An Undercoat Is Still Painting, Right?

Yesterday I didn't do anything hobby related, really; apart from putting together some pre-generated characters for a one-short Dark Heresy 1st Edition game I was going to run tonight at the local TTRPG club. Alas, the Omnissiah was not with us, and a fault with our car meant I had to cancel. With the newly freed up time, I did the only thing I could possibly do:

 No, not work on the commission.

 Of course not. Why would I do that?

I painted the names on the latest additions to the Ninefold Path of Eight Ways! These three are the "Arrows of Fate", a small henchman group to support my various close combat monsters and to provide a bit of a guard for my Magestrix in case something nasty comes to try and fight her

That said I didn't just paint the names on some models. Oh no. I also broke out the Abaddon Black and some recently 3D printed minis, and undercoated them. This included...

...this chap! I finally managed to print the Yuzbasi who commands the Iron Sultanate Warband without the top half of his strange harpy-creature's head disappearing. I did need to fill a bit on one of her wings, but that wasn't nearly as difficult as replacing the top half of her head!

 
The other figures include two copies of a woman with a spear; one for my putative Slaaneshi Chaos Warrior army and one for a vaguely-conceived idea of a Skavenslave unit that's made up of a whole range of various figures (not just Skaven!); both of which are 6th Edition Warhammer armies. There's also a prisoner who'll work nicely as an objective for Mordheim scenarios, and a slightly misprinted (as it turns out) High Elf wizard that I was planning to add to my Maiden Guard army. Having undercoated her I'm not sure I like the model enough to actually use it, so I'm on the hunt for a new model now. Ah well.

Speaking of new models, a while ago I backed a Kickstarter for a new Mordheim warband: the Court of Profane Pleasures, sculpted by Dario Biancheri. I got access to the STLs today, and now they're all downloaded I think I'll probably print a few over the weekend. They'll be great to scatter around all sorts of places, from Mordheim to 40K.

 

A Very Small Update

I have had a remarkably busy evening today, or so it seemed, so my hobbying today consisted of writing names on the bases of my Cult of the Possessed and making sure I had the commission painting stuff lined up to start tomorrow. I have a day off work so hopefully I can actually make some progress on that and can get it posted off to the commissioner as soon as possible.

L-R: Mutant with extra arm-tentacle, axe and sword; Possessed with tentacle; Magestrix with double-handed weapon; Possessed with great claw; Mutant with great claw and axe - together they are the Ninefold Path of Eight Ways

It's funny how doing social things with one's time reduces the amount of time one has to paint... very odd!

LUNAR Landing

Tonight I ran the first ever meeting of the Llangefni United Nerds And Roleplayers Club. It went really well! We had games of Mordheim, Warcry, Combat Patrol, the boardgame Jaws, and discussions about future games of Dungeons and Dragons, Inquisitor 28, Sunrot, and other systems. For my part, I played a game of Mordheim against A's Undead with my Cult of the Possessed, and despite only having five models on the board, not only won the game but made out like an absolute bandit. Photos follow!

 

A game of Mordheim between Undead and Orcs - scenery is the old cardboard Games Workshop terrain that I built a couple of years ago and still haven't quite finished off - I'll need to do the bases and touch up the white lines!

A learning game of Combat Patrol, between Imperial Guard (l) and Space Marines (r)

A game of Jaws in full swing - this is the start of Act 2, where the shark tries to sink the boat!

A game of Warcry - needs more terrain if you ask me, but they were having fun!

And, of course, there was the game of Mordheim that A and I played between A's Undead and my Cult of the Possessed, as part of the campaign I'm running. The scenario we rolled was Wyrdstone Hunt, and a series of disjointed photographs mostly tell the story of the game. I forgot to take them consistently, so you'll have to put up with the slightly strange sequence of events!

Deployment - there are four pieces of Wyrdstone on the board, marked by green and yellow dice (I need to make Wyrdstone counters!): one is in the ruined tower, one is in the ground floor of the top-most building connected by a bridge, and the other two are visible. My cultists are in cover in case of shenanigans; A's Undead (and Imperial Assassin!) are spread out to try to pincer me

 

This is the end of my Turn 2 - I'd won the roll off to go first - and my Possessed had split off from the Magestrix and her Mutants to go wyrdstone hunting. One, known as The Blessed, had climbed up the tower and then had some minor problems with falling off things and failing to climb things for a bit. The other, The Lover, had easily grabbed the closest bit of Wyrdstone then (because I'd misunderstood the scenario) moved the wrong way for a bit... meanwhile A's Undead were moving up towards their own Wyrdstone targets

 

End of the Undead's Turn 2. Here, the Vampire is positioned to grab the closest Wyrdstone while being supported by Dregs and the Assassin, and the various zombies, the dire wolf, the necromancer, and one of the two ghouls are lurking under the bridge with the wolf having grabbed a piece of Wyrdstone

End of the Cult's Turn 3 - the Magestrix and her Mutants have (wisely) cleared off at top speed from the threatening Vampire, while The Lover has realised its/hers/their mistake and turned round, running to join up with the rest. The Blessed on the other hand has managed to grab the Wyrdstone in the tower and then immediately fell off the top floor onto the middle floor, although luckily not taking any damage

End of the Undead's Turn 3. The Dire Wolf, with Wyrdstone in its stomach, has moved behind a screen of zombies accompanied by the Necromancer and a Ghoul. Meanwhile the Vampire, second Ghoul, Dregs, and the Assassin have joined up with their own piece of Wyrdstone in the possession of the Vampire. The Necromancer attempts to cast Lifestealer on the closest Mutant, but fails

End of my Turn 4 - the Magestrix moves up while the Mutants have charged a variety of things - one Mutant, Johannes, charges the Necromancer, while the other, Elizabet, attacks a Zombie. The Blessed continues to fail to work out how to use a ladder, while The Lover continues moving away from the Vampire, trying to link up with The Blessed. Felicitas the Magestrix moves round the melee to try to get a bead on the Dire Wolf. Her attempt to cast Visions of Torment fails miserably (the total inability of either of us to cast a spell all game was quite amusing). In the combats, neither side manages to land a hit at all!

At this point I basically forgot to take photos until the end, but I do have a couple of good photos of some specific moments. 

The combat in Turn 5 under the bridge - the Magestrix has despatched the Dire Wolf, while The Blessed has knocked down a Ghoul. Meanwhile the Mutants are surrounded by Zombies and the Necromancer, with both sides continuing to be unable to hit each other, never mind cause wounds. Again, both Necromancer and Magestrix prove unable to cast their spells

The Imperial Assassin managed to knock a wound off The Lover with a poisoned throwing knife! This is one of the best photos of a model I've ever taken. A's painting is exquisite, honestly

End of my Turn 7 - while Johannes the Mutant has been dragged down by Zombies, the Possessed and Magestrix between them have taken a Ghoul, the Dire Wolf, and three Zombies out of action. The rout test made by A at the start of his turn 6 was passed, handily, but after considering the position of things at the start of turn 7, he decided to voluntarily rout and see what the exploration phase brought him...

 

The final board end state at the beginning of A's Turn 7. Time to see what the grim streets of Mordheim brought us!

After the game, we first checked to see what had happened to our various Out of Action models. Johannes, my Mutant, died. I rolled snake eyes! Alas and woe; his elephantine tentacles did not save him from the gnashing teeth of zombies. However all of A's Zombies and his Dire Wolf also died! Only the Ghoul survived the bloodbath under the bridge, it turned out.

I encountered a corpse with a free sword in it (honestly it was probably Johannes's corpse - he had a sword) and an overturned cart with a purse full of 11 gold crowns, which was pretty handy. My Wyrdstone haul was 3 from the game, plus an extra one thanks to this rounds' special rule (+1d3 Wyrdstone shards for all warbands in the Exploration Phase), and another 4 from the Exploration roll, for a total of 8! Very shiny. I elected to sell all of them in order to raise the funds to recruit another Mutant, Karina. Karina has an extra arm that is a tentacle, which is an expensive mutation but it does mean she can make two attacks with her sword and axe, as well as reducing the number of attacks an opponent can make by one. 

Additionally, thanks to hacking apart a bunch of zombies, most of the cult got to level up. Felicitas increased her Initiative to 4, The Blessed got +1 Strength (making him really quite nasty, with two S5 and one S6 attacks!), and Elizabet increased her Weapon Skill to 4.

The warband's treasury now consists of 11 gold crowns (still, I suspect, in the purse), and the Rating increased from 61 to 74. I'm going to play a game against B's Orcs next, I think, which will be the second and last game I'm allowed to play in this round.

Sing To The Gods

The Dark Master calls! The Winds of Chaos blow strong! The Cult of the Possessed has arrived with the completion of the Magistrix:

The strange fleshy creature on the stave was originally going to be blue

A very regency-era silhouette here with the enormous bum

Not hugely pleased with the horn, but it works at a distance and she is, most importantly, complete

I really like the graven demonic faces on her pauldrons

Tomorrow I'm going to pivot back to the 41st Millenium and do some Angels of Redemption Dreadnoughts for my Deathwing army. But for now, I'm celebrating the completion of the Cult of the Possessed!

The completed cult, at least until I get some Beastmen

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 6
2025: 164

Blessed And Possessed

As Powerwolf sing. Today I finished the Mutants and I also cracked on with the Possessed and finished those too! Excellent stuff. Back on track? I hope so; I've rather missed painting actually. Anyway you're not here for the rambling, have some photos of the Blessed:

L-R: Mutant with tentacle blackblood, axe, and sword; Mutant with great claw and axe; Mutant with tentacle, hideous, and sword

I really enjoyed painting the eyes on the Hideous Mutant, even though I'm not sure he'll see the field. He wields a sword taken from the old Empire State Troops kit that came out in the late 1990s

The Warhammer weapons really seamlessly go with the 40K minis; it's almost like they were made to be turned into fantasy cultists

The fleshy tube underneath the middle mutant's left arm is actually originally some kind of future-gubbins, but painted up properly it looks like a herniated organ of some sort

And the Possessed:

L-R: Possessed with daemon soul and tentacles; Possessed with daemon soul and great claw

I had no choice but to paint the tentacles like some kind of octopus is forcing its way out of her

The other poor sod with the hideous raw bloody clawing monstrosity emerging from him is much more "classically" possessed

I dunno about you but I wouldn't want to meet either of these two in a dark alleyway

And with that the Cult of the Possessed is nearly done - just the Magistrix to do now. I'd like to add some Beastmen at some point but I don't have any suitable minis that I can think of at the moment, so they'll have to wait until my purchasing moratorium has ended.

Painting Points:
Today: 5
This Week: 5
2025: 163

 

Where Did I Go

Hail and well met, fellow perusers of miniature figure blogs, etc etc. Apologies for the 11 day absence - a variety of things happened, such as "not painting anything", going to Gritlands 4 LARP as crew (I got to be a hologram King Arthur!), and contracting norovirus which led to a very unpleasant couple of days. Anyway I finally sat down and did the tiniest bit of painting today, which has got my Cult of the Possessed Mutants to this point:

Which is to say about half done or thereabouts. I have to sort out the black areas, do the wood and leather, highlight the skin and do details like hair, horns, and hideous mutations as well as, of course, touching up any mistakes.

I'd like to say I can probably get these done tomorrow, and while I almost certainly could the question remains if I will actually spend the time painting that I need to. We'll see.

Brethren Assemble!

I finally did it. I finished off the last Brethren - the group with swords and daggers and the group with bows and clubs. That just leaves the Magistrix, the Possessed, and the Mutants. I'll probably try and get the Mutants done next, but that's for tomorrow. For now, have some photos:

The skintones look quite nice, if possibly a little too healthy. Ah well, must be the blessings of the Dark Powers

The hand swaps and arm swaps are almost unnoticable - you wouldn't necessarily know these have been converted which is always a good thing I think

The red and yellow cloth on the woman on the right could probably have done with a bit of green stuff or something to join the two parts, but it just looks like a ragged bit of banner so it turned out ok in the end

The reason for the amputated hands and the red cloth is, of course, to cover up areas where the original mini had holes or gaps left over after removal of the grenade launcher

For some reason the models I decided to use for the archers are the most scarred and injured!

I didn't actually mean to make the side plate on the centre archer have gold trim; none of the others do

If you can't hit them with an arrow, hit them with a club

The purple and black is really striking! I tried to make the hair colours different, so there's a redhead and a brunette in this trio

 It feels good to have finally finished some minis again. I'm quite busy this month so I'm hoping to get more done than February but it's unlikely I'll hit the heights of January until April. My aim is to get at least the Mutants done this week.

Painting Points:
Today: 6
This Week: 6
2025: 158

 

Are They Indeed Accursed?

They should have been done today, really, but I started painting too late in the day and had other things to do which meant that now the Brethren are really almost very nearly done. I "just" need to do the gold, some minor detailing, and some touch-ups and they'll be there. Tomorrow - I swear by the eight sacred paths!

They'll be nice when they're done, but in the meantime they aren't half annoying now.

March-ing On

 See what I did there? I've been slowly geeing myself back up over the last couple of days, and today I actually sat down and did some painting. Not a lot, but it's a (re)start. I did the first highlight to the skin of the six remaining Brethren, gave the base edges a coat of XV-88 - mainly just so I could say I'd lifted a paintbrush - and filled in the empty slotta gaps with blu-tac.

I'd like to be able to say I could get these done tomorrow - I mean, I could, but I'm not likely to. We'll see.

Henchmen Available For Hire In Your Area

I ground on a bit further with the Brethren, doing the washes and basecoat on the leather sections as well as highlighting the black areas on the two remaining groups - the swords and daggers lot as well as the bows and clubs gang:

Tomorrow I'm going to hopefully finish them - I need to highlight the skin, leather, and cloth wraps, and then do the details and touch up the metal areas. Oh, and base. I think I need a new pot of XV-88 (which I still think of as Snakebite Leather). Ideally I'll be onto the Mutants and Possessed by the weekend.

Walking The Mean Streets Of Mordheim

Today I spent a little time finishing off the first Brethren group. These three are armed with shields and clubs to start with, and the models also have helmets and light armour should that ever become available. I'm particularly pleased with the way the shields came out - transfers from the Chaos Knight kit turned out to be perfect quite honestly.

Because these are all 40K figures originally, the hand that most easily took a shield turned out to be the one that used to have a pistol - so this group are all left-handers!

The purple looks really nice and silken, which is interesting

The simple colour scheme really makes them feel like a cohesive group despite the different clothes

The chap in the middle seems to be developing some kind of stomach-mouth, poor fellow

I'm glad to have finished these figures after over a week of no progress on the Pile of Opportunity. Next up are the Brethren with swords and daggers.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 3
2025: 152

Oops

 Well, I haven't done any painting at all for a few days - the most extended break all year so far - but today I decided to get back into it, and so I did.

 

They're not quite finished, but they will be soon. I just need to highlight the gold, touch up the metals, and add some decals to the shields (or some freehand designs, I'm not sure which yet). An easy hour or so's work tomorrow will get this little henchperson group done, and then I can move onto the sword and dagger trio.

I'm quite pleased with the way the horns have turned out; though they do need a bit more work the basic finish is there.

Progress!

Today I focussed on just the two Darksouls in the Cult of the Possessed warband - the two heavily robed chaps with big double-handed swords - and got them done. I also did a little work on the Brethren with shields and clubs, and they're probably about half done. Some more painting tomorrow should see them done too.

 The purple turned out really nicely, and I think I might leave out the idea of white as an accent on the black robes - I think the black and purple scheme is nice all by itself. We'll see - I might go back in and add some white chequers or something later.

Anyway, I'm pleased I got these fellows done and it makes me feel a little better now that I've got some more of the Pile of Opportunity done.

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 2
2025: 149

The Slowdown Is Official

Despite enjoying the process of painting these cultists, I'm finding it slow going. I think the frenetic pace of December and January has sort of fried my painting desire for a bit, so I'm going to take it slow and steady for a while. In that vein, I did almost all the skin on almost all the warband, so what I'll probably do from tomorrow is focus on a group at a time - the Darksouls, then the shield-equipped Brethren, and so on.

The slower pace should, I hope, mean I at least finish a couple of these minis this week.