grief. Some evidence of its nobility must remain, for when the dawnbringer crusade arrived at the site unmolested, they found it miraculously cleared of enemies. The bulk of the crusade was able to survive and then thrive, thanks to the mercy of their terrifying patron. Although the city isn't the greatest or mightiest, it can still afford to send out regiments through its realm gate to help other cities, unless a threat so great comes along that the regiments must be recalled to back up Crowhaven’s murderous patron.

The Nightstalkers Brigade is the premier regiment within Crowhaven’s demesne. To join the brigade, prospective recruits must spend a night in the woods alone the night they take the coin, an ordeal known as the Midnight Trial. If the Nightstalker spares you until dawn, you are deemed worthy of joining. Training is grueling. Fighters train to stay awake for days at a time, the drilled exhaustion giving them a haunted appearance. Not all who march with the Nightstalkers are themselves members. The brigade with take serfs from any realm, so long as they serve without fear. Theirs is not to fight, however. These serfs perform the maintenance of gear, foraging, and drudgery, allowing the Nightstalkers to stand watch or hunt the enemy. In exchange, these serfs’ souls are granted hallowed rest in Lethis. Those who wish to join the fighting corps must hazard the journey to Shyish and pass the Midnight Trial before hastening to rejoin the regiment on whatever far-flung battlefield it finds itself.

The Nightstalkers drill specifically to not only fight but also hunt and destroy the undead at night. Prospective members must be fanatical in their devotion to the unit, placing such an emphasis on espirit d’corps that they actively bully regiments from other cities. Thanks to their ferocity and skill, however, many cities will pay a bulk in glimmerings or lifewater to secure this vaunted regiment’s presence on the field. This attitude combined with their penchant for festooning themselves with the trophies of their kills has made the brigade an unlikely friendly rivalry with Ghurish tribes, who recognize in them a kinnish battle sense, if not an appreciation for discipline.

In battle the brigade favors brutal night-time frontal assaults that leverage mankind’s three great virtues: faith, steel, and gunpowder. No stealthy hunters, the Nightstalkers emphasize the properly timed offensive to break the enemy only once they’ve been sufficiently peppered with silver bullets and buckets of saint-blessed shrapnel. Before battle many Nightstalkers paint a skullish visage over their own faces, a sign of faith in Morrda.

Very few Azyrites have served in the brigade’s ranks. The Nightstalkers pride themselves on their survivalist pedigree, an attitude that wins them no friends among the aristocratic officers of many Academy Marshal graduates. To Nightstalkers, the realms have a clear hierarchy: themselves at the top, as Sigmar’s apex monster killers, and all other freeguilds beneath them. Such is the brigade’s hubris in their cause, they have begun using elements of their wilderkorps and spy networks to attempt to locate Kragnos himself. Brigadier Frerenc can imagine no greater a badge of honor on the Nightstalkers’ pedigree than to battle, if not end, the very god of earthquakes.

[PineyPhantom]

Now that I've got most of a unit painted I thought I'd share the results: I love it. Many things are missing (the grime, the mud, the basing, the shields, spot cleanups) but I think I've got a good thing moving forward.

[PineyPhantom]

We started a path to glory campaign! So far contenders are Lumineth, Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos, and myself as the Cities of Sigmar.

First report from the front

Marshal Frerenc blew through his nose in frustration. His men had failed to end whatever unholy ritual the forces of death and their chaos allies had sought to achieve. The red-purple glow of his men's failed efforts crackled six miles to the south, just past the forest his Nightstalkers had utterly failed to penetrate. Nevertheless, he was a man of action. A camp full of refugee hyshian aelves was not a set back, no, it was an asset in the coming campaign. Ghur WOULD be tamed by his hand. Unrolling another scouting report, the grizzled officer set out to find a way to undo the work of the dead.

Aftermath of game 1 for the Cities of Sigmar: no significant losses, offset by a boon of glory points thanks to the general surviving. A lucky roll of 6 on the setback table saw me earn 4 more glory instead of compounding my losses. I am no closer founding a city, but the die have been cast. We march for Sigmar.

The opening moves


My men struggled for two turns to break through a block of chaos warriors until Marshal Frerenc and the fusiliers turned the tide. This critical slowdown probably lost us the game.


The Lumineth didn't stand much chance against the chaos knights and chosen. My fusiliers on the left were saved by some kind of magic flying goat man.


My ally's emerald lifeswarm bringing back gunmen to the fight really helped us stymie chaos' heavy armor, alas, it was too little too late. Our inability to hold more than the objective on the right saw the enemy accrue enough points to win a major victory. I was able to withdraw 3/4 of my army in good order.

[PineyPhantom]

The minis need the weathering done, and the basing, but with the chill in the air and some candlelight, I couldn't resist a thematic WIP photoshoot of the Nightstalkers Brigade, tabletop-ready and raring to defeat the enemies of Morr.

The army at a (grainy) glance. May I one day be able to afford a camera capable of taking quality pictures for you fine folk!


Shenk's Sons will hold the line against any threat most recently, the mauled squad blunted and repulsed back-to-back assaults by a squad of chaos warriors and Ashkurgan vampire monks. Shenk ensures her boys stay topped off at the brigade's traveling pub.


The Mandibles are Frerenc's runners. These redoubtable steelhelms don't have Shenk's reputation for bravery yet but are eager to prove their devotion to Morrda and Sigmar.


Morr's Butchers saunter through camp pushing their weight around after trampling a vampire countess into grave dust in the brigade's last engagement. Death's Head wears her knuckles in a bag around his neck, confident that they give protection against her return.


The command squad. Marshal Frerenc has his eye on the Brigadiership, should Hildebrand perish in the fighting. Marshal Aemili stands in competition with him, riding the laurels of felling a wight king in single combat, saving Shenk's flank. The troops hope their rivalry does not cause them to lead the troops into hopeless stands.

[PineyPhantom]

We had our second battle. The long and short of it is we tried to ambush the baddies, but the Lumineth got wiped out by a spell that went way too well, and so I retreated at the opening of turn 3 to prevent myself from getting annihilated by 2 virtually untouched enemy forces. On the other hand, enjoy some sick shots of my almost finished freeguild!

Yes, the marshal did send his aid de camp to negotiate with the undead prior to the battle.

[PineyPhantom]

Something different this time: a druchii wolf ship. It was a 3D print missing some parts that I bought and I thought, I can make this into something nifty with Old World coming out. There was quite a bit of scraping clipping off rogue bits of extrusion. The whole thing was in three pieces so it needed some support beams underneath to hold the whole mini together. Fortunately, I am quite passionate about the project and had the whole thing ready fro priming in a weekend. Behold, me hearties:



I had some balsa scraps that I shaped to fit into the gaps in the hull pretty nicely, and the unused chopsticks and steak skewers served nicely as masts and spars. I had enough Dark Elf and Dark Eldar parts from over the years to really festoon the piece with bits to make it look properly druchii.

My next big conundrum is sails. Does anyone have experience with what to use as a stiff but shapeable sail material? My vision is like a Swahili dhow's lateens (pictured below). Time to go see how this fine lady paints up!

[hubbabubba]

Cool figs, the new not empire kits look really nice.

Keep the photos coming...