It's not about the mummy, mummy

Don't worry about the price tag because these MILPs (Mummies I Like to Paint) were straight out of the bits box.

Why am I painting Mummies?

Well, basically, as I said, I've discovered over time that I quite like painting them. I find it quite relaxing and therapeutic and suitable subject for when I'm in an odd headspace.

I think this was a discovery that evolved out of painting bandages and wraps on models and really took root when I painted the Mummies in my Heroquest set.

Speaking of which...

That is exactly where this chap is from. He's one of the chunk of spare Heroquest miniatures I have in the bits box and so I carefully removed from his base, plonked him on a round base and got to work.

I slightly change my approach to the bandages as I didn't start with a bone colour, but when for a Ghoul Grey (from Colour Forge) undercoat, then hit with a coat of Skeleton Horde followed by Agrax Earthshade and picking out each bandage with Ushabti Bone.

This second sculpt is from a board game called Dark World, which I bought for the miniatures (some of which were truly awful - the Mummy being one of the best). He has more awkwardly thin bandages and more flesh in show... especially in his MASSIVE hands.

For the flesh I went for green rather than my usual blue-grey as the wash I usually use was coming out too blue. Plaguebearer Flesh contrast paint followed by Agrax Earthshade did the job.

There's really not much more to say, other than they are going with my rather miscellaneous collection of pulp miniatures for 7TV. I don't have much that fits with ancient Egypt, but I might be encouraged by this to at least put together enough for an epic desert adventure.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 405

Lead Mountain: 367

Lava, Death and Robots

For reasons I won't go into, I needed a bit of a simple and straightforward palette cleanser this weekend, and so I turned to a recent opportunistic purchase that took me back to the mean streets of Pulp City for the first time in a while.

I recently took advantage of Kitbash Games having a sale (with a significant discount) as they moved their production from resin to something else.

This gave me a chance to pick up some models I've been considering for a while and to tide me over until the Pulp City: Full Effect campaign fulfills.

First up is Magman, Powerhouse for the Shadow Axis team of villains that I painted back in 2020. He is one of only a couple of members of that team that I don't have, and as he was in the sale I decided to grab him.

As you can probably guess, he is basically a great big bruiser made of lava, making him a veritable eruption of destruction on the table top. The downside being that, common to all Powerhouses, he is a drain on activation dice, rather than providing them.

I took a fairly simplistic approach to painting him, inspired by, but not exactly the same as, the method I used for my Balrog.

I undercoated the model in red and then gave him a heavy dry brush in black. After this I picked out all the deepest cracks with white and clgave the whole model a wash of Cassandora Yellow, which settle unevenly and gave the orange/yellow effect.

After this, I again dry brushed in black to tidy things up, followed by a light dusting of grey for highlighting.

The base is scratch built from card and aluminium mesh to fit in with the rest of the gang as I didn't have a suitable 50mm resin base.

The remaining two models are technically Omega Drones from the TechNet faction, which I don't own any other models for. However, I shall be using them as proxies for Sentry Bot minions (the cards for which are available from the Pulp City Limits Facebook group)

I'm using them as Sentry Bots as I struggle to field enough minions as I'm allowed to in my Red Republik and A.R.C. factions. Specifically, robots are a better fit than the ninjas I have for the scientific arm of the Ape Revolutionary Committee.

When I said I was looking for something simple to paint, it was the Omega Drones followed a simplistic pattern I've used on several projects. Spray silver, black wash, pick out feature colour.

I opted for glowing blue on these guys as I felt that red would look a bit too Terminator, whilst green might suggest Necron too much.

Although they were simple to paint, I'm pleased that I been able to get something done this weekend and keep myself occupied.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 403

Lead Mountain: 369

Path of Damnation: What a load of bull!

With the recent addition of several hard hitting characters and monsters, I figured I should probably get another unit on the table.

This also gave my another reason to procrastinate about the standard bearers and musicians that are needed for my Chaos Warrior and Marauder units.

Therefore, I took a different bull by the horns.

This unit of Minotaurs with function as Chaos Ogres in my Warhammer: The Old World army because the teaming hordes of Chaos have a somewhat rigid structure dividing them into Beastmen, Warriors and Daemons.

I, however, refuse to be bound by such restriction, and also don't have that many more options regarding units to add to the army.

I'm not sure how useful just three Minotaurs/Ogres will be, but that's what I have.

 

 

The unit champion is a lightly converted Warhammer Quest Minotaur, and these were a truly feared sight for adventurers, particularly when you drew three of them in the first room of the dungeon and immediately died.

The light conversion is a hand replacement, giving him an Ogre spiked gauntlet I had left from making a Bloodbowl team many years ago. This is to give him two hand weapons to match the rest of the unit.

I actually have two more Minotaurs like this one (although one has a club) but opted not to use them because I want the army to have no duplicate models in it. Also, the fact that he's bigger than the other two makes him an imposing champion.

The other two members of the unit are metal second edition Bloodbowl Minotaurs, hence the large pads and spiked gloves (additional hand weapons).

They are significantly smaller than both the Warhammer Quest model and the 'modern' plastics (which I hate, btw, just for reference). These were the 'big guys' of their time but stand no taller than a Primaris Space Marines.

This was from a time when something being the equivalent of seven or eight foot tall would be rightly viewed as imposing.

The final model is a curiosity, because I have no idea what this pose is meant to be representing. As a single piece model I'd that he's just a natural consequence of having to sculpt in a flat plane and try to make him visually different from the other guy.

He's also the reason why I didn't try any conversions to give the unit double handed weapons as I have no idea how I could go that on this model and make his pose look remotely natural.

This unit was unbelievably quick to paint and leaves me with about half a dozen metal models left to do from my initial plan to complete the army.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 400

Lead Mountain: 372

Scale Creep

I have an FDM 3d printer.

Compared to resin printers they are slower, significantly less detailed and are not really intended for most of the STL files existing in the miniature gaming world.

However, they are cheaper, produce less fragile miniatures and handle larger projects well.

So I went large.

This is a Baneblade.

It's a super heavy tank typically used by the Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum, if you must) in the world of 40k.

Although they can be used by Space Marines in Horus Heresy (they were included in the Legacy pdf for 2nd edition, and I presume 3rd), they are widely considered a 'sub-optimal' and and overcosted choice.

So why on earth arth have I printed one?

Basically, because I could and I wanted to.

I came across a free file that not only looked good, but also had plenty of positive reviews and isn't a straight scan of the GW model (there are notable differences, such as the sponsors being further back). Although it's nowhere near as detailed as the official model, it was more than good enough for me.

The hull printed in three sections, and the only issue I came across was the fact that the connectors between these didn't really fit. However I fixed this with a little ingenuity and brute force. I did my best to hide the join lines (although the model itself does a pretty good job of this.

The main turret and three sponsors were also separate and move, although the heavy bolters on the sides are fixed in place, which like them being further back seems to be a decision made to reduce the use of supports.

Painting was not complicated, but was time consuming due to the scale of the model. I undercoated in black before masking off the larger areas of metal and spraying red. The black bits were then dry brushed silver.

Then came the laborious process of panel lining, picking out silver and gold details and washing them before going over the red again. It was straightforward, there was just a lot of it to do.

Transfers were added at the end and the Baneblade was done.

This is possibly the largest model I've painted, with the possible exception of my Mumakil for Lord of the Rings. Here it is next to a Land Raider Spartan for scale as I had no bananas available.

I'm really happy with it and I'm also happy that it's extremely likely to get one-shotted by a Titan the first time it hits the table.

Given the cost of the official model I really don't think I would even have got one without a 3d printer as there's no way that a Baneblade would have ever been a priority purchase for me.

Acquired: -73

Painted: 397

Lead Mountain: 375

Killa-Kan

I've been playing with my 3d printer again and have spent some time exploring files on the Bambu Handy App which are free for me to use and come already laid out on the build plate, making things much quicker.

There's only a limited range of relevant files on there and some are of dubious quality. However, there are quite few useful files that I'm looking at making use of...such as this one...

This Ork Dreadnought (or more appropriately, Killa-Kan) is a single piece print and so didn't need any assembly after it printed.

However, it did need a good amount of time tracking down all the supports that were tucked away in recesses that needed removing.

The file printed well and there were no issues, however, it does lack some detail on the back. Also there are some areas, such as the drill arm, that don't seem appropriate to an Ork vehicle, being too organic in appearance. 

However, I'm not too worried. It's a free model and you can explain anything away with Orks.

From the front, I think it looks great.

As ever with my Orks, I kept the painting incredibly simply, relying on sprays, washes and sponging.

My only real concern with this model is that not only does I probably need a gun of some sort adding, I think it also needs at least two friends adding to its unit.

I'll need to check.

Acquired: -76

Painted: 396

Lead Mountain: 373

Path of Damnation: Cavalcade of Nurgle

One of the features of the forces of Nurgle as outlined in Realm of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned was their tendency to move of festering caravans of carts, wagons and chariots, travelling from town to town and visiting plague upon them.

Sadly, this feature seemed to disappear quite quickly outside of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but I have managed to cobble together my own Chaos Chariot to perhaps be a precursor to my own caravan of corruption.

My chariots, bearing a Sorcerer of Nurgle has been scraped together from my bits box, and owes more than a little to my Vampire Counts army.

Obviously, the skeletal horses are the most obvious element, but the winged sides are hefty chunk of metal from the chariot of Arkhan the Black, who was jettisoned from my army in the Great Sundering (Arkhan himself went to a friend).

The chariot body is from a Wargames Foundry Ancient Briton chariot, which, when I bought them, were featured in the pages of Warhammer Ancient Battles and so counts as official.

The element across the back of the horses is actually a Wood Elf bow.

I made the decision to use skeletal horses because the only other horses I have available are not Games Workshop models and look far too healthy.

Before I opted to plump for a solely Nurgle army, I did have the idea to mutate those horses with eyestalks, horns and bright colours to dedicate them to Tzeentch, but that would feel out of place with where the army is now.

Anyway, in The Lost and the Damned the Nurgle army list includes Plague Zombies and Plague Skeletons and a unit called a Plague Cart pulled by skeletal oxen, and so the undead feel to this model feels appropriate to me.

If the opportunity presents itself, it could also function as a Plague Cart in a game of 3rd edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Thr Chariot is crewed by a single metal Ghoul I had knocking about. Technically this should be a Chaos Warrior with a Halberd, but I'm a bit short on Chaos Warriors and didn't want to use one on the Chariot (also, they're all too bulky to fit).

The Sorcerer is Azoth the Faceless, another of the Heroes for Dungeonquest alumni featuring in the army. It's quite hard to get a decent photo of him given how he's buried beneath the wings.

I'm really pleased with how this unit has come out as it brings a bit more weird into the army., I'm also pleased to finally get to use at least part of the Arkhan the Black model I bought with birthday money many moons ago.

Acquired: -77

Painted: 395

Lead Mountain: 373

Path of Damnation: Heavy Metal

I think I've mentioned before that I never really took to the more ordered aesthetic Chaos adopted with the transition to plastic.

Nowhere was this more apparent than with the plastic Chaos Warriors, whose bulk demanded a very regimented pose to allow the models to rank up.

They weren't bad models, far from it, but combined in thire serried ranks, pressed shoulder to shoulder, they didn't exactly shout 'chaos'.

Fortunately, this is not going to be an issue with this motley bunch of glamorous all-stars.

I think I've lamented in these pages before about selling my unit of Champions of Slaanesh before I'd ever painted a single one of them.

They were a beautiful set of models.

Although the combination of drawing together a mishmash of Chaos Warriors and them dedicating to Nurgle means that they will probably lose out on beauty. However, this magnificent seven more than make up for this with their collected renown and notoriety.

First up we have one of those most stalwart and fearsome denizens of the halls of Heroquest, the Chaos Warrior.

This is a great model that only slightly shows it's age around the horns (which merge into the armour round the sides) and still cuts an impressive figure.

Next week have a pair of Champions, one of which the eagle-eyed will notice, is actually a Champion of Tzeentch.

I opted to include this anomaly because I felt that nothing would amused Grandfather Nurgle more than a corrupted former servant of his arch-enemy still bearing his former livery besmirched in corrosion and filth.

The Champion of Nurgle bears only the slightest hint of his allegiance in the sculpt. Only the rune of Nurgle at his breast and some cracks in his armour betray who he serves.

I like this choice as the rest of the Champions of Nurgle are so corrupted that they don't really suit being used as merely the champion of unit of Chaos Warriors, whereas this guy fits the bill perfectly.

Next, as a step up from champions, we have some real 'heroes'.

On the right is the Warrior of Chaos character model from the boardgame Talisman, who not only had the power to corrupt those he came into contact with (somewhat appropriate for this army) but also would receive gifts from the gods each time he slew an enemy.

He was one of my favourite characters to use in the game, and I'm pleased that the colour palette I'm using for this army allowed me to make a nod towards his appearance in that game.

One the right is what I deem to be his successor (later versions of Talisman don't count), the Warhammer Quest Chaos Warrior.

This chonky boy made for a somewhat odd companion in groups of heroes that could include Wardancers, Warrior Priests of Sigmar and Witch Hunters.

However, he is a beautiful miniature and would make for an excellent Chaos Lord were it not for the fact that there is no way I'm putting that amount of points and death-dealing killyness on foot. Therefore, he shall serve as the unit's champion of champions.

Yes, I know the spike on his ace is bent, but I quite like it. Imagine what he might do with that hooked end...

Finally we have some real celebrities, named characters in fact, to add a sprinkling of glamour to proceedings.

On the left we have Thargrim the Dark Lord from the Heroes for Dungeonquest expansion to, unsurprisingly, the board game Dungeonquest. I've already added four of the Dungeonquest alumni to the unit of Chaos Marauders, and there are still a couple more to come if I can find a way to include them.

On the right, the last of this all-star line-up is none other than Duke Luthor Von Hawkfire, the somewhat superfluous thrower for the Chaos All-Stars Bloodbowl team. I say superfluous because the majority of throwing that team would do would be if Goblins, specifically Dirty Dan. However, the presence of Morg'th N'hthrog (later bastardised to Morg 'n' Thorg for simpletons) meant that the All-Stars favoured the punching and running game.

Duke Luthor isn't the only Bloodbowl player destined to join the horde, but he is, in all likelihood, going to be the most famous name amongst their number

Acquired: -78

Painted: 394

Lead Mountain: 374