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Sunday, October 7, 2018

Wraiths of Siekerno - WIP

Long have I wanted to have a unit of Cairn Wraiths - the least used and the least popular 'Rare Unit' from the 8th edition Vampire Counts armybook. They were just way too expensive for what they did - but I still wanted to get them, for the sake of completionism at least. Using the same character Cairn Wraith 10 times wasn't an option, I didn't want to hunt for all the oldhammer instances of them and I couldn't find a good base for converting/building them too, so the idea was waiting in the backlog for years. Then GW released Grimghast Reapers and I knew those are the ones I was looking for! Still, some conversions were in order - thankfully I already had an idea in mind.

I didn't want to have a full 10-ghost unit of grim reapers, because I find that a bit silly, so I decided to replace the blades with axes. Cowls and blinded faces were also a little weird, so I replaced them with normal skulls and Slavic pointy helmets, adding some cloth around it too. That made them more similar to real warriors rather than angry farmers - while still keeping the fantastical theme pretty strong, so all was good.

Then I had to mount them on bases. That was a problem because they were designed to stand on loose 32mm rounds, rather than on tightly packed 20mm squares that WFB cairn wraiths used. To make it work I converted them completely first and only then began mounting them on bases, moving, switching and adjusting them together. I found a good configuration but that not only required cutting some ghostly strands and bending others but also left many of them standing very off-center on the bases. To remedy that, I had to immediately magnetize them and build a tray for them - without it, only 2 of them are able to stand upright! I like them like that, though - they stand so close to each other, they blend into one ghastly mass, like a Wild Hunt of some sort. Only after seeing them like this I decided to add those branches on the ground - both to reinforce my forest theme and to hide their connection points a bit.

Now I really look forward to painting them!

EDIT: The painted unit can be found HERE.

Conversion of an unit of 10 Grimghast Reapers miniatures from Age of Sigmar (AoS), made to fit tightly together as Cairn Wraiths for Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) - with additional elements made of greenstuff and plasticard.

7 comments:

  1. Pierwsze skojarzenie: Żwirek i Muchomorek :D
    Ale zapewne jak je pomalujesz to będą wyglądały MEGA!

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    1. W trakcie rzeźbienia też zaczęły mi wyglądać jakoś skrzatowato! Muszę chyba trochę przystopować ze szpiczastością tych hełmów ;) I wielkie dzięki, też mam nadzieję, że dużo zyskają w trakcie malowania.

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  2. Fine-looking unit. Much better with axes. In most of these poses they look strange with scythes.

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    1. Thanks! It helps too that they don't hold them as one would hold a scythe :)

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    2. That's exactly what makes them look weird. It's the same with one of the Shadespire skeletons. I gave him an axe for the same reason.

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  3. Those axes really do make the models much better. I like the idea of them blurring into each other, as if forming from the same smoke. Looking forward to seeing them painted!

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    1. Thanks! I was a bit unsure how they turned out, but it's good to see that people like it :)

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