Operation End Times no7 Arkhan Mortarch of Sacrament

It's taken me a while but here he is.

Arkhan is a beautiful miniature to paint, although he does take a while.  I tried to stick with three main colours on him, dirty bone, metalic black and a spectral green.  I think the result is quite striking.  I'm actually thinking of repainting my Cryx for warmachine like that.

I had the opportunity to use him last week and he is awesome.  His ability to raise double the usual amount of troops from the lore of undeath is very powerful.  Not to mention he can fly so he can hunt warmachines, lone wizards or just move to you're opponents backfield to raise another army to trap his units between two armies.

Operation Endtime no6 Ghouls

I've got lots of ghouls in my army.  Ghouls from several different companies and in GW's case several different generations of ghouls.
First up are  the Heresy ghouls.

You've seen this lot before

And this guy who appears to have surgically removed a heart... with a cleaver.  He was hiding and didn't get done with the first lot.  The heresy ghouls are my favorite out of the lot.  They just look the most sinister.  The look like they could have been men once.

The Mantic Ghouls

The Mantic ghouls look very human aside from the big nails stuck in them.  These ghouls are plastic and very cheap.  Unfortunately they're all a bit samey.  There's not a whole lot of variation to them.  They're my least favorite, I'm just not overly fond of the sculpts.  They're also the least fun to paint.

The GW 90's ghoul

This one is an oldie.  These ghouls have the ultimate nostalgia kick for me.  I've had this fellow (and a few more like him) for over 15 years (yes its taken me that long to paint him).  I like to refer to these ghouls as the fat ghouls, they have big bellies after all.  They're some of the beefiest most powerful ghouls out there.

The Modern GW ghouls

These ghouls make up the most of my collection.  These are the scary ghouls.  They've got lots of bits (mainly bones and hooks) imbedded in their flesh like some sort of twisted jewelry, one of them even doesn't have any eyes and another is wearing a skeletal torso on its back.  These ghouls are also plastic, which is why I have them in abundance. 

Not pictured is the inbetween era GW ghouls, aka the skinny ghouls.  I didn't have any to hand.

Now what happens if I mix them all up

Even though the different ranges look quite distinct, when mixed together they look oddly unified in a very rag tag way.  So what's the best range of ghouls to use?  All of them.  Each range has its own elements that add to the unit and combined look pretty unique.

Now to start Arkhan.  This might take me a while.

Arkhan the Black, Mortarch of Sacrament

I finished building this fellow last night.

Arkhan the Black, mounted upon his dread abyssal Razarak the Doom of Traitors.  The end result is very impressive, unfortunately the build was quite fiddly.  I'm actually worried that the parts suspending him might snap as they are quite thin and there's only two of them.  He should be fine as long as I don't drop him from any great height, not that intend to.

I put a few more Renedra gravestones on his base fill in some of the gaps.  I even stuck a raven on one of them. 

I built the kit as Arkhan for several reasons.  First is he's a mini Nagash, and I liked the idea of the pair of them raising entire armies from the grave.  Sure Mannfred is most scary of the mortarchs, but Arkhan is more insidious.  The second reason is that if I wanted to run a large list with his most loyal lieutenants or play a game set earlier in the time line (I'm thinking of his battle with Sigmar) I could.  Thirdly I have a habit of running a Vampire Counts army with out any vampires and may do the same with an undead legion army.  And lastly I like Arkhan as a character more that Mannfred or Neferata.

I might have a crack at painting him after I finish the ghouls.   

Operation Endtimes no5 Krell and friends

I wasn't in much of painting mood this week and my earlier momentum has dropped so I'm now back on schedule.  I did however manage to paint Krell and some ghouls.
First up the big guy himself Krell mortarch of despair

Krell is my favorite miniature that games workshop produce.  He's very imposing without being over the top or cartooney.  He's tall, broad and his cape isn't flowing, but rather drapes downwards giving him a blocky shape.  He's like a wall that going to hit you with an enormous axe.  Imagine the obsidian blade descending down upon you and the last thing you see is his rictus grin utterly devoid of emotion.  He is in every sense the sinister executioner.  The only thing that I don't like about him is he's made of finecast.  For some reason the paint doesn't adhere to his axe edge and kept chipping when I tried to dry brush it, so I didn't quite get the effect that I hoped for.

Now his buddies

These are ghouls from Heresy Miniatures that I built a few years ago.  I think they look pretty cool.  They're more recognizable as human than the games workshop ones.  I've made their flesh pale to show that they live almost perpetually in the dark, and have made them look dirty too.  As you can see ghouls are cannibalistic (blood and gore yay!).

Operation Endtimes no4 well ahead of schedule

Out of this weeks goal I've completed two thirds of it already.  Looks like I'll be updating this series as and when I finish something.  I've done a lich priest and a vampire for my Undead Legion army.
First up the Liche Priest

This is not only a classic model he's also a collectors piece. This is the original Arkhan the Black (missing his chariot of course, it got horribly mangled during postage when I bought it, don't worry I have a spare).  In my army he is just a liche priest.  I've decided that the tomb kings stuff in my army will be turquoise in some fashion.  I think I spent more time figuring out what colours the head of his staff should be.  I noticed that it had the symbols of each of the eight winds of magic so I painted each prong accordingly.

Now the vampire.

This is Isabella VonCarstein.  Unfortunately she isn't in the Undead Legions list having been destroyed centuries ago, so she is now relegated to being another vampire.  I went with the red that I use on most of my vampire counts minis.  I decide that the roses on her dress and in her hair (not as noticeable up there) would be black, picked from the gardens of Morr, the only places where black roses grow.  I like this model, except for the fact that it's finecast (rages).  She snapped off her base tab meaning I had to attach her with a bit of wire.

In the next installment Krell and some ghouls.

Operation End Times no3

Week 2 complete.  10 dire wolves ready for battle.  Also two days early.

I've gone for the purple rotted flesh again.  What can I say, I really like it.

Now for a bit of a tactica.  It's in my experience that dire wolves are a little bit dire.  The die easy that's why I run them in units of 10.  If they die easy then what are they good for?  I've always used them for war machine and lone wizard hunting.  Run them up the flanks and tie up some long ranged nuisance that can't fight very well and hopefully murder it.  Dire wolves are a harassment unit, plain and simple.  They wont win many fights but used correctly they will annoy your opponent.

Now next weeks challenge is a liche priest, a vampire and Krell.

Nurgle Sorcerer a commission piece

Just finished the final figure for mu friend, a chaos sorcerer of Nurgle.

He was an easy one.  I went with brown dry-brushed with brown with a hint of brown on the side.  to me Nurgle looks better in brown rather than the green you usually see.  I put a little green on the slime on his staff which I might add a little water effect to once I've varnished him.