0 The Face of Evil

I've been bouncing back and forth between projects and took some time to work on Nagash a little more. This model has been on my desk for five months; at this rate the End Times will be over before I finish him!
 

Resculpting Nagash's head has been a stumbling block keeping me from making any further progress, but I finally tackled it and gave the big guy a properly proportioned noggin.

The classic metal bone giant head served as the starting point. It is scaled to Nagash's body and just needed its jaws resculpted.

 

 

After clipping away the old jaw, I sculpted new teeth. I initially sculpted the mouth closed, but the skull was so bland and expressionless that I cut the mouth apart and reworked it to have an open jaw. I also sculpted a frown to give Nagash appropriately "angry" eye sockets.

 

The crown portion of the hat required a little widening to fit around the eye sockets. This was accomplished by slicing away some of the plastic above the eyes.

 

The hat was cut away from the original head, and I widened it with some putty. In this shot, the putty hasn't been smoothed yet; I'm just checking the fit and angle of the hat on Nagash's head.

 

The putty on the hat was smoothed and allowed to cure, and then I glued it in place and sculpted the bone frame around the base of the hat.

 

Here you can really see the difference between the original, tiny head and the new head. (Without the mass of the hat to bulk it up, the tiny skull really looks ridiculous.)  I added some plastic card mandible plates on the side of the head. They are scaled up a little, but match the shape and style of the original.

 

The final steps were to position the head and smooth over the neck join. I broke the putty apart to allow me to paint the head separately. I also attached the hanging strips and sculpted the transition up to where they connect to the hat.

 

A cabeza fit for a king! The only items left on this model are the books and basing and then I can finally start painting.

 

'Til next time!

Detail: The Face of Evil

0 Skeleton Archers

All the bows are strung and the Red Rain Host is finished:

 

These guys were a lot of fun to put together and paint. If I can find any more of those classic skeletons, I'll definitely add to the unit. If it gets large enough maybe I'll even add some command models.

 

If you missed the assembly article, you can check it out here:

Modeling: Skeleton Archers

And the tutorial for stringing the bows is here:
Modeling Tutorial: Bow Strings

'Til next time!

Detail: Skeleton Archers

0 Modeling: Skeleton Archers

Last week I mentioned how I've been planning some gothic-themed Tomb Kings units to accompany my Legion of the Infernal Skull in a unified Undead Legions army. Years back, I had converted a Skeleton archer from an old Bretonnian (remember them?) bowman and some even older skeleton parts. I forget why I made this guy and never finished him. It couldn't have been for the Storm of Chaos because those skeletons would have been equipped with crossbows. Maybe this guy was just going to be a random zombie...?

 

Anyway, it served as a nice proof of concept for the skeleton archers I'm building now.

For this unit, I'm using the classic metal skeletons with halberds. All the archery equipment is from the Tomb Kings skeleton archers regiment, and the left arms are from the plastic Grave Guard kit.

 

 

To begin, I cleaned up the parts and removed the strap from the quiver. I also cut off the skeleton's arms and smoothed over his breast plate. I wouldn't have bothered removing the left arm, but it had a molded "shield peg" that had to go.

 

All the halberds go in the parts bin for use on another project further down the line. (And by "further down the line" I mean 10 years from now.)

 

To better attach thin plastic skeleton arms to the metal torso, I drilled a hole with a 1.90mm drill bit into the bottom of the sleeve.

 

The arm was shortened and shaved down a little so it could plug into the hole. This provides a much more secure bond than just gluing the two flat parts together.

 

The top left arm is also trimmed, and it's glued in place. (No drilling on this one since it's glued at the sleeve and where the hand contacts the chest.

 

The quiver simply gets glued on the back, and that's one skeleton finished!

 

All ten get the same treatment. The 12-man regiment is arranged in two ranks, with a 4-man regimental strip, two 2-man strips, and four loose models.

 

The regiment ranks up nicely and is ready for painting.

'Til next time!

Detail: Modeling: Skeleton Archers

0 What's in the Project Queue? (Undead Legions)

As 2014 winds down, I find myself with many unfinished projects in the queue. For my personal projects, I've been focusing on my Vampire Counts. With the Tomb Kings book in hand I can add some Nehekaran undead to the ranks to form a mixed Undead Legion. A few items immediately sprang to mind that would lend themselves to Vampire Counts-themed versions of Tomb Kings selections:

 

Nagash

 

Obviously, Nagash is at the top of the list. He's still in a state of partial assembly. I need to do some sculpting and conversion work before painting him. I definitely want to have him finished by the end of the year.

 

 

Skeleton Archers

 

I've had these old metal skeletons kicking around for the longest time. Back during Storm of Chaos, I'd planned to convert them into crossbowmen, but never got farther than swapping a few arms. They seem perfect for gothic-looking archers, so I'll use some Tomb Kings skeleton parts to arm them them bows. (Another micro-distraction to keep me from working on Nagash!)

 

Tomb Prince Selketta

 

Tomb Kings and Princes can confer their Weapon Skill to a unit they are leading, and that's too good a bonus to pass up. I've got a few copies of this Tomb Herald, so I can build one for a Tomb Kings army and convert another to be wearing "traveling clothes" so he won't look out of place in my Vampire Counts army.

 

Necro Colossus 

 

The last item is a Warhammer giant. I bought this kit when it was first released. Back then the rules allowed any army to field a giant, but they fell by the wayside in 8th Edition. It's a shame, because there were plenty of converted undead giants out there. It seems that a zombie giant would be perfect for representing a Necrolith Colossus in a Vampire Counts force.

 

'Til next time!

Detail: What's in the Project Queue? (Undead Legions)

0 Warmaster: The Army of the Baltizzar Necropolis

I picked up the Tomb Kings book today. I've had a few ideas kicking around in my head for how to incorporate some of their units into my Vampire Counts army. This got me thinking back to my early days in Warhammer, when the Undead had only just split into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings. This was around the same time Warmaster was released and, of course, I went with the Undead army.

While my Warhammer Vampire Counts army was slowly evolving into the Legion of the Infernal Skull, and there wasn't yet a Tomb Kings army book, my Warmaster force was filling that roll. I enjoyed Warmaster so much (and still think it's one of the best table top games out there) it became my main focus in the hobby.

 

I finally got around to taking some photos of the miniatures, so here is the Army of the Baltizzar Necropolis in all it's glory!

 

 

Tomb King Ptahkhan-Hur leads the army. The general can be upgraded with a chariot, so I converted a four-horse chariot to carry him into battle. The totem behind him marks his ability to bolster his troops with extra attacks once per game.

 

 

Settisis is the liche priest leads the Serpent Brigade. The smaller banners for the archer units and and Settisis' staff were converted with icons to match the skeleton infantry units.

 

 

At the head of Skull Brigade is the liche priest Axiris. Axiris is infamous for failing his command checks when issuing orders to the units under his charge.

 

 

Selketta commands Scorpion Brigade, which is mainly comprised of archers. and cavalry that operate on the flanks of the main army.

 

 

The zombie dragon is ridden by the liche priest Imnutp. I use him to command the carrion birds and add a little extra punch at the front lines.

 

Painting monsters like the Sphinx and Bone Giant are a nice change from drybrushing tiny skeletons. Their abilities in combat shouldn't be underestimated, either.

 

My war machines are on oversized bases, with extra details like the bone-thrower bolts, cut from Warhammer-scale arrows. When cutting the bases, I made sure the amount of stands that could contact base-to-base would not be affected.

 

Warmaster is a great game that doesn't get played nearly enough, and I'm always up for a game.

'Til next time!

Detail: Warmaster: The Army of the Baltizzar Necropolis

0 Micro Distractions

The painting of my Terrorgheist is underway. This is a slightly older photo, showing the basecoat sprays I used. If you've been following my Facebook posts you'll have seen the peek of his finished base. (For anyone curious about the sprays– Over the initial black, I sprayed adark grey primer from above and then gave it a light dusting of Model Masters Light Tan to give it a brown-grey that will darken up with a few washes so this monster will have a more "black-brown" color when compared to the "brown-brown" of my Varghulf.)

 

My personal projects frequently get pushed to the side for freelance work, and I tend to focus on models for the factions I'm currently using in games. Recently, that has been my Skaven. There are also what I call "micro-distractions." Small one-off projects that I get inspired to work on, and knock out in a day or so.

Skektik the Bombardier

The Skaven Warlock Engineers are dirt-cheap characters that it's fun to equip with single one-use magic items like the Doom Rocket. Another item is the dreaded Brass Orb, an explosive device that can destroy an Empire Steam Tank or wipe away half of a regiment of troops with a single blast.

This old metal warlord has been in my parts box for a while; I never liked him as a warlord, but recently his pose struck me as perfect for holding the orb, winding back for the throw. I figured that I could swap the head with an unused head from the Plague Claw Catapult crew, and position a Kroot pistol to appear as though the Engineer was drawing his warplock pistol.

Once I laid out the parts for the conversion, there was no going back. What had begun as a quick experiment to see if I could make it work, suddenly became the focus of my attention!

 

 

I began by cutting off the metal head and the pommel of the sword in his right hand. I bent the arm a little and removed some of the detail on his hip to make room for the pistol holster. The orb is a plastic bead, and the hand is from the plastic zombie regiment. I attached the gas-mask head and it looked perfect!

 

A little fiddling was necessary to get the holster to sit just right; I cut off some of the cartridges and shaved down the back considerably. Then I sculpted some fur on the back of his head and repaired some damage on the arm where I bent it with pliers. Finally, the surface detail of the Brass Orb was added to the plastic bead.

 

The model was added to a base and I glued on the tail and a few spare cartridges.

 

 

A little bit of paint, and he was finished!

 

While I was working on Skektik, I also made some Gutter Runners to fill some of the gaps in my army. I learned the sneaky, underhanded trick of equipping them with poisoned slings, so when the unit enters the battle from behind the enemy lines, they can take multiple shots at the opposing war machines, counting on the poison to automatically wound the tough machines. How does poison hurt a mechanical device some might ask? It's called an abstraction. Unless a model has a rule that makes it immune to poison, any poisoned attacks will hurt it. In which case, the "poison" represents anything from actual poison, to acid, to holy water or blessed enchantments, or in my case– glowing warpstone pellets. I imagine the magical warpstone having corrosive or even explosive properties that contaminates the enemy iron causing the machinery to distress and fail.

 

Banshee Barrage

With the release of the End Times and the increase of Lords and Heroes allowances to 50% each, there is some concern over the proliferation of characters in armies and a return to the bad old days of "Hero Hammer," when characters had so many attacks and magic items that they could defeat an entire unit single-handed. I don't think that's possible anymore due to the way combat resolution is calculated now, along with the fact that you really can't negate the unit's ability to strike back by simply attacking first and killing everyone in base-to-base contact with the character.

Nevertheless, when I thought about 50% of an Undead Legions or Vampire Counts army as Hero characters, I couldn't help but think of what would happen if those points were spent on banshees. In a 2000 point army, that's about 10 banshees that could move in a group and target their Ghostly Howls at the same unit, likely wiping it out in a single turn!

So this is where my next micro distraction comes in: Just how many banshees could I put on the table? I've got a handful of spare metal banshees and ghosts, a few of which are in my old Spirit Hosts. The Hosts never saw much action so I never brought them above these three bases, and I've been slowly cannibalizing them for parts over the years. I picked up some of the new plastic Spirit Hosts, so I think it's time to finally retire these.

 

 

In my parts box, I had two metal banshees and a couple of the old Ghosts that look like howling girls. They're perfect for banshees. If I pulled the models off the Spirit Host bases, that gives me 6 new banshees, to go with the two I already have.

 

 

I wanted to paint these quick, because I don't plan on them being a permanent addition to my army. (The larger banshee on the right is actually earmarked to become a Sireen in the Vampire Pirates army that I'll never finish.) So, the painting began with an undercoat of white spray primer.

 

Next I washed them with blues and greens. My previous ethereal models have always been painted using straight drybrushing of grey up to white and I've never been satisfied with it. I used these banshees as an experiment for how I might paint the new Spirit Hosts, Nagash's base, and the Mortis Engine's ethereal host. The wash turned out alright, but I need to play with it a little more before I get it where I want it.

 

But for these models, it's enough. Some sand and static grass, and they're done.

 

Undead Legions Impressions

I brought the banshee barrage in a 2400 point game against Steve's Empire. For the general of the army, I chose a Strigoi Ghoul King armed with the magic sword Skabscrath, which would allow him to have his own Death Shriek attack. He ran alongside the banshees so they were able to march further each turn, and his Death Shriek meant that each turn I could potentially put out nine ranged attacks that ignored armor. Over the course of the game the group managed to decimate two 10-man units of knights, and I only lost four of the banshees.

The Ghoul King was also lost because Skabscrath requires the bearer to kill at least one model in melee by game's end, otherwise it takes his life. The only option I was left with was to charge my general into combat against a unit of Flagellants who, in turn, managed to cut him down. Thanks to the new Undead Legion rules the rest of the army didn't begin to crumble with the general's destruction, which kept me from suffering additional casualties. In the end the battle was a draw.

I also had a Master Necromancer use the new Lore of Undeath for the first time. It worked out pretty well– Over the course of the battle I was able to summon 8 Grave Guard, a Varghulf, a 16-man zombie unit, a 20 man Skeleton unit, a Wraith, and another level-1 Necromancer! Not bad for my first outing with a new spell lore.

 

One issue I noticed with the summoning is that it can quickly bog down the game, not by clogging up your enemy's line by summoning wave after wave of disposable troops, but by the process of getting those models onto the table.  Calculating how many skeletons you can take for those summoned 100 points, and whether to give them any upgrades, or whether it might be better to take more zombies instead, and getting them out of your miniatures case can really eat up the time.  (I wouldn't want to imagine doing that in a tournament setting!)  It's probably best to have a few pre-generated selections already out, and in their movement trays, ready to go for when the moment arrives.

Even though I have a bunch of Tomb Kings models, I don't have the newest Tomb Kings army book, so I haven't been able to try any mixing-and-matching between the two armies. But I have plenty to keep me busy with just the Vampire Counts for now.

'Til next time!

Detail: Micro Distractions