The Ironfang Pirate Fleet: The Rotmoons - Ironjawz Spearhead, part 3

I went back to working on these two Brutes at the weekend (after starting work on them in March 2024 but stalling while I worked on other things).

I pivoted, from painting them as part of the crews for the Plunderblade and the Portwrecker, to painting them for the Rotmoons.

I realised the Plunderblades and the Portwreckers are only likely to see tabletop action in bigger games of AoS, and almost certainly won't get used in Warcry. (As much as I enjoyed the Warhammer World tournament where I played the Plunderblades, I didn't gel with the story of the warband and I definitely didn't want to use a Megaboss in Warcry again. The huge 60mm base of a Megaboss makes them too ungainly and un-maneuverable on the tabletop for my taste). So it felt like there was little point in making just two Brutes for them.

When you add all that to the fact I was using a Warchanter and a Shaman as "proxy Brutes" for Spearhead games, it made much more sense to give these Brutes the black, yellow and red scheme of the Rotmoons and swap the Warchanter and Shaman out, for models of the actual unit type they were stand-ins for.

So this is Kapitan daLeeva and his Brutes, as they'll feature in any Spearhead games I'll play.

I have the parts for another Brute that I'll add, at some point, for larger games of AoS when daLeeva is an Ardboy Big Boss.

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Roggriguez and Bernardo joined the crew when the Rotmoons came to Aqshy's Ravaged Coast. They already knew Maximo and Medrano and happily accompanied them at the others on their adventures in the Gnaw.

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Bernardo

A pirate orruk Brute, armed with axe and sword choppas and a pistol, with powder and shot. He wore a massive broad-brimmed hat, with the front folded up and held by a skull-and-bones hat pin. He sported the red and yellow striped trousers, black clothes and armour of the Rotmoon's crew, and added skull-and-bones icon on his back-plate.

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Roggriguez

A pirate Orruk Brute Boss who carried two sword choppas, and two pistols with powder and shot. He was very taken with how he looked in his long ragged black sea coat and massive hat with a skull-and-bones pin. He also enjoyed keeping the names of those he'd defeated in battle on a long strip of parchment pinned to his armour.

The Ravaged Coast, part 4

This is the last piece for this project that I'll be able to get finished before the narrative Warcry event I'm running at WHW takes place. There are more parts to come but they'll have to wait until next month, at least. I'll be posting about that event after the dust has settled.

I also added a little Aethermatic Blue to the metal sphere of the Charybdis Occulum, so the verdigris on it matched the new pieces a bit better. 

There's a lot of excitement among the AoS players at EWG for the new book; Path to Glory Ravaged Coast. 

A slow-grow narrative campaign is brewing using the rules from the book, starting with 1,000 point games. Over 20 people have said they want to be involved! So I'm planning to take a load of this scenery to game nights at the club, as well as my army, over the next few months.

The PtG book is absolutely fantastic, and it's built on my excitement and enthusiasm for the setting exponentially. Some of the prep I've done for Mutiny’s End will feed directly into the EWG AoS campaign, including the Emberstone tokens I bought for that event.

I'll put them on top of my 40mm based piratey objective markers to use as Emberstone Clusters. When they're picked up by a unit, I'll remove the objective marker and put the token with the unit.

The Ironfang Pirate Fleet: The Rotmoons - Ironjawz Spearhead, part 2

The Ironjawz Spearhead will consist of a Megaboss, 2x5 Ardboys, 5 Brutes and 3 Brute Ragerz. 

As I've mentioned before, I have all the models on this list among my pirate orruks but I was missing a few models to be able to field a Spearhead made from a single crew: the Rotmoons.

One of those missing models was a Megaboss, and I've fixed that by giving Ogdrog a partial repaint.

The other models the Rotmoons were missing were Brutes - but Kapitan daLeeva will lead a Brutes unit made up of all the "Brute-sized models" in the Rotmoons that aren't in the Spearhead as his quarter-deck crew (El Doktoro the Weirdnob Shaman, Palmaz the Warchanter, and Maximo the Brute)

That just left one model I needed to add. 

Enter, Medrano - a new Brute, armed with a Gore-choppa and loaded-up with looted gear:

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His ruff collar is made of greenstuff. The backpack is from ogor gluttons, the holstered pistol is from Freeguild Pistoliers (thankfully that kit has returned as part of The Old World, Empire range!), and the scrolls are from Skaven plague monks and Freeguild flagellants.

This was how he looked pre-paint, with a black undercoat and a grey "sort-of zenithal" primer:

I've been looking forward to trying Spearhead for a while, so the new Battletome can't come soon enough for me!

The Ironfang Pirate Fleet: The Rotmoons - Ironjawz Spearhead, part 1

I had an idea today, that began when I was thinking about the December AoS Battlescroll adding Headstompa to the Megaboss profile. This small change to the rules triggered a series of thoughts that "unlocked" the option to use the Rotmoons in AoS Spearhead.

Since last month's preview, we know that the Ironjawz Spearhead being released in January 2025 will consist of a Megaboss, 10 Ardboys, 5 Brutes and 3 Weirdbrute Wrekkaz. When it was first announced I expected to use a mix of my other crews as the basis for mine, as the Rotmoons are missing a few models to be able to field a Spearhead picked exclusively from them.

One of those missing models is a Megaboss. I have an unbuilt Megaboss that I'd considered making in the Rotmoons' style, but previously I'd shied-away from doing this for story reasons: I wanted Kapitan daLeeva to remain in command of his ship, and adding a Megaboss to the crew would feel weird if he wasn't in charge. I also didn't want to "promote" daLeeva to Megaboss status, as I don't really enjoy using a Megaboss in Warcry.

But now they added Headstompa to the Megaboss profile, it seems possible, normal even, that a Megaboss can serve as a "junior officer" to other orruk heroes. 

So I've repurposed Ogdrog (one of the two Megabosses I made at the end of last year who, if I'm honest, was unlikely to ever see the tabletop) into a Headstompa in the Rotmoons. This means he can join a regiment without being it's leader in AoS. 

So Ogdrog will join the Elizabethan-styled pirates for some of their adventures. While he will count as the general in the Ironjawz Bigmob Spearhead rules, and daLeeva will only count as a Brute Boss on the tabletop, the Kapitan will remain the crew's leader in my narrative.

Kapitan daLeeva will be part of the Spearhead's Brutes unit with all the "Brute-sized models" that aren't in the Spearhead as his quarter-deck crew - El Doktoro the Weirdnob Shaman, Palmaz the Warchanter, Maximo the Brute, and Medrano - a new Brute, with a Gore-choppa, who I started building tonight.

This is a very long-winded way to say that, as a result of all this narrative-knot-unravelling, Ogdrog got a partial re-paint today, so he now has the black, red and yellow colour scheme of the Rotmoons.

I'll get a photo of the entire, expanded, crew of the Rotmoon as soon as the new Gore-choppa Brute is finished. 

The Rotmoons and the Starwood Compass - part 7, Delivery

After successfully stealing a sorcerous device from the grot Hopper Boss's encampment (and burning the camp and large portion of the forest surrounding it), the Rotmoons planned to use it to blow-up a ley line nexus. The nexus was guarded by The Gleaming Host - Sybarite mercenaries in the employ of the defenders of the Prime Dominion.

That night El Doktoro carefully divided up the component parts of the device and then combined each part with a generous measure of blackpowder, in an effort to create multiple "bombs" from the artefact.

Bortagno and a couple of the crew reconnoitred the ley line nexus - it seemed it was beneath a stone shrine or temple and its power was being syphoned into a brazier as a "sacred flame" - the Gleaming Host's employers were using the magical flames to empower weapons and armour. The Rotmoons were going to try and put a stop to that.

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All around them forest fires raged. None-the-less, the sounds of the battle taking place beyond the smoke and flames could still be plainly heard.

Despite using the noise and smoke to hide their presence, the Gleaming Host's sentinels soon spied the pirates and raised the alarm.

Once the gig was up, Deestro was the first to leap into action, just as a burning tree branch fell with a crash and hit Geedo.

Deestro charged a Painbringer and their swords clashed as the Slaanesh cultist counter attacked.

Kapitan daLeeva charged as well, to assist Percy Percy. The Kapitan hit hard, but his opponent seemed to be empowered by the wounds.

Deestro countered the Painbringer's attacks and took them down. The fires closed in - Bold Rikk, daLeeva and a Twinsoul were all scorched as they fought.

The Gleaming Host's leader, Ramael, joined battle against Dragante.

Percy Percy struck the final blow against the Painbringer.

The Slaangor, who'd been stalking Deestro, struck from the shadows and took him down. The bomb Deestro had been carrying slipped from his pack and rolled towards Bold Rikk.

So Bold Rikk scooped it up and sprinted toward the Shrine.

But a Twinsoul intercepted him and cut him down. The bomb once more bounced across the battlefield, just shy of its target.

The Kapitan seized the moment. He roared a triumphant battle cry and barrelled-in, snatched up the bomb with one hand, hurled it into the sacred flame brazier. He dived sideways into what little protection the nearby rocks could provide.

Less than a heartbeat passed. The sacred flame changed colour. Dazzling light lanced into the sky. The Shrine split in two. The magical power coursing through the ley lines beneath it erupted and turned the central stones molten, and the Shrine collapsed.

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The Kapitan pulled himself to his feet and looked around - the world was not silent but the only sound in it was like a huge echoing bell, so loud it was head-splitting.

Bortagno said something to him, but he couldn't make it out. Then the bell noise receded and other sounds slowly returned.

Motes of red hot stone fizzed and popped as they landed around him or bounced off his armour.

Bortagno offered him a bottle and said, "Kapitan, you will drink this, I think?"

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The Animosity VI UK Meet-up - Game 2

Opponent: Ed / Maps

Warband: Slaanesh Sybarites

Deployment: Stark Beginnings

Victory: Poison The Well

Twist: Flame Pockets

This was a fun game - and we both loved the emergent story that came from the combination of Battleplan cards and the counters that Ed had made.

Kapitan daLeeva's Doom Tally = 6

(Which is bad news for the ship...)

The Ravaged Coast, part 3

Far to the east of the Great Parch where the land meets the Ocean of Tears - lies the Ravaged Coast. This vast archipelago now lies crushed between the Great Parch and the emergent Gnaw, and it has quickly become a battleground of violent seas, sand-blasted atolls and Skaven-tainted ruins.

Whether it's in the remains of an Age of Myth city, deep in the forests of the Harrowmark, or the Vermindoom-wracked Ravaged Coast of Aqshy, one thing is always true: where-ever a number of orruk sky-ships regularly gather (to hide, to make repairs, to sell booty, to buy booze, or just for a brief respite from a storm), a small but busy sky-ship harbour will spring-up in no-time. The ramshackle improvised port will soon be "improved" with timber piers and jetties added to whatever buildings were already there, and a layer of detritus will gather beneath and around everything.

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I've written in more detail about the whys and hows of building this scenery in the previous parts of this series, they can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2.

I spent a good deal of time thinking about what colour palette would work for the Dawnbringer ruins before I started painting them. I settled on making the metals verdigris copper, for a few reasons.

First, I just like seeing verdigris copper domes and roofs in real life.

Second, it will complement the teal I used for the worn paint on the wooden house.

Third, it will tie the new pieces visually with the older mausoleums, and other buildings, I've got in my collection, so I will be able to freely mix-and-match terrain components and still have coherent looking boards.

There are more parts on the way: the larger Dawnbringer ruin with added platforms in Part 1, and at least one other. Working on this project, even though it's been a very long and slow one, has given me ideas for more pieces.