Ben D's Skellibobs - OWAC IX WRAP UP

It had to happen eventually folks.

We got to the end of OWAC IX.

For those of you just tuning in, I’ve been painting an army of Undead Gnomes with paint schemes inspired by works from David Gallagher and Ian Miller, as per the prompt of this season’s challenge.

Ian Miller

David Gallagher

I began OWAC IX reflecting on what the challenge would be to me, or to be clearer which aspects of the project would be the challenging part. I think in previous years I have made volume the focus of my challenge, since I delight in surprising the readers of this blog with oddball filler or kooky units, but this year was different. There had been rumblings of doubt about people finishing their projects this year given the stresses of the world, and recognizing those concerns in myself as well, I made the army compositionally something I was confident I could paint in all of 6 months. With that fear quenched, I decided to paint not just with the palettes of these artists (which was already the challenge,) but to also paint more fantastically. 

What does that mean? 

I feel that for a long time my sensibilities were drawn from earthier and more naturalistic color groups, like how Frog and Toad is illustrated with a small range of colors, but all of them are drawn from the nature that Arnold Lobel translates into the aromantic amphibian adventures. Gnomes don’t exist, but assuming the fantasy realism and lowness of fantasy, they’d have only so much dye for their clothes, and maybe a homogenized skin-tone depending on how much contact they keep with communities outside their own. Since I didn’t imagine the undead gnomes as having a culture they actively engaged in (I am unsure of skeleton sentience,) their material culture would be a stagnation of the culture they were harvested from the graves of, while their current continence would be a reflection of the magic that raised them from the tomb. My goal was to paint as much of the magic onto the miniatures as I could, hence the extra high saturation of colors, and the decision to paint the skellibobs’ bones like they were enchanted instead of fresh out the dirt.

Here is the army, as originally proposed

Undead Lord - Vampire Lord on Dragon - 825 pts

2 Necromancers - 68 pts/each

20 Skeleton Warriors - Full Command and Halberds - 257 pts

20 Skeleton Warriors - Full Command and Halberds - 257 pts

10 Wights - Full Command, Spears, Shields, Heavy Armor, Skeletal Steeds - 528 pts

Total - 2003 pts

Hmm, actually there is one addition that I failed to mention. Last month I revealed that my second necromancer was actually Heinrich Kemmler the Lichemaster, but as many oldheads know, where there’s a Kemmler, a Krell is sure to follow.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a Krell in budget and in time for my OWAC deadlines, but I did place a last minute Ral Partha Europe order that happened to include a powerful looking skeleton champion with an iconic helmet. Although it’s not an exact 1:1 I was reminded of the named equipment of Fafrd and Grey Mouser; their weapons have names, but the physical objects are replaced time and time again. This is a Krell with a Black Axe of Krell. Is it the Boneripper of Theseus? Maybe. In later editions, Krell’s Axe is a magical equipment your Vampire Counts characters can take, meaning that Krell and his axe are not attached at the hip, and it could be that if there is a singular magical Black Axe of Krell, it could be one of Krell’s goals (he is likely on the more sentient side of skeleton) to be reunited with his iconic item.

Anyhow, Krell isn’t the only extracurricular model of my army.

As mentioned previously, I do like my detours and surprises, and so while I don’t have 5e points for all of these figures, the army has grown beyond its original footprint. This delights me to no end. 

The full roster is actually

Heinrich Kemmler and Krell

Necromancer

Vampire Count on Dragon

40 skeletons

10 mounted wights

3 ghosts

3 stands of crow swarms

15 zombies

10 mummies

And judging by my recent acquisitions, we’re likely to see more before this army is put to rest.

Congratulations to all of my fellow OWAC IX conquerors; I hope you’re proud of what you’ve accomplished, and that you’re taking a well deserved rest.

If you aren’t though… I hope you’re having fun planning for next year’s OWAC project!

The Artist Gets a Hat

That's all I've got to say from this side of the keyboard. Thanks for all the fun, and see you next year!

Byron's "The Sticker Album of Zargon" - Rank and File Month (496.5 points)

 I failed to meet my goal for this month. I had planned to do all the miniatures for Quest 10. Work and childcare (and preparing for an event at a warhammer convention coming up in May) were the main culprits gobbling up my time. So I have settled for only painting 19 mini this month. 

So, for this month, I'd like to share some of the inspiration for my project - the official Heroquest Sticker Album.

You can check out the Sticker Album here at Ye Olde Inn. I spent weeks trying to cook up a good color scheme for the army. The other contender was Purple with bright neon yellow or Purple with Orange. I wanted colors that say Chaos, but not a particular chaos god. Zargon has too much ego, I think, to worship something other than himself. 

During this process I stumbled across the sticker album. And the colors really popped in a way that the game box didn't. 

That being said, I'd like to share pics of my minis to show how they compare to the sticker album.

 

Here we can see a chaos warriors in maroon and a sorta gold or beige edge. On the right are my chaos warriors in marron and khaki. 

 

Orcs and Goblins in maroon.

 

Typically skeletons tend to be lighter or white, but I saw the brown and green skeletons and figured I should branch out a bit and decided to try a drab color. 

I didn't paint any fimir this month, but I wanted so show the maroon harnesses worn by the fimir in the sticker album.

Moving right along, here are pics other other minis I painted this month...

I was missing this gargoyle's head and wings.
So I had to....improvise

In total this is 19 models:

Chaos Warriors x 5 = 130 pts

Mummies x5 = 225 pts

Skeletons x 6 = 60 pts

Orc = 8.5 pts

Goblin = 3 pts

Total 496.5 pts

On an additional note, I finished my work on the Zargon Armylist. Check it out.

Finally, pics of the whole army together

In theory, next month will be the general month.... 

Byron's Quest #1 The Trial - January Rank and File (384 points)

 

This month the Quest begins! We open the quest book to Quest #1, The Trial.

This is the introductory quest to Heroquest. It introduces each monster type and throws the players into a modestly difficult dungeon in which players who do not take the game seriously will most assuredly lose at least one party member. 

Since it is my object to paint the miniatures from 3 copies of Heroquest (I also got a copy of the Return of the Witch Lord too...) rather than merely those of a single game, I have decided to paint up all of the miniatures needed for a given Quest as my monthly entries. The tricky element is that each quest uses a different assortment of miniatures, and it was difficult to make the final numbers add up to 3 whole boxes over 4 rank and file months, but I found a combination of quests that gets reasonably close. 

The Trial contains the following monsters:

6 Orcs

4 Goblins (5, accidentally miscounted at the start of the month)

1 Fimir

4 Skeletons

2 Zombies

2 Mummies

3 Chaos Warriors

1 Gargoyle.

This is for a total of 384 points. 

Now, the astute among you will quickly realize "Wait a minute! Heroquest doesn't have points!" And you would be correct. However, the ultimate goal of this project is the creation of a Warhammer/Heroquest Army and I won't be daunted by such inconsequentialities. Instead I have written (still WiP at this point) my own Armylist compatible with 4th and 5th edition. This army list borrows the appropriate points calculations described in Warhammer 2nd ed (and carried forward until Tuomas Pirinen got his hands on Warhammer in 6th ed.) and should, therefore, be fair and balanced. In future posts I will share my progress toward a full Army of Zargon bestiary including characterful rules for the army, the various types of minions, as well as all of the named baddies in the questbook. 

Onto the miniatures! Undoubtedly what we all immediately scroll down to see and pass all of the pointless text that we all include as a formality. 

The wizard enters the first room and encounters 2 orcs!

A Fimir and Goblin guard the weapons wrack

Two chaos warriors guard an empty chest. Terribly let down to a deadly fight. 

Two greenskins up to no good. 

Goblins minding their own business, still need to be ruthlessly murdered by our "Heroes"

this is the goblin I forgot to count. :(

Skeletons!

The guardian of Fellmarg's Tomb denies passage

Fellmarg's tomb about to be ransacked by righteous heroes. 

The final battle against Verag, the foul Gargoyle. 

Additional notes on the project
The bases are done old school, they are just sand and cereal box cardboard. However, to get the right layered effect on the stones the carboard was repeatedly folded one direction so all the creases were parallel. I then opted to paint the rims a light grey. I made this decision because I wanted to match the lighter stone color of the game board and late 80s/90s game boards. (Compare the brightness of the original Space Hulk to the later 3rd and 4th ed Space Hulk tiles.) Sadly, I think this ended up making the bases look a tad wintery rather than stoney.

I painted every model with the same "primer" of Incubi Darkness. All shades were a combination of the midtone and incubi darkness, and all highlights were a combination of the midtone and lighter rotting flesh color (Foundry's Cadaverous Flesh Light C). The hope was to give everything a unified hue despite the variety of monster types and that some lacked the central Burgundy/Khaki color scheme.

Finally, I aimed to give each model a strong shadow effect so they look like they are coming out of the grimy dark into a sickly light. This is the first time I have tried object source lighting. I don't think I will do this again for another army, though I will continue it for the duration of this OWAC.

Iannick's Curses of May (350 points)

I must take you into my confidence and warn you. There is a curse which says that all persons present at the opening of a Pharaoh's coffin and who gaze at the face of the mummy therein, shall die. You have been Warned! 

This month is a thematic month of curses, for I have painted Mummies and a Gorgon! The funny part is it seems my mummies were indeed cursed! When I started the challenge I couldn't find 3 figures of the classic 3rd edition Citadel mummies I knew I bought a few years back. Now this was very unusual as I'm a neat freak with my collections (a place for everything and everything in it's place), bordering on OCD! And yet after looking everywhere I couldn't find the models. Damn! Fortunately a member of the OWAC graciously offered to send me some. But bad luck struck again and they got lost somewhere between continents (once again I've very rarely lost packages. Canada Customs sucks, but usually it does, eventually, reach it's destination). I couldn't believe it, the curse was real! 

But I really wanted to include mummies in my force. I'm a big horror fan and mummies have always fascinated me, and I used to watch on late TV the old Boris Karloff movies. One of my main criticism of the new post 4th edition undead force is indeed the absence of the classic mummies (now part of Khemri, but even then the models don't have that old school vibe to them). So I dug in my collection of bare metal and found a trio of Reapers mummies. Quite nice models, really, if not for their lack of poses. I like their height and their style. If not for nostalgia's sake I probably prefer these ones to the Citadel ones.

Anyways, mummies are expensive rank and file troops in 3rd edition, and are about as close to tanks as the Undead will get. Tough SOB's, really, and at 80pts a pop quite expensive!

That doesn't make for a very productive month, so at the last minute I also added a Gorgon to my month's tally. This model is from the classic and timeless Citadel Night Horrors, sold as "Medusa". It's an incredibly simple figures, and to me that fits very well with the Medusa myth. Gorgons don't need to be imposing monsters, and such a simple and small figures conveys even more the terror of her stare.

Still, a small month in figures counts, even though these four are worth 350 points! I intend to make up for this month's small productivity in June, and the plan is to paint a unit of Zombies as well as my Plague Cart (one of my favourite model ever). 

• 3 mummies : 240pts
• 1 Gorgon : 110pts

Folks, ONE MONTH LEFT IN THE CHALLENGE!!

Ross' Let the shambles begin! (200pts)

My first month felt a little too easy. Mummies are 50 points each and very easy to paint. So, 4 models done in one sitting on 1st November doesn't feel like much of an achievement.

I run mummies as units of 20 in Kings of War, so I will be sneaking in another 8 models outside the challenge to fill this particular movement tray. I textured and painted the tray to make myself feel a little more effort-worthy.