Muster of Malevolents: A Tale of 4 Armies

For some reason, probably laziness, when I originally painted my Treeman (Steve) and Treekin I fairly thickly coated them in Bestial Brown paint, picked out a few details, splashed them with Devlan Mud and pretty much called it a day.

As such, unlike the rest of the army, revisiting them now called for more than just tidying things up. Therefore these four got stripped back to bare metal and started again.

In Steve's case (no, I can't remember why he's called Steve, he just is) he was bought second hand and so was already painted. As was my way at the time, I didn't strip him then and just painted straight over the top of the original paint job, meaning that there was a thick layer of oozing sludge to dispose of this time.

Another side effect of him being bought second hand is that he has the wrong left arm, which not only presents the fact that it's from a different type of tree (if you look closely enough), but also that it doesn't really fit. A fact I've tried to cover with the addition of a few plastic roots from the Wood Elf sprues, which I've also used to cover a few gaps in the metal sculpt.

In terms of painting, I began with a coat of Wyldwood contrast and used drybrushing and other contrast paints to get some other shades into the wood. I'm not sure how successful I've been.

Leaves and moss were picked out and either highlighted (leaves) or washed (moss). A few fungal growths were picked out on his arm and back and then his eye sockets were made glowy green (I think you can just about see them).

He's simply done, but a big improvement, looking much more like actual wood than he ever did.

I'm looking forward to getting him on the table as the changes to cannons (D3 damage rather than D6) and Forest Spirit ward saves (negated by fire rather than magic) should make him somewhat more survivable than in the dark days of 8th edition.

Sadly, ordinary Treemen have lost their ability to cast a bound spell and Treemen Ancients (whilst being wizards) pack a lot less punch than regular Treemen. However, Steve will probably remain the heaviest hitter in my army and something my opponents will be forced to do something about, freeing up my more lightly armed threats.

The Treekin unit were painted much the same as the Treemen except there were many more vines to pick out and, as they are later models they are dripping in Forest Spites and, of course, skulls.

I've gone with blue for the Forest Spites for a few reasons. Firstly, I have a pot of Talassar Blue contrast paint and I like it. It also makes them pop, especially against the orange of the leaves on the base, livening up what can end up being really dull models.

These are the closest unit I have to a regular front line unit, meaning that they will probably spend a lot of their time trying to die as slowly as possible to hold up the enemy advance.

In 8th edition I regretted not having six of them so when the opportunity arises later in the release schedule, I suspect I'll pick up another three, even though I'm not overly keen on them.

I've no just got the Wild Riders to go in order to get my army fully rebased, and I'm hoping this can be achieved before the end of the month. I've enjoyed this process but I'd quite like to turn my attention to actually painting a wider range of models again and start chipping away at the mountain once more.

Acquired: 10
Painted: 208
Lead Mountain: 849