Broken Paintbrush

To introduce my Lizardmen army I could think of no better model that the Slann in charge!

My starting steps in to the Warhammer hobby was the 5th edition Fantasy box with Bretonia and Lizardmen (an odd combination to be sure!). While I no longer have the Bretonian army, the old lizards are still part of my favorite fantasy army. I mean who wouldn’t want to take an army that has angry toads as the lord and dinosaurs as their pawns?

Before 5th edition 40k sucked me away from fantasy, the Lizardman army was my rock solid force. Saurus are dependable, between their cold-blooded leadership tests, toughness 4, and 4+ armor saves they could take a beating and return it in kind. And the skinks! I have an entire army of them and man can they do some damage. With the changes to skirmishers they may have a tougher time, but that is yet to be seen.

Any way, I’ve lost myself on a tangent… the Slann Mage Priest! I do agree that the latest army book nerf’d the Slann a bit though I think it also added a great deal of versatility. In the previous army book you needed to “upgrade” the Slann to older generations to increase his power or get certain abilities, now you get to pick an “upgrade” for free and can mix and match up to 3 more. One that I often used in the past, and will become even more helpful now, is Becalming Cogitation where the Slann points out an enemy wizard within 24″ and any power dice that roll 6′s get thrown out!

My army is lacking any Temple Guard to protect the Slann, and while they are on the wishlist I will either use normal Suarus to protect the lord or give him another great discipline, Higher Stat of Consciousness that ignores all non-magical attacks. I can then float him around the back of the battle field firing off spells and keeping the skinks in line.

I really wanted the Slann to stand out from the rest of the lizards so I painted him with the warm shades of orange and yellow. After taking these pictures I noticed that there is still work that needs to be done and parts that need rework. There are at least two small lizards that never got painted… anybody see them?

Just like my Iron Warriors status page, I have put together a page for my traitor guard: http://bp.dnyarak.com/armies/traitor-guard/. Since I have been working on this army since starting my blog, most the of the units that are done, or nearly done, have pictures. Hopefully with these status pages I will be more motivated to take WIP shots and updates through the process.

Below is a segment of the full list:

Heavy Support	Picture	Status
Leman Russ Battle Tank
Leman Russ Battle Tank	None yet	Only the base colors are done
Leman Russ Battle Tank	None Yet	Only the base colors are done
Leman Russ Demolisher
Leman Russ Demolisher	None Yet	Only the base colors are done
Leman Russ Demolisher	None Yet	Only the base colors are done
Basilisk Squad – The Moirae

In my attempt to build motivation to get back into the hobby I took a look at the state of my armies. I want to be able to fully finish off each unit as well as start a couple new projects that are bouncing through my head. My Iron Warriors are the first to be typed up and posted. Below I copied part of the table, but will be keeping the full table up to date at bp.dnyarak.com/armies/iron-warriors. While going through this I noticed I am missing a good deal of pictures, once I find my camera these will be the first to be rectified.

These tables are works in progress so any recommendations or comments are very welcome and appreciated!

HQ	Picture	Status
Warsmith Nelus		Finish the base, paint daemon blade
Captain Nystrix		Redo the Base
Fabius Bile
Chaos Sorcerer
Abbadon	NA	Sitting in the bitz box

For multiple reasons it has been many months since I’ve picked up a paint brush or thrown some dice. In some ways it is some what refreshing to take a step back and think about where the army is and what I really want to be working on next. I spent yesterday pulling out all my models to take a look at the current state of things. I was taken away with how big my Iron Warriors and Traitor Guard army has grown!

I put it all into Army Builder it came out at 8,500 points! And nearly all of that is fully, or at least mostly painted! The question that every hobbyist gets to at some point: what’s next? There is always more to add of course, but what first? To help me with this question I am currently putting together one of those great army progress charts that Drax made so popular. While pulling out each model I made notes about what needs to be finished, rebased, or just matte varnished. This way  I can continue to put the finishing touches on the army while planning the next expansion.

I am really excited for 8th edition of fantasy, as that is the game that brought me into the hobby. Both of my fantasy armies have seen nothing but dust the last two years so it will be good to get them back out and work on them as well. I’ll most likely be creating a separate blog for the fantasy since it doesn’t really fit in here so keep an eye out for pictures of my fantasy armies too!