• It's time once again to ferret out those murderous vampires in a new VAU - Vampires Amongst Us. A cross between Cluedo and a roleplay, sometimes gory and often hilarious! Find out more and sign-up! here.

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
New year, new hobby blog! Time to rattle these old bones!


Much as I dislike the core rules of Age of Sigmar, I like the rules for most individual units, especially within the grand alliance of Death, enough that I still enjoy the game. And since there's still a few people who play it at the local store, I've decided to just roll with it, and return to working on my precious undead Legion.

I've decided to re-focus my efforts on an army thematically centered around Arkhan and Krell. I had been gearing up to paint zombies when last year's progress died to to work and school business, but skittles, wights, & morghasts feel more in theme for Arkhan, so that's what I'm focusing on to start the new year.

Here's the First Week's Progress:

weekly01_zpsmjlg4kq1.jpg


Based & spray primed 40 skittle spears (minus TK shields, which I'll be painting later), 20 skittle archers (accidentally primed before basing), 20 grave guard (though since they're carrying TK shields, I might call them tomb guard), 10 black knights, 4 archai, 2 spirit hosts, & several characters, including Arkhan, Krell, a second necromancer (the first I started painting last year), 2 wraiths, and a banshee; plus Konrad and Isabella, who don't fit the theme, but happened to be in the bin with the rest, so I figured why not?

I also assembled, cleaned & primed one realm gate, and worked on a necrosphinx and wight king as described below:

Necrosphinx:
necrosphinx01_zpsalwn7e5g.jpg


necrosphinx02_zpsobqeclu4.jpg


necrosphinx03_zpsphybgkrt.jpg
Purchased, assembled, cleaned, & based one necrosphinx. Not yet primed because the texture paint basing and gap-filling putty just went on today, and the aren't set yet.

I've always really loved this model, especially with the skull head, and I feel it's not only a great fit for Arkhan aesthetically and thematically, it's AoS rules are also super badass.

Wight King BSB:
wilhelm01_zpsheqzsree.jpg
sculpted a 'W' (for 'Wilhelm I' the tyrant, once the mortal ruler of Sigmar's Empire in the World that Was, raised to unlife by Vlad von Carstein during the End Times to fight in the Siege of Altdorf) onto my old Wight King BSB's shield. Also sculpted a skull design onto the banner's shield, once it's dry I intend to try to add a lower jaw to it. Not primed yet (there's no stripping the old paint job, so I'm just going to have to prime & paint over it as thinly as possible) because the sculpting work isn't done & set.

I'm not generally very confident with sculpting stuff, and I was especially worried about messing up a model I'd already lovingly converted, but I think the changes are working out well, here.


I'd take more pictures of the rest, but since it's all just primed black there's not much to see yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Up:

Finishing the sculpting work on the BSB, and priming it and the Necrosphinx obviously. I want to actually start painting as soon as possible, but there is another conversion I want to do first - a liche priest based on the High Elf wizard from islands of blood, plus some tomb guard bits (head, chest, & arms) from the sphinx box. That, and I want to get a few more spirit host bases put together, plus the second realmgate and maybe a set of arcane ruins, which I had purchased for future unit fillers when I heard the kit was being discontinued, but now might as well just assemble as terrain.


For reference, my previous thread IS HERE, in case anyone wants to see some of the old stuff that's still waiting in the wings for when I finish the current lot.


regarding bases:
I'm not going to be re-basing my units - I put too much work into getting them to rank up and magnetizing the units to fit with my metal unit trays and magnetized plastic bins, and future units will probably be assembled on square bases to maintain the system. Individual models, like monsters and characters, however, I'll be basing on whatever I think looks & fits the best. For instance, the base that comes with the Necrosphinx is just way, way too small, so he ended up going onto one of the large oval bases, and imo it works much better.

Existing characters and monsters will only get rebased if I don't like the bases they're already on, due to being too small (vlad is likely to get upgraded at some point, possibly other characters as well), or in one case too big (I felt the base the Mortis Engine came on was too small, but the Terrorgheist base I put it on is a bit overlarge, though I did give it some scenic graveyard stuff, so I might leave it).

I'm not worried about rebasing things before I paint them, though. That's not too troublesome a thing to fix later (cut off the sides of the base, glue the top on top of the new base, pussy the top even, rebase the new area).
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Eyeless

Eyeless

Wight King
May 17, 2013
443
Malta
Looking forward to your progress. I'm in the process of re-basing, re-painting and getting new units for my army but almost finished all my old stuff. Feels great!
 

Adam_Barrow

Sleepless Knight
True Blood
Dec 25, 2010
3,068
Nashville, TN
Stoked to hear your GG unit will see the light of day again. They were looking awesome. Bummer those unit fillers won't have much play, though. They were pretty dope. Also, never knew you were a Tolkien fan like that, if you'll pardon my cross-forum pollination from warseer.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
I never noticed that you had a plog here! My loss, seeing that you made a big lot of interesting things! I saved your black knights on my desktop for further reference, the composition of etheral color and the rusted armor is great and I'll have to consider it for my Coven Throne. The idea with mixing Vargheist pieces on the Crypt Horror chapion was also great!

That being said, I am very much looking forward to some more progress from you here :thumbsup:
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Stoked to hear your GG unit will see the light of day again. They were looking awesome. Bummer those unit fillers won't have much play, though. They were pretty dope. Also, never knew you were a Tolkien fan like that, if you'll pardon my cross-forum pollination from warseer.

Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that spirit-haunted obelisk. Mount it on it's own base and call it a spirit host? Use as terrain? I just don't know.

I am a tolkein fan, though not a fanatic by any stretch. Certainly not on the level of, say, Stephen Colbert. When I was young, my father would work most of the day, getting home just in time to see us to bed, so "bedtime stories" were an important part of my childhood, and Tolkein's work featured heavily, as did CS Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, etc. It fostered a perhaps overly-strong emotional attachment to the fantasy genre, which in turn provokes a similarly overly-strong frustration with how derivative much of the genre has become.

I love me some Tolkein, but I'd much rather read Amanda Downum's Drowning City or Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter than "Lord of the Rings clone #2,357", and while I wouldn't say the fluff for AoS is better constructed or presented than that of the Old World, I do find many of the ideas behind it more interesting.

I never noticed that you had a plog here! My loss, seeing that you made a big lot of interesting things! I saved your black knights on my desktop for further reference, the composition of etheral color and the rusted armor is great and I'll have to consider it for my Coven Throne. The idea with mixing Vargheist pieces on the Crypt Horror chapion was also great!

That being said, I am very much looking forward to some more progress from you here :thumbsup:

Thank you, though those Black Knights aren't mine, I haven't painted mine yet. Those were an example of the sort of limited palette color scheme I was thinking about. I fear my Black Knights won't look nearly as nice as those, but hopefully we'll find out in the not too distant future, as they are in the current pile.
 

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
Thank you, though those Black Knights aren't mine, I haven't painted mine yet. Those were an example of the sort of limited palette color scheme I was thinking about. I fear my Black Knights won't look nearly as nice as those, but hopefully we'll find out in the not too distant future, as they are in the current pile.

Damn, that's a faux pas from me! Still, that is a good example to strive for - good luck with painting your dudes then ;)
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Mid week mini update:

Monday is usually my biggest day for hobby progress, but a work emergency in the morning and needing to study and sleep for an exam tomorrow have limited my painting progress today - I only got the first coat of celesta down on ten of the 80 infantry models, something that takes two coats to cover well to begin with. If I had the money I'd pick up a new compressor for my long languishing airbrush, as all the ethereal steps could be done much faster that way... alas, I have not the funds, so this is going to take a bit.


Anway, no progress pic of them, as there's not much to show. But there is another more exciting reason why I didn't get as much painting done as I had hoped: I converted myself that Liche Priest I was talking about out of a spare islands of blood high elf mage and spare tomb guard bits from the sphinx kit:

lich01_zpsbrf0ajrv.jpg


more pics:
lich02_zpsbkm4kgxj.jpg


lich03_zpsllydinew.jpg


lich04_zpsh1segrze.jpg


lich05_zps6irehvap.jpg

The conversion was inspired by Glaven's Arkhan conversion from their (pre End Times) tomb kings army (link).

I really like how this conversion turned out, though sadly by the time I finished it, it was too cold to prime. But yeah, this guy is definitely a great addition to my collection, and a much better fit for my army than the official model.

Don't get me wrong, I actually like the existing Liche Priest model quite a bit, fine cast issues aside. It has a lot of character, and very much fits the sort of subservient, 'accepted as necessary but definitely not in favor' position that the Mortuary Priests occupied in TK society under Settra. However, under Nagash, I imagine Liche Priests would hold a far more favorable position, warranting a more ostentatious model, one that visually emphasizes themes of undead royalty and arcane power, rather than ancient frailty and decay. I think this conversion captures that well, and am very thankful to Glaven, wherever they are, for giving me the idea.


You may note that the model is on one of the new 32mm round bases. While, as discussed earlier, I will be leaving my units on square and rectangular bases, both for the ease of magnetized unit trays and because I simply like that ranked look batter, character models are, for the most part, going to be shifting to the rounds I think, at least for my infantry characters, which previously sort of hung over their 20mm squares in a way I found unsightly.

Consequently, I have already re-based Krell and my partially painted Necromancer:
krell01_zpsete1fb9v.jpg


necro04_zps29pza6sm.jpg

The final model that got re-based today is my Wight King BSB, Wilhelm the First, who also saw the last bit of sculpting work done adding that slightly-akimbo lower jaw to the skull motif on the banner's shield:

wilhelm02_zpspi7ceo9s.jpg


More pics:
wilhelm03_zps2yhxo7su.jpg


wilhelm04_zpsb4niitd5.jpg


wilhelm05_zpssshr30q1.jpg
I'm very happy with how the touch ups to my BSB have gone. I was afraid to take the knife & sculpty to a conversion that I was already pretty happy with, but thankfully I didn't botch the job and I think the results were worth the effort and risk. Sadly, as mentioned, conditions were not right for priming today, so that will have to wait.


I won't be re-basing all of my characters. I think Arkhan looks fine on the base he came with. The banshee will probably get rebased due to her reaching-way-forward pose, but I think my converted wraiths look fine on their 20mm squares, so they may or may not get re-done:
misc001_zps9fbmvin5.jpg

There is still yet some modeling to do for the current pile, which may or may not further delay painting progress this week. I think I have parts to get the spirit hosts up to five or six maybe, and I want to see if I can find and spruce up my old necrarch vampire conversion (the one winged lored, but with the sword swapped for a staff, and the wing sawed off and replaced with an up-raised ghoul arm), which seems like it would be a good fit for this pile, thematically. Or, at least, a better fit than any of my other vampire models.
 
Last edited:

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
@Malisteen Very nice use of the barrow wight and empire wizard kits, but I think the IoB Mage takes the cake! Lovely conversions all round. What a nice red you're using too, very striking and vivid.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
@Farmer7574 - I will not be using the red. That is a remnant of an old color scheme, and will be primed and painted over (sadly, it cannot be stripped, as the conversion is full of relatively fragile plastic parts and sculpting work). While the red was nice, it was too bright. My army looked like they were marching to war under the noon day sun! It was also very 'Classic Von Carstein', where I'm aiming for a Nagash/Arkhan/Undead Legions thing, so I wanted something darker, with a more necromantic, more supernatural feel. Also something with a more limited color palette - I take a lot of time on every color, so it saves a lot of time to only use a few.

While I have nothing finished in the current scheme, and it's still sort of a work in progress, the partially painted necromancer (already shown in one of the spoiler blocks above) gives an indication of where I'm going with this army:

necro04_zps29pza6sm.jpg


Black and ghostly green for pretty much everything, on pretty much every model, with transitiony blending between the two on important models like characters and such.

Here also is a test skeleton from my previous thread:

test06_zps2d386dce.jpg


Doesn't quite have everything down right, but that's more or less the direction I'm going in. Any given model might not be much to look at, but I am confident that the overall effect will be relatively striking in the aggregate.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dragonet

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
Doesn't quite have everything down right, but that's more or less the direction I'm going in. Any given model might not be much to look at, but I am confident that the overall effect will be relatively striking in the aggregate.

I didn't think about that, that is a rather novel way of doing things, at least how I see it. I am even more eager to see how will you fare with it and how it'll look like later ;) The skeleton looks awesome, that's sure :thumbsup:
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Another mid-week progress report:

I've primed the Liche Priest, and applied the first layer of Celestra to all 60 skeletons (40 spears, 20 archers). A second application is still necessary to get an even application.

progress01_zpsdt6vljdy.jpg


I have not yet decided whether to tackle just all the skeletons, or all infantry, or everything except characters at once (characters are the only thing that has to be done separately due to the intensive blending process). I honestly wish I had more skeletons, all things considered progress hasn't been that painful, and while I suppose I could field one unit of 20 spears and 2 of ten, I'd honestly like to have more skeleton warriors in order to comfortably run the death rattle formation. Like, maybe two units of 20 and one of 30? I don't know.

Regardless, it's empty wishes for the moment, as I already have too many models yet to paint for this army to be entertaining the thought of buying more (the sphinx was a special exception). And anyway, my next model purchase, once I have the money, is already slated to be a Malifaux starter box (a friend has been pushing me to try it, and it seems pretty fun as a smaller side game).

Tomorrow should hopefully see some modeling progress, with a few re-based characters & touched up conversions (in particular my old necrarch vampire), as well as a few more spirit hosts assembled (I found four sprues not already built or used in conversions, though oddly enough three are the same sprue, so... ?). So yeah, that, and either get the first celesta coat down on more models, or else put the second coat down on the skeletons I've already started.


I didn't think about that, that is a rather novel way of doing things, at least how I see it. I am even more eager to see how will you fare with it and how it'll look like later ;) The skeleton looks awesome, that's sure :thumbsup:

Thanks for he vote of confidence so far. I'm eager to get some models actually done, and in particular to get A LOT of models done at once, because I think it will take a couple units next to each other to really get an idea of whether the effect is successful or not.

My main points of worry at the moment are the Morghasts and Arkhan's Dread Abyssal. These models are huge, and the bulk of the models are made up of bony parts and ghosty parts. But in this scheme, both bony and ghosty parts are painted the same way, and I fear that isn't going to look good for these models. So do I break with the style of the army by painting the bone on these large models some other color (dark grey, maybe?), or do I just paint them almost entirely in the ghosty green, maybe trying to work in some subtle blues and yellows if more variation is needed? I don't know, and I'm not worrying about it for the moment.

EDIT: first layer of celestra is done on the grave guard. Rebasing of characters continues. Nothing more to show yet, was out of batteries at the store.

EDIT 2: Assembled three more spirit hosts. I have four partial sprues left from which to assemble one more, bringing me to six total, which is about where I want to be with them for the moment.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dragonet

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Painting time has been limited for the last couple days due to classwork. I am confident that I'll be able to make up some work in that regard tomorrow, but in the mean time I have made some more assembly progress, bringing my count of spirit hosts up to six, though I still need to do some decorating for their bases.

I've also been continuing to re-base characters on the rounds. Yesterday I got round to re-basing my von Carsteins - Vlad, Isabella, and Konrad - and today I figured that, since I had the rest, I might as well try that dismounted Mannfred conversion I've been thinking about ever since I assembled Arkhan. Here's how it's turned out:

mannfred01_zpszit8l5vf.jpg


more pics:
mannfred02_zpstyuatkog.jpg


mannfred03_zpswewiwlyj.jpg


mannfred04_zpsgwppbb6t.jpg

As you can maybe make out from the last pic, his tush region is a bit of a mess, gaps filled hastily with glue and zip kicker rather than taking my time with sculpty. But it's not the most noticeable area on the model, and my color scheme should obscure it, so w/e.


He looks pretty awesome, actually. The only real problem is between his larger scale and having to be on a tall scenic base due to that down-angled staff (which really couln't be assembled in any other orientation without much more effortful conversion work than I was in the mood for), he is sort of huge compared to the rest of his kin:

progress02_zpsi3jyyrpg.jpg


I know the primed models are a bit hard to make out on the keyboard, but sadly I'm a bit pressed for space this morning.

Anyway, I had to put Vlad on a similarly large pile of rubble to stop mannfred from just completely towering over him, and then I had to re-rebase Isabella so Vlad didn't completely overshadow her. Konrad's alright as he is, imo. They all still need to be magnetized for transport, and get new texture paint applied to their bases.

Apart from that, though, they're probably going to be waiting for quite a while before I get around to painting them, as the current thematic focus of my army is more based on Arkhan and Krell. Some day I might go back and do a more Von Carstein themed 'aristocracy of the night' wing of my army, but to do that justice I'd really need a couple boxes of vargheists, 6 to 8 bat swarms, Maybe another generic von carstein vampire on foot, at least one black coach, and maybe 5 to 10 blood knights (I eventually decided my conversions from empire knights were just completely unsatisfactory), and I don't have the money to buy any of that at the moment.


Now, more on-theme, I did find, fix up a bit, and re-base my necrarch vampire:

necrarch01_zps15cxuz6n.jpg


more pics:
necrarch02_zpssefjfe5w.jpg


necrarch03_zpsdmkueyjx.jpg

sorry about the picture quality on these.

Anyway, here's a vamp who looks more at home in the more arcane sort of force I'm working on at the moment, where his primary job is to teach Arkhan the Spirit Blight spell, and I plan to paint him along with the other relevant characters for my arkhan/krell list (liche priest, necromancers, wight kings, wraiths, erc).

The model's lost a bit of 'oomph' since the familiar was stolen for a chaos marine conversion. I may have to see about fancying it up with maybe a bat wing or looming spirit or something. I don't know. It's not bad as it is, so maybe I'll leave 'good enough' alone for once.


Tonight I've got to finish sprucing up & magnetizing the spirit host bases. Tomorrow should be back to the painting table for a fairly long session.
 
Last edited:

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Turns out, I'm going to be moving next month! Whether that's a good or bad thing remains to be seen, but in the mean time, it's pushing me to shift gears temporarily from painting to packing. What that means for this army, is that I'm now doing a full inventory of everything, getting rid of stuff I don't want to keep, and making sure everything I do want to keep is fully assembled, based, magnetized, and properly stored in my bins. Apart from army bins and terrain, I don't want to have to bring more than maybe a single, smallish bits box, and certainly not the several boxes of haphazard, mostly-used sprues I've actually got.

I had honestly kind of wanted to do a new inventory, anyway, and I'm snowed in this weekend so yeah, here we go, in no particular order:

The Whole Pile:
inventory01_zpsayr3pjp8.jpg


...minus a couple bits and bobs.

Flesh-Eaters:
inventory05_zpszlcfw1vn.jpg

One Terrorgheist with removable Ghoul King, 6 Crypt Horrors, 27 Crypt Ghouls.

No, I'm not entirely sure how I ended up with a weird number of ghouls. The ghouls and horrors will be staying on their square bases, the ghoul king and terrorgheist I'm not so sure of. I have been rebasing characters and monsters to rounds, but the terrorgheist fits the wide monster base well enough that I don't feel obligated to change it. The ghoul king, on the other hand, is a trickier matter, what with the terrorgheistbase specifically converted with a slot to fit a 20mm square, but the ghoul king really wants something more spacious now that that's an option. I don't know whether to widen the square slot into a 32mm round hole, or to try and build a larger round base with its own square slot to pop the ghoul king back and fourth between (probably 40mm, 32 would be too small to do this, I think).

Either way, I'm not worried about it yet, as, apart from some of the spare ghouls still needing their bases magnetized, this lot is ready to go as is.

Work List: magnetize some bases, other than that, these are good to travel.

Wish List: honestly, this is already enough to run a respectable mordant wing, especially as fleshy undead are taking a back seat to the bony kind in my army at the moment. If I wanted to run the formation, I'd need a lot more ghouls, really 60 to for me to feel comfortable with it, and I'm not a big enough fan of ghouls to make it worth the investment. I could maybe see adding a varghulf at some point, but that point isn't any time soon.

Zombies:
inventory07_zpsfebbmr8p.jpg

100 zombies, with 3 sets of command

Work List: about half a dozen of these need to be magnetized, and I want to alter a couple of these models to add a fourth command group.

Wish List: this is actually exactly how many zombies I want to own, so that's pretty cool. I'd love to add a corpse cart to the pile, though. I'm focusing on boney undead right now, but zombies are probably the next thing I'll be working on when I finish the current pile, and I'll be getting their buff wagon as soon as I get around to them.

Skeletons:
inventory10_zpszxd0xn3v.jpg

60 skeletons - 2 blocks of 20 spears with one set of command, and one block of 20 archers with their own command.
Not Pictured - 10 more skeletons, their unassembled parts scattered across several sprues

Work List: Get the las 10 assembled, probably as spears, including a command group.

Wish List: I'd eventually like to flesh my skittle wing out to 30 to 40 archers and 60 to 70 spears, for 100 total. That would mean three more boxes, plus probably another bits order of seaguard bow & quivers and TK shields, and... yeah. That can probably wait.

Creatures of the Night:
inventory06_zpsgzexcvgm.jpg

8 fell bats and 10 dire wolves. Not the best models, but I own them, so.... yeah.

Work List: Two of the bats still need to be pinned to their bases, and all of the bat bases need to be magnetized.

Wish List: I'd really like to add a few bat swarms to my collection. If I liked the models more, another 10 wolves would be nice too. I don't know. Probably not something I'll be getting around to soon, but still definitely on the list, especially the swarms, provided I can find models I like (maybe the lotr bat swarms?)

Terrain:
inventory02_zpstuwpuyls.jpg

Cemetery Garden, with a replacement statue, since the one that went there is on Arkhan's base. I think I'd like to mount the fence and the floor pieces onto a piece of hardboard, to make a solid terrain piece, leaving the statue and crypt buildings as removable to let models move through easier. This color scheme is old, and will be painted over.

inventory03_zpsca34b9di.jpg

One of two realmgates, the other yet unassembled.


inventory04_zpsxlzze6fa.jpg

Pieces of an Arcane Ruin, minus the floor and plus some magnetized bases and ghosty bits. These used to be unit fillers, but now that's not really a thing, so I'm not sure what to do with them, in particular the main obelisk with the ghosts. I could use it as an extra spirit host. Or it would make a pretty awesome objective marker. Alternatively I could mount these onto a piece of hardboard, and just them as the arcane ruins they once were. The spirits would even make sense on it, as summoning spirits is now what arcane ruins do. Regardless, the bases will need to be removed, or at least the obelisk's base would need to be replaced with a better fitting one.

Not pictured: a second arcane ruins kit, still mostly new on its sprues.

Work List: Assemble the other Realm Gate. Apart from that, this terrain's just going loose in a box, and isn't going to be getting any more pre-move attention. There's too much else to do, it's low priority.

Wish List: honestly, the place I'm most likely to play is pretty covered for terrain, I think I'm pretty good for now. If I wanted to do the column of the unassembled ruins up with ghosts like this one, I might need an extra box of them.

continued in next post...
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Court of the Undying King:
inventory08_zpsl8ethidk.jpg

Nagash, 3 Morghast Harbingers, and 4 Morghast Archaii

inventory09_zpssd9munsb.jpg

Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament

Arkhan is going to be the leader of my typical day to day army (though not the battlefield commander, that would be Krell) and as such is on the relatively short list for painting (he needs to have an actual army to lead, first), but I do have Nagash for special occasions. And also for painting motivation, as I'm not allowed to touch a brush to him until I've got a painted army worthy of his presence.

Work List: morghasts and Nagash are ready to pack. Arkhan's going to be getting re-based, and also needs a special foam bed to lie on like I did for Nagash, as he's too tall to stand upright in my bins.

Wish List: I'm pretty happy with my morghast count, actually. This lot's pretty good. I might eventually add Mortarch Manny or Neferata, but... at the moment Mannfred's not in Nagash's good graces, and I don't know what Nef's status is, so I'm not in any rush on either of those fronts.

Aristocracy of the Underworld:
inventory11_zpssasotku3.jpg

Assorted additional heroes, including:
Vlad
Isabella
Mannfred (on foot)
Konrad
Krell
Kemmler (converted, counts-as)
Vampire (on foot, necrarch styled)
2x Vampire (mounted, von-carstein styled)
Wight King with shield
Wight King BSB
2x Necromancer
Tomb King
Liche Priest


All magnetized, and, apart from the mounted models, they're all on nice new rounds.


Not Pictured:
Unassembled GW wight king + black knight (to convert into mounted wight king)
half assembled GW wraith (was going to be the Nameless, now I don't know)
Unassembled Empire Wizard (5th wraith? 3rd necromancer? 2nd Liche Priest?)
Unassembled Warsphinx Tomb King (saving for the future)
Unassembled Warsphinx Tomb Guard (will be a counts-as necrotect)

Plus stragglers:
inventory15_zpsfwkrmd0q.jpg

that's two mordheim vamps, both missing their right hands, one old metal banshee, one mordheim dreg, and one 3rd party undead ghosty warriory guy that I got as a gift. Wight King, maybe? Honestly, I don't know if any of these are going to be kept.


Work List: build mounted wight king and necrotect conversions. Re-base and re-magnetize the cavalry vamps if I can get my hands on the new oval bases for them. Decide what to do with the empire wizard, and do it. Decide whether I'm keeping any of the stragglers, and if I am then fix them up.

Wish List: not much. I'm pretty good on heroes. I'd like to add Apophas at some point, maybe, and if I ever do a unit of chariots, I'd like to put that warsphinx tomb king in one. Maybe a zombie dragon at some point. I ditched my in-progress conversion of one, as it was going to take far, far too much work compared to the cost of just buying the official model, which I actually rather like.

Wights
inventory12_zpsfvg11ucd.jpg

2 blocks of 20 grave guard, all armed with both shields and great weapons (half holding each), with one set of command.

14 black knights (the 15th is going to be part of a wight king conversion), with one set of command.

Work List: alter the grave guard to add a second command group. Pick the four double-mounted black knights off their bases, re-base and re-magnetize on rectangulars, and alter three of them to be a second command group, as two sets of seven makes more sense to me than one block of 14 these days.

Wish List: For the first time, none. I'm good on wights.

Malignants:
inventory13_zps9jgklw7e.jpg

One Mortis Engine (partially assembled)
6 spirit hosts
4 wraiths
1 banshee
1... giant wraith?

The big wraith is the necron nightbringer model, and I haven't decided yet what to call it. For the moment it's a bone giant (ie, a big possessed cemetary statue), but I don't know.

I haven't decided whether to re-base the mortis engine, as I did put a lot of work into the base it already has, but... it's a little bit too wide, honestly. I think it would look better on a knight titan base, but I'm not sure. The engine is also the only thing that doesn't have to be assembled before I go, as it needs to be painted before assembly, and I won't have time for that, especially if I decide I have to mail order a new base and change that out.

Work List: re-base the remaining two wraiths, add extra magnets to the big wraith, as it's top heavy, and fell over once during transport.

Wish list: I actually really like the box set malignant formation, and will eventually have to pick up a bos or two of hexwraiths to run it.

Relics of Nehekhara:
inventory14_zps0hcdvsu7.jpg

one necrosphinx and one casket of souls. I love these models.

Work List: Both are ready to go.

Wish List: Long term, I'd love to flesh out my handful of tomb kings models (these, the couple characters, the 20 archers) into a proper army, in particular with more constructs, more shooty stuff, maybe some chariots. In general, though, I'm not a big fan of the old-style skeleton bodies that are the basis of most of their models. I can run one or two as characters, but I'm not putting units of them next to units of the newer, better vamp count skeletons and wights. Which means no tomb guard, and no cavalry. I could maybe do chariots, but I'd have to replace all their crew.

So yeah, something for me to daydream about, but not happening any time soon.

And that's everything! Noticeably absent from previous threads:

I decided I didn't like my blood knight conversions. They're gone now. As previously mentioned, my in progress zombie dragon conversion is gone. Also gone, a second hand plastic giant, which unfortunately got crushed before I could get around to converting it into a zombie version of itself.

The rest is pretty much all here, in some form or another. I was actually pretty pleased on that front. You'd think seeing it all out on a table, not one bit of it fully painted, would reduce my desire to buy more stuff, but most of the units I've got make me want to get other units I don't have to support them. I may have a problem. -_-
 
Last edited:

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
The more I look at the wight king sprue, the less I feel I could make it work as part of a cavalry model conversion. I think I'm going to give up on that idea, which gives me back a regular cav model. When added to the double-based ones, that gives me five. I really don't need more than 10 black knights right now, and five cav models to make a whole new unit, so I think I'm going to try ripping the wights & barding off the steeds and turn them into hexwraiths instead.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Success:

hexwraiths01_zpscgg8jhdw.jpg


These were the four double-mounted black knights, plus the one black knight lower torso & horse that had part of a planned mounted wight king conversion that I have now abandoned, re-built as a unit of hexwraiths, rebased on regular cav bases and magnetized to a unit tray, allowing me to field the malignant formation some time.

Ripping the barding off caused some damage to the models, most easily seen on the horses flanks:

hexwraiths02_zpsgli6minx.jpg


I shaved them as smooth as I could, but I think they'll still need a layer or two of liquid green stuff to smooth it out. Still, not too shabby, considering!

You may notice that the champion still has barding and a black knight's lower torso:

hexwraiths03_zpsteqfhsi7.jpg


This is because the fourth model's barding was particularly difficult to remove, and after that I didn't want to try with the last model, in case I messed it up and left myself with an unusable unit. I figured it wouldn't be a problem if the champion got the nicer barding and a bit more armor than the rest.


I also rebased and found new right hands for the two old necromunda EDIT: Mordheim, not Necromunda vampires:

vampires02_zps1yfjs1ux.jpg


vampires01_zpsszytdk7x.jpg
 
Last edited:

Farmer7574

Vampire Count
True Blood
Dec 10, 2013
1,587
England
That makes two of us! I might be moving in Feb/March too.

The Hexwraiths are looking cool and the leader having barding and armoured legs looks good.

I think Arkhan's body could make a good mounted wight king rather than the standard foot model. The cloak is and body is definitely closer to home for it. I've got him sitting around somewhere awaiting assembly & conversion.

Were there vampires in Necromunda??? I remember playing it years ago but me & my brother only had the Esher, Goliath & Cowdor models.
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
No no, not necromunda, I meant Mordheim. Sorry, was posting late, got some wires crossed. Those were Mordheim vampires.

Anyway, today I changed out the magnets on the bases of about 30 infantry, altered a few grave guard and zombies to make additional command crews, and built the plastic wight king I had lying around, which had been part of a planned mounted wight king conversion which has since been abandoned as previously described. I also built a counts-as necrotect out of one of the sphinx crew tomb guard, with a clipped off dark elf whip to make a flail. No pics today, most of that isn't very showy. Probably more of the same re-magnetizing and minor building tomorrow, including assembling 10 skeletons.
 
Last edited:

Borgnine

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Jun 15, 2013
2,036
Pruszkow, Poland
@Malisteen @Farmer7574 I certainly don't envy you and the moving - it's difficult without taking your army with it! xD For packing, your're still doing a might fine job on the minis! Ripping the barding off steeds must have been tough, but the champion really stands out thanks to that :) Also, the Vampiress - a good model - I don't even remember how did her weapon looked like, but the dagger fits very well! :thumbsup:
 

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Thanks. I was kind of shocked at myself for actually having the nerve to rip the black knights apart. I kept thinking 'what the **** am I doing' as I did it. I'm still pretty amazed that it actually worked out.

More un-photogenic base-remagnetizing today, as I ripped neodynium magnets off the bottom of infantry and replaced them with magnet strips and little blobs of green stuff. I'm doing this because the magnet strips work fine for infantry, better even, since with the green stuff blobs they're less inclined to come off, while I need those magnets for the bottoms of cavalry and 40mm monster bases, of which I have several that need more magnets than they have or to be magnetized in the first place.

I did assemble the sphinx box tomb king:

tombking02_zpsshox6hre.jpg


He's on a 40mm base, with some extra cork board for more height and to make room for even more bugs.

As an individual model, I think I like my other tomb king more:
tombking01_zps5a03b8c3.jpg

An old metal model I've already re-based on a 32mm round. But while I think the metal model is better in terms of detail and proportion and just personality, it's neither as large nor as bombastic as the plastic king from the sphinx kit, and as such he doesn't feel as at home in Age of Sigmar. I'm going to hold onto the old king as is for the moment, but I think what I'll eventually do with him is rip him off his new base and put him in a chariot, at whatever future it is when I I get around to doing those (I would like two boxes for five plus a chariot-riding king, plus an extra box of VC skittles to replace the crew).

That's my current plan for the model anyway, but in the mean time he's kind of been edged out by the newer model.


The tomb king isn't the only hero I've built out of the left over sphinx parts. In addition to the bits I used to make the liche priest, I've also used the spare tomb guard to convert a herald and a necrotect:

herald01_zpsyyxhsbqh.jpg


necrotect01_zpsikxn9hxx.jpg

I'm pretty happy with them. The necrotect's flail/whip bit is off a dark elf witch elves sprue, other then that, they're all sphinx bits. The only thing I might change is that the herald isn't currently holding any weapon, he just has like a strap he's holding in his other hand. I don't currently have a really good weapon bit to give him, but if I find something later I'll add it on.


WIth these, though, I'm done with the sphinx sprue, and was able to ditch it, along with my grave guard sprues, zombie sprues, all skittle sprues except the two I need to put to gether the spare 10 I haven't assembled yet, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm on track to have my entire undead collection magnetized and in storage bins, with a bits box consisting of the mortis engine parts (since parts of it have to be painted before assembly) and absolutely nothing else by the end of this week.
 
Last edited:

Sception

Master Necromancer
True Blood
Sep 23, 2009
2,714
Getting some work in on my undead, nothing finished yet but:

workspace01_zpspxnekxmd.jpg


mortisengine01_zpslvbmawrr.jpg


skeletons02_zpsmvebmejy.jpg


I like the ethereal effect, at least.
 
Last edited:

About us

  • Our community has been around for many years and pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion among people of all different backgrounds. We are working every day to make sure our community is one of the best.

Quick Navigation

User Menu