Vampire Counts: Completed Army

Took some time to get some full army shots of my Vampire Counts. I do have a couple other models to finish, but this is the bulk of it.

Vampire Counts: Grave Guard Completed

Finished up my second set of 20 Graveguard for my counts army. This makes for a nice horde of 40. These models also represent the last of my models painted for my 2015 resolution but more on that later.

Vampire Counts: Crypt Horrors

Started this counts as conversion almost a year ago now. Finally getting around to finishing them. I think the Legion Ogrun models are fantastic and make for great counts as Crypt Horrors. I plan on getting 5 more of these guys to fill out a unit.

Vampire Counts: More Skeleton Warriors

Trying to get as many models painted before the year is out. These 23 models went pretty quick. More models to come in the following days before the new year.

Vampire Counts: Dire Wolves

Taking a break from finishing all my Space Marine models. Decided to get my dire wolves painted. Going to posting a fair bit of speed painted models for awhile as I'm trying to get my two Warhammer armies done as well as get all the models I own painted by year's end. Did this unit up in about 7 hours. Painting all the bone bits really slowed me down. They were fun to paint though. I love painting gory models.

Vampire Counts: Zombie Dragon/Terrorgheist Finished!

This model has taken me forever to get finished. I think I first purchased and began work on it back in August of 2014! I spent a lot of time initially working on the magnetizing and alterations to make both heads work and the wings be removable. I also spent quite a bit of time on the base construction. If you missed that post you can find it here. Painting for Warmachine/Hordes leagues are to blame as well for taking so long to finish this model. However, it is finally finished and I'm very pleased with how it has turned out.

 Here's a couple shots showing were the wings and heads are magnetized. I also magnetized the Vampire Lord so I can also use him mounted on a horse as well.

Crypt Horrors Alternative Models/Conversion WIP

All us Vampire Counts players know how awesome Crypt Horrors are in game but they are seriously expensive models. A box of 3 models will run you $50 and that's getting them on ebay for much cheaper than retail. I just cannot justify that kind of expense for only a few models and I would want to field them in units of 6-10 so that's looking at $150. Um, no thanks. A lot of people use Ogre models and other solutions for their Crypt Horrors and like many others I had planned on going with Ogre models myself as you can get a box of 6 for about $30 - $35 on ebay. Then it occurred to me, Ogres!, Ogrun! as in Ogrun Warspears from the Hordes 2 player battle box. They are about the right size, are awesome models, and are dirt cheap. 
Here's a WIP shot of the 5 CH I'm working on at the moment. I think they work nicely as Crypt Horrors with the spears removed and a few "accessories".

I actually already had a unit for my Legion of Everblight army that I got when I bought the 2 player battle box last year but they are painted and being used as intended.
Now, you could buy the warspears models for about $20- $25 by themselves but with a little bit of buying and reselling you can get them for next to nothing.

Hordes 2 Player Battle Box $70 on Ebay
Sell the mini rulebook for $15
the Circle and Legion battlegroups  for $20 each
The Skinwalkers for $20

That's $75 and after ebay/paypal fees taken out the warspears I've kept cost about $5. I'll be getting another 2 player battle box at some point solely for another 5 of these models.

Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon Ruined Base

I'll eventually finish this model. Getting closer. I finished the base for it this week and will hopefully finish painting the model soon.

Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon WIP update

Been making progress on this model very slowly. It's a big model and I just haven't had the time lately to put much time into finishing it. Decided I needed a milestone in the process so I finished up a section of the model, the Zombie Dragon head/neck. I wanted to go with something other than black for the crumbling, rotting skin and I thought the blue would look different and stand out a bit. Once the entire model is finished I'll be adding some blood and gore to spice things up a bit but otherwise this is what the entire model will look like. For those that read the previous WIP post on this model, I did considerable amount of cutting and modifying on the ZD head/neck which consisted of removing the entire original saddle and 3 or 4 rows of spine. The saddle you see on this piece was added, sculpted, and made entirely of milliput. Hope to get some time to finish this model in a couple weeks after midterms are over.

Vampire Counts: Grave Guard

Had these finished for a little while now but I ran into a pretty bad frosting problem when clear coated them and had to go back and apply a solid coat of gloss by brush followed by a coat of matte by brush. That solved most of the problem and they look okay now. Anyway, nothing crazy going on here. Basecoats and a brown dip applied by brush, then matte finished. I'm using Mantic's Revenant models for my Grave Guard. I'm not in love with the models but they're not bad I have 40 of them so I'm using them.

I also made a banner for the standard bearer. I basically just took an image, in this case from the 7th edition VC army book, changed the size of the image and then printed it out in black and white on regular printer paper. I then painted over the image very carefully, washed it thinly in seraphim sephia, put a couple coats of gloss finish on the front and back followed by matte finish for durability and strength. Finally, I just cut it out with an xacto knife, painted the newly exposed white edges, and glued it to the standard.

Vampire Counts: Vampire/Necromancer

I've had this miniature kicking around for a few years now unpainted that I actually used as my Drow Sorcerer character for DnD. Finally got around to painting it and incorporating it into my Vampire Counts army to use as a Vampire or Necromancer. The miniature used is "Damar, Adventuring Mage" by Reaper and I think it works nicely.

Vampire Counts: Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon WIP

I've recently had the opportunity to play some games of Warhammer Fantasy due to a bit of a resurgence of interest at my local game shop. I've had my modest Vampire Counts army sitting around for the last 2 plus years doing nothing while I've enjoyed playing Warmachine/Hordes consistently in that time. I figured it was time for a change of pace and I've been devoting much of my hobby time lately to assembling, converting, and painting my undead army. I picked up the Zombie Dragon/Terrorgheist model last week and have been doing extensive work on it to make it my own.

This model can be built as either a Zombie Dragon or a Terrorgheist. My first thoughts after cutting the pieces off the sprue and cleaning all the mold lines, was that I wanted to make the model use able as either. I spent a considerable amount of time mocking the model up and working out how best to go about it. Magnetizing the two different neck and head assemblies seemed very feasible and I decided I wanted to stick to a pose similar to the stock Terrogheist pose but there was a problem with this.

The neck of the zombie dragon is a bit longer than the TG neck and is curved downwards considerably. This would be fine if I were constructing the model in an upright pose like the stock ZD pose. But constructing the model in the lower TG pose would have the ZD neck/head pretty much facing straight down. As I mentioned earlier the ZD neck is a bit longer than the TG neck; my solution was to remove enough material from the back of the neck in order to eliminate most of the curve. After much fiddling around, cutting, and test fitting, I came up with a satisfactory solution.

I did have to remove the saddle that a Vampire Lord would be mounted on, but I plan on reimplementing a new saddle on to the neck. I used 1/8 x 1/8 magnets to secure the necks in place on the body. By leaving 2/3 of the magnet protruding from the neck and embedding the magnet on the body deep enough to accommodate the other, it creates a nice, secure fit and hold.



The stock model pose looks great kind of perched on rocks but I wanted to really make the most of the massive 100 x 150 mm base size so I was thinking of having the model perched atop a ruined building instead to make use of all the room on the base and elevate the model to a more imposing posture. In the past I've always used blue insulating foam or foamcore with the paper removed for modeling stone structures. However, I needed a very sturdy structure in order to support the entire model and foam would most certainly not work at least as a supporting structure. I decided to make the basic structure out of plastic and then to wrap the plastic structure in sheets of foamcore cut to shape. That way it would be very sturdy but give me the freedom to use foam to model the stonework.

I managed to get the main body pinned to the plastic structure and then started in on figuring out a solution to magnetizing the wings in order to more easily store/transport the model. I'd seen some other ZD/TG models magnetize the wings where they meet the shoulders. This is a fine solution and I'm sure works great. I decided on a slightly different method. I ended up gluing the wings to the shoulders and magnetizing the rib cage/spine assembly that sort of wraps around the main body.

I used 1/8 x 1/16 inch magnets for this and put one set of magnets into the halves where the sternum connects and then a set of magnets where the spine meets up with the main body on the back/spine. This made for a surprisingly strong hold and works quite well. The next challenge was creating a magnetic joint at the left wrist. Again, I used 1/8 x 1/16 inch magnets and carefully drilled a pocket into the wing deep enough for one full magnet and roughly 2/3 of the one connected to the claw.

With all the magnetizing done and the main body pinned to the plastic structure, I got started on wrapping the plastic in foamcore with the paper removed. This was the easy part and enjoyable to watch it all start to take shape. I've got the basic shape of the ruined building and started in modeling the little broken archway that the model has it's front claw resting on. I'll be doing more work to the building and the base as a whole, but for now I've got a good bit done.