It’s been a while since out last udpate! We owe you some fresh news from the Warlords!
During the past few weeks, the supreme Warlord Council passed a motion to extend the final deadline for a couple of weeks. Thus, Checkpoint 6, which should have happened already, is now delayed for a bit, and that gives us some time to see what our Warlords were up to during Checkpoint 5.
Checkpoint 5
As usual, let’s review the rules for the campaign to see where we stand now that we passed Checkpoint 5 (with updated date for the last Checkpoint, coming very soon):
- Each participant will share their progress monthly.
After 3 months, there will be an important date (15/08/2017), in which each warlord must show that they have painted at least 500 points. Those who failed in this task at the 3 month checkpoint will be eliminated from the challenge.- After 6 months (new date: 30/11/2017) each participant will have to demonstrate the painting of a complete list of 1,000 points. Only those who made it to the end of the campaign will be submitted to the ruling of the audience who will determine which warlord did the best job.
So it’s time for the last monthly update before the grand finale!
Order Alliance
Bad news for the Order guys. Yet another Warlord has fallen to the Shadow. Paloji has retired from the challenge as the task at hand was too big and heavy for him. Things also look very bad for Volomir, for yet another Checkpoint without any reported points starts to become a huge burden when the end is so close. Will he actually make it to the end?
In the meantime, things for Gryndal, Mariano and Mitico seem to not look so bad. Little to no progress reported from them, but at least they are not far away from completion!
Unfortunately, none of the guys bring us graphic updates in at the verge of Checkpoint 6. Could these be signs of very bad omens for Order? Six Warlords started at the beginning but now only four remain…
Chaos Alliance
Javi basically completed the challenge long ago so there’s not much more to say about him. Meanwhile Armando fights very hard to get to the end, while Phobos has drowned in stallness, his everchanging god of transformation, changing no more. Will this mark the goodbye we all fear from Phobos?
Armando however brings us a couple of updates from his band. Let’s take a look at them:
The campaign is coming to its end and there is still work to do to complete the army on time (some have already finished or abandoned…).
In the past few months, as I said on the previous Checkpoint, for reasons that are not relevant right now, I could not get much time to make progress on the campaign and even less in the last month, that has been quite crazy for me. Even so, I didn’t want to despair and decided to finish. These 5 months that we have already completed of the campaign have been awesome and I had a blast, I didn’t want to abandon at this point. Also, the extra time added until the end of November left me with a bit of extra air to be able to finish.
Up to today, this is what I have (and what is left, together with a Slaughterpriest).
On the one side, a unit of 3 Mighty Skullcrushers.
And the 5 Wrathmongers.
1 month to finish.
‘Til Death with the campaign!!!
Well done Armando!
Destruction Alliance
Finally, the guys from Destruction show a mixed progress chart. On the one hand, Mommel and Nor, slowly but steadily getting close to the end. On the other hand, Lucas and Berek sinking unavoidably into the darkness. No progress reported from these two Warlords! We kind of expected it from Berek, but Lucas? With such cool conversions on his back, it would be a shame if he didn’t make it to the end!
Meanwhile, Mommel has some progress to show for his work:
The water on the swamp was quite calm. Only small bubbles borke on the slimy surface, making the water ripple as oil before dispersing and turning back to stillness.
Three great trolls walked on the shore, carying with them big and rudimentary weapons, smelling very nastily. Despite this, one, who seemed like th boss, stopped by the shore and moved his big and fleshy nose, shrugging while he breathed air.
(from here onwards, the dialogue of the trolls is a translation so the reader can understand.)
“Mmmmmm… this smell… I do not know it. Where does it come from?”
“Yes… yes… where does it come from?” – the second troll sniffed the air too, confused.
Suddenly, from the place where the bubbles burst, a skull followed by a stick, and a stick followed by an orc, appeared suddenly while with a great and shrill breath it tried to catch its breath. It was dripping mud and water in equal parts from a rickety old tunic. He must have had paints on his face because his skin was also full of black and white splatters everywhere; the final aspect was most disconcerting, especially for the trolls, who were not used to the surprises in their swamp, and even less to see an orc in that state.
“Oaaaaaaaaaaa …we’re going to drown! Didn’t we say we were fishes? And why not breathe under water? We were supposed to be drying? Or maybe we are wet now? But we stink of fish! I hate the smell of fish! Who!”
The trolls, stupefied, saw the orc’s fussing without leaving his astonishment, how had he dared to go there? No doubt he was a mad orc and he was lost. The first to speak was the chief, who, raising his great weapon, advanced threateningly towards the green guy. To his surprise, he did not flinch. He dove back into the water, and came out coughing again.
“It’s okay, we are not fish. It’s obvious now, besides this liquid tastes bad, like Ietrines from human camp. How do I know that? Once I had to go for an ingredient to make an ointment, and I think humans generate that ingredient, especially for a while after eating…”
“You, shut up at once!” – The troll’s voice rumbled loudly in the swamp. A flock of black birds flew out of the nearby trees, terrified. What are you doing in our swamp, what are you exactly?”
Chez Ramzi stared at the troll, and walked a few steps toward him with his body rippling like water on his ankles. The troll was on guard, but he did not seem to care much about the scruffy ork or whatever was in front of him. When he was barely a metre away, Ramzi raised his bony, long finger in front of him admonishingly:
“I am not a fish.”
“The trolls behind the boss let out a chuckle.”
“I already know that!”
“Oh! And not a troll either. The trollz smell bad, they smell like fish! Like you!”
A long accusing finger went to the head of the trolls, who, ill-humored, raised his weapon and let it fall with fury on Ramzi. When it seemed that he was going to hit him full, he made a sharp turn, contorting his body in the strangest way he had ever seen, dodging the blow, while a sharp laugh was heard over the rumble of the gun on the soft sand of the shore . Furious, he unloaded several more blows, but again dodged them in movements that seemed to play with gravity, challenging her to take him to the ground.
“For all the swamp fish, what a slippery thing! Help me you morons!”
His two companions rushed to help him, but Ramzi turned and turned, rolled on the ground and jumped up, while his shrill laugh and shrill shrieks increasingly angered the trolls, who collided with each other, fell and missed blow after blow. Finally, exhausted, they stopped, surrounding the shaman.
“What do you want?” – said the panting troll chief.
“The question iz, what do you want?” – the shaman’s eyes were staring at him, frowning.
“I want to kill you!”
“Oh that! And can’t I help you with something else?”
“Tell me what you’re doing here, why do you occupy OUR marsh?”
“Hey! You do not rule over the swamp, nor over the fish” – Ramzi spoke softly to the skull of his staff – “huh? Oh sure, of course … it’s true, we were not fish … and what do I say? Ok, Ok, t’s true…” – with a little cough, he turned to the troll – “as I was saying, you do not rule over the swamp, nor the fish … it’s the humans who rule. They lock the fish and eat the rivers, eh? Oh! On the contrary, the other way around! They eat the fish, you know!”
“Did you come here to tell me that I am a slave?”
At that moment, the troll’s head came threateningly towards Ramzi. This one, however, pressed his face against his. His eyes had changed expression and a penetrating dark gaze fixed on the eyes of the chief troll. His voice lost the sharp tone, acquiring another captivating and cunning.
“I have come to tell you how to stop being so…”
His eyes lit up and with two strokes of his cane, a thousand-coloured smoke came out of the skull, showing images of trolls being hunted by groups of men, their severed heads adorned decorating halls, people cheering every death … then the smoke changed and showed the trolls attacking humans with an army of orcs, destroying the same
halls and killing the same people who had left seconds earlier in the images; images of death endowed with the surrealism of the striking and sizzling colors of Ramzi’s magic. The smoke that had enveloped them finally dispersed, leaving everything sunken in absolute silence for a few minutes, while Ramzi rang the beads of his
walking stick.“Alright? Let’s go?”
The trolls looked at each other, nodding.
“Humans are powerful, are the orcs as strong as you say to beat them?”
“Oh, yaz. Well, Baksi will help, and the big boss master for sure, call him that because he gets angry, and of course, he’s a big guy, not as much as you, but … you will get along well, he likes to kill humanz, even kill humanz against each other.”
“What about your magic? We never saw anything like it.
Ramzi made his way back to the camp while laughing again with his sharp
He raised his arms and spoke to who knows who.
“Magic says! Ha ha ha! These trolls … fishes do not so magic!”
Also Nor has also some stories to tell:
It’s been tougher than expected, but here we are. My army starts to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and everything looks like I will be on time for my objectives. With the last toll of the bell of course, but I will! 🙂
Painting serially is always a bore, and it seems like there is never any progress because you don’t get to see a finished miniature after quite a while. However, with some patience, I believe it is worth it, and when you finish them, you don’t see one, but 20 at the same time.
For painters like us who are not used to projects of 2-3 miniatures, this is a challenge. But I am very proud of my colleagues (nearly all of them, I won’t say names xD), because this is a task of being constant, and dedicating fully.
We are awesome! (Destruction much more than the rest… losers!)
Individual Ranking
It’s time to check now the individual ranking, based on points painted.
Still undefeated, Javi leads with those 1,000 points already completed in the second month.
Mitico still continues as first runner up with more than 850 points painted even though he did not report any progress this month.
The ones who remain on the game (or it would seem so) are Mommel, Mariano, Nor and Gryndal. These guys are certainly our best hope to get to make it past the final Checkpoint.
On the contrary, things look really really bad for Phobos, Lucas, Volomir and Berek. With no reported progress at all this month, we do not foresee much success on their side. Let’s hope they prove us wrong!
Finally, it’s time for a very sad farewell to one of our favourite warlords: Paloji. As days went by, finding a proper port to sail seemed more and more difficult. Finally, he has given up his Kharadron Overlords and says goodbye to the challenge earlier than we would have liked.
At least he was honest enough to say goodbye knowing that he won’t be able to make it to the end. This is probably more than what other Warlords seem to be doing.
The end is nigh and only the strongest will prevail. The final outcome will for sure leave no one indifferent!
Stay tuned!
