Wraiths of Siekerno

Finally, I managed to paint my rather unpractical unit of Cairn Wraiths, made out of converted Grimghast Reapers. I built them like this because I always wanted a unit of them, but I couldn't find the right models - and those wraiths were a perfect converting opportunity for that. They required very careful positioning, basing, additional weight underneath and can stand in only one configuration - but they do work! Good to see that it was possible to squeeze an AoS unit into such a tight WFB formation.

Unfortunately, the converting process wasn't the hard part, painting all the ghostly bits was. Maybe it was just me, but I really struggled to cover it all without missing anything in a reasonable amount of time. I guess the new Nighthaunt aren't really for me! Still, I am quite happy with how they turned out and must admit that it was all worth it! Also, I finally found a good model to try out verdigris and etheral effects at the same time - something that people have been suggesting to me for a long time. Now I have to consider making more minis like this.

Wanting to represent the 'Chill Grasp' rule from the 8th Edition WFB I also painted some frost on their scythe handles, just like I did years ago on my first Cairn Wraith.

The whole conversion process and problems related to it are shown in the WIP post HERE.

In the ages past, when Daremnych was waging a difficult war with another ancient tribe, he came to the village of Siekerno, asking for help. He wanted to ask their well-known and fearsome axemen warriors to sneak through the forest and attack his enemy’s flank during an upcoming battle. The men agreed, but when the time came, they didn't intervene, favoring the chances of the Great Priest’s opponents. Unfortunately for them, Daremnych prevailed through the bloody battle even without them - and came to confront the warriors after that. Already knowing his methods, the axemen of Siekierno fell to their knees, asking for another chance, willing to help and serve. The Priest gave them exactly that - killed them all and bound their spirits to his will, telling them that he will call upon them in the future - only then the axemen will get their second chance and opportunity to serve. Then he captured all the remaining villagers, divided them into small groups and forcibly integrated them into various tribes he had under his command. Now Daremnych, needing an edge against his vampire enemies, came to the forgotten ruins of Siekerno and called the axemen back - to finally serve him as they wanted so many years ago.

First, the whole tightly packed unit of wraiths:

And all of them separated:

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.

Varsavian Hermits

The unpainted version can be seen HERE.

As I wrote in the WIP post, I never really liked those old bedsheet Spirit Hosts that GW was selling before upgrading them in 2014. Even so, when I noticed some of them on ebay recently, I realized that I actually want them! They possessed enough oldschool charm to add them to the collection, but that didn't mean that I wouldn't convert them. To make them more Slavic and also add some variance to the unit, I decided to fashion them after hermits that lived in russia in old times. The whole idea, together with a painting that inspired me, can be found in the WIP post, linked above.

I painted them in the same way I did with my last banshees - only this time I wasn't sweating as much about detail. Well, they aren't as much detailed as the banshees too. I wetblended them first - dark green on the bottom parts and light green on the top parts. When that was dry I highlighted the top with a white paint and added several layers of black shade on the bottom parts, especially in the recesses. Then I added some Coelia Greenshade, mixed with Vallejo Glaze Medium on the middle parts to blend two extremes together. Then it was just a matter of some refining touches, like on the hands or on their faces. In the end, it was pretty quick to do, I remember that banshees were more labor-intensive.

Faith in the harsh land of Kislev values frugality and abstinence - and while common people remember about it only a few times a year, some people take it much, much more seriously. Those ascetic hermits can be found all over Kislev, but they are especially common in dangerous Varsavian forests, where they can really test their bodies and faith. Here they preach spirituality and peace, sometimes acting as quite effective neutral mediators between warring chieftains. The problem was, Constantin wanted the Varsavian chieftains to wage endless wars between themselves, to make them easier to control and contain - and to have a steady supply of dead to be raised in the vampires’ armies. Because of that, he had Sorin and Ioana hunt down every single hermit hiding in the forests. Violently murdered despite their innocence, their disturbed spirits were easy to shackle down, to serve their killers even after death. Vampires find them useful both on the battlefield and to haunt the countryside, ruining the hermits’ reputation for years to come.

Varsavian Hermits - WIP

While I have been working on the dragon, I managed to fit a small WIP project to have something new to show this week.

For a long, long time I really disliked those old bedsheet spirit hosts of old. That's why I used LOTR minis for my own ghosts. But about a month ago, when I was looking through eBay I noticed three bases of them being sold cheaply and I realized that I actually like those goofy bastards and I totally want some.

Seeing as they are dressed in robes, have bald heads and use ropes as belts, I wanted to have them as some kind of monks - and mix them that way into my story. But their remaining hair is long, so that theme wasn't perfect. So next, I thought of the Russian ascetic hermits of old - I would only need to sculpt some beards and hats. The picture that inspired me is below the photos. This idea was also great to add some differentiation too - for all their oldschool charm, those ghosts come in only three variants and are rigid enough to make them unposeable. Besides that, this also instantly gave them some Slavic feel and made them fit better into my army and story.

EDIT: Painted ones can be seen HERE.

And here you can see the painting that inspired me the most on how to make them - "Hermit fathers and the immaculate women" by Mikhail Nestrov, 1932.

Berthild & Erentraud Hautfell

Two old banshee miniatures from Games Workshop. I have been seeing those on eBay for a long time now and only recently it came to me that those two are actually really good sculpts and I want to get them - I already have one miniature I use as a banshee, but it definitely won't hurt to have more!

As you can see on that old banshee of mine, I always painted my ghosts rather uniformly greenish - which has a great advantage of being really quick and easy to do. Then I saw these ones and I decided to try something similar - a gradient going from dark on the bottom to light white on the face. It involved quite a bit of wetblending, glazing and refining, but I think that it turned out all right in the end. It creates a much stronger illusion of them being etheral and those glowing faces are pretty spooky too.

I bought recently some old spirit hosts too - those that look like bedsheet ghosts - I'll try this gradient scheme on them too. EDIT: They are painted now and can be seen HERE.

Back when Alexander Hautfell was still a normal citizen of the empire, he was the black sheep in the family. His parents were making sure that it would be his older sisters that would inherit the family wealth and influence and not the vengeful, twisted wizard acolyte that Alexander was. His eldest sister, Berthild, was a rare woman officer rapidly advancing in the imperial army and the second sister, Erentraud, was a woman full of charm and grace with a promising future on the imperial court. Ready for anything to further his own position, Alexander began spinning a cruel web of plots to destroy his sisters’ position and inherit the family fortune. After everything was said and done, Erentraud, Berthild and their parents died as broken shells of their former selves and Alexander lost all the shreds of humanity he still had. Because of the powerful emotional connection and their undeserved fates, it was easy for Hautfell to summon the ghosts of his sisters as very powerful banshees. While they are magically bound to be obedient, those tortured spirits are just waiting for someone stronger to break the spell so they could rip Alexander’s body and soul to shreds.

The Green Hunt + WIP

Hexwraiths painted in December 2014 - the riders are from the original GW Black Knights set and the horses are from GW Chaos Marauders - an idea I saw on the Carpe Noctem forum. They were a good excuse to try out some inverted highlighting on all the flames and manes - and on such a big unit, it was tedious beyond my comprehension... But the effect was kinda worth it. The first set of pictures will show two 5-man-strong sub-units and the second one will show the whole Green Hunt.

The green rider is a mythical figure in the Varsavian countryside - a hunter of the dead shrouded in green flames, capturing worthy warriors for his own band, preparing for an untold danger that will befall the land. He wasn't seen for a long time, though. Communing with the ghosts, von Greifens and their necromancers were able to find and bring him back into the material world after elaborate rituals and few sacrifices. Part undead spirit, part fey of the land, he agreed to help his summoners from time to time in exchange for bringing him nine worthy hunters, for he lost his previous band. Thankfully, the search was hastened thanks to a Chaos Marauder raid by a band of Vaultring the Death Hand. While proving to be a tough opponent, he and his band soon joined the Green Hunt as shrieking wraiths. After that, people once again started to talk about ghastly green warriors galloping through the Varsavian forests.

The champion of the unit, the Green Rider, was converted to look like the Red Rider from the Russian fairytale from a picture by Ivan Bilibin.

Ghost of the Ice Witch

The current GW Cairn Wraith painted in April 2014. Wanting to give her some Slavic feel, I added the braid inside the robes. I also wanted her to be part ghostly, part real - thus the green bottom of her robes - but the effect got lost somehow in my opinion. The cold effect on her hands turned out quite well, though.

A spirit of a witch who plagued the Kislevite countryside hundreds of years ago. As a young woman she lured and killed naive village boys with her charms, later she would stalk the wheat fields during the reaping seasons to kill people with her scythe. Using ice magic empowered by blood sacrifices, she kept the superstitious peasants at bay for very long. At some point, the governor of the land got bothered enough to organize a witch hunt, captured her and killed in a public execution. The amount of hate she gathered against her along the years and her own guilty conscience made her unable to go properly into the afterlife. Thus, it was easy for Constantin to bind her to his service - even as an immaterial apparition, she retained skill with a scythe and her ice magics still work in the form of deadly cold touch.

Restless Spirits

GW Army of the Dead from the Lord of the Rings range painted in October 2013 - here I am using them as Spirit Hosts. Before they released the new ones, those were a very popular alternative to those bedsheet ghosts from earlier times. They served me well during some battles.

All around the world one can find restless spirits that were denied the pass into the afterlife for one reason or another. They roam abandoned places, just beyond the notice of average mortals. For a necromancer, it isn't difficult to call upon them and instill them with a new purpose. Von Greifens learned themselves to summon spirits of the kislevite warriors of old - nameless, forgotten beings felled during one of the countless battles here. They still brandish their old weapons and armor, believing to be fighting for their lords once again. Still, their weapons are no more dangerous than their own hands - for it's the cold promise of the grave that they carry with them that does the killing and not the steel or valor they may still believe to possess.

Spectral Swordmaster

A 'Spectral Minion' from Reaper Miniatures, metal model painted in August 2013. I bought it to serve as a Cairn Wraith in my army - they normally use giant scythes as weapons, but the rules say those are 'Great Weapons', so I thought, why not a giant sword? The painting was done very quick, some wetblending, some highlights, just blue and green. The sword itself was a bit challenging, to get that gradient on the blade. A nice little project.

This ghastly apparition was brought to unlife when several maddened spirits of swordsmen killed by Lucan melded into one furious wraith. It attacked the vampire in his own room, nearly slicing him in two with one swing. The warrior retaliated - the ensuing battle lasted for a whole night and resulted in immense damages in the castle. After some time, Lucan was able to gain the upper hand and bound the spirit using necromantic rituals. Being brought to existence by the hate it felt to him, now it was bound in servitude to him - a pitiful existence. Should anyone free the ghost of its servitude, it would be a nasty surprise to the vampire.

Doina the Forsaken

'Ghost' from the Reaper Miniatures 'Bones' range, painted in July 2013. The first model I painted for my undead army and that's mostly because I wanted to try out Vallejo Glaze Medium on it. That medium mixed with Goblin Green and Enchanted Blue was everything that was needed for her. All the other spectres, spirits and ghosts in my army were painted using roughly the same method. On the tabletop she serves as a Tomb Banshee.

Doina the Forsaken, Constantin's first successful summoning of something else than a zombie - a spirit of a long forgotten woman who roams the nights searching for victims to play pranks on. Despite being quite senile (even for an ageless ghost!), she's still quite capable of frightening people to death with her scream. Von Greifens use this ability happily - if she's able to understand their commands, that is.