Vekoslav the Beuatiful

I guess it's finally time to finish the project of Varsavian Bogatyrs, various hero-sized characters that I made for my Undead army - you can see their WIP versions HERE.

After Yarema, Drachitsa and Drazhan, now I present you Vekoslav the Beautiful, the proud Battle Standard Bearer for the wight army. Unlike everyone else from this group, he's not a kitbash, but an old discontinued Forge World model. My only change was to file off the vampire-themed image on the banner itself, make it smooth and mount a separate, plasticard sigil in front of it and add a ghost on top.

The reason for that was because I already painted a banner with an elaborate freehand for my Grave Guard - and no amount of additional freehands would make this one more special or prominent. To go a step further, I made a big sigil to move into 3D, beyond the two dimensions of a freehand. With the sigil itself being golden and on a black background, it even fits with the color scheme of my wights.

The ghost on top was a spare from the Nagash kit and an additional attempt to make it more special. Unfortunately, it somehow discouraged me from finishing this mini, so it got postponed to after Drazhan was posted. Still, it was a pretty good project - and a good addition to my collection as the only Vampire Counts model made by Forge World.

During his life, Vekoslav’s gift was his beauty and noticeability. Tall, handsome and imposing, he has drawn everyone’s attention to him. Maybe a wrong skill thing for a spy, but perfect for a statesman - born as a farmer, he managed to become a locally important chieftain. When he found himself in the Varsavian army, not only he led the most elite units but was also honored with the Great Banner of the Death God. Standing or marching with it on the battlefield, nobody could miss Vekoslav. He was always there with the standard, no matter the situation, visible, proud and unwavering. The bearer was so good at his position that he got buried together with the whole banner after death - all the better for Wight Kings when they raised him back to unlife. The great symbol was covered with patina, the flag was tattered and Vekoslav himself was reduced to a bony wight - but they were still inspiring awe on the battlefield, even amongst the dry-hearted wight soldiers of Varsavia.

The Three Hunters

Today I have some Skin Wolves from Forge World. I always liked those models but I couldn't find a good excuse to incorporate them into my collection. Well, I could use them as Varghulfs, but I already have some of those and they are all bat monsters, having werewolves added to that mix didn't sit well with me. Then, when I started expanding my collection beyond just undead and came up with body-horror-themed 'Dwellers of the Bog', those wolves suddenly found their place.

They fit right in as they are so the conversions are minimal here - I added the Lady's sigil on their bodies ('painted' on with Liquid Greenstuff mixed with gloss varnish, visible at the bottom of the post) and filed off any Chaos iconography. The painting was pretty straightforward, I went with light human skin and dark wolf flesh for the contrast. Only on the hands themselves, I tried to go for the 'flayed flesh' effect to bring more attention to them and I think it turned out pretty good.

Once upon a time, there were three hunters, masters of their craft, who were trying to help their starving village during an exceptionally strong winter. Most of the game was already hunted down - everywhere but in the lush garden that belonged to the wise and beautiful enchantress. She forbade anyone from hunting on her grounds, but the hunters were desperate and they decided to try nevertheless. They fell down a great stag - but as they were rejoicing, the enchantress appeared before them. They shook with fear, but the wise woman told them that the rule was just a test to find those truly skillful and brave. In reward, she offered them a chance to become better hunters than they could ever be - strong, fast, resilient, with keen senses. They could also hunt in her gardens without restrictions and their village would never know hunger again. They just had to swear their allegiance to her. Three hunters agreed and they took the stag back home, where they were greeted as heroes. After a great feast, they woke up at midnight, horrifying transformation ripping their skin open and breaking their bones. Turned into crazed, grotesque man-wolves, hearing the Lady’s whispers in their ears, they killed and devoured every single person in the village. Ever since that night, they roam Varsavia on the Lady’s of the Bog orders, only occasionally turning back into humans to realize what they agreed to.

The Beast of Preytov

Today I bring you yet another miniature from my backlog - a Forge World Preyton bought a long time ago. When I started pushing the forest theme in my army I noticed that this particular creature would fit pretty well in my collection, but sadly, at that point, Forge World stopped selling those miniatures. Many months later I managed to catch one on eBay - probably a recast, though - wings were really thin, there were some difficult mold lines, etc. But well, it had to work for me somehow, better this than nothing.

My concept when painting was to create an impression of a mismatched, chaotic beast, so there are many different patterns and hues used (while keeping everything comfortably dark and dirty of course). When I was painting it I was rather unsatisfied with my work, but in the end, it turned out not that bad - especially the wings, the part which I normally dislike to paint, even if it took quite a bit of glazes to get the shade just right.

Living in the Varsavian village of Preytov has many advantages - there’s a small river there, the soil is fertile, there’s plenty of game in the nearby forest and the bandit raids are practically nonexistent. It would be actually perfect - if not for the Beast that made this area it’s hunting grounds. Never looking the same, the creature has some polymorphic abilities, changing into many different animals, though the transitions are never clean - the forms are always mixed and distorted in unnatural ways. Most often it lures potential victims looking and crying like a prey animal and then turning into a large predatory monster to run the unfortunate being down, sometimes growing wings, horns or other additional limbs if necessary. To make it all worse, the Beast is actively malevolent, killing its victims slowly, painfully and messily, without any care for its own injuries. Some brave warriors have tried to kill it - and many even succeeded - but it always comes back somehow. Nevertheless, a small number of people living there have accepted their fate, thinking that losing people to the Beast from time to time while profiting from the otherwise safe and fertile land is preferable to trying their luck in the dangerous, lawless lands of the rest of Varsavia. Because of that, some people believe that the Beast is a violent, but protective god of Preytov - and their blood is the price they pay for their fortune - but the truth is, naturally, unknown.

Blood Bowl Star Players - Roxanna Darknail & Torles the Unlucky

Shortly after the Assassins come the Star Players - the last part of the Dreadspear Dragons Blood Bowl team - for now, at least. I have some inducements planned for the evil elves, but first I would like to actually finish the Nurgle team.

The dragons may be a relatively fresh team, but they do employ star players from time to time. One of them is Roxanna Darknail, a big druichii star. She took a liking to the team’s pet dragon - and while she didn’t want to participate in the wreck that was the previous iteration of the group, she is eager to help now that the things are better.

The other one is much less known, but very important for the Dragons - Torles the Unlucky, the last living member of the previous team, still donning the old armor. Although talented and skilled, he couldn’t completely avoid the mismanagement of the past - and kept getting injured on the pitch, collecting more and more injuries. Because of budget cuts - and because people wanted to see him - he was forced to play, no matter his health. Not that he complained - he was skilled enough to be useful and passionate about the sport. Then he would get injured again, starting the whole cycle anew. Soon, he made a whole career out of it - showing up on various pitches - to score against all odds and get injured spectacularly. Commentators still argue if he’s really unlucky or actually very lucky - compared to other elves in his position, he gets mangled more often, while actually not dying in the process!

First one is Roxanna Darknail, an official and completely non-converted miniature from Forge World. She was a tough one - the most important part of her are her hair, the thing I often most struggle with. I tried to make them special with the white braids and some purple highlights, but I will leave it to you to decide if it worked well enough. Besides that, painting her was similar to the other Witch Elves.

And the second one, a 'star player' built by me, created to commemorate a particularly unlucky Dark Elf lineman that my wife had in her BB video game campaign. I kitbashed him out of various bits, greenstuff and other random objects that were laying around my workshop - you can see the WIP version HERE. Painting him was nice enough, but the most interesting part was easily the cast on his leg - I painted various signatures there, from his team-mates to famous Blood Bowl personas from the game lore.

I even came up with some stats for him:

Star Player 'Torles the Unlucky'
MV:6 ST:2 AG:3 AV:9
Skills: Loner, Stand Firm, Sprint, Tackle, Juggernaut, Horns (Wheelchair Momentum)
Cost: 120 000
Usable by Dark Elf and Elven Union teams.

Blood Bowl Additional Players - Dark Elf Assassins

The Assassins Astrys and Ezion are here - they are a part of the Dreadspear Dragons Blood Bowl team. Minis used are the official, unconverted Dark Elf Assassins from Forge World.

They took more time than the rest of the team because all the glazes on their cloaks took much more time than I expected. I wanted to do something extra on them, but adding fancy freehands would just clash with their rather 'stealthy' look - so, getting inspired by the Forge World paintjob I decided to paint a gradient there, only making it a bit smoother and more pronounced than theirs. Other than that, they try to keep the same scheme as the rest of the players.

Also - I know how bad reputation those poor Assassins have and how almost nobody likes to use them in the game, but the models are still good (especially the female one) and I considered them way too iconic for Dark Elves to just ignore them. We'll see how they'll fare on the pitch later!

The usage of assassins has been steadily dropping during the last seasons, mostly thanks to coaches collectively deciding that they are just not that useful on the pitch. Still, some teams continue to use them - and one of them are the Dreadspear Dragons. Astrys and Ezion were brought from faraway lands (funny accents!) for two reasons - first, show the spectators some real, bloody Dark Elf play - and to secondly, actually stab some stubborn knuckleheads from time to time. Well, that and maybe throw a ball once a while. They might be rookies, but their acrobatics and incessant attempts at stabbing their opponents always bring eager spectators.

Zombie Legion - Skaven

Part of the Zombie Legion

Some zombie batches are still left to post - this time, some Skaven. I didn't have any spare ratmen bodies in my bits collection, so these were all bought specifically to be used in the Legion - mostly for a bit of diversity and completionism. Being non-humans, it was difficult to zombify them, as I couldn't just change some bits around, so their conversions are rather simple.

The wolf-rat was bought near the end of the whole project, when I was looking through ebay for some last miniatures to fill some space - and someone was selling it cheaply. It's not only an interesting piece by itself, but it's also a Forge World model used as a lowly zombie filler - another thing to take off my bucket list, I guess!

Ratmen crawl underneath all the Old World and they sometimes resurface even in such forgotten places as Varsavia. Their clashes with the vampires are not very common, but their soldiers, as frail as they are, make it into the zombies’ ranks too. Once skaven launched a more organized attack, bringing with them strange rat-wolves - beasts specializing in forest combat. Sorin's Vilks countered them quite effectively and brought them down with numbers - since then, one of such creatures accompanies the zombie horde.