Avatars of War Dwarf Rune Master

Since I hit 4000 points limit recently, Projekt Core is on hold now. Today's mini is Avatars of War's Dwarf Rune Master miniature. It is a funny thing that all of my last four updates have been about different manufacturers' products. I think when you are playing a long time forsaken army such as chaos dwarfs, it is a must to browse through the catalogs of all companies and get what you can from them. This Rune Master figure in particular, has an awesome pose and I've seen many people using this one as sorcerer-prophets or daemonsmiths in their armies.

Avatars of War is a Spanish company which is known for its awesome hero models. Recently, they announced a new product line, called Warthrone, and started producing regimental boxes. The first regiment of this line was Dwarf Berserkers and thanks to their recent, successful kickstarter, more will follow soon. Although their kickstarter did not enjoy as much success as Mantic's (which was phenomenal), it was still enough to get them going with their new projects.

Let me talk about the miniature a little now. The mini comes in a large blister pack with a stock photo on it. No biggie; but many products I've bought recently didn't have one, so I had to say it. The model is made of white metal, as AoW's all other hero models. It came in 4 pieces: Body, cloak, staff and fancy part of the beard. The mini is highly detailed with almost no flash, and the pieces fit without much effort; but I strongly suggest pinning nevertheless. You can't simply not pin a metal part (damn you 9gag). Before moving on to painting, I have to say that, I think providing a scenic base would be a nice touch here, especially when you think of the price tag of the miniature.

When painting, I took a different route. Instead of silver undercoat, I used a new spray I found in my local store: Brilliant Copper. I was very hopeful when using it. I thought using this one will help me have my bronze with but one wash; but of course it was not meant to be. Actually I had to do more to make it look like the rest of the army, so I think I will go back using the silver spray. My favorite part on this mini was the green gems. I think the green colored gems suited the model best and I'm glad that I didn't paint them to a classic yellow-orange or blue pattern.

Enjoy...

Spreading the Word in Style: Sorcerer-Prophet on Great Taurus

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates. I was out of the town to attend to MetuCon, the biggest convention in Turkey. We played a mega-game with Mr.Lee there: A 6k pointer dwarfs vs his infamous green horde; but more on that later...

Now, here I have a sorcerer-prophet on great taurus figure for you this time. This kit is from Scibor Games and it's called Moscal General on War Bull. A truly awesome model, way better than Citadel's OOP great taurus model in my opinion. To be honest, I'd even choose Scibor's over ForgeWorld's Bale Taurus; but I've never seen it in person, so no more comments on this...

Let me talk about the miniature itself first. It's a no-brainer choice for any chaos dwarf general who wants to field a mounted sorcerer lord. It looks cool and affordable among the other alternatives, so I think that it is selling quite nicely. The packaging however, was very poor. Thrown in a box with no protection other than a couple of ziplock bags, the packaging neither does justice to its contents nor helps it to brave the dangers of international shipments. One of the legs of the taurus was broken when it arrived to me; but the packaging was so bad that I was just grateful that it was only a leg what was broken.

Rambled enough already... OK, this beauty stayed on my desk more that enough so I decided to finish it asap. Finished it on last friday and even managed to field it in a couple of games on saturday. As you can see from the stock photos, no conversion work done on the mini, it is beautiful as is... The building of the mini was fairly quick. Although there are 8 pieces plus the body, they caused no problem at all. Just a warning for you though: Be careful when removing the wings from the sprues. The parts which connect to the sprue might get damaged and you might lose some of the details easily otherwise.

As for the painting, I really can't remember how many layers there are... really... Basically what I did was something like this: For body, the "hottest" part is the inside of the taurus, right? So, I started with a white undercoat and then painted the mini to a very bright yellow. Then I highlighted my way up: darker yellow, orange and three different reds, the final being the mechrite red. For the wings, the hottest part is the parts which are closest to the body, so I used a phoenix-like painting there.  I think it turned out quite well, although I've never done anything like this before. Oh, and if you haven't done any Hot Wings or KFC jokes when reading this paragraph, gratz to you... :)

Remember I noted that I took this beast to a couple of games on saturday, right? OK, while I was playing, one of our club members noticed the figure, then came and asked me:

Guy - Is that a flying bison over there?
Me - Why, yes? Why are you surprised?
Guy- I find it weird for hairy animals to have feathers on them...
Me - ...? :: roflmao ::

So anyways, enjoy... Hope it was worth the wait.

İzmirCon WHFB Tournament Review

Last weekend İzmirCon took place. As usual, my buddy Mr. Lee made an appearance too, driving all the way from İstanbul. The event I was looking forward to was the Warhammer Fantasy tournament which happened on sunday, where I fielded my Chaos Dwarfs first time.

What was your list, you might ask. Well, it was a little different than the list I prepared during the countdown to IzmirCon. Here is the breakdown:

• Sorcerer-Prophet (General)
     Level 4 Hashut
     Enchanted Shield
  

  

  A shot taken during the second games

     Blood of Hashut
• Infernal Castellan (BSB)
     Shield
     Dragonhelm
• K'daai Destroyer
• 6x K'daai Fireborns
• 5x Bull Centaur Renders
     Additional Hand Weapons
• 25x Infernal Guards
     Standard
     Musician
• 24x Infernal Guards
     Standard
     Musician

Totaling to 2000pts. As you can see, it was a very weak list with only 61 models, mostly because of the limited number of models available at hand. In fact, there were still super glue stains in my hand when I was rolling the first few dice in the tournament.

Anyway, if the first highlight of the tournament for me was to be able to finish my miniatures on time (I had to take the friday off to make it happen btw), the main one was receiving my destroyer. I commissioned that job to Mr. Lee and he made short work of it. If not for his efforts, I would have entered the tourney with my regular dwarfs and most likely win it, heh... Some of you might expect some photos of the monster I guess; but it deserves its own article, so, a little patience...

When I ranked up my army before the games started, people who saw my force were generally full of praises. The lava bases were their favorite, as was the destroyer; but the comments I cared about most was that they look very coherent as an army. This was big for me and I had my doubts about that since I have been gathering miniatures from different manufacturers. I was pleased to hear I'm doing ok on that front.

So, how did I do in the tourney? I came second among 8 players, losing only to the Dark Elves player who won the tournament. I must admit that I was very lucky with my match-ups through the tournament, as in the two games I won, I played against inexperienced players. Hence, I don't think that this result actually represents my skills as a general, the strength of my list or the Legion of Azgorh army list at all. On the other hand, I bagged the sportsmanship award again: Three times in a row now... The most important thing about this was I got this award while placed 2nd in points. As you know, generally it does not happen this way... at all...

Being named as the best sportsman guy allowed me to brag around a little more, right after finished bragging about my new career: A pro-painter. Also, I think I found the name of my army now: Zharr Naggrund Gentlemen! Only fitting in my opinion; but will see if it becomes a thing.

FAQ and Errata for Tamurkhan is Available

Still haven't got a chance to read the Tamurkhan The Throne of Chaos book thoroughly except the Chaos Dwarf army list; but the guys at Forge World were quick enough to publish a FAQ & Errata. This three page document is intended to clarify some of the vague points on gaming aspects, like what weapon does a daemonsmith carry or can a K'daai destroyer be wounded always on natural 6s.

The document appears to be released due to huge demand from the chaos dwarfs community, since it only contains stuff about the Chaos Dwarf army list section and nothing more. If you are interested, it is available from Forge World website.