At the start of the month, we introduced four brave hobbyists as they took their first steps on their Path to Glory journey using the narrative campaign rules in the Warhammer Age of Sigmar Core Book. After allowing them another couple of weeks of frenetic painting and hobby activity (we’re generous like that), we’re checking in with them to see how their collections have expanded.
Gav – Idoneth Deepkin
After the success of the first part of my Path to Glory army, I knew that it was time to reel in some reinforcements. But what to take? I needed to mull it over. One thing was for sure – I was hooked on painting red Idoneth Deepkin, so another unit of Namarti Thralls seemed like the perfect way to grow my burgeoning soulraid.
I kept the paint recipe broadly the same as the one I used for my first unit, but I painted Balthasar Gold on some of the metallic parts of the armour. Clearly, these are swankier Thralls – my army must be moving in the right direction.With the basic troops sorted, it was time to add something a bit bigger and with more teeth. My force had done well enough to attract an Akhelian Allopex. As with my regular Idoneth, I wanted to come up with a colour scheme that would reflect the fact that my army was from the Realm of Fire. I had used red already, so the obvious choice here was orange. I went with Gryph-Hound Orange, and I’m pleased with how it turned out.
With the Akhelian Allopex on my side, I know it will only be a matter of time before I’m basking in glory. The only problem is that with the giant shark in my force, I’m going to need a bigger figure case…
What’s next for part three? Will the army be successful enough to entice Duinclaw and the rest of Elathain’s Soulraid to join, or will my attempts flounder? Hopefully, he’ll stop being so shellfish* and will join in the fun.
Laura – Gloomspite Gitz
I may be contributing fewer models than my fellow warlords, but I’m certainly making up for it in scale. The troggoths have been a really fun opportunity to try out some colours I don't usually play with (green for one), and I've got a Troggboss here with a much greener hue to him than the Fellwater Troggoths from the last instalment.
As a horrible, walking, swamp effigy of Destruction, I wanted my Troggboss to look like the marsh had come alive – a little bit inspired by the Albion Fenbeast from the World-that-Was. It’s a gruesome gestalt of greenery and bones, all matted together and bound by the brutal magics of Destruction.
Last year, I was lucky enough to kitbash a Mega-Gargant for an article, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to have another go. Perhaps it’s another minor deity of the swampland that has risen to terrible size.
I took a lot of inspiration from Kragnos for this conversion, adding in the horns from a Verminlord and the wild mane from Magnus the Red. I can't wait to add more to make him truly terrifying!
Martin – Soulblight Gravelords
My next steps on the Path to Glory saw me complete my Vampire Lord and Blood Knights. I also added in a Necromancer lackey and assembled the rest of my force ready for spraying.
I wanted to add a Necromancer as I thought it would be fitting for my Vampire Lord, Mariana von Carstein, to have someone to do her bidding and generally play the traditional role of an underling to the vampire. So Johan von Fischer was added to my order of battle.
To fit everything into my Path to Glory roster, I had to take an Arcane Waypoint as my starting territory to allow a second Wizard. This suited me just fine as I have a Warscryer Citadel that I want to renovate, which can represent it on the battlefield.
The Blood Knights have taken a fair bit of work over the last couple of weeks – they have lots of details to get stuck into and provide terrific value as a painting project alone. I’m pretty happy with the results so far.
I expect that as my vampiric hunt grows to 2,000 points, I’ll add some more units of Blood Knights, so I wanted to set them apart on the table. To that end, I painted the pendants different colours to make it easy to spot each unit in the heat of battle.
I’m also pleased with the Vampire Lord – I achieved what I wanted and matched the look of the artwork with shining red metallic armour and otherworldly head.
Now that they’re out of the way, I’m looking forward to painting Dire Wolves and Fell Bats to accompany the vampires. I want to keep their colour scheme very muted so that the vampire’s red armour and eerie heads stand out in the force when it’s all together.
Joel – Hedonites of Slaanesh
Fiends of Slaanesh are some of my favourite models, so adding them to my fledgling Hedonites force was a no-brainer. Nothing beats weird daemons stomping and flailing around a battlefield.
Getting the skin to look right was the most important part for me, as it’s 80% of the model, so lots of thin layers of paint and crisp highlights were the order of the day.
I also wanted them to look extra gruesome and menacing, so I decided to add some blood to the claws and tails. That was the last thing I did as the Valhallan Blizzard on the base was drying – this gave me a chance to add some blood into the snow, which gives the effect that it's soaked into the ground.
I'm looking forward to seeing how these creatures fare in a game since they're rather nasty on paper. I may decide to add three more Fiends into the squad later, so they can benefit more from the Soporific Musk rule, making them even more frightening.
Now I have a nice mix of things in this Slaanesh force, I have to think about what I'm missing. I could bulk out my troops for some more objective control. However, I'm also defenceless to magic, so a Wizard could be a good bet too. There are certainly plenty of options.
Thanks, folks – those collections are really starting to come together. We’ll be catching up with Laura, Martin, Joel, and Gav again soon, so keep an eye out for the next part in the series.
If you want to start your own Path to Glory force, grab yourself a copy of Dominion today – it includes two armies that are perfect for beginning new collections, as well as a Core Book which contains the Path to Glory rules themselves. Stocks of this incredible Warhammer Age of Sigmar launch set are running low – order yours now so you don’t miss out.
* The last in a long line of Gav’s watery puns. Well played, Gav. Well played.