The House stands imperious over a field of trenches and former weapons emplacements, the recent rain ruining the cardboard replacements for the missing laser defense system (it’ll turn up I swear). Dilapidated, but not abandoned, the inside of the House moves slower than what it used to.
The orange “O” means open for business
Gone is the frenetic energy of the interns as they rush back and forth completing 37 different errands for 12 different people simultaneously, replaced by a slow trudging as if their souls have been removed for maximum productivity.
All is not lost, however, as a one Mr T. Warlock is conducting dubious experiments in several labs and has recruited many saprolings to assist in the everyday running, sprinting, climbing, oh-god-why-are-there-so-many-stairs and operation of the House.
I love saprolings. Used to use a Thallid deck back in ages gone. Churned out about 3 a turn plus a bunch of shadowmoor critters summoned more -and- kept a massive 10/10 green/black monster on field.
Anything with ‘other green creatures get +1/+1’ combined with “other creatures you control gain trample until end of turn” is fucking awesome when you churn saprolings out. While Magic: The Scattering is still going strong, it’s not the topic of this post. Though saprolings are fucking cool. Actually, know what? Fuck it, let’s talk MTG for a bit then move onto the actual post. I got into Magic when Ravnica was first released and a magazine had a free card in it. Twas called the Guardian of the Vitu-Ghazi, belonging to the Selesnya guild (green/white, logo was a tree) and this was a 4/7 creature which the art depicted as a giant tree with light green crystals poking out-
This card is why I love elementals and crystals in fantasy genres. Plus, y’know, green mana is awesome.
Selesnya’s schtick in Ravnica was convoke by which one could tap lesser critters (re: saprolings) to reduce the cost of the ROFLstomping beater monsters. Plus green-white is a cool combination. Never touched red in all of my off and on relationship with MTG and have settled on green/blue as my go-to, with close seconds in green/white and green/black. Good times, really. If I ever get off night shifts I’ll probably head back into MTG as evenings will be freed up.
Getting onto what this post was originally going to be about, hang on, one more saproling pic
A bit of light, a bit of water, a bit of soil and bippity boppity boo there’s 12 saprolings on field with +1/+1 and trample. Enjoy.
Ok, now that I’ve established the fact that I like saprolings and imperial guardsman tactics in using them, this post is about how inspiration for projects can come from many sources, though seeing another painted mini can inspire a similar project. Saproling see, saproling do. When Age of Sigmar first hit, I was pretty angry as I’m a nerd and being angry about trivial things is what we do. Since the game has gone from running forwards while on fire to containing said fire to a torch while continuing to run forwards, I’ve come round to the game. A recent trip to my LGS (a 20 min drive) had me purchase the ‘Everything you need to know on how to get started in Age of Sigmar’ magazine with free Ground Marine with NounHammer and VerbShield.
Within this magazine is a bunch of painting guides for the starter set, small segments of background, an overview of the GW based aspects of the hobby inc descriptions of the paint and technical range. The photo below shows the mini in question which has set off another idea for a force- a pack of mercenary ogres roaming one of the realms bedecked in rusting armour.
An ogre battalion was quickly sourced and should arrive soon because I have no self-control >.< Despite the largish painted backlog, there’s enough Malifaux painted for me to get by (and still gain an entry into the painted crew raffles) that I can enjoy a break and paint some ogres. There’s also reactive metal paint sitting around too, so painting experiments will happen to see which method of rust is more aesthetically pleasing.
The magazine also mentions a bit about gradually building up a force and that’s what I’ll try to do here- pick out one unit (16 ogres total, which can make 8 iron guts, 4 leadbelchers and 4 bulls with ~20 or so gnoblars) and paint that fully, base it then move onto the next. At this stage, I’m considering a mountainous theme for the base with a springtime feel. Rather than the soil +sparse scrub that’s endemic of GW based armies, a primarily rocky base with grass, flowers and maybe a bit of snow should give the impression of a mountain pass or base of a mountain. Something rocky with life, in any case.
As much as I’m berating myself for not sitting on this idea to see if it’ll pass, it would be nice to get back to basics, so to speak regarding creating an army. Once everything is painted, the force will be used to play some games while painting resumes on the backlog. It will definitely be interesting to paint a whole load of models which are ~50% bare flesh given one possesses relatively new knowledge of how to realistically paint flesh.
In the near future, there will be ogre posts (and possibly more Malifaux) on the House. Personal blog is kinda done for now, but damnit it feels good to write something for the House.
Stay calm and summon more saprolings!
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