The Lizard Project - Slann Starmaster

Hello!

Time for another lizard project blog post, and this time it's a big magic frog!

Yup, it's the army general/wizard/summoner/whatever, the Slann Starmaster, formerly known as the Slann Mage Priest, and affectionately known by me as 'Freddo'.

Here he is in all his glory. I decided to go with the desert theme the Slann himself, roughly basing him off the hilariously grumpy looking desert rain frog. Though he has bright blue eyes because he's magic, obviously.

Among a number of reptilian and amphibian friends sharing the throne, the Slann has his little skink helper. He's a fair bit smaller than the regular skinks so I felt justified painting him in a lighter brown than the older ones in my collection. I also reasoned he's a bit special to be sitting next to the Slann so he got some magic blue eyes as well, and some blue spots on his crest.

Painting the throne was a bit of a chore in some respects. I aimed for a sandstone look, edged with black stone and gold decoration, so there was a lot of drybrushing and washing to get to a point where I was happy with it. I was also planning to have all the vines look bleached and dying, but at a late stage I decided to paint the leaves green which made it feel much more complete. I reason the plants aren't all dead because magic.

The big tusks were one of the last things to paint, I wasn't really sure about how to do them, but I reasoned black-ish would work better with a big white frog in between them. A wash with a bit of blue at the end helped smooth out the gradient and gave them a bit more of a natural look.

And here's Freddo with some friends. I got the Temple Guard out from storage for a photo shoot, as they finally have a frog to guard. Also included the Troglodon because it's cool. I think in position the Slann looks the part. He definitely stands out, but not too much.

Anyway, hope you all like these photos. I'm looking forward to when I can do a full army gathering! Soon, just two models left. Both Oldbloods, one riding a big dinosaur!

The Lizard Project - Troglodon

Hello!

Still painting lizards to add to the old, square based army. After getting through the Saurus Knights and Warriors, it was time to move onto something bigger and more fun, so I moved onto the Troglodon and Skink Oracle.

First thing to say is that I love this 'mini'. After going through the old, regimented Saurus kits these big dinosaurs just look so much more dynamic and interesting, and I was really looking forward to painting it. I didn't actually build this one - I got it second hand, but I did build the Carnosaur so I can say it's a nice enough kit to build with plenty of cool options for the mounted lizards.

The big boy (or girl - I have no idea how to sex a Troglodon) was painted largely with a lot of drybrushing grey and white, and a sepia wash all over. The darker colouration at the top was stippled on, starting with a lighter brown, then darker, then black, getting progressively higher up the back. It was a little inspired by the cool coconut crab Tyranid schemes I've been seeing crop up on social media a lot, and also on looking at some real desert lizards. In the old world lore at least they are supposed to be cave dwellers, so it makes sense to be fairly pale. In my mind this thing probably lurks under the desert sand before popping up to chomp on some unlucky herbivores.

Gold was again some combination of drybrushing and washing with sepia, plus at an earlier stage a use of the classic chestnut ink. I've not used the exact same gold method on any of the stages of the project because I can't remember what I did the first time around, but I'm happy enough with this one, it looks quite muted without looking like a bronze.

The sail on it's back, barbels on it's face and the skink himself were all painted with a blue-greyish tint, to get that slightly unnatural albino look without being too far from the rest of the mini or looking like I'd just primed it white. I'm particularly pleased with how it came out, especially the spots added on, which were deliberately uneven and misshapen to look natural.

Not much to say about the tail, other than it's cool. It's a nice touch that the Troglodon and it's Skink rider both have the split-tipped tail.

And speaking of the rider, here is the Oracle himself. Had fun painting him, in particular the bigger scales on his back which are a slightly different, bone colour to the rest of him, in line with my other skinks. 

And here they are with friends. I think I've achieved the 'stand out, but not too much' look for them. One more unit down. I've only got three minis left to paint, and I'm not sure what order to do them in, so next post could be a Saurus Oldblood, an Oldblood on a Carnosaur, or a magic floating frog...

The Lizard Project - Saurus Warriors

Hello!

You may have seen in my last post, I've been updating my Seraphon/Lizardman army. This week I have mostly been painting Saurus Warriors:

Here we have two units of ten each to add to an existing unit of 20, which will allow me to fill out one of the battalions if I fancy it. It's also some little units that can be summoned by a magic frog if I go down that route. I think they turned out ok, but these guys were a bit of a chore if I'm honest. They are a somewhat elderly kit now and looking at them compared to the Saurus Oldblood on the Carnosaur they look a bit too goofy and not particularly threatening (I can't help but imagine them walking with the Argonian walking animation from Morrowind). Like the Cold Ones, they are a bit uninspiring, so I'm glad they are done.

As with before, I'm not sure how I painted up the first batch, so they aren't quite perfectly matched with their older comrades, most notable in the brighter gold. The difference is more apparent here however as the big unit is still on the old bases. I don't currently intend to rebase the entire collection, it seems a lot of work for an army I'll probably not use much, and very unlikely to take to a tournament or anything. At least it's an easy way to tell the 20 strong unit from the others!

At a glance though, aside from the wider formation in these pics, I think they'll pass. Which is good because I'm ready to move on and paint some big dinosaurs!

To round this post off, I put together a selection of the updates from this one and the last, and took some more photos. I think as a cohesive army, they are starting to look pretty cool. 

The Lizard Project - Saurus Knights

Hello!

Some of you may remember I have a bit of a Seraphon/Lizardmen army that's been sitting around largely unused for years. It looks a bit like this:

Well, I've been and grabbed a few more bits for them, enough to make around 2500 points for Age of Sigmar I believe. I had intended updating them to be my 'main' hobby project for 2020, but for obvious reasons I'm on target to smash them out in a couple of weeks. Currently everything is built, and it's just painting to go.

This 'update' is a case of adding new units rather than overly modifying old ones, and I've no intention of rebasing my whole collection onto round ones. That said, I had enough of the ovals to base up 16 Cold One riders, so I decided to get all the Knights onto the newer style bases, so that's where I've started with the painting.

We've got a combination of eight older minis with new bases (and spears), and eight newly built and painted ones. They make up three units of Saurus Knights and a Scar Veteran, which forms one of the battalions in the battletome, should I wish to play it.

The Scar Vet, a Saurus hero unit, is an old kit bash made from a combination of the knight and Temple Guard bits. I'm pretty pleased with how he looks so he just got a new base. Notice that his cold one mount has feathers like a real dinosaur! I have to admit that I was too lazy to make feathers on the new ones, so my cavalry are riding a mix of different cold one species.

This lot are mainly newer ones. Hopefully it isn't immediately obvious at a glance, but they are not quite to the same standard as the older ones. Mainly because it's been so long I've forgotten which paints I use (and I'm pretty sure whatever they were, some of them don't exist any more.) That aside, I'm happy with the gold 'mask' helmet on this unit champion.

This couple of pics show old on the left and new on the right. As you can probably see, they don't quite match, but I think it's close enough for the tabletop. I intend to mix up new and old into a blob anyway so it shouldn't be obvious. Like this:

Anyway, next on the bench is a couple of 10-lizard Saurus Warrior units, which will form another battalion with the 20 I've already got and an Old Blood. And after that, it's a couple of dinosaurs and a frog...

Video Battle Report - Tyranids vs Eldar on DZTV (plus Blood of Baal thoughts)

Hello!

Back in February, when we were allowed to travel across the country to play toy soldiers, I went to visit Liam from Moarhammer and Deployment Zone to film a battle report. I took the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Goliath against his Saim Hann Eldar in a 2000 point custom matched play mission. It was a lot of fun, and good to complete the set after playing Winters a couple of times.

I was going to just put up a blog post with a link to the battle report for completeness, but I thought most people reading this will either not have paid for access to DZTV or will have already seen the battle report there anyway, so I'm going to add a bit of my thoughts from the game. Specifically about the Blood of Baal Psychic Awakening book, and how it worked out for me.

I'll not post my entire list here, but I did use a good chunk of the content. I picked a monster heavy list and use a custom hive fleet with the Prey-sight and Metamorphic Regrowth traits which granted +1 to hit in melee for monsters after charging, being charged or heroic intervention, and all models regenerating a single lost wound at the start of each of my turns. I took two of the relics (the Arachnacyte Gland on a Trygon Prime and Pathogenesis on an all devourer hive tyrant) and two Adaptive Physiologies (Dermic Symbiosis on a Tyrannofex and Accelerated Digestion on a Haruspex). Overall I was pretty pleased with them, though (minor spoiler alert:) the Haruspex didn't do a lot.

I don't think the book suddenly makes Tyranids top tier by any means, (it's been out a while and we've not seen the Tyranid meta yet...) but it definitely adds some fun and I think powerful options. Choose your own Hive Fleet is a bit... specific? There are a lot of options but most of them will only work for very specific builds, and the generic ones are not as strong as, say, Kraken. That said, the ones I picked fit my army very well and are undeniably strong for taking lots of monsters and multi-wound models. Trygons suddenly hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s were quite terrifying, and it was nice getting the odd wound back, even on Warriors and Zoanthropes.

I do think the relics and Adaptive Physiologies will see some use in competitive lists though, as well as in fun and casual ones. The Resonance Barb stands out (+1 to cast and deny, cast an extra power) and has seen use on several battle reports I've seen. The two I took are probably a bit more specialised, but definitely effective. The Arachnacyte Gland (3D6 charge, drop the lowest) makes a Trygon Prime or melee Hive Tyrant a more viable prospect, and Pathogenesis (6 inch extra range, reroll a single hit and wound for shooting) makes the all devourer Tyrant build even more scary with a larger threat range.

Dermic Symbiosis seems the stand out Adaptive Physiology (5+ invulnerable and count double wounds for damage bracket). I definitely could see it going on the Scythed Hierodule to make it tougher to deal with, especially if sitting next to a Malanthrope on turn one, then charging off with a +1 to hit and regenerating a wound every turn. I didn't use any of the infantry ones, but I think they definitely have potential as well, I've been especially looking at Adrenal Webs (2d6 consolidation) for a big mob of gargoyles perhaps, flapping over and tying up an entire gun line.

In conclusion, it's not a huge power boost, but it has got me more excited to play with the Nids again. Just a shame I can't right now!

Inquisition Land Raider

Hello!

This one has been a loooooong time in the WIP stage, having been bought and built back when the Land Raider Redeemer was a new kit, but sat in a box waiting for the inspiration to paint it. Inspiration came with plans for a new narrative campaign with SorcererDave featuring the Inquisition. To date we've filmed two episodes, yet to go up on YouTube, and it definitely felt time to finally give this venerable machine a coat of paint.

So here we go, an Inquisitorial Land Raider Redeemer, the personal transport of Inquisitor Mortimer Arctos of the Ordo Hereticus, crewed by battle sisters of the Order of the Azurine Heart. I tried to somewhat replicate the paint job on the wife's beautiful sisters of battle, with a few changes - primarily swapping out the white for black on some of the tank's panels, as Inquisitor Arctos himself wears blue and black. The most notable and heavily converted feature of the tank is the assault ramp drawbridge leading to a marble archway and a heavy wooden door, the Inquisition does like to make an entrance! A couple of other quick things to note - all the scrolls and seals have 'writing' on them - squiggly lines with a fine drawing pen, and the soot around the engine and weapons is one of the forge world weathering powders, which gives a lovely realistic stain once you hit it with a matt varnish.

Of course, with the Land Raider done, I had to take some pictures with Inquisitor Arctos himself and some of his allies, ready to burn some heretics! Enjoy.