Monday, March 19, 2018

Herr Carstein has just arrived

Hello again,

It's been a while and I really missed posting. And painting.
But recently reality has thrown 'uuuge lump of shit into my life fan so hobby had to wait.

Anyway the previous post was about idea of building 2500 pts 5th ed Undead army. Since that time I've managed to paint ~530 points, which are:
- a skeleton (8 points)
- zombie horseman (28 points)
- vampire lord (495) - 5th edition rules after all.

For marketing purposes - here's current state of the main unit: (in theory) unbreakable tarpit of rotting flesh and bones. These should actually be skeletons but I think I'll mix skellies with zombies to make whole block more interesting. And heavy.
Freshly painted toys stand in the very middle:
my favorite vampire model from the back days and trusty skeleton champion emerging from below the ground:


I've always loved this sculpt: 100% member of Carstein family.
It's centerpiece of the army so decision had to be made which color scheme would fit it best: "official" night blue was really nice but I liked striking red published in 'Eavy Metal armies painting guide much more. 
But again - that would be the only such a colorful model in the whole army...
So looking for something in between Mr Carstein was painted rather simple and "believable":
since other vampired already wear violet / purple robes (funeral elegance...) this one also got similar outfit with some bright gems and healthy, dead-white complexion for contrast.

Looking at the pics now I think I should've added something on the black part of cloak- more than mid-grey highlighting...
It's sure fine for gaming purposes and I ain't going for Golden Demon (or anywhere else) with the piece, but leaving such a large area simply dark is kinda waste. 
Yeah... I'll definitely try to do something about it and take better photos: without filter on lamp minis cast shadows and raw photos seem to be "burnt". Thank Satan for GIMP...

As for the vampire's little buddy - it's my solution of the cloak problem:
model sure looks nice standing in the wind (maybe casting spells? or summoning storm? or whatever else) but that fucking cloak makes placing model between rank and file deaders pain in the ass.
There were several ideas about dealing with the problem:
- placing it on larger base: interesting idea for modeling purposes but idea was to make it gaming piece,
- using unit filler,
- not using cloak at all,
- something else.

I chose the last option: luckly there were some random bits of skellies in my bits box, which allowed to convert deader responding for vampire's call...
Convertion took like 10 minutes and I've finally found use for metal champion's head: I remember original owner used to fall because of head's weight.  



The army I am planning to assemble also contains cavalry:
not as main unit, which I used to field back days, but rather flanking group and / or mounted necromancer's cache.
A while back I got mysterious zombie rider (which actually turned out to be "Leopold the Exhumed" - Citadel C21 Undead Cavalry, sculpted by Bob Naismith, 1987) but it came with standard placcy skeleton steed instead of original one.
While looking for replacement for the mount I found Black Tree Designs skeleton cavalry: total Oldhammer! 
Models are simple but definitely fit oldschool army. There are 5 different skeletons riding zombie ponies, which is exactly what I need for the army.
Here's the first one - skleton horseman champion:



When the vampire's cloak is redone I'm starting skeleton chariot...

13 comments:

  1. lovely unit. well done. that vampire model is proper old school

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  2. Thanks a lot!
    Horsemen unit containing necromancer should look equally oldie :)

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  3. The purple on Vlad looks awesome, and that was a great idea for the Skeltons next to him!

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  4. I love love the purple on Carstein's cloak. But it's the shield on the zombie horseman that really blew me away. A simple design, but so brilliantly executed.

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  5. Cheers dude,

    I took that from Army of Darkness - there was like 10.000 pts Undead army shown on one oldie WDs, all banners were simply black and white stripes which looked brilliant on whole army.
    So I'd like to see sth similar on the riders: b&w shields and banner :)

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  6. And btw - I found description of that mysterious zombie rider on Oldhammer in Toronto bloggy, btw.
    Thanks a lot Matthew ^^

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  7. Pretty cool to see 5th edition army assemble. I started Warhammer at that time but couldn't manage to start playing until 6th ed.
    Isn't 5th ed. too complicated to be funny? :)

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  8. I like that Age of Sigmar has taken away concerns like ranking up overly-dynamic models. But I miss the clever workarounds. Hee hee.

    Lovely work!

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  9. @Floyd: not really complicated but imo silly in some aspects: like forget about rest of the army if you have general riding dragon... But 5th ed has strong nostalgy factor - it was my start with Warhammer :)

    @Curtis: one day I'll browse those rules to see what's all about that Age of Sigmar, there's quite a lot of positive opinions about that. And about Kings of War...

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  10. Beautiful brush work - the unit looks marvellous!

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  11. Very well done.
    Your painting brings some life to those old models, and it's really a good thing !

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  12. Thank you guys, really appeciate the support!
    It's really great to know there are people who still like old mins (or mid-old, since mine are mostly "middlehammer" ;-) ).

    Personally whole this old/middlehammer thing is chasing old dreams, when miniatures were hard to get (for many reasons) in the shithole where I live.

    Thanks once again :)

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  13. Great work!

    "Personally whole this old/middlehammer thing is chasing old dreams."
    --sums it all up really!

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