Chalmers Tales of Sigmar - Month 0

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.

Daemons of Tzeentch

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.