(T9A) - An army for a new age

[TMS]

Hello everyone!

About two months back I decided to plunge back into this hobby and start playing and collecting for the fan-made 9th Age ruleset. What you see in this opening post is the result of those two months and how the army is currently standing. Nothing is actually finished just yet since I intend to go over the basing a second time and add some grass to it, along with cleanup of a few models. I also haven't painted any shields or banners at the moment, but they'll come along too.

My list of (built) models so far:

1 Vampire Count
30 Ghouls
10 Dire Wolves
2 Bat Swarms
20 Barrow Guard
5 Barrow Knights
4 Great Bats
5 Vampire Knights

So, let's go!

First up are the army shots.





Here's Helena, my Vampire Count. A Mordheim gangleader, a prospective Blood Bowl coach and now a commander of legions.









Next up are the Ghouls.









Wolves.









Bat Swarms.







Barrow Guard.











Barrow Knights.









Great Bats.









And lastly the Vampire Knights.











Aside from the work I've got left on these guys I also have ready for building 4 more Barrow Knights, 3 Vampire Knights, 2 Varkolaks, 5 Barrow Guard, 1 Dark Coach and Arkhan the Black's old chariot to be remade into either an Altar or Court. I'm also planning on a unit of Skeletons made up of the old Cursed Company models. Ebay, here I go...

See you next time!

 

[Irisado]

The photos are a bit on the long ranged side, even when enlarged, so it's not that easy to see some of details. That said, everything looks promising thus far. The Vampiric Knights, in particular, look rather impressive. They remind me of Vampiric Knights Panter, owing to your choice of colours.

The Vampiress modle looks interesting. Finding decent female vampire models is difficult, so I'll be intrigued to see how she turns out once you make more progress with painting her.

 

[MedMos]

Looking good so far, @MasterSpark. Some sort-of old-school in there, must be a heavy army compared to newer models. I like the grayish ghouls, very nice. And the Barrow Knights, are those old metal knights on the new skeletal steeds? Never liked the old, naked skeletal steeds, but this looks good!

 

[TMS]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like them!

@Irisado, I'm afraid I'm going to have to disappoint you on the details on the photos. I'm not much of a painter and when you get too close to the models it really shows. My aim is to have them look good on the tabletop from 3+ feet away, which I can assure they do perfectly well. The exception to this is my Count, I'd like for her to be painted to a high standard since it's a unique miniature that's been extensively converted and sculpted on (not by me). Unfortunately I don't think I have the capacity to paint her as well as I want to, which is why it never gets done. And speaking of that miniature, the entire ordeal of converting and sculpting came about because I seriously couldn't find a child model that wasn't portrayed as acting like one. As you can probably tell from the proportions of her she's supposed to be a child vampire, and one that most definitly isn't childish.

@MedMos, most everything in the army is indeed metal. Yes, including the Vampire Knights! I've actually done away with about 300 plastic skeletons and zombies in favour of going all metal in this army. It just feels like it has much more spirit to me. Incidentally, I am looking into replacing the plastic Dire Wolves.

The Barrow Knights are exactly that: the waist and up from the old metal black knights (plus their armoured feet, the new ones are barefoot for some reason) and the riders' legs and horses from the new plastic ones. It combines the best parts of both ages and retains that nice metallic weight. It was also a clean cut for both miniatures and easy to assemble with no filling required.

 

[Mad 'At]

As I said in the chat, it is looking very good.

Swung by for another look though and noticed you bat swarms that I just had to comment on. I just love the way to swarm is flocking towards the centre of the unit, rather than towards the centre of each base. It gives it a very cool impression. Also, what models are that?

 

[TMS]

Thanks @Mad 'At!

The swarms are actually made from GW's original goofball ones. The trick was to glue them all to a stick to clump them all together, making them more swarmy instead of just being scattered around. You can see that one of the sticks is tilted to merge the two bases together.

 

[Irisado]

I feel your pain regarding painting. I cannot paint at all well, which is why my Vampire Counts/Warhammer Armies: Undead armies are both completely unpainted. They will remain that way until I can afford to pay someone to do a proper job. I admire you for painting your army yourself, and I think that you're doing a great job .

 

[TMS]

Thanks @Irisado. To be honest, in my hobbying career (around 10 years now?) I've never before had more than a unit or two painted at the same time. I'm riding some kind of painting wave right now and I hope it'll last.

 

[Borgnine]

Great collection, very daring of you for trying to make everything metal - that must either chip a lot or needs some varnishing.
The mixture of old BKs and new ones turned out great, those heads fit them really well, as well as those swords on their backs - a really nice element Still, I think I like those black ghouls the most. They are terrifying like that and that's how undead should look And about switching those plastic dire wolves - are there even metal ones, besides single doomwolf?

 

[TMS]

Cheers @Borgnine!

Everything barring the wolves has indeed been varnished. I still expect there to be some maintenance required every now and then, though. And speaking of the wolves, I don't actually know of any nice metal ones, atleast not within GW's previous or current range. I'll probably have to look outside the GW sphere, although it's not the highest priority at the moment.

I'm glad you like the Ghouls. My method for painting them this way is so shamefully quick and easy that I'll have no trouble producing more if I need to.

 

[benvoliothefirst]

I LOVE the metal black knights on the new horses. They look so good together I didn't even notice the anachronism at first!

 

[TMS]

@benvoliothefirst, I'm glad you like them as much as I do.

They actually came about by a happy accident. At first I was going to try using the entire metal rider on top of the unbarded hexwraith horses but found that their legs are so narrow due to how thin the old skeleton horses are compared to the new. I was getting ready to cut and file away *a lot* of metal just to get a single rider to fit, but then I accidentally pulled the model clean in two at the waist. I then noticed how the new black knight barding came with the riders' legs attached, and that you glue the upper bodies to them. So I took the upper part of the old rider and put it on the new pair of legs and it just fitted perfectly. Life is pretty cool sometimes.

 

[Irisado]

Thanks @Irisado. To be honest, in my hobbying career (around 10 years now?) I've never before had more than a unit or two painted at the same time. I'm riding some kind of painting wave right now and I hope it'll last.

I also hope that you can get that painting wave to last . It must be a great feeling to get on a roll like that and to be making such progress. Keep going for as long as you can is my advice.

 

[benvoliothefirst]

I may have to appropriate that idea, MasterSpark! Sometimes it's beautiful when a hobby plan comes together!

 

[TMS]

Hello everyone. Since two weeks back I've made some painted additions to the army. There are now 5 more Barrow Guard like the other one finished, so I'm up to 25 in total, but they're nothing interesting to show before I've done something new with them. However, I now also have a pair of Varkolaks to play with.

They're neither of them quite finished yet. There's some details to pick out and brush up and the bases look a bit bare but they are mainly finished.

Roll on the first!









And number two!

 

[Irisado]

That Vargulf is looking promising. I like the contrasting areas of dark red on the greyish black of the beast's skin. Straightforward but effective .

 

[Hardt von Carstein]

Army is looking really promising, nice painting skills, they have really that grave feeling to them!

I might have added some more texture to the bases to make them look less even, they look a little like a gravel soccer field atm (not trying to offend just hard to describe what I think in another way) maybe some dead grass or larger rocks as well.

But great progress!

 

[Absyrtus]

Really enjoying this! Regardless of the standard, a painted miniature always trumps bare plastic/resin/metal in my book!

I really like the Varghulf, the bat swarms and the Vampire Knights...they look fantastic!

 

[TMS]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like my stuff. I played another game this evening and I just love seeing it all on the field of battle.

@Hardt von Carstein, definitely, the gravel is just the first step of the plans I have for basing. I'll be experimenting with adding grass and rubble to it, particularly for the bigger guys.

For the next couple of weeks I'll be focusing on my Blood Bowl team before I get back to anything big for this plog. I will be looking around for some decent movement trays in the mean time though, probably magnetic ones.

 

[Borgnine]

I will just second @Irisado , that reddish fur looks great on that grey skin and ground. It's all going nice, I'm looking forward to seeing them with enchanced bases.

Also, what is the model for that first Varkolak?

 

[TMS]

Hello everyone.

I'm afraid this plog went quiet, mostly because the interest there seemed to be for the ninth age down at the local game store dried up. Quite sad, but on the horizon I've now put together a small crew of guys who're willing to give the old 5th edition of Warhammer a go with me.

To be honest that's the version of Warhammer I've most been wanting to really give a shot so I'm actually pretty happy and I intend to bring my VC's over and use them as the Undead. I know that Vampire Counts actually first came into being during 5th but I'll take this chance to move away from the tried and true and go for the older mixed undead. Most miniatures will carry over pretty easily. I won't go for a repaint to bring the models closer to the garish riot look that 5th edition was but I am however considering redoing the edges of the bases from brown to goblin green in honour of the old ways.

@Borgnine, I'm sorry that I completely missed your last question. That model is "the Thing in the woods" from Mordheim, released together with the Empire In Flames campaign.

 

[Irisado]

That's an edition that I used to play frequently with my friends and I still have my copy of the first Vampire Counts Army book. I suspect that it will be more fun to play that than Ninth Age in a number of respects, so if you do, I hope you'll post some battle reports .

 

[TMS]

Thanks @Irisado, I'm quite looking forward to it!

Writing battle reports has never been my thing but I intend to have a campaign report running that'll show the bigger picture of how we get along.