Still an undead army, but a slight change of plan! Mustafa’s Undead Army.

So I’m still doing an undead army, as you can see, but I’ve decided to switch to the 4th ed army list rather than the 3rd ed one.

The reason for this is that I found several minis I’d love to include in the army, and the 4th ed list would make that much easier.

Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far.

Unit of 12 skeletons with a leader, banner, and musician. 124 pts

Necromancer  champion. 163 pts

Necromancer. 68 pts

Wraith (the closest thing I could find to fit a single banshee into the army). 75 pts

Total = 430 pts

Group shot of the gruesome gang.

The lonely lady of the moors, ready to blast anyone who comes near with a chill attack or her razor sharp claws. Once a a great necromancer, she is now a shadow of her former self caught between this world and the next.

Oswald Geltov had to flee Hochland in disgrace after been kicked out of the Alchemists Guild when it was discovered that he’d been dabbling in the dark arts! Nanny Gertrude couldn’t bare to  leave his side so fled with him.

The Empire can be a dangerous place, especially if you are wanted for practicing the dark arts! Oswald took the liberty of helping himself to some of the corpses from the Hochland military cemetery so he’d have some protection!

AdamH’s OWAC VI Jan Post – The Hag Graef Griefers

Month one, my first “troop” month and I almost failed right out of the challenge. I was away for most of December and half of January so my preparation time was zero, I did manage to undercoat my models before I left but that was it. 

I started painting on the 16th of January and unfortunately I think it shows in the final products. I am normally quite a slow painter, even more so when I don’t know the scheme so I had to really push myself hard to get these done in time, and as I am writing this post on the evening of the 31st I don’t think I could have cut it much closer.

There are a few details I had to just admit to having to come back later to complete, and some highlights that weren’t as smooth as I would like. The worst part though is I feel the scheme isn’t that great but I didn’t have time to do much about it.

Anyway enough talk, time for pictures:

I don’t think it helped that I am generally not that jazzed about elves in general.

I like the Witch Elf models but the rest of these were pretty meh to paint.

However that just means it is all uphill from here! I have some great teams coming up that I do love the models of, and with a couple of exceptions have some ideas for schemes.

Anyway one more thing from me before I sign off for the month, I owe our glorious leader a tribute, so here is the 13th member of the currently unnamed Skaven team who will be sneaking their way over the pond soon enough:

Here is to next month’s contribution (which I am also a little worried about since I have another week away from tomorrow and it is a short month), something both a little darker and more colourful with a chonky boi addition!

CopperOracle II | 1. Rank and File Orcs 1

"Time to go collecting Boyz!"

Hagar bellowed across the muddy expanse of the Shouting ground in front of his tent and out to the tribal warriors that had gathered before him. King F'yar had called out to the tribes and the promise of gold and war had convinced him to join up again. 

In his minds eye he could already see new strings of severed and impaled hands, each one a life taken in the heat of battle or in the tribal fighting pits.

"String them up, Severed Hands! Count them up, Severed Hands! "

The tribe chanted as they moved out and towards the distant Ashak Rise...

For this Challenge I am drawing from the Bloodbath at Orcs's Drift scenario pack which lays out the faction forces in a Command cards rather than an army list. This first ten orcs are part of a larger 30 strong unit. As with the other Orc units I had completed previously, they are quite a mixed unit which feels more in keeping with an Orc mob feel. The figures are from various Citadel eras, including some C Series, some from Rugluds Armoured Orcs and some Black Tree Designs Fantasy Orc Barbarians. 

For the paint scheme I used the same as I had with my previous Vile Rune Tribe, with a bit of a tweak and a change in the shield design to match that of their chieftain Hagar Sheol who's image graces the cover of the pack booklet and illustrated by the legendary Gary Chalk

Severed Hand Orcs and one of the Vile Rune Orcs i painted several years ago

(if I have the time I will go back over the Vile Runes so they all match up)

The first ten of 2023

Another comparison between Severed Hand and Vile Rune Orc

     

Black Tree Design Barbarian and Rugluds Armoured Orcs

First Ten completed and with movement tray.

( Awaiting some tufts and I will try and make up the trays for the Vile Runes as well in the coming months!)

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Second Edition (Ravening Horde) Points Value: 62.5

February will be for Hobhounds and their handler, Grashak Kra

Jaeckel's Castle Wittgenstein - The Guards

A modest beginning with 10 masked crossbowmen, defending Castle Wittgenstein. To hide their corruption, they're all wearing full-face masks. Not ideal to have a beer!

'Death on the Reik' illlustration by Martin McKenna

In terms of colours, the overall scheme is pretty dull. Wittgenstein Barony being part of the Reikland, I have opted for a dirty white base for the uniforms, sometimes complemented by black stripes... The rare glimpses of diseased flesh have received a basecoat of Vallejo Game Color Tan, shaded with Dark fleshtone and Violet ink, and highlighted with Dead flesh and light blue. I've also changed my recipe for NMM, using neutral instead of bluish greys. Can't say it improves the gloomy feeling!

First you'll recognize the guard model proposed in the original scenario pack, painted 3 times 😜

Then come Men-At-Arms and Mercenaries (Citadel C26 and F4). Only two are original miniatures:

The other ones are simple conversions with head swaps, and helmet extensions:

 

And that's it for January!

The plan is a second batch of guards for February.

Joe's Bretonnian's- The wizard Gibelin and the dragon Béatrice.

Perhaps unwisely, I've eaten my dessert first and instead of getting some rank and file done this month I've progressed directly to the big gribbly dragon. This is an old Grenadier copper dragon, still for sale probably from one of the companies who still produce old Grenadier stuff. I love the unique pose and the weird wings. 

The wizard Gibelin is widely mistrusted by just about everyone in the Duc's warband, not least by de Rainault himself. The knights are outraged by his refusal to address them with sufficient obsequiousness, and lament that a man without a family tree or even a surname should have risen so high in the Duc's employ. The peasants of the company, deeply superstitious to a man, whisper that his mother was a dwarf and his father half-daemon. This would certainly explain his stature, his beard and his otherworldly demeanour. No-one can deny his usefulness to the Chevauchée though- when you positively, absolutely have to burn every hovel in the village- accept no substitutes!

month 1 - monster month - level 20 wizard on a winged dragon: 540 points.

ZeroTwentythree's January Skaven (130 pts)

January Skaven: Clanrats (Rank & File)

As with previous projects, I wanted to start off this year's Skaven project with the backbone of the army. If a cowardly Skaven army can even be said to have a backbone. "The core troops upon which the army is built" is perhaps a better description? No, not the slaves. The clanrats!

I had ambitious plans for a full regiment of 30 clanrats, including standard bearer and musician, for the first month of the challenge. But life has been busy and I've spent a considerable amount of time away from home. About midway through the month I revised my goal to get 20 of the 30-strong regiment painted, and I managed to finish them just in time!

Here's the full batch of 20. All metal, and with quite a few duplicates as expected. I'm going for a dark & dirty look. Although they seem to have a lot of red-tones, I'm imaging them as not seeing that themselves, as I understand that rats are colorblind to red. So these Skaven may think they are mostly dressed in stealthy black gear, which is only half correct.

To add some variety, I made some minor conversions, such as the two figures on the left. One is a simple sculpted hood, the other is just repositioning the spear arm so the weapon looks "shouldered" rather than held forward.

It's not visible, but the clanrat in the center was broken, missing it's shield hand. Nothing a little bit of sloppy putty-work couldn't fix.

These are the remaining 10 figures that didn't get painted in January. As you can see, I am using brown primer, as this has worked well for me with Skaven in ages past. I depend on the brown primer and a couple of black/brown washes to tone down a lot of the color, tie all of the figures together, and keep them looking like verminous troublemakers who crawl through tunnels and sewers.

While most of the figures are 2nd/3rd edition, I do have a few "newer" figures hidden in the mix, such as this standard bearer.

These "remainders" will still get painted at some point in the challenge. I had other plans for February, but maybe I will switch that up so I can complete the regiment before moving on.

January Points:

130 pts        20 Clanrats with Spears

130 pts         TOTAL

Jaakko and Slargash - January, Rank & File #1

"Thou shall be banished from this realm, foul spirit" Slargash declared in a commanding voice. He felt a bit bad calling the ghost foul as he was quite a delightful chap really, but so it stood in Ye Scroll of Summons and he was not taking any risks. Not when they were this close.

Slargash and the Mad Spell twins hade made preparations for weeks and tension had grown by the hour. The words still echoed in the darkness as it all started to happen. With a strike of lightning a portal appeared and the ghost was sucked through it. Sparks where still floating in wafts of air as they heard it. Loud thumps aproached them while water ripples grew larger in the paint water pot. A towering figure emerged over the pile of lead they wishfully called an army. "Look at the size of that thing", whispered the younger Quel'lequek and could only stare at it.

A continuous low and rumbling sound emanated form the being. Slowly they started to recognise words, "Hroom, hm, what have we here... chaos, I have always loved chaos... but so many of them... we must be hasty... it takes a long time to paint an army... we never paint anything if it's not worth a long time to paint though..."

"It's not quite the mighty, dark-winged, avenging lord of chaos I had imagined", Slargash thought. "Perhaps it'll do", he sighed and stepped towards the being.

A month has passed and I have tried to be busy. I was a bit nervous and so wanted to start with something relatively simple and straight forward to start the challenge. So I picked the hounds as the main unit for January and minotaurs for February.

 

 

I didn't paint any test models in advance and didn't have a clear idea for the paint scheme for this army. So while painting the group of chaos hounds I have painted some models from other units also and now submitted the ready ones. This led into scrapping my initial (and more colourful) plan for the hounds into one that I think fits better with the overall scheme of the army. I try to paint the army so that it's not obviously dedicated to a certain deity even though some of the models flirt with some of them (and I seem to like a slaaneshian colour palette).

 

 

 

 

 

You might notice that there are too many hounds. My initial list had only 8 and I have painted 12 (so far). Well, I stumbled into a good deal with a bunch of old marauder hounds. I also found that warrior from my lead pile and the lone old citadel thug was also a late addition to the force. So the force is still growing and I'll try to paint at least a host (the proper combination of more hounds and a hydra) and present it during the wild card month in addition to previously promised (slaaneshian) war altar.

 

This month in points:

- 2 beastmasters and 12 hounds: 306 points

- 7 thugs and a marauder leader: 91 points

- Chaos warrior: 74 points

= 471 total , 23 models

And yes, the ghost who left the Northern Wastes of the Old World to the vast miniature chambers of the Benevolent Overlord in the Northern Wastes of the New World (aka the fee to enter the challenge):