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. 

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. 

Army Update - The Seventh Dynasty

This army first appeared on the blog as one of my first posts as the start of my Army Showcase series and can be seen here: The Van Fell Dynasty Part 1 and Part 2. Since then I have doubled the army in size, repainted a lot of it and largely rewritten the army background.

The Nightmare Hosts of the Seventh Dynasty

Battle Report: High Elves Vs Vampire Counts 1500pts

It's Battle Report Time!

That's right. So I'm finally making a return to the blog (and to the beloved hobby in general) and doing so by playing Doombringer himself, in this instance WFB where my noble High Elves will be heroically facing off against the devious Vampire Counts. So without further ado, on with the show!

First points of note, the table played on is not quite as wide as a standard table, therefore the action kicks off very quickly, leading to shorter, but still very bloody battles.

Second is that we will both be including personal reflections in the report to show the thought behind the battle. Mine will be in red, and Doombringer's will be in green.

Army Showcase - Part 2 - The Van Fell Dynasty

Continuing from last time we have a few more pictures of my vampire counts and introducing my two necromancers.

Requiring aid the Countess roamed far and wide for a necromancer to help her raise an army. On the streets of Sartosa she found a man sitting in the gutter who claimed to be a master necromancer and all powerful lord of death. His alcohol laced breath did nothing to assure her but the powerful magical aura that surrounded him was enough. Calling himself 'Captain' Ernst von Drakkenhart he claims to have invented necromancy before Nagash was born, that the Purple Sun would have been named after him if his apprentice Xereus hadn't stolen his research and that the consumption of livers granted him tremendous magical powers. How much of his drunken ramblings are true we may never know but the captain does seem to wield noteworthy powers and is quite adept at manipulating the undead. Serving as his apprentice is the Necro-Engineer Skisrick Turncloak who betrayed his clan for promises of necromantic power. His former clan now makes up a significant portion of the growing undead army.

Army Showcase - Part 1 - The Van Fell Dynasty

Doombringer here. As you have no doubt noticed blog progress has been slow with everyone so busy, to remedy this I dredged up some old pictures of some of my armies to post. Up first we have my modest 1000 points Vampire Counts army: The Van Fell Dynasty.

When the Strigoi capital fell to orc invaders; one of the vampires attempted to escape the destruction with a teleportation spell. The effort was foiled when a nearby goblin shaman miscast causing a disturbance in the winds of magic: sending the vampire hurtling across eight dimensions and landing in the Realm of Souls. Over thousands of years she clawed her way back to reality: fighting off the spirits of the damned, reapers of the death gods and other eldrich abominations. Returning to the world mad and bent on vengeance she saw her kin degenerate beasts ruling as Ghoul Kings, she proclaimed herself the Heir of Ushoran and vowed to feast upon the rest of vampire kind for turning against them. Taking the name Countess Victoria Van Fell she has begun her quest for absolute power.