The final installment of this look back at my giant Eater of the Dead Warband brings us the figures that make up the command units for the lesser mummies. Crypt Lords- heroes and champions in life with special powers making them formidable on the battlefield and leaders of units of lesser mummies; Necromancers- practitioners of the dark art of Necromancy who raise the dead to undertake the shadowy goals of the Eater of the Dead; and Dark Harbingers- in life they were great heroes for the living, now they've been brought back with memories of their life now twisted into service to the Eater of the Dead. Tragic.
Above is the Crypt Lord event mini from Crocodile Games. Below is an alternate Dark Harbinger figure but he's only seen action as a Crypt Lord. Both of these are unconverted figures from the Croc.
This Sebeki Crypt Lord from Alex Bates is a cool undead version of the Crocodile Games mascot figure. I didn't like his axe so swapped it for the big sword.
Taking a break from Crypt Lords for a moment, let's look at those who make all these reanimated mummies possible - the Necromancers. Above is an unnamed Necromancer conversion apparently tainted by contact with the Eaterof the Dead. The body is an original Tethru Master of Words. The head is one of the alternate options that came with the Scarab Ogre and some very simple putty work to cover the gaps. His spear and some other bits came from various plastic GW kits. Finally, his wierd bug-like left arms came from a Ral Partha mini.
The Necromancer above is simply a headswap on the official Crocodile Games Necromancer. The head was left over from the Reaper figure used as the basis for the Dark Harbinger, Shefdu Sootootma. This was the Necromancer figure used in the Golden Fleece campaign, 'Redface' (a subtle reference to the skullcace color because it's all about the subtlety).
The last of the Necromancers is actually the second painted version of 'Llithyiki' - the Necromancer for Shefdu during the Ankhara Campaign. This is simply an unconverted figure from the old Celtos line of miniatures. I still think she's a really great option as a Necromancer figure.
Back to the Crypt Lord parade with the named Crypt Lords. Above is the hippo-headed Sejetmu Dread Axe of the Nile. He's a headswap of one of the Warrior Mummy spearmen. Sejetmu was made the leader of the Axe mummy unit during the Ankhara campaign.
Above is a conversion of a Reaper mummy to give us Ashara 'Voice of the Tuat,' a Basti in life who had a golden voice ('the Voice of Honey'). She acted as captain of the mummy archers during the Ankhara campaign. Her sun disc was part of a standard (I think) while the bow and quiver came from the Crocodile Games weapons packs. A nice simple and effective conversion.
Below is the first of the first three Crypt Lords from the starting Ankhara campaign warband- Senshet 'the Mighty One' (because her Crypt Lord power was "mighty"). Just a straight up painting of the Crocodile Games figure. I don't remember what her scroll was meant to say, probably about "the Eater rules" or something like that.
These last two Crypt Lords (actually the first two to be painted) are Tebbi and Blackclaw. These were conceived of as criminal partners in life (check out their own
skirmish blog which has languished for far too long for more info on their exploits) and Shefu's chief lieutenants in death. Blacklaw was able to steal at least one chariot during the Ankhara campaign- which probably earned him a Great Deed.
The Dark Harbinger Nabchuk the Nefarious is a slight conversion of a Privateer Press figure for the Golden Fleece Campaign. For that campaign I wanted a change from a mummy heavy Eater warband to a more Death Cultist heavy warband because I really wanted to have a Nekharu warband. That was a big difference. The conversion bits were the axehead (from one of the Heru Harbingers) and the head from a Nekharu Hero.
Starting out as a Crypt Lord in the Ankhara campaign (because you can only have one Harbinger in a warband and Shefdu was the star of that show), Hemati Shiver of the Lands (in life she was known as 'Protectrix of the Lands') was converted from a Stygian Priestess figure from the Chronopia line of miniatures. The backstory was that a young Shefdu Sootootma, bookish scribe before becoming a Harbinger of Thoth, was obsessed with Hemati's exploits as a Harbinger long before he was born. When Shefdu was raised as a Dark Harbinger he had one thought that lead his actions in the giant necropolis of Ankhara- to find Hemati and have her reanimated to fight by his side. Then after the big Ankhara finale, Hemati had slain enough 'breathers' that she leveled up to become a Dark Harbinger During the Heru-Typhon Civil War campaign as one of three different warbands I used.
The conversion was pretty straightforward. I removed the big disc at the top of her staff and made it into a poleaxe. The quiver was simply attached to her back as the shield was attached to her front. I used some strips of masking tape coated with thinned glue to make the remains of her wrappings.
Finally, the old bird himself, my favorite Harbinger for WarGods of Aegyptus (the live and the undead versions), Shefdu Sootootma Scribe of Khepri (previously known as the Scroll Traveller, the Scribe of the Dawn, and the Scribe of Oblivion). The early posts on this very blog are full of some narrative battle reports that also plant the story seeds of Shefdu and his former apprentice Mabuki-toth-re (my second favorite WarGods of Aegyptus Harbinger).
The conversion was pretty simple. I wanted a Tethru Dark Harbinger because they are my favorites of the Aegyptus setting. So I used a metal Tethru head from Crocodile Games and put it on a pretty cool Reaper mummy body. He needed a shield so I got a plastic one from GW that had an interesting shape and cut out a little piece of paper to be the tattered scroll. Sadly I don't recall what the hieroglyphs on the scroll are meant to say (probably part of Shefdu's treatise on the benefits of the use of a mace in combat over bladed weapons) but it's pretty characterful.
And that concludes this archive entry of the Eater of the Dead miniatures I've painted over the years. Over 100 figures (I keep losing count) and that's not even counting the Death Cultists (non-mummy followers of the Eater of the Dead) but we'll get to them eventually.
