From beyond the pale - Revenants, Goreblight and some characters join the fray

 The ruins of the castle, once a sad monument to a failed Order, were now a gaping wound in the fabric of life. A cold wind blew and a hoary everfrost clung to dead branches of the woodlands surrounding the tumbled walls.

Perching on a high fell, the slopes of which were of sheer, dark stone, Coldguard Keep was a fastness of a kingdom long since fallen into ruin. Here they had stood against the frozen wraiths during the Long Winter, their faith a shield against the relentless onslaught of ice and death marching down from the North year after year. The passes guarded by the unyielding edifice of Keep, manned in a ceaseless watch by the Knights of Coldguard and the Guard of the Ford, were the rock upon which the waves of Winter's onslaught broke time and again, ever to assail but never to conquer.

And so it would have been, should their vows have held true.

Here they had stood, and here they had fallen, ultimately brought low by the hardening of their hearts, and the subsequent abandoning of their post. Dearly they paid for their forgetfulness, but dearer still is the price yet to be paid, for on Pannithor death is rarely a sanctuary, and never does it settle the debt of betrayal.

The revenge visited upon the Knighs of the Kings was long in the making, and as it oft goes, also bit the avenged just as deep as those it was taken upon. The Necromancer perished at the height of his spell, but the gates to the Underworld had already been opened. Now the dead streamed forth, eager to avenge both their deaths and their unlife to the living.

The courtyard was teeming with unlife. Runed, grave-worn armor was donned, and ghastly heads were covered with mighty helms, as proudly plumed in death as they were in life. Blades, bitten by the bitter turning of the years, now glow with a deathly hunger. Ragged banners were raised, ghostly horns blared in the mountain air. The Guard of the Kings had risen again.

There is a blast of frigid air and a ghostly laughter rising from some deep place echoes through the roofless halls as the King Arisen gallops forth from the gates. Once a brother to the one who came back first, the Cold King, the one who now returns is a creature washed clean of empathy, honor or indeed any thought save to bring ruin and to bring all living things into the icy embrace of Death. Once a mighty captain, and the co-ruler of a powerful kingdom, the one who returned now bears little resemblance to the noble lord, brought low by the tides of fate.

The inner sanctum of the Keep lays in ruins, its stained glass windows shattered into blood red shards and dry, cold dust swirls in the slow drafts of air that sigh and moan through the corridors. In the centre of it all there is a gateway of massive stone slabs. Once leading down into the crypts of Kings, it now opens to sheer nothingness. Not a darkness, but a desolate deepness gapes under its massive lintel.

From the shapeless opening a shape begins to emerge, while the echoes of the necromancers unholy spell give form to yet another abomination. A faceless creature emerges, clad in bony armor and sinew crafted from the flayed souls of the dead. This creature is not something brought back, but something altogether foreign, a creature native to the sunless lands. Driven by hunger, its very presence seeps the life from all those around it. As it lays a massive, clawed foot onto the stones, an unseen miasma begings to spread and the stones of the ruined castle groan in protest to its presence.

The thing that should not be has come, a Goreblight has emerged, nerver-living, yet ever hungering.

Worst of the Undead are those that are neither forced by others nor bound into any will save their own. The Keep, once the domain of Kings, is now the seat of a deadlier power than any there has held before. A Liche Queen, once a mighty mage-queen, now guides the Dead with an iron will. With a voice devoid of the warmth of life she now commands her legions, and all are subject to her will. A single word from her ethereal lips can freeze a hearty warrior to the bone and a single motion of her hand can call the dead from their graves.

Greetings, fellow KoWsters!

After a longish break from this blog, I decided that it's time to revive it as 2021 is showing some promise when it comes to hobby opportunities. With those opportunities also my hobby mojo is coming back and with that, the graveyard that is my hobby desk is receiving more than sad glanses and forlorn moments of silent reflection. Dust has once again been driven into the small, dark spaces under the paint racks, and water once again sparkles in the cup at the paint station f.

Lately my desk has been filled with Revenants from Mantic and a repurposed Plague first gen mutant and I've also seen an unexpected return by the second Revenant King that I built more than a year ago.

Multibasing my revenants

Mutibasing is one of the coolest things about KoW. it gives me the freedom of expression rarely achieved when basing models on single bases. The small dioramaesque interactions and the ability to create different feels to different units really bring the units to life. Is this unit a ragtag mass of frenzied critters or perhaps a well-ordered, cohesive fighting force? Both can be expressed with ease, along with a multitude of other things.

For my Revenants I wanted to stick to my ruined castle theme, this time crafting the front courtyard of the castle's main hall. Mantic's plastic bases are an excellent material for building bases as polycement makes the structures very sturdy once it dries properly. I used them for the flagstones of the castle stairs, while I clipped and cleaned their sprues for the colums and masonry of the cracked doorway arch. Two Basilean horses donated their heads to make ornaments above the doorway: one still on the wall, the other fallen and cracked, to be almost buried in snow. I carved out the central circular holes to make stained glass windows, using plasticard for the glass panes themselves.

The main problem when making stuff yourself is getting enough detail into the base. With this base I tried to add detail by making cracks and chipped edges to the stonework, while also making sure enough (but not too much, mind you!) is happening on the base. These bases feature ruined walls, crumbled masonry and broken glass and also stone braziers, filled with ghostly flames from which more Revenants are rising. 

I knew I was mainly going for a Horde, so I planned the entire base before getting to work on the models themselves. I use 3mm MDF for the bases as it provides some additional resilience to warping from PVA and other water-based materials. Previously I've used warbases.co.uk, but I probably need to find another provider due to the Charlie Foxtrot known as brexit.

I usually use some pen-and-paper sessions to draw concepts and to map out materials needed, build order and possible problems. This Horde breaks down into three parts; a regiment and two troops. I don't expect to use them a whole lot, but who knows. I wanted to strive to minimize transitions from one separate base to the next when they're put together. That means "themes", or parts of bases need to continue from one to the next, which is problematic when I also decided to go for minimal overhang. Some people like to go for a dynamic feel with the miniatures hanging far over their base, but I find this to be an inconvenience during games as fitting units flush together becomes difficult.

In this base the themes carried over is for one the broken wall of the castle, which runs in a direct line on both the regiment base and the rear troop base. The two troops have a few things that "carry over", a fallen bit of masonry spans both bases and some stained glass, also. Another continuing theme is the stairs, as both the regiment base and the front troop have an identical, short stair. 

The goal is to have a unit that looks tied together without being boring. I also wanted an.. organic? look to the base, meaning I didn't want it look like a flat piece of wood that I glued a miniature ruin on and then threw in some models. Using a piece of MDF and just gluing some random ruins on it usually leaves very little reasonable interaction between the base and the models. 

What I mean by reasonable interaction is simply that models need to look like they're moving through whatever is on the base, and that means the base needs to look like there is some reasonable continuation of whatever is on the base that can be imagined to continue around it. I think you shouldn't glue a horse in full gallop so its hind legs are touching a wall (I mean, how the hell did that horse accelerate to full tilt with one stride?), nor should you just throw a random goblin on the roof of some partially ruined building that's on the base (I mean, sure, goblins are weird, but the single dude haphazardly glued to the roof rarely adds the desired effect). A horse clearing a fence is cool, an ogre crashing through a fence is cool, a dwarf fording a running stream is cool. All these require something else than just having a random ruin on the base.

Now my goal isn't to moan about other people's basing, but more to explain the thought process behind mine. I wanted my Revenants to look like they're marching through the ruined castle and that means the models must be positioned so that a person looking at the base can kind of see the motion even if it isn't there.

Ice and snow

The fun part about basing my Undead is the winter theme. Snow and ice present a challenge as they have a very recognizable look and feel to them, which is difficult to capture at this scale. One problem with creating realistic snow bases is that once there's quite a bit of snow, the snow is everywhere. It's not clumped, it's not here and there. It's everywhere. Every surface that's not vertical will be covered by it, and every nook and cranny will be filled up with it. The magical winter wonderland that's super pretty in early February in Finland looks really really boring when recreated as a base. That's why I decided that I'd rather strive for a look that looks realistic rather than is realistic.

The recipe for my icicles I stole from a long-lost youtube video, and it's simple. Using clear plastic, such as is found on the flyer base stems and sprues, I heat the plastic over a candle until it gets a sheen to it and starts to bend slightly. It's important to be patient, it takes a little while and you shouldn't try to speed the process by getting too close to the flame, otherwise you'll get soot on your icicle.

Once the plastic is malleable, I gently pull the ends away from each other. This creates the icicly narrowing shape. Be careful not to pull the ends too far apart, as this will snap the plastic and the narrow parts will curl before they cool. Once you reach the desired thinness, hold the plastic in place for roughly half a minute, as this will allow the plastic to cool down.

I am yet to manage a totally sharp icicle, but I am also yet to try.

Snow is a little tricky, and I ended up using Army Painters snow flow, glued with oodles of superglue layer upon layer until I achieved the thickness I wanted. What I wrote above about snow forming a uniform cover isn't necessarily true always and everywhere. Cold doesn't yet mean snow, at least not a lot of it, because snow = rain, and there are plenty of cold, dry places where there is snow, yes, but it's not a deep cover. That is a whole lot easier to manage.

A thing to keep in mind is that snow is usually soft and must be waded through. That's why it's usually a good idea to make the base, add the models and then add the snow as that allows for a move realistic interaction between the snow and the models. Patience is key, and if you're using snow flock, then multiple thin layers is the way to go.

For the Goreblight I went for a look that the monster is dragging a victim caught in its chains through the snow. which was a bit of a pickle since snow does yield under weight, but doesn't get easily brushed completely off. I went for a compromise with some stone showing under the lady-in-distress, as I think it made the movement more apparent even without me explaining what's going on.

Snow can form uneven piles, but that requires two things: constant cold temperatures that keep the snow from becoming dense, and wind. The constant cold is easy enough to imagine, but that would mean that there should be NO icicles on my base, as icicles start forming when the snow melts in sunshine, but the temperature hangs below freezing. This wouldn't do, so damned be realism! I wanted big, dramatic icicles with banks of snow, so I made big, dramatic icicles with banks of snow.

Next up: a story about hobby related vanity project.

Cheers and thanks for reading!

AoW

Scratch-building miniatures - The Engines of Death

Greetings, fellow KoWsters!

In this post I will go through the basics of scratch-building miniatures for war gaming and go through a step-by-step guide of how I built two Bale-fire Catapults for the Undead army I am currently working on.

Scratch-building is a nice way of adding a bit of uniqueness to an army and of, dare I say it, cutting costs if those are an issue. However, as is the case with every non-standard unit choice in Kings of War, Rule of Cool should be adhered to. You really want the unit to fit in with the rest of the army, and thus you should make sure you only scratch-build things that won't look out of place or unintentionally comical next to the manufacturer-made models in your army.

That means that there are certain armies that are easy to scratch-build units for and others that require a lot of skill and patience (and some that I really would not even attempt. I think the armies fall into categories something along these lines:

Easy:

Greenskins
Undead

Medium:

Human armies
Demons & otherworldly creatures

Difficult:

Elves
Dwarves

Easy armies are those that naturally have a worn, rough-shod look to them. Goblin war engines are easy enough to craft and Orcish chariots are also relatively easy. Nothing looks out of place and asymmetries are a naturally occurring phenomenon. Chariots can look ramshackle, and catapults can have strange contraptions for producing the energy for propelling their shots.

Medium armies require a more refined look to the models that you create, and should be approached with more planning and forethought, as lack of eye-catching detail is often a dead giveaway with scratch-built models, as is softness in detail on greenstuffed parts. That's why demons and other unnatural creatures are sometimes a bit tricky to craft, even though they don't have easily recognizable gear such as boots or belts that might be tricky to craft in a manner that looks convincing.

Bottom line is, scratch-building is a method of substituting money with time. Sometimes you might save some time due to delivery times, but usually you'll be spending oodles of time on a unit, instead of spending oodles of money on it. Sometimes you end up getting the best of both worlds, and spend both oodles of money and oodles of time on it.

Creating my own Balefire Catapults

My project grew out of desperation: the model's available for Balefire Catapults were not up to my standards in epicness or scale. The GeeDubs version from their TK army is long out of production, not to mention how costly it would be, and the Mantic one is... slightly small. I want my engines to be menacing machines of destruction and so I decided to build some myself.

I spent a few hours doodling and gathering ideas of what might work and what I might be able to pull off, and before long I had a working concept. I decided to build the typical throwing arm-and-twined-roped-for-torsion version of a catapult, as I felt that a counterweight using trebuchety thing would look too heavy for what the Balefire Catapult does.

Scavenging was quickly done, as all I needed was some matchstick wood for craft projects, some 1mm thread, plasticard, greenstuff, cork for the base, glue, and time. Lots of time.

I started by gluing the sticks together into clumps of four in order to get sturdier beams for the machines. At this point one shouldn't be too concerned with anything else than making the pieces lined up properly, which is mainly achieved by making sure your cuts are even and straight. That means I had to wait until the PVA was properly set and the pieces could withstand the hobby saw without breaking apart.

I started constructing the bases at the same time to make sure my machines fit the base properly. Sometimes, as was the case with these machines, one can build the unit directly onto the base, which makes assembly easier and also makes the unit look more natural on the base. this is very difficult with units like chariots that tend to have a lot of area that needs to be done under them on the base.

I managed to put the base structure of my machines together relative fast, in just a few hours, as I had a good idea of what I was doing from thorough planning. Planning stages saves one the trouble of going back to make more beams or cutting and crafting more of the basic parts needed for moving on with the construction.



My Catapults would be relatively sturdy and unlike the rest of my Undead force, they would be real, physical objects in stead of being ghosts or memories of ancient weapons. I broke the cork apart some and angled it in order to get a little more dynamic look for the base, as putting everything in right angles will look boring and a little bit off once it's done.

When working with matchsticks, a trick you can use is to first place the pieces together with PVA and then drop some super glue on them (I use the Army Painter glue) to get the pieces to hold a little faster so you can get stuff constructed quicker. I'd advice against using just super glue for gluing matchsticks as the wood is relatively porous and the liquid glue tends to get sucked into the wood, leaving very little glue between the parts and making the connections brittle.

For the engines "machiney" parts I decided to use the 1mm twine that I glued over some round sprue bits to create a winch for arming the Catapults. Twine is a little tricky to work with, but it can be used to create some very realistic looking ropes which is handy because, in my view, greenstuffed ropes tend to be way out of proportion and very difficult to work with to create the kind of contraptions that I want.

Twine reacts well to super glue and the easiest way to work with is to glue one end to wherever you want it to be first, then getting the twine into its intended position and then run some super glue all over the twine to harden it. It will retain some flexibility so it won't be brittle, but be careful with bending it, as it won't be really elastic like plastics so you can break it and fixing that is a bitch.

Then I added the throwing arms to my Catapults, and for the "baskets" I used thin strips of plasticard that I glued into a grate and then I glued sharpened pieces of plasticard upwards to create a mixture between a huge brazier some kind of a brazen claw. I wanted the machine look practical but also evil, intended not only to do it's job in battering down castle walls, but also to sow fear and despair as it did so.

I first used a thin metal pin as an axle to pin down the throwing arm (I use metal sticks with one looped end that are intended for crafting jewels). Then I threaded a lot of twine back and forth over the throwing arm and the axle to create a twisting look, like the twined ropes used in real ballistas and catapults and once again used super glue to make the twine set.

I didn't want two identical machines so I made one that was just being armed and the other so that it had just been fired, with its throwing arm in the middle of its motion. At this point I also inspected  the machines and my plans for how I intended to finish each machine in order to avoid making mistakes or overlooking something that would make the project a lot more difficult later on.

At this point I also asked for some outside feedback from my better half, as getting another person's opinion is really valuable in getting things right. When I have a project I really like, I tend to overlook its shortcomings in terms of how it is actually turning out and getting that negative feedback is really important for successful scratch building.

An important point here is the willingness to listen to feedback: if you are not prepared to hear that your idea sucks and then having the reasons why spelled out to you, you probably will end up crafting some silly looking stuff. Of course, there are people who always see the negative in everything, but for the most part, people point out misgivings for a reason. Accept and analyse what feedback you get, and improve the end result.

Then it was time for greenstuff and some more twine. I used twine for ropes securing the machines to the stakes driven into the ground and for the rope connecting the throwing arm to the arming machinery. I used quite a bit of greenstuff in the baskets, along with some skulls, in order to make a flaming mass of skulls. I also added a few shields to the tops of the engines so that I could later paint the army heraldry on them, to tie them into the host.

The two materials that require time, and thus planning the construction stages are PVA and greenstuff. They take roughly a day to harden enough to withstand further construction and one should plan stages so that one can do most of the greenstuff work in a single go. That way the time-consuming wait for the materials to settle wont become a repetitive thing that further delays the already lenghty process of scratch-building something.

Painting the machines was relatively easy, as they are mostly just wood, twine and relatively few details. That's a double edged blade, however, as even though the machines were quicker to paint, I had to make sure there was enough going on on the bases to make the units looks finished. Luckily, the snowy winter bases of my Undead helped a long way, as adding snow drifts and icicles added some nice detail quick and easy.

At first I ran into the problem that I couldn't quite get the machine to look natural on the base. It sat there nice enough, and everything seemed to be in order, but somehow it just looked off. It took me a while to realize that the problem was that the machines needed to look weathered, like they'd been out there in the cold for some time. If you leave stuff out in subzero temperatures, it will accumulate a thin layer of frost on every surface that hasn't been touched in a while, so I went for an overall, intentionally uneven white drybrush. That way I could make the machine look like it had those tiny ice crystals that make everything look silvery grey in the cold on it.

Overall I ended up being pretty satisfied with my Balefires. They have a unique look to them that still doesn't mean people won't know what they are supposed to be. I'm also relatively happy with the level of detail I managed to put on the machines without making them either too cluttered or leaving them too bare.

Cheers for reading and, as always, feel free to comment!

AoW

Next up: Revenant Cavalry and my experience using Vallejo water products.