For today's interview we have a community member who is not showing us a miniature, but a massive and impressive board, @The Brotherhood of Necros!
 

1 - Where are you from?

I live in Witney, a market town in Oxfordshire, UK, once known for its blankets of all things. From the back of my house, you can still see the tall brick chimney attached to the old mill where they used to manufacture them. A fire destroyed the rest of the buildings, back in 1905. The land has since been redeveloped into houses, nestled around the old chimney.

2 - When did you start to have contact with the hobby?

My dad is into the hobby so I grew up around it. The first figure I can recall painting was a River Troll — one of the three metal ones designed by Michael Perry. They came out in 1993, so I was probably four or five. It’s lost to time now, but I still have a slann mage-priest I must have painted a couple of years later — just the toad, mind, no palanquin. Broken and chipped, it watches over me from a shelf in my hobby room through eyes that see all.

3 - What kind of hobbyist are you?

The slow kind. I’d call myself a kitbasher, a writer, and a painter, in that order. I could spend all day dreaming about conversions I want to make. I try to tell stories through the miniatures themselves, right down to how an arm is positioned or where the figure is looking, but sometimes I write about them, too. Terrain is a big part of the hobby for me. Every story needs a setting. A backdrop. When I occasionally game, my lists are built around the kinds of forces that might be present at the time or regiments with relevance to my characters. I don’t win very often. The storytelling kind of hobbyist might be a nice way to put it.

4 - Which GW games have you played/ collected?

Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Age of Sigmar.

5 - Which GW games do you play/ collect actually?

The same. I grew up in the Old World, sitting beside a gaming table and watching, fascinated, while my dad and his friend pushed Lizardmen and ratmen around the board. Its lore runs in my blood, and Age of Sigmar’s, by extension, although the Mortal Realms don’t have the same charm, nostalgia, or relatability for me as the world-that-was.

6 - How many armies do you have? (Include points count if you know it!)

One army, plus some odds and ends (read: Fishmen from Ulgu!). I’ve been collecting Lizardmen for a little while now to use with WHFB sixth-edition rules. It’s a feel-good project inspired by the army my dad used to run, back in the day. I’ve tried to use lots of classic miniatures to bring it to life, a prehistoric faction made up of some truly old figures. I have another WHFB Lizardmen army planned using the fantastic new Seraphon range — the Red Host of Tehenhauin. I’m also dabbling with an Age of Sigmar Seraphon list themed around Tzunki, the Old One Lord of Waters. I’ve collected other armies in the past — Beastmen, Fyreslayers, Gloomspite Gitz, Vampire Counts, Idoneth Deepkin, Sylvaneth — but I’ve always ended up selling them on to make way for new projects.

7 - Which one is your favourite army?

If it’s not apparent yet, I love a scaly creature. Dinosaurs. Reptiles. Frogs. Fish. The Deep Ones from Lovecraft’s stories. The lizardmen from Michael Moorcock’s writings, encountered by Elric deep in the steaming jungles. I’m also obsessed with the ocean and water more generally. The Lizardmen/Seraphon tick a lot of these boxes in their own ways.

8 - What is your favourite character?

Oh boy. The first character(s) I remember falling in love with were Orion and Ariel. Their story as told in the fourth-edition Wood Elves army book has a place lodged in my heart. It’s elemental and exciting and sort of romantic, helped along by Mark Gibbon’s breathtaking artwork. His depictions of Orion and Ariel are striking; in both cases you really feel the savage breath of the forest on your face, hear the crows and the hounds and the earth…

Lord Kroak is another favourite. Not space-faring, orbit-hopping Kroak, active general of the Seraphon from the Age of Sigmar but the Venerable Lord Kroak as he was before; first the oldest and greatest of the slann, holding back the tide of Chaos from atop the Great Pyramid of Itza, then the relic-priest. There’s a sense of the sublime to him that I find awe-inspiring. I sometimes wonder if those first-generation slann weren’t more than they were letting on…

9 - What is your favourite miniature?

Lore changes aside, Kroak is looking RADIANT these days. I remember opening that Warcom article and being blown away by what I saw. I wouldn’t begin to know how to paint something like that; it looks like a perfectionist’s nightmare but a beautiful miniature all the same. To be fair, I love every slann that Games Workshop has put out over the years.

10 - What is your favourite AoS narrative?

I’m not crazy about the AoS narratives so far. They’re just so grand and nebulous; I struggle to place them. I don’t feel overly attached to any. There’s a snippet in the 2023 Seraphon battletome about golden pyramids under the sea guarded by Lizardmen with gills that I’m really taken with. It inspired my latest Tzunki Seraphon project. I also liked a Broken Realms story in which Alarielle sang her Rite of Life. It was only two pages but it was powerful.

11 - Can you show us the miniature that you are more proud of?

Not a miniature, but I’m really happy with how my ruined temple-city board has turned out.

12 - How did you find out about TGA?

I took a break from the hobby for most of my twenties. University coupled with work and saving for our first mortgage meant I didn’t have the headspace for it, never mind the time. Orion was my way back into it, actually. I picked up the Finecast version for Christmas one year. But the Old World had blown up by then, so I found myself Googling how I might be able to use it in Age of Sigmar. It was a while back now, but I vaguely remember there were Legends rules for lots of old WHFB characters, Orion included. A Huntsman, or something like that. I read about it on here, and I’ve stuck around ever since. 

13 - What is your favourite TGA thread?

The Rumour Thread! I check it out every day. 

Is there anything else you want to add?

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my little corner of the hobby with whoever’s interested.


I found this particular interview pretty interesting as you are the same kind of hobbyist as me, but I am ages behind your skill and knowledge. Thanks for the interview!