Over the past week I've been working on part of a unit of Chaos Warriors and it turned into a bit of an exercise in something I've not done much of before - batch painting!
People who build armies do it all the time and I'm always impressed when they also manage to keep character in each model. That was my secondary task!
Incidentally, these guys are actually going to be a faction in my mercenary force so aren't allied to Chaos as such.
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Age of $igmar took an interesting turn over the last few weeks with the Fyreslayers entering the fray as their own faction who can (for all intents and purposes) be used by any of the "Grand Alliances". The Grand Alliances is a larger grouping of how Races and Factions march to war.
They were always part of Age of $igmar, but now Games Workshop have updated their site to show this more explicitly, which certainly helps when you're trying to work out who goes where and why...
There has been talk of more factions, like the Fyreslayers, who could be used by all the Alliances if the price is right or some other form of inducement is made to join their army. It certainly opens up the idea of army building! In this new Age of $igmar, you could effectively have Beastmen units in the same army allied with Fyreslayers - IF the Beastmen had enough ur-gold that is... and knowing them they would be able to steal enough.
As far as alliances go that break these Grand Alliances, I wonder if you could have a Wood Elf and Beastmen alliance? I like the idea of these Guardians of the Forest against human encroachment or maybe Undead. How would these guys align considering Beastmen are Chaos?
As much as the Grand Alliances seem like a good idea, what's with the Dark Elf and Elf alliance? That seems really odd! They have been mortal enemies for ever and a day and now here they are holding hands. The Dark Elves seem more at home in the Death Grand Alliance to me, or like the Fyreslayers being guns for hire - pirates per se!

It's in the name "Dark Elf" isn't it? All clad in black and dark colours, but why not try something completely new?
I absolutely love the Dark Elves, more correctly I love the Dark Elves that were released in 2013 - they are amazing models full of character and menace, very much like their 40K cousins the Dark Eldar (All Praise Jes Goodwin).
I was thinking about this recently and the idea of a white Dark Elves unit, at the time specifically for a cabal of Dark Elves living in a snowy region.
My previous Dark Elves have been very black - what one reader called "Batman Black" - with subtle highlighting and deep blacks to make them very formidable looking.
The idea of a white Dark Elf was the exact opposite and quite a challenge when I actually sat down with the excellent  Black Guard of Naggarond model and started.
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The Warhammer Age of Sigmar plows on with more of Sigmar's forces - this time the Paladins! 
It's an interesting choice by games Workshop to have spent the last weeks concentrating entirely on one force, and particularly since they look so similar. You'd wonder whether a staggered release with good guys one week, then bad guys the next and so on, would keep the buzz alive a little more. The initial buzz about Age of Sigmar seems to be fading somewhat with the initial run on product in the stores now slowing down and less and less of the tables at stores have people painting them.
The relaunch was a brilliant idea, but has it been handled well? I'm personally sick of gold on the cover!
This week also sees the introduction of two brilliant looking pieces of terrain, the Sylvaneth turn up and we if The End Times wasn't enough for you, we look at the Undead!
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Games Workshop's Warhammer Age of Sigmar has been dominating the releases for the last couple of weeks and hidden in the background of many of the shots was a whole new line of pretty cool looking scenery.
Well the first of it has been released today; the Ophsidian Gate and the Baleful Realmgates, both quite detailed and a whole new look for Games Workshop terrain.
Games Workshop have had terrain for some years - but it's never really taken off, probably due people not wanting to spend large amounts of money on scenery.
The look of the Baleful Realmgates has changed a bit since we first saw them - originally they had green spooky stuff coming out of them, making them look similar to the Nagash releases, but in the past week or so they have changed that colour to yellow.
Last week we discussed that and the eerie similarity these gates now have to an iconic sci-fi character.
Do you want to know more?
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The thing with leaks on places like Twitter and Facebook is that we can get a good early look at what's coming out next week. Some have speculated that this may in fact be a form of guerrilla advertising by Games Workshop themselves - but this week it went to new heights with almost, if not all, of this week's White Dwarf being leaked bit by bit and then a flood!
Now everyone loves a hint, a teaser - but I have to say, for the first time, that the leaks this week really took the wind out of the next installment of Age of Sigmar which, like last week, is 100% of the White Dwarf.
This week's White Dwarf delves deeper into the new world of Warhammer with the The Forces of Order getting a write up, a look at the Mortal Realms, the Great Alliance and of course next week's miniatures, the Liberators and Lord-Celestant as well as the background book and more.
Like to get a closer look at what's inside?
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It's pretty safe to say that Warhammer Age of Sigmar is probably the biggest thing to happen to Warhammer in many years. Precipitated by The End Times, Age of Sigmar is set hundreds of years after the sundering of worlds, so much so that those times are consigned to myth and legend.
Chaos has ruled supreme since Sigmar's alliance was betrayed (by whom I'm not sure) and the people have suffered horribly. Age of Sigmar surrounds the return of Sigmar and his new forces as they attempt to liberate the worlds from Chaos. It's an interesting plot device to have all we have know consigned to history. Pretty smart actually!
White Dwarf #75 is entirely involved with this release and fleshing out the universe. There is a lot of fluff, the four page rule set (how weird is that BTW), the Warscrolls (which are like the 40K Datasheets) a painting guide of sorts (curiously not called Paint Splatter), Sprues and Glue looks at construction of some of the kits (little that there is) - this is simply one of the best looking White Dwarfs we have seen. + + More After The Jump + +

Warhammer Age of Sigmar hits today with the release of White Dwarf #75. Not only is there a tonne of pictures and information, the entire rule set (all four pages) is included and a bonus miniature is packed on the front. I'm sure these will fly off the shelves like hot cakes!
Of course what would a release be without a website update and Games Workshop have completely redesigned the Warhammer section!
The sidebar now shows the Alliances, the Factions, the Races and probably more interestingly the Unit Types which is a big departure from the old classes and probably more in line with Dungeons and Dragons or an online MMORPG like World of Warcraft or the like.
To give so much information so early is really interesting and the new race names take a little while to get used to. Incidentally, contrary to popular belief, the Ogres are not allied to The Order, rather Destruction, and the Lizardmen find themselves in with The Order!
Also launched today are the free Rules & Warscroll Compendiums (click the pic for the link) with all the stats you'll need to build your force under the new rules. I wonder how long these will keep the old Race names before transitioning over to the new Race names - if they do at all.
The back of each Compendium also explains any names changes.

Potentially the worst kept secret this year, but Warhammer is back, bigger and badder and... well there's a lot of talk and really not much action here.
There have been leaks (more after the jump) but any official look and word has been non-existent and this issue of White Dwarf which is pretty much dominated by it has ZERO new content.
You would think that with such an important relaunch and massive change to the look of the miniatures that they would at least throw us a bone - OR just deluge us with new stuff. Shock and Awe!!
Well unfortunately that's not what we get.
This issue is, yes, dominated by Warhammer but as for new releases - if some books and an Eldar Jetbike Host are it then maybe you need to look at something to satiate people's thirst.
So what do you get? Well there's some Dark Angels stuff, many pages on Warhammer & a nice Ultramarines force. Want to know more?
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