Sylvaneth Kurnoth Hunters (2nd unit)

Being a very lucky chap whose wife is very supportive of my hobby activities, part of my birthday present this year was this unit of Kurnoth Hunters. This was the second unit of Hunters I've painted...  I posted the first set of models here.

Generally, I followed the same steps covered by the post linked above. However, I wanted to learn from the experience of building and painting the first unit so I did a few things differently!

The main difference centred around the use of subassemblies. This time around, I didn't glue the arms, head or shoulder pads together. This allowed much easier access to the dark green 'flesh' areas of the models.

The second change relates to the arrows. This was quite minor but I chose to apply an edge highlight to the yellow 'feather' areas of the arrows. I felt that on the first set of models, the yellow looked a bit flat and this change helped them start out a lot better!

Thirdly, I wanted to prevent the wash from neutralising the blue used for the runes and facial details. I first tried this on the unit of Dryads I recently completed. It worked a treat!

I really like how this unit turned out. I feel as if the small changes I'm making to my process - removing the wash from the blue areas, spot highlighting certain details - will really help address the concern I have around the models looking too dull/flat.

2018 Birthday Weekend at Warhammer World

Last year I went to Warhammer World for my birthday and it was great fun. This year I wanted to improve on a single day visit... so the wife and I went for the weekend!

I've been lucky enough to visit Warhammer World 5 times now (i think). It's easy to get caught up in the hyperbole about the place but, after 5 visits, I do feel able to state with a degree of balance, that it's a fantastic place!

The remodelled store and exhibition centre are great. It was good before... but, as with most things relating to GW these days, they've excelled with the changes made. My first 3 visits to WW were with my gaming buddy. He hasn't visited since the remodel and we are both visiting for a gaming weekend at the end of April. I can't wait to see how he reacts (or how much money he spends!!).

As usual, Bugmans was a great place to hang out. I opted for an Engineer Burger one evening. I'm still not entirely sure how I managed to finish it!! It was huge! so tasty though. I sampled a few pints of Blitzers Best as well... cracking pint! Oh, and Bugmans XXXXXX isn't too bad either!

Anyway, my awesome wife presented me with a not insignificant amount of vouchers before we went. I don't think I've ever concentrated so much on choosing what to buy!! Below is a picture of my haul.

I chose:

• Alarielle The Everqueen
• Deimos Pattern Infernus Predator
• Roboute Guilliman
• Redemptor Dreadnought
• Static Grass
• Kurnoth Hunters
• Exclusive Warhammer World Soundtrack
• Greeting From Cadia (I had 50p of vouchers left over...)

I wanted to achieve 2 goals 1) fleshing out my Sylvaneth list so that I could field 2000 points and 2) add some armour to my upcoming Blood Angels force. The Kurnoth Hunters and Alarielle boxed off my Sylvaneth goal... and I now have 2,300 points available! As for the Blood Angels... I don't especially like the Baal Predator model so chose to go for the Infernus Predator instead. The Easy to Build Repemptor Dreadnought, for £25 was a no-brainer. Guilliman was thrown in as he's a great model, he's a sodding Primarch!!! and I believe he has some cool rules ;)

Expect to see these units being painted up rather quicky! 

Sylvaneth Kurnoth Hunters

Today my post covers a unit of Longbow equipped Kurnoth Hunters. I finished these at the end of last year but it's been a busy start to 2018!

The Sylvaneth list I am preparing is extremely heavy with melee units and the army I will be facing, for my first Age of Sigmar battles, will be Ironjaws… so, also pretty primarily melee focused… bearing this in mind, I chose to equip this unit of Kurnoth Hunters with longbows.

I found the unit a pleasure to build and paint… and I especially love the little critters that accompany the Hunters and carry their ammunition!

Let's go through the paint scheme:

The main ‘bark’ was painted following the Harvestboon grove scheme I've been using thus far. The layers were all applied with the airbrush. Dryad Bark > Gorthor Brown > Baneblade Brown > Ushabti Bone > Screaming Skull. Aside from in the darkest recesses, the Dryad Bark isn’t particularly visible on the model, however, whilst painting a couple of Branchwraiths I chose to follow a different process and skipped the darker colours, going straight in at the Baneblade Brown stage: this was a mistake as it compromised the tone of the Caliban Green which has layered on top… so I reverted back to my original process with these models! The secondary tones of the bark are a 50/50 mix of Ogryn Camo and Screaming Skull whilst the green is Caliban Green.

The recess ‘flesh’ areas of the models were again painted along the same lines as my other Sylvaneth models: Caliban Green and then highlighted up with Warpstone Glow and Moot Green. The leaves were first painted with Moot Green and then glazed with Lamenters Yellow.

The flesh of the little critters was first painted Celetra Grey, then glazed with Guilleman Blue and finished off with a drybrush of Skull White. The bark of the critters followed the same scheme as the bark of the Kurnoth Hunters. To add a bit more colour to the arrows, both those held by the critters and the main models, I lightly airbrushed Averland Sunset onto the feather/leave area. These were then glazed with Lamenters Yellow.

The remaining details were painted as follows: Gold: Balthasar Gold > Gehennas Gold > Auric Armour. Bow shaft: Rhinox Hide > Doombull Brown > Tuskgor Flesh. Lamentari: Caledor Blue > Teclis Blue > Lothern Blue. Finally, I painted the runes, eyes and mouth with Baharroth Blue.

Once the models had been painted I applied several thin coats of gloss varnish. Once the varnish had been left to dry overnight I finished off the models with a 50/50 wash of Soft Tone/Army Painter Shade Medium.

I based the models using the process mentioned here.