A Gathering Storm

Hans Morgrimmar has come to Ostland... the enemies of the men are gathering in the shadows of the realm and the wizard seeks to rally an army to stem the tide. He was turned away from the court of the Elector, but has found an ally in Captain Marko Steelknife who controls one of the outlying garrisons. The small force he leads cannot win the day, but it may hold until greater powers may be stirred to action.

After many years away from Warhammer Fantasy, I have been lured back by the changes in the eighth edition rules. I have always found Games Workshop's miniatures to be stunning and and my brother's deep interest in the game has prompted me to collect a new army to participate in a small campaign this summer. With all of my other projects, it may be necessary to bulk out my force with models from my old collection, but we'll see how it goes.

So how do I go about building an all conquering Warhammer army? Do I study the army lists to find the ultimate combination of troops and characters? No. I dug through my closet and pulled out a stack of plastic box sets I had left over from a few years back - after all a general goes to war with the army he has, right?  So here's what I had:

1 General box
1 Battle Wizard box
3 State Troops boxes
3 State Handgunners boxes
1 Archers box
1 Knightly Orders boxes
1 Great Cannon
1 Pistoliers box

Yeah, I had that many unused boxes (in some cases unopened - the boxes still had the shrink wrap on them). I also have a few spare sprues of Archers and Great Swords left over from a Mordheim project. So that's the core of my army! A mounted Captain, two Battle Wizards, 30 Halberdiers, 30 Handgunners, 10 Archers, 8 Knights, 5 Pistoliers, and a Great Cannon. I'm going to have a look through my old collection and see which models may fit in with the new ones.

By the way, that's the Grey Wizard Hans Morgrimmar. He's a conversion using the Empire Battle Wizards box. The hood is made of green stuff and the staff is an off cut from a Forest Goblin Spider Rider. He is officially the first model of my new army, painted this afternoon. Posts on this army will be made as units are finished, but I have a lot on my plate so stay tuned!