Monday 6 June 2016

We Are The Edema Ruh

We know the songs the sirens sang, 
See us dream every tale true, 
The verse we leave with you will take you home

Yes yes I know I know it's been forever since I updated this thing... again...

But here's what I've been working on in the interim. I figured that for a blog called 'Naked Metal', this blog doesn't feature nearly enough unpainted metal, which is actually sort of the point - one of the multiple reasons I chose that name is because I wanted to showcase a lot of metal models before they get painted, both to document them in an A-Z sort of way (plus I always find it fascinating to see models in their unassembled state and how the different parts fit together), but also as a celebration of my favourite model medium and a way of rebelling against the mainstream tabletop community. Metal, you see, doesn't generally tend to get a good reputation as a model medium, and 'naked metal', referring to unpainted metal pieces, is often used with connotations of ugliness. I tend to be something of a rebellious non-conformist, so I decided to adopt the phrase in a positive light and celebrate it as a badge of pride in order to stick it to be tabletop Man.What's that? Don't like metal models? Think unpainted metal looks ugly? Well screw you and your 'rules'! I don't have to conform to your system! I'm not going to be a robot and lie down with the rest of the sheeple! I love metal models, and I'm going to flaunt my unpainted metal models in all their pewter glory and if you don't like that then tough greenstuff! And you know what, while I'm at it, I never want to own a (loyalist) Space Marine army in my entire life! So in your face "Every hobbyist always wants/gets a Space Marine army at some point" GW! Fight the machine!

*Dons denim jacket and rides motorcycle off into the sunset*

Ahem. With that said, these are the models as they were, glorious metal sculpts that they are.








Hmmm, in hindsight I probably should have used the black background instead. And set up better lighting. Note to self...

And here they are painted. As much as I love how cool unpainted metal models look, I do like how they look when painted nicely even more. Now if only I could actually paint them nicely...





The letters on their bases of course stand for the unit's name The Empty Spiral. This was originally going to be the only Wardancer Troupe in the army, but then I needed to add more units to bulk the army up to 3000 points (or possibly 4000, I remember it was one of the two) in order to accommodate the characters I wanted, and I worked out that doubling the Wardancers and Rare choices was a convenient way to do that. It also solved a naming dilemma that had arisen by then, since I was torn between sticking to the plan and naming the Wardancer Troupe the Empty Spiral, or instead giving them the name Dark Passion Play, in reference to the album Dark Passion Play by Nightwish (which remains to this day my favourite album of all time. The weird crescent crown-looking thing on the BSB's banner is a direct reference to the cover art on it). This was originally going to be the name for the entire army overall (the idea being that army would be called The Dark Passion Play, and would come from a part of Athel Loren called the Meadows of Heaven), but I had come to realise that it would be the perfect name for a Wardancer Troupe. Fortunately after bulking the army out to the right points limit I was left with two Wardancer Troupes, and so was able to use both names for them.

But it's not just models that have been happening recently. I also managed to find another treasure trove of old Warhammer books at a local second-hand bookstore. The first ones to be extracted from this goldmine were copies of the 6th edition Beastmen army book (Beasts of Chaos) and the 5th edition Vampire Counts army book.


I've only properly read through the Beasts of Chaos book so far, and I have to say I was... actually a little bit underwhelmed by it. Don't get me wrong it's a great book, the background is nice, a lot of the rules are brilliant (Beastmen Herds and heavy skirmishers FTW) and there's some fantastic artwork (my favourite is probably 'The Gibbet Tree of Woe', followed closely by 'The Challenge'), but... for some odd reason it just doesn't suck me in like the 6th edition Wood Elf and Bretonnian army books do. I enjoyed reading it, but it didn't really leave me feeling 'fired up' like those other two books did, and after hearing so much hype about it online that was a bit of a disappointment.

I've only skimmed through the Vampire Counts book, but so far it shows a lot of promise. The artwork is great, and it looks like there's a lot of material packed into it (both books are actually quite meaty). It also has what is probably one of my favourite inside covers of any army book produced by GW.

I think that's about everything for now. Back to the painting space (and crying my hobby woes away)...

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