Armies on Parade has had a shakeup this year, shifting to recognise team efforts and armies without display boards in new categories alongside the traditional solo effort bonanza.
The competition is popular among Warhammer hobbyists of all levels, providing everyone the chance to create a cool collection of miniatures and show them off at their local store and online. The same is true of Warhammer staff – some of whom are sharing their progress today.
Jake and Rich – Warhammer World Retail – Cities of Sigmar and Vampire Pirates
Rich: When the Cities of Sigmar got their recent update I saw an opportunity to convert them into one of my favourite army ideas, Vampire Pirates, and created the Floating City of Sarcossa. There are lots of in-depth conversions involved, just like with Jake’s army, but all of my models have something from the Cities of Sigmar kit they are meant to represent, no matter how small!
Jake: Rich and I have been colleagues and fast friends for a good few years now, we work well as a team and are happy to bounce ideas off each other. Compared with Rich’s well-researched conversions, I just made stuff! The Steam Tank and the Cavalier-Marshal on a clockwork horse had been swimming around in my head for a while, and instead of waiting for the perfect ideas I just went for it. Done is better than perfect – although I’m very pleased with both.
Joel – Warhammer Community Team – Kroot
When the new Kroot miniatures were announced, I decided to create a whole army. I immediately started by painting up a Farstalker Kinband Kill Team and the Dahyak Grekh miniature from Blackstone Fortress, who I'm going to use as a variant model for a Trail Shaper. Since then I've managed to paint up some Krootox Rampagers too!
So far the biggest challenge has been painting an army that’s showing a lot of flesh. Fortunately Kroot look great when you mix up the skin colours, so I don't feel the need to be too uniform. The next step is to continue working through my Kroot army box, so I'm going to add some Carnivores, a Krootox Rider, and a War Shaper next.
Krzysztof – Retail – Lumineth-Realm Lords
My goal is to create a display for the Lumineth-realm Lords, all centred around the Shrine Luminor. I picked up a Vanguard box first, and I’ve chosen to paint them in the colours of the Great Nation of Helon. I started out with one of my favourite miniatures in the Lumineth range – the Vanari Bladelords, which are very dynamic and look great ranked up next to heroes. I recently finished the full unit of Bladelords, and some Vanari Auralan Sentinels after, so now I've got to plan my next steps.
Next I’ll move to finish a whole Vanguard box and paint some Lumineth heroes, eventually I want to get around to the Alarith Spirit of the Mountain too.
Josh – Retail – Solar Auxilia
I was inspired by the new Solar Auxilia tanks as I wanted to add some serious firepower to support my Word Bearers Legion. It was a lot of fun to dig through my bitz boxes to find all the Chaos-y spikes and chains, and adding some intense battle damage with some hobby tools.
The depiction of the abominable cults raised by the Word Bearers for the assault of Calth in Dan Abnett's Know No Fear and the carnival of horror in Guy Haley's The Lost and the Damned were massive points of inspiration. I have yet to decide how much inspiration I want to take from the traditional Solar Auxilia grey motif and how much Word Bearers Legion design to incorporate. I may do some test colour schemes on Legions Imperialis epic scale models...
Emma – Retail – Cities of Sigmar
This year I wanted to become a better painter and to really push myself out of my comfort zone, and Armies on Parade was the perfect motivator. I really wanted to paint an army in green tones, and I love the lore behind the Living City – like how their Wildercorps Hunters cover their armour with plants for camouflage. To put my own spin on it, I chose to create a custom city themed around nature. I have five different designs with different patterns and colour variations, but green is the universal colour throughout the army.
I wanted to make everything unique, so each of the Cavaliers wears the colours of their own house, with designs that are inspired by tartan patterns. My plan now is to paint the Ironweld Great Cannon and then the Freeguild Command Corps, and Hexbane's Hunters. I’ve also got plans to paint the Freeguild Cavalier-Marshal and Tahlia Vedra, who I am really excited to get to work in my colour scheme.
James – Retail – Kill Team Display
I've always wanted to build an oil rig diorama after being inspired years ago by the Escape from Ferro-Giant Alphus battle report from White Dwarf, which later became a display in Warhammer World.*
I decided to have an Inquisitor with a bodyguard of Kasrkin investigating the platform after hearing rumours of Xenos activity. I’ve built my Imperial forces, and got my terrain layout sorted out, so my next step will be to build and paint some Genestealer Cults to ambush them!
Those are some fantastic progress reports from people around Games Workshop. Let us know over on the official Warhammer Facebook and Twitter accounts how you are getting on with your own Armies on Parade entries – using #ArmiesonParade2024. What’s more, there are loads of handy online tools available to help with your project at the Citadel Colour website.
* The battle report is from White Dwarf April 2017, which is available on the Warhammer Vault, and the display is still in the exhibition hall!