Beyond the Tomb
Continuing with Team Marcus
#ToMB may be over but my time with Marcus is definitely not. Over the past year playing with the Beastmaster I have come to love his play-style and versatility.
Doing the tale has allowed me to put my thoughts into writing, go back and see how my initial reactions differ now or how certain models have performed for me at different times.
The other thing is "sod's law".
Lots more plastic kits have come out since I started this project and I feel that now would be much better a point in time to start #ToMB in fact maybe it is something that I will look into doing next year, a reason to do a different faction maybe.
This law is so strong that even as I write this I am awaiting more plastic models that will be in my hands soon (maybe even by the time you are reading this) such as the official plastic Rogue Necromancy.
In this, what shall be a last hurrah for this project I will cover the most recent additions including something that is not actually for in-game.
The other thing is "sod's law".
Lots more plastic kits have come out since I started this project and I feel that now would be much better a point in time to start #ToMB in fact maybe it is something that I will look into doing next year, a reason to do a different faction maybe.
This law is so strong that even as I write this I am awaiting more plastic models that will be in my hands soon (maybe even by the time you are reading this) such as the official plastic Rogue Necromancy.
In this, what shall be a last hurrah for this project I will cover the most recent additions including something that is not actually for in-game.
The list
For those that are interested in what it costs for the figures I have acquired for Marcus and will speak about in this chat I will give a list. This time just Element Games Prices as this is not for a budget.
- Waldgeists - £10.20
- December Acolytes - £11.90
Admittedly the Acolytes are more just a generic Arcanist pick but they are highly useful which I will get to later. Waldgeists are another out of faction minion to join the ranks thanks to their Beast status.
Also later on I will be showing a wonderful product from Bendy Boards, check them out here.
Also later on I will be showing a wonderful product from Bendy Boards, check them out here.
- Model Tray - £15
We'll get back to the tray later.
Also in my collection I have used other things that aren't beasts and I would recommend.
Also in my collection I have used other things that aren't beasts and I would recommend.
- Mechanical Rider
- Soulstone Miners
- Arcane Effigy
There is plenty more, however for now these are my top picks from outside of what I got throughout the tale and aren't being covered here in this final volume.
Wood Ghosts
Gaming
I will admit that one of the main reasons I had picked up the Waldgeists is that everyone recommended them, I was told they were good.
I've still had little experience with getting these guys on the table and I've actually had very little experience up against them too.
What have I learnt so far though?
Well first of all these guys are fairly tough, Df 5 is decent but the Armour +2 is really what we are looking at.
Sharing the Perfect Camouflage rule with it's beastly swamp friend Silurids also adds to this and Germinate it's (0) action allows it to create terrain which helps it hide.
Germinate and terrain in general helps give the Waldgeist it's tricks.
Blocking areas off from opponents by either stopping their line of sight to certain points of the board or by slowing their movement (but not your own thanks to unimpeded) to keep them from charges, getting to specific spots for strategies or placing scheme markers.
Add to this that these wooden beasts also gain a very important treat from terrain, a huge melee range of four inches.
This allows you to hold things into combat, create pockets of dangerous space on the table which can help a lot in situations such as Squatter's Rights or the new Interference.
Tangling Roots the melee attack isn't half bad either Ml5 isn't insane but 2/3/4 is decent and the triggers are pretty handy.
Dishing out Slow with a Mask or giving out the Entrench condition with a Tome to stick your enemies down unless they can risk taking three more damage.
Bar the previously mentioned strategies I haven't found all the best uses for the Waldgeists yet but at six soulstones they are too much to add in try out in other situations.
Painting
Continuing the video game theme had me once again trying to think of famous characters that would fit the mould. Once again this wasn't too obvious and there were several Pokémon .
The spooky Treveant would work perfectly being a ghost Pokémon or Snover "the frost tree Pokémon" could've easily worked with my snow basing.
In the end I wanted to avoid using Pokémon, through out this project it has been more than easy to lean on 700+ pocket monsters for ideas, especially when trying to find video game animals, unsurprisingly with the amount of monsters there are, Nintendo have managed to cover a lot.
Nintendo though, again these guys came to my rescue for inspiration with a different series.
The Legend of Zelda.
The Zelda series has race of humanoid plants, tree like beings that first appear in The Ocarina of Time.
One of the most famous of these is the Great Deku Tree, a big moustachioed guide to Link and one that I had to make the "bearded" Waldgeist look like.
For the second Waldgeist I ended up looking at a different Nintendo hero for inspiration.
In actuality this tree was the first thing that came to my mind.
The Kirby boss "Whispy" felt like a very fun thing to try and paint and also made the Waldgeist very distinctive from the other and most of the ones I have seen other paint.
A much lighter scheme with red berries, possibly a little too bright but I'm happy how it turned out.
I will admit that one of the main reasons I had picked up the Waldgeists is that everyone recommended them, I was told they were good.
I've still had little experience with getting these guys on the table and I've actually had very little experience up against them too.
What have I learnt so far though?
Well first of all these guys are fairly tough, Df 5 is decent but the Armour +2 is really what we are looking at.
Sharing the Perfect Camouflage rule with it's beastly swamp friend Silurids also adds to this and Germinate it's (0) action allows it to create terrain which helps it hide.
Germinate and terrain in general helps give the Waldgeist it's tricks.
Blocking areas off from opponents by either stopping their line of sight to certain points of the board or by slowing their movement (but not your own thanks to unimpeded) to keep them from charges, getting to specific spots for strategies or placing scheme markers.
Add to this that these wooden beasts also gain a very important treat from terrain, a huge melee range of four inches.
This allows you to hold things into combat, create pockets of dangerous space on the table which can help a lot in situations such as Squatter's Rights or the new Interference.
Tangling Roots the melee attack isn't half bad either Ml5 isn't insane but 2/3/4 is decent and the triggers are pretty handy.
Dishing out Slow with a Mask or giving out the Entrench condition with a Tome to stick your enemies down unless they can risk taking three more damage.
Bar the previously mentioned strategies I haven't found all the best uses for the Waldgeists yet but at six soulstones they are too much to add in try out in other situations.
Painting
Continuing the video game theme had me once again trying to think of famous characters that would fit the mould. Once again this wasn't too obvious and there were several Pokémon .
The spooky Treveant would work perfectly being a ghost Pokémon or Snover "the frost tree Pokémon" could've easily worked with my snow basing.
In the end I wanted to avoid using Pokémon, through out this project it has been more than easy to lean on 700+ pocket monsters for ideas, especially when trying to find video game animals, unsurprisingly with the amount of monsters there are, Nintendo have managed to cover a lot.
Nintendo though, again these guys came to my rescue for inspiration with a different series.
The Legend of Zelda.
The Zelda series has race of humanoid plants, tree like beings that first appear in The Ocarina of Time.
One of the most famous of these is the Great Deku Tree, a big moustachioed guide to Link and one that I had to make the "bearded" Waldgeist look like.
For the second Waldgeist I ended up looking at a different Nintendo hero for inspiration.
In actuality this tree was the first thing that came to my mind.
The Kirby boss "Whispy" felt like a very fun thing to try and paint and also made the Waldgeist very distinctive from the other and most of the ones I have seen other paint.
A much lighter scheme with red berries, possibly a little too bright but I'm happy how it turned out.
The final piece of the puzzle was the basing. With the swampy nature I gave the Silurids I felt I should probably have the fellow Neverborn matching.
Creating a sewer stream between the legs of the "great" Waldgeist was fun and the idea of "Link" pulling away from the ground also helped the basing not only look OK but show a story.
FROM THE SHADOWS
Gaming
Where as I haven't had much experience with the Waldgeists since I have painted them I have played with a December Acolyte or two in almost all of my games with Arcanists since I had them finished.
From the Shadows itself could do with its own article, but I will delve in a little bit here.
Deploying ahead of the pack scheme and strategy wise has some, what are probably quite obvious, uses.
Starting on, close to or with a good line of fire to a Turf War area, Squatters Right marker or the other side of the board for Stake a Claim can give you a head start or possibly direct the opponents models to or away from a certain area of the table.
Being unable to interact in the first turn may seem to stop this but strategies are not recorded until turn two onwards anyway so this just gives the model more "set up time" as such.
Scheme wise it's very similar too; corner deployment can give you a huge head start with getting a Power Ritual sorted so to focus on your other scheme, hiding in terrain for Plant Evidence, getting down a Breakthrough marker quick all these things are hugely handy.
The December Acolytes themselves are extra sweet starting ahead because they have Harpoon guns.
If you are deploying second an Acolyte can set up to start opening fire in the first turn of the game or even stab up rival infiltrators such as Friekorps Trappers.
From the Shadows itself could do with its own article, but I will delve in a little bit here.
Deploying ahead of the pack scheme and strategy wise has some, what are probably quite obvious, uses.
Starting on, close to or with a good line of fire to a Turf War area, Squatters Right marker or the other side of the board for Stake a Claim can give you a head start or possibly direct the opponents models to or away from a certain area of the table.
Being unable to interact in the first turn may seem to stop this but strategies are not recorded until turn two onwards anyway so this just gives the model more "set up time" as such.
Scheme wise it's very similar too; corner deployment can give you a huge head start with getting a Power Ritual sorted so to focus on your other scheme, hiding in terrain for Plant Evidence, getting down a Breakthrough marker quick all these things are hugely handy.
The December Acolytes themselves are extra sweet starting ahead because they have Harpoon guns.
If you are deploying second an Acolyte can set up to start opening fire in the first turn of the game or even stab up rival infiltrators such as Friekorps Trappers.
The Harpoon Gun is fantastic Sh6 with a 2/4/6 damage spread is already very nice.
Add in the fact it always dishes out Slow and you're on to a winner.
The fact that a single Acolyte has the ability to threaten dishing out Slow to two enemy models before they even go is very scary for the other side of the table.
If that was nice enough the Harpoon Gun has a built in trigger on a Crow to get your opponent to discard a card.
A perfect first turn means your opponent has only 3 cards left and two models down a few wounds (well dead if it's super perfect) and an AP each.
An Acolyte can also use it's Tactical Action Smell Weakness to have enemy models within six inches lose Armour and Hard to Wound which not only could help the December Acolyte take them down but helps anyone else fighting those enemies.
To round things off the Hunting Knife combat attack isn't quite as good as the gun with a worse stat and weak damage, but it still manages to dish out slow and can allow your Acolyte to push Into Shadow on a Mask.
Overall the Acolyte is fantastic for it's cost, it does have weaknesses, mostly the fact it's 8 wounds and defence 5 has no protection on top, except for the highly useful Frozen Heart.
Marcus may not use these cold models in the way Rasputina does, but immunity to being paralysed and not having to take horror duels is very helpful.
Painting
The first two of the box I started painting in between other units, knowing how useful having them would be for gaming meant I rushed them a little to be able to take to tournaments.
I started off just painting a colour scheme which was close to the box.
My little change was the blue masks, I do like adding the team colour.
I started off just painting a colour scheme which was close to the box.
My little change was the blue masks, I do like adding the team colour.
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However, this was not from a video game, there are plenty hooded characters I could copy Ubisoft have a game a year staring one (even two games this year).
Again though, enter Nintendo.
Again though, enter Nintendo.
At the time I had been playing Super Smash Brothers for the 3DS, it made me think about previous games, previous Nintendo characters in the roster and specifically the Ice Climbers.
One blue and one pink.
My good friend Aaron had already taken this idea and painted his puppet wars Ice Climbers just like them.
I had to copy this and thanks to John Wharton at the GT I now can do this mini models later.
One blue and one pink.
My good friend Aaron had already taken this idea and painted his puppet wars Ice Climbers just like them.
I had to copy this and thanks to John Wharton at the GT I now can do this mini models later.
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I still had one full sized Acolyte left to do, I was inspired which can be a rarity so it was on.
Time for a Pink model.
Time for a Pink model.
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As well as painting up the Acolyte to be pink with the white trims and boots, something that actually had me giggling and thinking of the pink Power Ranger, I painted up the what is most likely metallic Harpoon Gun to be pale and wooden to match the Ice Climbers hammers.
A small thing but I think it adds to the overall scheme.
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Bendy Board Display
At my very first tournament, Canterfaux back in May, I bought myself a Bendy Board display tray from Lee Battrick.
With Marcus in full flow this was initially going to be a treat to myself once I got this project finished.
Well I have so here is how I got on with the board.
I started with breaking up lots of pieces of cork to cover the board and match the look of the bases, I also used the flat edges or the cork sheets to line up with the edges of the display board.
After this I added another Mario style pipe to the corner and used sand and PVA to cover gaps add more texture and generally help seal it all. Once that was dried, I sprayed it all Fur Brown spray from Army Painter. Get some here from Element Games.
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Next I very heavily painted some Game Colour Dark Fleshtone over the brown base as I had been doing with the basing to give the ground a brick like natural rock feel.
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Next was three layers of over to dry brushing of greys, at the time I just started with my darkest, used Games Workshop's Stormvermin fur second as it has some brown in it (the old Charadon Granite if you have that) and finished with a very white-grey.
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After the greys were done which was the largest part of the board the pipe was painted to match the Moleman and the Bendy Boards bit at the front was done in metallics to look like a battered sign.
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Next I added a few tufts. At this stage I started to plan what would typically occupy the spaces on the display, initially matching tufts but opting to go with more of the yellow ones to help them stand out amongst the models.
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Time for snow, lots of snow.
Baking soda, PVA, water, mix up apply, build up. Just like the basing.
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Around the pipe I left some gaps, these would be for some sewage streams like the Neverborn basing.
A mix of PVA and green paint was applied to build a layer and then some TCG over the top once that had dried to finish it's wet look.
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Finally the board was made a little more presentable, cork being cleaned up and all the remaining wood that was showing painted black.
With Marcus in full flow this was initially going to be a treat to myself once I got this project finished.
Well I have so here is how I got on with the board.
I started with breaking up lots of pieces of cork to cover the board and match the look of the bases, I also used the flat edges or the cork sheets to line up with the edges of the display board.
After this I added another Mario style pipe to the corner and used sand and PVA to cover gaps add more texture and generally help seal it all. Once that was dried, I sprayed it all Fur Brown spray from Army Painter. Get some here from Element Games.
Next I very heavily painted some Game Colour Dark Fleshtone over the brown base as I had been doing with the basing to give the ground a brick like natural rock feel.
Next was three layers of over to dry brushing of greys, at the time I just started with my darkest, used Games Workshop's Stormvermin fur second as it has some brown in it (the old Charadon Granite if you have that) and finished with a very white-grey.
After the greys were done which was the largest part of the board the pipe was painted to match the Moleman and the Bendy Boards bit at the front was done in metallics to look like a battered sign.
Next I added a few tufts. At this stage I started to plan what would typically occupy the spaces on the display, initially matching tufts but opting to go with more of the yellow ones to help them stand out amongst the models.
Time for snow, lots of snow.
Baking soda, PVA, water, mix up apply, build up. Just like the basing.
Around the pipe I left some gaps, these would be for some sewage streams like the Neverborn basing.
A mix of PVA and green paint was applied to build a layer and then some TCG over the top once that had dried to finish it's wet look.
Finally the board was made a little more presentable, cork being cleaned up and all the remaining wood that was showing painted black.
DOUBLE BONUS BONUS
Due to the fact I didn't get this blog out anywhere nearly as quickly as I would have like I've got two more models to show that I've painted.
Although snow next to lava seems odd it does actually happen, not as close as this base but screw realism against looking cool.
Why worry too much about realism on the base of a monster made of a lion-goat-bird-snake-whatever right?
This model was my first attempt at a lot of things, lava being one and the glowing eyes being another.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with the finished product.
Rogue Necromancy
Painting
I'm skipping straight into the painting here as all though I've had some more table time since I wrote about the Rogue Necro back here in June.
The new plastic model is absolutely gorgeous, the detail of the kits is fantastic and I was genuinely surprised that as much was visible as the CAD design.
Videogames. I needed inspiration. Part of me thought about doing the separate bits of this amalgamation of animal pieces like a cast of characters attached together.
Knowing though that let's be honest this thing is really a Chimera, I started there.
I ended up coming across this:
Final Fantasy as a rich history of Chimera's throughout and this was an image of one I had not seen as it was from the second online game FFXIV.
The heads may not be the same, the wings weren't feathered, but the lion part looked great and the colour scheme had me thinking.
If I'm honest the render wasn't actually what made me decide to use it as inspiration, this was:
I love this art, I'd probably get it tattoo'd on my body I think it so cool.
How would I copy this though, there were a lot of things that would be hard to replicate.
The glow, would it make sense on it's own? The wings, could I change this to feathered?
I love the colours but what about the feathery bird head of the Rogue Necromancy?
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The new plastic model is absolutely gorgeous, the detail of the kits is fantastic and I was genuinely surprised that as much was visible as the CAD design.
Videogames. I needed inspiration. Part of me thought about doing the separate bits of this amalgamation of animal pieces like a cast of characters attached together.
Knowing though that let's be honest this thing is really a Chimera, I started there.
I ended up coming across this:
Final Fantasy as a rich history of Chimera's throughout and this was an image of one I had not seen as it was from the second online game FFXIV.
The heads may not be the same, the wings weren't feathered, but the lion part looked great and the colour scheme had me thinking.
If I'm honest the render wasn't actually what made me decide to use it as inspiration, this was:
How would I copy this though, there were a lot of things that would be hard to replicate.
The glow, would it make sense on it's own? The wings, could I change this to feathered?
I love the colours but what about the feathery bird head of the Rogue Necromancy?
The first things when painting this model was I decided I wanted to use that darker blue green from the goat like head of the FFXIV beast for the bird, the goat head would turn full skull but painted in a very not traditional style.
The purple made it's way to the mouthed tail, I attempted to blend the purple into black then to the dark almost-black grey I painted the body.
Lastly was the basing, the thing that made most sense to create that red glow would be "the fires of hell" or simply, just some lava right?
Using an old Skaven themed basing kit I had I got resin stalagmites to surround my tipped cork platform.
Why worry too much about realism on the base of a monster made of a lion-goat-bird-snake-whatever right?
This model was my first attempt at a lot of things, lava being one and the glowing eyes being another.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with the finished product.
Performer
Painting
This time I'm skipping the gaming section as I haven't even played with one yet.
It does stuff with scheme markers and can reactivate a minion on death... what do you want from me?
Painting wise I got a hold of the lovely limited edition Perfomer over Black Friday thanks to joining in on a group order (which included the previous model).
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It does stuff with scheme markers and can reactivate a minion on death... what do you want from me?
Painting wise I got a hold of the lovely limited edition Perfomer over Black Friday thanks to joining in on a group order (which included the previous model).
Apologies for the extremely blurry photos. This as well as the Rogue Necro I wanted done before the Masters. Though in the end I didn't even field them.
I will admit I didn't really think about a video game theme here, I just wanted it painted.
However there is a little bit of Elizabeth from Bioshock: Infinite inspiration.
I have blue running through out my Arcanists where possible, that is their colour after all.
Also however there is a fair bit of white (not just the snow) so I went for a very whitened rose on the Perfomers head.
I'm happy how the lacy tights-like material on the arms came out. Simply adding the flesh colour into very dark grey.
Also the base, I decided to have a "stepping stones" look which I felt worked for the dancing motion of the miniature.
Apologies this model is only 99% finished, the shoes aren't actually done.
The End
My time with Marcus is far from over and I am happy where I got to with him and his crew.Some bits need touching up and there is always more to do, Marcus himself has dyed some of his hair and gave himself some face paint.
This project itself had some hiccups but I am happy I prevailed and honestly, I think I may go for round two.
Maybe Ten Thunders like I tried to start (at the same time which was a mistake).
Thank you for joining me on this little ride and I hope that I have been able to inspire or inform some others out there.
Again, thank you for reading.
-Ben (@Psientologist)
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