Category Archives: The Chapel

To the gates of the Chapel!

18 Monday Sep 2017

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Day 2 of the Chapel has ended, and only one warband completed the journey through the forest to challenge the Lady Elect, mistress of the gates, and her unholy guardians… Despite overcoming the Wytch-cult, the Imperials fell under of dream-spell of the Albino Woods, and were lured away from the true path by wisps and ghosts. They remain lost in the deep forest, their future is uncertain… (Sadly, Kieran was ill for day 2 and didn’t make it – get well soon dude!)

The more psychically attuned Exodites resisted the lure of the forest spirits, and made it to the grand concourse that leads to the gates of the Chapel itself:

 

The Lady Elect awaits, while her warband stands ready:

 

A hard-fought battle ensues, and many noble Exodites fall to the guardians of the gates. Inevitably, the strands of fate align, and Lindethiel faces the Lady Elect in an epic duel:

 

Lindethiel prevails, and though grievously wounded, she and the surviving Exodites defeat the remaining guardians and deal with a minor daemonic incursion before finally ascending to the gates of the Chapel:

What awaits them inside is a tale for another time…

 

One last pic – the glowing columns that you can see in the photos above cast various effects throughout the game – some good, some not so good! One of the effects was the manifestation of ghosts, which, of course, Mark had lovingly created. Unfortunately, (or fortunately?), we only got to see Black Tide in-game, (the black one – highly flammable!), but I just had to show you the full supporting cast. I forget the name of the green scribe-ghost on the left, but otherwise we have Lash Banshee, Black Tide, Revenant Boy and Lady Marissa:

Gorgeous.

Phew! What an amazing weekend!! I can’t get my head around how many hours went into this project – all the warbands, (including those absent friends who couldn’t make it), all the terrain, (including the design/printing/molding of the Chapel board & assorted bits and bobs by Mark, and the buildings on the Albino Forest board that were made by Luke & shipped all the way from Australia!), the artwork from Mark and Ahmad Alibrahing (aka The Stygian Thorne), the rules generation & GM plots (Mark), the photographer (sorry, your name escapes me, but nice job!!), and the various friends-of-Mark that popped in and out over the weekend to bring cookies, offer advice, and support and cheer my uncanny ability to roll ones!! Superb effort one and all & lovely to meet you 🙂

You can expect a number of proper write-ups & short stories from me in the coming days & weeks, and I know that Mark will be putting up professional photos and write-ups over on his blog Heresyofus… Keep your eyes open for an exciting announcement over there as well 😉

Finally, I just want to say a huge thank you to Mark for organising this whole thing & allowing me to be a part of it, and to his lovely family for their kind hospitality. You guys are the real stars of the show in my opinion, and I hope to see you all again soon!

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The Chapel – the warbands

17 Sunday Sep 2017

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Day 1 of the Chapel is over… two warbands have fought their way through the Albino Forest, having defeted a bloodthirsty wytch-cult. Now they approach the entrance to the chapel itself. Only the enigmatic Lady Elect, mistress of the gates, knows what trials await…

Here’s a quick photo dump of the warbands involved on day 1. First up – Mark’s Wytch-cult:

 

And here’s Kieran’s Imperial cultists:

 

Here are the assembled Ostium Guides (plus other denizens of the Albino Forest:

 

And a group shot of my Exodites:

Tree constructs are finished!!

16 Saturday Sep 2017

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And not a moment to soon! It’s 01:40 as I type this, and I’m heading over to West London to face the Chapel in about 8 hours time. I still need to tart up the bases, but I don’t want to risk glue fumes fogging the still-wet varnish so it’ll have to wait until the morning. I also wanted to introduce these properly, but I’m too tired & need my bed – you’ll have to settle for a hasty pic instead for now 😉

Forest Grump

11 Monday Sep 2017

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Hello chaps, great news today – I’ve finished all the trees needed for the Albino Forest stage of The Chapel game this weekend! That’s six woodland bases built & painted in two weeks, with a few conversions chucked in for good measure. Yeah… I won’t lie guys, this was a slog! The painting was actually pretty ok, but the cleaning process was a real pain… I think it is safe to say that it will be a while before I tackle any more Citadel trees!

Here are the six new bases, plus a couple of close-ups on some of the more noteworthy examples:

Those miscast doll’s heads that Mark gave me are perfectly creepy, and will hopefully visually tie in the forest with the Chapel proper.

 

For those that are interested, the paint job on all of these is Dryad Brown, drybrushed through Baneblade Brown to Ushabti Bone. The rocks get an additional heavy drybrush of Admin Grey followed by a purple wash, while the ground gets an Agrax Earthshade wash, and the wood gets a Camoshade wash. I then do what I can only describe as a ‘wet dry-brush’ on the wood, using a very diluted white wash that I concocted, being careful not to get it on any mossy textured areas, (Citadel texture, added to fill gaps – a handy cheat!). Meanwhile the stone gets an additional light Admin Grey drybrush, has lichen spots added, and then a final wash of Agrax Earthshade. Then it’s just a case of picking out any details like bones & stuff – simples!

Here are the new trees with the three bases & scatter that I already had prepared – all pretty closely matched thank goodness:

 

I’m sure you’ll agree, that’s quite the forest, and I hope it helps to make the weekend a real visual treat. Now… I just need to finish my warband… I have four wraith-constructs to paint (should be quick), and I might even have time for a Harlequin… we’ll see how it goes! I’ll keep you posted dudes – catch you later in the week 🙂

Chapel warband update – Exodite Avengers Assemble!!

29 Tuesday Aug 2017

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Hi guys, I have a very happy update for you today – I managed to finish up the fleshy half of my Chapel warband on Sunday, and boy, were they a pain. I really struggled with the hard armour plates on these guys… I don’t paint hard plates often, and even when I do, I tend to go for a more battered look than I have here. I think they eventually came out ok though – I kind of wanted a chitin/bone look about the armour, and that seems to have kinda/sorta worked. I’m less pleased with the glowing green eye lenses, but I can live with them. The rest of the paint job was a straight forward job of blending on the cloth and drybrushing on the fur cloaks. The only colours at play here are browns, gold, greens and greys – it’s pretty weird working with such a restricted palette, but was an interesting challenge and gives quite an unusual look. See what you think:

 1st pair

2nd pair

All four

and the whole unit

 

I may tweak these a little bit more, time depending… I’m thinking of introducing some red ‘warpaint’ around the eyes for all five, and I’m seriously considering ditching the back-banner on the Exarch – the more I think of it, the less the banner makes sense for a woodsy, hunter type… :-/  What do you guys think??

In other news, I used the bank holiday to start tackling trees…. Sooo many trees!!!

 

I’ve got nine trees built over the weekend, so six more to go and then I can get them primed and start the painting process. All pretty boring stuff to be honest, but I thought I’d share these WIP shots with you – ‘The Watchers’, built using some misprints kindly donated by Mark:

 

Anyway, that’s it for now folks! It’s going to be a boring few weeks of posts from here on in, with tree after tree after tree to paint. I’ll fit the rest of my warband in and around the forest, (though they are essentially trees as well).  I had better get a shift on – it is only three more weeks until we are called to the Chapel!

Board meeting

17 Monday Jul 2017

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Greetings, and happy Monday peoples! I have some cool hobby news to share with y’all today – I spent an awesome day with Mark from Heresyofus over the weekend, working on the Albino Forest board for The Chapel project. We had an awesome day, working out the details of the board, building it & talking about the fluff, our hobby philosophies, ideas, and life in general. I also got to see the excellent buildings that Luke, (aka imperial rebel ork), some gorgeous project artwork from Ahmed Alibrahing, and I got to see Mark’s awesome warband and his denizens of the Chapel first hand. I’ve always loved Mark’s work & painting style, but getting to see his minis first hand was a real treat. Another highlight was seeing the progress on the Chapel board… I’m not going to say any more for fear of spoilers, but trust me – the pictures really don’t do Mark’s work justice… suffice to say that those that answer the call are in for a treat! Anyway, with regards to the forest board, once we had finished up and stuff was mostly dry, we just had to pose a few models for the obligatory photo shoot. Hopefully these hastily snapped pics will give you guys an idea of how the Albino Forest is going to look:

One half textured, the other drybrushed & shaded

Gives you an idea of the look – diseased and grim! 

Some trees added

Mark’s Wych Cult advances through the trees

The big hitters

Corpse cart (yum!!)

Some of IRO’s scenery added

A spooky manifestation

My Eldar cautiously explore the Albino Forest

And meet a rakish Ostium Guide

A rare meeting of Guides

Mark’s cult as they stand today

 

So there we go – pretty damn cool, right? But as cool as all that was, the best bit was meeting Mark face to face – it is always good to meet a likeminded hobby buddy, and working together on a big build/paint is brilliant, but getting to put a face to the name is priceless. It helps when that face belongs to an awesome bloke, who just happens to be a creative power house, and who has a lovely family to boot. So, Mark, thanks for an awesome day mate – it was great to meet you all, and thank you for making me feel so welcome! Looking forward to repeating the experience, and you are welcome to come visit any time.

 

Oh, and speaking of family – big shout out to my Brother-in-Lead Ross, who became a Dad for the first time over the weekend. Congrats to you & Kel dude – wee man is utterly lush, and is surely your best mini yet mate 🙂