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How to Paint Gnarlwood Terrain – Warcry Heart of Ghur

Warcry Heart of Ghur is still up for pre order this week and is released Saturday 13th August! One of my favourite things about the set is the incredible new Gnarlwood Terrain in the box! Today I’ll be showing you my finished pieces along with a guide on how to paint it up quickly and easily!

If you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself some money too! Within the guide I’ve also included direct links to the paints used.

We also have a full in depth written review of Warcry Heart of Ghur here, and our unboxing video just below!

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a free early review copy

I’m a huge fan of painting scenery and found putting together the scenery in the box a load of fun – Terrain can look a little intimidating at first, but with lots of big surfaces you can get it painted up surprisingly quickly!

Inside the box you get 4 large scenery pieces, various platforms and watch towers made out of dead Gnarloaks – these are carnivorous trees that hunt the wildlife of the Realm of Beasts (You can even see their last kill tangled in their roots! for these the main focus was really the tree itself (Which as per the lore is now dead) and the various bones and platforms

You also get 10 pieces of scatter terrain (2 of 5 designs). These feature smaller trees (that I imagine are still living) along with the shattered ruins of the Eye of Chotec – The Seraphon Void-ship that has crashed into the Heart of Ghur itself. A crashed spaceship isn’t going to be in the greatest of shape, so wanted these quite muted and overgrown. I also suspect we will be getting some larger parts of the starship in later expansions, so didn’t want these bits to distract from that!

Finally, you also get 4 rope bridges of two designs (2 long, 2 short) that link the various pieces together and also have in game effects.

Combined together you can create a number of different layouts, and this stuff will work just as well as for games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar!

So how did I paint it all? It was pretty straight forward really with lots of Contrast, Washes and Drybrushing used! I’ve highlighted each part of the model so you can quickly scroll through and find the part you need!

To prime the models I used Colour Forge Desert Sand (Who provided us a free selection of their range to try out on projects) – This is an exact colour match for GW Zandri Dust and comes in a larger can for only £9 from Element. I was surprised at how good the colour match was and will certainly be stocking up on more of their colours! – if you dont have access to this though Zandri will work just as well! The reason for this colour base was because it would make an excellent starting point for both the bamboo and the bone, while also being complimentary for painting the trees themselves.

For the bamboo I simply used Aggaros Dunes Contrast paint from Games Workshop, just used straight out of the pot over the Desert Sand base it works as a way of coverage and shading all in one, due to the properties of Contrast that draw it into the recesses. I tend to use Contrast for lots of things, it’s an excellent tool to add to your collection.

Speaking of Contrast, when painting the bone I used Skeleton Horde thinned 50/50 with Contrast Medium in order to dilute it a little and stop it from pooling and leaving tide marks which can sometimes happen if you use Contrast on flat surfaces. With the addition of some medium it flows a lot better and stops this from happening. Once dry I used a soft makeup brush to drybrush the model Ushabti Bone followed by a lighter more focussed drybrush of Screaming Skull. You can but expensive brushes designed for drybrushing, but let’s face it – nothing destroys brushes faster, and a £3 Wilkos makeup brush does the job just as well (also as an aside, they also work brilliantly for removing dust from models too!)

I wanted the fragments of the Seraphon Ship to be quite muted so experimented using the new formulation shades from Games Workshop – Kroak Green was not only fitting from the name, but gave me the effect I was looking for, it lightly tints the surface while also getting drawn to the recesses in order to shade those areas.

The rocks had a base colour of Mechanicus Standard Grey put on them, and I busted out a large brush to base the Gnarloaks with Dryad bark both of these areas where then washed with the new Agrax Earthshade. To add a little texture to the trees I then gave them a light drybrush of Baneblade Brown

For the vine ropes that tie the various bamboo pieces together I used Stormvermin Fur and then shaded this with the new Nuln Oil – You could take this further with a highlight of Eshin Grey for example, but I found this worked well enough for me without taking the time to highlight a load of ropes!

The base of each piece was then painted Mournfang Brown and shaded with Targor Rageshade

Finally to add some interest to the bases I used Summer Meadow Tufts from Rival Crafts and Javis Scenics Light Green Foliage to create the leaves on the smaller living trees.

The terrain in the box was so much fun to work on, and I can’t wait to see what is on the way to accompany it over the course of the next year

Warcry Heart of Ghur is currently up for pre order and is released 13th August

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews a free review copy, and Colour Forge provided us with free spray paint for review purposes.

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