u/statictyrant

In the moments of peace before and after battle, the Silver Daggers give quiet praise to a host of different deities. Compared to the zealous witch hunters of the larger cities, whose faith and trust is placed in blessed Sigmar to the exclusion of all others, the warband calls upon the aid of gods and goddesses such as Morr and Verena.

They count among their number one Otto Voller, a Raven Knight of the god of death, sworn to return the undead to the sleep from which they have been disturbed. Where the fanatics of Sigmar might bellow warcries and rain curses upon the servants of evil, Morr’s chosen merely shakes his head at the sight of necromancers and their corpse-puppets, silently gritting his teeth as he wades into the fray with steel and silver blade.

Another spiritual leader among the Silver Daggers is Adelheid von Halten, Magistra of Verena. Her quest is to uncover the truth, and see in turn that justice is served. As such, her reaction to discovering the foul schemes of dark wizards is somewhat different: finding the answer to a riddle-skein of pillaged graves and mysterious sightings stirs up mixed emotions, with satisfaction tinged with sadness at the unwelcome — but not unexpected — turn of events.

Dispensing lethal justice to those who disturb the burial yards is treated as a solemn duty, but also an act in which one might take due pride, and on that point the adherents of Morr and Verena are in full agreement.

Twilight is the hour at which you are most likely to find the Silver Daggers at work, with blade and torch and shovel to rebury the restless dead.

As good folk hurry home to bolt their doors and stoke the night’s watch-fire, Morrslieb’s wan light shines forth, and all manner of vermin start to slink from their lairs.

Then do the stout-hearted warriors take up their shields and their swords, and with lead and steel and silver begin the thankless task of ensuring that the citizens never learn what lurks in the dark places that encroach ever closer to their homes.

I don’t often show unpainted sculpts or kitbashes “in green” as it were. Most projects have leaped ahead to the painting stage by the time I think to take a photo, and I’m more likely to gap-fill and build up a model using spare bits and plastic shavings than I am to actually reach for the putty!

But this little band of Empire soldiers seemed to warrant mixing up some of my last remaining batch of Greenstuff. I think the sculpted details have really helped add a bit of personality to some of the more by-the-numbers troopers, while the three heroes are all developing a unique style and loadout that should help them really stand out on the tabletop.

They’ll remain a warband-sized force for Warhammer Skirmish scenarios, among other things, with no intention to expand them into a full army. Now that I have all the figures built I can work out how I want to base and paint them. Beyond the warband’s name, make-up, and sort of overall mission or purpose, I don’t really have a good sense of what they ought to end up looking like, so I’m open to suggestions!

To move merchandise, you have to bring it to the market. Customers want all kinds of things. Some of them are even legal!

The boss says that the customer is always right. Why worry yourself about what they want? You just bring them the goods, provide the service, don’t ask too many questions… that’s business. Money makes everything move. It’s a beautiful thing — in the right hands it can people sing, or it can make them clam up. Sometimes the wrong person talks, though, and then the law gets wind of what’s going down.

When the Arbites show up, that’s when things really start to move. You should’ve seen how quickly the boss got out of there! We followed, taking a bit longer to make sure we had the goods — whatever we could snatch up. Left a few bodies in the dirt, too.

Boss explained it to me once. Price of doing business, he said. Had a big word for it, too: amortisation, something like that? In the end, he said, it’s all about profit and loss. Our profit, and their loss…

Our Rogue-Trader-inspired campaign continues apace. Here’s a lineup of the force I played today: a crime gang of hired alien muscle and thuggish goons hired by the notoriously evasive (though some would say legitimate) businessman Abdul Goldberg.

Amusingly, we must have achieved some sort of Firefight-ception, as we:

- played One Page Rules’ Grimdark Future Firefight
- used a bunch of human Infiltrators from Alternative Armies’ 1991 range titled Firefight: Urban Conflict in the Ion Age
- and even added in a few models I originally built to play as Veer-Myn in Mantic’s Warpath Firefight
(though they’re actually Saurians, from Folio Works’ “High Command” range)

Those older metal ranges provided most of the force. You may also be able to spot some more exotic mercenaries in the form of a half-Eldar sniper and a savage Kroot champion — both somewhat recent plastic conversions, though the Ranger was deliberately styled to match the original GW metals, and used some Dark Elf parts that are getting pretty long in the tooth.

There will be lots more to say about the game, but that probably deserves its own post!

One random Space Crusade Ork, finally painted after all of these years! Now that I compare him to the in-game art there are definitely a few stylistic cues I could change up on the next one I paint, but I had fun and he was an interesting change of pace from my usual Blood Axes.

He’s going to be a Bad Moon, on account of all the teef, see? Very much inspired by the Event Deck card art from the game, which (if memory serves) featured numerous Orks wearing the absolutely classic yellow-with-black-flames style of armour.

Lots of game-in-progress photos in this issue of White Dwarf. Check the comments to see them all! What do we think is going on in each image? Can you spot any models, terrain or rules systems that you recognise?

Interesting part of the magazine to report back on. I decided that I couldn’t really talk about the format of the battle game report without showing what I meant, which in turn meant spoiling the (decades-old) match for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet. 🤔

So anyway, beware spoilers and click away without looking through all the images if you prefer to track down a copy of this issue for yourself.

What I thought was nifty (besides the freehand numbering on the Elves, the Marauder Miniatures cobranding on the Skaven, and the fact that Morg’n’Thorg is wearing trousers that strongly hint at him batting for the other team) is the way they showed the action, replete with Batman-style comic sound effects! The play arrows seem like they might have been genuinely useful for someone learning the game — it’s a literal play-by-play recap of the match. If there’s one thing that a traditional battle-report often doesn’t do, it’s actually teaching you anything about the rules or gameplay experience, so this was a breath of fresh air.

Speaking of which, excuse the dodgier-than-usual photos. Despite it being mid-winter in our half of the world, we had a beautifully sunny weekend and I was able to read this month’s magazine while enjoying a picnic in the garden!

Kicking things off with a full-page artwork making our main man Nagash look better than his miniature ever did, this issue had a real focus on the upcoming release of the Undead army book for 4th edition WHFB.

The back cover showcases the army of Dieter Helsnicht, dubbed “A MIGHTY UNDEAD HORDE”. What impresses me is that everything in the photo is a new release this month; sure, there are some re-issues of plastic sprues previously bundled in the iconic Skeleton Horde and Skeleton army sets, but these all featured new shield sprues and the studio appears to have turned out freshly painted examples of each unit type. Props also to Gary Morley — I hadn’t realised he sculpted quite so much of the range in this era, assisted as ever by Trish Morrison when a monstrous mount was called for.

Lots of beautifully painted examples filled the pages of this magazine, so I haven’t actually included much in the way of article text. Enjoy all the deliciously freehanded banners and shields — they don’t make ‘em like they used to!

Here’s a slice of life from 1994. The issues we could pick up in Australia at the time still listed British prices (and store-opening events, of which there were no less than four this month!) as well as random job advertisements in German, presumably intended for a European audience.

Most new miniatures released were still being cast in metal — check out the behind-the-scenes photos in the mail order section! — and errata for games was published in print (but not before leaving enough time after the launch of a game for the fans to send in their rules queries in writing). Some of those Space Marine (“Epic”) FAQ had absolutely wild answers: the algorithmically-determined rules for moving the ferocious Avatar of Khaine (move a millimetre, check for line of sight, repeat) and grid-based to-hit system for Titans might seem especially alien if (like me) you never really got to grips with that system. Still, that Banelord is a classic mini and instantly recognisable even today.

Golden Demon was clearly a massive event, with stores sending their own contingents of fans via bus. Each such group seemed to have its own banner bearer, presumably so they could meet up for lunch and find their way back to the correct bus at the end of the day! Props to the Welsh contingent with their faithful rendition of the classic Dark Angels captain from Dark Millennium (a piece of artwork reused in this very issue).

There was a lot about Warhammer Fantasy’s Undead in this issue, which I’ll put into its own post (including the massive army shot on the back cover). Blood Bowl also got a look-in, with a very interesting match report in place of the usual battle. Again, there’s enough of that for it to be its own post.

If there’s anything I’ve overlooked, or that you want to see less of, let me know in the comments below!

As the first month of the hobby challenge comes to a close, it’s time for a look back at what’s been achieved. Feel free to add links, photos or just a description of what you’ve been up to in the comments below!

In gameplay terms these may just end up being a Necromancer and some unit champions, but they could also count as more powerful wights and a liche lord. Rear view included as there’s a fun shield design, cloaks made of Sigmar knows what, and some stripey trousers hidden away back there.

More antiheroes for the Undead army. This batch includes the Champion of the Nightmare Legion, a Tom Meier sculpted Ral Partha Paladin, and the Lichemaster himself.

Previously I’d worked on these character models for the same force.

Time flies: it’s been two years since I last shared a batch of skeletons with these older styled shields! Obviously the sculpts are quite a bit older again. Some of these skeletons have been waiting a very long time for their livery.

All these decades later I still remember having to assemble their shields individually — bone coloured plastic for the boss, grey for the rest of it. The two-part shield was a neat solution for the plastic sets, because on metal minis there would be a small projecting nub that fit through the hole in the centre.

Even the most useless and vexing of lackeys can still be of use when it’s raining! Or sunny. Or when there’s a chance of arrows.

Fun batch of figures I should really knuckle down and finish. Didn’t have much time today so I mainly just painted the wizard’s hat. Besides Kem(m)ler himself there’s Renzo Avanti, champion of the Nightmare Legion; a loader from the Machineries of Death skull-chucker catapult; and some plastic skeletons from the Skeleton Horde / Skeleton Army boxsets that were so pivotal in me even getting into the hobby in the first place. The metal archers are from Ral Partha and blend in nicely, I think, though I’ve done a few headswaps and other small conversions to make up for having the one pose duplicated many times in my army.

“With an eternity of service to the lich stretching ahead of him, the apprentice knew that it was more of a promise than a threat.”

Just a short painting session today — excuse the still-wet flesh paint! I didn’t think I’d make much progress on this tiny, oddly-featureless-but-at-the-same-time-fiddly sculpt, so I decided to focus on one of the necromancer’s minions instead. After all: only those who learn to cheat death and live forever will ever truly discover just how many ways there are for other people to let you down…

It could be no coincidence that each of the four warbands, led by a fell Champion of Chaos, had stumbled into this hidden vale at the same time. Perhaps it was the spring thaw, weakening its usual magical protection? Maybe the ancient, deathless liege who ruled this place had decided it was time for another to kneel before his throne… or seize it and take on the cursed mantle for themselves!?

Whatever the reason for their being here, the Champions quickly readied themselves for a fight to the death. For surely were treasures to be won, and vile enemies to test their mettle against! Just think of the arcane secrets they might they find buried here, amongst the strange beings who chose to inhabit this inhospitable land…

Eulogies, accolades, and something of an explanation in the comments.

An odd collection of random figures slowly grows into… some sort of warband? Seems like the kind of thing you might have rolled up using the charts from Realms of Chaos. I suppose I’ll have to run them against my square based Kislevites. No idea quite what the rationale for their meeting will be, but Chaos is fickle and needs no such excuses!