Last week’s episode of Battle Report featured a loving adaptation of the classic White Dwarf Warhammer 40,000 scenario Fangs of the Wolf, from all the way back in 1993.
The intrepid team behind this epic throwdown aren’t known for resting on their laurels, so for this week’s episode they’ve revisited the equally epic climax of The Quest for Ghal Maraz, the first Warhammer Age of Sigmar campaign book.
We caught up with James and Andy, the model-makers who spent hours creating a board to represent the vaulted insides of the Eldritch Fortress in the Realm of Metal.
Warhammer Community: This battle takes place within a Tzeentchian fortress, a place where reality is twisted beyond human comprehension. How did you start planning to represent such a fantastical battlefield?
James: We looked to the lore to find the iconic elements of the narrative, with the key features being the Shardgate, Arcanabulam, Ghal Maraz, and the Eldritch Fortress crashing into a lake of molten silver. 
In realms influenced by the twisting powers of Chaos, battles can be fought at an impossible scale, with fortresses the size of cities commonplace, so we had to use a bit of artistic licence to bring all of these details mentioned in the narrative of The Quest for Ghal Maraz onto one 6 by 4 foot board.
Andy: We took a lot of inspiration from the description written in The Quest for Ghal Maraz, and did what we could to include as many of the key elements as possible. When the Battle Report presenters created the battle plan for the scenario, they asked for some specific landmarks to be represented as key objectives for the game, mainly the Arcanabulam with which the ritual is being controlled, and the caged Ghal Maraz that the whole battle resolved around.
WarCom: Can you talk about how you designed some of the specific elements such as the Shardgate, giant cogs, and rivers of silver?James: The cogs of the Arcanabulum were taken from an old Realm of Battle: Shattered Dominion board, and the lake of molten silver seething under the fractured tiles was simply paint poured over some demispheres.
The Shardgate was a fun challenge. We decided to deviate from the original artwork, which looked very similar to a standard Realmgate, and reimagine it to better suit its nature as the corrupted gateway to Tzeentch's realm it had become in the narrative. We started with an artwork print, and then layered coloured perspex on top of that in a shattered glass pattern, giving the portal the illusion of depth, like it was a door to a world beyond.
Andy: The cogs were cut out from the Realm of Battle tiles and cast in resin – they can also be seen used on the Siege of the Craw diorama in Warhammer World! As James mentioned, we deviated from the artwork slightly, but the primary element – the appearance of a shattered mirror – was key to our design. We wanted to represent the kind of broken, twisted gateway through reality that the Shardgate is described as being.
WarCom: For people who want to create their own boards at home, how did you paint up the various elements?
James: The jade green of the main battlefield was an unusual combination of colours, as befitting Tzeentch. We sprayed it with Chaos Black with an overspray of Macragge Blue. It was then washed with some thinned down Screamer Pink to give it a nice purple hue, followed by an overbrush* of Kabalite Green, then a lighter drybrush of Sybarite Green, before we finished with Gauss Blaster Green.
The searing hot Arcanabulum was sprayed in White Scar, and then painted with Bad Moon Yellow followed by a thinned wash of Dorn Yellow. It was then drybrushed up through Fire Dragon Bright, Mephiston Red, and finally Abaddon Black. That’s the opposite way you’d usually drybrush, but it works to give the look of molten metal with areas rapidly cooling.
WarCom: Now you’ve seen it used in battle, what were your favourite parts of the board?
James: The brass spell circles inlaid into the jade were my favourite part. They really give the sense that powerful magic is being performed on a grand scale. I felt this worked really well in juxtaposition with the relatively small Ghal Maraz – something so small, yet so significant, being the focus at the heart of a realm-ending spell.
You can watch James and Andy’s creation in action right now on Warhammer TV as Nick and Si recreate the Battle for Ghal Maraz with two huge armies of Stormcast Eternals and Disciples of Tzeentch. A Warhammer+ subscription also nets you access to the Warhammer Vault, where you can read the whole narrative from the whole Realmgate Wars series, including the first instalment, The Quest for Ghal Maraz.
* This is a technique akin to drybrushing, but with a little more paint loaded onto your brush.