Saga “The Old Worldish”

So, my next job was to build my Hearthguard. 4 pts which will be represented by my Bestigors.

Being old school, I am always going to build a champion, musician and standard bearer. Now these have no effect in SAGA, well you can make someone a banner bearer but I haven’t got to those rules yet and so I am going to keep it simple, but what is a Unit without these three. Plus, it will give me a chance to do something interesting on the banner.

OK, it’s probably a GW Heroic scale thing but I just tried to put my beastmen on 25mm bases and they are far to small.

I was annoyed but then thought, well I’m the one playing, it’s my train set, why am I upset? So who cares.

28mm bases are the way forward.

I thought it was goldilocks…

• 20mm too small
• 32mm too big
• 25mm just right…

So that’s what I thought I had done. Started putting things on round bases, which is not everyone’s cup of tea but my preference (when line of arcs aren’t a thing).

Had 20mm, too small. Had 32mm, too big. So the one in the middle must be 25mm. Let’s get the glue.

When did 28.5 become a base size???

Well today was a good day!

It seems that I was visited by the Hobby Gods themselves in their terrestrial form in the Unofficial Hobby Hangout, which was a really nice surprise. Especially as I had only ever watched one Unofficial Hobby Hangout before which was last week to fill the weekender hole in my life and now, I have another one to watch!

And to add to beneficence of our Hobby Gods… “Brewer’s Big Box of Beastmen” was waiting for me on my desk when I returned from what was, I am told was an important meeting which “which have an impact on the future of the company”. Can’t remember was the meeting was about to be honest.

Hobby energised I rushed home to put my bounty together. But had to stop myself.

I had a half-painted model on the desk, my Bray Shaman, and I want to make sure that I don’t do what I usually do… put it to the side, promising myself I will go back to it, never going back to it.

The base coating had been done and I want to keep motivation going. Finish something and move on. I’ve already started to be distracted by ideas for other forces so keeping the mojo going on the painting side is really important to me. Afterall, I want an army I have painted. Its always been a goal, and this could be my chance to do it.

Speaking of finishing things…

…well aside from the basing. Agrax earthshade is marvelous thing!

Which means one thing…

Having worked out exactly what I needed I wanted to buy them in the most efficient way possible. To recap I required:

• 1 box of Ungors (10 models)
• 1 box of Gors (10 models)
• 1 box Bestigors (10 models)

Now after looking at the prices on GW buying them separately was going to be a bit of an expense:

• Ungor = £20.00
• Gors = £22.50
• Bestigors = £32.50

Taking my total to £75. All in all, not bad for an army. Unfortunately using a third-party seller would not have saved me much as the Ungors and Bestigors are direct only and so no discount.

While looking I noticed that there was a Vanguard: Beasts of Chaos box which wasn’t direct only so I could get a discount on it and contained:

• 1 box of Ungor (10 models)
• 1 box of Gors (10 models)
• 1 box Bestigors (10 models)
• 1 box Dragon Ogors (3 models)
• 1 Bray Shaman (1 model)

GW price it at £85, and most third part sellers are selling it for around £68. However, shopping around I managed to find for £53… so out the gate a saving of £22.

My plan is to sell the Dragon Ogors and Bray Shaman on eBay. The Dragon Ogors seem to be going for on average £30 for 3 or £15 individually. And the Bray Shaman for around £12.

So, in short, if all goes to plan (and I have not done a Lloyd and just purchased one sprue) I may be able to make most of the expenditure back.

Though in all honesty I do not think I am the first one to have had this idea as the marketplace seems quite busy for these particular models. Still no harm trying!

With my list put together it is now time to gather the suitable miniatures. Well, mentally gather – still a few days until payday.

Warlord taken care of, aside from basing which I think I will do as a single hobby task with the rest of the Army.

It’s actually been quite easy when it comes to selecting what will represent what…

It’s the berserkers that are proving to be elusive. Looks like perhaps a kit bash with the all of the spare parts.

It’s a shame that they don’t do Pestigors or Khorngors anymore as these would have been great. Again I will check on eBay but I can see the words “rare”, “oop” firmly placing these out of my budget…

So I have been tryng to do a little bit on my warlord each time I had some energy. And aside from the basing I am calling it a day.

I am honestly really chuffed with what I have done and as mentioned this is the first model I have painted end to end in many a year!

So I tried a couple of different things on the model, utilising contrasts over colours in the case of the bones and the flesh and then washes on other parts.

I was particulary pleased as to how the goregrunta fur went on over the German Camouflage Pale Brown and the same with the Sekeleton Horde over the bleached bone.

I’m not sure about the Black Templar Contrast over the GunMetal, wasnt quite what I intended, but did give that classic Chaos metallic black look.

Like the war on terror I thought we had beaten Covid. What else have I been misled about?

This absolutely knocked me for six. I could barely keep any focus and made the decision to try and doing a little bit as opposed to storming on all guns blazing and realising post fever dream I was on the wrong track. So what has been happening?