Forge of Ice - 3 Sleepy Sentries

From the Forge of Ice "Sleepy Sentries and Sleazy Merchant" Kickstarter, the first three of the six Sleepy Sentry figures. I decided I needed to get some more Forge of Ice stuff finished before the latest Kickstarter (the Eye of the Cyclops) stuff gets sent out. I've put off dealing with these until now because of their large integral bases (I kinda hate those) that had to be removed to get them based on more uniform 20mm square bases. This was a bit of a pain but I've been able to remove those integral bases a bit more easily lately with practice.

This Sentry (above) has the special ability to sleep standing up. 

While working on the guy above I couldn't help but hear one of his buddies telling the Sleazy Merchant "...he's praying to the goddess of protection, he's not asleep."

This one is probably my favorite pose of the Sleepy Sentries. I wasn't confident he'd fully fit on a 20mm base but he's snugly on it and now he can sleep through some skirmish battles.

Above, Tebbi and Blackclaw prepare for an easy victory over the Sleepy Sentries then they can get some loot... Below, the Sleazy Merchant from Forge of Ice shows off part of his crack security team and part of his treasure horde...

Archive 3.4 - Eater of the Dead Part 4 - Mummy Characters

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.

Archive 3.3 - Eater of the Dead Part 3 - Monsters and Special Units

First up we have the Zombie Pygmy Spearmen from Conquest Miniatures. These guys played the role of Ghouls in the Ankhara campaign because it was before Crocodile Games had those minis available. Now they might act as another Warrior Mummy unit or even as Death Cultists. 

The Musician has done duty in Horde Mummy units as has the Standard Bearer.

The Spearman Chief, above. I really love these figures and should have gotten more when they were available.

Our first monster of the post, the Scarab Ogre! This was one of the first of these hefty metal chunks in the wild. He made his debut at an Ankhara game in Greenwood Indiana at the Game Preserve. I painted some vaguely skull-like markings on his back but they're a little too subtle unless you know what you're looking for.

More Pygmy Zombies, this time the Archer unit. This unit is not complete (there are 4 more to be painted that will be finished up soon- for real). These guys mostly filled in for the Warrior Mummy Archers before that unit was up to strength.

Above, another Standard that has done duty with Horde Mummy units. Below, another Pygmy Zombie Hero or Champion, he was part of the unit filling in for Ghouls during the Ankhara campaign.

The Pygmy Zombie Blowpipe/Archer Captain, above.

The Haunted Chariot of Hemati! A converted GW Tomb Kings Chariot thanks to Dave W. talking me into going in on a box with him during the Ankhara Campaign. I had no idea what I was doing with this when I put it together, I just wanted to make it look good and spooky and fit a mini on a 25mm square base (like Shefdu Sootootma). The results are ok and performed admirably on the battlefield.

The giant Cobra head for one of the horses came from the Sphynx Abomination. I added a false beard to the other normal skeleton horse. The mummy wrappings for the horses were thinly cut strips of masking tape that were then painted with watered down glue until they were sturdy. I used part of an old gift card to help extend the chariot width. Of course, this left a gap at the front that a tall ornate shield helped cover up.

on the round shield above I freehanded rough heiroglyphs for Hemati (the backstory for this chariot was that it belonged to an ancient Uraei Harbinger who Shefdu was obsessed with studying-more on that next time).  I almost forgot to mention the blue spectral hands coming out of the chariot at various points- these are the "haunted" part of the name. Instead of Gruesome Trophies I decided to go with scary spectral hands clawing from within.

Belkow we have the converted Chariot Driver- a Priestess of Isis mini with some minor conversion work. I still like the design on her dress.

One of the original Sphynx Abomination sculpts. I did not like the snake at the tip of his tail and chopped it off (eventually it was used for one of the horses for the chariot). I tried to make his wrapping metallic and they looked good at one time. Seeing him now I feel like he should get some major touchups.

Finally, my SECOND Sphynx Abomination (this one was actually dubbed a Nekharu Abomination). One month for my reinforcements I managed to roll another Abomination. Instead of getting the other Crocodile Games miniature for it I decided to use this old GW Greater Demon since it already had a vaguely Egyptian look to it. I added some wrappings and put the little Anubis statue on the base to help bring it more into the WarGods setting. Later on, during the Golden Fleece Campaign, he played a prominent role in the Nekharu Eater warband I ran.

We're almost 'done' with the Eater of the Dead figures, next up will be the Crypt Lords, Necromancers and Dark Harbingers!