Faith and Piety - Background for the Witch Hunter

Hail Children of Technology!

As promised, here is the fluff for my Witch Hunter warband, I'll be doing fluff for each of the warbands that I make and I have plans on doing a few so keep a look out. hope you enjoy and feel free to comment below.

The Order of the Golden Cross

Witch Hunter Warband

The Order of the Golden Cross was originally founded in Wurtbad, Stirland in the year of our lord Sigmar 2509, by the local militia as a perminent deterant to the public not to stray from the path of piety after numerous accounts of strange goings on in the city. No more than a bunch of thugs at its outset, the count had given the men full reign of the law and the power of executioner as long as they were to hold up the faith of Sigmar and the Emperors justice. Wurtbad itself was home to one of the only secret hideouts of the Brotherhood of the Shroud in the Empire; the secretive and logically driven sub-cult of the god Morr who's service was to rooting out the taint of undeath; so it was not long before the Brotherhood brought their attentions towards this new and carelessly agressive band of men.

Approaching their leader under cover of night, a member of the Brotherhood offered the order help in their cause with arms and training and even some of their own members to bolster the ranks. This first offer was refused and the Brother arrested and tried as a conspiritor against the order and an agitator. The Brother was taken to the Order's holdings, a manor-house within the city dubbed the Black Fort. No one had even been seen returning from its heavy iron-bound doors unless they were already a member of the order. 

The Brotherhood send out another plea to the order, finding one of the members in a tavern surrounded by company of an ill repute. The member of the order was adorned with jewels and fine clothes and had developed a paunch, he ignored the words of the Brother and quickly shunned him in favour of female comany and mead. The Brother asked the bartender from whence did such finery come and was told that the order had been sponsored by the Lady Monique Voldenbach, a noble who had appeared in the city not too long ago. Had the order been corrupted by wealth and other pleasures of the flesh?

The Brotherhood mobilised. Sending its best men to investigate this noble woman and find out what her agenda was in buying off the order. Seeking her out at the Voldenbach estate, the Brotherhood's finest slipped unbeknowst to her bodyguards at the gate and entered her home. What the Brotherhood were to find was not what they were expecting. Tomes of unspeakable horror lining her bookcases in an extensive library of necromanic knowledge, a dungeon-like cellar ladened with bones and the Lady herself in mid-ritual. The Lady was no lady at all but a foul vampire spawn, an ancient and powerful Lahmian!

Her plot unravelled in the minds of the Brothers present. Transfixing her bodyguards with her undead sorcery, posing herself as a noblewoman and inserting herself into the heriarchy of Wurtbad, taking control of the order by their desire for power and wealth; she was free to run riot and position herself to take the city, and by extention the entire province for her own! The Brotherhood would not stand for this but they needed help. 

Loosing their three best members to the vile creature upon their retreat from her manor, the Brothers were weakened considerably but not defeated. They saw that any accusation thrown in the open about the Lady Monique would bring about their end at the hands of her bodyguards and the order, so cunning had to be the weapon of choice. One of the Brotherhood's members secreted a note to the order telling them of a Ball that was to be held in the city a month from then and that each of the order was to be invited and that they should extend the invitation to their patron, offering her the chance to mingle with guests from as far as Tilea. 

The invitation worked wonders and soon the order was buzzing with excitement for this night of frivolity held in their honour. The night came and the order and their patron arrived at the ball but to a welcome they were not expecting. The main hall, which had been expected to be full of foreign dignitaries and fine food and wine was instead lined entirely with mirrors. The doors barred behind them to see no reflection of their patron apon the walls. drawing swords, the order turned upon their master and in a fit of bloody violence were nearly ripped limb from limb by the raging fury of the vampire. Escaping by smashing her way through the barred door and away into the night, the Lady Monique slipped through the grasp of the Brotherhood that night but they had suceeded in another way.

The Order of the Golden Cross was reformed that night. The surviving members becoming nothing more than prophets of doom, flagellants for their sins against the Lord Sigmar and making a pact with the Brotherhood of the Shroud to hunt down the Dark Lady Monique Voldenbach and slay her once and for all. Witch Hunters, Templar Knights, Scourges of the Unholy, Pious men of faith and many others from Stirland and neihboring provinces were to fill the ranks of the Golden Cross as well as priests of both Morr and Sigmar, working all together to find and kill the vile Vampiric taint from the lands of the empire forever.

 Hope you enjoyed that little peice of prose. I'll have more details on the current members of the warband and their individual backstories in the near future so stay tuned for that and as I mentioned above feel free to comment below about the story, witch hunters or anything else that takes your fancy.

So until next time, Keep your blades enriched with Deeds of Violence!

Fighting to protect the sanctity of Sigmar! - Witch Hunters Finally Arrive!

Hail, Children of Technology!

Well well well... You see it alot with blogs and mine in particular but its not intended whatsoever. Im talking about content lapses. I am responsible for not 1, not 2 but three major breaks in this blog. A tut tut should be ushered and a slap on the wrists given for such shoddyness to be beholdened to you, the reader. But, alas I have chosen to take up the mantle of Migrainer... I mean Wargamer once more as I delve into the paint pots and produce for you some miniatures!

Now, less babbling incoherantly and more pushing pictures into your retinas!

 Here is my Witch-Hunter Captain, a bog standard GW Witch Hunter from this edition. Wonderful miniature to paint, filled with lovely detail and charm. Also, my first attempt at using Finecast, which isn't as bad as I'd first thought it might be. Might have to try out some more of these new fangled resin miniatures in the future...

Next is the first of the 3 other Witch hunters in the warband. This one is an Avatars of War miniature and as with each of the other miniatures has no conversions/GS stuff done to it whatsoever. 

 This is the second Witch Hunter, again no changes but shows how the older GW figures (E.G. 90s Dogs of War) stand the test of time and work well with other miniatures created in any period of GWs history, or any company for that matter.

Here is my Warrior-Priest, Another Avatars of War miniature. Love this guy. Just a magnificent miniature that shows off all that it is to hold the faith of Sigmar as a weapon against evil. Hopefully he gets Soulfire again in my next campaign so I can AoE some zombies into ashes again!

 Heres the final Witch Hunter, again an unchanged one. Love the stuff that came out of the era of Warhammer Quest, I've got a few of the metal miniatures and I cant wait to paint them all up. Would also love to make some Quest boards and a way of random generation without me having to print the cards out or buy them of ebay for exuberant prices.

Here we have the crazed lunatics that follow the Witch Hunters around. 5 Flagellants with great weapons, these mad bastards are not to be triffled with. Slight bit of conversion work here where I simply took the flail heads off the flagellant sprues and put them on the ends of the shafts to make big maces for the crazy mob to run around with. The first guy (the one with the torch) is the Lad's got Talent guy and there is a slight adjustment in his arm that was done by simply gapfilling and resculpting the robes on his arm.

Next up we have a Hired Sword. A Trollslayer to be exact. He's another Avatars of War miniature and just like the Warrior-Priest was an absolute pleasure to paint. Last time I played I got stuck in with this little guy as a mercenary but I might get to use him as a hero in a Dwarven Treasure Hunters gang pretty soon. Note the last picture, Im going to finish this miniature with a little bit of water effects to create a small pool of goblin blood right behind the head.

Now where theres witch hunters, there tends to be the taint of Chaos and this gang wouldn't be complete without showing you my next project. Here is the start of the next gang I intend to work on, The Cult of the Possessed. I started by creating the body of the gang, the Darksouls. These are simple conversions using flagellant bodies repositioned at this hips and filled in with GS where there were holes and marauder horsemen, beastmen and warriors of chaos weapons and accessories. Finally, they have GS masks covering their faces all except for the Lad's got Talent guy (pictured on his own) who doesn't need to hide behind a mask and shows his loyalties to the Dark Gods openly.

These guys will have some additions to them in the future when I find inspiration/have money but in the mean time I have a hell of a lot of other miniatures to paint including nearly all of the Hired Swords (I dont yet have a Road Warden, Highwayman or Beast Hunter), Some Vampire related stuff, Reiklanders, Middenheimers, Dwarves, Villagers and NPCs, Orcs and Goblins, Skaven... The possibilities of what I paint next are nigh-on endless! I also want to post some fluff about each of the Warbands and the characters there in which will be modified each time they are played. I also have ideas a-plenty about a whole range of mordheim rules/settings related stuff to talk about and even some possible terrain projects lined up but all of these things will have to wait until another day...

So until next time, Keep your blades enriched with Deeds of Violence

Horror, Steampunk, Gothic, Western?...Malifaux!

Well, this is what I've been working on this week, New additions to my Malifaux gang.

Ive had Sonnia Criid and her Witch Hunters for quite a while now and havn't really played a propper game with them in nearly a year so I thought that it was high time that I dusted off the minis and began doing something with them. Sonnia and Samael Hopkins have been painted a while now.

 

 I was very pleased with how Sonnia came out, especially the smooth flesh tones which I did using Formula P3 Midlund Flesh and old Citadel Elf Flesh for the Highlight.

 

 The more rugged looing Samael Hopkins came out quite nice (sorry about the dark Picture, need to set up a propper photo taking area), I quite like how his stubble came out using a mix of thinned old Citadel Leviathan Purple and Badab Black washes.

The Witchling Stalkers have been re-painted twice now as I have been toying with OSL lighting effects coming from their goggles and haven't been satisfied with the last attempts so they are still PIP but they will be finished soon (just as long as im happy with it this time), and there are 3 new additions to the gang.

First is Nino Ortega, giving the gang some much needed firepower, second is the Purifying Flame so that Sonnia can have some extra firepower and finally is the Executioner, who is absolutely essential to most Guild gangs. I have assembled Nino and the Flame and based them using Model Display Products cobblestone bases and they are ready for priming. The Executioner still needs a 40mm base so i'll pick one of them up next time i'm in my local gaming store.

So that's it for now. Hopefully next time I'll have the gang based and painted and can show them off propperly, so until then.. Happy Gaming!

Tredegar Reavers All-day Sunday

Sunday was a blast as it was the first time that I could return to Tredegar Reavers wargames club in months. It was a great day and was fun seeing all the guys that I used to play with every week. There were 3 games going on during the day, 2 Warhammer 40k Apocalypse games which both looked awesome and Hew's (one of our members) own Pirate game (which im pretty sure still hasn't got a title). I played in the Pirates game and had great fun plundering a spanish galleon after killing its crew. I took quite a few pictures of the day, so here they are...

There we go, lots of fun. The British privateer's came out the victors over the spanish navy in the Pirates game when we took the biggest spanish ship, much to the supprise of Hew who was refereeing the game.  Not exactly sure how the Nids Vs Imperials/Eldar or Chaos Vs Imperials apoc games turned out but it didn't look hopeful for the Eldar by the time I left. Cant wait 'til December now when I'll be back for several weeks..

Anyway, that was Sunday. Hope you enjoyed a look at the event and if you would like to find out more about the club you can either contact them at http://tredegarreavers.yolasite.com/ or dropping a line with our fearless leader Kev (aka Vandalworks) on here via this link.