Reinforcements of Lachesis - Age of Sigmar: Path to Glory

So a couple of months ago, our Age of Sigmar: Path to Glory campaign started. This was my first 'true' foray into Age of Sigmar with a proper army made specifically for the game. Path to Glory is a great way start a new force, and its really fun to see how your army evolves over time. We started out with two games, which was a nice amount to kick things off. I got a good feel of how my army works (just charge forward and hit stuff!). Because these games took place in such a short space of time, we wouldn't have time to paint up any extra units after our first game and before our second, so we instead chose to upgrade one of our units.

In all, my army can be pretty tough. The knights proved hard to shift for the most part, but I generally found my own damage output to be lacking, especially against the undead who can restore lost models to their units each turn! This means I have to hit a single unit hard and fast, wipe it out completely, and then move on to the next. I tried this in the second game, but its easier said than done. However, I did manage to scrape minor victories in both games, but unfortunately I rolled a 1 for my Glory Points for BOTH games, so despite my wins I still have the same amount of points as my opponent. Chaos can indeed be fickle!

Chosen
After our second game, we would have a few months to get some reinforcements in. I took a roll on the same, basic table and got a unit of 5 Chosen. Chosen seemed pretty beastly at first, but soon after I found out they're just Chaos Warriors with an extra attack each (and maybe slightly stronger weapons). A little disappointing, but we'll see how they go.

I opted to take the command unit, as this gives me access to a banner and a wardrum, which are both welcome additions. Honestly, there's no reason not to take them!

Arcane Ettin
Outside of Path to Glory, I wanted to expand the army with something a little different. I've always wanted a Warhammer Giant. The kit looked ace, and oozes with character. But they never really fitted in with my Lizardmen or Dryad armies. But now I decided to take one for the hell of it.

You'll notice I converted it a little. I gave it 3 arms and 2 heads just to make it look a bit more Chaotic. The creature is almost overflowing with arcane energy, which has coalesced in his extremities and around his eyes. I initially painted the dark, mottled and corrupted skin on his face to make his glowing eyes stand out a bit more, but I liked the effect so I added it to his arms and feet, too (and a rogue patch on his back).

His blue skin ties him in with the marauders, but the turquoise loincloth ties him to the knights as well, bringing everything together. This guy won't feature in my Path to Glory campaign (unless I get a lucky roll on the monster table), but I will use him in other games instead, just for a laugh.

The Children of Sekhmet

I've always been fascinated by the lizardmen in Warhammer Fantasy. They were perhaps one of the most outlandish and unique armies in the game. Plus Dinosaurs... I mean frickin' Dinosaurs! My first forays into Warhammer Fantasy (after many years of pure 40k) was with the denizens of Lustria, but it never really went anywhere. I got a bunch of saurus warriors, but little else. However with the dawn of the Age of Sigmar, my interest for them has been rekindled, albeit in a slightly different way. The lizardmen have always had an Aztec feel to them, but for this army I wanted to go down a slightly different route, and create a more desert-themed force. I'll be honest, my main motivation for this was speed and ease of painting. Its so much quicker to just drybrush all their scales instead of highlighting each one, and a scheme that suits well is that of dry bone-like scales. In addition, I've always enjoyed Egyptian history and mythology, so it was a natural fit to take the army in a more ancient Egyptian style direction. Even a lot of the iconography and patterns still work, it is a fantasy after all. I've seen other desert-themed Lizardmen armies online, so I knew it would work well. Its just a case of doing it. So I've made a start.

I couldn't help myself but focus on the two main characters first. I've got a small force here, namely the Start Collecting! box, and a few other bits I'm working on, but I always gravitate towards the characters as they're usually more interesting.

High Sun Priest Baal'halet'anephthis

My Slann Mage Priest, or in this case, High Sun Priest. The Sun Priests are the devoted servants of Sekhmet, the Goddess of Life and the Sun. Or they were until she sacrificed herself to defeat Chaos and inadvertently turned the lush jungles of Namu into a sweltering desert wasteland, but that's neither here nor there!
Baal'halet is a High Priest of the Sun. Though he cannot control the Sun, the Sun Priests worship it for it is said to be the gift Sekhmet left them for its Holy Light keeps Chaos at bay. In fact, Baal spent 500 years gazing at the sun looking for signs or portents from his Goddess, the result of which is pretty plain to see. Though he was bandaged by his aides, being a toad who would thrive in Namu in the days it was a jungle, he literally couldn't take the heat and became a husk. His consciousness still remains, and he is a great prophet and a powerful spellcaster.

General Sobak'ishtak

Sun General Sobak is the highest ranking military commander of the Kamun Karpak, the City of Golden Light. He is ancient beyond reckoning, some say as old as Sekhmet Herself, and marched at her side against Chaos when she and all she had made were undone. To this day he swears to avenge his fallen Goddess, and it is his duty to protect the Sun Temples and muster against their enemies.

He carries two ancient relics of his people, a sunspear forged in the heat of a volcano, and a mighty Sunfire Gauntlets that is imbued with some of the divine essence of the Goddess of the Sun. The Carnosaur he rides is a mighty steed he tamed in the Bloodlands, and place of feral beasts that have adapted to the new, harsh climate.

These are the two main characters in the army so far. I think I had more fun writing the lore for this army than I've had writing lore for any of my armies/characters. There's a lot more besides, I've written small pieces about Kamun Karpak, the great City of the Golden Light where the main bulk of the army resides (though its not quite a beautiful and golden as perhaps it once was), as well as Osiri'Anuk, the Grand Temple at the city's heart. More on that later, and more army pics to come!

Also, when taking these piccies, I've spotted a lot of mistakes I've made or areas I've missed. These will be fixed. Cheers, guys.

Ruins of Carpathia

Shattered Temple

The piece I'm most proud of is the shattered temple. Several years ago GW released a piece of terrain similar to this, but something about it didn't sit right with me. Perhaps it was the giant skulls all over it, or the fact it was clearly a Chaos temple which I found a bit too limiting. Either way, it was recently removed from their store, so I figured I'd make my own. In the end it sorta went in its own direction. You can see in the WIP shots that I intended it to be a Chaos temple as well, but in the end I went for something more generic. The ruins around the edges sorta just happened. Initially the piece was going to be completely surrounded by rock, but while building it I figured that wouldn't make much sense. I wanted there to be a sort of ruined chapel around it, but that would have been a LOT of extra work if I'd made the chapel from scratch. Then I had a brainwave. I've had those old plastic ruins since waaay back in 3rd Edition 40k, sitting around in my boxes doing nothing. So I dusted them off and used them here. I had more ruins than would fit on the temple, so I used the rest to make some scatter terrain ruins as you can see below.

The Ruins

These are some fairly basic scatter pieces to block line of sight and movement, and so on. The pieces on the left of the picture are the rest of the 40k ruins. Initially, all of these plastic ruins had the walls at right angles. But here you'll notice I changed them slightly. I simply sawed one of the walls off each piece and shifted it around the pillar by 45 degrees. I much prefer them this way. One of the ruins has a tree on it. That tree had its base cut off as it was going to be used as part of terrain piece I made years ago, but it never got finished, so I added it here.

The pieces on the right came from another set of ruins GW produced years ago. They were made of a sort of hard foam, mounted on a base and sprayed grey. They looked VERY production line, so I hacked them off the base, rebased them and repainted them. They've had a very previous iterations. First they were part of a jungle board I worked on, but when that went by the wayside they've sorta sat on my shelf doing nothing, so it was time to fix them up.

The Hills

What set of gaming terrain would be complete without some hills? These I made a few months ago as an experiment to see what I could make out of what I had to hand. It was the middle of the night, and suddenly I had the sur to make some terrain; something new, and this is really what started me on the road to making an entirely new board's worth of terrain. As you can see in the temple pictures above, I made the rock faces out of polystyrene. I'm sure many avid terrain-makers dry-heaved when they saw that in my WIP shots, but honestly I like the result. Most of the styrene isn't even visible in the finished pieces because I only use it as a sort of skeleton for the cliffs to give them their shape, and covered them with exterior filler. Its very easy and cheap to achieve, and the beauty of it is I didn't need to order anything new. When I order something, it usually arrives a few days later when my enthusiasm has waned, but by just using what I already had I was able to keep the momentum going. 

Another piece of advice I'd give to someone making things like this: don't over-plan things. Sometimes you spend ages planning something and by the time you start the actual project your gusto has gone, or maybe things don't work out as you had planned and that can be very disappointing. That's half the reason it took me so long to finish my current desert cliffs (they're still not all finished, though). With these new hills, I just sat at my table and cut up the polystyrene into cool-looking shapes. No measuring, no planning, just cutting and gluing down, using cocktail stick to pin the pieces together. I used models to check out the rough size each piece would be compared to the miniatures, but that's about all the planning I did. 

Followers of Lachesis

My Tzeentch warband is fully mustered and almost fully painted, but I thought I'd share my progress so far for anyone interested. I've been in full hobby swing the past 2-3 weeks in preparation for our Age of Sigmar: Path to Glory campaign. As well as my warband, I've been working on a whole bunch of new terrain for our games, just to break away from the monotony of fighting on my desert boards all the time. But for now, the warband:

Lachesis the Beholder

My army's General, though he uses the Gaunt Summoner model and rules, actually has a different background. I won't go into it too much here, but in life he was a great scholar and explorer, uncovering Chaotic artifacts to keep the world safe from their thrall, but naturally his line of work slowly corrupted him. As the End Times happened, he vanished without a trace, only to materialize some years later, now more daemon than man, bearing the name Lachesis.

Honestly, this is probably the best model I've painted for a very long time. I'm not the best painter in the world, and I often find it a chore to paint my models, but I spent a good several hours on this guy, and even tried my hand at wet blending which I'd never done before, and I'm quite pleased with the result.


Chaos Marauders

The Marauders are human barbarians bent to the will of Lachesis, and imbued with his magical energy. They are just basic marauders in the rules, but I really dislike the GW models so instead I used some Bloodreavers. I just removed the khornate imagery, like I did for my barbarian Lord in the last update, and painted them blue!

There's a lot of naff stuff on these guys, particularly the standard bearer's shield on the right, as my brushes are old and I found a lot of the detail hard going (harder than normal, I mean), but I will endeavour to clean them up at a later date.

Chaos Knights

My 2 units of knights. Like the marauders, they too have been imbued with powerful magic. Nobody has seen the Knights of Lachesis without their armour, which has led to much speculation as to whether they are even men at all, anymore.

Again, there's a few naff spots on these models, and a few areas unpainted at all yet, but they are very much paint-in-progress, so they should improve a little. But they are pretty much done at this point (aside from the base rims).

Next up I have 2 units of 2 Chaos spawn to add. I have 1 unit already complete from my Word Bearers army. I have the models for the second unit, largely painted, but I've not taken piccies of them yet. That will come soonish, I hope.

I'm actually quite looking forward to our campaign. I've done a lot of poring over the warscrolls for each of our units, and things seem pretty even, so it should prove interesting.

PATH TO GLORY - Age of Sigmar

Before we learned about the 40k Path to Glory rules, my friend and I wanted to start our Age of Sigmar collections by doing a small Path to Glory campaign and seen in the General's Handbook. Our 40k campaign took precedence as we already have enough models to make those warbands, and would take less effort and money.

However, in the future we plan on going ahead with our Age of Sigmar campaign. Our warbands have been rolled for, and now all we have to do is get the models and paint them up.

My opponent always wanted a Vampire Counts army in Warhammer Fantasy but never got around to it. Now is his chance to scratch his necromantic itch and start a Death warband. His warband comprises a Wight King, 3 units of skeletons, 2 units of Grave Guard, and a unit of Black Knights. He wanted one of his skeleton units to be archers as seen in the defunct Tomb Kings rules.

As for my army, I went for a Chaos army (this was before we decided to do a 40k Path to Glory campaign). I've always had a bit of a soft spot of Tzeentch. In my Word Bearer's daemonic allies force Tzeentch was my second choice of patron after Slaanesh. Now was my chance to do an entire Tzeentchian army. So I made my rolls, and got a unit of Marauders, 2 units of Chaos Knights, and 2 units of Spawn. My friend also allowed me to use the Gaunt Summoner as my army's general, simply because GW have yet to release a Chaos Sorcerer on Disc of Tzeentch that I like.

When the first issue of the new and much improved White Dwarf came out, they released it with a free Khorne Slaughterpriest model. Jumping at the opportunity for free stuff, I snapped up my copy and set about converting the Slaughterpriest for my own nefarious ends, taking off all the khornate imagery and adding greenstuff flames to his sword and enclosed fist. With this simple conversion, I had a future Chaos Lord for my Tzeentch warband. I used him as a sort of test model to try out the colour scheme I will use on my marauders (and the rest of my army).

In the end, I quite like the result. I wanted him to look like a barbarian, but fueled and strengthened by the magic of his Master. Also, as this was a single model, I spent a bit more time on him. I still find it hard to maintain my interest when painting, but I think I found an ok balance here.

PATH TO GLORY - 40k

Recently, my friend and I started on a 40k Path to Glory campaign. For those who don't know, Path to Glory is a small campaign system whereby each player chooses a small warband of models at the beginning and evolve the warband between games. Warbands are generally randomly chosen from a series of tables by rolling a D6. The campaign is Chaos-centric in the base rules, but I see no reason why people couldn't make random tables for their own armies. I was tempted to do orks for the campaign, but I play orks too much so I stuck with Chaos. My friend also stuck with his Death Guard army, only using models he has available in his collection. Myself, on the other hand, decided to dig out some of my old models and spruce them up a bit, effectively making a new army for the campaign.

I had a plethora of metal sonic weapons from way back in my Emperor's Children days, but as I moved away from Slaanesh and made a Word Bearer army, my stash of sonic weapons went into my bitz box... until now.

We selected our Lords using the normal Path to Glory rules, and randomly generated our warbands (give or take a few units so we could build things using models/parts we already have). You can see our starting warbands below.

 My opponent's army consisted of his Lord, armed with a Lightning Claw and the Murder Sword, and wearing terminator armour. He has a second Lord armed with a simple power sword.
For his troops, he has a squad of 10 Chaos Marines with the Mark of Nurgle, and a unit of 7 Plague Marines with free rhino.
For his final roll, he got a Chaos Spawn.

For my army, I chose a Lord with twin lightning claws. He also has an attack familiar, simply because I've had the dark eldar slave models for years and wanted to put one to some use. My second in command is a Sorcerer.
For my troops, I rolled for a unit of Chaos Space Marines, which I gave the Mark of Slaanesh, a unit of Noise Marines, and a unit of Raptors. However, I soon decided to swap the Raptors out for a second unit of Noise Marines.

A squad of havocs rounded out the force nicely. I converted them to look like Noise Marines themselves, just for flavour, but count as being armed with 2 missile launchers and 2 heavy bolters.

Opening Skirmish
We opened the campaign with a mission rolled for in the main rulebook. We rolled a Dawn of War deployment, with The Scouring objective. During the game, my Noise Marines held 2 of the objectives in my deployment zone, while the 10-man Death Guard unit held one in theirs. In the middle there was a large scrap between my Lord, my 10-man unit, the Plague Marines and both enemy Lords. Somehow the Slaaneshi marines held against this onslaught just long enough to win me the game. My sorcerer also got involved, but due to me not knowing his Force Staff was only AP4, his impact on the battle was lackluster at best. He did, however, manage to get off some powerful Psychic Shriek attacks.
For my victory this game, I got 2 glory points, while my opponent got the 1.

Game 2
When rolling between games to expand our warbands, we both rolled for a vehicle. I got a Maulerfiend, which is handy because I already had one in my Word Bearer army, and my opponent got a Defiler.
For our second game, it was much more of a close game, a veritable bloodbath which is how we like it. This time we had an Emperor's Will objective (an objective in each of our deployment zones). My Maulerfiend got stuck into the Plague Marines and lesser Lord early on, and held them up for nearly the entire game. He slowly mashed his way through them, being lucky to avoid 90% of their meltabombs, krak grenades and power fist attacks.
The enemy defiler, however, was a bit more destructive, turning the 10-man squad of Slaaneshi marines into mush in turn 1 with its battle cannon, leaving only the Lord and a few guys alive. But even this devastating attack was not enough to stop the remainder of the unit marching forward and contesting the Plague Marine objective.
Later in the game, however, the defiler finished the job from its firing position on a ridge to one side of the battlefield, and even managed to rip apart the Maulerfiend in close combat into the bargain.
Midway through the game, the Nurgle terminator Lord Deep Struck into my side of the battlefield to claim my own objective, but my Havocs and Noise Marine squads managed to keep hold of it until the bitter end.
After seven turns (Nurgle's favoured number indeed!) I still held my objective, and Nurgle did not hold theirs as their backline had been decimated by my Sorcerer some time before, and victory went to the followers of Slaanesh for the second time.
As for glory points, I rolled 3, giving me a total of 5 to my opponent's 2.

Rolling for new units, my opponent got another character in the form of a Warpsmith, while I rolled another vehicle. This time I got a predator, but I swapped it out for a Chaos Vindicator as I already have one of those in my Word Bearer force.

In all, the campaign has been very interesting. I quite like the random nature of warband creation, but only wish I had the funds to stick to it and build the army I actually rolled for, instead of swapping out some options for ones I already have.
My Lord is somewhat lacking in terms of his damage output. I gave him lightning claws in the hope he would be very killy and choppy, but he doesn't do much, and his attack familiar is yet to cause a single casualty in both games! My sorcerer, while pants in combat, is pretty destructive with his psychic powers, and I look forward to seeing what he can do in the future.
I stand by my opinion that Sonic Weapons are a mixed bag. I am glad that Path to Glory doesn't use points values because I find sonic blasters verging on useless for the amount of points they cost. I've probably killed, maybe 2 models in total with the sonic blasters. The blastmasters, on the other hand, are brutal. A strength 8, AP 3 blast is nothing to scoff at. Like large boyz mobs are to the nobz that lead them, I feel like the rest of the Noise Marine unit is just a delivery system to keep the blastmaster alive while it works its magic.

Zzodzog's Ambition Campaign Chapter 1 - Reinforcements...

Zzodzog opened his eyes to a dull grey sky. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but it couldn't have been long. He remembered his fight with one of them stinky boyz from one of the portals. He remembered the black, jagged blade piercing his skin. It hurt a bit (though he'd never admit it) and it takes a lot for an ork to feel pain.

"Better get Scruffa to look it over anyway." He though to himself, checking his arms. The wounds were deep, and wept with black pus. "Oh, wait. He got squished!" He chuckled to himself, and hauled himself to his feet.

Looking around, he saw he was in a crater. Not one caused by a big bomb blast, or a boom gun, and not even by his shokk attack gun. Its caldera was lined with cracks as deep and black as infinity, and they rippled with streaks of purple electricity. Stepping to the crater's rim, Zzodzog peered over the top, and some meters away he could see a large gathering of daemons. They crowded around something. They were facing away for now, looking at whatever they were huddled around. They were making noises, like guttural gurgles, growls and belches. Or were they chanting in some evil and sinister language known only to the morbid denizens of some forgotten realm?

He didn't care. He had a slight itch for a fight. His shokk attack gun was lying in the dust a few feet away, but he felt like a bit of a brawl to stretch out his limbs after his nap. But a new feeling gripped him. He almost didn't want to fight. Looking around, there were no other boyz to back him up. He was on his own. He was no use anymore. No need to throw his genius away in a senseless fight he wouldn't win, right?

If orks are good at anything, its running; either headlong into a swirling melee with sluggas and choppas flailing, or away from the enemy when things get a little... boring. Scrabbling out the far edge of the crater with his favourite weapon in tow, Zzodzog lumbered for the nearest ridge dragging his big gun behind him. Sparing a glance back, he could see a mist rising from amidst the daemons, it swirled purple and green, pulsating with energy, twisting the fabric of the reality around it. It looked exactly like one of the portals that had opened up before. He knew precisely what to do.
After a while of walking, he came to the top of a great sand dune, and peered down. The sounds greeted him first as he squinted down in the harsh sunlight. Another camp was below him; he had reached his destination. He heard gunfire, and the revving of engines, and the bellowing of orks. He was reminded of last night, standing on his balcony overlooking his own settlement below. He wanted his tower back, and he was going to use these other orks to do it.

As he entered the gate to the camp, all the orks about the place hushed and aimed their guns right at him. Zzodzog shrugged and dropped his gun to the sandy floor, and started towards them, but a booming voice rang out from the back of the horde somewhere.
"Hold it!" It called, and from the swarm there pushed and barged a much larger ork, one of the nobz no doubt, and behind him came 4 others of equal stature. They were dressed only in brown, tattered trousers and heavy, steel boots. Their torsos were pockmarked with metal implants and plugs for inserting wires.
"Look what da squig dragged in!" The nob continued, and began circling the big mek. "What brings a little runt like you to my camp?" He kicked at the large gun on the floor. He stood only a few inches above the Big Mek, but his ego far outweighed his height.
Zzodzog simply growled. "You seems ta be gettin' ready fer a fight." He replied. "I got a good fight for ya, up dere in Junktown." He motioned over his shoulder, speaking to the boyz around him, rather than the thick-headed nob who taunted him; he knew this nob well, and also knew he'd get more co-operation out of a well-fed bullgrox.
"Oi, you speak to me or I thump ya. When Zagablud is out of town, den Azragg is da biggest and da bossest!" He bellowed, thumping his chest.
"Den mobilize da boyz." Zzodzog shouted in retort. "We'z got a fight on our 'ands, and its gonna be a good'un. Deze portals opened up, *boom* and den deze weird stinky boyz started pouring out. I seen 'em before, but dey iz itchin' fer a fight. Saddle up ladz, and lets go krump some 'eads!"
The mob began to cheer and bellow loud "Waaaghs!", but they were soon hushed when Azragg spoke. "Oi, you all listen ta me. I'm biggest so I'm da boss." He thwacked Zzodzog sharply on the back of the head.
In truth, Zzodzog held a higher rank in ork heirarchy than Azragg, who was merely a boss of his relative mob. He was also a meganob, and the metal implants and plugs on his body were how he got wired in to his suit.
"And lets not forget who made you yer big, shiny mega armour!" Zzodzog snarled. He turned and threatened Azragg with a fist to the face. They were almost evenly matched if Azragg wasn't in his armour, and the meganob knew this. He laughed, and shoved past Zzodzog, pushing him away and shouting.
"Saddle up, ladz! Let's go krump some 'eads!" Azragg yelled. "And get me mega armour oiled up."

Zzodzog grimaced to himself. He thought of himself as far superior to the orks around him, but this was not unusual for orks. He enjoyed a fight as much as the next ork. If he didn't, he'd still be a runty yoof in some boot kamp somewhere. But he loved making things more. Gunz were his favourite, but he also fancied himself as a sort of armoursmith. He made many suits of mega armour, as well as dreads and kans of all shapes and sizes.
He hoisted his super-shokk kannon onto his shoulder, and prepared to move out. With the stubborn meganob boss out of the way, he began to bellow to the boyz.
"Mangy runts, y'all followin' me now. We'z gonna 'ave a good scrap wiv dem stinky boyz up in Junktown. Dey makes a satisfyin' pop whenever dey die, hurhurhur. And even better iz dere's tons ov 'em. We can krump stuff until da squiggoff's come home. Who's wiv me?"
The crowd of orks let out a bellowing Waaagh! at the top of their lungs, and was followed by the mass dakka of guns and the stomping of boots as the orks marched out of the camp. The kicked up sand choked the air. Streaks of purple lightning began to break through the clouds, and thunder rumbled across the horizon like the Gods themselves were marching to battle.

Azragg drove past on his trukk, his fellow meganobz whooping the boyz into an ever greater frenzy. Cannily, Zzodzog managed to quickly leap onto the side of the trukk; a quick ride it was back to Junktown, but while clinging on he saw a familiar face amongst the clanking behemoths on board. It was Scruffa Orkfixa.

"Oi, Scruffa... you jammy git!" Zzodzog bellowed, as they crested the ridge. The Battle for Junktown was about to begin in earnest...