Fell Bats Conversion

For a long time I have wanted to include Fell Bats in my undead forces and unfortunately the current GW miniatures are really old and unfit for purpose. So earlier this year I spent some time rifling through my bits boxes to see what I could come up with. These are the results of which I am rather proud. I forgot to take pictures of them without paint (I got excited and started painting right away so these are very WIP pics) but I think its fairly obvious what I've done here. These miniatures can be put together quite easily, and are made from pieces most Death players likely have lying around.

The base of this conversion is the spare pieces from assembling a unit of Crypt Horrors. If you assemble the Crypt Horrors you will be left with the wings, hairy back, and head of the Vargheists. I began by taking these pieces and gluing them together in a flying pose. The heads glue really easily onto the top of the hairy back piece and the wings can be glued to roughly where the shoulders should be with relative ease, though you may need to cut the joints a little for the best fit. 

For the claws I then took some spare Ghoul arms and glued them to the bottom of the back piece. This may require cutting down the shoulder joint of the arms a little. I also elected to go with arms that weren't holding any items and showed the bare claws. 

This leaves us with all of the bat except for the front of the torso. You could green-stuff in some muscles or something but I elected to glue a skeleton shield to the front of the body for ease. The round shields from the Skeleton Warriors kit cover this front area quite nicely and I thought it would provide a nice space to display the colours and heraldry of an army. After all, I like to think of these bats as a proud Vampire/Necromancer's pets that they would want to cover in their personal colours or sigils. As an extra detail I added some arrows poking out of the bat above to show where enemy archers had tried to bring it down. 

I then used some green stuff to fill in gaps, make small tails, and generally smooth any connections that didn't look quite right. Finally they were glued to a standard 40mm base by their wing-tips (I'm not a fan of using flying bases but they could work equally well) and where necessary I glued coins to the bottom of the base to make sure they wouldn't fall over. 

I believe these Fell Bats are a fair bit larger than the current Fell Bat miniatures but with a more dynamic pose and more modern pieces I think you'll agree they are much better. I also think they fit within the aesthetic of most undead armies better than using Tyranid bits, which seems to be the most common means of converting Fell Bats that I have seen previously. I'm sure that others will be able to refine this method further, but for now I rather pleased with my Fell Bats and I hope it inspires others to try rooting through their bits boxes to see what they can make! 

Nagash - 2 months of work and 41 paint pots later...

This has got to be one of the most challenging models I have ever painted and I am really happy with the results. As soon as I saw the model I knew that I simply had to own it and I finally managed to get my hands on the Great Necromancer just after Christmas. It then took me two months to buy all the paints I needed for him and then paint him. 

I largely followed the painting guide you can buy and download. I would certainly recommend it if like myself you were worried about doing such an amazing model a disservice. The only major deviations I made was that I added a layer of xereus purple to the armour after naggaroth night and I painted the warpstone gems like the eyes with an added green glaze to give a glowing effect. 

This post is largely just a gallery of the finished model, for more pictures of my Undead Legions visit the Parade Grounds. Enjoy. 

Nagash, Elven Hosts and Sauron - New year, new projects

This week I have finally begun my new projects for this year after settling back into university. My main project is going to be Nagash, whose model I have wanted ever since I first laid eyes upon it, and then as a secondary project I will be attempting to build an Elven Host from various unfinished endeavours. I would also like to try and do some more canvas pieces this year, the first of which I have started can be found nearer the bottom of the post, and I thought I might as well put some of this art on the blog. 

This. I have needed it so bad...

Everyone and their cat seems to do unboxing photos/videos on the internet so here is my relatively poor attempt at one. The box design is quite nice, something very clean and slick about it being white that really helps to show off the model. The outer box seems to be unusually robust and made of higher grade card than usual, there is then a regular card tray that pulls out containing the sprues. 

These are the two sprues, the base and the instruction manual which also contain his rules. Rules in the box are a pretty good idea, one that I have only seen positivity for from the community. I was quite amazed that they managed to fit such a complex miniature onto only two sprues and even as I built it I was blown away by the detail and overall ambition of the model. He is sitting on my project table now ready to be sprayed and I can't wait to get to work painting him.

You can read my review of the first End Times book featuring Nagash here where I also talk a bit about the accompanying model release: End Times: Nagash - Review.

This pile of seemingly random collection of plastic and metal is a selection of various elven miniatures that I have acquired throughout the years, many in a state of total disrepair or simply without a use. They have languished in Limbo for some time now and this year I have decided to make them into a coherent force to field alongside my Dark Elves. I will be using the rules from End Times: Khaine to make a Host of the Phoenix/Eternity King. Thus far all I have done is stick the dragon together and drawn up a few plans, over the next few months I will be posting updates on this project including the overall cost of restoring and rebuilding this army. 

This year I have decided I would like to do some more canvas pieces and actually finish them. After falling out with oil paints I have largely been painting with acrylics, however I am terrible for starting pieces and never finishing them after losing interest about halfway through. This time however I have plenty of curious flatmates wandering over to my room from time to time who expect to see some level of progress. I have started two pieces, the main one being this painting of the Eye of Sauron inspired by his appearance in the Hobbit films. This is about half done with lots of work still being needed on the pupil and edges of the eye. I am also going to try and paint the One Ring text around the eye as well which should nicely finish it off. The other painting you can see in the background of a few of these pictures and is a bit of an abstract/surreal piece I will be posting when it is finished with the accompanying short piece of text that inspired it. 

This is my project table at the moment, two paintings started and Nagash ready to be sprayed. I am yet to fully assemble the great necromancer as he would be near-impossible to paint as a single piece. I should hopefully be able to start painting and post some pictures of Nagash in a week or two time, no idea when I will be able to work on the Elves or the canvas pieces. I have been spending a lot of my leisure time reading at the moment as my reading list tripled in size over Christmas and neither my copy of End Times: Thanquol or several books on 20th century history have arrived yet which will need reading almost as soon as I get them. Nagash is also going to take quite a long time to paint on account of the fact that he will require a lot of paints I don't own and I have a limited budget so it will take a few months to even get hold of the paints I need for him. 

Right, that is pretty much everything I am up to at the moment. I probably ought to go back to researching the formation of nation-states now so I will see you again next week, hopefully with a review of the new End Times book if I can read it in time. 

Doombinger out.

The End Times: Nagash - Review

So the End Times have finally come.

It's a bold move from Games Workshop. Let's see if it pays off.

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! 

PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

This has turned out a much longer post than I usually do and it rambles on a bit in places, in fact most of it rambles but I hope you enjoy this review anyway. I will start with some general comments, work may way through the two books and end on a bit of a conclusion.

Moving the story forward is certainly a great way to reinvigorate interest in the system and it was certainly enough to get me to buy a £50 book. It is in fact two books contained within a rather stylish slipcase: the first is a huge 300 pageish volume focused on fluff and the second is about 100 pages of various rules.

The entire thing is quite beautiful; it is not only well presented but is replete with new artwork and vast amounts of literary content. So much content in fact that it has taken me about two weeks to read and properly digest it all. This is a must have for any avid Warhammer collector and lovers of the background such as myself. I think this can only be a good thing for the game by allowing it to change and grow in new directions. Whilst I love the Warhammer world I am excited by the opportunities moving the story forwards entails and I can say now that it seems far better executed thus far than Storm of Chaos.