Gnarly Shamans

Gaze upon the finished glory of the crotchety old bigot of a trollkin!  Isn't he glorious?  Vote for Doomshaper on CMON!  I'd say he's a 7ish if the other Doomshapers there are anything to go by.

Now that I've had a few more games with pDoomshaper - though I lost the last one because I forgot to use my feat... for 3 turns... totally pr0 skillz there - I think I've got a good grasp of his tactics.  His army is all about denial and works best in scenario play where the opposing player must move forward to engage.

I can see why most Trollblood players dislike or are prejudiced against using pDoomshaper.  There's no obvious buffing effect he brings to the army, he doesn't make your models crazy, he's not *obviously* good.  Unlike other the other two warlocks I've tried so far (pMadrak, eDoomshaper) pDoomshaper doesn't seem to have a great deterioration in effectiveness as my army gets worn down.  Even when the going is very rough he seems to have some sort of solution.  The answer may be unconventional or unorthodox, but if it gets the job done...

Certain spells really shine with pDoomshaper: Rampager is ridiculously fun to cast on an opponent's warbeast.  The uses of Rampager are too many to describe in detail, but include things like moving warbeasts into charge range, moving them out of control areas, or even hitting their own warlock.  It's all fun and games.  Stranglehold is the other spell worth mentioning.  It's basically old skool knockdown in a spell.  Use liberally on opponent's heavy warjacks/warbeasts and mock them as they flee.

The UK Masters is this weekend and so there probably won't be another post until Sunday or Monday night.  Expect photos of my glorious victory (or spectacular defeat).

Painting Log: Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls. Part 3

Behold the wonder of the nearly finished pDoomy!  All that's left to be done are the scrolls on his back, the 4 tiny metals items, the staff wrapping, the forearm guards, that flask thing and... ummm... oh yes, his hood.

I attached the scrolls to Doomshaper's back and then realised there was a very visible gap where the separate pieces connected.  To hide this I had to whip out the GreenStuff and create cunningly placed strapping.  Not exactly the hardest of sculpts but it's certainly got the job done.

I've discovered that GW Kommando Khaki may be my new favourite paint.  It's very thin and responds to being mixed with GW washes very well.  My only problem is that both the scrolls and all the strapping are the same colour... I may have to come up with another colour for one or both of them.

At the current rate of progress the miniature should be finished in the next update - baring varnishing.  I would really like to add some sort of dangling object from the end of the staff for some reason - much like Modelpainter's Doomshaper on CMON.  I wonder where I can get one of those censer thingies...

Painting Blog: Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls. Part 2

Blogspot has released a new post editor so now it's easier to make shiny new post formats like this.

Work continues to progress on pDoomshaper as you can see.  I've finished his skin and the red cloth parts of him barring any mistakes.  The stone at the top of his staff is done except for the straps.

While I'd like to leave the staff that colour I'm going to have to make it much darker to provide contrast with Doomshaper's hand, glove, and the wrapping around the staff itself.

The base is also finished and it looks really good now that I've added the scenic snow and static grass to it. Once I've finished the leather skirts I'll fix Doomshaper to the base and take another picture.  So far I guess I've put in just over 9 hours of work into Doomshaper, at that rate he should be finished by the end of the week. Woot.

Painting Log: Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls

Having a surprise day off I have started work on pDoomshaper. I'm determined to have him completed for the UK Masters - ideally I'd like my army to be done as well, but beggars can't be choosers. I've decided to approach painting him as if I were entering the likes of Golden Daemon - I'm not going to reach that standard, but I'm going to damn well try.

At the moment I'm worried about his base. I'm not sure it will do justice to the miniature when I'm done, but it's hard to tell at this point. It's just a case of finishing the base and seeing how it looks - the base and Doomshaper are still separate, he's attached to a piece of cork while I'm actually painting. If it's not as grand as I hope then I have plenty of spare medium bases and I'm sure I can use it on a less central figure to my army - maybe my Fell Caller.

So far I've done 4 hours work and pretty much finished Doomshaper's skin except for the spikes on his chin. I'm not sure if I'm doing to do any work on the wood of the staff, it's actually the colour I wanted after a single wash. So far it's been a very enjoyable painting session; the miniature sculpt is great, it's not covered in every random item known to man or beast, and it all seems to be coming together nicely. Watch this space.