The Four Horsemen: Don't Look Back in Anger

 The original concept for my Four Horsemen Undead army saw the section lead by Death painted in grey-scale with the idea that they would represent soldiers who have had their souls reaved from their bodies. At the time I was happy with the outcome, though it was suggested that a splash of colour may help the overall look.

The Original Scheme

As you paint through an army, especially one done over several months you pick up different ideas and by the time I reached February and painted up the Wraiths I'd moved onto a darker scheme with lighter highlights and a dash of colour. I really liked this scheme and wanted to transfer this over to the original models when I worked out how and had some time in the painting schedule.

New Style Wraiths

So with nothing else on the blocks to paint at present I've been back and had another look at what can be done. In the end it was actually very easy and much quicker than I anticipated to complete, being done in only 1 1/2 days.

New Style Soul Reaver Infantry

A simple black wash achieved the first aim of making the models much blacker overall and it didn't take long to work through the four regiments and four individuals I had. I left the faces and arms in the original colour as much as possible to draw a distinction between what was and wasn't flesh (well bone in some cases).

This helped bring a real depth to the grey scale scheme which I then reinforced with a dry brush of white. The main obstacle in the process was the fact the models where on the base already which made it harder to get to the bits in the middle of the bases that at the edge. It did have the advantage of forcing me not to try anything too fancy that couldn't be reproduced on the hard to reach areas of the models.

After that I went over some areas with red in order to pick out a few spots of interest and catch the eye. I resisted the temptation to go with red eyes on everything other than the dogs and decided to go with weapon edges and a couple of details on the shields.

A quick application of matt varnish over the top and that was job done, I had expected it to take much longer than it did to achieve a pleasing effect, but a simple black wash really worked wonders in the end.

New Style Soul Reaver Cavalry

So now the Soul Reavers are ready to ride and march forth to do what they do best, punch face, very hard.

Death and three Vanguard Soul Reavers

And one final word, yes Stu, they do look better with a splash of colour.

The Vanguard Grows (Wings)

In the spirit of adding units to armies that are supposed to already be completed I've finished off a some more options for my Kings of War: Vanguard company.
The first unit flapping on the scene are some Vampire Bat Swarms, for these I used to giant bat type models from Maelstroms Edge which I purchased a while ago thinking they would look good in the Undead army as base fillers.

The Bats are quick and have fly as well as a few rules to boost the number of dice they or a model they are supporting in a melee. They are Grunt's and unusually for the 40mm based Grunts only have one wound so will die quickly.

The models are nice though so it was good to be able to get them painted up and ready to be used in future games.

Another flying unit in the Undead roster are the Wraiths, this time in the support slot. At only 16 points each they offer a fast flying unit with Crushing Strength and whilst they only have 2 attack dice they could be paired with the bats who add two dice for supporting another model in combat rather than the normal one.

They also have an Armour save of 3+ (on a D8) which means they will be tough to wound if they should take hits.

I also picked up a Cursed Pharaoh model from Troll Trader, this model is their Tomb Queen but fits perfectly for the Cursed Pharaoh unit. Troll Trader recently did a large Kickstarter campaign for desert themed races including Undead so they should be a larger range soon.

The model itself is resin and went together very easily, her arm is meant to be down by her side but it was easy to position in a more 'beckoning' pose.

The Cursed Pharaoh is a high defense caster in the Undead army but does suffer from having no mounted option so could either by fitted with Wings (bringing the defense down to 5+) or left on foot with a slow infantry force.

All this means I have around 800 points of Undead for Vanguard now, that should be enough choice to play around with!

The Dead Rise Again, Again

I guess it is in the nature of the Undead that they keep coming back even when you think them finished off. So it is with the forces of the Four Horsemen who I thought I had completed one month ago and another month before that.

I hadn't counted on Games Workshop releasing a new multi-part magazine set which included ten ghostly types for only £2.99. At that price I couldn't resist adding some Wraiths to my army and I even picked up one copy of the next installment to give me enough models to make four Troops worth.

The Wraith's have changed somewhat from the end of v2 mainly in a drop in speed from 10" to 7" and also a drop in points, 20 for the Troop and 15 for the Regiment. But they have gained Strider and are the only source of this special rule in the whole list. This helps them a lot as hitting on 4's for a hindered charge is much better than 5's.

Wraith Stats

In v2 they where often used to hop over enemy lines and then about face for a rear or flank surge, with speed 7 this is going to be much more difficult to pull off and having only 12 attacks on the Regiment means they really need to double or triple attacks to be a fearsome hammer.

However having Def 6+ and a good nerve means they can be an effective anvil and Lifeleech(1) will keep them in the game that bit longer as they are unlikely to be wiped off in one turn unless considerable resources are put into killing them.

So that's all the Undead I have at present with no more on the table and no more planned unless I see a good lot of cheap Trolls...

Back in Black

A month ago I confidently posted about completing the last of the extra units for my Undead army project and turned my thoughts and paint brush towards other projects. As if often the case I have had second thoughts about what unit choices I need to build a list and decided to add something extra into the army.

With the army being generally on the slow side it occurred to me that some extra ranged threat to keep the enemy honest during the approach would be a good thing so I had a look at the units available and settled on a mounted Vampire Lord. Looking through my boxes of spare models I was able to bash together a rider and added him onto the Chimera from Mythic Battles: Pantheon.

Pegasus Stats

I have a spare 50mm to 75mm base converter so can use the model as either unit.

Dragon Stats

I also decided to take a little step away from the pure mono-chrome scheme of the rest of the Forces of Death and add a little colour as I did with the Liche Queen.

This helps add some interest to the base as I didn't want to add a wall onto it and forgot to put a tree stump on before I put the Polyfilla layer on. All in all I think it looks good and adds another interesting looking unit into the army.

That should really be it now for the Undead.................

First Outings

After a break from actually playing any games for a few weeks I managed to get a couple of first outings done this week.
First off I hosted Stuart for my first game of Kings of War v3 and my first game with the Undead. He played his Abyssals which he had fought against several times but never with.
So this was very much a voyage of discovery for both us with the armies and a good chance to try out v3 for me.

My army for the game was as follows:

175, Skeleton Spearman Horde
175, Skeleton Spearman Horde
270, Soul Reaver Infantry Regiment
-- Blessing of the Gods
270, Soul Reaver Infantry Regiment
-- Chant of Hate
130, Revenant Infantry Regiment
-- Fire-Oil
265, Soul Reaver Cavalry Regiment
-- Sir Jesse's Boots of Striding
70, Zombie Regiment
105, Revenant Cavalry Troop
105, Revenant Cavalry Troop
70, Ghoul Troop
70, Ghoul Troop
280, Wight Horde
-- Brew of Haste
265, Revenant King on Undead Great Flying Wyrm
-- Surge (8)
175, Goreblight
230, Mhorgoth the Faceless
215, Vampire Lord
-- Staying Stone
-- Undead Horse
-- Surge (4)
130, Revenant King
-- Mournful Blade
-- Undead Horse
-- Surge (5)

As I'd not played Undead before and never used a Shambling / Surge army I wasn't sure how much Surge was actually needed and as it turned out I think I only surged once during the whole game, but that may just have been my missing chances to do so or not getting the troops into the best positions to take advantage of the surge ability.

Things which worked well where the Soul Reavers who are as expected a real hammer which could potentially one shot most units alone and certainly with a double charge. The troops of Revenant Cavalry proved to be excellent chaff and surprising resilient so I can see myself using in greater numbers in the future.

Mhorgoth was very handy and managed to be doing something every turn after the first. His drain life is very handy though I need to target lower armour units as even with Piercing (1) he is better off not picking on Def 5 targets.

The one thing that didn't really happen was many grinding fights with both sides fielding some strong hammers most fights where over and done in one round. I had wondered about including healing or more drain life in the army but I'm not sure it would have been that useful in the end.

The army includes almost no shooting which when I played Herd wasn't such an issue as the army was faster and got into combat quicker, in the slower Undead army some more shooting may be needed to help suppress the enemies chaff and shooting elements.

So lots to think about before the next game, whenever that may be.

The Mayan temple scenery also got it's first run-out when Mick came over for some Blood & Plunder. The temple formed the focal point of a race to claim a pile of treasure which ended in a bit of a scrum  which saw the Buccaneers come out on top with the Spanish taking some heavy casualties.

The Four Horsemen: In the Vanguard

Whilst Mhorgarath advances with the main host of his army his minions scour the lands ahead for fresh recruits. In particular they seek old battle grounds or burial sites where corpses can be found in large quantities, of course they also can also make new servants by killing the living.

The most infamous band known simply as the Nazar ( or evil eye ) is lead by three Necromancers who between them have brought thousands of servants into the service of their master. As such they have the choice of the very best of Mhogarath's  sentient servants and often turn the freshly slain enemy to their own uses.

This means they are never short of troops to pursue their masters orders and command a much larger force than most other factions commit to the vanguard of their armies.