Games Workshop - Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Start Collecting! Anvilgard

Product Information

As a Starting Thousand Sons player, you want all of these models in your army, and the savings on this box are pretty great. One of these is a fantastic near must-buy for someone who wants to start their own Thousand sons army. The big downside is that because Ahriman is a named character, you don’t really want more than one of these. Though the box savings more than offset Ahriman’s cost, and if you can convert your second copy of him into a regular sorcerer, it’s worth it to buy two so you can make a battalion, and of course there’s the fringe use of having one version of him on foot and another on the disk.

Contents: 1 Painboy (Elites), 11 Ork Boyz (Troops), 5 Nobz and ammo runt (Elites), 1 Deff Dread (Heavy Support) If skeletons are your thing, the Deathrattle Sepulchral Guard might be a good place for you to head next. A relatively inexpensive push-fit set, whilst these guys don’t have the personalisation options of the Skeleton Warriors, they’re nonetheless a nice handful of varied and interesting miniatures that would look great at the head of your skeleton army. A little more dynamic than their Skeleton Warrior cousins, the Sepulchral Guard would make a nice addition to any skeleton army. As I said above, once Razarak was in one piece and Arkhan was fully assembled, I kept the two of them separate to paint, though hindsight has left me wondering if this was the correct choice to make. Given the difficulty I had mounting a painted Arkhan to a painted mount, and the damage I did to some of my finished painted areas as a result, I can’t help but wonder if I might have been better off assembling him entirely first. It’s a decision one should make based on their confidence and painting ability. The Start Collecting! sets, I was told, had everything I needed: a range of units with different abilities and gameplay mechanics, enough models to form a reasonable force with a fighting chance on the tabletop, and all the warscrolls for the units included in their construction guides. It was, as he pointed out whilst eyeing the till, also extremely good value for newcomers to the hobby.Because Razarak the Dread Abyssal is so large, you can get away with big, bold moves like heavy drybrushing and slap-it-on shading, and even his details – such as his claws, teeth, and eyes – aren’t so minutely small as to be impossible for the novice painter. If anything, the beast might be a good place for a beginner to get some practice in with their techniques on a relatively forgiving model. Today, we’re looking at a few examples of how you can add to these units to help turn your set into a thematic Battalion Detachment ready to join your wider collection or engage in larger battles as an army in its own right. First up, it’s the mighty Angels of Death… Start Collecting! Vanguard Space Marines

For their bones, my little fellows were based with Zandri Dust, washed with Seraphim Sepia (though part of me wishes I’d gone with Agrax Earthshade for a really filthy, fresh-from-the-grave look) and highlighted with Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull. That was it. Ten points for diversity. I was really taken with the deep-sea, almost luminous look of the cape on the box, so I decided t go with the recommended mix of an Incubi Darkness base, a Coelia Greenshade wash, and then a Kabalite Green drybrush and Sybarite Green highlight. i think the effect is spectacular. Arkhan was the first model I’ve ever part-painted, as per the instructions. Once Razarak’s body and tail are assembled, the guide recommends beginning to paint them then as there are a few areas at the fore and aft of his torso that will be very difficult to reach once he’s fully assembled. I also assembled the Dread Abyssal’s head and arms separately, and fully painted both of these and his blue chest armour before attaching them to the rest of his body. One of the nice things about Militarum Tempestus being 4 units in 3 kits is that you get all of them right here in this box. Like the generic Militarum set this comes with the plastic Commissar (a bit like Tech-priests Dominus in Ad Mech, if you have any interest in buying Tempestus at all you will end up drowning in these guys), but also two squads of Scions and a Taurox. Squads of Scions and Tauroxes are pretty much all there is to have for the Tempestus, and the Scion kit is a dual one which lets you build the Tempestor Prime and a Command Squad too, and is full of cool bits. If you want to get some Scions on the table there’s basically no better way to do it than this – turn the Commissars into terrain statues or convert them into other things. Tech-priest Dominuses have fallen out of favor recently, which is a shame because Ad Mech still field Vanguard and Rangers on a regular basis to fill out Battalions and the Dunecrawler is a legitimately good unit that sees lots of competitive play. It’s still a great boxed set to start building off of, but some of the savings are mitigated by the fact that you probably won’t want a Tech-Priest Dominus in your army.

I’m not sold on the effect, but I also don’t completely hate it – it’d be a good one to keep in mind for anyone wanting to give the roofs of the Sigmarite Mausoleum a weathered metallic look, but perhaps not armour. Or, you could do what I did, and move into Ossiarch Bonereapers. Inspired by how much I enjoyed painting Arkhan and his mount so much, I nabbed myself a pair of Morghasts, a trio of Necropolis Stalkers, a unit of Kavalos Deathriders, and a small army of Mortek Guard. Perhaps, if you’re feeling confident, or just want an utterly unstoppable unit for your army, you can get Bone Daddy himself. Nagash, the Big Bad Bone Daddy of Death. Skeletons are super fun, super easy, and can actually look really good with surprisingly little effort. The nice thing about the Skeleton Horde box is that all the skeletons in it have the option to be unique: different helmets, different weapons, different shields and scraps of cloth on banners and pennants. There’s a lot of fun to be had here with rust and weathering as well. Marching ahead. It was a real shame, because I had a fantastic time painting Arkhan. To have the experience soured at the very last hurdle was sorely disappointing. The spirits – both those on the base and those inside the mount – were based with Celestra Grey, washed with Biel-Tan Green, and very lightly highlighted with Ulthan Grey to achieve the below effect. Given how straightforward this was, I was amazed by how convincing and multi-toned the end result was