The Mushloonz - part 5 - Spiker

Xorg the Spiker clicked and hissed to himself as he scuttled through the Dankwood. The poison-bottles in the basket lashed to his back clinked together as his swaying gait moved them around. His bare feet pattered over the gloomy forest floor, between gnarled tree roots and clusters of fungus. Thin beams of pallid moonlight managed to break through the tangled bowers overhead and illuminated the winding pathways. Shrouds of thick cobwebs hung from the branches and nameless things squirmed and writhed in the shadows.

It felt like home!

He had heard rumours of a growing lurklair in the midst of this dark corner of the forest, and that a Fungoid Cave Shaman was gathering a warband. A gathering of Gloomspite Gitz meant one thing to him: customers!

- 🍄 -

Some close-in shots of details. I struggled with the glass bottles as I looked at a lot of very, very good still-life paintings that included wine bottles during my art degree. So my expectation of what a glass bottle should look like is probably unrealistic at 28mm scale!

I tried something different with his skin this time: Elysian Green basecoat, lightly dry-brushed with Pallid Wych Flesh, then washed with Athonian Camoshade. So quick and easy: It ends up looking exactly the same as the Gitz I painted with a lot more steps!

The Mushloonz - part 4 - Gobbapalooza!

Deep in the Dankwood, hidden amongst tangled briars and mushroom groves, is the shantytown lurklair of the Mushloonz. A higgledy-piggledy mess of tumbled-down structures made from looted materials, local stone and gnarled timbers from the trees of the Harrowmark forests. It would be barely distinguishable from the worst areas of the forest itself, apart from the massive number of grots and troggs wandering around it.

Like most Moonclan leaders, Bolet Ghosteater has a Gobbapalooza rambling around his lurklair causing mischief. A gathering of so-called wise-grots, petty shamans and gabbling loonpriests, a coven of grots who offer no end of cunning tactical tricks. The Gobbapalooza takes it upon themselves to counsel their boss whether he wants their advice or not.

- 🍄 -

Oggle The Boggleye stares deep into the souls of all those around him, chanting hypnotic mantras and revolving his pupils in an unlikely and hypnotic fashion.

Xorg The Spiker scuttles about with a basket of clinking poison-bottles lashed to his back.

Badtryp The Shroomancer experiences such vivid fungus-brew hallucinations that his magics spill out to animate the fungi around him and bring his visions to life.

Gnark The Scaremonger capers and hoots from behind his terrifying Glareface Frazzlegit mask, carried aloft on most of a Squig skeleton by his slave Snark.

Wychwud the Brewgit shuffles around with weird fungus potions bubbling in his loonshine still, selling his product to eager customers.

- 🍄 -

This is such a great kit! It goes together really really well. I built all of them in less than an hour and I wasn't rushing.

I'm hoping to start painting at least one of them this week.

Spellbreakers at Realm's Edge - part 1

Since his accident Kaptain Mogrum was changed. Where before he had been a brutal, but cunning, Warboss who led his crew from the front, he was always first over the gunwales into an enemy ship, and a vicious, merciless fighter. But he was now a cunning, but brutal, Weirdnob Shaman!

Since his awakening the pirate orruks who followed him fully embraced his change (not least because he killed a lot less of them in fits of anger. Even if he did kill a lot more of them in accidental explosions of Waaagh! energy... on balance it seemed better to them) and from then on they all consider themselves experts in the fields of thaumatology, evocation and sorcery. They nodded sagely to one another as they described the magic around them in great technical detail (often using the wrong terms but they really didn't care). They pronounced judgements on the quality of the wizardry they witnessed and debated the relative merits of various spells.

When they journeyed to the very edge of the realms in search of the wild magic of Endless Spells, their Kaptain issued each of them an ensorcelled black-powder pistol as a focus for binding the Endless Spells. Each orruk then took it upon themselves to add charms and trinkets to their pistol, in order to enhance its power. A selection of teeth, bones, coins, pebbles with holes, crow feathers, gold and silver rings, and polished fragments of glass - all tied on with string or jewellery chains - adorned their foci.

~ 🕱 ~

Spellbreakers at Realm's Edge is an AoS Skirmish campaign of bounty hunter wizards chasing down and capturing Endless Spells at the wilder edges of the Mortal Realms. It will span several Mortal Realms over the course of about six weeks.

Each player will follow the exploits of one wizard, who can be accompanied by local guides or persistant retainers, or a mix of both. We will each have 250 points to spend on our warbands, but we do not have to field the same models in every game - we are free to swap any or all of them between games. We will not be adding any points to the total but warbands might gain some extra abilities and equipment as the campaign progresses.

We are likely to play Spell Hunters several times over the course of the campaign, as capturing Endless Spells should be the reason our warbands are at Realm's Edge. We will be injecting more variety to the Battleplan by adding one Open War twist card to each game. Some of them are fairly lethal in Skirmish, but we like the idea that Realm's Edge is not a safe place!

~ 🕱 ~

The campaign will have a fairly loose structure, as each player is free to choose their own warband's storyline, and we will attempt to weave them (or, more likely, mash them) together as we go along.

• Chance Encounters
  At Realm's Edge, stumbling across other spellbreakers can only mean a fight. Whether simply for survival or to control faylines, it matters not.
  Choose from: Clash at Dawn (from White Dwarf, January 2019), Hold the Centre (White Dwarf), Sweeping Assault (White Dwarf)
  
• The Power of the Realms
  When magic coalesces into wyrdstorms or faypools, many are the brave and foolish that flock to channel their power.
  Play Vortex of Power (from the AoS Skirmish booklet) or The Well of Souls (from Malign Portents)
  
• The Monster
  If a great beast is normally a worthy prize, those that roam the Realms' Edges will bring even more glory.
  Play Trophy Kill from the Warhammer Community blog.
  
• Spellbreakers
  Capturing an endless spell will require cunning and brawn in equal measure. And at times, fighting through a throng of rivals.
  Play Spellhunters (from Malign Sorcery) or Dangerous Hunt (White Dwarf). Or play Dangerous Hunt first, then the winner can be challenged by another warband to play Spellhunters.
  
• The Great Quest
  After a long search, the resting place of an artefact needed for a terrible ritual has been found. Who will secure it and tap into its power?
  - Play Treasure Hunt (White Dwarf) or Seize the Relic (Skirmish).
  - The winner will then be the defender in Fragile Cargo (Skirmish), against either the same opponent or a new challenger.
  - The winner will then be the ritualist in The Ritual (White Dwarf), against either the same opponent or a new challenger
  
• Battle Grudges
  Many times, rival spellbreakers have solved their disputes in honourable duels. But assassination is an equally effective, and far more expedient, way to set a record straight.
  Play A Time for Heroes (White Dwarf) or Assassinate (Skirmish), but only between warbands that have already clashed a few times

Grandfather Kurgan's Genestealer Cult, part 11

Cultists spent their whole lives preparing for the day of the final conquest. Generation after generation lived in secrecy, cycle after cycle bearing nauseating fruit. The infected spread the curse to others, and to their children, who in turn infected more. Like a living virus, they expanded exponentially, their numbers swelling until the rulers of the society's underworld were strong enough to seize the entire host planet. Though the later generations of each cycle had the appearance of common men and women, inside they were xenos through and through. Their allegiance was owed only to the organisms that brought the Genestealer Curse to their world, and the hybrids of their hidden kindred. Their Patriarch, starborne and inhuman, squatted at the centre of a web of influence that expanded until it covered the entire world. Every soul in the cult was mindlessly obedient to that repulsive creature, and would give their lives to save it.

~ Ձ ~

More Genestealer Cults news from GW means more Genestealer Cults work from me! (I know, I am fickle. But we are playing some casual Kill Team games between campaigns so my Cults are getting used in games!)

Brother Sava

Shotgun

Made from a (slightly butchered) Tempestus Scion with Neophyte arms and head.  I had started making something else with the Scion months ago but I abandoned that whole project and repurposed the minis as GSC.

Brother Jora

Shotgun

Another Tempestus Scion with Neophyte arms and head.

Brother Nikal

Autogun

Make from an Orlock ganger with a Neophyte head. The neck needed trimming to fit on the orlock body.

Brother Miron

Autogun

A GSC Neophyte with a Skitarii arms. I plan on using the Galvanic Rifle as some kind of sniper autogun.

Brother Stas

Autogun

Made from a Skitarii with Neophyte arms and head.

~ Ձ ~

Next up for my GSC (if I don't include working on stuff that hasn't been released yet!): non-combatant cult members. I'd say "civilians" but I think most (non-PDF anyway) Cultists count as civilian.

The Mushloonz - part 3 - Shootas

The Mushloonz in the Harrowmark

Far from any village in an unusually damp and dark corner of the Harrowmark, is the Dankwood. Home to the Mushloonz and a dozen other Gloomspite tribes it is overrun by mushrooms, troggoths, giant spiders and grots.

The area is riddled with labyrinthine networks of caves and maze-like winding paths through the trees with impenetrable walls of tangled branches and thorny brambles. Cobwebs and clumps of mushrooms are commonplace and daylight rarely penetrates the forest canopy.

- 🍄 -

I have finished the six grots Viktor gave me, and the extra (converted) Shaman and Squig from my bits box.

Noggit (a Madcap Shaman) and Maw (a big Cave Squig).

Stog (Shoota Grot Boss), Snok and Ruk

Skur, Dort (Gonger) and Zeg.

The Mushloonz search the woods of the Harrowmark for interesting fungus.

The warband so far:

This is something I made waaay back, for Warhammer 8th edition, as a marker to show that a Mysterious Wood counted as a "Fungus Forest". I'm really happy to be using it again as an objective marker for Age of Sigmar Skirmish games!

The Mushloonz - part 2 - Zarbag's Gitz

After Bolet Ghosteater parted ways with the Rotmoons he continued his search for potent mushrooms in the gloomy forests of the Harrowmark. On his travels through the dark and tangled woods he started to encounter more and more Moonclan Grots with similar goals. Most of them came along with him as he seemed to know what he was doing. Before he knew it he had a warband of his own. They started calling themselves the Mushloonz and he just went along with it.

- 🍄 -

The Bad Moon spoke to me! Inevitably.... This is the start of my small (maybe!) Moonclan warband. I got the Warhammer Underworlds: Nighvault Moonclan warband when they first came out and I have been painting them very slowly between other projects since then. The Gloomspite Gitz announcements spurred me on to get them finished!

Bolet Ghosteater was already painted during Malign Portents but I have repainted his base-edge and his skin to match Zarbag's Gitz.

Zarbag the Shaman

Drizgit the armoured Squig Herder, Bonekrakka (the one with the bone between its teeth) and Gobbaluk, Cave Squigs.

Prog Da Netter and Snirk Sourtongue the Fanatic

Shootas Stikkit (arrow through hood), RedKap (mushroom hat) and Dibbz (shooting “blind”)

- 🍄 -

Viktor has very kindly given me 6 Moonclan Shootas (from the "Battle for Skull Pass" Warhammer Fantasy 7th edition starter box set).

Update 9th Jan: I have already assembled (with a few small additions of stalagmites and mushrooms on their bases), undercoated black and zenithal-sprayed them grey. I hope to start painting them very soon!

I found this git in my bits box, with no face. So I added a 40k Grot face and sculpted his hood around it.