Warcry: Red Harvest – a self motivational project blog

9th October 2022

Thanks to the fact that I had initially been working on all 10 models at the same time, I have been able to crack on with finishing off the last 5 over the past few days.

So, it was just really a case of ‘more of the same’ with regards to painting straps, skulls, doing hair, picking out details etc.

I also decided to add a little face paint to a couple of them.

Still can’t get the pupils in, so they may look a bit ‘starey’

I left the boss and the witch until last, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to spend a bit more time on the boss, and secondly I just wasn’t feeling the witch.

So, for the boss I did things like extra highlight stages on the hairbraid, and a fancy gem hanging from his belt.

The final mini was the witch.

As I said, I wasn’t really feeling it, but pushed through it.

Struggled a bit for a focus, so I ended up giving a Crimson wash over part of the face to change it up a little, then tidied up the rest, made all the bones neat etc, and the final thing was painting the eyeball she is holding.

Pretty happy with how it came out in the end, with little blood vessels added to it.

17th October 2022

Another week passes…. The project is still continuing, but there were a couple of days where I didn’t manage to get any hobby in – however, I am not going to let that bother me too much, as I am still getting more hobby time in (by far) than I was prior to starting this project.

With the Darkoath band completed, it was back to the Tarantulos Brood.

Of the ten warriors and three spider swarms, I only had the boss and the spiders fully built so far – due to still deciding on weapon options.

Two of the models only had a choice between Net/Trident and Flail/Goad, so I decided just to build one of each of these.

For the Broodkin I preferred the two blade basic version over the two sai version -so built the four that I could as two blade Broodkin.

One of these four sculpts comes with a hand throwing a javelin rather than a second blade. I like the look of if, but for practicality I decided not to use it – since the javelin sticks out 40mm from the base edge, and I could see it being a pain to fit in a carry case, a pain to work around on the tabletop, and a high likelihood of breakage. Instead I decided to use one of the spare Sai hands in its place, for convenience.

The remaining three Broodkin only had the Scythe and Spider claw build option though.

And since the weapon options were ‘arm and weapon’ as opposed to the spare sai that were ‘hand and weapon’ I thought I had to go with the ‘as planned’ build option.

After building these I looked at the rules again, and didn’t really like the way that they worked. Checking the points, and the spare components on the sprue I worked out that I could build an extra spider swarm (although they aren’t very good now either) from some of the small spiders provided. This would mean that I could drop one of the scythe/claw Broodkin from the list, and then have the other two replaced with standard Broodkin.

To facilitate this, and due to the fact that the spare sais didn’t have arms with them (just hands attached) I needed to cut off the scythe arms at the hands for two of them.

I carefully sliced through with a sharp blade, then I cut a notch in the new stump so that the sai hand would marry up to them correctly.

I left them with the claw hand, and kept the Scythes, just in case a rules change makes this weapon choice more useful in the future (If I can be bothered to change them back).

For now, when I come to play, I will ensure my opponent knows what they represent (Currently all the Broodkin with be basic two weapon Broodkin).

With them all built now, it was onto the basing and undercoating.

I again used Agrellan Earth technical paint to make the cracked earth basing, applying a thin coat of PVA glue to ensure the cracked flakes didn’t come off during the drybrushing stage later.

Next it was an undercoat black, and an attempt at zenithal priming with a grey spray from above and approx. 45 degrees, followed by a pure white spray from above only.

I may have to take some of the brightness back, and enhance other places, but that will be once painting is underway – hopefully get into that this coming week.

This past week I did have a little blip in motivation when looking to start on the Tarantulos Brood minis. I was struggling to come up with a scheme that I wanted to do on them, and also a little daunted by all the fiddly web/straps on their arms and legs.

I decided to crack on and put a base coat on all the bases (to match the Darkoath), as that could still be progress but without too much thinking. I knew I wanted to do a dark colour for their cloaks etc, but not black. I knew I also wanted a spot colour to ‘pop’, and quite like the existing GW scheme with yellow as the spot colour. Having primed them with a zenithal spray I also wanted to use some contrast or thin coats on the clothing to take advantage of the zenithal prime. So I went ahead and mixed some blue contrast with black in different ratios, testing it on the spray stick I had used to undercoat them.

Once I had a colour I liked, and had tested it on one of the fighters, I used an old mixing pot to make enough for the whole band (with spare for the inevitable touch ups I would require ?)

At this point I also decided that I wanted to go for a skin tone that looked a little ‘otherworldly’, so I mixed up some contrast white and contrast magos purple (comes out quite pink) and applied this to the test model too.

Following this, I decided to roll out more of the scheme onto the test model, as overall the scheme was seeming a little drab at this point – I was hopeful that the spot colour would boost them visually and give me a bit more confidence in the colour palette. With yellow being a pretty thin colour I used a pale beige colour to go over the parts intended to be yellow as the blacks of the zenithal prime don’t work for me when using bright colours.

I have some friends from our local gaming club that I keep in touch with via messenger, and lately I have been sending them pics of my work in progress – they are pretty supportive, and will give feedback and encouragement which can be very useful when having a ‘blip’. It definitely helped in this instance; as did realising that I had received a Golden Button for October (but missed it initially ? ) and being contacted by Sundancer who let me know that the project had been visited by the ‘Unofficial Hobby Hangout’ too. It certainly put a smile on my face.

The web straps on the test model (and bandages in some places) weren’t showing up overly well against the pale skin. To rectify this, I went ahead and used contrast black to ‘blackline’ all of the web strap areas on the models, and later on went over these with white; where possible using the edge of the brush to apply it (to help aid my accuracy). I used contrast black rather than normal black paint as I find it flows easier, allowing me to guide it to where needed. The reduced coverage on the high points didn’t matter in this case, as I was going to be going over that – it was just getting that black at the edges that was important.

From this stage I chose to work on just the seven Broodkin models, as they had very similar design and features on each of them. So, setting aside the spider swarms and the elite models, the yellow was rolled out across the Broodkin on their sashes, faces and ‘head limbs’.

Then it was on to making the bandages a little tidier, and trying to make them stand out a touch more. Further work on the weapons, picking out facial details (where I could), adding gloss varnish to the ‘head limb claws’ and painting in the dark red gems on all of their belt badge things. I am actually pretty happy with the way the gems have come out on these chaps, and with how the yellow spot colour works in the overall scheme.

Next up will be the elite fighters, and I will be finishing off the spiders in between.

See you next time ?

29th October 2022

I cracked on with the remaining elite fighters and the spider swarms this week.

Doing a bit more detail on the fighters, but not much more though.

I again used a pale beige to undercoat for the yellow, for better coverage.

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the spiders, so I did a bit of research on the old Internet. In the end I chose to stick with black overall and give them red ‘knees’.

With that chosen, I then finished off the elite fighters.

(Pics are a little washed out due to my lighting)

So, that’s both warbands completed to an acceptable level for myself.

Up next, I hope to get in a game with these and post up a short summary of how it went, and maybe finish off with a few thoughts on how the project went overall.

31st October 2022

To cap off this project, my wife and I managed to get in a game of Warcry using the box set contents over the weekend ?

After a quick re-read of the rules section, we ran through the pre battle set up process.

As a whole we quite like this random set up process – it looks as though it will give good replay value to the game.

We did have a bit of an issue with the terrain card though. We tried to set it up exactly as shown on the card, but the images shown for the Varanite ‘conveyors’ don’t actually match the physical components – so we just made it as close as possible.

My wife chose the Tarantulos Brood (1000 pts), so that left me with the Darkoath Savagers (985 pts).

I set up my God Speaker (witch) on top of one of the platforms, hoping to make some good use of her ranged attack. The rest of our warbands were set up in roughly similar sized groups, with one group set up in reserve.

A few blows were exchanged in the first round, including my wife using her triples (6) ability to fling a poison spear at one of my glory seekers, the value of 6 meaning it inflicted quite a nasty hit on my closest Glory seeker – culminating with my leader taking out one of the Broodkin and boosting his attack number thanks to his doubles ability ‘A Vow Fulfilled’.

The right side of the battlefield saw no conflict, but the Tarantulos Brood moved up on the slower Darkoath that were trying to move across to the other side of the battle.

This gave me the ‘Reaper’ count for the round, putting me 1-0 up on VP.

Round 2 started with the reserve groups coming onto the battlefield in the middle of the long edges.

The new Tarantulos group putting even more pressure onto the small (3 model) isolated Darkoath unit.

Attacks swung back on forth, the badly injured Glory Seeker in the north west using an ability to heal 4 wounds before laying into the heavily wounded Doomweaver, taking it out.

The retaliation from the nearby Broodkin left the Glory seeker on just 1 wound – that healing really made a difference here!

A spider swarm inflicted some damage on the Darkoath boss with a free attack from a Tarantulos doubles ability, then another wound from its normal attack. Sadly, over two rounds of combat my adjacent glory seeker only managed to inflict 5 wounds (out of the required 6) on it – meaning that the Darkoath leader had to use his attack to finish it off – overkill, but it allowed the boss to use his second action to move out towards the approaching Tarantulos leader.

In the south east, the Tarantulos inflicted some minor damage on the Darkoath, but then the Wrathborn used its two actions to attack the adjacent Broodkin.

With a damage rating of 1/5 I was somewhat please to see some crits come up – and down went two Broodkin; really swinging the balance back to somewhat more even in this part of the battlefield.

Reaper count went to the Darkoath again, now 2-0 on the VP.

The third round saw very similar combats, and we called it at round three (out of the maximum 4 rounds). With the Darkoath up 3-0 there was no way back for the Tarantulos (and we had to get on with tea ? ).

Post battle thoughts….

My wife is keen to try it again, this time with her using the Darkoath Savagers.

At the moment I prefer co-op games, but we both had some fun with this and found the variable set up and the special abilities that can be used (from the initiative dice roll doubles, triples and quads) add an interesting amount of tactical thought and options.

Although, sometimes it really just does come down to the dice rolls.

It will be good to see how balanced these two warbands feel (we are using the most recent profiles and points values for them), but having looked at some of the other warbands I don’t think I would like to face some of them (*cough* Legionnaires with high S, high A and T5 *cough*).

There is also the option of adding in some monsters to the warbands (up to the 1000 pt level still).

31st October 2022

In addition to the battle summary I posted earlier, I just felt that I should lay out some of my thoughts regarding the project, how things went, what worked (or didn’t) and suchlike.

To begin with I have to say that it worked, plain and simple ?

At the start of the project I was posting daily updates, which was what I needed at the time to give me the focus to actually carry out some hobby each day.

That gave me the mental grounding to get into the ‘habit’ of just cracking on with some hobby, even if it was just a small amount, and allowed me to overcome my previous ‘mental blockers’.

Over time I changed to weekly updates, which again suited where I was at that point in the project. Once the patterns were established I felt comfortable with that frequency of update, as I didn’t then need the daily deadline to ensure I carried out regular hobby sessions.

I don’t want it to sound like I was pressuring myself in a negative way though – as that could lead to a downward spiral. Instead I chose to take the fact that I was able to do daily updates as a positive, and built on that foundation.

From box opening on the 15th August to today’s conclusion post the project took 11 weeks.

Some days I didn’t have any hobby, one week we were on holiday and some days it may have been 30 mins or less.

But, it got done – and that is a big difference for me; as someone with not just a plastic pile of shame/opportunity, but also white metal and even lead piles ?

Playing the game with the completed scenery and minis at the weekend was good. We both realised though that at the distance we were from the table, and concentrating on gameplay that was new to us, we didn’t really pay much attention to the paint jobs! ?

If you are just painting in order to just get on and play then just concentrate on how they look from the distance that you will normally see them. I’m glad that I did give them a bit more detailed paintjob (by my standards that is) though, as I have been able to share the pics with my club mates and yourselves here.

To anyone thinking of starting a hobby project here I would say – ‘go for it’ ?

And to Gerry – thanks for the little nudge (one word, “project!” ) to do a project for my prize win. (And for the Golden Button spotlight on the project [Although Ben would have added it to the project for me, just saying….. ? ] .)

Not 100% sure, but I think that up next will be some Deadzone scenery and strike teams.

Then after that, well things may have changed by whenever that is, but I think it will be Star wars Legion – as I have quite a bit from the May 4th sale un-started…..

To those of you that have taken a look at my project over the past few months, and those that are still reading – thanks for taking the time to view my ramblings and my limited photographic skills, I appreciate the time you have given me.