This last week I’ve been thinking heavily about Unofficial Army Books that are brought out by the fans of Warhammer and what it means for the game as a whole. The Warhammer Forum (http://battlereporter.freeforums.org/warhammer-army-books-fan-made-unofficial-f88.html) has a number of these ‘Fandexes’ in PDF format and the three that caught my attention initially were Army Books for the armies of Albion (Celtic barbarians), one for the armies of Nippon (Samurai for the win) and the lands of the Norse (Vikings ho!). It should be noted early that these books are not your half-arsed I’m-gonna-make-my-army-invincible army books. No siree, these books are well researched, well laid out, and for the most part relatively balanced in comparison to their GW counterparts (Deamons, Dark Elves and Skaven not withstanding). This is particularly true for the Nippon Army book that combines army specific special rules and appropriately costed unit choices with thematic but not unbalanced magical items. While I have not yet had a chance to playtest any of the Fandexes, the modelling opportunities for the adventurous gamer are almost endless. I hope in the future to be able to report back to you on the performance of some of these books.
But my week has not been totally consumed by reading (although there has been a great deal of that); I’ve also finally completed another rank of Tzeentch infantry for my Chaos Warriors. With this rank I’ve experimented with some of the washes used to shade the bronze armour with varying levels of success. For example, I used a combination of Delvan Mud and Badab Black to shade the Chaos symbol on this shield. While the black provided a significant level of shading, I feel it’s too stark for the bronze armour, leaching too much colour from the shield as a whole.
Another test was through the use of the Griphonne Sepia wash to brighten the bronze armour on the parts not covered by the shield. This test was relatively more successful, with the sepia tones brightening the armour, making it look less... dirty (for lack of a better word). This technique has been repeated on the armour of my BSB. Note on the BSB’s armour, that it has been highlighted first using Shining Gold in an attempt to provide another level of highlighting to further distinguish him from the rest of the men. Something I believe has been quite successful on the whole.
Finally, as a means of providing a bit of variety for the readers, I’m looking to enlist a number of guest writers to periodically provide articles for the blog. If you’re interested, please feel free to contact me here by leaving a comment.
Catch you all later
Trev
No comments:
Post a Comment