The Lady's Favor

More Bretonnians from ye olden times to pass the time - and today, a Trebuchet! A beautiful model, I'm happy I was about to get it when it was still being sold.

Bought in 2007 (for my 18th birthday!) and painted in 2010, this was my first warmachine ever - and I wanted to do it justice with a proper scenic base. I made it out of an MDF board - all the crewmen and the trebuchet itself are removable. I'm pretty satisfied with it - nowadays I would add freehands on the little shields and avoid making those hard-cut stones on the edge of the base.

Unlike most Bretonnian lords, Crinierre is quite a progressive person, enjoying new inventions and innovations. That’s why he was always keen on employing war machines in his forces - and after getting a team of engineers from the Empire and traditional Bretonnian architects, he built himself a trebuchet. Manned by outlanders, fashioned to look like a cathedral, and even called ‘The Lady’s Favor’, it causes more traditional lords to talk about blasphemy. Still, even those disgruntled nobles are forced to admit the contraption’s merits when they see it working on the battlefield - and seeing them jealous makes the whole endeavor even more worth it to Crinierre!

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.

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.

Gatzek

A Wolfbomination from the Zombicide game turned into a vampire monster, to be used in the game as an alternative Varghulf - you can see the conversion process HERE. He will be my second Varghulf, the first one can be seen HERE.

It was nice to finally paint a monster that wasn't a part of the Zombie Legion. I didn't have to rush everything, I could take my time and really enjoy the painting process, trying out things I've read about during this last year. Even the color scheme was already decided - light bluish skin and dark, reddish wings and fur - to fit together well with my other Varghulf. First, I painted its skin, wetblending light blue and dark blue paint to create areas of light and shadow - and then I kept adding many layers of glazes, both light and dark, to strengthen the contrasts and bring out the details. It was probably the first time when I really tried to think about zenithal light instead of just raised areas and recesses. When the skin was done I did the same with the red parts. After that, I added some subtle dark red glazes in the shaded areas to make the contrast between that and the cold highlights even stronger.

In the end, I think that he turned out pretty well and I enjoyed painting him. I like monsters of this size and the limited amount of colors also made things a bit less chaotic - especially after all those zombies! I'm thinking of doing some more alternative Varghulfs later, maybe this time scratchbuilt instead of converted.

Also, as I said in the WIP post, the word I used to name it, Gatzek (spelled in Gacek in Polish) is a Polish name for a family of bats - and also a kinda silly colloquial term for bats in general.

One of the most useful beasts used by von Greifens is the so-called Fledermaus - a vampire turned into an animalistic monster by their father, Laurentin. When a Necrarch scholar Eshnuu joined the brothers in Varsavia, he quickly became interested in replicating the process. Together with Lucan, they started catching - and if necessary - creating vampires to be turned. The experiments weren’t easy and many ‘applicants’ perished messily in the process. Only one of them survived - its past already forgotten, it began its new unlife as a muscle-bound bat-like monster with a distended jaw full of sharp teeth. Its mind broken and wiped, it is driven solely by its neverending, horrific hunger - with only commands of obedience burned into its brain keeping it at bay. Lucan named it ‘Gatzek’ - using a local, colloquial term for a bat - similarly to how Constantin calls his monstrous pet 'Fledermaus'. Only while Constantin says it with some kind of affection, for Lucan it's only a joke - he won't spare any feelings for mere weapons.

Gatzek - WIP

EDIT: The finished model can be seen HERE.

Okay, it's time for something that's not zombies! I took a short break to play Total War Warhammer 2, but it didn't stick - I went back to the hobby table rather quickly. Still used to the speed and amount of work that the zombie legion needed, I have about 5 or 6 different projects going on right now - and today I will share with you one that's presentable enough at this point. The word I used to name it, Gatzek (spelled in Gacek in Polish) is a Polish name for a family of bats - and also a kinda silly colloquial term for bats in general.

Some time ago I bought a Wolfbomination miniature from the Zombicide game (I didn't take a photo of the unconverted mini, so I am using one from the official website of the game):

I always wanted to have some werewolves in my army and this one looked good enough to be used, probably as an alternative Varghulf. Then it lingered on my shelf and in the meantime, I decided that I wanted to get some Skin Wolves from Forge Wold at some point. Now that Wolfbomination won't fit those (even less from a fluff perspective) so I started thinking how to use this miniature differently. The obvious way was to make it a vampiric monster, to make it really look like another Varghulf. I even had some extra Vargheist bits laying around, so that was actually doable!

I decided to give it a Vargheist head with a creepily long and wide jaw full of teeth - so I removed the wolf head, added the vampiric one and build some base for the lower jaw out of milliput. At this point I also I noticed that the Wolfbomination's arms were actually compatible with one set of Vargheist wings - so I glued those too. You can see that stage of the conversion below. Looking at it then I also thought that it definitely could use some more mass - especially on those tiny legs.

I rolled tiny, pointy teeth out of greenstuff first and then I set them in the creature's gums later. When I was doing Flying Horrors last year, I used needles for teeth and that turned out a bit artificial - greenstuffed teeth look much more varied and natural. While I was at it, I also made it's claws on the left hand longer - I envision them to be magically retractable, like vampires in Witcher have them. Then it was just a case of sculpting some additional muscles on the back, legs and one of the arms. Well, that and changing the tail too, of course.

Below you can see the finished conversion - he will make a fine companion to my other Varghulf, the Fledermaus. I also sculpted a fallen tree on the base, it will create a good framing composition together with the wings.

The Effigy of Death

A heavily converted Necrosphinx from Games Workshop, painting finished in May 2016. After everything I did to him there's barely any original mini left visible - the process can be seen HERE. Painting itself was messy, I was often dissatisfied with it and redoing things - especially the stone parts. In the end, I think it turned out pretty good - it fits other wights despite being rather different - a good lesson for future projects.

The Death God is known in many forms. Sometimes he allows you to speak with long-dead relatives, sometimes he raises undead to work in the fields, sometimes he demands you to perform grisly rituals for unknowable reasons and sometimes he personally wages war against his followers’ enemies. A long time ago statues were built by Varsavians to resemble that war-like aspect of their god - and after King Zlyshko was raised, he organized a search for any remaining ones. Only one such Effigy of Death was found relatively intact. And strangely enough, while it’s strictly a Varsavian creation, Lucan quickly pointed out it’s strange similarity to Khemrian sphinxes. Sculpted out of stone, shaped with wood and metal, this monument is impressive enough, but only after sacrificing a childless human inside the statue’s belly and baptizing it with blood, the construct comes to life for a short time to wreak havoc against enemies of Varsavia. And while it relies only on its physical power, it’s usually enough to best most foes. Statue’s stone body, covered in metal, is durable beyond imagination - and its blades can cut through even the toughest monsters, even if with their weight alone. Woe betide those that stand in its way!

The Effigy of Death - WIP

The painted version can be seen HERE.

Nagash was my biggest project up to date, but it was the Necrosphinx that was supposed to be converted the most. I definitely didn't want it to look Egyptian, I wanted it to be vaguely Slavic and having a similar theme to my wights.

First thing I did was to scratch off almost all of the plastic surface. What wasn't completely scratched off was at least slightly bumped. Original was way too smooth. Then I started covering the body with milliput - I wanted it to look more like a rough pile of rocks in the shape of a sphinx instead of a smooth sculpture. The effect was quite weird at this point. Also, not knowing what to do with the belly of the sphinx, I made it with a hole - to put a caged skeleton there, as a sacrifice powering the whole construct.

I added a pointy helmet because that's probably the easiest thing to get that 'ancient Slavic' look. The blades are made out of plasticard. Now I think that I should have it hold them instead of them being fastened to its arms, but this works too - makes it more recognizable as a Necrosphinx. Also, to avoid having too much stone texture and add some variation, I added Grave Guard shields to its legs. As you can see, I broke off the tail - I really didn't have an idea how to make it fit the theme, so I got rid of it entirely.

After that was done I did the wings. Cut pieces of tin-can were used as bases - on which I glued pieces of balsawood to make it look like wooden planks. I carved little ridges on each 'plank' to give them 'wood grain' appearance similar to all the wood GW makes - and then poured super glue on it - for added resilience. Still, they're rather fragile, so they're magnetized for ease of transport.

Finished conversion below. It is certainly overdesigned, but that's how I tend to do things...

The Netherpyr

A Terrorgheist from GW painted in August 2015 - the first miniature I painted after moving my whole workshop to Berlin. Weirdly enough, it's not converted in any way. Still, I magentized it's wing for ease of transportation - following a tutorial by Rob Hawkins. It was also his idea to place a 'slot' into the base to field him with a character 'riding him' or not - the process is described HERE. The black tar-pit on the base was my own idea and I documented the whole process HERE.

I wanted to paint him in 'inverted' color scheme - Terrorgheists are usually dark/black with light/white bones - and I went for pale skin and dark brown bones. It made him somewhat different from the standard and also tied him with my other fleshy undead which are also pale green. The execution of that plan, especially on the wings, got messy. Shades were drying badly on those large surfaces and tap-water in my new place was leaving a lot of nasty white residue and it was still difficult to make them look interesting, even with reddened holes in the skin. In the end, I sprinkled him with GW Athonian Camoshade, using an old toothbrush. That made it look grimy, dirty, rotting and much more interesting - since then I add this to most of my fleshy, messy undead.

Netherpyr is a personal pet of the Strigois and yet another reason Gudvanger - and by extension - von Greifens - try to stay on the siblings' good side. Resurrected thanks to their innate magic, this giant monster, still possessing some of its wicked character, quickly made itself known in the Varsavian countryside as the 'Netherpyr' - which is a bastardization of a native word for a bat. The unnatural death shriek it possesses boils the flesh and shatters the bones - thanks to that, it's often called forth when the Varsavian undead fight with the servants of Chaos - for their sturdy armor is not a defense against the agonizing screams of the Netherpyr.

The slot makes it possible to 'mount' a Strigoi Ghoul King (or Queen) on his back. Posts about those two minis can be found HERE.

Prenzlauer Guard

GW Chaos Knights converted into Blood Knights. The unit was painted in August 2013. The WIP post can be found HERE.

The Prenzlauer Guard - a small, but very hardy unit of guardsmen employed in the von Greifen family since the time of Laurentin von Greifen. While they were sworn to protect him, they were bloodthirsty enough to quickly jump at the occasion of a rebellion against their deranged sire when teamed with Constantin, Sorin and Lucan. When times are calmer, they are working as lesser governors of keeps and camps in the von Greifen's lands. When riding to battle, they all sit on giant, black, undead chargers outfitted with heavy armor lacquered with bloody red paint. Carrying giant weapons and eager to jump into the fray, they are far from the subtlety preferred by Constantin. Still, being able to obliterate hardened units with a single charge ensures them a stable place in the vampire's army. This reliability - despite their once proven unloyalty - is thanks to how easy it is to manipulate them.

Prenzlauer Guard - WIP

Back then in August 2013 when I was building this unit, getting original GW Blood Knights was way too costly for me and I really didn't like using Dragon Princes for that - they seemed to be popular at the moment. I choose Chaos Knights, as they were bigger, meaner and spikier - everything I needed for a unit of vampire knights. I removed all the chaos iconography, mounted quite a lot of Grave Guard bits on them, added some greestuff details, bigger weapons and even sculpted faces for them. It wasn't by any means perfect, but good enough for the first try. 

Today I would do it differently, but it's always like that. At least I made some progress along the way. At least I have Blood Knights. And now the whole conversions. Sorry about the quality of the photos...

Champion

Standard Bearer

Musician

Knight 1

Knight 2

The Fledermaus

Varghulf from Games Workshop painted in July 2013. After collecting Bretonnians and then having a long pause, that was the first monster I painted in a long time. Actually, it was also the first Vampire I painted for the army and it kinda set the whole color scheme for the rest of them. Back then I didn't have a very precise concept for the whole army, just going with whatever seemed the best at the moment. I didn't want a green Varghulf and I wanted in light colors - and so the pale blue + red scheme was born. Only later I came up with an explanation that vampiric creatures will be red, to make them stand out among the rest of the green undead.

A long time ago, this creature was a rival of Laurentin von Greifen. He got captured, tortured and subsequently turned into this monstrosity, often affectionately called "Fledermaus". Oppressed and kicked around by Laurentin, he found a strange friend in Constantin, who treated him with a certain affection, like an interesting pet. Thus, it wasn't very surprising that he helped the younger von Greifen during his rebellion against his creator. He has been loyally following Constantin ever since, ready to wreak havoc in the enemy lines or scaring rivals in exchange for a steady supply of meat and blood.