Karlina Von Carstein in the Old World

 

Karlina squared.

As the title says, this is Karlina Vin Carstein in the Old World. This was a limited edition model intended for Age Of Sigmar which I decided to convert for use with The Old World game. The conversion, if you can even call it that, was simply to stick the model onto a 25mm square base. A challenge since it was intended for a 40mm round base. There is a small skull with a dagger in it that was supposed to go in front of the model but I had to squeeze it into one the corners in the rear. Like Lady Annika, this model just spills off of it's base and  towers over the other foot models in this army. 

After a bit of back and forth on how to paint this model, I decided to go with the blood red look of the Blood Knights (yes, I got some, but I haven't gotten to them yet). After basecoating the miniature with Baal Red Contrast Paint I was quite pleased with the result even at this stage. 

Baal Red Contrast Paint

Black Templar was used on the cloak. I think this turned out surprisingly well also. 

After this I painted the rose on the blade using Volupus Pink for the bud and Moot Green on the stem. After that I washed most of the model with Nuln Oil. 

 After that I added a layer of Evil Sun Scarlet which was followed with a thin edge highlight of Fire Dragon Bright.  Now this armor is starting to look nice and vampy.

The cloak was done by painting Nocturne Green over the Black Templar which thought worked very well.  A thinned layer of Kabalite Green was put over that, mostly on the edges,  with a solid application of Kabalite Green  as the final highlight. 

Blood for the Blood God was added to the Golden chalice in a way to make it seem that what little blood was left in it is dripping out of it. 

After finishing the face off, the model was done! 

I am very happy with how this turned out. I must confess, this was sort of a test model to try out the Blood Knights scheme. Now that I feel that this was a success perhaps I need to build those Blood Knights! 

AOS Square-Based Skeletons (Part 2)

 ...and they are done! 

A view of the command group.

Continuing on from last time I managed to get the whole unit of 20 completed. And I am quite pleased with how they turned out. 

The whole rabble.

I repeated this process 19 times: I edged highlighted the cloth scraps using Fenrisian Grey and washed over that with Drakenhof Nightshade. Then I kind of drybrushed the metals using Canoptek Alloy over the Gor Grunter Fur base coat.  

A view of one of the ranks. 

The banner (see the first pic) proved tricky as I had attempted to use a decal on it. But it was so old that it disintegrated when I tried to apply it. Then I attempted to hand paint an icon (the folks at Den of Imagination makes it look so easy!). But I was not happy with those results either. In the end I just decided to leave it black. This way I can just say it represents whatever banner suits me at the time. 

The undead gather

And with that, here they are gathered with the rest of their fellow Undead ilk. I am really enjoying this project and I hope you are as well! 

AoS Square-based Skeletons (Part 1)

 

After I finished the Black Coach for my Vampire Counts and gathered the whole (painted) army together to look upon my progress so far, it became apparent that I needed more Core units to support this army. Enter Skeleton Horde #2. This unit was part of the AOS Soulblight Gravelords Vanguard set that I recently picked up. Unlike Skelly Horde #1, these fellas are better proportioned, better armored, and look bad-ass. After getting them on to 25mm square bases and playing around with ranking them up, I am confident they'll work out just fine in the game. 

Assembled and gritted.

And yet, that older style of Skeleton Warrior isn't without it's charm. I have enough left over to assemble another unit (Skeleton Horde #3 will have Hand Weapons and Shields). Oh and those really old ones I posted about awhile back will likely be joining these guys as well.  Just for kicks, I thought I would take some of the leftover  bitz from this new kit and see how well they would work on the older ones. 

...and I think it works well! 

Anyway, I painted these things almost entirely using Contrast Paints. All of the cloth areas were painted using Black Templar. The spear shafts were painted with Baal Red. All the leather bits, straps and sheaths, were painted with Snakebite Leather. The bulk of the models are the armor and Spearheads which were all painted with Gore-Grunter Fur which makes a great base for rusted metal. 

Basecoats with Contrast Paint.

I wasn't so sure about this direction, so I decided to take a single Skeleton Warrior up to a nearly finished state. I edged highlighted the cloth scraps using Fenrisian Grey and washed over that with Drakenhof Nightshade. Then I kind of drybrushed the metals using Canoptek Alloy. 

One guy mostly done.

And dang! -I am very pleased with these results. Now I have 19 more to go...

An undead mass.

This Old Black Coach (Part 3)

Not that there was all that much to finish from last time, I still managed to finish this. Well, mostly. 

He's here to do the reaping.

The biggest change is that the driver is now fully painted and mounted onto his seat. I used the same color palette for his skin that I used on the ghosts. His robes were painted up from black to a light gray and then washed over using Naggaroth Nightshade. The blade of his scythe was painted with a dark brown, then a bit of old Tin Bitz was dabbed on it before finishing it with an edge highlight of Stormhost Silver.

I imagine this thing bouces a lot. 

Also, this post was a chance to re-photograph this thing with a different color background so that the ghosts stand out better. They blended in a bit more than  I would have preferred with the previous one.

Rear 3/4 shot.

The coach is now securely attached to it's base. I added a few tufts of grass on the road edge. I think I might go back and place a few leaves as well, but we'll see if I can remember to do that.

Profile shot. 

The last thing to finish is the coffin and it's resting occupant. He was fun to paint, although a bit challenging. I have wonder how challenging sculpting this was for the artist who produced this. I had an idea to try to magnetize the lid using thin straps of sheet magnet. This, however, utterly failed. I think it was a polarity issue and after several attempts, I decided to abort the whole magnet idea. Frustrated, I stopped there for the night. 

Sheet magnets on the coffin rim.

The next day I looked at it and decided the sheet magnets had to go so I stripped them off, repaired the damaged paint, and applied three tiny magnets. These magnets were acquired back when the misguided notion of slapping out Marine special weapons was something I was keen to do.. Anyway, after attempting to reverse some of polarity on these new magnets I was impressed when they actually worked! 

Small magnets added. 

There is a significant gap between the lid and the coffin, but without getting really fanatical about the whole thing, I decided I would live with this. If I had known how this would've resulted beforehand I would've attempted to add a small green LED light to the inside of the coffin to make the light seep out of that gap. That might've looked creepy-cool. 

Not as a tight a gap as I wanted but it'll do.

The coffin fits in the Black Coach now and I am not at risk of losing the coffin lid. Well, unless I lose the whole thing, but that would be far worse blunder. 

Happy trails.

I think this is a good opportunity to take a look at all of the Vampire Counts miniatures I have built and painted so far. Interestingly, since I started painting models for Warhammer: The Old World last summer, I seem to have painted more for this army than I have any of the other ones. I suppose the Dwarfs are coming in second in that race but we'll see if they can retake that spot back over soon. Note the cluster of primed pirate zombies over to the right, just waiting for their paintjobs to enhance their grossness. And I have a few more vampires waiting as well. Currently, the only painted vampire is conked out in the back of that Black Coach! 

The spooky crew so far...

This Old Black Coach (Part 2)

 Since Part One of this project was posted I have made some progress on this grisly model. Quite a lot in fact. 

Yes, it's mostly finished but the most obvious thing I have yet to do is to secure it to it's base. 

As far as painting goes,, here is what I recall: The red areas, the cushions and curtains specifically, were finished off by using Carroburg Crimson in the recesses and Pink Horror for the highlight. The wooden areas, the wheels mostly, were painted using Wyldewood Contrast Paint. This is probably my good go-to for anything wooden, I just love it! 

The gold (-ish) filigree was painted using a copper which was drybrushed over using Sigmartite and finishing if off with a highlight of Stormhost Silver. 

The Black of the coach was highlighted using a light gray. Then I washed over all of the Black areas using Naggaroth Nightshade. 

I didn't want the flames on the pair of torches to be typical flames, but rather something warp and evil. Green flames would fit the bill and stand out against the other colors on the model. 

The last two bits to complete are the driver and the coffin. That also includes the occupant within it...

This Old Black Coach (Part 1)

The Black Coach rides forth.

I have always loved the old Black Coach model. It was so Gothic and regal.  It was also loaded with stoic charm despite it's implied movement. All this made it  a bit creepy.  I also really like the current plastic one with all it's energy and spirit mayhem. However, it 's price point made it unattainable for me. Lucky for me I found this old one for a fraction of the cost. While putting it together I kept finding images of the newer kit, and it's ghostly attendants were really starting to grow on me. 

Primed to the right.

As you can see, I came up with a solution. I found a pair of ghosts attached to a single sprue on ebay. I believe they may have been part of a Warhammer Underworlds team. After a bit of trimming and tweaking I was able to make it seem as if they were whisping forth from the window of this herse. 

Primed to the left. 

I was excited to get cracking on this so I primed the whole thing in Wraithbone and after it dried for a few hours I set about applying Contrast Paint for a basecoat. 

Contrast paints for the basecoat.

I started off with Skeleton Horde for the bones (horses and corpse-on-a-stick), Wyrmwood on the wooden wheels, Black Templar for the bulk of the coach,  Briar Queen Chill on the ghosts and Baal Red on the curtains, cushions, padding and the top knots on the horse's armor. 

Spooky ride. 

The things I didn't paint is the armor on the skelly horse's heads, but I will get to that when I do the touch-ups. After that I proceed to the mid coats and build the whole thing up with highlights.  I am satisfied with it enough to call it battle-ready,  but it's fsr from done in my eyes. 

A piece of a spooky road. 

Of course to truly make it battle-ready I would need to stick onto it's base, which is mostly done at this stage. It just needs a bit of grass tufts and maybe some fallen leaves. But for now, we'll save that for a follow-up post. 

Bats, man (Part 1)

 Bats. Swarms of bats. 

Sorta. 

While poking around the Neverness Archives I stumbled upon these old bats. Much like a lot of my Warhammer Fantasy models, that weren't acquired for inclusion in a specific army, these were purchased for use in one of my D&D campaigns. Specifically D&D 3.5, and expressly for use as  Firebats in a 3.5 conversion of the classic 1st Edition module The Tower of Inverness. They are part of an awesome encounter involving a Fire Giant and a lot of lava.  These firebats performed admirably in the game, but that was their only rodeo, and they haven't been touched since. That was around 2003-ish. 

The goofy stands that were molded onto these things did not sit well with me back then (and less so now). So I chopped them off and drilled a rod into their posterior.  Then I mounted them to a flight stand rod which in turn was mounted onto a 20mm base. 

This worked out wonderfully in the game as these creatures operated independently and not as a swarm in the Warhammer sense. My original idea was that I would use greenstuff to sculpt flames onto them. I still believe this would have looked rad as hell, but time was more persistent than my vision and what you see in these pics are as far as the whole project got. And yes, they kicked ass in the game! 

When I recently dug these guys out of the archive, the plan was to magnetize them to a 40mm base and make them removable. Very much like I did with the Tyranid Ripper Swarms I assembled awhile back. But when I double-checked their stats I found that they have 5 wounds per base, and not the 3 that I thought they had. Oops. 

And that just isn't going to work like I originally envisioned. 

So my current plan is to remove the bats from their 20mm bases and attach them at different heights to a 40mm base. I am fairly confident I can make this work. So confident that I am going to save that whole process for the eventual, but inevitable,  Part 2 of this series. 

Lady Annika in the Old World (Part 1)

 I decided I wanted to add a bit of diversity to my vampire counts and, while I was at one of the local game stores, this kit called out to me.  So I decided to give her a shot.  I knew her cloak/robe-thing would flow off of her 25mm base, and I thought I could make that work.  But what surprised me was her height. (More on that in a moment here). So I built her up anyway.  I was stuck trying to determine which arm to take: the one holding the mask or the bat winged one. Mrs. Neverness thought the bat winged one was best so I went with it. 

Too classy for her base. 

Back to the height issue; She is definitely taller, by a considerable margin, compared to most of the typical Old World humanoids. But I think I am OK with this as it allows her to stand out rather dramatically during play.  I swear I think AOS has gone to a 32mm scale. But that's a topic I haven't enough knowledge to truly explore at this time.  So long as she's attached to a unit on the right flank,  her clothing can flow off to the side and not interfere with the joined unit. 

It's like a flank bumper. 

Now to figure out how to paint her (and her zombie pirate buddy's as well).  And eventually this unit of 20 pirate zombies will be getting their own post as I work on them more. 

"Arrrr, brains!"

This army is starting to come together and I'm having a lot of fun with it so far.  At this point I have a fully painted Tomb Banshee, Spirit Hosts and Skeletons with Spears. And there is definitely more to come!