With the new Gloomspite Gitz army set up for pre-order tomorrow, some Gitmobs have arrived in the hands of our friends around the community. Adrian Phillips from Tabletop Titans, with the help of his sidekick Doc Mel, created a display board full of flaming-hot grots that really caught our eye – and we had to learn more about the process.
Adrian: The Gloomspite Gitz are a fantastic army for building a display board because there’s a well established story about how the army amasses for war.
Generally, the arrival of the Bad Moon and the subsequent crashing of a part of it gathers Gitz from near and far, who build a shrine around the fallen “star” and drag it to a nearby cave entrance. I knew this would already create a compelling structure, but I wanted to really meld it with the new Gitmob, who have an equally appealing story – groups of surface-dwelling gits who hate and worship the evil sun, Glareface Frazzlegit, which chases the Bad Moon away each day.
With this in mind I wanted to build a board that exemplified the sun and moon motif we see throughout the battletome, and mocked up what it would look like to have a sun inset into the moon with a circular 2’x2’ board.
I carved out the structure out of foam and printed out my mockup to get a sense for the shapes. I knew the board had to be functional, as well as aesthetically pleasing, so I quickly learned I had to slant the moon into the sun to create a ramp the Gitmob could be running down.
Lining up all the layers with the caves and the light I wanted to be able to plug in the back was tricky, and took a lot of pre-measuring and trial and error – not unlike a game of Warhammer Age of Sigmar!
I really loved the images of a Gitmob battlefield that are in the book, and so wanted to integrate the iconography from that, such as carved idols of Glareface Frazzlegit. I also modified the Loonshrine to include a little sun rather than a second mini-moon.
Another fun part of the lore is the fact that the Gitmob are always trying to harness the power of the sun, so steal and bedeck themselves in the shiniest gubbinz they can find, stealing and looting armour, weapons, and jewelry which then adorn their home as well. I looted some kits of my own for the appropriate decorations.
The board itself was drenched in as much Zandri Dust as I could muster, drybrushed with Ushabti Bone. The reds used on both the army and the board were Baal Red, Magmadroth Flame, and a combination of them both mixed with Flash Gitz Yellow, which shouldn’t work but turned out to give them a nice warm glow. I integrated this into each of the Gitmob’s bases, representing the sun they’re constantly chasing.
This project was an absolute blast, and pushed my ability to take on a new army in a big way. It really made me think about how the story of the faction can be integrated at every level of the hobby.
Thanks guys! Rouse your own Gitmob from tomorrow, when the new army set goes on pre-order. It’s the first place to get the new Battletome: Gloomspite Gitz.
