Milestone(s) Reached! Terror of the Lichemaster & minimum requirements for an Undead army

As the title says, a massive milestone has been reached. Of course, there are other blogs where people say they'll paint stuff, then just go ahead and produce a whole army.

Milestones don't mean anything to those people. The end is not a milestone.

Fortunately, dear readers, here things are a bit more sedentary. Like me, I'm sure you couldn't possibly cope with the delivery of a completely painted 80's army all in one go. Something would burst.

Anyway, the milestone. In the Warhammer Armies book for 3rd edition, an Undead army requires three things:

A Necromancer.

At least 20 Skeleton Warriors:

At least 10 Grim Reapers:

Here, then, is the milestone - 31 painted figures, covering exactly the stated requirements:

The Grim Reapers:

The other milestone here, is some progress for the Terror of the Lichemaster. If you look closely, you will see the leader of the Grim Reapers (no - not the one with the horns - the chap with the glowing sword) is none other than Krell. 

The Warriors:

The Warriors are comprised mainly of the Nightmare Legion, featuring Ennio and some of the boys. I say some, because perfectionists would say there are 24 members of the Nightmare Legion and they should all look similar to each other. I don't actually have all 24 members, and I get bored from too much repetition, so there are only 12 of them.

Don't be fooled by my clever photography - there is only one necromancer, he's just in both pictures.

So, the milestones reached are:

1. Minimum requirements for an Undead army
2. Krell and 29 other skeletons for the Terror of the Lichemaster
3. Enough of the Nightmare Legion to call the unit the Nightmare Legion

Its nice to finally see some paint on these chaps. Onwards!

Regards
Gaj

No Washout!

I've been ill recently, struggling with especially severe headaches. This means that:

1. I've not been painting because I've been battling to concentrate
2. I've been buying stuff on eBay instead

Anyhow, I've now run out of funds in Paypal, so my eBay campaigns have ground to a halt. Faced with boredom and the sudden realisation that my head no longer hurts, I've painted some more undead, bringing the grand total to 13:

It is my objective (hereby declared in the public domain) to have finished all 20 of them by the end of July. I would have taken more pictures, but light was bad and I was really struggling with focus. So I took a picture of my very first paint pot ever instead:

I got this chap in 1994, together with a raft of other paints. I used this to paint my very first undead figures ever, which were my very first wargames figures ever, and I love that I still have about a third of the bottle left, still going strong and contributing to almost all of the same models as I had at the time.

Another picture, just because the young 'uns might not believe it's a Citadel paint:

I still have a third of it because I don't really use washes that much. I suspect this is because secretly, I'm just a masochist at heart, and it feels right that it takes me hours and hours to paint rank and file figures whose appearance doesn't match their painting effort and will never even be picked up by the few people who are even aware of their existence.

I've got some of the other original paints too, but how many more pictures could you possible stand?

The Nightmare Legion

Finally, I've managed to complete 10 whole undead figures:

I took a lot longer to paint these than I thought I would. Part of that was my very first punt at OSL:

All undead heroes of level 15 or more need to have a magic weapon. I couldn't help but imagine that Ennio must be at least level 20, so it felt right to have a go at a lovely magical glow for his sword.

Another shot of the chaps, with flash:

I've still not flocked the bases, so I suppose they are not really complete. The other outstanding task here is to attach some pennants to the standard. I've been hunting around the internet for flat images of the Nightmare Legion banners, but I cant seem to find them. The funny thing is, I might not even want them when I find them, so I might just create some freehand sort of pennants. We'll see.

I realise that different folk have different painting disciplines. For me, my discipline has to be - paint two models (or one big one) at a time. Never more. Once you've finished with those two, chose something completely different, otherwise you will get bored.

The reason it's taken me so bloody long to finish the next 5 undead is because I broke that rule (and the OSL). Having successfully completed the first 5 all in one session, I thought I should easily be able to do the same with the next rank. Instead, the painting became a chore and I did anything I could to avoid it.

So, I shall immediately re-instate my painting discipline, meaning that by the time I have painted 100 figures, I still won't be able to play with any one of my armies, but at least I will have painted 100 figures. At the rate I was going...well. Let's just say that this discipline will help me to have pictures of painted figures, not naked metals.