Tomb Kings: Settra the Imperishable.

The great ruler of Khemri himself, Settra the Imperishable.

I had been putting off this miniature for a while as it was a complicated one to assemble, and also required me building a special base for him to sit on. This is the old pewter metal one which I have had sitting in a box for about 15 years! It is a lovely miniature, surprisingly fun to paint, and fun to do.

First of all I had to build him a specific base, as he wasn't supplied with base big enough, and I didn't have a plastic base big enough. The base was simply a piece of plastic card cut to size, and then modelled with Milliput. I added a variety of spare bits to add some flavour to the base, and added the skeletal horses to the Milliput whilst is was drying so they were embedded strongly onto the base.

Once the base was built, it was on to the construction of the metal Settra and his chariot. Both of these were again more straightforward to assemble than I thought they may be. I assembled, and then kept  Settra and the chariot separate, so they would be easier to paint, with the idea of assemble them together at the end.

Painting was easy. I used the dusty method, which worked well with the model. I added a few more details that I would normally have done, but there was nothing too problematic in the painting, or in the painting of the base.

And that is it. It's a lovely model. It will be interesting to see if GW produce a new model for Settra in their forthcoming Warhammer: The Old World releases, and if they do what he will look like.

Enjoy :)

Settra the Imperishable.

Slightly closer view of front.

Thundering across the desert.

Side view.
I was quite impressed by the detailing on the chariot.

Close up of Settra.

Scarabs fleeing Settra's oncoming chariot.
I wanted to convey a greater sense of motion and dramatic onslaught to the model, so I added the flying scarabs from the various Tomb Kings plastic kits.

More Scarabs.

Random skull decoration from the GW Arcane Ruins set.

Skeleton (spare from the Casket of Souls), scarabs, and skulls.

I only have one more update on the Tomb Kings left to do, and then they are finished. Well, until GW releases the Warhammer: The Old World.
Meanwhile, I am looking to paint some goblins at some point, and I am also returning to my 1988/90 Realms of Chaos Daemon Legions as well.

Tomb Kings Screaming Skull Catapults.

A Rare choice option for the Tomb Kings armies, the Screaming Skull Catapults.

With so many lovely and terrifying options for Rare choices in a Tomb Kings army, I sometimes felt that the Screaming Skull Catapult was overlooked. The models are great, but can be a problem to assemble, and being all pewter glued to pewter, they could be fragile. I always liked the idea of having some sort of war machine in the Tomb Kings army, and one which can shoot over the heads of regiments always meant they could be positioned behind the army, whilst the rest of the army didn't have to worry about getting in it's way.

The models themselves are great. The idea is to have a bone constructed, walking, shooting, undead war machines, an idea reused by GW in the Ossiarch bonereapers army. The Tomb Kings version shoots piles of skulls which magically burn fire, and scream at you at the same time! You can also upgrade to Skulls of the Foe, effectivity shooting back the skulls of your enemies, presumably also screaming and on fire as well!

Anyway, back to the models. They were fun to paint. One problem I did encounter was that a second hand e-bay purchase was missing the feet! So to counter this I built up the base with millput to suggest that the Screaming Skull Catapult was partly buried in the sands.

Enjoy :) 

Both Screaming Skull Catapults.
I placed both on the chariot sized bases to make them sturdier.

The first of the two (with feet!).

Side view.

Front.
This one was missing the little beard on the left side skull, so I just added millput to suggest a little mound of sand.

Left side.

Crew.
The crew are the same for both, so I only photographed one set.

The other Screaming Skull Catapult.

Side view showing the buried feet (or rather not showing them!).

Front view.

Left side view.

As the Tomb kings project is drawing to a close, I shall be posting the backlog of photographs of completed items of the next few weeks. I only have one more regiment left to paint. 

Tomb Kings: The Hawk Legion of Settra.

 I finished another regiment of Tomb Guard.

This is a regiment of the old metal Tomb Guard miniatures from 2002. I had been putting off repainting these as I didn't like painting them the first time around, and I was not impressed with assembling them nor how the shields kept falling off. So once I had paint stripped them, they were until late in the project.

To overcome the shield problem I added a piece of green stuff to the connection of where the hand grasps the shield, somewhere which is conveniently hidden from view. I have always found assembling and keeping assembled the metal miniatures from this era (later 1990's until about the mid 2010's) to be a little problematic, with the metal added parts falling off during handling.

The miniatures themselves are quite good. They differ from the later plastic Tomb Guard in the design with their Hawk looking head gear, and that they are all one piece miniatures, and this is the reason I designated them to be Settra's famous Hawk Legion of Tomb Guard. There are two types of the design holding the sword upright, and I managed to collect a regiment of the same one, with the skull design on the armour, not that it seemed to matter as much once I had pained them! I also collected all the same shield design, although I did retain the Tomb Captain's very fancy hawk shield.

Painting was straight forward using the dusty paint scheme. I followed the little background there was on them about having turquoise shields, and I painted the armour a little more gold, and less turquoise. I did the extra gold to suggest the elite within an elite nature of the regiment, and as also not to detract too much from the turquoise of the shields.  I'm happy with them, and they were not as bad to paint in this paint scheme as they were about 20 years ago with the old one.

Enjoy :)

20 Hawk Legion Tomb Guard.

Tomb Captain.

Rear view showing the fancy shield.

Standard Bearer.
I never understood the design reason for him wearing a skull helmet.

Drummer musician.
The sculpting on the drum is actually very good.

A random trio of Hawk Legion Tomb Guard.
I think that the same posed miniature does give the regiment the extra look.

Rear view of a Tomb Guard trooper.

Next update will be more Tomb Kings, of course. I have lot which I have finished painting, but as of yet haven't updated on the blog. I am currently painting my final regiment for this army. I am quite keen to move on from this project now, and I have a table full of goblins in need of sorting out and painting.  

Tomb Kings Necropolis Knights.

Another regiment to join the ranks of Settra's army, this a Special Unit choice, Necropolis Knights.

When I first saw the Necropolis Knights in the 2011 releases I didn't like them I thought that they were silly, with skeletons seeming to surf on big snakes. My focus from the kit was the Sepulchral Stalkers which in my eyes looked a lot sinister. It took me a long time to like the Necropolis Knights, in no small part to looking at how other people had painted theirs.

Anyway, I picked up three without riders a little while ago, and then last year received a second three, still unmade, for my birthday just over a year ago. Having the unmade kit allowed me to revisit the kit and appreciate how to assemble them, and so I set to work.

Assembling wasn't as troublesome as I thought it would be. I found that the snakes looked a little flat on the base, and they didn't lay well on there, so to counteract this I added some Milliput to the bases to suggest undulating ground (with the occasion skull added for that Warhammer effect!). As I didn't have three spare Necropolis Knight bodies left over from my Sepulchral Stalkers kit from years ago, (I had two, having used one in a Tomb King Regiment), I converted an armoured skeleton warrior.

Painting was the standard dusty scheme. They were fun to paint. I found I had to paint a little more turquoise on the details of the snakes, and to be careful not to do too strong a gold on them. I think they turned out quite nicely, and it has changed my mind on the concept and the kit. It will be interesting to see if they re-appear in the new incarnation of the Tomb Kings when they are released for 'Warhammer: The Old World.

Enjoy :)

Necropolis Knights.

Regiment Leader.
I stuck with the suggest combination of parts for the leader as I liked the look of the death mask, especially when combined with the face head for the snake. I like the axe as well.

Side view showing some of the Milliput on the base, as well as how I painted the snakes body.

Close-up the leader.

Standard Bearer.

Musician.

The first of the ordinary Necropolis Knights.
I do love the detailing and design of the shield. I decided to use a different one of each of the Knights to amplify their individuality in the regiment. This was further helped by the different poses and spears.

The second Necropolis Knight.

The third of the Necropolis Knights.
This Knight is the one where I used the armoured skeleton warrior body, which I think works surprisingly nicely.

More Tomb Kings next update. I have been making very good progress with them, with an eye to having the whole project finished by the end of April at the latest. Indeed, I do have a queue of photographs of completed Tomb Kings ready for uploading.At this rate I might just have them completed in time for them to become totally obsolete by the new Tomb Kings!

Tomb Kings Bone Giant with Bow of the Desert.

 In the second of the Tomb Kings army books, the Bone Giant, recategorised under the umbrella term 'Necrolith Colossus', is able to be equipped with a 'Bow of the Desert'. What this was was essentially a large bow with the same effect as a bolt thrower in the game, although terrifyingly the Bone Giant could move and shoot with it in the same turn if desired, and no armour saves were permitted against any wounds cause by the bow. . In addition to this, the Bone Giant benefited from the Tomb Kings rule of 'Arrows of Asaph' (as all Tomb Kings archers do) meaning that:

"Units with arrows of Asaph special rule never count any bonuses or penalties to hit when shooting, regardless of the source of the modifier' (p28, Tomb Kings army book, 2011).

Games Workshop never released a miniature for a bow wielding Bone Giant. The Bone Giant itself was the same miniature which was released in 2002, and as far as I recall was never converted over to Finecast before the range, and Warhammer, were retired (but not for much longer it seems!). So I, as others have done, decided to convert an existing Bone Giant.

There are several good examples on the internet of bow wielding Bone Giants, and the computer game Total War:Warhammer II has one with a very fancy looking bow, akin to the Ushabti bows and the High Elf Repeater Bolt Thrower. Rather than buy either of those just for parts I decided to convert a much simpler version of my own.

I first removed the Bone Giant's khopesh swords, and drilling a hole through his right hand. I chose to make the Bone Giant left-handed, as all the other archers in the Tomb Kings army are! Through the hole in the hand I inserted a brass rod, which I then bent into shape, and glued in place. Next, I glued a much smaller piece of brass rod parallel to the back to act as a bow string. Finally I added some green stuff around the hand to look like a hand grip, and more green stuff at the top of the bow to suggest bindings, as well as give extra strength to, and hide, the join between the two pieces of brass rod.

For the quiver I simply used a javelin case from the Tomb Kings chariot set. I removed the javelin tips and replaced them with green stuff sculpted to look like arrow fletchings. The quiver was glued onto a green stuff sculpted strap across the body, also adding a skull scarab to the front to look like clasp.

Painting the Bone Giant was straight forward, and fun as I love painting the Bone Giants. I just followed the same dusty paint scheme for the rest of the army. As a footnote, I decided to pose the Bone Giant in a manner which suggests he was stalking the desert looking for a target. I did this, rather than have him shooting the bow as I liked the look of movement which the Bone Giant model has, and also it seemed a lot of hassle trying to repose the model for a look I wasn't really keen on or I thought suited the model. Finally, I selected the big skull hat as I hadn't used it on the other two Bone Giants, and it gives the model more height and importance.

Enjoy :)

Bone Giant with Bow of the Desert.
As mentioned above, I do like that it looks like he is searching for another target, and I think it suits the advancing pose of the legs and body from the original miniature.

Side view showing the bow.

Rear view of the quiver.

Head with hat.

The three Bone Giants!

More Tomb Kings for the next update. I am rattling through the painting, with several units awaiting photographing, some more awaiting varnishing and basing, and yet more on the painting table!

The Thirteen Ushabti.

More dusty painted Tomb Kings, this time the Ushabti.

From the very first release of the Tomb Kings in 2002 I always liked the Ushabti. They were introduced as a the medium monster type for the army, in line with trolls, ogres, etc, and seemed to me to add that extra supernatural Ancient Egyptian edge to the army.

The original models are great, with the intricate detailing on the Great Weapons, and the four different Egyptian god styles, I always wanted to have a regiment for each of the gods! However, coming from the 2000's the pewter based sculpting does leave them a little static.

As for the later Finecast range of Ushabti Archers, I really never liked them when they were released, but  then I purchased some from e-bay last year and was surprised to discover they are really lovely, although Finecast is still rubbish! Given Games Workshops recent announcement concerning the return of Warhammer and the Tomb Kings, I would have thought it likely to see a newly sculpted  range of plastic kits for all the of Tomb Kings, something I am quite looking forward to.

Anyway, the Ushabti were great fun to paint. Using the dusty paint scheme they were quick and easy , and the dry brushing really brought out the details on the great weapons. 

Enjoy :)

Ushabti.
Some of these I painted late last year, but I have only finished filling in the gaps of the great weapon regiment a few weeks ago.

A regiment of 10 Ushabti with Great Weapons.
They are all metal, except for one.

Ushabti Ancient conversion.
I used the snake head body, and used the left arm from the Liche Preist on foot miniature, and a plastic bow arm with the bow snipped off from the skeleton warrior kit. I think he turned out well and looks the part of a unit leader, with a different looking great weapon, and looking as though he is bellowing out orders or issuing a challenge to an enemy.

Standard Bearer conversion.
I used the arms from the mounted Liche Priest miniature to convert this Ushabti. I used a jackal headed body to match the standard.

Crocodile Ushabti.

Falcon Ushabti.

Snake Ushabti.
The one on the left with the more ornate great weapon is the Finecast miniature.

The fourth Ushabti and the second Jackal Ushabti.

Ushabti Archers.

Ushabti Archer.

Ushabti Archer.

Ushabti Archer.

The next update will probably be on either more Skeleton Warriors, namely the swordsmen, or some characters, as both batches are finished but awaiting photographing.