Today I have another great Army Showcase to share: Veillotron’s award-winning Stormcast.  Veillotron’s Stormshadow Crusaders are an excellent example of seamless conversions matched with a strong theme and great painting.  The more you look at the models, the more you notice and appreciate the force.  It has such a great overall tabletop effect too.

For more great Age of Sigmar armies, check out the other showcase posts.  And remember that the site is now partnered with Dark Fantastic Mills, producers and purveyors of amazing 3D printed terrain and you can use the code “aos shorts” to get 10% off.  The terrain is super light so shipping worldwide is surprisingly cheap.  With that said, I’ll hand over to Veillotron to talk a little about his army.

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Stormshadow Crusaders

I got into Age of Sigmar two years ago. I had painted models between the ages of 10 and 15 but had not picked up a brush in 25 years. Spurred by my son who wanted to play the game, I decided to take on the challenge of painting a full army, something I had never done before.

I’ve always loved knights and mostly painted Bretonnian models when I was younger. As there are no chivalric factions in Age of Sigmar, Stormcast were the next logical choice; I also really liked their aesthetics.

The most important goal when designing my army was to make it as unique as possible, to make it my own. That meant coming up with a differentiated i) theme; ii) color scheme; and iii) conversions, which I had never done before.

2 Boards, 1 Story: little video of the finished product… The execution on the water could have better, but overall quite happy with the end result. My son’s board got Bronze overall (as per previous tweet), and I managed to get Gold at AoP! Apologies for the wobbly camera..😎 pic.twitter.com/GaVFCfsqUS

— Veillotron (@_Veillotron_) October 21, 2018

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Developing a Theme for the Stormshadow Crusaders

I wanted my army to have a battle-worn, realistic and gritty appearance. I wanted my warriors to look like they had gone through – and survived – hundreds of battles. I also wanted my Stormcasts to be menacing and dark, whilst remaining noble.

The Stormshadow Crusaders is a Stormhost formed exclusively of ex-Chaos worshipers (mostly adepts of Tzeentch) which have been ‘converted’ by Ghal Maraz. Continuously haunted by their past crimes, they are on a never-ending quest for redemption.

One of the reasons I love the battle-worn/weathered look so much is all the added details and textures which can be added to armour, boots and clothing.  I was inspired by many photos on Putty & Paint.

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Converting the Stormcast

Converting models is the best way to make your army feel more unique. Since I had never done any conversion work before, I thought that doing simple headswaps would be the easiest way to learn about that part of the hobby.

I was also keen to give my Stormcast a more medieval and practical feel. Games Workshop has a tendency of making huge helms for leaders, and I wanted my heroes to look like they dressed for a battle, not a parade.

It took me a while – longer than I had originally though – to find Games Workshop helms that fitted the style that I was looking for [Editor: converters often look for official Games Workshop parts so that they can take part in events at Warhammer World]. The more recent Bretonnian sculpts all had those heraldic decorations which didn’t fit the theme of my army. I really liked the sculpts from the late 80s/early 90s, but given cost and availability, it didn’t make sense. In the end, I found a lot of the helms I am using through the ForgeWorld website.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much of an impact a headswap can have on the overall appearance of a model.

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Picking the Color Scheme

My initial goal was to make the army as monochromatic as possible. I knew from the start that I wanted my army’s two main colours to be silver and white. But I wanted those two colors to be much darker in shade, to reflect my Stormcasts’s darker side

The only other color I was initially intending to use was brown – for belts, scabbards, boots, etc.
I quickly came to the realisation that those colors were too bland. I then decided to add to the palette a purplish maroon (similar to the Stormcast’s standard hilt color) and some gold, which worked well as a spot color, really bringing some life into the models.

Monsters and mounts are a good way to introduce another color into your army without disrupting the overall theme. With the idea of keeping the look of my army as monochromatic as possible, I painted my dracoths in the same purplish maroon I used for the weapon hilts and the primes’ manes. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out as I had hoped, the whole army looked a bit too dark and bland.

So I decided to try a new color scheme for my gryph-chargers, something lighter. And that’s when I decided to go for the grey-blue/white scheme, with some thunderhawk blue to add a bit more life.  I was really happy with the results on the test model and decided to paint all mounts and monsters in that color scheme.

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Lord-Celestant on Aetherdrake

As the centerpiece of my army I wanted to build an Aetherdrake: a more nimble, fast-moving and wingless Stardrake (wingless was much more for practical reasons than an aesthetic choice: I wanted to be able to travel to the UK without the model breaking apart).

I found that, when tilted, the Carnosaur pose seems even more dynamic, as if he’s running at full speed. That is why I decided to use that model as the starting base for my Aetherdrake.

This was by far my biggest conversion work, although it was mostly kit-bashing and required very little green-stuffing.  I had a lot of fun kit-bashing this hero. I used bits from the Carnosaur, Stardrake, Archaon, Lord-Aquilor, Vanguard-Palladors, Celestant-Prime, Gavriel Sureheart, Sequitors, Liberators and Ruins of Osgiliath kits.  The helm is from ForgeWorld’s Infernal Guards Fireglaives. Oh, and a few Bonesplitters arrows!

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Celestant-Prime

For practical reasons, I decided to do the Prime without his wings. I also wasn’t too keen on the shape of the Prime’s wings, they reminded me a bit too much of traditional religious paintings. It also made him look a bit less angelic and slightly more menacing. Now that my army has been magnetized and easily fits into my case, I have been thinking of adding a pair of wings. If I do, I will be using the wings of the Knight-Azyros.

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Cyan Aetherblade, Lord-Aquilor

This is actually my favourite model, despite it not my best paint job (I’ve done a better job painting the gryph-charger fur of most of my Palladors…). He is also my only named model, I need to come up with names for all my other dudes…

I really love the model because of i) that helmet, my all-time favorite sculpt (comes from a knight model I bought in the late 80s); ii) I love the regal pose of the gryph-charger; and iii) I love the skull chalice he’s holding in his left hand – that is a nod to both his background lore and to my personal Grail, the Warhammer World Grand Tournament trophy which I will never win…

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Lord-Castellant

This was my first attempt at OSL. Might have gone a bit too heavy on the blue highlights, but it was a fun experience. The helm is from ForgeWorld’s Infernal Guard Standard Bearer.

 

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Knight Incantor

This is the latest hero that I’ve painted. It is still a work in progress, as I need to tidy-up some elements, work further on the magical blue items, and scratches on the pauldrons, amongst others. But this level was good enough for me to put him on my Armies on Parade board.

The head is used is from a Warhammer 40,000 Wrack; initially it looked too small compared to the body; by adding a Liberator ‘steel halo’, the proportions work better.

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Vanguard-Palladors

The Vanguard-Palladors are in my humble view some of Games Workshop’s best models, I just love their dynamic poses.

I tried to paint the gryph-charger’s fur to look like the one of a panther, which was a lot of fun. I do find that painting texture on larger areas does help make it more interesting.

The helms are from the Freeguild Greatswords kit and the Demigryph knights.

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Liberators

This is the first unit of my army which I painted.  I initially painted them with the Stormcast facemasks, as I had not been able to find a proper helm for them. I recently opted for the helms of the 30k World Eaters kit from ForgeWorld.

To match the look of my Stardrake I also added a few arrows to the unit – some hitting shields and a few hitting their targets.

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What’s Next for Veillotron’s Stormcast?

I doubt that anybody was as excited as I was about the release of the Sacrosanct chamber. I had been dreaming about Stormcast in robes for the last 2 years. I tried – and failed – to convert many Ahriman and Dark Angels models into Stormcast models; with his chalice and spell book, my Lord-Aquilor was somewhat of a Lord-Arcanum before the models were released.

So now that those Sacrosanct models are out, I have a lot of units to add to my army – as many, if not more, than the current number of models I currently have. And so I probably have another 12-18 months of painting before I can say that I’m happy with my Stormcast army.

But I might take a small break and paint something for a change. My pile of grey plastic has grown much faster than the number of painted models, and I have enough to build 4 additional armies. I want to paint a Chaos army based in some frozen land, but I think that I’ll start with a destruction army, led by the lovely Troll Hag.

Today I have another great army showcase to share with you:  Adam Cunis‘ Living City army.  Full of amazing conversions – from dragons, to griffons, to a unique Treelord Ancient.  It is definitely worth checking out Adam’s award-winning army.  Adam was also kind enough to share his thoughts on how the army came together and developed over time.  Thanks Adam!

For more great Age of Sigmar armies, check out the other showcase posts.  And remember that the site is now partnered with Dark Fantastic Mills, producers and purveyors of amazing 3D printed terrain and you can use the code “aos shorts” to get 10% off.  The terrain is super light so shipping worldwide is surprisingly cheap.  With that said, I’ll hand over to Oscar to talk a little about his army.

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For the love of dragons

Like everything in Age of Sigmar it started with a dragon… #dragonmeta

I’d got to a point this year of disenchantment with Order Draconis, not because they aren’t awesome, but mostly because I’m not as awesome at playing AoS as the list could be. I was rereading Firestorm, looking for inspiration, and somewhere else to stick a bunch of dragons for more fun games down at Magic Madhouse (Angel Wargamers’ de facto headquarters these days).

After AoS2 dropped I played a lot of competitive games in a short space of time and burned out.

I’ve only comparatively recently become a matched gamer. Having been painting toys based on what I think is cool for 22 years (never did the break thing that you hear about anecdotally whilst people become students etc) and playing at tournaments since only 2013 (a couple of 40k events followed in 2014 by SCGT!).

Glade Lord on Forest Dragon

A couple years back, I built my pride and joy – a Glade Lord on Forest Dragon.  The aim was to run him as an ally for my Order Draconis.

He was 400 points, Wanderers were in the allies matrix and this was before the existence of the Doppelganger Cloak which has a similar effect to the soporific breath

However, the Wanderer keyword vanished when the warscrolls were updated. So, for a while Skarloc Swiftstride, Dragonrider (my old Realms at War wardancer narrative conversion) became a Dragonlord for Order Draconis instead… and it was glorious.

But dragons aren’t my only love in AoS.

Wanderers

When the world exploded and all our bases lost their corners I was painting twigs I’d found in the garden to look like fallen boughs of Wildwood trees… and sullen, green clad Wood Elves to stand on them. In fact the first models I painted for Age of Sigmar were wanderers. And under Mo Comp I did quite well with them. But then, as with all good things, the time of the Waywatchers came to pass and only the Lord option remained. Gone were my 3 man machine gun, 80 point battleline units.

The rise of Sylvaneth

Then came the Sylvaneth. I’d always run a few Dryads, a Branchwraith, three Treekin and a Treelord with my wanderers. But the battletome was my best bet at an army that felt like the play style of 8th Edition old world wood elves.

I had some limited success with the list and converted all my Kurnoth Hunters to match my Tree Revenants. I wanted elf spirits emerging from trees across the army.

All of which, unbeknownst to me, was leading me down the shadowy paths of Ghyran to the Jade Kingdom of Thyria and the city of the Everqueen herself, the first of the seeds of hope: The Living City.

The Living City

The initial thought behind building a Living City army from the Firestorm Allegiance was to include a Treelord Ancient, Glade Lord on Forest Dragon (Stardrake) and Orion (Celestant Prime) as Triumvirate leaders of an alliance of the peoples of Order.

The Treelord Ancient

The Treelord Ancient was built using finecast Belakor’s torso and a head from Inquisitor Scale Kal Jerico (he came with three). The staff top is an actual pine cone and the basis for the rest of the model is metal Treebeard from LotR and some actual pieces of wood!

I bought a larger base to transform Skarloc into a Stardrake rider, bought a larger base to transform Orion into a Celestant Prime (his Retribution on High ability easily explained by the Hidden in the Shadows allegiance ability).

As I played with lists I moved away from the Stardrake – he’s so expensive points wise, everything I wrote was very alpha strike/ combat orientated. Which is fine. But is exactly what I’d been playing already with Order Draconis.

A new direction – refugees and prospectors

So I thought what do I really want from the army, I thought about human refugees and prospectors, working alongside the aelves of Ghryan, I thought about having fewer Sylvaneth in the army itself as they would be within the forest, so the Branchwraith and summonable Dryads came in.

The Treelord ancient had to stay to put forests on the table for my ambush tactics and that just didn’t feel like a Stardrake or Prime build anymore.

I realised that I wanted to recreate that almost-but-not-quite synergy I’d had thematically with my Wanderers and Sylvaneth back at the beginning of AoS.

So battleline was to be filled out with ragtag human survivors, and thirty glade guard.

I realised that if I deploy off the table with the archers and ambush with them then I do not have the opportunity to use the Nomad Prince’s reroll 1s to hit command ability reliably (activated in the hero phase) so in came a Sylvaneth Knight Azyros.

Godric, Freeguild General on Griffon

I looked at the Free Peoples range and remembered about the General on Griffon, one of my all time favourite models, except for the static pose necessary for old monster base squares…

A narrative started to form in my head of the Lady Alarielle herself saving the life of Godric, Freeguild General, of no given land, a nomad, questing knight. He swore allegiance to the goddess of life and by extension swore to protect her city and the hope it represented to the forces of Order.

I wanted him to be a centrepiece towering above the footslogging aelves and men (at this point I have no dispossessed Duardin in the army, although a mining cart might be entertaining) so I took a hobby knife and clippers to the Griffon and its rider.

A paint scheme challenge

And then he got some paint, Andy Burton and I have been challenging each other to level up our painting recently and he reckoned that Purple, Green and Yellow would work well, but It’d be hard work. So I took on the challenge.

Driven by narrative

You’ll notice in the previous image that Godric has both his arms intact. Just before priming him I had a brainwave, if Lady Alarielle had blessed him with new life, something ought to show, out came the clippers, on came a Tree Revenant arm instead, blessings of the lady indeed! His head, for those interested is from the Van Saar warband in Necromunda and the Living City symbol on the Griffon’s chest armour is carefully cut from printer paper (I drew it with Green pen, its not green stuff it’s just what was lying around…) and affixed with PVA glue then sealed with ‘Ardcoat.

Demigryph Knights

The rest of the army came together pretty easily at this point from my existing collection of Wood Elves and Sylvaneth until… club mate Alex decided he was running Sylvaneth in 2019 at the two team events we’re signed up for so… I can’t have Kurnoth Hunters in my list. I racked my brains (and Andy’s and Matt Hinton’s on a long drive to London from York) and replaced them with Demigryph Knights, a much underused unit.

But the models are a bit gormless… back in 2014 I had a Demonic mount battle standard bearer in 8th edition for my Chaos army, he was riding a big old lion:

I thought I’d do the same conversion but for a whole unit!

The Living City list coalesces

The rest of the list shaped up like this for Angelcore which was a 2k tournament at Magic Madhouse London 6-7th October 2018.  You can check out coverage including streamed games here.  

Allegiance: The Living City
Mortal Realm: Ghyran
Leaders
Treelord Ancient (300)
Branchwraith (80)
Freeguild General On Griffon (260)
– General
– Shield & Greathammer
– Trait: Legendary Fighter
– Artefact: Ghyrstrike
Knight-Azyros (100)
Spellweaver (100)
– Heartwood Staff
Nomad Prince (80)
Battleline
10 x Freeguild Archers (100)
10 x Freeguild Guard (80)
– Halberds and Shields
30 x Glade Guard (360)
Units
3 x Demigryph Knights (140)
– Lance and Sword
20 x Wildwood Rangers (280)
Endless Spells
Chronomantic Cogs (60)
Total: 1940 / 2000

So there we have it, a bit long, a bit rambling, but that’s how my Living City army came to fruition this summer. I’ve really enjoyed playing something a bit more dynamic and active than throwing three dragons at people. I’m already planning an Alarielle conversion and writing lists that include elements from this one with more Sylvaneth too!

The full Living City army on display

Thanks for reading

Adam

@HadrielCaine