Malisteen's Army Log: 5/16 Drakenhof Templar
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have you tried washing with warm soapy water and a soft brush? The release chemicals used with finecast can be especially resistant to glue. Also, the arm connection socket is just completely ruined by sprue connections on both arms, I found I had to cut off both pegs on the torso, and then cut arm joins smooth to fit them.
If all else fails, there's always pinning, but her arms are awfully delicate for that kind of work...
Ugh. Finecast is such a terrible material for models. I'm lucky my Isabella came out as well as she did. The only other finecast model I have that turned out as well was my Krell, and even that one needed some more intensive repairs, pinning, and greenstuff sculpting.
Hellion Nox
Grave Guard
Very impressive work here Malisteen! I might steal those brilliant ideas using the arcane ruins box! I'm looking forward to see a fully painted Nagash or Arkahn, the latter is my favorite End Times Undead model. Love the way you structure your army with fluffy units and character choices.
@Hellion Nox Yeah it's gotta be a money thing. The only thing I like about it is that it's much lighter meaning you don't have to carry kilos of lead minis about. GW's liquid green stuff approach to finishing the job you pay them to do is a joke though. "Did we quality control pass that product with air holes? Hey ho, spend more money on liquid green stuff and fix it up!"
Alright, so the other day at the shop, I was complaining about the blood knight models, and how I would use empire knights to convert them instead, if only there were decent heads to use. Well, a dark elf player overheard me, and offered to give me some sisters of slaughter heads they had spare after building a bunch of witch elves. Now, honestly, they're not perfect, but I decided what the heck, it was a kind offer, why look a gift horse in the mouth? So I picked up a box of reiksguard to go with, and today I finally had time to throw together a command set as concept models.
So, here they are, the beginnings of my Drakenhof Templar, carefully assembled to rank up with my mounted vamp lord and BSB:
All the bases are magnetized to stick to the unit tray. Obviously I still need to finish assembling the back rank riders, but the horses and legs have been assembled to ensure they rank up properly. Special care was taken with the champion as well, to ensure he would rank up next to the lord's bulky cape.
Here's close ups of the three mostly done command models:
So... yeah. For a Sylvanian knightly order with a bit of undead legion flair, I'd say they're good enough. If GW ever releases a plastic blood knight kit, sure, I'll replace them, much like I replaced the black knight conversions I made before their current kit was released, but for now this will do, especially since I doubt they'll see much actual table time outside of being a summoning option for Nagash, but there you go.
So, here they are, the beginnings of my Drakenhof Templar, carefully assembled to rank up with my mounted vamp lord and BSB:
All the bases are magnetized to stick to the unit tray. Obviously I still need to finish assembling the back rank riders, but the horses and legs have been assembled to ensure they rank up properly. Special care was taken with the champion as well, to ensure he would rank up next to the lord's bulky cape.
Here's close ups of the three mostly done command models:
So... yeah. For a Sylvanian knightly order with a bit of undead legion flair, I'd say they're good enough. If GW ever releases a plastic blood knight kit, sure, I'll replace them, much like I replaced the black knight conversions I made before their current kit was released, but for now this will do, especially since I doubt they'll see much actual table time outside of being a summoning option for Nagash, but there you go.
@Malisteen Well they've turned out really well, they look too 'nice & tidy' to me right now but I'm sure a decent paint job will soon fix that. Those heads work well on the empire kit.
If there's anything is recommend, I'd say the shields look a little out of place and would probably suggest using the intact grave guard shields and the long skeleton warrior shield, but that's down to personal preference.
Nice work.
If there's anything is recommend, I'd say the shields look a little out of place and would probably suggest using the intact grave guard shields and the long skeleton warrior shield, but that's down to personal preference.
Nice work.
On their own, I'd agree, but the shields were chosen to match those used in the rest of the army, to make things consistent and convey the undead legion (as opposed to regular vampire counts) overall theme. Visually fitting with everything else trumps looking good on their own for me.
As usual, you'll be looking forward for a while. The pre-painting modeling pile still includes:
several character conversions (mtd wight king, luthor harkon, nameless, lich priest, etc)
a bunch of unit fillers
a couple movement trays
remaining 5 blood knights
zombie dragon conversion
zombie giant conversion
mortis engine
a couple more spirit hosts
maybe 20 or so more zombies
....
Actually, that's not all that much, so long as I don't buy anything else before I finish. Of course, it would be nice to have some hexwraiths, and vargheists, and I still need Manny and Nef and something for Dieter, and a second mortis and terror, I could stand to have some more of all of the core units, plus I always thought the throne looked cool, and it would be a shame to have some of everything in the vamp counts book except the varghulf, black coach, and bat swarms. And that's to say nothing of TK stuff I'd still like to have - khalida (plus like 40 more archers), the scarab guy, 10 or so horse archers, 14 or so horse warriors, a couple min units of chariots, a whole bunch of stalkers, a couple warsphinxes, a couple catapults, a necrosphinx maybe....
several character conversions (mtd wight king, luthor harkon, nameless, lich priest, etc)
a bunch of unit fillers
a couple movement trays
remaining 5 blood knights
zombie dragon conversion
zombie giant conversion
mortis engine
a couple more spirit hosts
maybe 20 or so more zombies
....
Actually, that's not all that much, so long as I don't buy anything else before I finish. Of course, it would be nice to have some hexwraiths, and vargheists, and I still need Manny and Nef and something for Dieter, and a second mortis and terror, I could stand to have some more of all of the core units, plus I always thought the throne looked cool, and it would be a shame to have some of everything in the vamp counts book except the varghulf, black coach, and bat swarms. And that's to say nothing of TK stuff I'd still like to have - khalida (plus like 40 more archers), the scarab guy, 10 or so horse archers, 14 or so horse warriors, a couple min units of chariots, a whole bunch of stalkers, a couple warsphinxes, a couple catapults, a necrosphinx maybe....
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