Spearhead 1

 It’s that time of year when GW publish a part work magazine, this time Age of Sigmar based.

I often pick up a few of these as it’s a cheap way to try painting something I wouldn’t usually buy.  This time I’m a bit more invested though - in September the (not so) Little Miniature will be off to secondary school, and she’s quite excited to find out they have a Warhammer Club.  However I suspect they’re not going to be playing Old World so it won’t hurt to have a few Age of Sigmar models around.

Issue one had some sort of Stormcast Dude and his pet, and a Skaven Grey Seer and Engineer, and I got them painted a couple of weeks back.

I wasn’t sure what I’d make of the Skaven.  Last ‘modern’ GW model I attempted was a tech priest, and I hated it - loads of fiddly, hard to paint details and bits that snapped off.  I was worried these would be similar but actually really enjoyed them and I’m very pleased with the result.

I started with a base of Colour Forge Desert Sand, the dry brushed with white, and made extensive use of contrast paints.

The Stormcast was lovely and quick and simple: gold armour, blue cloak, done.  The Griffon thing ended up a bit too dull looking, so I used different contrast paints to give some of the black feathers a sheen - inspired by magpies and starlings.  I think it worked relatively well.

I’m still unsure about aspects of the modern GW style though.  The move to 3D sculpting results in clothing having too many sharp folds for my taste, and I’m not keen on how many models end up with long swirly ends on cloaks or flaming whateveritis’s all over them.  I nearly trimmed the ends of the Grey Seer’s cloak off on principle.

Next up, my first ever rat ogres.