Today I will continue the showcase of my Cygnar models by showing off the models that convinced me to play Cygnar in the first place: Stormsmiths! Just like most else Warmachine/Hordes related, I fell in love with the models first and then read their rules, only to find myself liking them more! In particular what convinced me to start Cygnar was one model in particular: the Storm Tower!
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| It's a weaponized Van de Graaff generator! |
When the model was shown on the PP page I was incredibly giddy and the science nerd in me joined-in. Also, I was pleased that this was the first time that we saw a female stormsmith (more on that later). The guy wielding the lightning generator really affected me personally, as his glee at spewing forth giant bolts of electricity is clearly visible on his face. I knew that I had to own this model.
Additionally, the Storm Tower is in my opinion one of the better artillery pieces
out there. It's pretty cheap at 2 points and it throws out a
decent-range POW 14. What makes it even better, however, is that it
then arcs consecutive d3 POW 10s after hitting it's initial target.
This, is often better than an AOE, as it can tag models that are
potentially further away and is a higher POW than most blast damage.
Granted, you have to hit first, but you should always be pointing this
thing at warjacks or warbeasts that are DEF 12 or less to make sure you
get those arcs.
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| Our first female stormsmith! |
I'm proud of Privateer Press because with few exceptions (Deneghra), most of the female characters in Warmachine/Hordes are very reasonably dressed considering the genre. The female stormsmith is no exception to that. Aside from her face, there's no exposed skin, and her breasts, although probably a bit on the large side in-scale, don't draw attention to themselves.
While she's only the "assistant" (the feminist in me is disappoint), at
least we see that females are allowed to be Stormsmiths too. I would
really love for PP to do an alternative stormsmith sculpt with a female. If I had the desire to convert a metal model (of which I dont), then I would consider using our assistant here to make a converted female stormsmith. I do have
lots of extra models to do it, so maybe in the future I'll attempt it.
Speaking of Stormsmiths, this was the first one that I painted. In fact, he was the first Cygnar model I painted! While I'm a little sad that there wasn't much definition on the handle of his staff, I'm pretty pleased with how he came out. He was the first model to determine my color scheme, and I like it! I decided to use a copper color for most of the metal, and I love the balance of blue and white. I've decided not to use much yellow, and instead it's just an accent only used on the swan.
The second stormsmith I decided to paint was my converted one. I had drilled some small holes into the staff head and stuck some floral wire into the holes for where the lightning would come from. I bent the wire into lightning-esque positions and viola! Lightning! I tried a different technique this time for the staff, but it still didn't have enough definition. I decided that next time I should use less paint, as it looked like it was obscuring the detail.
You know what they say: third time's the charm! This time the paint was thin enough that it didn't obscure the details on the staff handle. The wash ended up a little thick at the bottom, but at this point, I didn't really care. I finally had my trio of stormsmiths! While I still have a bunch more, I typically don't field more than 3, so I'm set until I move on to a 50 point list. I still have another storm tower too, but again, I'm not too worried about it until higher-point games.
Now I'm really tempted to go back and make that converted female stormsmith... Maybe after Templecon.
