Deprived of slumber under stones.*
A frigid wind blew outside the blasted castle walls as Tomlin huddled closer to the fire, turning the roasting meat over the red embers. The shattered panes of the windows did little to keep the cold out and there were deep dunes of powdery snow where the scars of some terrible battle had battered ragged holes through the sturdy walls. The once elegant hall now seemed cavernous, the fire in the cracked hearth creating the tiniest of solaces from the cold and the looming shadows.
They had come here, Tomlin and his erratic master, just before the first snows had descended from the North. Now it was more than a month since that dark, ominous day that had followed an arduous month's travel from the gentler climes of the coastal duchies of the Infant Sea.
The master, to whom Tomlin still had no other name, had spent the first week digging through the bones of the castle, while Tomlin had mostly hunted the scrawny rabbits that counted as game in the barren hills that surrounded the ruins of the castle. There had been woodlands in those hills once, before whatever it had been that brought low the castle.
He had wandered the halls of the keep at first, marvelling at the ruined splendour and the military might of whatever folk had dwelt here, until the growing feeling of unease had curtailed his curiosity. There was a dark past buried in the ruins, and it did not sleep easy. There was an unnerving hiss to the wind in the darkened corridors that rose and rose the deeper one walked, until it was a ghastly keening, like pained wails echoing down the ruined halls. Tomlin had since only stayed in the outer hall, despite the bitter cold.
He knew his master now spent most of his time in a partly collapsed shrine in the inner courtyard of the castle. There he had collected a variety of oddities he'd discovered while exploring the castle. A shield hewn in two, a sword with its blade snapped and various other things, scorched bones and personal items. The shrine was perhaps the worst part of the keep in Tomlin's opinion, as despite being relatively well preserved and thus safe from the moaning breeze, there was a brooding silence there that was more ominous than the muted screams of the wind in other parts of the castle
Something slept there, and Tomlin did not want to disturb that rest.
--
I started my Undead force by converting some Wights.
The overall mythos of the undead in Mantica is pretty unique and very interesting (and more than a little disturbing when you really think about it). Most fantasy universes treat the undead as sort of automatons, basically rotting meat robots or, if they're more advanced, bone robots. In Mantica the Undead aren't simply automatons even if they are bound to the will of the Necromancer, their very souls are called back into their decayed corpses, to bear unwilling witness to whatever nightmarish things they are commanded to do.
The Wights, however, are an exception to this. They come back willingly, to exact vengeance on those who still dare to feel the warmth of day after they have slipped beyond such pleasures. This will to evil imbues them with supernatural strength and magnifies their malice and I wanted to capture this thoroughly unholy aspect of them.
What would be a more fitting model to base this ghastly vision than Mantic's angelic warriors, the Elohi? I kitbashed them with some bits from the Vanguard Kickstarter, and cut out some plasticard for the cloaks both to give the models a more dynamic look and to cover the wing mountings on their backs. Add a little battle damage and wear to the armor and it started to look pretty good in my view.
I like to work on plasticard for large pieces of cloth, as it, in my view, yields itself better than greenstuff to achieving the fluidity of fluttering cloth. It takes a bit of practice to get the folding process right, as it takes some really hot air to heat the plasticard to the point where it goes soft and that point is only a notch lower than the point when it starts catching fire, which I typically do not want. At any rate, my banners and cloaks are made from plasticard, cut to shape and folded and refolded and re-refolded after heating.
For this army I wanted to make the most of the opportunities presented by multibasing. The overall theme is a ruined castle on a cold winter, so I would be using snow flock for the first time. To achieve my goal in making the bases look as much a part of the unit as the miniatures, I set some guidelines for myself to follow:
1. Ground is rarely even, so my bases can't be, either.
This means both height and angle. If everything is in right angles, it will start looking off very quickly. Even muddied ground has hills and is often sloping in some direction. This means using wood filler to add shapes to the base so that it looks more natural. Also works great for making snow drifts!
2. The miniatures have to interact with the base.
That means a model descending a staircase needs to be positioned so that it looks like its walking down (feet angled right, center of mass slightly forward, etc), they have to leave footprints in snow and so on. Planning is key here, and making sure I look at the miniatures before I make the base, but also that the base has to be made to nearly complete before I can start assembling miniatures. It wouldn't be far off the mark to say that the miniatures should be made to fit the base if you want them to look natural, not the other way around
3. Avoid overhang.
With individually based minis it's normal to have some overhang as the models, especially those more dynamically posed, tend to reach over the base. With multibasing this isn't really necessary, and for ease in gaming I'm going to try making units that actually fit on their base. That also puts the emphasis on planning and positioning, because I also want to make my units look full.
4. All materials need to be painted.
Some people just chug a rock on a base as it is, but to me this looks very much off. Natural textures don't mix well with painted stuff, and can actually break the sense of immersion quite easily. Thus I tend to rather find something that looks like stone than actual stone as actual stone has a) the wrong grain size and looks off and b) makes paint look more painty and less an artistic impression of what things look like.
A few things I noted as I worked on the snow flock were firstly that it needs a blueish color under it in order to look snowy white and secondly that it needs something under it to give it the heft that snow drifts often have. Snow tends to clump and build up in places instead of forming an even cover (unless there's a lot of it), so that on a windy courtyard you would probably have some deep banks of snow instead of a little snow sprinkled evenly. Fresh snow in subzero temperatures is like very, very fine sand and it forms dunes and gets blow across surfaces, so to make it look realistic I felt like I needed to make it puffy. Snow flock on glue doesn't really do "puffy", so I used wood filler to give the drifts the feel I wanted them to have.
I found a nice tutorial for making icicles out of the clear plastic stems of flight stands and it really worked admirably: just hold the stem over a candle with two pliers and slowly stretch it until it gets really thin. Works like magic.
Also a very nice use for the plastic bases one gets with Mantic miniatures is to use them as stone slabs on bases. They make sturdy walls and stairs as they can be securely glued with plastic glue.
---
Tomlin disliked his daily trek through the ruined castle immensely, yet the Master was paying him handsomely to keep him fed while he did whatever crazy people do in derelict castles. The gold was barely enough to make Tomlin heed to his daily task, but, as every day before this one, Tomlin once again made his way reluctantly to the shrine.
He clawed at the shrine's door and managed to drag it open, sweeping aside the drift of snow the howling wind had piled against the battered door. Once inside, Tomlin pulled the heavy door closed behind him and stamped his feet.
Casting back his hood he looked about the round chamber. Here the windows were intact enough to keep the wind out, but there were powdery snowflakes suspended in a slow dance in the air by silent drafts. There were old tombs in the floor, marked by massive slabs of black marble, set in an almost full circle, broken only by the shorts steps opposite the door Tomlin had just entered by. The steps went down ten long steps until they ended in two stony doors inscribed with some arcane runes.
"Master?", Tomlin called out in a hoarse whisper that echoed in the cold chamber.
"Over here, lad. What have you got for me today?"
The man was huddled in heavy cloaks in one of the four alcoves that ringed the chamber. He had a large, leather bound book whose covers were deeply stained and scored in his lap and half a dozen candles illuminating his bent form as he pored over the pages of the old tome.
"Just a rabbit, sir."
"Splendid, just leave it there and go."
Tomlin was more than happy to oblige him, casting one final look about the room.
There was an old, faded banner strewn across the center of the room, while broken down sets of armor had been lain on the tombstones. An aged helm, it's once bright crimson crest faded to pale shades shades, had been placed in front of the stone doors barring the way down the wide stairs.
"Master?"
The was a moment of silence, conveying annoyance with Tomlin's continued interference. And then, a resigned sigh:"Yes, Tomlin?"
"How long will we be staying here?"
"Not much longer, I'm sure. I'll come and meet you tonight, we'll talk then and make our plans."
The master made a dismissive motion with a thin, claw-like hand extending from the folds of his cloak. Tomlin hurried off into the gathering dark.
I want my undead to look like they're unreal, ghosts clad in ancient armor. For my Wights I used the Elohi swords and gave them a green ghostly flame look, a little darker than the shade I gave to other non-metal parts of the models. I think it can pretty plausibly count for CS (3), with the "fluff" of it being that the blade doesn't really exist at all, but it cleaves through the spirit of other beings with deadly ease. The most difficult part of the whole project was to get the Elohi models to walk down stairs, but luckily I've practiced heat bending restic enough that I managed to pull it off to my satisfaction.
This is where restic, despite its shortcomings, really shows it's excellence as a material for conversions. It's hard enough to hold crisp detail and to withstand some working (such as drilling for pinning, sawing off bits etc), while the heat bending really creates immense opportunities for re-positioning and re-posing miniatures. Most other forms of plastic (and metal) are very limited in terms of how much you can actually work on the pose the miniature comes in, while with these Wights I took them from a wide, defensive stance to a lot more dynamic walking pose with relative ease. If you've ever tried to re-position the foot of a hard plastic miniature so that it contacts the ground in a more natural angle, you know how much of a chore that can be. Most miniatures simply cannot be bent that way. With restic it takes ten seconds. If there's a call for it, I could do a post about repositioning restic with hot water.
For the whole army I am going to go with a relatively common metal & ghosts-look, meaning that everything aside from the metal armor and weapons will be, as a rule, painted a green hued grey. The armor of all units will be dark bronze in color, with some cloaks, plumes and banners painted a faded purple to give the army a little more variety to its look.
The scheme is super quick to paint as it relies heavily on washes and drybrushed metals for highlights.
--
The hour was late, very late, and Tomlin was worried.
He paced back and forth in the hall where he had slept these previous weeks, blade in hand, peering out of the two doorways. The vaulted hallways were dark and empty. The wind had died down soon after Tomlin left his master and now a brooding silence held the castle ruins in its grasp.
He decided, after a long debate with himself, to go and talk with his master. Just to check if everything was in order, Tomlin told himself.
The castle was even more eerie with the moaning wind gone, and Tomlin walked briskly, looking neither left nor right. The walls seemed to close in behind him, an icy tomb of a fortress, the dead lords of which did not wish his presence. What people had lived here, and why did they leave behind such a malicious presence? Tomlin tried to avert his thoughts and lifted his lantern higher, trudging on.
At last he came to the tumbled remains of the inner courtyard, and laid eyes on the shrine again. He hurried forth and drew open the door. It opened without so much as a creak. Tomlin sneaked in and closed the door.
His master was standing in the middle of the room, holding the tome in front of him and muttering to himself, apparently completely oblivious to Tomlin's entry. There were candles placed in a wide circle around the shrine, their flames standing still in the quiet, surrounding dark. Something in the odd scene made Tomlin hold his breath.
"Yes, yes, it's all here.
Your valiance, your virtue.
Strong you were, in life.
A sword against the taint that seeks to wash over the world.
Admirable qualities, all,
yes, very admirable,
But also fooolish.
You were valiant,
yet not impervious.
You were virtuous,
yet not incorruptible.
You took more to your graves than virtue."
The old man flipped through the pages of the tome, searching, searching. Suddenly he cried out, his voice rising:
"Here it is!
Your valiance was your undoing,
and your virtue did not save you or those you sought to protect.
You failed,
Your order failed,
And now your rest is troubled.
and regret, yes.
Two sides of a heavy cloak you could not shed,
When you went beyond.
These are the hooks with which I will fish you out from the river of death.
Deep have you sunk,
yet long is my reach.
By Oskan I call thee, Knights of yore,
come, come!
By Garkhan I call thee, O fallen Lords!
Come, come!"
Tomlin pressed his hands over his ears, but the voice pierced him regardless. There was a faint green glow, growing, rising from beneath the tombstones on the floor.
"I bind you by the Lies of the Father,
Rise!
I bind you by the Fall of the Son,
Rise!
From Durunjak's cold gates I release thee,
Rise!"
And rise they did.
I wanted my Wights to have a feel akin to Tolkien's Barrow-wights, envious of the living and somehow repulsive, while also having an aura of terror similar to the ring wraiths. Thus, mine are clad in decayed armor to give shape to their nothingness, wielding blades that are, more than actual blades of steel, the memory of blades they once swung in life, tempered by the cold deeps of death and woken to ghostly flames by the sheer hate of their masters.
For the non-ghostly fabrics I did a three shade purple from dark to light. This, however, lead to too bright a color, so I gave the fabrics a blue wash, followed by a light grey drybrush for highlights and a faded look, and then a final white highlight for edges and to add a little texture.
In the end I'm fairly happy with how the Wights turned out, and now I'm eagerly awaiting my order from Mantic so that I can get to work on the rest of my army.
--
Behind Tomlin the ruined castle was bathed in an unholy glow as ghostly towers rose above their tumbled down foundations, their former glory transmuted into menacing forms by unholy incantations. The sound of a mighty host assembling echoed from the surrounding hills.
A pale, torn banner could be seen, flying high above the towers. Upon it was a single, white rune.
Tomlin kicked his steed and hurried down the unbroken snow that covered the road.
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