Undead Spearhead 7 - Ser Ballon Gravenmere

Ballon's horse trudged forward through the sheeting rain. The grinding of broken bones against the many metal arrowheads lodged deep in it's flesh would have grated on any mortal rider. But Ballon was far beyond such concerns. All there was now was duty. 

But not duty to lord or land. No noble quest urged him on. 

He just wanted to find those who has so cravenly ambushed him and his horse on the Knight's Road. He was going to teach them what happens when such despicable cowards think they have escaped justice.

This day we bid the brave Ser Ballon Gravenmere welcome to the ranks of the painted. Ballon is a black knight, (or barrow knight, to the AoS folks) and is the second of five such creatures I need for my little force. He's from the C21 Citadel undead cavalry range, sold as 'Corpus the Fallen'. I believe they were sculpted by Aly Morrison and Bob Naismith, though I might be wrong here, or omitting other sculptors. Do let me know if I need to add anyone.

I love this range of undead riders, though they are a little small by today's standards. But for sheer character, they are hard to beat. Sadly they never had any command figures painted, but there is a very nice wight king that would serve well as a unit champion.

Prep-wise, this old boy and his mount were as hard to clean up as any metal fig from the era. Some of the arrows riddling the horse had been eroded quite badly, so I cut all but one of them off and added some new plastic ones. I did have to add some greenstuff to the saddle so he's sit on it a little better. Each of these riders only fit one one or two horses from the range, which is fun. 

As to painting, I trawled old Bosch and Bruegel paintings (Triumph of Death is a must-have reference for any undead officionado) for colour schemes for the rotting horse. Browns, greens and purples made up most of my palette here. I think the stanky pony came out pretty well. I didn't want the result to be too dark, as I know the knight would be wearing black iron armour like the rest of my wights, and I wanted some contrast.

I recently picked up a pile of basing bits from Epic Basing. The thorn bushes of Ballon's base are some of theirs. I defintely recommend giving them a look. I had a lot of fun basing my Tomb Kings Bloodbowl team with their shattered pottery set.

Now, it's back to the wights!

Undead Spearhead 6 - The Choir of Ashes

 

Another small unit of skeleton warriors across the finish line. This time it's the Choir of Ashes, led by the bellicose Sergeant Wollf. 

This unit is the second ten-corpse group I need for the Spearhead project. It's a mix of ranges, from Citadel, Skull & Crown, Diehard, Bonefields and others. I do like to shop about. I have plans to boost these guys to a twenty strong unit in time. 

It took a while to settle on a banner design. I kept the colour scheme I used on Raoul de Tosny's Banner of the Horned Sun, I may use a variant of it on ghostly fellows too. The banner design really was the thing that needed some thought. Eventually, I settled on a portrait of Samael the fallen angel, though as Morr, (or Morrda in Age of Sigmar) God of Death in this setting. The Ashen standard is held aloft by Malach Veyr.

I'm very happy with the result. The banner itself is a chopped up ogre standard with some green stuff work and added grisly trophies. These old 90s Citadel standard bearer minis, more often than not, didn't come with a banner, just the banner pole. You had to add the flag yourself. With this being a particularly fancy banner pole, I felt it needed a nice flag. 

The Choir of Ashes is so named for the dirge that rises from it's members as they shamble across the land. A genial song of praise to Morr it is, that they may be released to his peace. Morr is not a vengeful God, but holds the choir fast to their oaths. Only when they are fulfilled will he let them rest, but, for the moment, the song eases their burden, as songs do. Wollf hushes them with a bark all the same, when focus is required. 'Enough whickering my morose fellows, there's sword-work to do. Step lively now!'

Undead Spearhead 5 - Melchior Dregomir

This project I’m working on needs a leader. A wight king, to be exact. There were many candidates, but in the end I picked this tall gent, a Heartbreaker undead lord from the 90s, sculpted by Chaz Elliot. As you can see, compared to his bony minion, he’s a fairly big mini, and a fine Oldhammer era commander for the host. His sword was missing its grip and pommel, so I picked out a new one. (I since found the original, irritatingly.)

Paint-wise, Melchior got the same treatment as my other wights, bar the white fur ruff and the glowing orb. The orb was my first time using fluorescent paint, and it was a bit of a learning curve. I think I’m getting the hang of it.

Melchior is a creature driven by sinister purpose. A towering wight lord of terrible aspect, made more awful still by the enormous sword he carries, the wight blade known as Absolution. This weapon passes harmlessly through the innocent, but wrenches the souls from the guilty. These shades are then bound to Melchior's magical phylactery, the Cweartern. There they dwell until such time as Melchior calls on them to perform some service, or until he deems their penance concluded.

Melchior is no cruel warden, but is unrelenting in his righteous castigation of the wicked. If one could get close enough to listen, one might hear him quietly admonishing his ghostly charges on the errors of their ways. 

So that's our champion of justice ready to lead this bony minions. More rattlebones soon.

Undead Spearhead 4 - Silas Harrow

A minor, but slightly oddball addition to the Spearhead today; Silas Harrow, skeletal fiddler for the second unit of skeleton warriors. 

Silas is a mini I have had for a very long time, and I can't recall what manufacturer he is from. He's been awaiting his turn at the painting desk for many a year, so it's nice to get him done. A simple enough fellow to paint, the only real head-scratchers were getting his fiddle bow to look something like what it's intended to be, and painting in the fiddle-strings.

The second unit is just about done, but still needs it's standard bearer. He's going to be a bit of a job, so, I'm going to put him off and paint the wight king leading the force next instead. Another old fellow come to his final reward.

Until next time, my dears.

Undead - Spearhead 3 - Riccar's Spears

Today sees the final members added to the first of the Spearhead units to be finished, a unit of ten skeleton warriors; Riccar's Spears. Let's look at the looooore of the unit:

Former men-at-arms of the house of Dreux, this unit has survived relatively intact down the years, thanks in no small part to the actions of Riccar de Purcell, the master at arms of the house of Dreux. So many of the warriors spirits still inhabit their original bodies that the burden of bearing the pain of undeath weighs heavily on them. It is only the protection of the Lady and Riccar's fastidious attentions that prevents them from becoming true undead, pliable and silent.

Riccar de Purcell was once responsible for the martial training of all the noble sons of the house of Dreux. It was he who trained Stephane in the use of arms when he was a youth. Riccar, now a mail-clad skeleton, leads his dead-at-arms in battle after battle. These once-men, by their very success, have begun to slip into true undeath as their spirits grow weary from such a long period of wandering the world of the living. They invest more and more of their will in Riccar, who bears this responsibility with no small sense of unease.

I wrote that many moons ago. So many. 

The last two undead to be added were another two lovely Roy Eastland skeletons.

I've painted five of the six of this small set now. The last left unpainted is a fellow with a two-handed axe and googly eyeballs. He'll have to wait until I paint up a unit of skeletons with double-handed weapons. 

All the details on these are just a delight to paint. Nice chunky bones and hefty scale mail. I've taken to glazing the bone with a very thin (4:1) mix of Medium and GW Skeleton Horde Contrast paint a couple of times between highlights. It smooths the layers nicely and generates that aged bone effect I'm after. 

I've also changed out my background. I've retired the blue gradient for something a bit more neutral. I took a while deciding on a light or dark grey textured backdrop, but the vote went for the light background, so here we are. The next thing is upgrading my lighting setup options.

My skeleton swordsmen also approach completion, just awaiting the standard bearer and musician. A violinist, no less. 

Fancy. 

More on that soon!

Undead - Spearhead 3

Lars Vallhund, Raoul de Tosny and Tormund Stahl

Some new recruits for the Horde of Dreux today. Three minis I have had awaiting the attention of the brush for a long, long time. It’s a little surreal finally getting to them after all these years, but very satisfying indeed, my lovelies.

This delight in metal form is a 1986 sculpt by my man, Aly Morrison. I love the undead from this era with a deep and inappropriate intensity. You often hear from old Grognards like myself; 'They just got more character they do, my lad, ah, them were they days.' Well, in this case, they do. Look at this guy, with his punky mohawk, mysterious robes and head collection (lifted from the Dead Men of Dunharrow Lord of the Rings range, I hasten to add.) He's the business. 

His paintjob followed my usual recipes, but this time I added a couple of glazes over the bone. A 1:1 mix of Skeleton Horde contrast paint and medium. Then a mix with less medium for recesses. Works a treat to add a little richness to the bone.

The banner was a new direction. White Dwarf 512 had an article on painting the new Soulblight Gravelord minis, and part of that was the banners. The faded look to these banners struck me as just super cool, and contrasted nicely with the rust, robes, bone and armour of the undead. I changed it a little, but it's pretty much the same recipe. I really like how it turned out.

Next we have Lars Vallhund, who hails from the same range as Raoul. Like the standard bearers, there are three variant musicians. This one is by far the most metal. I got great amusement from painting his goaty accoutrements. He looks a bit wild for a skeleton warrior, and is certainly a memorable sculpt. I hadn't seen a version of him painted that I can recall. I thought his drums would be nice as aged bronze, so that's what I went with.

This rather non-descript skeleton warrior is one of the many little beauties they produced in the 80s. I don't know the sculptor I'm afraid. He's a nice hunched fella, and has a lot of visual interest from the back. See for yourself:

Cool huh? The skulls on the base are from old square base resin base toppers. I've taken to clipping them up lately for adding little points of interest to bases.

So, that's the latest. Lots more undead on the way. I still have quite a few Morley grave guard to paint up, as well as the wight king. Then we get onto some cavalry. I'm having trouble selecting my horsemen, there are many wondrous candidates. More soon, and happy Deadcember!

Undead - Spearhead 2

Another undead minion rises from the painting table! This time it's Riccar de Purcell, skeleton champion. He's going to be leading one of my skeleton units for the Spearhead force, Riccar's Spears.

Riccar is one of my favourite skeleton miniatures of all time. One of Aly Morrison's sculpts for Citadel, if I'm not mistaken. Look at those janky swords. That collar! He most likely calls his enemies 'YOU FOOLS!' a lot. It's well past time he returned to the gaming table after some paint love. 

He'd been languishing in a tub for some time now. I had to break him out of his old square base and clean him up a little before getting some Wraithbone primer on him. His paint scheme wasn't anything magical, but Contrast paint washed and glazes do jazz up these old boys something lovely, in conjunction with drybrushing and layering.

I'm really, really enjoying this batch of undead. I've had some of them for decades, so it's very satisfying to finally get some paint on them. More fodder for the skeleton units to come!