So before I go ahead
with my month 0 may I just say I'm overwhelmed with the support and the amount
of signups I've had for the Tales of Sigmar. Many thanks to the numerous
Podcasts and sites out there that have spread the word and I'm looking forward
to the over 25 sign ups we've had for this year! I'm hoping this can be an
annually thing, obviously depending how this one goes, but my main aim for this
is to grow the Age of Sigmar community while also helping people achieve
putting together and painting up an army over a manageable time!
Now the tricky
bit…choosing an army. I think in the past week while I've been organising this
I must've switched between four or five different armies, it's one of my
problems I see a certain model for an army and I get drawn into that army, then
the next day I see a different model and instantly my mind switches. I'm hoping
with the Tales of Sigmar I'll be able to focus on getting one army fully
painted month by month and then my other projects for Age of Sigmar in the
background can be painted up as and when I get the time. So I thought with my
Month 0 post I'll go through the different armies I've considered and then a
write up on the force I'm going to focus on.
The Runners Up Were….
Skaven
A month or so back I
bought the start of a rather substantial Skaven army off the Warhammer forums
and eBay, I've got over 40 x Clanrats, a Plague Priest, Grey Seer, Hellpit
Abomination, 5 x Rat Ogres, Skaven Warlord, Skaven Engineer, 3 x Stormfiends, 5
x Jezzails, 2 x Poison Mortars, 2 x Ratling Guns, 1 x Flamethrower….and breath.
I considered splitting this up over a few months to paint up as the majority of
it is already built for me. However I've signed up to my first Age of Sigmar
tournament in June and I've set myself
the goal of getting this all painted up so I can take Skaven to the tournament.
Ambitious but I hope with the majority already built this could be done quite
easily. Always wanted to run Skaven in Fantasy but the thought of hundreds of
Clanrats and Skavenslaves really put me off so hopefully Age of Sigmar will be
the perfect platform to launch my Skaven army.
High Elves
I've never done
Elves in past versions of Fantasy. One of my main gaming friends had a huge
High Elves army so never really wanted to have the same army to fight. I quite
like the look of them and they provide a massive variety of models and units to
provide a difference in gameplay. For example if you really wanted a shooty
army then you can, cavalry lists are perfectly viable, in the same thought
process if you wanted a in your face melee army the High Elves are just as
capable. Now one of the bonus things for starting the High Elves is that I've
still got all the Island of Blood plastics new on sprue so it was going to be
an easy starting block to go from, but there was something which just didn't
'click' with me.
Dark Elves
Almost in the same
breath of the High Elves are the Dark Elves. I absolutely love all the models
available in the range, from the basic core troops through to the impressive
Hydra monster and Black Dragon kits. The army, again like the High Elves, can
do a multitude of things on the battlefield including damaging magic, melee and
has a lot of shooting options. Though browsing through the warscrolls for the
Dark Elves it was apparent they suck pretty badly at shooting. It almost
negates that whole side of the army, meaning a very melee-centric army of Elves
to focus on. I did ponder an Elven Alliance of High Elves and Dark Elves
combining the best of both, but again something just refused to 'click' to
bring the army completely together. So again it was back to the ever growing
pond of armies to choose from.
Now this was going
to be very very close to my choice for my Tales of Sigmar, so much so that I
bought half of the first months of models from the off in preparation (Burning
Chariot of Tzeentch and Flamers of Tzeentch). I love the Tzeentch fluff and had
some good ideals of mutated conversions and adding the likes of Chaos marauders
with mutations into the army after a while, however seeing how many Chaos blogs
we've got on the go at the moment I'm going to knock this idea on the head.
Maybe I'll save it for Tales of Sigmar 2017 or more than likely I'll have it as
a backup army which I expand, build and paint as and when I have the time and
funds.
Orcs and Goblins
Now I love Orcs,
they're probably the most characterful models in the whole GW range, I've got
hundreds of them for 40K and I've always wanted to do them for Fantasy. My main
plan I had noted down was starting with Night Goblins, loads of squigs, Shamans,
etc. Then once they were completed to a sizeable force slowly but surely adding
in Black Orcs, Savage Orcs etc. But with the Orcs (Orruks…nope doesn't feel
right) rumoured to be one of the next factions to be focused on for Age of
Sigmar I wanted to wait and see exactly what is released and then maybe I'll
revisit the Orcs and Goblins.
So after all the
pondering and waffling, it's down to my selection for the very first Tales of
Sigmar.
The Winner and my Tales of Sigmar army….
Tomb Kings
The forces of death
need some representation in this and what better way than the Tomb Kings. I was
very close to starting an army at the end of 8th but before I could plan it all
The End Times happened and then Age of Sigmar was born. Reading through the
warscrolls I love the different rules that come with the Tomb Kings and I
absolutely love the models from the range. I'm really fascinated with the whole
Ancient Egypt era, along with all the history, I went to Luxor in Egypt on
holiday a couple of years ago and you can really see where some of the models
got their fluff and ideas and cannot wait to translate that experience to my
Tomb Kings army. Now I know with them being one of the 'lesser' armies for
Fantasy it's going to be tough to track down everything I need without going
directly through Games Workshop. Maybe there's going to be a few eBay and
Wargaming Trading Facebook Page scouting assignments over the next few months
as I track down everything I need.
The first couple of
months I want to focus on a lot of the core models for the army, Skeletons,
Cavalry and Chariots. I'll add one or two characters too just to have some
focus pieces to work on. Then after that it's going to be the fun stuff, the
monsters, artillery, casket of souls, etc. I'm already planning a Realm of
Death board with a ruined desert temple board that’s going to be home for the
Tomb Kings.
But wait a minute
what's this? Coming down from the Celestial Realm?
Stormcast Eternals!!!!
Yes that's right,
I'm going to be adventurous and lead by example. I'm going to attempt two
separate Tales of Sigmar this year. I think with the Stormcast having a smaller
model count I should be able to get these painted up over the months rather
quickly. I want to have a rather easy to access army to play with and use and
think the Stormcast are going to be that. I'll be starting with the Age of
Sigmar box set, that'll give me enough models for the first month to get a
decent enough force out. I can then look through the Stormcast Eternal
Battletome to decide what the next models should be purchased for the army.
Paint scheme wise, I'm going to shy away from the Gold and Blue standard scheme
and go for a silver armour with a teal trim.
I would love to see your Stormcast in a Tomb King theme. With tarnished armour from months fighting in desert worlds.
ReplyDeleteDidn't even think of that...not sure whether I can pull it off though painting wise, will try it on one of the standard guys and see what happens.
ReplyDeleteAwesome. I nearly went for tomb kings, the only thing stopping me was I wouldn't be able to use them in my wider Khorne force. I'm actually having second thoughts about beastmen... Dragon ogres are calling...
ReplyDeleteWell the Grand Alliance Chaos book is out next week, best to see what's what in there when it comes out :D
DeleteGood call!!
DeleteLooking forward to seeing this. I too have thought about doing a second force, quite possibly Fyreslayers or Sylvaneth. Time will tell...
ReplyDeleteQuite like the Tomb Kings aesthetic. Also, thank you for setting up the site. I love seeing the enthusiasm and always like WIP pictures.
ReplyDeleteTomb Kings are a great choice! And I'm glad someone is doing the Stormcast too! Exciting!
ReplyDeleteWhat tournament are you signed up to in June?
Cheers. I'm hoping I can do them justice. Got an idea of what I want to do theme wise but need to do a few testers.
DeleteOff to a tournament down in Bristol. It's a weekend one so going to drop the Mrs and baby off at the parents for the weekend.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAre we supposed to (or allowed to if we choose) include the price of paint and materials towards our allocated budget?
ReplyDeleteNope that's just general stuff. Budget is just for Army's models
DeleteCheers
Delete