Warhammer Armies

One of the hardest things to do as you start your adventure with Warhammer is choosing an Army. Game Workshop gives you the choice of 15 races, each with their own unique flavor and mythos and style of fighting.

• Beastmen
  
• Bretonnia
  
• Daemons of Chaos
  
• Dark Elves
  
• High Elves
  
• Lizardmen
  
• Ogre Kingdoms
  
• Orcs & Goblins
  
• Skaven
  
• The Empire
  
• Tomb Kings
  
• Vampire Counts
  
• Warriors of Chaos
  
• Wood Elves
  

Some lend themselves to bashing your enemies, some to massive hoards, and others to magic. From a fun perspective, they're pretty much all equal. However, some are more competitive than others. When you're just starting out, it doesn't matter that much -- you've got to learn the rules and that's going to take some time. If you start with Island of Blood, just keep going with Skaven or High Elves. They're both fun armies, and they're both fairly competitive. If you choose to change Warhammer Armies later, then you can always sell or trade what you have. If you are a reasonable painter, you may even turn a profit (not including the time you invested)!

If you're interested in moving on to competitive play, well, that's a different story. Some armies do tend to fair better in tournaments. Often, its the most recently written Army Book, because Games Workshop tries to bring in new tricks and units to keep things interesting. Dakka Dakka has a poll "Most competitive WFB army other than Daemons". At the time I took this poll, 184 people had participated. They show Dark Elves and Vampire Counts overwhelmingly competitive while Wood Elves, Orcs and Goblins, Beastmen, Brettonia, Dwarfs, Tomb Kings, and Empire just don't do well. Now, that doesn't mean you'll have the most fun playing the lead armies. And it doesn't mean that people don't play the harder armies. Pretty much all the armies are played competitively -- tournaments are, for the majority of participants, about a lot more than winning!

For me, I've fought with Dark Elves, Chaos Warriors, and Empire. For some reason, I really like Empire! I bought the Island of Blood set, though, so I'll be trying High Elves and Skaven, too.

You've made your army list with Army Builder and then bought what you need. Its time to put your models together!

The first thing is to organize. Figure out what models you're going to build and find the sprues those pieces are on. Pull together your tools. For basic assembly, you're going to need:

• Snips (GaleForce Nine has great snips)


• Hobby knife (like X-ACTO)


• Small files (GaleForce Nine has great files, too)


• Super glue, plastic glue, or plastic weld (I use Plastruct)

Get organized and make sure you have a nice, clean work area. Cover it with something you don't mind getting glue on. Then start snipping. The tool I like to use is flat on one side -- you want to trim as close to the model as possible without cutting detail or damaging the figure. Trim out all the bits you need to assemble several miniatures.

The next step is to remove the mold lines left when they cast the models -- these are little seams at some point. There are really two ways to effectively remove these -- scrape with a knife, or use a file. My preferred method is to use the knife. Just use the sharp edge of the knife to scrape along those lines. If you come to a place where you've a bit left from where you cut the model from the sprue, you'll probably need to cut that. Be careful, and take your time. As you go, organize all the bits for each model. This includes base, legs, torso, arms, head, and accessories. I like to arrange them with their respective base as shown in the pictures.

Then it's time for assembly. Before I glue a piece, I always dry mount to make sure of the fitting. I glue all the legs to the bases first for all the models I'm building. Once they are dry enough to handle, I mount the torso on the legs, then usually the head. Depending on what I'm doing and how fast I need to paint, I might wait to put the arms on until after painting. This allows putting detail on easier, but also might be slightly slower (because of the detail). Then all the odd bits like scabbards and pouches and what not. And now you're done!

A word on glue. You can use plastic model glue, which may be the safest, and is certainly easiest for younger modelers. It's also very slow, and only and OK bond. It's very good if you might want to unglue the part at a future date. You can also use cyanoacrylate, also known as super glue. This forms a better bond and can dry VERY fast. You can even buy accelerant to make it glue faster, though accelerant can be dangerous (it causes heat and if you get glue and accelerant on your finger, it will HURT). This is NOT recommended for younger modelers. Finally, and my preferred "glue", is plastic weld. This has the most scary warning labels, and smells strong enough to give me a headache quickly if I'm not in a well ventilated place. But, it's super fast and gives a very strong bond. Note that it melts the plastic, so don't be sloppy.

Most Warhammer armies are composed of units that field in formation -- so many models wide, so many deep. It is convenient to put your army on appropriately sized movement trays so you can move the whole unit together. This makes play move faster and will also make your army look much better. When doing this, you need to consider the playability, your strategy, and the actual mechanics of basing.

The first thing you'll need to do is choose the size of movement trays you need. This will depend on your Warhammer Army, and your playing style. Games Workshop provides some trays that are of common sizes, but for mostly smaller units. 1x5 for cavalry, 5x4 and a couple smaller sizes for infantry. Many players are trying to mass units at least 10 wide now -- this allows them to benefit from the Hordes rule which in the new Warhammer rules gives them an extra fighting rank. However, big units are expensive, and you loose flexibility. You need to move in formation and it gets really hard to move a big unit like this around a busy table. And, a large unit like this can limit the number of units you have and leave you unable to cover all the threats you'll face on the battlefield. So, there are significant trade-offs. For my large I'm sticking with 6x5. This is traditional, but very tried and tested.

I think the mechanics are a bit easier to understand. The movement tray needs to be of the correct size; it needs to be rigid; it must be easy to pick-up; and the units must stay on it. The trick to keeping the models on the tray is to magnetize the bases of the models and to use something that magnets will stick to on the movement tray. I chose to use washers, rare-earth magnets, Gale Force 9 mettalic rubber sheets, and Citadel's modular movement trays. The movement tray has two rigid plastic sheets that are already marked for the proper base sizes so it's easy to measure the movement trays to the desired size. The rubber steel sheets are flexible and have self adhesive making it easy to attach the sheets. I cut the plastic sheets with the rotary cutter on my Dremel. Then I traced and cut a steel sheet out of the right size, adhered it to the plastic sheet, and then trimmed it to match. I used #8 washers and 1/16th inch thick disk magnets because combined, they are close to the exact depth of the Games Workshop bases. The closer to the metallic sheet, the better the magnets will stick, so this is important. You want the magnet flush to the bottom of the base, if you can. Then, all I did was super glue (cyanoacrylate) the washer in place, and then the magnet. I used Insta-set accelerator on the glue to make it go faster.

The result is a movement tray that can even turn over and the models will stay on. This really helps game play!

After assembling your Empire Army, the first step is priming. Priming is essential. A good primer is designed to adhere to plastic and metal, unlike the other paints you will use, and it also provides an easier surface to paint. I like using Citadel's primer, or Army Painter. Priming will make your models look better and make their paint jobs much more resilient as you play with them game after game. There are only a few considerations here. If you are painting a predominantly dark colored miniature, you can primer the model black. This has the added bonus of making all the recesses and other hard to get spots dark as well so they won't stand out on the finished model. If you are painting a predominantly light colored model - one with very bright reds and yellows, for example - you may consider priming the model white or perhaps tan. This can be a bit more work, in that you will need to ensure to paint all the recesses really well or the white will show through quite well. Finally, you can choose to prime your model in its base colors before assembly - flesh on arms, legs and heads, metal on weapons, your major color on everything else -- some people refer to this as the Army Painter method.

Spraying the primer should be done in a well ventilated area at room temperature. Outside is ideal if the weather is good. Consider wearing dust mask or respirator. Don't wear clothes you would rather not get painted. Shake the can of primer very well, and apply according to the instructions on the can. Place your models on a large, clean surface. Usually, this involves spraying in short, quick strokes about 8 inches from the model. Let the primer dry for 15-60 minutes, depending on temperature and humidity, in a well ventilated place.

If you're painting lots of normal sized plastic infantry and cavalry, there is a trick to make it faster. This is a technique that must be done outside. Take a stick -- at least 3/4" square -- and wrap masking tape around it, sticky side out. Alternatively, use double sided tape. Fasten the miniatures to the tape. You should be able to get miniatures on all four sides of the stick, but don't place them too close (1 1/2" apart is good). Usually, the bases provided sufficient contact area that this is fairly secure. If you want to avoid getting paint on your hand, either wear plastic gloves or make sure none of the miniatures will be within 12" of the hand holding the stick. Hold the stick out, and paint the miniatures. Move the stick around to help get good coverage. You'll find this more efficient than when flat because some of the over spray will get on other models.

While very "old school", this traditional result provides consistently excellent results. It involves three steps - base coat (or blocking in), mid-tones, and highlights. The theory behind the approach is to layer on successfully brighter tones to provide greater depth to your model and to make it look naturally lighted. Each area of the model will be painted with matched tones of progressively lighter color - for good combinations for Citadel paints, see Games Workshop's How to Paint Citadel Miniatures, page 96.

First step, apply your base colors to all areas. If your hands shake or you have problems being neat, don't worry. You will successfully be able to cover up any stray brush marks as you go. If you used black or a dark primer, try to let the primer show through in the deepest recesses; if you used white or light primer, you pretty much need to paint the whole model. Multiple coats of thin paint will work better than a single coat directly out of the paint pot. Let these dry, and then "wash" a dark tone (such as Badab black) over the whole model. A wash is watered down so that the paint flows very thin, with color pooling into the recesses and folds of the model. If desired, many paint manufacturers provide pre-mixed washes. This will take some time to dry.

The second step is to apply the mid-tones. A key point here is you want both the base coat and your wash to show through in the recesses and folds - you're only going to paint the more exposed parts of the model. There's two methods - dry brushing and over brushing. Dry brushing involves get paint on your brush, brushing it against a towel until dry enough that you only paint the highest parts. Then just dust it onto the model. This can provide superior results, but it does take time and practice. If you live in a dry climate, it might not be practical (the paint dries too fast). You can also just carefully layer the paint onto the high points of the model directly. This is called over brushing. Over brushing is quicker, but will look sloppier than dry brushing. When done, wash again, but something a bit lighter - such as Devlan Mud.
When dry, you can execute the final painting step - highlighting. You use your lightest tones to highlight the very edges and points of your model's details. You can use the dry brushing method for this, or just the edge of your paint brush. After this dries, you should paint the model with clearcoat matt varnish to help protect it - after all, it took effort to paint the model and you want the paint job to last a long time.

There are several approaches to painting besides this traditional one. If you want to work more quickly you can block in the model and then dip them in Army Painter Quick Shade. This is ideal for large armies. The results will be good. In fact you can even do a layer of highlighting before dipping to help add more depth to the model. If you want more detail, you can do more layers (rather than the three shown here). The ultimate technique is to actually blend the paints on the model. This is a very advanced technique and can take a great deal of time.

Give painting your models a try - even a mediocre paint job will look great from three feet away on the game table! Your painted models will make playing Warhammer much more rewarding.

Island of Blood is Games Workshop's current introductory set for Warhammer Fantasy Battles. It comes with two small armies that would cost