Warhammer AOS Kruleboyz Army Log: Grimmguttz the Shaman

I’m trying my damnedest to keep momentum going on my two horde army projects, but my general apathy towards modern GW games and the high burnout potential of large army builds really puts up some interesting barriers for me! Luckily, I really dig the Kruleboyz, they have a vibe that screams cool, and they’re fun to paint. I don’t know if painting fifty of them will be fun, but we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

I’m trying not to use straight up stock miniatures as much as possible, just to keep things distinctly mine. A lot of the Kruleboyz models will be masked, which is an easy conversion by just gluing spare scareshields to their faces. It looks pretty cool to me, and sparked some lore for the army, too!

Grimmguttz was feeling less than kunning. Frankly, he was feeling dizzy, and like he was about to bring up this morning’s double portion of Stankdredd Hash. He decided to hazard a peak, cracked an eye open a hair, and began to spew forth a torrent of hash the likes of which hadn’t been seen since his Stubbins, his steward and personal chef, had been allowed to arrange the Fumpin’ Day feast.

It was only after passing what appeared to be several gallons of noxious, neon vomit did Grimmguttz realize he was rotating about in the air. Each convulsion sent him spinning around faster, the colors of his stomach’s demise liberally painting the already psychedelic landscape with lurid splashes and sprays of color.

Grimmguttz bit back the next retch, swallowed it back down, and held his breath until he stopped spinning, which took close to an hour. No matter, he thought to himself, this was nowhere near the longest he had held his breath. He could wait it out.

Finally, his lurching rotation came to a blessed, lurching stop. Grimmguttz reached out daintily with an outstretched foot, then tried to tip-toe through the air to the ground. This accomplished nothing, so he whispered a threat to Gorkamorka and dove forward, gracefully striking his chin against the craggy ground.

Grimmgutz sat up, running his sore jaw and cursing quietly to himself. He suddenly realized that he wasn’t alone. “CAW!” said the crow, blinking all six of its eyes in unison. It was the largest crow Grimmguttz had ever seen, and the lurching, sickening colors strobing through landscape and air was reflected in its feathers.

“Same atcha, stoopid bird”, burped Grimmguttz, still massaging feeling into his jaw.

“CAW! CAW! CAAAAW!!!” screamed the crow, causing Grimmguttz to scramble defensively back on his ass.

“But dey is da gods!” muttered Grimmguttz, shocked at the blasphemy the crow had just uttered.

“CAW! CAAAAAAAW!” yelled the crow.

“I see, I see”, answered Grimmguttz, as a plan bloomed freshly into place in his mind. “But to do dat, dere wood ‘ave to be a heap o’ scrappin’ an frumpin’ first, speshully if’ we’s gunna get dat much Waaagh built up!”

“CAW!” agreed the crow, flapping its wings lazily.

“But even den, da gods wood sees us a comin’ miles away and fess wutt we’s a doin’ fore we had a chance a da trick!”

A wisp of purple energy started to coalesce around the bird, obscuring its appearance. Grimmguttz watched, fascinated and confused as the crow became impossible to discern from the landscape.

And with that, Grimmguttz the Kunnin’ came to in the Stankdredd marsh, sprawled on the ground next to Grakkskull’s hut. The boss looked down at the battered, nauseous wizard and let out a chuckle.

“Nice a yoos to join us, Guttz”, said the boss, strapping his scareshield to his arm. Grimmguttz stared into the face of the shield, a plan forming in his mind. A plan that would make it so the gods, even as formidable as they were, would never see Grakkskull’s krew coming…

… and even if they did, wouldn’t know who it was, until it was too late.

I’ll have more on Grakkskull and Grimmguttz, as they plot to raise enough Waaagh energy to elevate the Throne of Crows to divinity!

Breaking the Backlog: The Wight King

One thing about making myself stick to a semi-regular posting schedule is that I’ve been painting more to make sure I have plenty of content! That also means I’m starting to make a dent in my backlog, which is fantastic news! I would much rather look at painted minis than a horde of unpainted potential!

I’ve also implemented a new “Two Year Termination” clause in my contract with my own sanity. If something is still in the original packaging two years after I bought it, I either need to get it on the table and finished, or find a new home for it. Hence, the sudden appearance of six square feet of office space after offloading a ton Marvel United boxes.

One mini that made it from package to finished is this Wight King from Games Workshop. It’s an amazing figure, I’ve always loved it, but never put the time together to finish it up. Now it’s done, and I’m pretty happy with the results!

I’ll most likely be using him for Frostgrave and Five Leagues from the Borderlands, but the rules for Warcry are flexible enough that he can be used in a Soulblight Gravelords list without any real trouble.

I tried to work some patina into the metals, since copper and bronze is going to get pretty grimy over time. I’m flirting with the idea of picking up a few Deathrattle Skellies to help him out, but I’m also keen on the idea of kitbashing some minis from other studios and let GW live without my money for a bit. Time will tell on that front!

I have a couple of more backlog projects I would like to get finished up for the new year, then I’m hoping to get involved in a hobby bingo challenge to keep the motivation rolling for 2025!

Necromunda: Big Dugg the Stig Shambler

I am going to pretend it’s the excellent posts at Convert or Die that have me drooling over Necromunda again, and while there is SOME truth to that, I’m also just a basic stim juve at heart with little self control. I have a bunch o’ Mundas laying about the place, so there has been a flurry of assembly going on as I indulge one of my favorite gaming pastimes… getting in way over my head!

Big Dugg is a Stig Shambler I put together for my Cawdor crew a few years ago, but I haven’t posted him here, so I figure while I’m furiously putting models together, I can share some shots of one of my favorite models!

Dugg was an enormous child, and grew to be an even larger adult. He was shunned by most citizens of the underhive, and those that didn’t outright ignore him often abused him or used his massive fists to do harm to others.

At the end of the day, Big Dugg is a gentle soul, and hasn’t really developed mentally or emotionally past a toddler’s abilities. He is quite a sweet natured soul, unless something makes him angry, in which case things can get messy.

Dugg was wandering aimlessly through the underhive, hoping to find refuge from those that would abuse him. He had become friendly with a few members of a Cawdor missionary group, who introduced him to Barnabas, another soul twisted by the rigors of underhive life and cursed with a withered, atrophied body.

Barnabas and Dugg became fast friends, with Barnabas keeping Dugg away from malicious gangers, and Dugg keeping Barnabas safe from bullies and thugs who liked to prey on him.

When Big Dugg is pressed into battle by his Cawdor friends, Barnabas bolts a shield to his harness that will protect his friend from seeing the violence he meets out on those he faces in battle. Many a thug has met his end with the visage of a fluffy, cartoonish face rushing up, out of the darkness, with a flurry of fists and flames following behind.

Breaking Up with a Game

Sometimes, you love a game with all your heart, and a relationship is kindled that lasts a lifetime. For me, Mordheim, and to a lesser extent, Necromunda, have been huge anchors for my love of the hobby. Other games, like 40k and Malifaux, have been fun excuses to paint up armies and hang with friends. And then there are those select few that come along, make me incredibly happy, and then fizzle out after a bit (I’m looking at you, Wild West Exodus!). But nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse in this hobby than falling in love with a game and realizing, years later, that you just can’t stand it anymore.

The game in question (this time, at least) is Corvus Belli’s Infinity. I stumbled across the game around 2014, found the models breathtaking, and there was a community of really fun and entertaining players already invested in it at a game store that just gelled with me. Now, 10 years later, that game store has moved two states away, a good chunk of that community moved with it, and I’m finding myself staring at a bunch of Infinity models that I have no interest in playing with.

I’m also wondering if I ever liked the game at all, or if it was just that community? Now that they’ve moved on, my interest in gaming in general is pretty abysmal. Sure, I’ve always been a painter/modeler way more than I’ve been a gamer, but there was always the appeal of getting together with friends and rolling some dice that just fueled everything else.

And don’t get me wrong, I still have a local community, but we’re largely dependent on the one person in our group that has enough room and is centrally located, and we all have tricky schedules. A good game store really is a freaking asset, nay, a treasure, that you don’t realize you’ll miss until it’s gone.

Infinity has some of the nicest models in the world of miniatures, and some of my friends swear it’s one of the best game systems out there. I always found it mechanically tedious, and felt like I was doing a math bee in my underpants every time I played.

And seriously, I delt craps once upon a time. I can handle some pretty complex mental work. Infinity just beat the hell out of me.

Now, for a multitude of reasons that I won’t get into other than missing my store and half my community, I just can’t stand the game. I don’t want to play it, I’m completely uninterested in new releases, and I have several hundred miniatures staring at me and making me feel guilty as hell. What am I going to do with all this pewter?

The obvious answer is to sell it all, pay off some more medical bills, and make more Necromunda magic happen in my life. But that gets complicated. There’s a bittersweet, personal history with a lot of these minis.

When I found Shiv Games, I was more alone in my hobby space than I had been in decades. Since moving back to Salt Lake City, I had lost my regular gaming group, and was just going through the motions. After Shiv, I had a good group of people to hang out with. I painted my own miniatures, and even took on some commissions from the crew there.

All said and done, I probably painted close to 2,000 Infinity miniatures. I even ended up working at Shiv for a while, and painted the Jeff’s Shock Army, which I now own and can’t bear to part with.

Every single one of these models has a memory, whether it’s happily painting away at the shop and talking to the crew, sharing a laugh and a story or two. Or helping folks get their armies ready before tournaments, or building a table of terrain that I still think is the best work I’ve ever done.

And now, I have a bunch of models that make me a little sad. I really have no idea what to do with them. Part of me thinks they would be cool as models for Stargrave or Five Parsecs from Home, part of me wants to just build cool displays for them, and part of me just wants to launch them into the sun.

Sheesh. I only meant to write a few paragraphs, and now I’m being maudlin as hell. This is tricky. I’m not good at tricky!

So, this is where I’m going to ask you folks what you would do in this situation. I may not act on any of it, but I am genuinely interested in what other people might do!

Thanks for reading, and may all your rolls be entertaining rolls.

-Leigh

Marvel Zombies: Groot! Groot! Groot!

I love Groot! His miniature from Marvel Crisis Protocol is pretty sweet, but alas, I don’t have a personal aircraft hangar to store MCP figs, so I’ll have to do with these Marvel Zombies figs from Zombicide.

It’s a pretty solid sculpt, with plenty of room to play with tints and really break away from the monotony of painting a guy made of wood.

Here he is with Drax, the galaxy’s greatest saxaphone player!

MESBG: Boromir

When I was a kid I thought Boromir was the biggest idiot in The Lord of the Rings. Then, the Ralph Bakshi animated movie came out when I was 8, and I was convinced that I was right that entire time the second he walked on screen.

That helmet. That beard. His stupid, hairy, stupidness. But, even though I had read the books during an ill-advised flirtation with viral bronchitis, I wasn’t ready for the bad-assery that Bakshi unleashed with Boromir’s death scene!

He really took a liking to those arrows! Flash forward a few decades, and I was a solid Boromir fan. And then Sean Bean Sean Beaned his way into our collective hearts with a solid performance as Gondor’s favorite-not-perfect-son… what more could we ask for? Miniatures? DID SOMEONE SAY MINIATURES?

Games Workshop blundered its way into the Lord of the Rings license and somehow managed a hat trick that kept in it business long enough to become the champion of miniature game design and fair pricing that we know today! But I didn’t care at the time, being a new dad and too busy painting a billion points of Tau.

But now? Now I’m playing catch-up. And I’m going to do it with the original Fellowship figures, which are in no way showing their age. Actually, I jest. They’re definitely showing their age, but they’re still pretty sweet!

Somehow the little dude even looks like my favorite walking quiver!

I really wish there was another miniature of Boromir in this costume, there are some fantastic alt sculpts of the rest of the Fellowship out there, but Boromir Arrowshirt only got enough screen time to warrant this one figure. And, well, a Captain of Gondor fig, too, but I want this costume!

Here he is with the rest of the painted figs in the Fellowship:

Hopefully, Gimli will get that plane landed before the Balrog comes!

15mm Wargaming: Dumb and Dumberist

More progress has been made on my 15mm fantasy project, with a couple of thick-skulled gents ready to join my slowly growing horde of greenskins!

For games like Warmaster and Kings of War, these lumbering beauties can be fielded in groups of 3, but for skirmishers like Mordheim one will do!

I’m really impressed with the quality of the sculpts from Forest Dragon miniatures. They still look pretty great scaled up 50%, and I’m getting really excited to see where this army collection is going!

Next up I’m going to have to work on some more character models, and then terrain. Yeah. I need a metric ton of terrain!

Moonstone Miniatures Game: Claudia Duvel

My strategy for finishing up Moonstone miniatures is starting to pay off! It feels good to get an actual set of minis knocked out, now I have one less to paint! Here’s Claudia Duvel from the Masquerade box set:

She’s a fun character, I feel like she’s the muscle that backs up the menace and machinations of the Duchess and Creep!

In the Moonstone lore, Claudia is a highwaywoman, but with a heart of gold. She’s known to be a genteel conversationalist, and won’t take riches from her prey at a level that would leave them desitute!

She also refuses to take money or possessions of the working class, which I love. In the lore entry I found on Claudia, she even went so far as to dance with a gentleman who’s wife had been unable to do so since she was suffering from gout!

I absolutely love what a little bit of established lore and fluff can do to make a game setting feel more lived in! With that, The Masquerade is a wrap! On to a farting dog and a quick trip to goblin town!

Malifaux: December Crew

I’ve had to institute a “catch and release” program to keep the massive collection of miniatures that I’m amassing in my studio from overwhelming my house, so I’ll be keeping a keeper warband from each game I like, and setting the others free via Ebay. Don’t shed a tear for me, though, the painting is almost 100% of what I love about this hobby, so being able to paint a group, capture it on film, and then move on to the next without stressing out about storage is pretty liberating!

This December crew has some older models from Wyrd, but I love the overall vibe of the crew! This Rasputina in particular is pretty spiffy, and captures a lot of that mid-2000-teens steampunk energy that Wyrd was leaning in to!

The rest of the crew is December Acolytes and monsters!

The Ice Gaimin are transparent blue plastic, so they look pretty neat when the light hits them right. As is the giant ice golem!

Snow Storm is one of my favorite models out there, it just screams menace and intrigue!

I’ll be sharing quite a bit of Malifaux over the months to come! It’s probably my favorite game IP, and I’ve been painting a literal metric ton of these amazing models!

Turnip 28: Starting a Fresh Batch of Troops

I was just going through some old projects that I had started a while back and never got back into, and came across this Turnip 28 trooper that I put together about two years ago, and maaaan, I need to do more! This was really fun, I hope you enjoy checking it out as much as I enjoyed stumbling across it!

The first step was finding an old figure that could be the base, and this old 3D printed zombie fit the bill. It’s from about 2020, and the detail wasn’t great, but it’s a good base to start with!

I sketched up some ideas, I want him to have a pseudo plague doctor look to him, and a flaming turnip for a sigil on his shield.

I cut out some rings from a styrene rod to be lenses on his mask, and a larger ring to be bent into shape for the base of his beak. The beak started out as a cone of Epoxy Sculpt that was fit into place:

Then it was just a matter of sculpting in the details on the mask:

I also sculpted in some tubers growing out of the back of the mask to make him look freshly sprouted:

The shield was next up, and I wanted to keep it simple but still have some fun with it!

And here he is all painted up:

This was a really fun project and only took a few hours, I’m going to dig back into the box of bodies and see what else I can scrounge up to base more Turnip 28 troopers off of!