Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault Part 2

Finishing up the second warband included in the Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault box, Stormsire's Cursebreakers. In Part 1 I painted up the other warband included, Thorns of the Briar Queen.
Much like the Thorns warband these miniatures are very nice looking. I also appreciate the unique bases that are included and specific for each individual model. They look great and add a nice touch.

Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault Part 1

Recently picked up the new starter set for Warhammer Underworlds, Nightvault. It's a fun little game and the miniatures from Games Workshop are top notch and really fun to paint.

First up is Thorns of the Briar Queen, one of the two warbands included in the the Nightvault set. These painted pretty quickly and look great with minimal painting effort.

Part two will be up soon with the other warband in the box, Stormsire's Cursebreakers.

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.

Completed Dwarf Army

In a flourish of painting in the last couple months of the year, I managed to complete my Dwarf army. Feels good to have a fully painted force.

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.

Dwarf Thane Battle Standard Bearer

This Thane Battle Standard Bearer represents the last model to be painted in my dwarf army. All done! Time to move on to something else. The banner was done like most of my banners by printing out a design on paper, painting it, and affixing it in place. Next up to get some paint will probably be on a few Cryx models before delving into finishing up my Vampire Counts army.

Below you can see some WIP shots of the banner for my thane and quarrelers.

Dwarf Quarrelers

Just about finished up with my Dwarf army. Wrapping up with 20 Quarrelers and a Thane battle standard bearer to follow. Feels good to be completing an army.

Dwarf War Machines and Crews

Some more speed painted Dwarves here. This time I've got a couple grudge throwers, an organ gun, and a cannon. The organ gun and cannon tops can be swapped out to be either a second organ gun or a second cannon. All that's left now for my dwarves are 20 Quarrelers and a Thane BSB.

Dwarf Thunderers

Had a little bit of time to do some painting this past weekend. With most of the base coats already down from the airbrush, the brush work goes pretty fast. A lot of people don't like the Mantic Dwarves miniatures and the short beards are a big reason why. I don't really mind the beards but I must admit that this sculpt for the Thunderer/Quarreler sculpt is not that great with a lot of the detail around the head, gun/bow, and arms kind of just blending into each other without any clear definition between them. I've tried my best to try and alleviate that as much as possible with clean defined paint lines, heavy shadow, and of course carefully chosen photography angles. There is another sculpt for this model but for these 10 Thunderers, there is just the one among them. Next up in the painting queue will be some dwarf war machines and crews.

Dwarf Hammerers

It's been tough to find much time to paint lately. Life happens and miniature painting goes to the wayside. I'm still holding out hope to finish painting my collection before year's end but that is looking less likely. We'll see. If I can get a few days where all I do is paint, I can bang out a lot of work. Anyways, here's the latest finished models, 30 Dwarf Hammerers. Again, just a tabletop quality here. Went with a golden/brass armor so that between the hammers and the armor they'd be more distinguishable from the warrior models.

Finishing the Dwarves

I've switched over to Dwarves now in an attempt to get that army completely finished. I did finish a unit of Warriors/Longbeards back in March and I'm looking to finish the rest of the army. I spent a few hours on the airbrush blocking in a few of the large area base colors. This really saves on brush time later on. Here's 53 WIP dwarf models after airbrush work including 15 Hammerers, 20 Quarrelers, 10 Thunderers, 2 Organ Guns/Cannons w/ crews, and 2 Grudge Throwers with crews. Should be able to knock out these in a relatively quick manner.

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.

Dwarves: Longbeards and Warriors Finished

Finally getting back to these after painting a fair bit of Legion models for the latest Journeyman League. In this post I did some putty work for more substantial beards on the command models and magnetized the arms on the musician and standard bearer so I could freely switch between regular warrior models and Longbeards. So, one unit of 26 Warriors all done. For most of my dwarf army and a lot of my Vampire Counts core I'll be speed painting the models with a simple base coat, wash, done with only a little highlighting on the front rank of models. This allows me to paint each model at somewhere around 30 minutes. It's not stellar painting but it looks half decent on the table top and combined with a freehand banner, I think they look alright.

Longbeards

Warriors

Dwarves: Longbeards and Warriors WIP

Been working on my Dwarves the last little bit. I was trying to think of a good way to be able to swap back and forth between using Longbeards or Warriors for my core. I decided to use a rank of 5 Warrior models to get some nice, long, putty beards to act as Longbeards. I'd use these 5 models in the front of the unit so it could be distinguished as a unit of LB rather than Warriors. I also plan to paint them slightly different than the others as well. I also magnetized the musicians and standard bearers arms so that the front rank would either be normal, shorter bearded Warriors or Longbeards with, um, longer beards. Should work out nicely I think.

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.