Final Countdown: A Tale of 4 Armies

When I set myself the goal of getting my existing Warhammer Fantasy armies tidied up with their backlogs fully painted, I didn't think that I'd have two of them done by the beginning of February.

Admittedly, the Bretonnians were already done, but I have got my entire Vampire Counts army fixed, touched up, in some cases repainted and everything from my Lead Mountain finished off.

These two are the final nails in the coffin of this particular section of my personal challenge. A mounted Vampire Counts and a Wight Lord Battle Standard Bearer.

One of them has been in my army for a long, long time, whilst the other was constructed totally from my bits box.

The Vampire Count has been built to represent the Red Duke, the main villain from the Circle of Blood campaign pack and the body was taken from an Empire knight (I think) I had kicking round. The armour reminded me of that worn by Gary Oldman in the Dracula movie in which the main villain was Keanu Reeves' 'English' accent.

He's mounted on a spare Bretonnian Warhorse as the Red Duke is Bretonnian, so that makes sense. The head is actually the original one from the model serving as my Necromancer on foot. The cloak comes from a Frostgrave sprue, the sword is from the Empire Militia kit and the shield is actually from the Zombie Dragon rider.

I had to get a little creative with the right shoulder pad as the Bretonnian arm I used didn't match the left arm. However, I turned to that most useful of kits, the Horus Heresy Leviathan Dreadnought, and carved something appropriate out of the ball socket on the spare foot.

I'm not sure if it comes out ont the photos, but the armour is done with Fleshtearer's Red contrast paint over silver, again trying to evoke Gary Oldman...but also, he's the Red Duke.

I still have a transfer shortage and so Salamanders decals were used to match the Black Knights. Also, it looks like a dragon, and armoured vampires are Blood Dragons, so it works in my head cannon.

Overall, I'm pleased with him. I now have all the Undead characters I need for the Circle of Blood and I have three different Vampires to lead my army: on foot in an infantry block, mounted with Black Knights, or on a Zombie Dragon being shot by cannonballs.

My Battle Standard Bearer is from the ancient Skeleton War Machines boxed set. His name is Reaper as he used to carry a scythe and be holding a decapitated head.

Due to breakages he got repurposed into a BSB Manny years ago, but his banner was actually the horned skull from the from of the chariot. Rebuilding that model meant ripping this one apart and so he got stripped, repainted and a new banner added.

I'm quite proud of this banner.

Long time readers of the blog will know that I usually avoid freehand like the plague. However, given the fact that I couldn't really lay a transfer over the stitching on the flag, I felt I had no option.

I went for stippling with a variety of blues the creat the sky, and then did the same with great for the land, which I carefully edge with pale grey to give it definition. The tower is a very simple affair with only notional highlighting, but I think it works.

The banner doesn't quite fit the colour theme or mood of the army, but that helps it stand out, and I like the idea that it's a tapestry torn from the walls of his castle and restitched together.

With these two models done, I've now completed the 'revamp' of my army. I still can't quite do full armies for the Circle of Blood as the first scenario requires 1500 point force drawn only from Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls, Spirit Hosts and Skeleton Horsemen (which aren't a thing in Warhammer: The Old World), led by a single level 2 Necromancer.

I will need to put some thought into how I tackle this. Perhaps I can draft in Tomb Kings allies as the Skeleton Horsemen, get some Dire Wolves (as their battlefield role is similar) or more likely add a unit of ghouls.

However, that's for later. My Vampire Counts are done for now and I'm moving on to rebasing my Wood Elves.

In other news, I went to my first show in a long while and attended Vapnartak at York Racecourse. As ever, there were lots of excellent boards on display, my favourite was possibly this Battle of Scarif table done in a very small scale.

Display boards are great for getting ideas, and although this board was trying to sell me a medieval game, I was more interested in where the Trebuchets came from.

They are apparently from WizKids and come as a single piece, either painted or unpainted. Either way they are significantly cheaper than Games Workshop's offering and looked really good on the board.

Shows are a great way to remind yourself of lapsed projects and this Venetian board (which I don't think was actually for Carnevale) made me recall that I still have some Gondoliers to paint.

Obviously, going to a show meant buying a few things, and one of the best features of Vapnartak is their bring and buy section, which always provides a bargain or two.

This year it provided a Mordor Troll still on sprue for Lord of the Rings and a painted Bretonnian Knight, who is destined for the back of a flying beastie.

Still on a Bretonnian theme I picked up a box of Fireforge Mounted Sergeants to use as Mounted Yeomen. They were reduced in price so 16 models ended up costing about half the price of 3 from Games Workshop.

Finally, I popped by the Crooked Dice stand to say hi to Karl and pick up the Resistance leaders from 'V'. My 7TV: the 80s Kickstarter is due to be delivered this month and it includes some more Visitors, and so I figured I'd need to start the fight back.

So I've achieved a good amount, but I've also gained miniatures. However, I'm pleased I'm now at a point where I can, according to my own rules, add to the Vampires as I see fit.

Acquired: 10
Painted: 146
Lead Mountain: 851

Lurkers from the Deep: Issue 5, The Finale

Whilst a furious battle raged between government forces and the nefarious Cult of Kutulu in and around the cesspit town of Marshport, the real battle was about to take place among Dagon's Teeth, a nest of rocky outcrops huddled by the coast.

The agents of the Occult and Scientific Reserve plunged towards a hidden temple where a foul ritual was underway, as the last remnants of the Cult of Kutulu attempted to bring Great Kutulu himself into the world and, undoubtedly, end the world in madness and despair.

We have finally reached the finale of the Lurkers from the Deep feature pack for 7TV. Matt and I have battled through the slum streets of Marshport to determine the fate of the Cult of Kutulu...and the world.

The villains had the upper hand in three of the four scenarios we'd played, but several of those games had been very close. Also, the only impact of the villains victory in the last scenario, Turning Tides, was that they would get an extra Fishfolk Devil and would take the first turn.

The board layout saw the temple of Kutulu in the centre, surrounded by a dangerous sea and rocky islands that were all counted as difficult ground.

The heroes would be deploying at specific points around the edge, whilst the villains would be in the centre trying to complete a ritual. The ritual would be enacted by keeping enough Acolyte extras (the red robed cultists) next to the six pillars each turn to complete a countdown. The heroes needed to stop this from happening.

We made a couple of slight changes to the game: the sea was dangerous to enter, but we ruled that models with the aquatic special effect would not be affected by this; we also decided to allow the Tentacles of Kutulu to begin in the water, as that made sense.

The Occult & Scientific Reserve (Matt)

Professor Jemima Wittwood (Star)

Agent Maggie Stone - Rugged Veteran (Co-Star)

Howard Ashton - Gadgeteer (Co-Star)

3 Soldiers of Fortune (Extras)

5 OSR Agents (Extras)

Armed with plenty of guns, but slowed by terrain, they would have their work cut out getting to the Acolytes to stop the ritual.

The Cult of Kutulu (Me)

Doctor Fiske (Star)

High Priestess (Co-Star)

3 Tentacles of Kutulu (Extras)

4 Dagonites (Extras)

2 Fishfolk Devils (Extras)

6 Acolytes (Extras)

Necronomicon Maguffin

This was a great game. The best of the campaign.

Although Matt had all of the guns, he was really impeded by terrain and my minions early in the game, was struggling for plot points and couldn't get clear shots on the Acolytes.

I was racking up ritual points and plot points due to the Acolytes serving as nothing short of batteries for me and the situation was made even worse for Matt when I used the Necronomicon to bring back pretty much all models he had killed. Injury was added to insult when the High Priestess took out Howard Ashton with a little help from a misplaced torpedo from the Navy.

However, as he closed in, the Acolytes ran out of places to hide and the Soldiers of Fortune took a heavy toll, ending the ritual just two points from completion.

The final struggle saw us both desperately trying to axe the other cast and get statuses on each other's stars and co-stars, resulting in a 3-1 minor victory to Matt.

This was a suitable climactic finale to the campaign and a really close run thing. 7TV really suits narrative campaign play and I can highly recommend Lurkers from the Deep, which I believe is being updated for the new edition of the game.

With the fantastical adventures of Orsa the Fearless, and the eldritch horrors of Lurkers from the Deep behind us, our next 7TV campaign pack adventure will take place during World War II, when some heroic, if bumbling, Home Guard defend their small seaside town from the undead in Vlad's Army.

Flying Horror: A Tale of 4 Armies

The commitment to delve to the bottom of the bits box throws up some fairly problematic situations along the lines of: how the hell am I going to use those?

When the problem facing me was a veritable bucketload of monopose plastic bats, I feel I may have come up with a pretty good answer.

The old plastic swarm kit, which I believe was initially made for Warhammer Quest, was simultaneously great and terrible.

Whilst it successfully provided an affordable way to add swarms of Bats, Rats, Spiders and Snotlings to your armies, it was a very rare individual who wanted all of them. On top of that, the uniform monopose nature of the sculpts somewhat undermined the concept of a swarm.

Alternatively the models could easily be scattered around an army as base decoration quite easily. Well, apart from the bats, which sat upon chunky flight stands that looked like they'd been impaled.

Therefore, when it cam to making use of my truckload of them, the first thing to go was the stands.

I had a good look at different manufacturers' bat swarms and opted for simply gluing them together in clumps to give the impression of a confusing swarm.

I used plastic glue for this to form a longer, stronger bond, but the time it took to dry did present some issues with things falling off during construction (largely because I was a bit impatient). The trickiest element was getting a strong enough bond on the base bat to build from.

When it came to painting I opted for keeping it really simple. Going for a Grey Seer undercoat, Black Templar contrast drybrushed with Eshin Grey and Administratum Grey.

Although I'm fully aware that bats aren't black and this makes them a bit cartoony, I'm completely happy with this as the Vampire Counts army, not to mention the whole Warhammer world, have always been more than a bit cartoony.

The teeth and tongue were picked out in white and pink respectively and given a coat of Skeleton Horde contrast paint, whilst the eyes were dotted white and washed in Hexwraith Flame for added spookiness.

I've made sure the unit ranks up because I didn't check the army list before making them; in Warhammer: The Old World Bat Swarms are skirmishers, but this hasn't always been the case. However, my careful construction will at least help with storage.

I've always liked Bat Swarms in my Vampire Counts army as they make for a good blocking unit, protecting the flanks of my cavalry, as they can keep up with them.

All in all, I'm really pleased in how these have turned out. Very few things in my hobby please me more than making a 200 point unit for this army game out of things I had no intention of ever using.

Call me petty, but I consider these things as a degree of compensation for what Games Workshop  did to my Undead in 1999. It's what Cheaphammer is actually all about.

#neverforgetthesundering

I still have a load of the metal Bat Swarms knocking about, but they ended up being based separately for more generic fantasy skirmish games, and I'm not sure I'm going to bother to bring them back over to this army. Much as I like swarms, I'm not sure I need even this many.

Beyond that, I genuinely only have a couple of character models to go and my Vampire Counts will be done to the point of no backlog.

To top things off, I think Bat Swarms were the only models I hadn't done for the Vlad's Army feature pack for 7TV, so you can expect an imminent start on that.

The terrain piece I've done was actually bought last week to be carved up and used as a base to pin the bats too until I decided to just stick them together.

It's a Renedra kit and I took the opportunity to play with how I do stone using something I saw on a video. After a base of Grey Seer and Black Templar (I don't have any black spray) I sponged on some Administratum Grey followed by Grey Seer on the edges and corners.

I them proceeded to wash it with three colours at once: Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade and Seraphim Sepia. I did different colours in different bits and merged then whilst they were wet, which has ended up giving a much more mottled and natural look than a flat colour with a single wash.

I'm really pleased with this and will probably pick up the other kits in this set of ruins to do the same with.

A really successful 24 hours. 21 models off the Lead Mountain, but I'm only counting them as 7 models painted given that it was all so simple.

Acquired: -12 
Painted: 144
Lead Mountain: 831

Red Fury: A Tale of 4 Armies

I'm getting towards the end of tidying up and adding to my Vampire Counts army, and I've actually reached the point of starting to add whole units, rather than just repainting and reinforcing them.

I'm also adding a degree of pace and hitting power with a second unit of Black Knights and my 'Vargulf'.

The Vampire Counts are one of what's known as 'Legacy' factions in Warhammer: The Old World, and as such haven't been included in the main army books, but instead are available on a free PDF (which is great news for a cheapskate like me).

The in-world reason for this is that the Vampire Wars ended shortly before the setting period of the Old World's history, and so their forces are scattered and hiding.

The real reason seems to be that Games Workshop have invested heavily in releasing updated Vampire sculpts for Age of Sigmar and don't really want to release the old stuff again and compete with themselves.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I've got a free army list and can start making sense of what I have. Importantly, I can definitely have two units of Black Knights, and if the army includes a Wight character, one of those units can count as core.

These models were released alongside the Circle of Blood campaign and I believe we're the first official Black Knight miniatures.

The standard bearer and unit champion (Hell Knight) have been serving in my army for years as a unit champion and army standard bearer within a big block of cavalry.

They didn't get fully repainted, but instead got the Skeleton Horde treatment and tidied up. The Hell Knight got a new horse (his was the bearded one I used for the musician conversion) and a new shield, whilst the standard bearer got his banner trimmed and the pole detailed, a sword added to his back and a new shield.

Yes, that is the Salamanders chapter badge. What of it? It's also a somewhat heraldic dragon and in a different context.

The other three Black Knights had been sitting in the bits box in various states of disarray. The one on the left was missing bat wings from his helmet, the one in the centre's arm was snapped at the elbow and all three were layered with paint.

Therefore they were all stripped and painted from scratch.

If I'm honest, I'm not 100% happy with the unit and I feel I've been too untidy and the models look sloppy. However, the shields offer a focal point and arguably draw the eye away from some very average painting.

In addition to new shields and fixing damaged elements, I also dug out their swords to strap to their backs. I could only find four and so the Hell Knight doesn't have one. I'm going to see if I can dig something out to use instead.

I never liked mixing these metal models in with my plastic cavalry as the aesthetics are so different, therefore I am quite pleased to get these fielded as a separate unit. Their lance arms remain fragile (I knocked one of them off whilst taking these photos) and in game they are also more fragile due to not having barding.

I suspect I'll still lean towards using the plastic unit in armies if I'm forced to choose, but it's good to have the option.

My 'Vargulf' is actually an Abomination from Rackham Games' Confrontation, which was a really good game with excellent miniatures which was seemingly destroyed by some bad business decisions.

This guy has served as my Vargulf ever since Vargulfs became a thing in 7th edition, but he remains suitably savage looking, if a little too techno for the Vampire Counts.

I painted him years ago very simply, with a base of Mechrite Red (I think) and a drybrush of Elf Flesh, bothe of which are discontinued colours. All I've done this time round is run some Agrax Earthshade over the metal bits.

This picture has pointed out that I also forgot to tidy up his base, so that's now been done.

I'm terms of my arithmetic this week, I'm not counting the Vargulf as I just dabbed a bit of wash on. However, I am counting all of the cavalry as painted (and three off the Lead Mountain) because they all had a fair bit of work to do on them.

I also bought a small scenery piece which will be appearing in my next army update.

Acquired: -12
Painted: 137
Lead Mountain: 852

Revamp: A Tale of 4 Armies

Having ploughed through updating and tidying up most of the rank and file of my old Vampire Counts army ready for Warhammer: The Old World, it was time to turn my attention to bring a little character to the proceedings.

Several little characters in fact...

Although I've continued with my 'chuck Agrax Earthshade and Skeleton Horde at it' approach on most of these, several of these models were stripped and repainted from scratch.

Partly this was because I wanted to go in a different direction with them, but mainly it was because they had some quite chunky layers if paint on them and I thought they could do with some detail back.

Possibly the best example of this is my 4th edition Vampire Lord, who has been leading my armies for 30 years. He's had at least two coats of paint as I originally painted him in a much brighter blue, leaving him looking somewhat similar to Superman.

I think I darkened this down on the second time around with black ink (which I used to use as if it was a wash).

Looking closely at him for the first time in a good long while, I was amazed at how thick the paint was on him.

A Dettol bath sorted that out and I ended up painting him in a somewhat similar scheme, just opting for black robes rather than dark blue.

I'm much, much happier with how he has turned out as there's much more detail to him than was visible before. I'm particularly happy with his cloak. I'm not sure it comes out on the photo but I'm pleased with shading and highlighting I did (never amazingly easy with red), using Fleshtearer's Red contrast paint to 'layer down' from Mephiston Red rather than the other way around.

He's still a clunky, old-fashioned model who is a total ballache to rank up, but the nostalgia is strong with this one. I've always loved the fact that it has such a prominent ring on the raised hand, given that the Carstein Ring was such an auto-take item in pretty much every edition if the game.

Another relic of 4th edition is the Banshee, who was originally a special character from the Circle of Blood campaign pack.

Although I wasn't totally unhappy with how she looked, I stripped the paint off her as well as I wanted to change how she looked, binging in a bit more colour (she was basically monochrome before), including giving her a spooooky glow to her eyes with Hexwraith Flame.

I'm assuming Banshees are still a thing in Warhammer: The Old World. They were in the later editions of the game, although she did spend some years leading a unit of Wraiths (the Nazgul to be precise).

Krell, the Lord of Undeath is actually the only genuine Special Character I own for this army. Some other models were initially released as such or make a suitable duplicate (the Vampire Lord makes a perfectly good Vlad von Carstein), but Krell is and always has been Krell, the Lichemaster's mate.

For many years he was riding an ad-hoc chariot as my Black Coach proxy, but with the revival of my metal Chariot, his services in that department are no longer needed.

Krell wasn't stripped, he just got the Agrax treatment on his armour and some tidying up of the details.

This somewhat fabulously dressed Necromancer is a new addition to the army. He's been hanging round my bits box in bits for some time.

He has the telltale design elements of 4th edition bad guys. Big collar and shoulder pads, lots of bling, massive weapons and both arms raised so he can be cast in a flat plane (take another look at the Vampire Lord).

As a result, I was really worried that it would look terrible when I finished and it was possibly the worst case of 'the ugly phase' I've ever encountered.

However, now he's done I think he's delightfully silly and looks evil in a children's cartoon sort of way.

I still think the barding on the horse needs something to live it up, but I've not currently got anything suitable in my transfers pile.

Finally there are the Dark Knight and my unit of Black Knights, who mainly got the wash and tidy treatment.

The Dark Knight (not that one) is, like the Banshee, also originally from the Circle of Blood campaign and has served me for many years as a Wight Lord and, at times, a Vampire (the benefits of having a covered face.

The unit were my original Skeleton Horsemen who needed barding adding to become Black Knights when the 4th edition Undead army was split into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings. The banner is still that same one drawn by my brother whilst we were both teenagers.

The barding is made from fabric (linen, I think, it was a long time ago) and drenched in Badab Black wash. The flag on Krell's banner is similar but with Baal Red.

The only new addition to the unit is the musician, something the unit has always lacked. He was cobbled together using a damaged Skeleton, some Bretonnian drums and the horse of the previous unit champion (who has been reassigned). It's a bit rough, but so's the whole unit. It's part of their charm.

I still have a couple of units to go

In related news, I picked up my copies of the Warhammer: The Old World rulebook, the Forces of Fantasy book (it contains the  'good' army lists: Empire, Bretonnia, Dwarfs, Wood & High Elves), and the Bretonnian Arcane Journal (extra units, rules and special characters).

There's no sign of the free PDF for Vampire Counts yet, but I didn't expect it yet. However, I've got plenty of reading to keep me occupied in the meantime.

Another chunk of painting that has little to no impact on my Lead Mountain but I do feel like I've very much broken the back of two of the four army challenges I've set myself.

Acquired: -13
Painted: 132
Lead Mountain: 855

Battletech: Coercion Force

Within our small gaming group we have a tradition of using Secret Santa as a way of irritating each other in a somewhat passive aggressive way.

This year that tradition manifested with Pete buying me the Battletech Beginner Box. Battletech is a game the he has jumped fairly heavily into and so far I have steadfastly refused to engage with barring a couple of trial games.

Well, not anymore.

In retrospect, it was a rather cunning plan of Pete's. He's well aware of my constant desire to reduce the Lead Mountain and whilst he was only adding two models to it, I suspect he knows that Battletech Mechs are fairly quick to paint.

And he knows I like quick wins.

However, before you think that I'm being fiendishly manipulated, you should probably be aware that I also drew him for Secret Santa and in return I got him 20 Morannon Orcs to paint as I'd like to start the Gondor At War campaign for Lord of the Rings and can't be bothered to do them myself.

It's tradition.

Anyway, this is is apparently a Griffin GRF-1S medium mech, which I'd imagine, given that this is a Beginner Box, is a fairly middle of the road workhorse unit.

As I was looking for a quick win, I kept things simple with the paint scheme and went for a Grey Seer base, a coat of Black Templar contrast, a drybrush with Administratum Grey, a wash with Nuln Oil, and then a few panels picked out with Averland Sunset. Metal bits were done with Leadbelcher before the wash and the canopy is Hexwraith Flame over white.

It was a no fuss approach and I was really pleased that, being robots with lots of panels and corners, the model responded well and was enjoyable and quick to do.

So quick, in fact, that I would have no issues repeating this to get more done, should I choose.

The other model in the box is also a medium mech but is a Vindicator VND-1R.

I'm less keen on this sculpt as the design is more humanoid and so it seems more like a 28/32mm robot rather than a towering battle suit in a smaller scale 

The details are also a bit more spongy, and so even though I took the same approach as with the Griffin, the final result isn't as good in my opinion.

The bases were coated with Astrogranite technical paint and washed with Agrax Earthshade to give an urban wasteland feel.

I enjoyed painting these and I did enjoy the couple of games of Battletech I've already played, but I'm not going to rush out to buy more yet until I know it's something I'll play. The rules seem a little daunting and I've only got a quick play version.

However, that's 2 more models painted and I've also managed to palm off a few Warhammer Quest spiders on to Matt (who is potentially doing a Mirkwood force for Lord of the Rings), and so I am making progress up the mountain again.

Acquired: -13

Painted: 120

Lead Mountain: 856