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Warhammer – Back to the Stormcast Grind

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I say grind because it has been a bit of an up and down affair working on this Stormcast Eternal. Thankfully, I have made decent progress and have a fair bit to show off. First off, let’s take a look at the front.

I finished a few more things like the pecs on the armor and the belt but the leg armor piece is probably the biggest thing you’ll notice. That lightning bolt looks pretty good but did not come out very smoothly. There are some rough spots or bumps in the paint which you can’t really see in the picture and when I realized how rough the paint looked, that was my low point while working the last week. This mini isn’t coming together in the way I want and I fear the judges will notice blips like this and ding me for them which is disappointing because I know I can do better. I will say that at least the color scheme is really working now! Having never painted black on this scale, I’m really pleased with how it is coming together.

The rest of the leg armor is looking pretty decent as well. I think once get the other one done and work on the chest piece, this mini will already be looking pretty sharp.

And finally, here is a look at the back which took forever to do. Lots and lots of glazing. Normally I go for as high of contrast as possible but I think less might be more here because another cape will go over the top of at least parts of this one so I don’t know how visible it will be in the end. Unfortunately, you have to paint it all anyway because you never know! It doesn’t help that Games Workshop does not have a 360 view of this mini on their website. I don’t know if any of you out there also use those, but those things are incredibly handy for display painting so you can see what’s visible around the entire model and also see how everything goes together.

So that’s the latest on the Stormcast. I have also been busy playing Arkham Horror: The Card Game this week and while I didn’t get a desirable result, I still had fun. I decided to crack open Return to the Night of the Zealot because I’d like to write up a review of it at some point. I might even post it on Board Game Geek for once just to see if it gets much response there. Regardless of that, I thought I would share how it all went down for those who are interested.

I decided to try using Jenny Barnes again.

While she has very average stats, her ability to get extra resources each turn is really fun. When you combine that with Lone Wolf, you can get a whopping three resources a turn which is just crazy!

I also noticed that the Rogue class has a lot of cool looking level 1-5 cards and I suspect that Jenny starts off weaker in the first scenario but gets stronger and stronger as she accrues experience and upgrades her deck. I thought I would try a version of Jenny that could investigate and get clues but also do well in combat because she can actually do both (unlike many investigators who are good at one or the other). I also threw in some other fun cards from Edge of the Earth like, 21 or Bust, which lets you play Blackjack with the chaos tokens to try and “win” resources. If that isn’t clever and fun card design, I don’t know what is! It also seems thematic for a dilettante to engage in a bit of gambling fun.

I decided to pair Jenny with Roland who is another investigator that I want to like but haven’t had great luck with since I started with the Core Set. I chose Roland because he can get clues by killing things which I figured would help offset Jenny being just okay at getting clues. Unfortunately, I’ve decided that Roland isn’t that great and its tough to deal with his low horror threshold. 5 horror is really easy to get in Arkham, especially for a combat character with a Willpower of 3 and a low Evasion of 2. When you couple that with his weakness, Cover Up, which likely deals “permanent” horror damage to you, if you draw it. Even if you get rid of Roland’s weakness, you’ll waste a lot of time on it. At least three actions, in fact, which is rough for a non-Rogue character and someone who can’t really afford Leo De Luca as ally to get extra actions.

So how did the games actually go? The Gathering which is a glorified tutorial in the original Night of the Zealot campaign (so it is a bit on the easy side) went swimmingly. I got 9 experience from that scenario, partially because Jenny and Roland took their time and got experience any way they could find it. What I didn’t fully expect is that while they excelled in the first scenario, the second one’s pace would be way too fast for them. I couldn’t get a consistent weapon for Roland or Jenny which wasn’t good because there was a pretty steady flow of enemies. Jenny couldn’t investigate effectively either so I had only interrogated one cultist near the end (which is really bad) and had maybe 3-4 turns to get another and I threw in the towel.

I still think Jenny has potential to be a usable character but she would actually be better in the combat role (she’d do just as well as Roland would I figure) and ignoring investigating for the most part. If she was pared with someone who investigates well and gathers clues, that would probably work better overall. So I tried something out, it didn’t work, but I had fun and I’m already thinking about what I’ll try next to try and beat the Return of the Night of the Zealot campaign in the near future. It was nice getting some gaming in this week and while I still want to get some wargaming going, at least Arkham is buying me some time until I have the time to do that.

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28 thoughts on “Warhammer – Back to the Stormcast Grind”

  1. The figure based on the photos is looking very good to my eye. There is a big difference between perfection and personal satisfaction. The former is virtually unachievable if for no other reason than we are often to critical of ourselves (there’s a reason I call myself TIM). Do the best you can, learn and be happy. The rest will take care of itself and the results will speak for themselves.

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    1. I appreciate the advice, mate and I agree with it wholeheartedly. My problem is that I hate making mistakes and this is not the piece to make them on! With that said, I have gotten into a good rhythm again so hopefully that will be reflected in the painting as well 🙂

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  2. Great looking progress Jeff, liking all the tones you’ve got going on at the moment, and it’s a pain all that work on the cloak, and not knowing how much will be visible once the next layer goes on, but at least you know it’s done.
    Good to hear you had fun with the game, even though things didn’t go according to plan, but then that’s gaming ! LOL

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    1. That is well said, Dave! Motivation is tough on those parts but at least you can get to a point where its done and move on 🙂 When I lose at Arkham Horror, I figure it is okay since sometimes the Eldar Gods do win in true Lovecraftian fashion!

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    1. Thanks for the kind words, John 🙂 I really can’t figure out how the rough spots don’t show up in the pictures. I can see it with my eyes and usually taking pictures of a mini exposes mistakes that I don’t catch with my eyes. It is a very unusual situation! I will press on regardless 🙂

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  5. It’s looking outstanding to me, if you think it could be better I’ll have to take your word for it. That said I know Golden Daemon can be extremely hard fought and the quality of the work really is off the scale, but that shouldn’t put you off. Every Golden Daemon winner, I suspect, feels in their heart of hearts that there’s things they could have done better. Stick with it mate, and if the end results match what you’ve done so far then regardless of what the judges say on the day you’ll still have a model you can be very proud of.

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    1. Thanks for the encouragement, mate! 🙂 While this mini has a lot of strengths, I know that GW looks for clean paint jobs/smoothness in their judging typically so its something you kind of have to obsess over to do well in the competition. With that said, if nothing else, this mini should look great when done and I have no expectation of winning regardless so in that sense there’s no disappointment if I don’t do well in the competition. I hope to learn a few things to make me better going forward mostly. Either way, I appreciate your support on this project. Its certainly helping me get through it! 🙂

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  8. Liking the Stormcast so far!

    I haven’t tried Jenny yet in Arkham, but she sounds fun to use! I am also currently playing through a Return to the Night of the Zealot campaign. I find it fun to revisit, though the second scenario still pretty challenging even with a very large card pool. We’ll probably get stomped by the final scenario, hopefully things will go better than they did during my original playthrough.

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    1. Thanks, mate! 😀 Jenny is fun but tricky or at least that is what I’m finding. I’m in the camp as you then and I need to beat Return to the Night of the Zealot still. I spent some time building new decks today and am looking forward to trying again this week 🙂

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  9. Terrific progress on that painting project. TIM has wise words about the attainability of perfection, so don’t be a slave to it.

    I really enjoyed reading about your experience with Arkham Horror. I played it a few times with my brother and never really got to grips with it… however that is probably more because I was really jet-lagged at the time.

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    1. Thanks for the kind words and I am a bit of a perfectionist to be fair which makes my life harder than it needs to be. Its hard to shut it off sometimes though!

      I’m glad you enjoyed reading the Arkham part as well. It really is a fantastic game and I find that it takes a few playthroughs to understand what makes the game tick. There are a lot of different cards that do different things and you have to play a bit to understand what is actually powerful in the game. Sometimes what makes the biggest impact isn’t what you would initially expect if that makes sense. Its a really good game with plenty of strategy to go with the luck components and that’s what keeps me into it! If you get a chance to give it another go, I’d say you should 🙂

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  10. I thought I was the one who thought painting was a grind? 😀😀
    Nice job. The lightening bolt armor is kinda cartoonish to me but that’s the sculpt and not the paint.
    And looks like you’re having fun with the card game. Tinkering with the decks is part of the fun with these games not that I have played a whole lot of them.

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    1. This is the fun kind of grind 🙂 I think the lightning bolts might look better to you as I get the rest of the armor on him but perhaps not! Arkham is like a great wargame in that it has the perfect balance of luck and skill 🙂

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    1. Thanks, Matt! I’m glad to hear things are looking good so far. I’ve made quite a bit of progress so far this week so I’ll be curious to see if you like what you see in the next update too!

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  12. Coming along very nicely indeed Jeff, and the blending on the cape looks superb – I really like the colours you’ve used here, subtle and silky smooth!
    Yasmin uses Jenny a lot. Her ability to generate resources can be a starting point for deckbuilding and trying to make the most of it. I agree with you about Roland, though he has his moments, it really comes down to the scenario you’re playing – he can either be great or totally useless!
    Can’t wait to see and read more about these two little gems😁

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    1. Thanks, Justin! Roland is fun when he works but when he starts taking horror damage, it becomes a lot more tense and less fun in my book! I’m curious as to how Yasmin uses Jenny. I’ve seen a fair amount of Jenny decks and they’re kind of all over the place which makes figuring out what Jenny is best at even harder. Does she have time to write up a guest column on her Jenny deck for The Solo Meeple? 😉

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      1. I think, if she wasn’t immersed in revision she’d probably give it a go, but as it is, I can’t see her wanting to sit at the computer any longer than she already is. I’ll see if she’s still got her deck made up and ask her how she plays her, as I think she’s been playing solo with Jenny and someone else, can’t recall who off the top of my head.

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      2. I can understand where writing something for her Dad’s website wouldn’t be all that exciting for someone her age. I’d do it for my dad but I wouldn’t call it exciting at the same time. That’s kind of you to ask her and I would be curious to see what you find out. My current campaign hangs in the balance with the final scenario to go so we’ll see if I have some interesting thoughts to share in the nearish future!

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